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

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.

RELATED STORIES:

House GOP’s unprecedented stunt to impeach Mayorkas fails

The honeymoon is definitely over for Speaker Mike Johnson

Defense bill deal made, hard-right House members fume

Republicans demanded border security, worked on a compromise deal with Democrats, and now want to blow the whole thing up. Biden is promising to remind Americans every day that the Republican Party is at fault for the lack of solutions to the problems they claim are most important.

Campaign Action

Republican Party suffers the most humiliating 24 hours in recent memory

Every party loses an election now and then. Both parties have spent whole decades on the outs, railing from the sidelines while their opponents controlled the agenda. However, it’s hard to think of a 24-hour period where any party has suffered so many self-inflicted disasters as the Republican Party experienced on Tuesday.

This beautiful run of disintegrating dignitas began on Monday evening when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke out to explain why the border security deal that had been negotiated over months was exactly what was needed to address “a humanitarian and security crisis of historic proportions.” Then he went behind closed doors three hours later to kill the bill on orders from Donald Trump. 

The morning opened to chaos. Sen. James Lankford, who had been McConnell’s chief negotiator on the bill, explained how it felt to be run over by a bus. McConnell, who once completely dictated the actions of Republicans in the Senate, was revealed as a sad puppet. The remaining Republicans were left stumbling over themselves, trying to justify sabotaging the best deal they’re ever going to get.

In hours Republicans took the issue at the heart of their 2024 campaign and turned it into an anchor that President Joe Biden will hang around their necks.

And their day only went downhill from there.

After a morning spent scrambling to create a reason for their actions that went beyond simple fear of Trump, Republicans got some troubling news about their golden ruler. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia took Trump to task with a 57-page decision that shredded any delusions about “absolute immunity.”

For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.

The unanimous decision was extensive and authoritative enough that experts are suggesting the Supreme Court might not consider Trump’s appeal, assuming Trump’s crack legal team manages to meet the short filing deadline provided by the appellate court.

But that was far from the end. Over on the House side of the Capitol, Republicans had cooked up the ridiculous impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for not being tougher on the border. Despite having just shot down a bill to get tougher on the border, they were determined to plunge blindly ahead under untested Speaker Mike Johnson.

Once again, Republicans learned that just because Nancy Pelosi made running a House vote look easy, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The reason Republicans were so eager to hold the vote on Tuesday evening was because they knew that Democratic Rep. Al Green was in the hospital after undergoing emergency abdominal surgery on Friday. Republicans hoped to take advantage of Green’s absence to give them a buffer against any Republican defections from their unjustified and patently ridiculous impeachment.

But with the vote already underway, Green appeared in a wheelchair to cast the decisive vote, putting the motion into a 215-215 tie. Johnson was forced to flip his vote to preserve the issue for a re-vote at a later date, resulting in a stunning and deeply embarrassing loss for the Republicans.

Democrat Al Green surprised Rs when he showed up for the Mayorkas impeachment vote tonight -- and ultimately helped Ds sink sink measure. (It will pass when when Scalise returns.) But Dem leaders were ready. "It was not a surprise," House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told me pic.twitter.com/HpyJbWBt75

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 7, 2024

And the night still wasn’t over.

Earlier in the week, Republicans had prepared a stand-alone aid package for Israel in hopes that they could avoid having to vote on the Ukraine assistance and border security bill they had demanded for months. Johnson tried to push the Israel assistance package through using an accelerated procedure that required two-thirds of the votes. 

Proving once again that counting is considered higher math for this Republican team, that bill also failed, falling over 30 votes short.

Republicans have suggested that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who missed the Tuesday night vote while undergoing cancer treatment, will be back on Wednesday so they can call a do-over. However, there is disagreement on this point.

Scalise’s office tells me his return “won’t be tomorrow” https://t.co/ZxyY0McK3S

— Morgan Phillips (@_phillipsmorgan) February 7, 2024

But if there is one thing this Republican-led House knows how to do, it’s hold one humiliating vote after another. So they will probably make it happen someday. 

But even after these two disastrous votes, the day still wasn’t over.

Soon after Johnson finally gaveled an end to fruitless efforts in the House, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel announced that she was stepping down. McDaniel has been under heavy pressure from Trump for failing to keep the RNC coffers filled with cash. 

McDaniel is the niece of Sen. Mitt Romney, but she stopped using her family name at Trump’s request. Now he has essentially fired her. As usual, Trump’s idea of loyalty is strictly one-way.

