TRANSCRIPT:
JOURNALIST : "Good morning, Mr Jordan. Do you have the votes yet? Where do things stand?"
JORDAN: "Working on it."
JOURNALIST: "Working on it."
It was a crucial vote, the second after staunch Donald Trump ally Jim Jordan was nominated for the key position of United States House Speaker.
He needs 217 votes to take the chair.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, Speaker of the House Pro Tempore: "No further nominations, the reading clerk will now call the roll."
But that second ballot for Jim Jordan has failed to garner sufficient votes, with the representative from Ohio actually losing numbers from the Republican side.
"No person having received a majority, the whole number of votes cast by surname, a speaker has not been elected."
For the Democrats in the House, their concerns about Jim Jordan revolve around merit.
The number three ranked Democrat, Pete Aguilar, says they view Mr Jordan as too extreme for the powerful speaker's job, second in line to the president.
"A vote today to make the architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier and an insurrection insider to the speaker of this House would be a terrible message to the country and our allies. (House Democrats applaud) Mr Speaker, it would send an even more troubling message to our enemies that the very people who would seek to undermine democracy are rewarded with positions of immense power... If the goal is to continue a 30 year march to hollow out our democratic institutions, weaken our democracy, and embolden extremists, there's the candidate for you."
But it's less clear why Republicans cannot agree on a vote that was once a formality in Congress.
Capitol Hill reporter Kevin Freeling says their inability to unite behind a single candidate points to larger problems within the party.
"They're quite fractured. Conservatives want to go in a new direction. They want a new leader to lead that direction. A combative, hard charging lawmaker in Jim Jordan, while many of the lawmakers who have been here for a couple of decades or who represent swing districts won by President Joe Biden would prefer a more establishment candidate. They don't want to see the conference move so far to the right."
Mr Freeling says some Republicans resent being pressured by Jim Jordan’s allies and say they are being threatened with primary opponents if they don’t support him as speaker.
Others are simply upset at the way the transition has been conducted.
"They don't like the way the process has worked out. They don't like how a small minority of the Republican conference was able to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker, and they don't like that Steve Scalise was not allowed to get a floor vote or did not get a floor vote to succeed McCarthy. And they did not want to reward a small group of Republicans who had generated that outcome."
Jim Jordan says he's not giving up.
"Reporter: "How do you see this ending Mr. Jordan?"
Jordan: "As I said before, I think it's gonna end with hopefully a Republican speaker."
But Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart - one of the Republicans who didn't vote for this candidate - says it's not looking good for Jim Jordan.
"This candidate does not and will not be able to get the Republican votes to become speaker. So then now I think all of us have to get together and figure out what's the next step."
It remains unclear what those next steps could be.
Without a leader, Congress has been unable to respond to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, or to take action to head off a partial government shutdown which will begin in a month without congressional action.
But everyone wants a resolution soon.
"The world is watching. Mr Speaker Pro Tem, our allies in Ukraine and Israel are watching and waiting."
