The House GOP’s margin for error is on track to shrink to just one vote

Posted on March 12, 2024 by David Nir

Hah oh man! House Speaker Mike Johnson’s epic struggles to count votes and keep his caucus in line are about to get a whole lot rougher.

One of Johnson’s least-favorite members, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, just announced that he’s resigning next week. How least-favorite? Johnson says that Buck—who had already said back in November that he wouldn’t seek reelection—didn’t even inform him ahead of time, reports Politico’s Olivia Beavers.

But intra-party hostilities aside, what matters most is how Buck’s departure affects Johnson’s math. In short, it’s not good.

At the moment, there are 219 Republicans in the House and 213 Democrats. This means that on any given vote, the GOP can afford a maximum of two defections. If three Republicans switch sides to join with Democrats on a particular roll call, then whatever is up for a vote dies, because a 216-216 tie is the same as a loss.

When Buck leaves, that margin will slip to 218-213. But on April 30, Democrats are the heavy favorites to regain one seat in the special election for upstate New York’s vacant 26th District, a solidly blue seat in the Buffalo area. That would take the House to 218-214, and then things get really interesting.

That’s because it would take just two Republicans to tank any vote as long as Democrats stick together, which they have with remarkable consistency. Once again, a 216-all tie sinks any GOP bill, resolution, impeachment—what have you.

In other words, Johnson’s magic number would shrink to exactly one vote. That is to say, if more than one Republican representative has some kind of grievance with the speaker, or the legislation being proposed, or just woke up grumpy that morning, then boom, dead, done. To the extent Johnson has any agenda he might hope to advance, it would take only two dissenters to derail it.

Now, there’s a possible wrinkle: The vacant seat that once belonged to the hapless pol Johnson succeeded as speaker—Kevin McCarthy—will also see a special election next week. However, if no one wins a majority of the vote, then there would be a runoff in late May. And there’s very good reason to think that’s exactly what will happen, because, following last week’s regularly scheduled primary, the first-place candidate (funny enough, a McCarthy protégé) is sitting on just 38% of the vote.

Of course, Johnson will still pray that McCarthy’s seat gets filled as quickly as possible, however poor the odds. Because the only thing worse is the math he’ll face if it doesn’t.

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House GOP prepares to embarrass itself with more Biden impeachment nonsense

Posted on March 11, 2024 by Joan McCarter

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan has grasped at every straw in his quest to avenge Donald Trump and impeach President Joe Biden, including the one straw held out to him by an alleged Russian mole. That having blown up embarrassingly in his face, Jordan appears to be leading his committee into another fiasco.

Jordan’s latest effort is his investigation into just how old Biden is, with a hearing Tuesday. His star witness is special counsel Robert Hur, the Department of Justice official who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents and found that no criminal charges were warranted. Hur did, however, throw in some gratuitous hits on Biden’s age in his report, which legal experts have called “a partisan hit job.”

Hur probably won’t deliver what Jordant wants, according to sources involved with preparing Hur’s testimony who spoke with the Wall Street Journal. Hur is “intent on turning down the political temperature surrounding his report,” the Journal reports, and to try to explain why he included the extraneous bits about Biden’s memory. Those details, Hur is expected to say, “were necessary to explain his team’s decision that charges weren’t justified.”

That’s problem No. 1 for Jordan. Problem No. 2 is that Biden himself blew the “Biden is too old” narrative clear out of the water with last week’s State of the Union address. Biden adeptly scrapped with Republican hecklers, forcefully laid out his agenda and earned news reports declaring him aggressive, energetic, fiery, feisty, and forceful. Biden’s speech didn’t just wow the pundits—it seems to have impressed voters. Public opinion soared in quick polls conducted after the speech.

That’s going to make arguing that this man is too doddery and feeble to be trusted with the nation’s security a little tough for Jordan and team. It also gives Democrats on the committee a chance to swing for the fences on Donald Trump’s fitness to lead, particularly his alleged classified documents crimes.

Because what Republicans tended to ignore in Hur’s report was the part where he compared Trump’s and Biden’s handling of classified documents. Hur pointed out that “after being given multiple chances to return classified documents and avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite,” and that Trump “not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it.”

