Trump Criticizes GOP Speaker Nominee Emmer as ‘Tragic Mistake’

Billy House, Erik Wasson and Stephanie Lai
·4 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump warned Republicans against electing Tom Emmer as US House speaker, threatening to unravel the party’s latest nominee to lead the chamber, where a leadership vacuum is dragging into a fourth week.

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Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination, on Tuesday called Emmer a “Globalist RINO” and said on Truth Social his election as speaker would be a “tragic mistake.”

Emmer prevailed in a secret ballot of Republican lawmakers hours earlier. But the Minnesota congressman has had a frosty relationship with the former president since voting to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.

Trump’s allies, both on and off the Hill, are signaling that they’re actively working against Emmer.

“We are trying to kill him in the roll call vote,” Trump ally Steve Bannon said in a text message Tuesday shortly after Republicans nominated Emmer. “This one is a real war.”

Emmer, currently House Republicans’ third-ranking party leader, also voted last year to codify federal protections for same-sex marriage, which has prompted some conservative activists to campaign against his speaker bid.

Emmer’s nomination marks Republicans’ third attempt to fill a leadership vacancy that has paralyzed lawmakers since Kevin McCarthy’s Oct. 3 ouster from the job.

Opposition from just five of the 221 House Republicans can prevent election of a party nominee as speaker, unless the nominee makes a deal with Democrats—a step the GOP has been unwilling to take so far.

A closed-door vote intended to gauge Emmer’s floor support showed more than 20 Republicans oppose him. Discussions were underway with those hold-outs, but moderate New Yorker Brandon Williams called the process “disheartening.”

“What I just saw in that room illustrates to me that there are some people that are pretty well dug in and are not going to support the the current designee,” Arkansas Republican Steve Womack said.

The party’s two prior nominees, second-ranking party leader Steve Scalise and hardline Trump loyalist Jim Jordan, both failed to muster enough Republican support to win a needed majority for election by the full House.

Emmer won the speaker nomination with 117 votes in a secret ballot Tuesday after five rounds of voting. Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson received 97 votes.

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A former hockey player and coach, Emmer has a network of connections with individual lawmakers built in his current job as chief vote counter for Republicans and prior work heading the House GOP’s campaign apparatus during the last two elections.

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There’s also intensifying pressure on the House Republican majority to return to its legislative work, which it is unable to do without a speaker. The succession fight has prevented action on emergency aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, and on funding to head off an impending mid-November US government shutdown.

“The goal is to keep us out of a shutdown,” said Republican Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, who did not disclose who he supports. “We’ve got to get this figured out.”

The succession battle this month has heightened ideological tensions and personal grudges in a party already riven by divisions among an emerging populist wing linked to Trump, traditionalist conservatives and more moderate lawmakers elected from areas that voted for Biden in 2020.

Still, Emmer immediately surged to front-runner status among candidates for speaker when Republicans rescinded Jordan’s nomination on Friday.

Along with McCarthy, Emmer was the architect of Republicans seizing the House majority in 2022, though some have criticized the seat gains as narrower than anticipated.

A father of seven, Emmer has been in Congress since 2015. He was an attorney, local councilman and then served in the Minnesota statehouse before winning the GOP nomination for governor in 2010, losing in the general election.

In the past, Emmer has introduced legislation to prevent government shutdowns. A senior member of the Financial Services Committee, he also is known as one of the crypto industry’s most powerful allies in the House.

--With assistance from Maeve Sheehey, Ari Natter, Steven T. Dennis and Andre Tartar.

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