Spkr. Johnson To Fellow House Republicans: Stop the Intraparty Warfare

[Webster]

(The Guardian) House speaker Mike Johnson asked fractious fellow Republicans to “cool it” and stop fighting each other in displays of “member-on-member action” during primary elections as he seeks to maintain some sort of control over a caucus at the mercy of the far right, controlling the chamber by a mere two votes.

“I’ve asked them all to cool it,” Johnson told CNN in remarks published Sunday. -- I am vehemently opposed to member-on-member action in primaries because it’s not productive. And it causes division for obvious reasons, and we should not be engaging in that. So I’m telling everyone who’s doing that to knock it off. And both sides, they’ll say, ‘Well, we didn’t start it, they started it.’

Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, the far-right Trumpist firebrand pursuing such fights, effectively told the same outlet: “They started it.” -- “I would love nothing more than to just go after Democrats,” said Gaetz, who was last year the prime mover behind the historic ejection of Johnson’s predecessor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and who is now going after two more Republicans, Tony Gonzales of Texas and Mike Bost of Illinois.

“If Republicans are going to dress up like Democrats in drag, I’m going to go after them too,” Gaetz said. -- Because at the end of the day, we’re not judged by how many Republicans we have in Congress. We’re judged on whether or not we save the country.

Gonzales is under attack over a vote for gun safety reform, after the Uvalde elementary school massacre; over his positions on immigration reform; and for voting in favour of same-sex marriage.

 

[Webster]

Will Hardline Republicans Seek Revenge On Speaker Johnson For Recent Foreign Aid Bills?

(The Guardian) Will far-right Republicans seek revenge on Mike Johnson for Ukraine, surveillance votes? When the House gets back to work today, may find out whether Marjorie Taylor Greene’s push to remove Mike Johnson as speaker has any momentum. The Georgia congresswoman made the proposal more...

offtopix.com

Continuing from the above thread, Speaker Johnson should have MTG, Gosar, Massie and every House Republican who backs the motion-to-vacate primaried in the next Congress....you know, pour encourager les autres.

 

[Webster]

Apparently he ain't the only one who wants the internecine warfare to end...

(The Guardian) House Democratic leaders announce opposition to attempt to remove Johnson as speaker
The top House Democrats, including minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, say they will oppose any attempt by congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and other rightwing Republicans to remove Mike Johnson as the chamber’s speaker.

Last month, Greene filed a motion to oust fellow Republican Johnson from his position as speaker of the House, citing his collaboration with Democrats to pass a government spending bill. In the weeks since, Johnson again worked with the House minority to approve legislation authorizing military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and reauthorize a controversial surveillance law. Greene, meanwhile, has picked up only two other co-sponsors to her motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, and it was unclear if she would continue with her campaign.

“At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction,” writes Jeffries along with Democratic whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar. “We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”

Their position was a reversal from October, when all Democrats joined with eight Republican insurgents to vote for Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as speaker – leading to Johnson’s ascension after weeks of GOP infighting.

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The pledge by House Democratic leaders to save Mike Johnson’s speakerships caps a week of whiplash for the conservative, who won plaudits on the left for allowing a vote on Ukraine aid, then pivoted to insinuating that anti-Israel protests on college campuses were “backed” by Hamas. The Guardian’s David Smith has a recap of the wild few days Johnson has had:

Democrat Nancy Pelosi cited his “integrity” and described him as “courageous”. Republican Michael McCaul called him a “profile in courage”. CNN hailed him as “an unlikely Churchill”.

Mike Johnson, speaker of the House of Representatives, began the week showered in plaudits for leading the House in approving $95bn in urgently needed wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and other US allies.

It was widely noted that Johnson had done his homework, changed his mind, prayed for guidance and risked his job by facing down far-right extremists in his own party including Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had threatened to oust him if he helped Ukraine. But the chorus of praise-singers echoed past renditions when the likes of William Barr, Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney were valorised for doing the bare minimum by denouncing the serial liar and election denier Donald Trump. (Barr, incidentally, now says he will support Trump in November.) That is how low the bar is now set.