‘Definition of insanity’: Frustrated House Republicans blast GOP rebels’ threat to oust Johnson
House Republicans were left frustrated on Tuesday after two of their colleagues threatened to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., over his plan on foreign aid.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital. “So, you do it again, you’re going to end up with the same results.”
Those GOP lawmakers are worried about repeating the three weeks of chaos that followed the ouster of ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., by a group of eight Republicans and all House Democrats. Most would not go so far as to say it could cost them the election in November, but they suggested it weakened the Republican position in the House while already dealing with just a razor-thin majority and a Democrat-controlled Senate and White House.
“The new speaker will have to play the same hand that this speaker is playing. The results are going to be the same,” Gimenez said, adding that it “could” hurt the GOP in November.
During a closed-door conference meeting on Tuesday morning, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., urged Johnson to step down or face a possible vote to vacate the speaker’s chair. He’s now signed onto a resolution introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., last month to oust Johnson over his actions on government spending and foreign aid.
Johnson, for his part, told reporters he would not step down and called the threats “absurd.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus who ran for speaker after McCarthy’s ouster, called vacating Johnson a “bad idea.”
“We don’t need that. No way, no way. We don’t. We don’t want that. We shouldn’t go through that again,” Jordan told reporters.
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Even an ally of Greene and Massie, Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., said it was a “mistake.”
“Marjorie is my friend but she made a huge mistake there,” Higgins said of Greene initiating the move. “Mike is amazing man, a deeply principled Republican. And that’s a very good starting point for a leader of our conference, and he was like thrust into an impossible job out of precarious moment with the slimmest majority in the history of Congress.”
Meanwhile Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Va., one of the eight Republicans who ousted McCarthy and who has been critical of Johnson for working with Democrats on critical legislation, suggested he had no appetite to follow the same path again right now.
“I don’t have any comment on motion to vacate. You can ask the two members who are talking about doing that. I don’t hear other members talking about doing that,” Good told reporters. “But I didn’t go around cavalierly, flippantly throwing motion to vacate around.”
Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., a leadership ally, called the three weeks Republicans spent without a speaker last year “wasted time.”
“I think it’s an unwanted distraction,” he said.
And Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., who was close to McCarthy when he was speaker but has a noticeably more distant relationship with Johnson, said it was not in the House GOP’s interest to oust his fellow Louisianan.
“I think we have a number of people here that, they don’t think past step one, which is why we have so many problems here right now,” he said of the vacate push.
Massie said he would sign onto Greene’s existing resolution to vacate Johnson. But unless they file it as a privileged motion, as was the case with McCarthy, there is nothing compelling House Republican leadership to hold a vote. If they do file it as privileged, however, the House will be forced to act on it within two legislative days.
Neither Massie nor Greene were part of the eight Republicans to oust McCarthy in October, and criticized the people who did so.