On the other hand, Hur wrote, “Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview. and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.” You can be sure that the Democrats on the committee are going to be teasing out every detail of that comparison, putting Hur on the record against Trump.

Thus Jordan’s star witness is shaping up to be a hostile one, the whole premise of the hearing has fallen apart, and he’s opening up the congressional record for more official testimony from a representative of the Department of Justice about Trump’s abuse of power. This might just be fun.

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The House GOP’s terrible math just got even worse

Posted on February 28, 2024 by David Nir

House Republicans have conclusively proven that they suck at math—and now the math has just gotten even worse for them.

On Wednesday, Democrat Tom Suozzi will be sworn in as the newest addition to the Democratic caucus, following his triumph in the special election to replace the extremely disgraced George Santos. Because Suozzi’s victory flipped New York’s 3rd District from red to blue, Democrats will now have 213 members in the House, while Republican ranks will remain frozen at 219.

That in turn means that House Speaker Mike Johnson’s comically slender margin for error will shrink even further, from a precarious three votes to a pitiful two. On any given roll call, should a trio of Republicans side with Democrats, that would spell instant death for the bill in question, since a 216-216 tie is the same as a loss.

We recently saw a preview of this very dynamic in action, when a tiny handful of renegades sank the GOP’s first attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Now dissidents can cut off Johnson’s plans with just three defections.

This logic, of course, applies to any faction of Republicans who are unhappy with Johnson, whether they’re relative pragmatists, like those who opposed impeaching Mayorkas, or far-right lunatics, like the junta that deposed Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.

And with critical deadlines coming up to fund government operations and avoid a shutdown, any three Republicans with any grievance at all could make Johnson’s already hellish life even more so.

This state of affairs, by the way, will likely persist until mid-June, when special elections to fill three remaining vacancies will finally conclude. (One seat was held by a Democrat and two, including McCarthy’s, were held by Republicans, though none are likely to change hands.) But even then, the improvement for Johnson will be minimal at best, since he’d simply be back to the pre-Suozzi status quo of being able to manage no more than three defectors.

What makes this all the more remarkable is that when Nancy Pelosi had a comparably small majority in the prior Congress, she continually made magic happen—and never lost a single roll call vote. Her successor, Hakeem Jeffries, has likewise presided over an era of extraordinary Democratic unity.

As voters cast their ballots this fall to determine control of the House, this stark contrast—between extremist meshugas and grown-up governance—will do nothing to help Republicans argue that they should remain in charge.

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House GOP can’t wait to have hearings on how old Biden really is

Posted on February 15, 2024 by Joan McCarter

House Republicans aren’t even waiting for the Justice Department to respond to their demand for the transcripts of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. They are already planning the hearing with Hur probing into how old Biden really is. Hur has been preparing for his starring role.

Hur found no evidence against Biden in the documents-handling case he was investigating, which rose to a prosecutable level. But the former Trump official needed to do a solid for Republicans, so he added in a lot of gratuitous hits on Biden’s age in his report, which legal experts have called “a partisan hit job.”

According to Axios, Hur has been consulting with fellow former Trump official Sarah Isgur, who was Trump’s Department of Justice PR flak. Isgur has been helping him prepare to “navigate a congressional hearing.” Isgur has also been making the rounds of the Sunday shows and lying about Hur’s findings. Isgur said on ABC’s “This Week,” "They found evidence that (Biden) willfully retained national security information. And even probably beyond a reasonable doubt." The report actually said "we conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," hinting at just how much of a set-up for the GOP his report was.

Biden’s team was quick to respond to Axios: “As Hur mounts his campaign, there will be another story to tell—of Hur and his deputy being two aggressive political prosecutors from the Trump administration who decided to gun for Biden in an election year for their own political futures as Republicans.”

That will be an easy case for Biden and the Democrats to make since the hearings are going to be spearheaded by two of the Republicans’ most rabid and buffoonish characters, Reps. Jim Jordan and James Comer. The chairs of the Judiciary and Oversight committees, respectively, will fight it out to see who can be the most outrageous and ridiculous in their probes to find out just how old Biden is.

The honed and smart team of Democrats led by Rep. Jamie Raskin will continue to make a mockery of the Republicans. Their “Truth Squad,” which includes Reps. Greg Casar, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, Daniel Goldman, and Jared Moskowitz, has perfected their tactics to derail hearings and flummox Republicans. On these hearings, it’ll be a piece of cake.

