Julia Fox Perfects the Art of the Overshare With Her New Memoir, Down the Drain

Julia Fox has made a name for herself by telling it all. It’s something she’s done so cannily that it’s set her apart even in an era defined by oversharing. The model and actor, who first burst into mainstream consciousness as the bombshell breakout star of the 2019 Safdie Brothers film Uncut Gems, has never shied away from telling her unvarnished truth, whether on her podcast Forbidden Fruits or on TikTok, where she may detail for her 1.7 million followers anecdotes from a high-profile romance or offer a down-to-earth tour of her relatively modest New York City apartment.

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Now, with her new memoir, Down the Drain, Fox makes a case for herself as one of her generation’s most authentic storytellers, cutting through niche fame and viral moments with a clarion voice and a worldly-wise sensibility honed from the thrills and near-death experiences she’s witnessed during her 33 years of life.

When Fox was introduced to audiences in Uncut Gems, it was in a role inspired by herself (the character’s name was even Julia) and her influence as a NYC “It” girl. She became an undeniable fixture in the zeitgeist when she embarked on a brief, highly publicized, and sartorially daring relationship in 2022 with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West. But these events pale in comparison to the chaotic whirlwind of a life Fox lived before she became a public figure.

Born in Italy, Fox writes that she felt destined for fame from day one, even if it wasn’t what she would have chosen. “I think back to what the nurse said to my mom the day I was born,” she recalls thinking ahead of the Uncut Gems release. “‘With eyes like this and a name like Julia Fox, she’s going to be a movie star!’ It feels like it’s my destiny, but I’m so afraid to be wrong.” Fox’s early life reads like a cautionary tale. It’s a harrowing one that she relays matter-of-factly, without appeals for sympathy. She bounces between being a latchkey kid in New York City with a father she recalls as mostly absent and living with her affectionate grandfather and her mother, who she remembers as emotionally distant, in her home country.

Read more: The Best Books of 2023 So Far

She learns early on how to fend for herself—she shoplifts and filches from her father’s wallet to buy necessities and have some semblance of security. She compartmentalizes in order to endure her parents’ tumultuous relationship and its toxic (and, what she says was, at times, violent) trickle-down into their lackadaisical parenting. She searches for proxies for the love she craves in the deep, complex, and codependent friendships she forges with other girls and their mothers. As she enters adolescence, she finds salvation in a heady mix of sex, drugs, and reckless behavior, a formula that brings her both ample adventure and devastation as she comes of age in downtown New York.

It could be tempting to rubberneck at the memoir’s dizzying array of salacious moments, which Fox recounts with a winsome combination of humor, gusto, and insouciance—how many people can say that they were permanently banned from Bloomingdale’s by the age of 12? That they were a teenage runaway, a dominatrix, and a sugar baby before they were 20? From getting her first kiss from a 26-year-old at the age of 11 to the night in high school when she does ecstasy for the first time, accepts a marriage proposal from her drug dealer, and gets his name tattooed on her wrist, Fox’s recollections are obviously sensational. But what makes them truly compelling is the way she grounds them in the gritty and, at times, ugly realities of her life. Benders and parties, passionate romances and deep friendships, are flanked by messy betrayals, abusive relationships, miscarriages, arrests, and overdoses. And as much as Fox is driven by her vices, she’s also motivated by her survival, her ambition, and her creative instincts—she uses the money she earns as a sex worker and later as a sugar baby to not only fund her life, but that of her best friends, and to start a fashion line and pursue her ambitions as a multimedia artist.

Read more: How Celebrity Memoirs Got So Good

As she revisits each scenario, Fox is strikingly straightforward, taking accountability for her own role in the havoc wreaked or damage done like a true antiheroine. Her writing is vulnerable, funny, and compassionate; of a possessive and abusive ex, she writes: “I realize that he’s also a victim of his upbringing. He can’t help being violent. It’s all we know.” She is earnestly delighted about how her new status as an avant garde fashion icon—a style transformation spurred by her time with Kanye—and the disappearance of her famous curves after she lost weight due to the scrutiny around that relationship, seems to disappoint men and excite women: “They say they love my authenticity and describe me as ‘real,’” she writes. “They tell me I’m ‘a sex symbol for women,’ which is the highest form of compliment one could ever hope to receive.”

