Byron Donalds Admits That ‘Pressure Campaign’ on Republicans to Vote for Jim Jordan ‘Backfired’

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) acknowledged that a pressure campaign mounted by colleagues and assisted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity may have backfired after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was soundly defeated during his first attempt to secure the speaker’s gavel on Tuesday afternoon.

Twenty Republicans voted against Jordan on the House floor Tuesday, prompting Fox News’ Sandra Smith to ask Donalds if the effort to bully some members into voting for Jordan was a “turn off” for members.

“I believe it was,” replied Donalds. “I’ve talked to a couple of members where they felt that that’s just not what they needed.”

He continued:

I don’t think that’s what we should be doing right now. And listen, for all of the voters in our country, I think it’s important for members to hear your voice, and I totally respect that. But I think that there are members up here who they want to be able to make this decision on leadership and then move forward. I think some of the pressure campaigns have backfired — they have not worked. And so I think that right now, under the leadership of Jim Jordan, you know, I would request that people just take a break, take a pause. Let the members work and figure this out amongst ourselves so we can elect Jim Jordan as speaker and then we can get back to the work that we have to do.

Axios reported prior to the vote that Jordan had “ramped up the pressure on his critics ahead of a House floor vote on Tuesday” and that “some Republicans were warning it could leave him exposed to backlash.”

One member told the outlet that they had been threatened with a primary challenger by Jordan’s allies.

Representatives from Hannity’s show, meanwhile, had emailed skeptical members asking why they would vote against Jordan “during a war breaking out between Israel and Hamas, with the war in Ukraine, with the wide open borders, with a budget that’s unfinished.” Hannity himself reached out directly to at least one House Republican, according to the Washington Post, but was unsuccessful in persuading that member to vote for Jordan.

Watch above via Fox News.