A fiery Mike Johnson insisted he won’t resign from the speakership as more Republicans are demanding he step down over his push for foreign aid – without border security measures.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said he will be joining Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., in her effort to strip Johnson of his speakership, after asking Johnson to resign.
Johnson is taking heat from fellow Republicans over his decision to bring four foreign aid and national security bills to the House floor. Those bills would fund Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific – and would not include border security measures.
‘He’s going to lose more votes than Kevin McCarthy,’ Massie told reporters. McCarthy was voted out of the speakership by eight GOP members last fall.
But Johnson told reporters following Massie’s threats: ‘I am not resigning. It is, in my view, an absurd notion,’ he said of the motion to vacate.
‘I regard myself as a war-time speaker,’ Johnson said of the newly invigorated mission to oust him. ‘I didn’t think this would be an easy path.’
A fiery Mike Johnson insisted he won’t resign from the speakership as more Republicans are demanding he step down over his push for foreign aid – without border security measure
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., told DailyMail.com that he will be joining Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., in her effort to strip Johnson of his speakership through a ‘motion to vacate’
Conservative hardliners had warned Johnson against attaching any Ukraine funding to an Israel aid bill. And they want more money to secure the southern border
At least one Democrat said he would vote against the Greene motion, which would change the math for how many GOP votes Johnson could afford to lose.
‘Massie wants the world to burn, I won’t stand by and watch. I have a bucket of water,’ Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., wrote on X.
Massie earlier urged Johnson to ‘pre-announce his resignation,’ as former Speaker John Boehner did, ‘so we can pick a new Speaker without ever being without a GOP Speaker,’ he wrote on X.
Massie said there is ‘no shortage of people’ who could be a better speaker than Johnson.
‘We went through this last fall. It took two days and then we ended up with somebody nobody in America ever heard of,’ he added.
A fourth bill will reportedly include several measures such as requiring TikTok divest from its Chinese-owned parent company, an effort to obtain seized Russian assets, a lend-lease program for military aid to Ukraine and also loans for humanitarian aid.
All four bills would be lumped together under the same ‘rule’ to advance them to the House floor for final passage this week before going to the Senate.
The fourth bill include a provision involving the REPO Act, meaning it would seize Russian assets that until now have only been frozen, and one that would involve the Lend-Lease Act, which would require Ukraine to give back U.S. military assets that are not destroyed in war.
Johnson noted Monday evening that some 65 percent of the package is just replenishing U.S. stockpiles that have been depleted, from giving arms to Ukraine to defending Israel from Iran’s attacks.
The package is expected to be valued in total at around $95 billion. On the defense side, $14 billion would go to Israel, $48 billion would go to Ukraine, $5 billion would go to Indo-Pacific Command and $3 billion would go to the submarine industrial base, according to a source familiar with House leadership’s plans.
The package is also expected to include humanitarian aid in the form of a loan.
White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Tuesday that they are waiting to see Johnson’s plan ‘in more detail’ before making a determination.
‘The important thing is that the House moves this week to help us get security assistance for Israel, Ukraine and also for the Indo-Pacific they need to move this week,’ he said.
Bill text had not been released as of early Tuesday afternoon. But Johnson said members would get a full 72 hours to review before voting.
Conservative hardliners had warned Johnson against attaching any Ukraine funding to an Israel aid bill.
‘Under no circumstances will the House Freedom Caucus abide using the emergency situation in Israel as a bogus justification to ram through Ukraine aid with no offset and no security for our own wide-open borders,’ the conservative hardliner Freedom Caucus said in a statement on Monday.
Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz said he would vote against MTG’s motion to vacate Johnson
Johnson has charted a path forward on foreign aid as Greene’s resolution to oust him has loomed over his head since last month.
When Iran launched a barrage of attacks on Israel over the weekend, Johnson cleared the House calendar to finally act on funding for the embattled U.S. allies around the world.
With Republicans’ razor-thin majority, Johnson can only afford to lose three Republicans and keep his job, unless Democrats vote to save him.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has suggested they would if Johnson does what Democrats want: passes the $95 billion supplemental.
Johnson told reporters he ‘believes’ he’ll be able to pass a rule to allow debate for each bill. Passing a rule typically requires nearly all Republican buy-in since the minority party usually does not vote for a rule.
Hardliner Republicans have used the tactic of voting against the rule to paralyze House business seven times this Congress.
The other option would be to put the bills up under suspension, which would mean they would need a two-thirds majority to pass.
Johnson also said he wants to honor the 72-hour rule and give members three days to read the text of the legislation. ‘That probably puts us into perhaps Friday evening,’ Johnson said.
Democrats and Republican have remained at an impasse as the White House has made clear President Joe Biden does not support a package with aid for only Israel.
Israeli soldiers exit an armored personnel carrier near the border with the Gaza Strip on April 15
Johnson tabled plans for ‘appliance week,’ where the House GOP would vote on messaging bills to push back on Biden’s kitchen appliance regulations, so the House could work on legislation targeting Iran with sanctions and foreign aid for Israel.
Johnson put the $17 billion Israel-only aid package on the House floor in February, but it failed to garner the two-thirds majority it needed to pass under suspension.
‘We’re going to try again this week, and the details of that package are being put together right now,’ he said on Sunday. ‘We’re looking at the options and all these supplemental issues.’
The House passed a $14 billion aid package for Israel in October, but the deal was offset by cuts to IRS funding that led to its demise in the Democrat-led Senate.
Israel has deemed Iran’s 350-missile attack a ‘declaration of war,’ though it said 99 percent of the missiles were intercepted.
The attack was in response to Israel’s drone strike in Syria that killed 12 Iranians, including two top generals.
The Senate-passed bill included both humanitarian and military aid: $61 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel in its war against Hamas and $4.83 billion to support partners in the Indo-Pacific.
Israeli armored personnel carriers moves near the border with the Gaza Strip on April 15, 2024 in Southern Israel
Johnson met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday
This photograph taken on April 15, 2024, shows an unexploded Russian FAB-500 aerial bomb in a field near the village of Ocheretyne not far from Avdiivka town in the Donetsk region, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine
Local residents sit at the entrance of an apartment building destroyed by shelling in the village of Ocheretyne not far from Avdiivka town in the Donetsk region, on April 15, 2024
A local resident walks past apartment buildings destroyed by air bomb in the village of Ocheretyne not far from Avdiivka town in the Donetsk region, on April 15, 2024