Fox uses the memoir’s macabre title—which comes from a warning from her concerned and extremely wealthy former sugar daddy who tells her she’s “throwing your whole life down the drain”—to lay bare the increasing turbulence of her life as she exited her twenties. The phrase sticks with her as her destructive impulses ratchet up to multiple, pivotal turning points: the fatal overdoses of two close friends, the suicide of another, her brief marriage and subsequent divorce, the birth of her son, Valentino, and her decision to swear off opiates.

With this unfiltered authenticity, Fox’s true appeal as both a writer and a persona is apparent—the memoir is a practice in radical transparency. While other high-profile memoir writers might carefully construct their narratives in the service of maintaining a calculated public image, Fox takes an unflinching look back at both the exhilarating and painful moments of her life, one that she has chronicled as only she can. Fox has been incredulous, insulted even, that people have assumed that she used a ghostwriter to write her memoir, and rightly so—this is the tale of a woman who’s made an art form of telling her story to the masses. “I’m not a celebrity and I don’t claim that title,” she writes in the closing chapter of the book. “I’m the artist in the role of a lifetime, playing Me.”

source https://time.com/6320806/julia-fox-memoir-down-the-drain-review/

Another 6.3 Magnitude Earthquake Shakes Part of Western Afghanistan

CHAHAK, Afghanistan — Another strong earthquake shook western Afghanistan on Wednesday morning after an earlier one killed more than 2,000 people and flattened whole villages in Herat province in what was one of the most destructive quakes in the country’s recent history.

The magnitude 6.3 earthquake on Wednesday was about 28 kilometers (17 miles) outside Herat, the provincial capital, and 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It triggered a landslide that blocked the main Herat-Torghondi highway, Information Ministry spokesman Abdul Wahid Rayan said.

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Janan Sayiq, a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban government’s national disaster authority said Wednesday’s earthquake killed at least one person and injured around 120 others.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders said Herat Regional Hospital received 117 who got injured in Wednesday’s temblor. The group, also known by its French acronym MSF, said it sent additional medical supplies to the hospital and was setting up four more medical tents at the facility.

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“Our teams are assisting in triaging emergency cases and managing stabilized patients admitted in the medical tents,” MSF said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Wednesday’s quake also flattened all 700 homes in Chahak village, which was untouched by the tremors of previous days. Now there are mounds of soil where dwellings used to be. But no deaths have been reported so far in Chahak because people have taken shelter in tents this week, fearing for their lives as tremors continue to rock Herat.

Villagers are distraught over the loss of their homes and livestock, often their only possessions, and worry about the coming harsh winter months. Some said they had never seen an earthquake before and wondered when the shaking of the ground would stop.

Many said they have no peace of mind inside the tents for fear the “ground will open and swallow us at any moment.”

The epicenter of Saturday’s quake — also of the same magnitude 6.3 — was about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the provincial capital, and several aftershocks have been strong.

Taliban officials said more than 2,000 had died across Herat after the earlier quakes. They subsequently said the quakes killed and injured thousands but didn’t give a breakdown of casualties.

Besides rubble and funerals after Saturday’s devastation, there is little left of the villages in the region’s dusty hills. Survivors are struggling to come to terms with the loss of multiple family members and in many places, living residents are outnumbered by volunteers who had come to search the debris and dig mass graves.

In Naib Rafi, a village that previously had about 2,500 residents, people said almost no one was still alive besides men who were working outside when the quake struck. Survivors worked all day with excavators to dig long trenches for mass burials.

On a barren field in the district of Zinda Jan, a bulldozer removed mounds of earth to clear space for a long row of graves.

“It is very difficult to find a family member from a destroyed house and a few minutes to later bury him or her in a nearby grave, again under the ground,” said Mir Agha, from the city of Herat, who had joined hundreds of volunteers to help the locals.

Nearly 2,000 houses in 20 villages were destroyed, the Taliban have said. The area hit by the quakes has just one government-run hospital.

On Tuesday, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Zinda Jan was the worst-affected area, with more than 1,300 people killed and nearly 500 people still reported missing.

