President of the Chamber Mike Johnson (R-La.), facing new threats to his leadership, said he will not resign and sees himself as a “wartime speaker.”
Johnson’s comments came as House Republicans tried to rally a plan to vote on four high-priority items — aid to Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and a comprehensive bill of other provisions related to national security — without further fracturing the party.
Opponents of a move to replenish the U.S.’s own weapons stocks, and thus allow more stored unused weapons to be sent to Ukraine’s military, have threatened to remove Johnson.
“I am not resigning, and in my opinion it is an absurd notion for anyone to file a motion to vacate. We’re here simply trying to do our jobs,” Johnson said at a news conference following a Republican Party meeting Tuesday morning.
The threat to Johnson’s grip on the speaker’s gavel grew Tuesday when Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), far-right libertarian House Republican said on the social networks he would support an effort by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to vote to remove Johnson.
“He should pre-announce his resignation (as [former GOP Speaker John] Boehner did), so we can choose a new speaker without ever being without a Republican speaker,” Massie wrote.
Massie posted that Johnson said in the closed-door meeting that he would not resign. “I told him he’s the only one who can stop us from going through what happened last fall,” Massie said, referring to the three weeks in which the House failed to consider any bills while Republicans struggled to find a new leader, after then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was forced from office.
Dissatisfaction with Johnson’s leadership has grown since he replaced McCarthy. At the top of the list of things his opponents point to is the deal to fund the government through September, a bargain that gave Democrats much of the spending they wanted and Republicans some smaller victories.
He also brought Democrat-backed bills to the floor so they can be approved without amendments, as long as they get an absolute majority of votes. AND he supported the controversial renewal last week of a 9/11-era espionage clause that several lawmakers in his party, along with many Democrats, opposed it.
Republicans have also failed to get the Biden administration to do much on immigration, which has been their condition for approving any additional aid to Ukraine.
Greene has not yet called for a vote on Johnson’s future and has outlined her motion to vacate the speaker’s chair more like a warning when she first introduced it in March. However, it is unclear whether she has enough votes to succeed – although Johnson had just two votes to spare for the Republican Party before needing to turn to Democrats for support.
Johnson said Tuesday he was not concerned about the threat and emphasized the need for party unity as Congress deals with multiple crises abroad.
“I consider myself an orator in times of war. In a literal sense, we are [at war]. I knew this when I picked up the hammer. I didn’t anticipate this would be an easy path,” Johnson said.
“The way to overcome this is to show unity. We explain how we have answers to all these major challenges. We have these answers. We shouldn’t get in our own way.”
