Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is supporting Rep. Jim Jordan (R.-Ohio) to be the next House speaker, but a comment about who else supports the controversial congressman made CNN’s Jake Tapper very skeptical on Thursday.
Tapper was interviewing Mace about the battle for the position and asked who besides Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) could get the 217 votes needed to win the speaker position.
Mace then mentioned Jordan, who she said “was not out of the mix,” and claimed his appeal went beyond party lines.
“I’ve actually talked with Democrats who trust him at his word, and I don’t think that’s out of the realm of possibility,” she said.
Considering Jordan allegedly played a key role in Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election, Tapper wanted to make sure he heard Mace correctly.
“Jim Jordan?” he said in a slighty incredulous tone.
“Yes,” Mace said. “I’ve talked to Democrats over the last week on who do they trust, even though they wouldn’t agree with him on many issues.”
Tapper interrupted, even more surprised at what Mace was saying: “Jim Jordan from Ohio?”
“Oh, yes, the Jim Jordan from Ohio,” Mace said, laughing slightly at Tapper’s reaction.
“Democrats in Congress?” he said, disbelievingly.
“Yes,” Mace insisted. “They can work with him.”
Tapper was not convinced and asked her to name “one Democrat from Congress who trusts him.”
Mace wasn’t willing to bring receipts.
“I’m not going to name people off the record,” she said. “They trust [Jordan] more than they trust the former speaker [Kevin McCarthy] in my private conversations with Democrats. I will say that.”
As you can see at the end of the video below, Tapper looked at her with a lot of uncertainty.
Tapper wasn’t the only person who doubted Mace’s claim that Jordan was actually secretly trusted by Democratic politicians, even though he has been publicly criticized by Democratic members of Congress for his actions and inactions on the job.
In fact, former Republican congressman Joe Walsh had two sharp words for Mace after her Jordan comments: “She’s lying.”
Mace’s support of Jordan may have been made without having all the facts about him at her disposal.
On Sunday, she admitted on “Face The Nation” of being unaware of the allegations made by ex-Ohio State University wrestlers that Jordan did nothing to stop the sexual abuse by a team doctor when he was an assistant wrestling coach at the school.
Jordan has denied those allegations.