He said U.N. satellite imagery also indicated extreme levels of destruction in the district of Injil.

“Our humanitarian colleagues warn that children are particularly vulnerable and have suffered severe psychological distress from the earthquake,” he said.

Earthquakes are common in Afghanistan, where there are a number of fault lines and frequent movement among three nearby tectonic plates. Afghans are still reeling from recent quakes, including the magnitude 6.5 earthquake in March that struck much of western Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, and an earthquake that hit eastern Afghanistan in June 2022, flattening stone and mud-brick homes and killing at least 1,000 people.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the main spokesman for the Taliban government, listed the countries that have so far aided the people affected by the quake in Herat, in a statement posted on X.

He said Iran sent 15 vehicles loaded with aid alongside support and technical teams, while Turkey sent medical teams food, non-food items and medicine. The United Arab Emirates and Turkmenistan also helped with food, medicine, and clothes.

He added a technical team of 49 members from Kazakhstan is assisting those affected by the quake.

In his post, Mujahid said Saudi Arabia provided financial assistance to the people of Herat while China donated $200,000 in cash aid through the Afghan Foreign Affairs ministry.

Neighboring Pakistan is among the countries that have offered assistance but the delivery of its humanitarian aid has been on hold since Monday.

On Wednesday morning, the pledged supplies had yet to leave Pakistan. Authorities were waiting for “clearance” from the Taliban, two government officials in Islamabad said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Ties between the two countries have come under pressure since Pakistan announced a deadline for undocumented migrants, including 1.7 million Afghans living illegally in the country, to leave before Oct. 31 to avoid arrests and forced deportation.

source https://time.com/6322605/another-earthquake-western-afghanistan/

The Supreme Court Weighs Whether South Carolina Targeted Black Voters in Redistricting

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is taking up a new congressional redistricting case, this time from South Carolina, that could shape the fight for partisan control of the House of Representatives.

Arguments taking place at the high court on Wednesday will focus on a coastal district that is held by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace. In January, a lower court ordered the district redrawn after finding that Republicans who control the state Legislature improperly moved Democratic-leaning Black voters into another district to make the seat safer for Mace in 2022.

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When Mace first won election in 2020, she edged Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Cunningham by 1%, under 5,400 votes. In 2022, following redistricting driven by the 2020 census results, Mace won reelection by 14%. She is one of eight right-flank Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker.

Democrats could have a shot at picking up the seat in 2024 if the district is redrawn.

With Republicans holding a thin margin in the U.S. House, any change to competitive districts has a chance to alter the balance of power after the 2024 elections.

Democrats seem likely to gain a seat in Alabama following a Supreme Court decision in June that led to a court-ordered redistricting. The state’s new map will give Alabama two congressional districts where Black voters comprise a substantial portion of the electorate. A similar pending Louisiana case could lead to a second mostly Black district there, too.

In South Carolina, Black voters wouldn’t be as numerous in a redrawn district. But combined with a substantial set of Democratic-leaning white voters, Democrats could be competitive in the reconfigured district.

Lawyers for the state argue that partisan politics, not race, and a population boom in coastal areas explain the congressional map.

Civil rights groups challenged the map in federal court and won a ruling from a unanimous three-judge panel in January.

“Black votes were used as political puzzle pieces to insulate the Republicans’ hold on power,” said Mitchell Brown, senior counsel for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

The lower court put its order on hold to allow the state to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said in January that “we don’t need to draw anything until five members of the Supreme Court say we have to.”

Both sides want a decision by Jan. 1 so that the state can use a congressional map in the 2024 elections that complies with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

source https://time.com/6322595/supreme-court-weighs-whether-south-carolina-targeted-black-voters/

Joe Biden Delivers Remarks on the Deadly Conflict Between Hamas and Israel

source https://time.com/6322298/joe-biden-delivers-remarks-hamas-israel/

How to Help Afghanistan Earthquake Victims

At least 2,400 people were killed and 9,000 more were injured after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck Western Afghanistan on Saturday. The quake hit Zindajan, a rural district some 40km (25 miles) from Herat city, where nearly 2,000 homes have been completely destroyed across 20 villages. Eight aftershocks also hit the country, severely impacting vulnerable communities with poorly constructed homes. Health care facilities are also overwhelmed and under equipped by the number of people needing treatment. 

