During a weekly Republican meeting Tuesday morning, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) stood up and called on Johnson to resign after signing on to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) plan to depose him, known as a motion to vacate.
That means that if Democrats choose not to rescue Johnson, Republicans would need just a simple majority to oust their second speaker in six months, causing the House to descend further into chaos during an election year when their slender grasp on the majority is at stake.
Massie said that he had warned the speaker in private conversation “weeks ago” that if the motion to oust him is called to the floor, and Democrats do not help bail him out, Republicans would be successful in removing the speaker because “We’re steering everything toward what [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer wants.”
“The motion is going to get called, okay? Does anybody doubt that? The motion will get called, and then he’s going to lose more votes than Kevin McCarthy,” Massie said, referencing the previous GOP speaker who lost the gavel with eight votes in October.
In a defiant tone, Johnson reiterated to reporters in a brief news conference Tuesday that he would not resign and that the threat was “absurd” as Republicans are “trying to do their job.”
“We need steady leadership. We need steady hands on the wheel,” he said. “Look, I regard myself as a wartime speaker.”
That means Johnson faces a double-barreled threat both jeopardizing his speakership and the key foreign aid bills.
On both issues, Johnson can only lose two Republicans and he has a two-vote majority. That majority will be even slimmer — one vote — after Republicans return from next week’s recess and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) has resigned.
Democrats have signaled they will help pass the rule to consider the foreign aid measures, but only if those measures are identical to the Senate-approved package. Complicating the issue is that the GOP bills currently do not include humanitarian aid for Gaza.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told his Democratic caucus on Tuesday morning that Democrats would not support “a penny less” than what’s currently in the Senate bill for humanitarian relief.
“We’ve been very clear, Leader Jeffries has been clear that all options should remain on the table. The important point is the substance of the legislation. The substance matters,” Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said.
Republicans are still waiting for legislative text on all four bills of Johnson’s plan before deciding whether to support them. But a majority are frustrated after a significant handful of far-right Republicans, upset with Johnson and the lack of border security included in the bills, have confidently predicted that the initial vote, known as a rule, will fail. Republicans had a chance to consider a tough bipartisan border security bill earlier this year, but rejected it.