The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: speaker of the house
Democrats Vowing To Protect Johnson As Speaker -- On One Condition

Democrats Vowing To Protect Johnson As Speaker -- On One Condition

Just five months after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) succeeded ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced last week that she plans to file a motion to vacate the seat — once again — if Johnson agrees to bring the the bipartisan package, which includes Ukraine aid, to the House floor.

Axios reported Friday that Democratic lawmakers, like Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who don't agree with Johnson on policy, are still willing to help him keep the speakership if it means voting against Greene.

The Florida leader wrote via X/Twitter, "I do not support Speaker Johnson but I will never stand by and let MTG to[sic] take over the people’s House."

According to a Sunday, March 24 CNN report, several other Democratic lawmakers willing to assist Johnson with maintaining his position say they will only do so if the speaker agrees to move forward on the $95 billion aid package that the US Senate already approved last month.

The news outlet notes, "While the exact timing remains unclear, the first procedural vote to oust Johnson is expected to take the form of a 'motion to table' – or kill – fellow Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resolution to vacate the speakership. Democrats are weighing whether to kill the resolution on the first procedural vote, but say they need to hear the speaker publicly outline his intentions on Ukraine aid."

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) told CNN if Johnson "does the responsible thing, which is allowing members of Congress to vote on a bill that will pass and that is in our national security interests, and subsequent to that a non-serious actor that doesn’t want to govern brings a motion to vacate, yes I would motion to table in that circumstance."

According to CNN, some GOP House members worry "that Greene’s move to oust Johnson could cost them the House in November, though some hardliners are weighing whether they would ultimately vote to remove him."

The news outlet reports House Homeland Security Chair Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) said, "I’m disappointed. … I think it’s a distraction. We need to just – unfortunately this bill passed, and we’ve got a lot of other stuff now to do, some articles to walk over… we don’t need anything that’s going to disrupt that." He added that he hopes "Greene will ultimately decide not to call up her resolution for a vote, saying, "I don’t think we’ll let that happen this time. I mean, we’ll see how it goes, but I don’t think that’s going to happen."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Kevin McCarthy

Kevin McCarthy Is Taking Revenge -- On House Republicans

From primary challenges to getting blackballed from House Republicans caucuses, the eight Republicans who ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are feeling the blowback. His allies—and he has many of them—are making sure of that.

The Republican Main Street Caucus and Republican Governance Group have quietly booted Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, whose attention-getting stunts seem to be wearing thin with her colleagues. “She really wants to be a caucus of one. So we obliged her,” one House Republican told CNN.

Mace is facing a serious primary challenger, as is Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, the new chair of the Freedom Caucus and one of the anti-McCarthy eight. “A well-connected GOP outside spending group is planning to play in the [primary] races,” CNN reports, and McCarthy is likely to be directly involved on behalf of the challengers as well.

Where the real hammer is falling on this eight is in their fundraising. Others, including Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Eli Crane, acknowledge that the big donors aren’t taking their calls anymore. Burchett told CNN’s Manu Raju that he “absolutely” had seen his donations dry up. “Some very wealthy folks, and they’ve been very kind to me in the past,” Burchett said of donors who had dropped him. “And I hope that we can mend the fences,” he added. Good luck to him on that one.

Crane of Arizona told Raju he was feeling a fundraising hit. “Yeah, that’s definitely a reality,” he said. “And I think anybody that participated in that knew that going forward.”

He’s right. They knew what they were doing, and they asked for this. Booting McCarthy meant ousting their most effective fundraiser. Ousting him meant pissing off all those big donors he’s been cultivating all these years. They’re friends of Kev, and they are happy to help him get his revenge.

Speaking of revenge, that’s what the ouster was all about. The spearhead of the chaos, Rep. Matt Gaetz, admitted it to a colleague in private correspondence obtained by The Daily Beast. According to the outlet, “Gaetz indicated to a friend that his effort to undercut, isolate, and ultimately remove McCarthy was, indeed, payback for the ethics probe.” That would be the House Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz for alleged sex crimes, drug use, and campaign finance violations, to name a few.

Do any of Gaetz’s pals blame him for putting them in this position? Of course not. “I’m too busy working for the Lowcountry and helping elect President Trump to worry about Kevin McCarthy’s puppet,” Mace told CNN. “The DC swamp doesn’t want me back—too bad. I don’t work for them, I work for the people of the First Congressional District and no one else.”