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Since the Taliban’s takeover in summer 2021, many international aid organizations have greatly reduced their operations in the country, making the population even more vulnerable to natural disasters. Only a handful of countries have publicly offered support in the aftermath of the disaster, including China and Pakistan, because many countries refuse to deal directly with the Taliban.

“There’s not much disaster management capacity and what there is can’t cover people on the ground,” Salma Ben Aissa, the director for the International Rescue Committee’s Afghanistan mission, told the Associated Press over the weekend. “The numbers (of dead) are increasing hour by hour.”

In addition to aid being cut after the Taliban takeover, financial issues plaguing the World Food Program led the organization cutting food distributions for the country last month, and many international aid resources have been diverted to the recent escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Aid agencies like the International Rescue Committee have warned that if the Taliban lacks proper rescue equipment to deal with such a significant natural disaster, it could lead to more deaths. 

Here are some ways you can help. 

International Committee of the Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross is providing health care, re-establishing health care infrastructure, and working on improving sanitation and energy supply together with the Afghan Red Crescent and other on the ground humanitarian partner organizations. To learn more, you can visit their website here. 

UNICEF

UNICEF is the United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian relief to children around the globe. They are currently distributing emergency water and hygiene kits in the country to address the urgent needs of children impacted by the earthquake. To donate, you can click here. 

Islamic Relief Worldwide 

Islamic Relief Worldwide launched an urgent appeal to provide lifesaving humanitarian aid to victims of the earthquake in Afghanistan. The organization has been working in Afghanistan for more than 23 years, and is coordinating closely with the United Nations and other on the ground organizations to figure out how to best help survivors. You can read more about Islamic Relief and their work in Afghanistan here.

International Rescue Committee

The International Rescue Committee has deployed a team of emergency personnel to provide medical care and other essential services to those impacted by the earthquake. The organization has had a presence in Afghanistan since 1988 and works with thousands of villages across the country’s twelve provinces. To learn more, you can visit their website here. 

Doctors Without Borders

Doctors Without Borders is currently providing support at Herat regional hospital and manages the hospital’s pediatric section. They have also sent additional supplies to other parts of the country. To donate, click here. 

CARE International

CARE is one of the leading humanitarian organizations operating in Afghanistan right now and focuses on alleviating poverty and providing medical care. You can donate here.

source https://time.com/6322308/how-to-help-afghanistan-earthquake-victims/

What an Israeli Ground Invasion Would Mean for Gaza

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. launched major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, as Israel reels from a surprise attack by Hamas that the country has come to describe as its own 9/11, it is beginning a new war in Gaza, the Palestinian territory ruled by the militant group. This conflict, which has already seen heavy shelling and could yet involve a ground invasion, stands to have a devastating impact on the densely-populated enclave and the millions of Palestinians who live there.

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To understand what such a war would look like on the ground, one must understand the situation in Gaza itself. The Gaza Strip is a small seaside enclave roughly twice the size of Washington, D.C. that is wedged between Israel and Egypt. It is the smaller of the Palestinian territories (which also include the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem)—and the most besieged. For more than a decade, the Gaza Strip has been described by human-rights groups and United Nations experts as the world’s largest open-air prison. Although not formally occupied like the West Bank (Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlements from Gaza in 2005), its borders are tightly controlled by Israel and Egypt, restricting the movement of its more than 2 million Palestinian inhabitants. The majority of people living there are descended from Palestinian refugees who were violently expelled from their homes and native villages in what is now modern-day Israel, amid the war that resulted in the state’s creation in 1948.

In the wake of the Hamas attack over the weekend, in which militants infiltrated Israeli communities bordering Gaza, killing more than 1,000 Israelis and taking at least 150 hostages, the Israeli government on Monday announced that it would be imposing a “complete siege” on Gaza, where basic necessities such as water and electricity are supplied by Israel. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said that there would be “no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” in retaliation for Hamas’s deadly attack. Observers and human-rights groups have warned that the siege, paired with the airstrikes that have already killed 830 Palestinians, will have a devastating impact on Gaza’s already-reeling civilian population. Experts tell TIME that the Israeli government’s recent decision to mobilize an unprecedented 300,000 reservists suggests that a wider ground invasion may also be in the cards.