Republicans are rolling into the new day with absolutely nothing to show for surrendering everything to Trump. The best bill they could have hoped to negotiate is gone, they didn’t get their sham impeachment, they didn’t get their Israel-without-Ukraine funding package, and the chair of the party is packing up to leave. Meanwhile, Trump is entering the day with a much greater chance that he will face criminal proceedings before the election.

There aren’t a lot of New York Times headlines that bear repeating, but this one works:  

And it’s only Wednesday.

Campaign Action

House GOP’s unprecedented stunt to impeach Mayorkas fails

In a stunning collapse, House Republicans failed Tuesday to approve the impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, with four Republicans voting against it. Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Tom McClintock of California, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and Blake Moore of Utah—who switched his vote at the last minute to be able to bring it to a vote again—joined Democrats to defeat the resolution.

One of those Republicans had an all-too rare moment of honesty in this debate, with McClintock calling the impeachment what it was: a “stunt.” 

“Cabinet secretaries can't serve two masters. They can be impeached for committing a crime related to their office but not for carrying out presidential policy,” McClintock said Tuesday on the floor, adding that this issue is one that needs to be decided at the ballot box in November. “I'm afraid that stunts like this don't help."

How much of a stunt is it? Republicans have tacitly admitted that the move has been purely political from the beginning, driven as it was by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. In fact, Greene is so instrumental to this impeachment push that prior to the vote, it was reported that she had been tapped to be an impeachment manager in the Senate, presenting the supposed case to the chamber. 

It’s also nearly unprecedented. The House hasn’t attempted to impeach a Cabinet member since 1876. But what’s more unprecedented is the House leadership advancing such an historic vote when the outcome was uncertain. Democratic Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi would never have dreamed of bringing a vote of this magnitude to the floor without knowing she had the votes to get it done—nor would former GOP Speakers Paul Ryan or John Boehner have done so, for that matter.

Instead, newbie Speaker Mike Johnson played to his MAGA base. “There is no other measure for Congress to take but this one,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday, ahead of the vote. “It’s an extreme measure, but extreme times call for extreme measures.”

RELATED STORIES:

Republicans got exactly what they wanted. Now they’re trying to kill it

Watch: Republicans slammed for 'debasing and demeaning' the Constitution

Republicans admit impeaching Mayorkas is all politics

Campaign Action

Even Lou Dobbs seems tired of the Hunter Biden investigation

The Republican Party’s evidence-less investigation of Hunter Biden’s business affairs continues to reveal … nothing new or criminal on the part of President Joe Biden. Rep. Andy Biggs is on the Republican Hunter Biden fishing expedition committee, which is chaired by Rep. James Comer. Biggs went on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” to discuss all of the nothing he has been able to find on Joe and Hunter Biden.

Biggs tells Dobbs that while they think Hunter Biden is guilty of something, they clearly do not have enough evidence to do anything legal about it. Dobbs, whose painting of Howdy Doody in the attic must look ancient by now, seems pretty fed up with it all.

Congressman, I have to say to you, it sounds to me like we're right where we were six months ago. It really does. I don't see any advancement in this, and a progress toward incriminating evidence for the president. I mean, what we're talking about is a stasis. It's as if everything is frozen right there in time, waiting for either contradiction, invalidation of these statements by people, that I think everyone would assume common sense tells you that they're lying through their teeth and trying to protect someone. But that's insufficient.

It’s hard to argue against the fact that every witness Comer and others have claimed would provide the smoking gun evidence against President Joe Biden has fallen flat or had it blow up in their faces. In fact, these witnesses have ended up supporting the idea that Biden didn’t do anything wrong in regards to supporting his wayward son. 

Oversight Democrats, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, have continued to point out that real issues of oversight remain untouched by the Republican-led committees in the House. Issues like the catastrophic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, last year. GOP leaders like Donald Trump were quick to blame Joe Biden and fundraise a lot of cash on the tragedy, but were unwilling to lift a finger to investigate what could be done to mitigate such disasters in the future. 

Republicans and their propaganda outlets have been screeching about how much of a crisis there is on the border, and how badly we need security. Instead of working out a deal, House Republicans begin a constitutionally dubious impeachment stunt against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Then when Senate Democrats worked out a deal with Senate Republicans—a deal that is in no way progressive but might at least help fulfill some of our promised foreign aid obligations—Republicans turned around and tried to kill it.