The rest of the GOP conference loves to see McCarthy’s revenge. “If I’m those folks, one of the things that would scare the crap out of me more than anything else is an unhinged McCarthy,” a Republican lawmaker told CNN. “The guy’s the most prolific fundraiser, you’ve got a massive group of donors across the country that are pissed off about what’s happening, and you’ve got these boneheads that have caused it.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mike Johnson

Trump Is Bossing House Speaker On Border And Ukraine Legislation

House Speaker Mike Johnson has been getting his marching orders directly from Donald Trump (and by extension Vladimir Putin) when it comes to funding for Ukraine and the immigration policy bill it’s tied up with. Johnson told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham Wednesday that he and Trump “have been talking about this pretty frequently. I talked to him the night before last about the same subject.”

Trump’s position is no secret. “I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people, many from parts unknown, into our once great, but soon to be great again, Country!” he yelled on Truth Social Wednesday.

Then he exerted some extra pressure: “Also, I have no doubt that our wonderful Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, will only make a deal that is PERFECT ON THE BORDER,” Trump wrote. “Remember, without Strong Borders and Honest Elections, we don’t have a Country!!!”

The timing of Trump’s outbursts wasn’t random. Johnson, along with Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, met with President Joe Biden Wednesday. The three likely ganged up on Johnson to push the agreement, though no one is saying that. Biden, Schumer, and McConnell are all deeply committed to Ukraine assistance, and the only path for it to happen now is through an immigration agreement.

What Senate Republicans are saying is that Johnson and House Republicans need to step up on this, because they are unlikely to get a better deal. “To my Republican friends: To get this kind of border security without granting a pathway to citizenship is really unheard of. So if you think you’re going to get a better deal next time, in ’25, if President Trump’s president, Democrats will be expecting a pathway to citizenship for that,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters. “So to my Republican colleagues, this is a historic moment to reform the border.”

Because it is such a good deal for Republican senators, plenty of Democrats in the House will not feel compelled to support it. Johnson would need a united Republican conference, but he’s unlikely to get it. The House Freedom Caucus has made their position clear: It’s their draconian anti-immigrant bill or nothing, and so far Johnson has been catering to them.

That might be because his speakership could be on the line. As Trump exerts more and more pressure, so do the MAGA members of Congress. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has already threatened to bring a motion to oust Johnson if he brings this Senate bill to the floor. “It’s really an amnesty deal where Democrats are going to bring in millions and millions of illegals and turn them into Democrat voters,” she told Fox.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Surprise! Kevin McCarthy Says He Is 'Willing' To Run For Speaker Again

Surprise! Kevin McCarthy Says He Is 'Willing' To Run For Speaker Again

Ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy flip-flopped on Monday, saying he was open to taking the gavel back amid a Chernobyl-level meltdown in the Republican Party over the crisis in Israel.

Last week, shortly after a small band of MAGA maniacs engineered his ouster, McCarthy stated he would not seek the post again.

But that was last week. “Whatever the conference wants, I will do,” McCarthy told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt during an interview on Monday.

The prospect of McCarthy being reinstated solely with the votes of Republicans seems highly unlikely after his primary right-wing foe, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, achieved hero-level status among some MAGA faithful for ejecting McCarthy. McCarthy would need at least four of the eight Republican nihilists who voted him out last week to have a sudden change of heart.

McCarthy's cynical play to regain the speakership comes as House Republicans war with each other over their inability to provide extra aid to Israel after Hamas’ attack over the weekend. Nine Americans have been confirmed killed in the fighting, and there are unverified reports of potential American hostages—claims that McCarthy immediately sought to capitalize on.

"Our top priority right now must be to rescue all American hostages," he tweeted out Monday morning. "The Biden Administration cannot repeat the failures of Afghanistan. NO American left behind!"

McCarthy's potential successors are working overtime to cast themselves as the answer to the Republican-led predicament. “Make no mistake: The United States will always stand with Israel, our greatest ally in the Middle East,” Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana tweeted out Saturday. And Sunday on Fox News, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio pledged that his first priority as speaker would be to help Israel. Both Scalise and Jordan are further right than McCarthy, and Jordan—the biggest chaos agent of the trio—has won the backing of former President Donald Trump.

House Republican infighting has ground the lower chamber to a halt due to the absence of a speaker. But now, instead of the House caucus simply making a binary choice between Jordan and Scalise for a new speaker, McCarthy is back in the mix. Nothing but further delay and pandemonium can come of that.

In the meantime, American priorities at home and allies around the globe will suffer the consequences.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos