All posts tagged "mike johnson"

'He offends everyone': Republicans reportedly begin talks to 'oust Mike Johnson'

Republicans have quietly started to talk about removing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), according to a report.

Johnson has been criticized by fellow Republicans and rival Democrats in recent weeks — and now the GOP majority has shown signs it's unhappy with him, The Atlantic reported Tuesday.

"Johnson’s own members, in the past month, have accused him of stretching if not wholly disregarding the truth, and his assertion last Wednesday that he has a firm grip on power was correct only in the most technical sense," according to The Atlantic.

"On the day he uttered it, a group of Johnson’s most electorally vulnerable soldiers abandoned him to help Democrats force a vote on extending health-care subsidies, and a longtime lawmaker became the 25th House Republican — with many more expected to follow — to announce that he would not seek reelection next year.

"Republican lawmakers risk losing their majority in Congress, while more GOP leaders are expected to leave or retire. Those reasons for leaving span beyond Johnson, yet his "unwavering loyalty — some would say obsequiousness — to Trump has defined his speakership."

One House Republican, who was unnamed, told The Atlantic that Johnson has been well-meaning, but that has caused problems.

“I think he’s a good man, a good attorney, a good constitutionalist, and a bad politician,” the Republican told The Atlantic.

Another unnamed GOP lawmaker echoed that sentiment.

“In his obsession with not offending anyone, he offends everyone,” another Republican said.

It's unclear if Johnson will hold onto his job in 2026. Before announcing her departure from Congress, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) denounced Johnson's leadership publicly. Other Republicans have disapproved of him.

"Whether the speaker’s job is secure has become a topic of some debate inside the Capitol. The most obvious threat will come in the November elections, but could Republicans depose Johnson as they did his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy?" The Atlantic reported.

"Stefanik told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month that if a vote were called tomorrow, Johnson would not have enough support from Republicans to stay as speaker. [Marjorie Taylor] Greene has also reportedly been talking with colleagues about an effort to oust Johnson, but she plans to leave the House next month."

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) was asked if he was ready to see new leadership, and told The Atlantic this:

"'Yeah, but I mean, look, it’s not coming up,' he said. 'You never know in this town.' With Johnson’s support, Republicans changed House rules to make it harder to remove a speaker in the middle of a term. 'Usually there are tremors before a speaker goes down,' one House Republican told us, 'and this speaker has faced a number of tremors.'"

'Increasingly ignored' Mike Johnson 'weaker than ever' as Republicans move on: analysis

Democratic strategist Max Burns argued House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is showing all the signs of an ex-leader.

“Increasingly ignored and overruled by his own caucus, Johnson will enter the new year with none of the influence and power traditionally associated with the speakership,” Burns wrote in a Thursday analysis for MS NOW. “If 2025 proved to be a headache for him, 2026 is shaping up to be a migraine.”

Johnson’s political situation “got a little worse on Wednesday” said Burns, when four swing state Republicans joined Democrats to force a vote on extending the popular Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) expiring tax credits. This effort followed another successful push to override Johnson on the release of the Epstein files.

Johnson has other reasons tanking his popularity with his own caucus, however.

“Johnson’s time in the speaker’s chair coincided with some of the least productive terms of any Congress in history, including presiding over the longest-ever federal shutdown,” said Burns. “That’s not just bad timing on Johnson’s part — it’s a direct result of his inability to lead the House at a moment when voters want swift action from their representatives. Johnson’s colleagues now worry his tone-deafness to the problems facing voters will ultimately cost them their jobs.”

“In other words,” said Burns, “Johnson is weaker than ever — and his Republican colleagues know it.”

Burns added that the state of the swampy U.S. economy under the policies of President Donald Trump played a big role in Democrats’ performance in Virginia’s and New Jersey’s statewide elections, and healthcare affordability is another ferocious issue sure to raise its head in January when voters face more expensive insurance plans without the benefit of federal subsidies.

Lawmakers who sided with Democrats to override Johnson’s lock on subsidies happen to represent districts Democrats are trying to flip next year. Burns said their sudden rebelliousness can’t be a surprise as the party’s popularity continues to plummet.

“Effective leadership requires strong character and firm values. Johnson lacked both, and now his caucus is moving on without him,” said Burns.

Read the MS NOW report at this link.

'Stabbing the party in the back!' Senate Republican melts down as GOP colleagues revolt

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday were enraged after four moderate Republicans revolted against their own party to push forward a health care petition to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies before they are set to expire.

