Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is showing signs of a fight to save his job from right-wing efforts to vacate his seat, a CNN panel of experts agreed Monday.
On Sunday night, Johnson went on Fox News to blast Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to boot him from the job he’s held for just five months and replace him with a new speaker.
The move comes as resignations among House Republican ranks are set to leave the party with just a single vote majority.
“I think all of my other Republican colleagues recognize this is a distraction from our mission,” Johnson said on Fox about Greene’s motion. “The mission is to save the republic, and the only way we can do that is if we grow the House majority, win the Senate and win the White House. So we don't need any dissension right now.”
CNN host John Berman said he saw signs of anger as Johnson spoke.
“He's sort of saying that with a smile, but I feel like he may not be smiling inside,” he said.
Berman's guests agreed that the speaker was beginning to fight back.
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“He's going to have to bare his fangs,” said political commentator Errol Lewis. “He's going to have to snarl a little bit and really finally push back against this group that seems determined to wreck the Republican majority. I mean, they've done everything they could to show that they care more about their issues with their fundraising or whatever it is, their personal agenda, than in sort of supporting the team, supporting the party and holding on to the majority. So they're down to one vote now. If they're going to wait until they're underwater, when Democrats could in fact simply take control of the House, that would be extreme. But that's really where they're heading.”
Greene moved to boot Johnson as speaker last month, furious after she said he sided with Democrats to pass a spending bill and approve funding for Ukraine. No vote on the motion has yet been set.
A similar effort in October booted Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s role and opened up weeks of chaos as the House GOP tried to fill the seat.
“Mike Johnson is going to have to face down Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, the rest of the radicals in his caucus and tell them, we're not going to do this or you're going to have to find another speaker," Lewis said.
Berman added, “You know, Earl brings up a good point. He was sort of half smiling there, but that was more snarling than I feel like I’ve seen from Mike Johnson.”
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