Loose lips sink ships. A leak on Capitol Hill has sunk a Fox New Channel forum with the candidates for Speaker of the House hosted by Bret Baier.

Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern, who never officially tossed his name into the hat, has stepped away from the speaker’s race. The race is as it always was going to be – between House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep. Jim Jordan. Hern reasoned that a three-person race would slow the process. Republicans must unite and do so quickly to get back to governing.

“House Republicans must unify – and do it fast. It’s clear to me that a three-man race for Speaker will only draw this process out longer, creating further division which would make it harder for any candidate to reach 217 votes,” Hern wrote in a letter to colleagues.

“For these reasons, I want two good friends of mine, Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, to have the opportunity to earn 217 votes from our Conference. Steve and Jim are both former RSC chairmen and proven leaders,” Hern wrote.

He continued: “Whatever happens next, our Conference must commit to stay in the room, turn off our phones, and work together until we have a candidate who can earn 217 Republican votes. When we leave that room and head to the House floor, we must show the world that we are united in support behind our Speaker and ready to do the work we were elected.”

The schedule, as it stands right now, is House Republicans will meet in a closed meeting Monday night. There will be a conference-wide candidate forum Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, there will be an inter-party vote on Speaker. After that, the full House votes.

There was talk that a speaker candidate forum would be hosted by FNC’s Bret Baier on Monday. Frankly, I was not clear on the specifics or the reason on why he was hosting such a forum. Was it to be televised? If so, why? Only House members vote on the speaker. It just didn’t make sense.

On Friday, Baier told his colleague Martha MacCallum that the planned forum with three candidates – Scalise, Jordan, and Hern – had fallen apart and the candidates had withdrawn from the event. Baier said that initially he planned to do a joint interview with the three men on Monday. “All three of them knew that they were going to be on together Monday on Capitol Hill. We agreed to hold back the announcement of that until a special report tonight to wait for Congressman Hearn to, as expected, get into the Speaker’s race,” Baier told fellow host Martha MacCallum.

It was canceled Friday because the details, which had been held in secrecy, went public. The leak claimed the forum was to be a private debate for the Republican caucus. Bret explained the situation to Martha and her viewing audience.

Today this morning, there was some kind of leak on Capitol Hill. We obviously worked with a number of staffs to set up a Monday and how the logistics are going to work. Somehow, somewhere, it leaked on Capitol Hill with some bizarre stories and weird reporting that I was going to be moderating a debate privately for the Republican caucus and then something else. But bottom line is it leaked and then there became pressure from other members on these three to not do that before they talked to members.

Congressman Hern still has not declared for speaker, but yet he tweeted out this afternoon that I haven’t decided whether I’m going to run, but I can tell you this. I’m not going to be on TV before I talk to the Republican members. So they had all agreed the pressure built and that’s what happened. It’s not going to happen on Monday. We’re still going to do the show on Capitol Hill. And we’re booking some interesting guests there as well. But I think that the word debate has scared folks over the past couple of days, and we’re hoping to change that. We’re going to use a different word going forward in that interview.

Communication is everything, especially in politics. A message can quickly unravel and Capitol Hill leaks are commonplace. I don’t know how realistic it was to think the details of this event would remain secret.

Oh well. Them’s the breaks. As I said, I didn’t really understand the point of the general public watching a forum. A joint interview could shed light on how each man plans to lead House Republicans. But viewers of the Fox interview wouldn’t have a vote in the matter.

In the meantime the show will go on from Capitol Hill.

I do hope Republicans will get their act together for once and move quickly to put a new Speaker in place. There are a lot of things happening and additional chaos in the House that shows Republicans can’t lead isn’t helpful at all. We have a country to save. Voters may not like Joe Biden and what he’s done to the country but they aren’t going to vote for a party that looks inept and incompetent.