The health care debate was a significant blow to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who has been losing control over his own party as Republicans in swing districts sided with the 214 Democrats — adding 218 total votes — and creating "enormous tension" within the GOP, CNN chief Congressional correspondent Manu Raju reported.

Several Republicans had heated responses, voicing their anger over the swing votes from Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie, and Rob Bresnahan, all of Pennsylvania; and Rep. Mike Lawler of New York.

"To me, they're stabbing the rest of the party in the back," Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) said. "We took a bold stand and I think the president is absolutely right. Throwing money at insurance companies doesn't solve the problem. This is, to me, a betrayal to the rest of us Republicans."

Some Republicans were critical of Johnson's leadership.

"He needs to do better," Rep. Nick Lalola (R-NY) said. "He needs to allow for a vote that both addresses the short- and long-term issues of Obamacare."

It's unclear when the vote would happen, but lawmakers have pointed to Americans' dissatisfaction as a primary reason for pushing forward the bill to the Senate, despite challenges that could await the legislation from the Republican Senate majority. If the legislation is not passed, millions of people in the U.S. could see their health care premiums skyrocket in 2026.

"People feel that they have counted on, or waited for, their Congress to act on an issue that they feel is a huge priority and they see no action — there's consequences to that," Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said.

'Just heard a single vertebra!' Johnson finally responds to Trump’s cruel Reiner comments

House Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday was forced to respond to President Donald Trump's cruel comments on Hollywood legend Rob Reiner following the news that he and his wife were murdered.

Trump attacked Reiner, who was found stabbed to death with his wife Michele inside their Brentwood, California home, in a Truth Social post. He tried to suggest that Reiner's “massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME" was responsible for his death.

In an interview with CNBC's Squawk Box, Johnson finally responded — and blamed the Capitol Hill press corps. — to questions about the president's remarks after journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin asked him to share his thoughts, prefacing it by saying he wouldn't "love" the question.

"Well, I did comment at length. They just didn't replay that part," Johnson said. "No, no, no surprise here. Capitol hill press corps. But what I said was straight from the heart. I heard about it coming out of an event in the morning when the news broke. And my comment was that, I mean, obviously it's an unspeakable family tragedy. And the Reiner family, I mean, just a horrible thing to think of."

Johnson cited a Bible verse and Sorkin pushed back again, asking Johnson to address the president's comments.

“Look, I know I’m asked to give running commentary on everything that the president says every five minutes of the day, as well as all of my colleagues here," said Johnson, who appeared frustrated by the question.

“I don’t communicate the same way,” he said. “I am my own person, and I speak, you know, from my voice.”

“The president and I address issues differently sometimes,” Johnson said. “That’s not the way I would have done it. It’s not the way I have done it. You know, that’s my comment on it.”

People reacted to Johnson's comments on social media:

"I think I just heard a single vertebra!" user Jeremy Winter wrote on X.

"Real profiles-in-courage moment, Skippy," University of Illinois Assistant Director of Communications professor Vince Lara-Cinisomo wrote on X.

"Evasion speaks loudly. When pressed on rhetoric, leaders face a choice: clarify, condemn, or deflect. Accountability starts with direct answers," journalist Qadir Khan Yousufzai wrote on X.

"You condemn his vile and immoral remarks Mike. That is what leadership of the House should do," user Lee West wrote on X.

"He didn’t 'love' that question so it had to asked again; just to give him the chance to give the weakest ass response imaginable," film sound editor John Kwiatkowski wrote on X.

'End run around the majority!' Mike Johnson rages as GOP moderates threaten him on health

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) fired back at a group of swing-district Republicans during an interview with Becky Quick on CNBC's Squawk Box Wednesday, over reports that some of them are considering crossing over to back a Democratic discharge petition to force a vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies without his approval.

"I hope not," said Johnson when asked about the possibility by Quick, saying it would be an "end run around the majority party, the speaker, the regular process."

Johnson said Republicans are looking at doing another reconciliation bill in the next quarter to force through their own health care reform ideas — a clear sign they would like to do this without Democratic votes. "Republicans are the ones who will fix health care. It is Democrats who broke it," he said.

Quick pressed him on the impending loss of coverage and increased premiums for millions of Americans, to which he repeated that he considers it Democrats' fault.

Even if Democrats manage to get four crossover Republican votes to pass the discharge petition, approval of an extension on the ACA enhanced subsidies would have to be approved by the Senate, where an identical measure was rejected last week.

