Bipartisan outrage boils over at threat to Johnson’s speakership

 

CONGRESS

Bipartisan outrage boils over at threat to Johnson’s speakership

 

“These fringe people think they have the high ground. They do not,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).

Less than 24 hours after the House passed a $95 billion foreign aid package, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Sunday she is not backing off her plan to try and oust Johnson. |

 

By BURGESS EVERETT

04/21/2024 12:01 PM EDT

Updated: 04/21/2024 02:31 PM EDT

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/21/bipartisan-outrage-mike-johnson-speakership-00153527

 

Democrats and Republicans alike are forcefully pushing back against an effort to oust Speaker Mike Johnson over his move to bring Ukraine aid to the House floor, predicting there will be bipartisan support to stop a brewing effort to dislodge him from the speakership.

 

Less than 24 hours after the House passed a $95 billion foreign aid package delivering billions to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said on Sunday she is not backing off her plan to try and oust Johnson. She declined to give specifics about timing or how he would be replaced.

 

“Mike Johnson’s speakership is over. He needs to do the right thing and resign,” she said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo.” “If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated.”

 

 

Yet with Johnson following through on his pledge to bring the long-stalled aid to Ukraine to the House floor, Johnson’s allies seem confident he will survive. Several Democrats defended Johnson on Sunday, indicating there will be sufficient Democratic support to block Greene’s efforts.

 

Still, the prospect over yet another fight for the speakership after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy lost his gavel last year is not going over well in most of the GOP. And it’s boiling over in surprising ways as centrists grow tired of the constant threat to Johnson. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) tore into his party’s right flank in an appearance on CNN, declaring that “the House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is going to be just fine.”

 

“I serve with some real scumbags. Look, Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties, Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi,” Gonzales said on “State of the Union.” “These fringe people think they have the high ground. They do not.”

 

Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Good (R-Va.) were among the eight Republicans who voted to boot McCarthy last year. At the moment, Greene has less public backing for her plan to take down Johnson. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) are backing her gambit and more support could still come. Greene teased that Republicans who win special elections need to be aware of what’s going on in the House, as well.

 

Yet Johnson’s future may play out differently than last fall, when Democrats’ declined to save McCarthy. Johnson’s moves to keep the government funded and send money to U.S. allies suddenly has Democrats speaking highly of him, creating confidence in both parties they can defeat the coming vote from Greene.

 

If Johnson can cobble together enough Democrats to counteract his handful of GOP detractors, it would be enough to neutralize Greene’s threat. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” he took the threat “seriously” but that the math is on Johnson’s side.

 

“I don’t think you’d lose very many Republicans,” Cole said. That in mind, he added: “It doesn’t take very many Democrats to either not vote or oppose it.”

 

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said on ABC’s “This Week” that he would vote to table a motion to vacate through the end of this Congress and predicted that Johnson might have a “few progressive Democrats” voting to keep him in his job: “He did the right thing here and he deserves to keep his job to the end of this term.”

 

In another sign of Democrats’ opposition to getting rid of Johnson, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said on “Fox News Sunday” that what Greene, Massie and Gosar are “trying to accomplish by removing the Speaker of the House in this very moment after October 7 would only embolden China, it would only embolden Russia. It would only embolden Iran.”

 

Words like those have Johnson’s backers feeling more and more confident. Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), a key committee chairman who sought to convince Johnson to put the aid bill on the floor, said Johnson’s ability to put the legislation ahead of his own job prospects “garnered a lot of respect” from not only Republicans but “also from the Democratic side.”

 

“We’re in a bipartisan era in a strange way where Democrats will be able to back the speaker on the other side of the aisle and not have him vacated out of the chair,” McCaul said on “This Week.” He said he believed Johnson is “in good shape, I really do.”

 

The House is now in recess until the end of April, and Greene notably did not move to trigger her motion to vacate the chair before the chamber adjourned. Instead she said she wants Johnson and her colleagues to hear from Republican voters.

 

Still, she was basically talking about Johnson’s tenure in the past tense on Sunday, calling his tenure a “speakership that is over with.”

 

“It’s coming, regardless of what Mike Johnson decides to do,” she said of her procedural threat.