Jim Jordan‘s attempt to be the next Speaker of the House became an embarrassing debacle last week as the Ohio Republican failed three times to lock down the vote. To add insult to injury, Jordan somehow managed to lose support with each round of voting before being thrown off the ballot by his own party during a secret ballot. John Oliver loved every minute of it.
Heading into his first round of voting, Jordan lost after 20 Republican congressman voted against him. That number increased to 23 for the second round of voting. After briefly looking like he might take the hint and throw in the towel, Jordan went back for a third round of voting where the number of entrenched Republicans increased to 25. Realizing this could go on forever, the GOP held a closed door meeting where they held a secret ballot to pull Jordan’s nomination. He lost as 112 members voted to move on, while only 86 reps continued to back him.
Jordan’s exit from that meeting absolutely tickled the Last Week Tonight host.
“Jim Jordan went through three votes, enjoyably losing slightly more each time,” Oliver said via Raw Story. “And at one point was photographed coming out of a closed-door meeting with a hand-written note reading: ‘What is the real reason?’ Which looks less like a bid to be Speaker and more like an early draft of a suicide note.”
The late night host also tore into Texas Rep. Chip Roy, who attempted to spin the Jordan disaster as beneficial to the American public because they get to see the “sausage getting made.”
“Do not play that you’re laying this mess out in public to be transparent about how the sausage is made,” Oliver said. “It’s getting laid out because you’re incapable of making a sausage at all. When people go to the grocery store, they expect Oscar Meyer wieners, not Oscar Meyer’s a pig’s anus and other assorted animal parts.”
(Via Raw Story)