Mike Johnson confronts MAGA rep in 'heated' exchange: 'Take those words out of your mouth'

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was recently heard getting into a "heated" argument with one Republican member of the House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, NOTUS' Reese Gorman reported that Johnson was overheard in a closed-door meeting with moderate members of the House Republican Conference. GOP moderates had been meeting with the Speaker to discuss last-minute fixes to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits due to expire in less than three weeks, which would cause monthly health insurance premiums to jump significantly for millions of Americans.

In one exchange between Johnson and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), the New York Republican was heard lamenting to Johnson that Republicans would never get another chance to pass a bill via the reconciliation process (in which the Senate can pass legislation with a simple majority, provided the bill itself pertains to strictly budgetary matters). At that point, the Speaker reportedly erupted at Lawler.

"At one point during a meeting between mods and Johnson things got so heated reporters could hear what was being said outside," Gorman recounted, noting that Lawler said: "We are never getting a second reconciliation bill."

"Take those words out of your mouth," Johnson reportedly said.

According to Gorman, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) tried to win over Johnson with two separate proposals to extend the tax credits beyond 2026. Kiggans' legislation included a way to get around the statutory requirement for an extension to be budget-neutral, though Johnson and other Republicans have insisted on other measures to pay for the extension that moderates oppose.

Fitzpatrick has been circulating a bipartisan discharge petition to extend the ACA tax credits, which is the same method Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) used to circumvent Johnson on the matter of releasing the Epstein files. Fitzpatrick's petition has been cosponsored by Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Donald G. Davis (D-N.C.), and Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.)

More Republicans using 'rare' tool to 'undercut Johnson's leadership': NYT

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is being increasingly undermined by his own party as more lawmakers use a unique tool to circumvent him, according to the New York Times.

The Times' Michael Gold reported Thursday that both Democrats and Republicans are resorting to discharge petitions as a means of passing legislation that Johnson wouldn't normally even consider bringing up for a vote. In one recent example, 20 Republicans joined all 211 Democrats in passing a discharge petition that would overturn one of President Donald Trump's executive orders stripping federal workers of collective bargaining rights.

Gold wrote that the legislation's "success in the House was the latest indication that Mr. Johnson’s hold on his razor-thin majority has become increasingly slippery, as rank-and-file Republicans flout his wishes."

"[Republicans] are doing so not just by refusing to vote for the party position on important bills, but also, increasingly, by using a once-rare parliamentary maneuver to steer around the speaker and commandeer the House floor to bring up legislation that he does not want considered at all," Gold continued. "The tactic has undercut Mr. Johnson’s leadership and diminished his power over the chamber’s agenda at a time when some rank-and-file Republicans are questioning his approach and complaining that he is disregarding the will of his members."

Lawmakers may have been emboldened by the Epstein Files Transparency Act — a bipartisan discharge petition launched by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) that ultimately passed the House by a near-unanimous margin despite only a handful of Republicans initially supporting it. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) is now circulating a discharge petition that would prevent members of Congress from trading stocks while in office. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is one of 14 Republicans who have signed on (along with 44 Democrats).

"At this time, I am considering signing every discharge petition - whether I support the bill or not," Greene wrote on X. "As a duly elected Member of Congress, I believe my colleagues should have the ability to bring legislation to the floor for a vote. Every Member deserves the right to represent their district and receive a recorded vote on their bills. This is a result of House leadership blocking Members from governing."

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) is also aiming to get enough support for a discharge petition that would force a vote on extending Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits expiring at the end of 2025. The Pennsylvania Republican said he felt compelled to take the discharge petition route due to Johnson's refusal to consider traditional legislation.

“You try to do things through the normal course, you try to do things through normal order, you know,” Fitzpatrick told the Times. “When all of those remedies are exhausted, then you’ve got to go this route, unfortunately.”

Click here to read the Times' full report.

'He's promised': GOP hardliners threaten to ruin Mike Johnson if he goes back on his word

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) finally managed to scrape together the votes to pass the annual defense authorization bill, known as NDAA. But he had to make some key concessions to Republican hardliners — and they're threatening to raise hell if those promises aren't kept, Axios reported on Thursday.

If the holdouts perceive Johnson as going back on his word, they could pull out of the next continuing resolution to fund the government, potentially triggering yet another federal government shutdown early next year.

"So we made a deal — and actually we talked to the secretary of state directly," said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), one of the holdouts who demanded a deal. "[Our demand] either happens, or a CR goes down. He's promised to be with us on that."

