For 24 hours, the information has been on the front page of the press across the Atlantic : “Trump supports Jim Jordan in the race for speaker of the House of Representatives”. The former American president in fact gave his support on Friday October 6 to this Republican, member of the hard right, to preside over the lower house of Parliament. And for good reason: the former Republican President of the House, Kevin McCarthy, was impeached on Tuesday October 3 in a historic vote in Congress, the victim of fratricidal quarrels within his party after a rebellion by Trumpist elected officials.
Jim Jordan “will be a GREAT Speaker of the House and has my full and complete support,” wrote 2024 US presidential candidate Donald Trump on his Truth Social network. However, a few hours earlier, Donald Trump had mentioned Fox News a different idea: that of assuming this function himself for a time.
“Unifier” for the Republican Party
Since the unprecedented ousting of Kevin McCarthy, many of the former president’s supporters are pushing for him to be the new “speaker” himself. Galvanized, Donald Trump said he would be ready in the event that no agreement was reached. “I was asked to speak as a unifier because I have so many friends in Congress,” he said.
“If they don’t get the vote, they asked me if I would consider becoming president until they find someone for a longer term, because I’m running for president,” he said. Trump said. “They asked me if I could take it for a short time for the party, until they came to a conclusion – I’m not doing it because I want to – I will do it if necessary, if necessary.” They can’t make their decision.” Trump did not say who asked him, although a number of Republican lawmakers said he was their preference for House speaker.
This prospect could be examined more seriously if neither Jim Jordan, whom Trump supports, nor the leader of the parliamentary majority Steve Scalise, also in the running, manage to obtain the support of the majority of elected officials.
A possibility hampered by his legal affairs?
Former Republican representative Barbara Comstock then declared on American television CNN that Donald Trump was not eligible for this post because he was the subject of criminal charges. “Unfortunately he doesn’t know the rules of the House which say you can’t rule it if you’re indicted,” she added. The fact remains that, according to several American jurists, an election of the billionaire to the position of “speaker” is legally possible, even if he is not elected to Congress and this has never happened in the history of American democracy. .
Donald Trump, Republican favorite for the 2024 presidential election, must be tried starting next March in Washington. He is accused of maneuvering to try to reverse the result of the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. The first ex-president of the United States to be criminally charged, he is also being prosecuted in Georgia for attempting to manipulate the 2020 election, as well as in New York in a case of alleged accounting fraud linked to payments to purchase the silence of an adult film actress. He is also due to be tried in May 2024 in Florida, where he is accused of negligent management of confidential documents after his departure from the White House. Donald Trump, with his two sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr, is also the subject of a civil trial in New York for fraud on the value of his real estate assets.