A community censor . No, its way more than that. Creating students from low income families can get the tools they need to and ready for anytng. Comcast supports cspan along with these other Television Providers give you a front row seat to democracy. Esident univet newspaper, the columbia daily spectator. Host it is saturday, october 21 in the house of representatives remains without a speaker this weekend with a still divided gop lacking a sense in consensus candidate and we continue to follow israels war with hamas. After two american hostages were freed yesterd a as this mornings limited aid begins flowing into gaza from egypt. This morning on washington journal, we want to hear from you on both of these topics. Republicans can call in at 202 7488001. Democrats can call in on 202 7488000. Our indepeenline is 202 7488002. And youre welcome to text us with your thoughts at 202 7488003. Please be sure to include your name and where you are from. We would like to begin with the House Speaker race yesterday, House Republicans voting to withdraw the nomination of ohio congressman jim jordan. Here he is speaking shortly after the vote. [video clip] i told the conference it was an honor to be there. Speaker designate ash their speaker designee but i thought it was important we all know an answer to the question of they wanted me to continue in that role. So we put the question to them and they made a different decision. I told the conference that i appreciated getting to work with everyone, talk with everyone, i got to know members in our conference i did not know that well the last three weeks and we need to come together and figure out who our speaker is going to be. Im going to work as hard as i can to help that individual so that we can help the American People. Im also going to go back to work. Weve got several depositions line of next week in the judiciary committee, work we need to do for the American People and investigative work. We will go back to work there but it is important we unite. Lets figure out who the individual is, get behind him and get to work for the American People. Host that story is making headlines on many of the nations this morning including at the Washington Examiner where the headline is house gop conference votes to abandon jordan as speaker nominee. That piece written by a congressional reporter for the Washington Examiner who joins us now this morning. Good morning. Thanks for having guest thanks for having me on. Host jim jordan is out for the second speaker candidate to drop out in as many weeks. Members are home this weekend. What is next . Guest so what is next is members have until sunday at noon eastern time to submit their names to run for speaker and so, right now, there is already looks like there will be almost nine to 10 candidates running for speaker of the house to replace Kevin Mccarthy and so, monday, there will be a candidate form at 6 30 where all the candidates will make their pitch to the other members of the republican conference, and those members will also be able to receive questions, answer questions, squash concerns other members might have or what have you. Tuesday morning at 9 00 a. M. , there will be another election series like weve seen the past two weeks. So members will vote private ballots, vote on the candidate, vote on who they will who will be their nominee and then voting on the floor on whoever that is. As weve seen the past two weeks, it does not matter the nominee. That is not a done deal, you have to get 200 70 votes to the floor and that seems hard to do for a lot of the nominees. Host briefly this week it seemed jim jordan was going to be able to pull together a coalition and it fell apart. Embers that headed as members headed home for the weekend, what was the mood like with republicans you were talking to . Guest it depends on who you talk to. If you talk to jordan borders, they were upset, angry, and if you talk to those six out of 25 individuals that were holding out on jordan that were voting against them, they were i would not say excited but they succeeded in their mission. They blocked jim jordan from becoming speaker and now this is going back to the life they wanted. A lot of members do not hate jim jordan. They just wanted something they did not like the process of how it was playing out. Steve scullys, a lot of the thought was the rightful nominee, he did the did when the first nomination and jordan blocked him before he ever had a chance to come to the floor. They said you come to the floor and you will never be speaker. They took that personally and they dont want to reward that bad behavior by giving these people what they wanted which was a jim jordan speakership so they blocked it. They were excited. It was not this static ecstatic but they were like we accomplished our mission and lets elect a speaker. There was a lot of anger and there were tense emotions which is normal in the House Republican conference right now. It is a very divided and shattered conference, and they are divided. They are angry. Especially since those eight people ousted mccarthy. Host lets read some of the social media posts from House Republicans respoing to that vote. Heres representati clos gimenez who said yesterday, today, we came together as republanand decided to move past the gridlock. Jim jordan made the right decision in agreeing to support a new speaker designee. Monday i look forward to listening to alldates and america. Their vision for then we have representative David Bilotta bilotti oher who says we are in the David Bilotti said the a small minority who impose their will on the majority. Eight republicans teamed up with House Democrats to remove the speaker with no plan to replace him. Ben cline said the swamp struck back. Opponents of jim jordan, a remove him as speaker fored to nominee. I oppose this effort and voted to retain jim as our candidate for speaker. What