Rep. Bacon says his wife slept with loaded gun after ‘ugly phone calls’ over his Speaker vote

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Thursday his wife slept with a loaded gun after receiving more threatening phone calls from voters who were angry that he voted against Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) Speakership bid. 

“She had terrible phone calls,” Bacon told reporters. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I called her, and I go, ‘How you doing?’ She goes, ‘I slept really good. I had wa loaded gun.’”

“So there were some, it was ugly phone calls,” he added.

The Nebraska Republican’s comments come after he confirmed Wednesday that his spouse received a barrage of emails and text messages urging her to convince her husband to support Jordan’s Speakership bid, which he has continued to oppose. 

Screenshots of the earlier reported text messages to Bacon’s wife read, “Why is your husband causing chaos by not supporting Jim Jordan? I thought he was a team player,” and, “Your husband will not hold any political office ever again. What a disappointment and failure he is.”

On Thursday, Bacon confirmed his wife got additional threatening calls Wednesday night. He said none was a death threat, but they were “just as bad.”

Bacon has remained adamant in his position against supporting Jordan’s Speakership bid. 

In a Wednesday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Bacon responded to the threats, saying, “If they think a pressure campaign or bullying campaign is going to work for me, it’s not.”

The callers, he said Wednesday, “were calling my wife anonymously as well. She’s recorded some of them, and so it’s wrong. Some folks are so mad they don’t mind what boundaries they cross, but it’s not right. We can like each other and still disagree.”

Bacon voted against Jordan in both ballots on the House floor this week and, on Thursday, reiterated his call for him to drop out. 

Asked where the party goes from there, Bacon said, “We clean the whole slate. Start again. And follow the principle the majority will support the majority. That was violated from January until now.”

“We should clean the slate. Put three or four nominees,” he continued, “but we have to have a commitment that we’re going to get behind the majority of the majority.”

His remarks come as the House has spent more than two weeks without an elected Speaker after eight Republicans voted with Democrats to oust Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Since then, Republicans have struggled to find a candidate who could get the 217 votes needed to win, barring “present” votes and any absences during the votes.