Now that Hannity’s bullying campaign to get Jim Jordan elected speaker has failed, Plan B is to get the Hannity audience to do the pressuring for him.

Last night, I reported on Sean Hannity’s pressure campaign to get his MAGA buddy and Trump’s coup accomplice, Rep. Jim Jordan, elected speaker of the House. After getting outed and criticized by Republican members who didn’t like being bullied by him, Hannity whined about the criticism. Crooks and Liars’ Heather (my colleague at my other blogging gig) perfectly summed up Hannity’s response by noting he claimed he was just doing his “job” as a “member of the press.”

Unfortunately for Seanie-pooh, his job the pressure campaign seems to have backfired. Not only was Jordan not elected speaker of the House of Representatives, it backfired, Politico reported.

The arm-twisting campaign, which in many cases included veiled threats of primary challenges, was meant to help rally support behind Jordan’s candidacy. Instead, it has put the Judiciary chair’s bid on life support and threatened to plunge House Republicans deeper into turmoil with no clear way out.

…

Acknowledging that his speaker bid is in limbo, Jordan punted his plan to hold a second vote on Tuesday after Republicans privately warned he was at risk of seeing his opponents’ numbers grow. Instead, he is expected to huddle with allies and make calls in an attempt to get his bid back on track before a second vote as soon as Wednesday.

That has not deterred Hannity from keeping up the effort, this time by outsourcing his "job" to his audience, albeit with admonitions to be polite. Media Matters caught Hannity urging listeners of his radio show to call their members of Congress and urge them to vote for Jordan:

HANNITY: I know people want me to give out the phone number. We'll put it up on Hannity.com as a public service. The only thing I ask people is when you make your phone call -- and you have every right to contact your elected representatives if you choose -- just be respectful. Be, you know -- don't be, you know, one of these, you know, liberal idiots screaming and yelling and ranting and raving. Explain to them why you think it's important that the people's House be opened again and that you don't like these temporary measures.

I -- frankly, I just think it's an abdication of leadership if they cop out and say, "Oh, we'll empower McHenry for three months." No. Pick a speaker. That's what you're hired to do. And yeah, you have to make hard choices. And yeah, you may not get the person you want. But that's the way the process works. …

I think Jordan would be a great speaker myself. And I know that people are angry. And you know that a vote for McCarthy and a vote for Scalise, or a vote for Lee Zeldin, those enough would put Jordan over the top. And then you can get back to the business of opening the people's House and dealing with the important issues of our day.

Sure enough, Hannity.com, listed the 20 Republican members who did not vote for Jordan, along with phone numbers for their Washington, D.C. and local offices. The headline reads, “THE LIST: Here are 20 Members of the House GOP Who Failed to Vote for Jordan —and How to Contact Them!” The message says, “We encourage you to call them —politely, of course —and encourage these holdouts to throw their support behind Jordan and get the country moving again!”

Don’t tell me Hannity’s fervor for coup-plotting, election-denying Jordan is not because Hannity wants to tee up a successful coup for his Bedtime BFF Trump or any Republican candidate in 2024.

You can listen to Hannity urge his followers to do his bidding below, from the October 17, 2023 edition of The Sean Hannity Show, via Media Matters.

(Hannity image via screen grab)