Read More: A Survivor Recounts the Horror of the Hamas Attack on Israel’s Supernova Festival

“I do expect the airstrikes are but a preamble, however devastating they are—and they are—for a massive land operation,” says Nimrod Novik, who was a senior advisor to ex-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

For Palestinians living in Gaza, roughly half of whom are children, the situation “is going from terrible to catastrophic,” Shira Efron, the director of policy research at Washington’s Israel Policy Forum and a former consultant with the U.N. country team advising on Gaza. The 16-year Israeli blockade, which is backed by Egypt, severely restricts the movement of goods and people in and out of the Strip. Efron says that nearly two-thirds of Gazan households receive humanitarian assistance, the vast majority in the form of food assistance and that 65% of the population is moderately or severely food insecure. As Israel cuts off food and fuel from entering Gaza, and as some European capitals announce plans to halt bilateral assistance to the Palestinians pending review of how their aid is being spent, that already grim humanitarian situation is bound to get even worse, Efron says.

Read More: How the World Leaders Have Reacted to Hamas’ Surprise Attack on Israel

And that’s before one takes into account the state of Gaza’s physical infrastructure, which has already come under heavy fire as Israeli airstrikes bombard targets within the crowded enclave, including refugee camps, hospitals, and mosques. While the Israeli government says that it is targeting Hamas, in an area as densely populated and restricted as Gaza, civilians have nowhere else to go. (Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warning to Palestinians in Gaza to “leave now” raised questions about where civilians could escape to.) The last time Israel launched a ground operation in Gaza—in 2014—more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed, a majority of them civilians.

“I’m in daily contact with all of my friends [in Gaza], and they’re all terrified,” says Diana Buttu, a Haifa-based Palestinian analyst and former legal advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian negotiators who lived in Gaza between 2005 and 2006. She notes that the language used by Israeli politicians—from Netanyahu’s vow to turn Hamas hiding places in Gaza into “rubble” to the more euphemistic references to periodic operations in the region as “mowing the grass”—dehumanizes the Palestinians living in the Strip. “They’re talking about committing mass atrocities and they’re talking very openly about it,” she says. “In the past, the Israelis used to say ‘precision strikes,’ but this is all off the table now. Instead, they’re talking about strangling Gaza.”

Read More: Israel’s President: Our Darkest Hour Casts a Shadow on the Entire World

While Israel has not officially announced a ground operation in Gaza, longtime observers believe that it is now inevitable. Novik, a member of the executive committee of Commanders for Israel’s Security—an organization comprised of former senior security officials—and his colleagues have long criticized the Israeli government’s strategy vis-a-vis Gaza, which he describes as “a policy of allowing Hamas to solidify its control over the Gaza Strip while weakening the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.” The West Bank is governed by Hamas’s political rivals Fatah, headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But none of the observers TIME spoke with expect that Israeli citizens will pressure their government to change course regarding the Palestinians—at least, not right away. “All of that is really over the horizon because the horizon right now is a dark one of a prolonged war,” says Novik. “We are at a point where a massive military show of force is essential and unavoidable.”

source https://time.com/6322173/israel-gaza-invasion-concerns/

These Are the Candidates for House Speaker

House Republicans are yet to nominate a candidate to succeed Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker after he became the first in history to be ousted from his position. Lawmakers are divided over who can best unite the conference, fundraise for Republican candidates, and keep the government funded ahead of next month’s deadline.

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But two candidates have emerged as the likely finalists for the open gavel: Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Steve Scalise of Louisiana, both of whom have put their names forward and are pitching their vision to colleagues.

Scalise, the House Majority Leader, has racked up roughly two dozen GOP endorsements while Jordan, who leads the House Judiciary Committee, is backed by former President Donald Trump and has more than 40 endorsements, though neither currently has enough votes to win the speakership. McCarthy also didn’t rule out the idea of joining the race to win back his job, telling reporters on Monday that he would seek re-election if the conference nominated him—a reversal from his vow last week that he wouldn’t enter the race.

