Patrick McHenry has reportedly threatened to quit his role as temporary House speaker amid the ongoing turmoil and infighting within the Republican Party.
The House of Representatives has been without a speaker for more than two weeks after the GOP ousted Rep Kevin McCarthy on 3 October and has failed to unite around a new candidate since.
Following Mr McCarthy’s removal, Mr McHenry became the mostly powerless speaker pro tempore until a new speaker could be elected.
But, with the GOP chaos continuing, the North Carolina congressman warned party members in a closed-door meeting on Thursday night that he might resign from the post, according to NBC News.
Three sources in the meeting told the outlet that the warning came over concerns that Republicans will push Mr McHenry to move legislation on the floor without first voting to expand his powers.
“If you guys try to do that, you’ll figure out who the next person on Kevin’s list is,” he reportedly said — a reference to Mr McCarthy’s secret list of potential temporary speakers.
In the closed-door talks on Thursday, several Republicans — including GOP nominee Jim Jordan — backed a temporary solution to empower Mr McHenry until January in the hopes the GOP can get its house in order by then.
But members rejected that option.
Mr McHenry warned that he will not assume full speaker powers without a vote as he does not want to set a precedent for temporary speakers to have full power, a move he said would do away with the need to elect a speaker.
The speaker pro tempore “will not act in a manner he interprets as unconstitutional”, one of the insiders said.
This comes as the House remains in paralysis with bills being able to be brought to the floor, including crucial spending packages and aid to Ukraine and Israel.
Patrick McHenry in the halls of Congress on 19 October— (Getty Images)
Mr Jordan has said that he is pushing ahead with a third vote to become the next speaker on Friday following a heated closed-door meeting the night before.
“The quickest way to get all this working is to get a speaker elected,” he said in a brief press conference on Friday morning. “That’s what I hope we can do today.”
Despite being the GOP nominee, he has so far lost two votes to take the gavel after GOP defections. On the first vote, 20 Republicans voted against him, rising to 22 on the subsequent poll.
After the second embarrassment, the Ohio congressman initially announced he was putting a pause on his speakership bid and backed the temporary solution to empower Mr McHenry.
But he then backtracked on this hours later after GOP members rejected that plan.
The speaker seat has been empty since eight Republicans — led by Rep Matt Gaetz — joined Democrats to vote to remove Mr McCarthy from the speakership on 3 October.
Jim Jordan holds press conference on Friday morning— (Getty Images)
Mr McCarthy had grown increasingly at odds with the far-right wing of the party.
Mr Gaetz had filed a motion to vacate the speaker in outrage that Mr McCarthy struck a deal with Democrats to avert a government shutdown — one that could have temporarily shuttered key services and furloughed federal workers.
After Democrats declined to bail out the speaker and members of his own party turned on him, Mr McCarthy was removed in a 216-210 vote to vacate — marking the first time in American history that a speaker has been ousted by other lawmakers.
Rep Steve Scalise initially earned the GOP nomination for the post — beating Mr Jordan in a party vote — but abruptly backed out of the race when it became clear he wouldn’t get enough votes. After that, Mr Jordan secured the party’s nomination.
