Even if Johnson somehow manages to clear the package through the House this weekend, internal House GOP rifts suggest the speaker has a rocky path ahead.
There are few things in life that House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Republican detractors seem to enjoy more than complaining about House GOP leadership to the congressional press corps.
Representative Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) certainly fell into that category of camera-loving conservatives Tuesday afternoon when he waltzed down the steps of the U.S. Capitol steps after a 4 p.m. floor vote to take questions about his decision to co-sponsor Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R., Ga.) motion to vacate the chair.
Massie has long voiced skepticism over sending aid to Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion. But Johnson’s decision this week to float a foreign-aid package — the text of which had still not released as of this morning — appeared to be the last straw for this libertarian-leaning Kentuckian.
According to Johnson’s own descriptions of the package during a closed-door conference meeting Monday evening, the plan is to hold separate votes on aid bills to fund Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, as well as a separate bill that would force the sale of TikTok from its Chinese owner and offset funding for Ukraine with Russian asset seizures, among other provisions. Whatever passes would then be merged into a foreign package that would then go to the Senate, pending a rule vote that would require support from at least some House Democrats to pass.
Johnson’s strategy, it seems, is to give individual members the freedom to vote against separate provisions of the package. But Massie says he sees through that procedural maneuver, and maintains that having separate floor votes on different parts of the package is immaterial if the end result looks like the $95 billion Senate-passed package that isolationist-leaning conservatives have spent so many months railing against.
“The endpoint is already predetermined here,” Massie said.
Massie has publicly urged Johnson to resign, like John Boehner did in 2015, so that he and Greene don’t have to force a snap vote on his speakership — a request Johnson immediately rebuffed. “If he doesn’t do that, then he’s going to be the one who put us into that situation,” he told reporters, adding that another speakership ouster is inevitable if the Louisiana Republican doesn’t voluntarily leave his post. “Somebody’s gonna call for it. Maybe not even one of the co-sponsors.”
In case you were wondering, Massie does not have any preferred candidates in mind to replace Johnson if he is ousted. He told reporters Tuesday that Johnson has “lowered” his expectations so much that he’s now open to voting “for people I wouldn’t have voted for last time” — that is, six months ago, when Kevin McCarthy got the boot — should there be another speaker vacancy in the near future.
As grim as things look, today is also a new day. Johnson got some back-up in a joint statement from the chairmen of the House Armed Services, Appropriations, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence committees urging the passage of the package this week. “There is nothing our adversaries would love more than if Congress were to fail to pass critical national security aid,” reads the statement.
And as NR reported Tuesday afternoon, Johnson met with an ideological diverse group of House Republicans last night to hammer out disagreements over the structuring of the package.
But even if Johnson somehow manages to clear the package through the House this weekend, internal House GOP rifts suggest the speaker has a rocky path ahead.