House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) pushed back to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), saying it’s “not the right business model.”
“Now Mike Johnson has gotten into a bad situation,” Comer said Friday and interview with Martha MacCallum of Fox News. “It’s gotten a lot worse since he got here. But changing speakers is not the right business model.”
Her comments come as Greene escalates the threat against the House speaker in light of his efforts to provide additional aid to Ukraine. She filed the motion to vacate against Johnson in late March and gained at least three GOP co-sponsors.
Earlier this week, the Georgia Republican said she doesn’t care if the president’s “office becomes a revolving door.” In an appearance on former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, she said she wants “an ‘America First’ economy” and that “we will demand it from our Republican leaders.”
Comer appeared to disagree, saying Friday that Johnson should “remain speaker of the House” at least until the end of the current session. So he said “we can get together again and decide what direction to go next year.”
He also acknowledged that he thought the vacate motion that resulted in the historic impeachment of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) late last year was a “mistake.” He added that the move “really upset” the House Republican Conference “in a bad way.”
Also asked about former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s recent comment that the motion to vacate was “utterly stupid” as it would be difficult to find 218 supporters, Comer apparently agreed, supporting Johnson.
“But at this point, as you mentioned, there will not be another candidate that 100 percent of our conference supports,” the lawmaker said.
Still, Comer said he opposed the aid provisions for Ukraine in the foreign spending package introduced by Johnson nearly a week ago.
Pressure on the Speaker of the House to approve additional assistance to the embattled country has been strong. With the help of Democrats, to the consternation of some conservatives, the House advanced a suite of bills that would send more aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region, among other priorities.
“They are different aid projects. As far as Ukraine is concerned, I am completely opposed to that,” Comer told MacCallum. “I don’t believe the hard-working, tax-paying people of Kentucky want to see their hard-earned tax dollars go to Ukraine. We have already given Ukraine a lot of money.”
“We certainly hope that Ukraine will defeat Russia, but I believe that America has already gone further,” he added. And we have our own border that we have to worry about and that has to be priority number one.”
The Hill reached out to Greene’s office.
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