House GOP to launch critical investigation into just how old Biden is

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House speaker takes early vacation before he can humiliate himself even more

Posted on February 15, 2024 by Joan McCarter

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson might have wanted to take a victory lap after finally getting Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas impeached on Tuesday. Instead, the House descended into chaos again on Wednesday, and Johnson decided to call it quits on the week. Key votes scheduled for Thursday and Friday were canceled, and the House left midday Thursday for almost two weeks. It’s so bad that Republicans, including some in leadership, are running to the Capitol Hill press to complain about him and openly questioning his competence.

Wednesday hadn’t even ended before the headlines like “Republicans admit it. Kevin McCarthy has never looked so good” started appearing. It started off badly the night before, when Democrats flipped the seat of expelled New York Republican George Santos, further chipping away at the GOP’s already tiny House majority. A series of leadership missteps and acts of defiance against Johnson followed.

Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee—the committee chair responsible for the Mayorkas impeachment—announced on Wednesday that he was retiring at the end of his term because, as he told Axios, “This place is so broken.” He’s the fifth powerful committee chair to call it quits.
Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, who heads up the Intelligence Committee, went rogue on Wednesday, issuing an alarmist and vague warning about "a serious national security threat," and forcing Johnson to assure reporters that "there is no need for public alarm."
Johnson suffered another embarrassing failure on the floor on Wednesday as well, when the usual crowd of Freedom Caucus maniacs tanked another procedural vote. This is the sixth time in this Republican majority that a rule vote was defeated. This used to be rare—the last time it happened was more than 20 years ago.
And finally, also on Wednesday, Johnson pulled (for the second time in three months) a scheduled vote on a bill to overhaul FISA because he hasn’t been able to unify the conference behind one bill. Johnson’s team failed the basics of counting, announcing the vote before the votes got locked down.

All of this has Republicans, including some in leadership, anonymously telling reporters that they’re running out of patience with him. And some are going on the record.

“Watching Speaker Johnson, who I have great respect for, grow up has been really fascinating. I just hope he has the time to finish growing up,” Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma told Punchbowl News. One senior Republican said that Johnson’s leadership “feels like chaos. Rudderless.”

“I’m as confused as ever about what he wants,” a House Republican insider told Politico. “He hasn’t given us any direction. … I think right now he’s in survival mode.” Another senior GOP member said, “[Former Speaker] Kevin [McCarthy] would have a strategy, he’d shop it around, then he’d make a play call… The more I’m around Johnson, the more it’s clear to me he doesn’t have a plan.” And yet another aide told Politico, “Not sure what the speaker wants to do on that—as with most things, he’s all over the place.”

“We’re in a bad spot, and that’s the understatement of the century.” That’s a leadership source talking to Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman.

So Johnson’s House is packing up and leaving midday Thursday, a day earlier than scheduled, for a nearly two-week Presidents’ Day break. They’ll return on Feb. 28, just two days before the first government shutdown deadline, on March 1. Wheeeee!

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Ohhhhh yeah! Democrats kicked ass and then some in Tuesday's special election in New York, so of course we're talking all about it on this week's episode of "The Downballot." Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard explain how Tom Suozzi's win affects the math for Democrats' plan to take back the House, then dive into the seemingly bottomless list of excuses Republicans have been making to handwave their defeat away. The bottom line: Suozzi effectively neutralized attacks on immigration—and abortion is still a huge loser for the GOP.

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Speaker Mike Johnson finds time for impeachment stunt, but not to help Ukraine

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Mike Johnson has plenty of excuses for not taking up the Ukraine aid package the Senate passed early this week, saying that he’s just got too many serious issues on his plate to help in the fight for democracy against Russian totalitarianism. He told reporters Wednesday morning that “we have to address this seriously, to actually solve the problems and not just take political posturing as has happened in some of these other corners.”

Reporter: You yourself were part of killing the senate compromise bill. You say there need to be solutions, what are house Republicans doing to get to a solution on the border and on Ukraine? Or are you going to actually do nothing? pic.twitter.com/3CjaN9BCx0
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 14, 2024

Yes, he seriously accused Ukraine aid proponents of “political posturing” just hours after he led House Republicans in their second—barely successful—sham impeachment vote of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. By the way, that reporter’s question was spot on. Johnson effectively killed the original Senate bill that included a border security package by saying it would be dead on arrival in the House. Now he complains that the aid bill “has not one word about the border.”