The Republican Party is a depressingly dangerous political theater troupe at this point. The only thing they seem able to do now is demand action, create committee witch hunts, and when Democratic lawmakers and Joe Biden call them on their bluster, become impotently angry. Whether Dobbs’ seeming exhaustion is indicative of a meaningful trend among any of the people who still pay attention to him remains to be seen.

Campaign Action

It is primary season, and Donald Trump seems pretty low energy these days. Kerry and Markos talk about the chances of Trump stumbling through the election season and the need to press our advantage and make gains in the House and Senate. Meanwhile, the right-wing media world is losing its collective minds about Taylor Swift registering younger Americans to vote!

Yes, the House GOP really will try to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas

The House is scheduled to vote Tuesday afternoon on impeaching Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but the outcome isn’t at all assured. It’s a numbers game for Republican leadership, with two party members publicly opposing impeachment and a handful undecided. The very slim majority of Republicans means that leadership can likely lose only three of their members and pass the impeachment resolution.

The latest Republican “no” vote comes from Rep. Tom McClintock of California, who announced his opposition Tuesday morning. “Do Republicans really wish to establish an expansive view of impeachment that will surely be turned against conservatives on the Supreme Court or a future Republican president if Congress changes hands?” McClintock wrote in his statement. He joined Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, who was the first Republican to publicly say he’d vote against impeachment. 

In addition to McClintock and Buck, Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin voiced his reservations in a conference meeting Tuesday morning, saying that this would lower the standard for impeachment. And there are at least three Republicans who have publicly declared they are undecided: Reps. David Joyce of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the former speaker pro tempore. 

The Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green of Tennessee apparently didn’t make a compelling case for the principles of impeaching Mayorkas during that Tuesday morning meeting, instead attacking Mayorkas personally, calling him, “a reptile with no balls” because he refused to resign. That’s hardly a principled argument for high crimes and misdemeanors.

This impeachment is purely political and entirely baseless, and most Republicans know it. Also this: 

The Republican Party, in a nutshell: On Monday, they're going to kill the harshest immigration deal in decades because their nominee wants to run on the issue. On Tuesday, they're going to launch an impeachment inquiry on the DHS Secretary for not being harsher on immigration.

— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) February 5, 2024

That helps Democrats make the case against it, pointing out that impeachment is no solution to what Republicans like to call the border crisis, and that it’s purely a political distraction. Here’s a statement from President Joe Biden’s administration:

Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas would be an unprecedented and unconstitutional act of political retribution that would do nothing to solve the challenges our Nation faces in securing the border. [...]

The impeachment power was never intended as a device for members of an opposing political party to harass Executive Branch officials over policy disputes. [...]

Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas would trivialize this solemn constitutional power and invite more partisan abuse of this authority in the future.

It’s as likely as not that all but three Republicans fall into line with their MAGA counterparts and move ahead with this baseless impeachment—one that’s sure to be buried by the Senate. This is yet another test of principle for Republicans, and one that the majority will gleefully fail.

RELATED STORIES:

House Democrats come hard at GOP in Mayorkas impeachment hearing

Republicans admit impeaching Mayorkas is all politics

Republicans would rather campaign on the border crisis than solve it

Campaign Action

GOP congressman admits Mayorkas impeachment is bogus

House Republicans caught some friendly fire on Thursday, when Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado went on MSNBC to say that GOP members pushing for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment would not get his support. Calling the process “wrong,” Buck told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing, “This is not a high crime or misdemeanor. It’s not an impeachable offense. This is a policy difference.”

The Colorado Republican went so far as to admonish his party, saying, “If we go down this path of impeachment with a Cabinet official, we are opening a door, as Republicans, that we don’t want to open.” When asked if he might change his mind, Buck said that unless new evidence materialized, it was unlikely since he has done his “due diligence” and doesn’t see any impeachable actions on the part of the secretary.

Republicans have repeatedly admitted that their attacks on Mayorkas are purely political. The idea that there might be legal reasons for impeachment seems to have escaped them entirely. For their part, House Democrats have been using these circus impeachment proceedings to point out how deleterious this political theater is to our country while also reminding voters about the absurd “solutions” that  Donald Trump and his MAGA lawmakers have for our country’s problems—the same problems Republicans are choosing not to address with policy, in favor of this this stunt impeachment.

Buck, who is retiring and leaving his seat to the wolves, now seems free to point out some of the more egregious actions of his fellow Republicans. He joins the GOP officials who have fallen out of favor with their political party—for not setting the world on fire—and who have become prone to pointing out how crappy their new members are

Campaign Action

It is primary season, and Donald Trump seems pretty low energy these days. Kerry and Markos talk about the chances of Trump stumbling through the election season and the need to press our advantage and make gains in the House and Senate. Meanwhile, the right-wing media world is losing its collective minds about Taylor Swift registering younger Americans to vote!