have you heard, reese, from republicans interned of Lessons Learned in terms of Lessons Learned and how they can move forward . Guest it seems there has not been many Lessons Learned. Its on most as if they people are angry and they will just try to get what they want over and over again. What i hoped they learned talking to some members that after seeing scullys on the floor, steve scullys get blocked on the floor, joining a blocked on the floor, and seen mccarthy ousted two weeks ago or so now is maybe they can come together, coalesce around one singular speaker candidate, and get going with the house. That is there hope. There hope. You can bully your way through things, lets come together, biden is a candidate we can get behind or 207 find a candidate we can get behind and elect. There are members but it is summative that will have to be ok with the fact this might be the last job and politics. It is somebody that necessarily will fight and help the conference. They will not put themselves first. You will have to look and see who the person will be in the conference will have to make that decision but ultimately at the end of the day if the conference has not learned they need to coalesce around a candidate, then there will not be a speaker because it only takes for people to block anybody from becoming the speaker because you have such slim margins. So it will be really difficult, even if they find a way to coalesce, you have to make everybody happy and hope for people dont wake up one day and say i will block the speaker candidate. Host its one of the most powerful jobs in washington and seems to be out the most desirable at the moment but as you mentioned earlier, a few candidates have until sunday to declare their candidates. Where the names either running or talking about running . Guest running for sure is Byron Donalds of florida is running, the house with his thinking about running, making calls, and i think Kevin Mccarthy already endorsed him for the house job for the speakership and i think what he does decide to get it, it is almost sure he will get it. He will be the front runner because of how mccarthy endorsed him, he is already the House Majority whip, so you have that and you also have johnson of louisiana who has been making calls. The Conference Vice chairman, and he also served as the judiciary committee. He is liked by a lot of members of congress, and we will see if he decides to get in. Office got of georgia is running. He is the one that ran against jim jordan last tuesday whenever jim jordan went back into conference and people that were against jordan needed a candidate to vote against. Scott ran and he got 81 votes. Jim jordan, and conference, i think was 124. So now he is running again. You will see kind of a lot more people come out of the woodwork. Roger williams is thinking about running, jack bergman of michigan that is running. You are having a lot of people either running or considering about running and it will be a crowded field on monday and tuesday, be a lot of voting. Host you mentioned dusty johnson who supported jim jordan in all of this. Here is him giving comments yesterday on what he thinks should happen next. We are in unprecedented times hear it i think this continues to show how terribly irresponsible it was for 208 democrats at it republicans to put this house into chaos. It will be another couple difficult days but there is still a tremendous pool of talent in there, people to love the country and understand the need for us to address things like the border and looming government shutdown. We will get it done, it would just take us a little longer. When are you are exciting to see it get submitted on sunday . I dont want to speculate. I think we need to give people time to mourn the development and think about what they offer the house and our country. We want to make sure weve got somebody who i think is mission driven, somebody who wants to do something rather than somebody who wants to be something. It will take some time for that person. Host of the names floating out there, do you think any of them can get to 217 at this point . Guest it is definitely possible, especially if you think of people like Byron Donalds of florida, people like him. He is a likable guy. A member of the Freedom Caucus but liked by members who are not in the Freedom Caucus. I think you look at people like mike johnson who is also really liked. Tom amer, people like him. Have not heard of oak kevin heard of oklahoma who is running for speaker, people like him. I think there are people everyone likes but it takes more people on any given day to take somebodys bid of speakership and block them from becoming speaker. It is very hard, especially in a conference where members have been ok with the fact of blocking procedural motions and holding out until they get what they want and compromise is not a word this conference likes. If you compromise, if you may be give just a little bit, because people like doing that, because people dont like that. There is a realistic chance that people coalesce around one candidate but then you have a handful of people who are mad because they dont think they are conservative enough for too conservative or what have you and they refused to vote for whoever this nominee is and we could be back in the same position next week without a speaker. It is not a done deal regardless of who gets thrown out there. We are going to have to see, but it is definitely not a done deal. There are people that cannot get to 17 but in this conference it will be hard. Host lets hear from james in new york calling on the democratic line. Go ahead. Hi there, james. Looks like we lost james. Some people have floated and even if it is pierce speculate and, the idea of outside candidates, people from outside of the house coming up as potential nominees for speaker. Do you think there is any prospect of that