President Donald Trump on Tuesday night intervened in the very public feud between Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik over legislation to protect political candidates being investigated by the FBI.
After days of Stefanik, who is running for governor of New York, publicly attacking Johnson, she announced early Wednesday morning that she was the victor.
Stefanik wanted her bill attached to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the U.S. Department of Defense. Johnson did not want the legislation included.
“After a productive discussion I had last night with President Trump and Speaker Johnson, the provision requiring Congressional disclosure when the FBI opens counterintelligence investigations into presidential and federal candidates seeking office will be included in the IAA/NDAA bill on the floor,” Stefanik declared on Wednesday. “This is a significant legislative win delivered against the illegal weaponization of the deep state.”
Politico reported that some involved “credited President Donald Trump for playing mediator after the New York Republican threatened to ‘tank’ the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act as part of her public targeting of Johnson.”
Politico’s Jason Beeferman reported on Wednesday that Stefanik’s “victory (and sudden peace) in her public fight” with the House Speaker “comes after she told me last night that Johnson ‘has catastrophic, plummeting support among Republican voters.'”
Some critics noted that the bill does little for the people she represents.
Stefanik had “accused the speaker Tuesday of personally excluding her measure from the defense bill and lying about it,” Politico also noted. “Johnson said those allegations were ‘false’ and countered that bipartisan committee leaders had not agreed to add it.”
On Tuesday, Stefanik had tweeted, “true to form, the Speaker texted me yesterday claiming he ‘knew nothing about it.’ Yeah right. This is his preferred tactic to tell Members when he gets caught torpedoing the Republican agenda.”
Also on Tuesday, Politico declared Speaker Johnson’s House was “spinning out of control.”
“Stefanik’s rare move to publicly accuse the speaker of being a liar and then, in a separate provocation, signing on to an effort to force a vote on legislation Johnson has kept bottled up is the latest symptom of a House Republican Conference seemingly on a razor’s edge,” the news outlet noted.
“Increasingly, rank-and-file House Republicans are bringing their spats with Johnson into the open, suggesting the speaker is losing further control over his restive members as his already slim majority threatens to narrow further and potentially devastating midterm elections loom.”
Axios added that “Stefanik’s stance sets up another test of Johnson’s ability to hold together his razor-thin majority as he navigates one of Congress’ must-pass bills.”
