Threats against US speaker play into Democrats’ hands, some Republicans worry

As the right-wing rebellion against House Speaker Mike Johnson grew slightly louder on Tuesday, so too did the groans from Republicans worried that hardliners were once again dooming their party to a cycle of self-sabotage.

“Every time that they do this, it actually strengthens the Democrats’ hands,” said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., referring to the latest threats against Johnson’s job. “It makes the legislation less conservative, which is not what they want. Apparently some of my party are not happy getting 90% of what they want, they’d rather have 0% of what they want.”

Johnson is facing new blowback as he tees up votes on a long-stalled national security security package — including separate bills providing military aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. On Tuesday, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said he would co-sponsor Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, and urged Johnson to resign at a closed-door conference meeting.

The threat from Greene and Massie is raising the possibility that Democrats will need to step in and save Johnson’s job — possibly giving them leverage on policy at a critical moment.

“The right flank almost daily risk undercutting the conservative goals that they’re after,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Semafor, adding that the debate about tactics wasn’t simply a fight between conservatives and moderates. “If anybody over there wants to count themselves as more conservative than me, then let’s take a look at points on the board.”

Tillis added that hardliners’ strategy amounted to “winning battles but losing the war.”

It’s unclear as of yet whether Johnson’s critics have anywhere near enough votes to oust him. On Tuesday, the Louisiana Republican rejected Massie’s call to resign and called it “absurd.”

“It is not helpful to the country. It does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda,” Johnson said at a press conference.

Massie, though, isn’t flinching at the idea of another prolonged speaker fight, and suggested Johnson had already lost control of the chamber. “We’ve devolved into ‘Lord of the Flies.’ There’s no order,” Massie told reporters. “The rules are going down. There’s no repercussions for disorder. I don’t think his life experiences have equipped him for this job.”

It’s hard to blame some Republicans for sounding exhausted. The House GOP’s thin, rambunctious majority has kept them trapped in a self-defeating cycle since last year, often caused by the party’s flamethrowing right-flank. Hardliners have continued to tank basic procedural votes to bring bills to the House floor, forcing Johnson to rely on Democrats in order to get any business done in the chamber.

“They force the House to go to the left consistently,” Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, R-Fla., told me.

It’s left the House GOP operating as a barely-functioning rump state that even risks electing a Democratic speaker before November. Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern told me that outcome was “always a concern” when the House GOP can spare only one or two votes.

A senior GOP aide argued that cantankerous House members were doing exactly what they were elected to.

“​​I think a lot of the younger members are sick of being scolded by older members for doing what they promised their voters to do,” the aide told Semafor. “The last several classes of conservatives were elected specifically on a campaign platform of disrupting the status quo on the hill and being a vote against the establishment.”