After a secret ballot vote within the House GOP caucus, Steve Scalise has won the nomination for Speaker with a slim margin over Jim Jordan.

And I do mean a slim margin. There’s only a 14 vote difference.

STEVE SCALISE is the House Republican's nominee for speaker of the House.

113-99

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 11, 2023

But now for the question that everyone is probably asking: what does Matt Gaetz, who started this entire circus just one week ago, think of the caucus’s vote? He had expressed his support for either Scalise or Jordan previously, so had that changed?

Apparently not. Gaetz did not say who he voted for in the caucus ballot, but he clearly is throwing his support behind Scalise now. And what did Scalise say for himself?

Scalise: "I want to thank my House Republican colleagues for designating me as the Speaker. We have a lot of work to do. There's a lot of business to take care of." pic.twitter.com/wXcGxDMG0c

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) October 11, 2023

Now, the problem becomes that Scalise needs 217 votes. He does not have the unanimous support of the caucus yet, and even 10 other representatives voted for someone other than Scalise or Jordan. Both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are declaring that they will vote for Jim Jordan when the vote is called. Chip Roy says he won’t be voting for Scalise, because he claims the vote is happening too quickly – but then the floor vote, which was thought to have been happening at 3 pm ET, was postponed until further notice. Max Miller and Thomas Massie are also not sold on Scalise. Jordan himself is sticking with what the conference wants.

NEWS — JIM JORDAN just offered to nominate Scalise on the House floor.

JORDAN getting behind Scalise.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 11, 2023

So it does look like Jordan, for his part, is serious about getting party unity, and since he will retain the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, he really loses nothing here. It seems that putting off the vote is going to enable both Scalise and Jordan to start working on the holdouts, in order to get the House GOP to be as unified as possible.

JORDAN will plan to vote for Scalise for speaker on the floor and is encouraging colleagues to support him as well, per a source with direct knowledge

— Mica Soellner (@MicaSoellnerDC) October 11, 2023

This entire exercise in crazy needs to come to an end. But that leads to the question, was this entire exercise worth it, if in the end, the lateral move of swapping out Kevin McCarthy for Steve Scalise was all that was achieved? What was the point, if all that ends up happening is promoting the House Majority Leader, the natural successor to the Speaker, to the Speakership?

As you can see, Matt Gaetz is perfectly fine with it. What did he get out of this? A whole lot of media exposure and fundraising. So, was this about “muh principles” for Gaetz, or was this a personal pique against Kevin McCarthy that he managed to parlay into a huge profile boost for himself? You make the call. Obviously, he sees McCarthy and Scalise as different, right??? Do the American people see it that way? Or was this entire thing just a power flex and an ego boost for Matt Gaetz? Because that is certainly what it looks like right now.

At least Matt Gaetz got on TV.

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) October 11, 2023

If Scalise does become Speaker, he will inherit exactly the same problems that McCarthy had – a narrow majority in the House (which does not allow for wiggle room or a lot of negotiating), a Democrat-controlled White House and Senate (which means that there’s not a lot of negotiating room there either), and a ticking clock on the continuing resolution that will have to be solved by November 17th (which, due to the White House and Senate being controlled by Democrats, means that another omnibus spending bill is more than likely). What will Scalise do as Speaker that will be any different than what McCarthy would have done? But be honest – under those constraints, what could JORDAN do as Speaker that would be different than what McCarthy would have done?

Does anyone feel like the entire country just got punk’d by Matt Gaetz, and the only one walking away happy about any of this is Matt Gaetz?

Featured image: composite image of Capitol building (via JamesDeMers on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license), Representative Steve Scalise (official Congressional portrait, cropped, public domain), and Representative Jim Jordan (official Congressional portrait, cropped, public domain)