Johnson also insists that he’s too busy figuring out how to avoid a government shutdown on March 1 and that it will take time for his team to “process” the Senate’s package. Guess what’s not on the House schedule this week? That’s right: Any appropriations bills to fund the government ahead of the looming deadline. Again, he was able to carve out more time to impeach Mayorkas and to force the Senate to deal with that just days before the government funding deadline.

The Senate is out until Feb. 26 and is going to have to deal with the Mayorkas impeachment as soon as they return. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer outlined the process in a statement, indicating that the House impeachment managers will “present the articles of impeachment to the Senate” as soon as they’re back in, and “[s]enators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day.”

Which means two days of valuable Senate time will be wasted on this because the Senate will never vote to convict Mayorkas, but they have to deal with it anyway. They’ll dispense with it as quickly as the Senate can do anything, but they need every hour for the long process of passing the bills to keep the government from shutting down.

That process between the House and Senate is going nowhere fast because of all the poison-pill riders about abortion, contraception, and trans issues the House Republicans crammed into their spending bills.

On top of all that, Johnson—who just spent an embarrassing week and a half of floor time impeaching one of Biden’s cabinet members—is now demanding that Biden take him seriously and have a face-to-face meeting with him on the Ukraine bill. A White House spokesperson told NBC that Johnson “needed to wrap the negotiations he has having with himself and stop delaying national security needs in the name of politics.” Biden is not included to help Johnson out of this one.

“That body language says: ‘I know I’m in a tough spot. Please bail me out,’” one Democrat involved with the supplemental aid package told NBC.

House GOP votes to impeach Mayorkas, after failing first attempt

House GOP to launch critical investigation into just how old Biden is

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House GOP to launch critical investigation into just how old Biden is

Posted on February 13, 2024 by Joan McCarter

Who could have predicted that House Republicans would use special counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s document handling for their political purposes? Hur found that while Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency,” there was not enough evidence to “establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

In the absence of actionable malfeasance on the document handling, Hur—a former United States attorney in Maryland, appointed by Donald Trump—did the next best thing he could for his Republican pals: the gratuitous hits on Biden’s age.

Enter three House committee chairs and a new avenue of investigation: Biden’s fitness as president. Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, and Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland Monday evening demanding both a transcript and any video recordings of Biden’s interview, with a Feb. 19 deadline for a response.

Axios reports that the Republicans are planning hearings starring Hur in which they will focus on Biden’s mental acuity, the national security implications of his document handling (to give “investigations” the gloss of legitimacy), and his fitness to lead. “Someone might ask him if Biden is unfit to lead,” a leadership source told Axios. “Give him a chance to frame it.”

Might? They “might” ask Hur about Biden’s fitness? They “might” take this chance to exploit Biden’s age, his biggest political liability with voters, and run with it? They absolutely will give Hur a microphone and put him in front of cameras and the traditional media will absolutely eat it up.

While Republicans are at it, Axios reports, they plan to go after Garland and how the Justice Department conducted the investigation. Call it Comer and Jordan’s revenge for the fact that they haven’t been able to get anything implicating Biden and his son Hunter from the Department of Justice for their sham impeachment.

Jordan and Comer have the blessing of their leadership to do this. Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, GOP Whip Tom Emmer, and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik released a statement last week calling Hur’s remarks on Biden’s age some of the “most disturbing parts” of the report. “A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office,” they said.

You might think that those four would have more pressing stuff to deal with, like the fact that there’s another government shutdown looming in a few weeks. Or maybe figuring out how to clean up the horrible messes Johnson has created with his inept leadership. Or just doing anything that would benefit the American people.

Actually, you probably wouldn’t think that. Why would they change course now?

Speaker Mike Johnson had a stunningly awful day—and he did it to himself

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Speaker Mike Johnson is getting squeezed from all sides on Ukraine aid

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Joan McCarter

The Senate voted to move forward on the $95 billion aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan in the first-ever Super Bowl Sunday session. The vote was 67-27, meaning that it will easily pass in the Senate when they finally get to it. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has been up to his usual obstructing tricks, refusing to agree to shortening the debate time on the bill. That means it will likely not pass until Wednesday, when all the pressure will be on House Speaker Mike Johnson to either get this bill done or prove his MAGA mettle and block it.