happening . Guest i dont think theres any prospect of that happening. It would be a statistical nightmare and getting 217 votes from somebody from out of the conference is pretty impossible. I know represent of troy nehls of texas consistently floated this idea of donald trump being the speaker of the house. That will never happen. For a lot of reasons but one in particular, the House Republican conference has a rule if you are indicted that you cannot become speaker. There is argument of whether or not with trump not being a member of the House Republican conference chair if those rules would apply to him, but i think that is the least of their worries. Trump will be speaker, but there is also, it is not likely because it takes for people and if you cannot coalesce around when your colleagues, it will be harder to coalesce around somebody who is not around you 24 7 because they have not been in the house so i think that is an idea that is unrealistic. Host thank you so much, rhys gorman, the congressional reporter for the Washington Examiner. Appreciate your time. Guest thank you for having me on. Host we would appreciate your thoughts on this topic or the ongoing war between israel and hamas. Our numbers are 202 7488001 four republicans for republicans, 202 7488001 for democrats, and independents, on 202 7488002. Sticking with the house a little longer, House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries was asked by reporters about the status of conversations between House Democrats and republicans to get over the speaker impasse and here is that exchange. [video clip] host heavy have you talked to republicans today . I have not. Do you plan to talk to republicans . There have been ongoing conversations this past weekend and throughout the week, member to member, about coming to an enlightened agreement to reopen the house because my republican colleagues understand that they have to find a way to end the gop chaos, end the gop dysfunction, end the extremism, and end the House Republican civil war. It is bad for the House Republicans conference but more importantly it is bad for the congress, bad for the country, bad for the communities that all of us took an oath to fiercely represent. When you say member to member discussions, are you talking in the democrats causes caucus or democrats talking were talking with republicans . Democrats and republicans having conversations with each other. A leader to talk to will have to emerge in order for it to occur. Host that was House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries. Lets see a couple more responses from House Democrats to everything that has been going on. Reprentive dunn buyer saying yeery we still need a ear and the chaos and dyunion of the republican civil war is a real problem for the country but what a relief that jim jordan is going to t it. Representativeamie raskin saying it is a pleasure to get vote against jim jordan every day but i never thought that would be my job. Come on, gop, lets get back to work. Representative jason crow saying checking in, jim jordan lost the speaker vote again, our 18th vote for speaker in 10 months, no speaker equals of israel and humanitarian aid, no ukraine aid, no government funding to avoid a shutdown. We have said it once and we will say it again, work with democrats. We are also looking for your thoughts this morning on the ongoing conflict and war between israel and hamas. Secretary of state Antony Blinken friday afternoon announced the release of those two american hostages that were being held by hamas. About an hour ago, two american citizens held by hamas since october 7 were released. These two americans are safely in the hands of israeli authorities in israel. We expect the team from the u. S. Embassy to see them shortly or in the coming hours they will receive any support and assistance they will need and of course we are anxious to be able to reunite them with loved ones. We welcome their release and we share in the release with their families, friends, and loved ones are feeling. But there are still 10 additional americans who remain unaccounted for in this conflict. We know that some of them are held hostage by hamas along with an estimated 200 other hostages held in gaza. People from many nations. Every single one of them should be released. Since the earliest hours of the crisis, president has made clear he will do Everything Possible to secure the release of every hostage. During my own recent travels, i emphasized the urgency ended ins of this to the United States and pressed our partners to do everything they can to help us secure the release. Since that time we continue to work relentlessly with partners to do that. I cannot speak publicly about the details of these efforts. I know you understand that, but the urgent work to free every american, to free all other hostages, continues. Host lets go to your calls now, otis is in florida on our democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to respond about what is going on in our house of representatives. Everybody know israel has a right to defend themselves but they dont have a right to murder innocent people like what happened to them. However, the republicans said they did not want democrats support for anything when they took control of the house. You cant even bring up a bill to the floor if they dont have majority. So now youve got johnson and other republican saying if the democrats align themselves with eight publicans to decide to say they dont want mccarthy no more, mccarthy didnt ask democrats will you mind helping me out. Republicans went to democrats and said listen, do you mind helping us out so we can keep the soap in . Its kind of strange that they blame democrats for stopping the republican bill but that is what they do, they project their failures onto someone else or some other group of people. That is the most important thing th