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Republican lawmakers are expected to attend a candidate forum on Tuesday evening and then pick their nominee on Wednesday morning, potentially teeing up a House vote before the end of the week. Until a permanent Speaker is selected, legislative work in the House remains in limbo, meaning Congress can’t make progress on the appropriations bills that must be passed by mid-November to fund the government or send more military aid to Israel following the attacks by militants this weekend.

House Republicans left a nearly three-hour closed door meeting on Monday night still unclear on whether they would be able to rally behind any one candidate in time for the conference vote on Wednesday. “We’re kind of like a scattergram—we’re all over the map in terms of the way forward,” said Rep. Steve Womack, an Arkansas Republican who is backing Scalise. “There’s a lot of free agents in there—a lot of people who are just not going to forfeit their individual voting card, and I understand that.”

Here’s what to know about the candidates for House Speaker.

Jim Jordan 

Jordan, 59, has gained support for his speakership bid from several key figures on the far-right. Known as a conservative agitator and staunch Trump ally, Jordan currently serves as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, where he is leading one of several high-profile investigations into President Joe Biden over his family’s business dealings.

He is also a co-founder of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, which often clashes with GOP leadership and has been a driving force behind pushing the Republican Party further to the right. In a letter to his Republican colleagues asking for their support, Jordan touted his work helping the House pass a strict border-security bill, holding the Biden Administration accountable, and pushing for fiscal discipline. He is against sending aid to Ukraine without clear objectives and spending accountability. “The most pressing issue on Americans’ minds is not Ukraine, it’s the border situation and crime on the streets,” he told reporters on Oct. 4. “So let’s address those.”

Democrats have criticized Jordan’s approach in Congress, viewing him as a hyper-partisan Trump defender who has used his position to shield the former president. Trump on Friday said Jordan had his “complete” and “total” endorsement. “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “He is STRONG on Crime, Borders, our Military/Vets, & 2nd Amendment.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who led the campaign to oust McCarthy, wrote on the social media platform X, “My mentor Jim Jordan would be great!”

A former wrestling champion, Jordan has been accused of ignoring sexual abuse complaints against a team doctor during his time as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University from 1987 to 1995. Jordan has denied any knowledge of the allegations and any wrongdoing on his part.

Steve Scalise

Scalise, 58, currently serves as the House Majority Leader and is gaining traction among establishment House Republicans to succeed McCarthy. He previously led the Republican Study Committee and is considered more conservative than McCarthy, though not as far to the right as Jordan, potentially making him more of a unifying force within the GOP.

In a letter to his Republican colleagues seeking their support, Scalise outlined his achievements in advancing bills related to American energy production, border security, and parental involvement in education. He joined a minority of House Republicans in voting for sending $300 million in aid to Ukraine and temporarily extending federal funding, even when such measures faced conservative opposition.

Scalise’s political journey began in the Louisiana House of Representatives, where he served from 1996 to 2007. He later won a special election to replace Bobby Jindal in Congress, and has since secured re-elections in his district, eventually rising through the ranks to become GOP whip from 2014 to 2022 and now the House Majority Leader. Throughout his tenure, Scalise has been praised by colleagues for his ability to build relationships with members of different ideological viewpoints. He also has a significant fundraising advantage, having raised over $53 million in the last election cycle, compared to Jordan’s $14 million.

But Scalise’s bid may face some health-related obstacles. He was diagnosed with blood cancer over the summer and is currently undergoing intensive treatment. In 2017, he survived an assassination attempt during a congressional baseball practice, sustaining serious injuries that continue to affect him today, including a limp.

In 2014, it was revealed that he had spoken at a gathering of white nationalists in 2002. He later apologized, asserting that he would not have attended if he had been better informed about the group’s nature. Another story emerged that Scalise had described himself to a political reporter as “like David Duke without the baggage,” referring to the former Klansman and white supremacist who was also a Louisiana politician.

Notable endorsements so far include Reps. Tom Emmer of Minnesota (the Majority Whip), Lisa McClain of Michigan, Ken Calvert of California, and Tony Gonzales of Texas.