There’s a threat looming over Johnson from Georgia’s contribution to the dumbing-down of the nation, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has said she will bring a motion to oust him as speaker if he puts Ukraine aid on the floor. In aid of Greene’s MAGA cause, GOP Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio is circulating a conspiracy theory that the bill contains a setup to impeach Donald Trump again if he is reelected in November. The theory goes that because the bill extends aid into 2025, Trump would either be forced to honor it or face another impeachment if he cancels it.

That’s an implicit warning to House Republicans—and Johnson—to stay on Trump’s good side and block the aid. But Johnson is getting plenty of pressure from the pro-Ukraine side, including from a powerful Republican.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, recently led a delegation of members to Ukraine, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to assure him that he had allies among Republicans in Congress and that U.S. aid would continue. He returned with an urgent message for Johnson and Congress. The situation is so bad, he told Politico, that Ukrainian troops “are already rationing munitions” and “are unable to fully defend themselves on the battlefield.”

“We have to get this done,” he continued. “This is no longer an issue of, ‘When do we support Ukraine?’ If we do not move, this will be abandoning Ukraine.” He predicts that there will be “overwhelming support” for the bill in the House, adding, “The speaker will need to bring it to the floor.”

It isn’t an empty threat, because Democrats have the tool to go over Johnson's head to put the bill on the floor with a discharge petition, and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries is ready to use it. “House Democrats are prepared to use every available legislative tool to make sure we get comprehensive national security legislation over the finish line,” Jeffries said during the annual House Democrats’ strategy retreat last week. He called on Johnson to “move to consider parallel national security legislation immediately.”

The discharge petition needs 218 signatures to be put on the floor. That means as of now, they need six Republicans to join them. That math could change a little depending on the result of tomorrow’s special election in New York to replace expelled Republican George Santos. If Democrat Tom Suozzi wins, Democrats will need just five Republicans, and it sounds like Turner might be willing to be one of them.

So might Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon. "I know we need to get aid to Israel quickly, and it’s in our national security interests to keep Ukraine independent and help Ukrainians defeat Russia’s barbaric invasion by sending them military weapons,” he told Politico last week. “I’ll work with the likeminded folks and the Speaker to determine what is best way to move forward.”

There is strong support for Ukraine even among House Republicans—101 of them voted for it as recently as September. If this new package makes it to the floor, it will surely pass. Which means the stunningly incompetent Johnson has a tough decision to make: stand with Ukraine or stand with Trump?

Republicans get Ukraine demands met, so of course they change their minds

Speaker Mike Johnson had a stunningly awful day—and he did it to himself

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Speaker Mike Johnson had a stunningly awful day—and he did it to himself

Posted on February 7, 2024 by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Mike Johnson is no Nancy Pelosi. In fact, he just put himself in the running for the worst speaker in the modern age, surpassing even ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy with unforced errors. His ineptitude was on full display Tuesday when he plowed ahead with two critical bills, knowing there was a very good chance of defeat. That’s either hubris—believing he could bully his way through—or wishful thinking, but either way, it’s incompetence.

Let’s start with the failed vote on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Impeaching a cabinet secretary is a very big deal. It hasn’t been tried since 1876, when the House impeached Secretary of War William Belknap for blatant corruption, taking kickbacks to fund an extravagant lifestyle. Even then, the Senate voted to acquit (though Belknap had already resigned). So what Johnson was doing with this impeachment resolution would already have been historical, even if it hadn’t been so blatantly unjustified. This is the epitome of the kind of vote you don’t gamble on, but that’s exactly what Johnson did.

He brought the resolution to the floor Tuesday, knowing that three Republicans opposed it. Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, who was supposedly the surprise “no” vote that tanked the resolution, says he had been telling leadership for months that he was against the impeachment. And while Johnson also knew that every Democrat would vote against it, he rolled the dice on Democratic Rep. Al Green not being present—and Johnson lost, which he also knew could happen.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Johnson made his day worse by pushing through a stand-alone Israel assistance bill that needed a two-thirds majority to pass. He knew that a majority of Democrats opposed it. He knew it would fail, and he inexplicably went with it anyway, apparently thinking he could blame the Democrats for defeating it. The end result, however, is that pro-Israel groups are now worried that this sends a message that Congress is divided on support.

