Nine Republicans enter House speaker race: Live

Rep Jim Jordan’s exit came on the 17th day that the House of Representatives has not had a speaker after Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL) filed a motion to vacate Mr McCarthy along with seven other Republicans and every Democrat.

Rep Nancy Mace (R-SC), who voted to vacate Mr Jordan, decried Mr Jordan’s exit.

“I think it is bull****,” she told The Independent. “They want to say that we have no plan, Jim Jordan was a good plan.”

Ms Mace criticised the fact that a large amount of Republicans just voted for Mr Jordan on the floor and then voted to oust him in a secret ballot.

“They just knifed him in secret in a backroom deal in the basement of the Capitol,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

Kevin Hern is the leader of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House.

The representative from Oklahoma is only in his third term in Congress making him much less experienced than his competitors. However, he has touted his long, successful career in business as an advantage over the rest.

“I think you have to have a different set of skill sets,” Mr Hern told reporters this week.

“Strife is something that’s common when you have people working together and finding common solutions for it takes experience.”

Before being elected to Congress in 2018, the 61-year-old made millions as a McDonald’s franchisee and was part of the fast food outlet’s national leadership team.

During the last race for House speaker in January, he gained some votes from Republicans rebelling against Mr McCarthy.

Tom Emmer is a Representative from Minnesota and the House majority whip.

He served as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee for two cycles. In the first cycle, he successfully defeated numerous Democratic incumbents, giving then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi a much slimmer majority with which to govern.

He stayed in the job for the 2022 cycle when Republicans won the House, meaning he knows many of the freshmen incumbents and funneled money to them when needed. His time in the post also gave him significant face-time with Republican donors – a skill that would benefit him in a speaker’s race.

After Mr McCarthy’s ousting, Mr Emmer said he didn’t plan to run – but would instead back Mr Scalise. When Mr Scalise’s vote failed, he then backed Mr Jordan.

But after Mr Jordan’s attempt at the speakership failed, Mr Emmer formally announced he would run saying: “I will always be honest and direct with all of you, even if we disagree. I will never make a promise I cannot fulfill. I expect to be held accountable and you can expect that we will also keep you to your word.”

Representatives Tom Emmer, Kevin Hern, Byron Donalds, Austin Scott, Gary Palmer, Jack Bergman, Mike Johnson, Pete Sessions and Dan Meuser all made their intent clear before the noon deadline on Sunday.

As the House enters its third week without a leader, frustrations are growing about the legislative’s body inability to elect a speaker to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy

Acting Speaker Rep Patrick McHenry said on Friday afternoon said Republicans will return on Monday for a candidate forum following the removal of Rep Jim Jordan.

The “election process” will then begin on Tuesday morning, he added.

“The reason why I made that decision is, we need space and time for candidates to talk to other members,” he told the press.

A large and growing number of Republicans were starting to make calls to sound out fellow members about who they might support.

Like several other Republicans, Rep Austin Scott of Georgia tried to blame the Democrats after the removal of Rep Jim Jordan as the nominee for speaker.

“How does it make the Republican party look?” CNN’s Manu Raju asked Mr Scott.

“I think it makes Congress as a whole look very bad… The Democrats are not innocent in this. They’re not,” Mr Scott claimed.

Acknowledging his defeat on Friday afternoon, Rep Jim Jordan said he “got to know members in our conference that I didn’t really know that well over the last three weeks”.

Rep Chip Roy of Texas attempted to pivot from the GOP dysfunction to blaming Democrats for lacking border security on Friday afternoon following the ouster of Rep Jim Jordan as the nominee for speaker.

Conceding defeat after his ouster as the GOP nominee for speaker on Friday afternoon, Rep Jim Jordan said, “We need to come together and figure out who our Speaker’s going to be. I’m going to work as hard as I can to help that individual”.

Following the ouster of Rep Jim Jordan as a nominee for speaker, the last holder of the office, Rep Kevin McCarthy, told the press, “I’ve never seen this amount of damage done to just a few people for their own personalities, for their own fear of what’s going through … I’m concerned about where we go from here”.