Among the concessions Johnson made are to allow a future vote to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks — a longtime bipartisan goal of good-government reformers across the political spectrum — and a future provision that would ban the Federal Reserve from creating its own digital currency, a longtime pet project of far-right activists. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also secured a vote on her own Protect Children's Innocence Act, which would prohibit certain forms of gender-affirming care for minors.

Essential to the deal, per the report, was a separate promise from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to crack down on funding from NGOs to Afghanistan that GOP hardliners believe is going to Taliban leadership.

All of this comes as lawmakers remember the weekslong government shutdown months before as Democrats demanded a solution to expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits. A vote on extending those subsidies is coming, and Republicans are scrambling to introduce their own alternative to the Democratic proposal.

'No time for BS': GOP scramble to get healthcare plan over the line before end of year

A discharge petition has been filed by a collection of Democrat and Republican representatives to try and force a vote on enhancing ObamaCare subsidies.

The GOP has been scrambling to piece together a new healthcare plan before the end of the year but seem to be coming up short. Inaction has pushed Republican representative Brian Fitzpatrick to pull together a co-led bill calling for enhanced subsidies for two years. Doing so has bypassed Republican party leadership, which The Hill reports oppose extending the expiring subsidies.

Rep. Fitzpatrick, however, believes now is not the time for "BS politics" and that action must take precedent. He said, "This is personal to a lot of us. These are our friends and our neighbors that are losing sleep over this. So we just have no time, no patience, for the BS politics that sometimes consumes this place. This is real life."

Fitzpatrick has paired with Democrat representatives Jared Golden, Tom Suozzi, Don Davis, and Marie Gluesenkamp as well as Republicans Don Bacon, Rob Bresnahan, and Nicole Malliotakis on the bill. Said bill would try and bypass leadership and force a vote on a bill to extend the enhanced subsidies.

The petition requires 218 signatures, though it is currently unclear whether the discharge petition has the majority support in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson could bring the bill up earlier than the seven-day legislative period if he wished to, but that would be after the petition hits its signature goal.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is pushing a similar petition too, with a chance to extend the enhanced benefits for three years with no reforms.

Moderates in the Republican party are, as Jeff Van Drew suggested, worried about the longer term effect the delayed bill will have. He said, "This is the right thing to do in the short period of time, if we have to live with the ACA in order to be able to keep people whole."

"I’m worried about my colleagues. I really do care about them. There’s a lot of good people who won by one, two, three or four votes. Do I think this issue is worth a couple points in an election? Yeah, I do."

Some in the GOP believe Donald Trump would confirm his backing if the House managed to reach an agreement. An unnamed lawmaker said, "I like the Speaker, but he’s the one that drew the line in the sandbox. This is not the president. If we could come to an agreement, he will support it.”

Malliotakis added, "I think he [Trump] understands how critical this is, and he would like to do something, but this is obviously a difference of opinion between him and the Speaker that needs to be reconciled."

'I'm baited every day!' Mike Johnson complains when asked about Trump's racist remark

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) complained Wednesday after he was asked his thoughts on President Donald Trump's profane and racist attacks on what he called "s---hole countries," while Republicans try to advance their defense spending bill.

CNN's Manu Raju described how Republicans are struggling to pass the first procedural vote in the Republican-majority House to get its annual defense policy bill approved — slated for nearly $900 billion in military funding — tied to mixed reactions to reports that have questioned the second strike on an alleged drug boat on Sept. 2 in the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela. A provision in the bill would attempt to force Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to release the unedited videos of the strikes in question.

"Right now, eight Republicans are voting no. The Speaker can only afford to lose a couple along party lines, which is why he is in a bit of a bind," Raju said, adding that the House could use the Capitol Hill under suspension of the rules, which would force a two-thirds majority vote to pass the bill.

"We do expect that to eventually happen because Democrats want this bill to pass. So that will be approved eventually. Despite this drama we're seeing right now play out in the Capitol," Raju added.

Raju asked Johnson his response to Trump's comments at a rally in Pennsylvania Tuesday night, where he made offensive comments about different countries, including Somalia, which he said is among a host of "s---hole countries."

"Look, I'm baited every day with asking to be asked to comment about what the president or other members say," Johnson complained.

"It's the president of the United States. Do you have an opinion on it?" Raju pressed.

"Well, of course, I have an opinion. That's not the way I speak. And you know that. But the president is expressing his frustration about the extraordinary challenge that is presented to America," Johnson said. "When you have people coming in, not assimilating and trying to take over the country. We had illegal aliens, like 20 million for four years. It's a crisis for the country. And that's the frustration you hear in his voice and the language..."