Is Johnson feeling any chagrin over this debacle? Nope. It’s not his fault. Asked by reporters why he gambled on the impeachment resolution, he said, “[D]emocracy is messy. … We have a razor-thin margin here, and every vote counts. Sometimes, when you’re counting votes and people show up when they’re not expected to be in the building, it changes the equation.” Those tricky Democrats, all showing up to stand for the principle that you can’t impeach an official over a policy dispute.

Asked about criticism of his leadership and inexperience, including from his fellow Republicans, he said, “I don’t think that this is a reflection on the leader. It’s a reflection on the body itself and the place where we’ve come in this country.” That’s definitely hubris because it is all a reflection on his leadership.

You know who else had a razor-thin majority in a deeply divided Congress? That’s right, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who would have never allowed such a humiliating defeat to happen. In the previous session of Congress, with the slimmest Democratic majority in the House in roughly 80 years, Pelosi passed massive legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act, American Rescue Plan Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act, all of which are helping drive the U.S. economy’s strong comeback.

Johnson’s going to try again on the impeachment resolution when Republican Rep. Steve Scalise returns following medical treatment, and on the Israel funding bill next week, but the outcome isn’t any more certain on either. Scalise might be able to return from his stem cell transplant recovery soon, or he might not. The special election to replace the expelled Rep. George Santos in New York next Tuesday could go to a Republican, or it could reduce the GOP majority by one more vote. And while Johnson is considering putting the Israel bill back on the floor through the rules process so it would just need a simple majority vote, that’s a dicey plan. One of the hard-line GOP Rules Committee members, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, is publicly trashing his leadership, saying replacing McCarthy has “officially turned into an unmitigated disaster.”

Johnson has demonstrated his incompetence and turned far-right members against him multiple times over. This debacle will only make the hard-liners madder and more ungovernable, and everyone else in the GOP conference frustrated. And this is what he has to work with to fund the government in about a month’s time.

The honeymoon is definitely over for Speaker Mike Johnson

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Rep. Matt Gaetz wants to force House GOP to take a Trump loyalty test

Posted on February 7, 2024 by Walter Einenkel

On Tuesday, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz and honorary “Florida man” Rep. Elise Stefanik, and 64 House Republicans presented a resolution to declare that Donald Trump “did not engage in insurrection or rebellion” related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Gaetz began the press conference by saying “We are here today to authoritatively express that President Trump did not commit an insurrection,”

More importantly, Gaetz made it clear that he plans to use this as a MAGA purity test. After thanking Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio for filing a companion bill in the Senate, Gaetz said, “And now it's time for members of the House and Senate to show where they stand on this question.” And just like that, Gaetz’s remarks were followed by a series of Republicans praising dear leader Trump and saying how the insurrection on Jan. 6 was a concoction by “leftists.”

“[What] we have seen is mass hysteria caused by you, the reckless leftist media,” said Rep. Andy Biggs. “That's what we've seen.”

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Stefanik flanked Gaetz during the press conference, suggesting they’ve patched things up since the two spent October bickering at one another’s expense. Gaetz’s resolution reads in its entirety:

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that former President Donald J. Trump did not engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or give aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

You can flip the paper over if you don’t believe me.

The idea that after hundreds of arrests, convictions, and prison sentences—as well as a congressional investigation that left very little to the imagination about how very much Trump and his allies orchestrated the insurrection—the horrors of Jan. 6 should be forgotten with a single-sentence resolution is almost hallucinogenic! It also signals how Trump and his supporters expect the GOP to fall in line. Those who sign on to Gaetz’s resolution will be on a list that Trump can point to and threaten Republican officials with for however long he lives.

As of now, two names are conspicuously absent from the list of sponsors of the bill: Reps. Jim Jordan and James Comer, both of whom have been doing Trump’s dirty work as chairs of House oversight committees.

Maybe they are too busy not finding evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden to sign on to a bill as ludicrous as this one. But as former Rep. Liz Cheney knows, Jordan will surely sign on to any bill pretending that Jan. 6, 2021, never happened.

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