Ali Vitali on Emmer Dropping Out of Speaker’s Race: ‘The Shortest-Lived Speaker-Elect Bid that We Have Seen’

EXCERPT:

VITALI: “Emmer had this job of speaker designate — three hours, exactly. He got it around 1:00. And my understanding is he walked into the room behind me at around 4:00, dropped out and left with a smile, but nary a word to reporters. So now they are back to the drawing board, kind of. It’s a drawing board that we have already looked at today, specifically Kevin Hern and Mike Johnson will once again vie for this position, which again, I have no idea why anyone wants at this point. But for Hern, he is someone who is coming into this with a lot of optimism, having just spoken to him on his way into this meeting. And for Mike Johnson, he is still one of the last people within the existing leadership structure who could potentially rise into the speakership. I have no clue if they will be able to get the 217 that they need, but in order to answer that question, they first have to get the majority in the room. So we’ll see which of them comes out with the very coveted title of speaker-elect, and we’ll go from there.”