Kevin McCarthy

Several moderate Republicans have said that McCarthy remains the only viable Republican who can lead the conference during this time, raising the possibility that the California Republican could get some nominating votes from a key bloc of the party.

McCarthy said he might be open to reclaiming the post from which he was ousted if enough of the Republicans who voted for his removal are open to his reinstatement. Such a scenario appears unlikely, especially after a group of eight Republicans sided with Democrats to vacate the speakership because he relied on Democratic votes to avert a government shutdown—a decision that McCarthy has repeatedly defended.

But speaking to reporters on Monday behind a podium in the Rayburn Room of the Capitol, where the Speaker often holds official ceremonies, McCarthy laid out a plan to defend Israel and rescue American captives. And once again, he lamented how just 4% of his party’s members were able to remove a speaker supported by 96%. “Let’s be honest about our conference,” McCarthy told reporters. “Is our conference just going to elect somebody to throw them out in another 35 days?”

Asked if he wanted to resume serving as Speaker, McCarthy said that the decision was not up to him, and that he would support whatever his fellow Republicans wanted. “I’ll allow the conference to make any decision,” he said.

Some prominent New York Republicans, who are among the most vulnerable in the House and represent a key voting bloc, have already endorsed McCarthy if he were to run again. After his news conference, Republican Rep. Nick LaLota of New York said on X that the former Speaker “is acting with class and confidence and in the best interests of America.” Rep. Mike Lawler, another New York Republican, said he believes McCarthy should be reinstated. “A lot of people believe Kevin McCarthy is the right person to lead us,” he told reporters.

Donald Trump?

Could the former President be the next House Speaker? It’s a question that gained traction last week after Trump inserted himself into the race, telling Fox News that he would consider accepting the House speakership role temporarily if Republicans could not agree on a candidate.

“I have been asked to speak as a unifier because I have so many friends in Congress,” Trump said. “If they don’t get the vote, they have asked me if I would consider taking the speakership until they get somebody longer-term, because I am running for President.”

He went on to endorse Jordan for the post, but Trump’s interest in the position could be reignited if House Republicans fail to rally around a candidate by the end of the week. Some rightwing Republicans, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Troy Nehls of Texas, had previously suggested that Trump be the next Speaker.

Trump is currently the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary and has been charged in four separate criminal cases, which are expected to play out over the coming months. While the House Speaker is not required to be a sitting member of Congress, GOP House rules currently prohibit anyone under a criminal indictment on felony charges carrying more than a two-year sentence from serving in Republican leadership, though Republicans could change the rules.

“It shouldn’t happen, and we have a lot of talent inside the House,” Rep. Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican, said on ABC’s ‘This Week’ on Oct. 8 of the possibility of Trump becoming Speaker. “We’ll settle this inside the House Republican conference, and we will elect someone who’ll have the unity and the backing of the full conference.”

Other dynamics to watch

At the heart of the battle are the establishment Republicans who find themselves caught between wanting to find a consensus candidate and the power the hardline faction of the party wields.

One of the central demands from moderate Republicans is a commitment to changing the rules to prevent the kind of floor vote that led to McCarthy’s ouster. They want assurances that the government will not shut down in mid-November, and they seek to ensure that no single member will have the power to remove a sitting Speaker unilaterally.

“It’s never an easy job,” Lawler tells TIME. “You’re managing the House, you have 434 other opinions and obviously, you have to manage your own conference. It’s not easy. I don’t think it’s necessarily any more difficult now than it was to begin with. But the question is, can someone build consensus and move us forward?”

The next Speaker will inherit a House that is not only divided but subdivided, with the GOP’s narrow nine-seat majority further diminished by an angry split between establishment Republicans and the far-right populist faction egged on by Trump. Add to that a broken power structure that allows even a handful of dissenting members to wield significant influence, and the new dynamic raises concerns whether anyone can lead the House on critical issues.

“The Republican Party is in real danger,” says Larry Sabato, a political analyst and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “They’re not going to get very much done in the coming months.”

source https://time.com/6322160/house-speaker-candidates-jordan-scalise/