House Democrats come hard at GOP in Mayorkas impeachment hearing

Following a contentious 15-hour debate, the House Homeland Security Committee voted in the wee hours of Wednesday morning to approve the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The vote was strictly on party lines, 18-15, and Democrats used amendments and procedural motions to score plenty of hits against congressional Republicans for being the tools of Donald Trump.

One of those motions included having the clerk read aloud all amendments, including one from Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell that blasted the Republicans for using this impeachment to boost the campaign of Trump, “a narcissistic, hateful liar who was found by a court of law to have raped and defamed at least one woman,” and who is “currently facing 91 criminal charges for a wide variety of alleged offenses, including a felony conspiracy to defraud the United States.” 

Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California had fun ridiculing Trump for his brilliant border plans, which have included “alligator moats, bombing northern Mexico, shooting migrants in the legs, and electrifying the fence, and putting spikes on them.”

Committee Democrats didn’t just take on Trump. They were having none of the MAGA nonsense from Republican committee members. Here’s Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island taking on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene:

Magaziner: It’s pretty rich hearing the Rep. Greene express concern about terrorism when she was selling defund the FBI shirts and hats for $30. The leading agency tasked with combatting terrorism.. I’m not going to take any lectures from her on securing the homeland from terror pic.twitter.com/GUqput7zR8

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 31, 2024

“It’s pretty rich hearing the gentlewoman from Georige express her concern about terrorism when she literally was selling ‘defund the FBI’ T-shirts and hats on her website for $30 apiece,” Magaziner said. “The leading law enforcement agency tasked with combating terrorism in this country and keeping people safe, and she wants to defund it,” he continued. “I’m not going to take any lectures from her on securing this homeland from terror.”

Democrats also pointed out Republican actions to stymie Mayorkas, including lawsuits that hamper him from enforcing the law. “When the secretary and the administration has tried to use their limited authority to change policy to limit the number of people coming to the border, to streamline the process, to make it go through ports of entry, Republicans filed lawsuits to stop the administration from doing it,” Rep. Dan Goldman of New York correctly pointed out

Goldman: The hypocrisy of you sitting here and accusing Mayorkas of failing to enforce the law when you are going to court to prevent him from enforcing the law… pic.twitter.com/YqtEsFsAXk

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 31, 2024

Republicans eventually shut down amendments from Democrats, playing into the Democrats’ hands. Ranking Democratic member Bennie Thompson of Mississippi blasted Republicans in a statement at the end of the night, criticizing them for shutting down debate “of their sham impeachment articles in the dark of night.

“They were either uncomfortable being confronted by the facts or they lacked the stamina to entertain a fulsome debate of a resolution the Committee entertained to buy off Marjorie Taylor Greene and the extreme MAGA Republicans who have taken over the Republican conference,” he said. That is also true—this sham was spearheaded by Greene.

The impeachment resolution is likely to come to the House floor next week, where its passage isn’t assured. There are still at least a few Republicans who have not committed to impeaching a cabinet official over a policy disagreement, and the Republican majority is so tiny that leadership can’t afford much defection. The Democratic conference is as united against the resolution as the committee Democrats are, and the impeachment won’t go anywhere in the Senate.

This isn’t about immigration policy, of course. This is about fighting President Joe Biden on immigration, which is just about the only issue Republicans have working in their favor in this election. Republican lawmakers themselves admit that.

RELATED STORIES:

Republicans admit impeaching Mayorkas is all politics

Republicans would rather campaign on the border crisis than solve it

Congressman shreds Trump's worst 'ideas' for border security

Campaign Action

It is primary season, and Donald Trump seems pretty low energy these days. Kerry and Markos talk about the chances of Trump stumbling through the election season and the need to press our advantage and make gains in the House and Senate. Meanwhile, the right-wing media world is losing its collective minds about Taylor Swift registering younger Americans to vote!

Congressman shreds Trump’s worst ‘ideas’ for border security

The House Homeland Security Committee convened on Tuesday to discuss and vote on two Republican-led articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The Democratic members of the committee decided to take a two-pronged approach to managing today’s proceedings.

First, they pointed out how overtly political this impeachment process has been, and second, Democrats stressed how Republicans spend most of their time and energy complaining about border security while fighting tooth and nail to stop anything from actually being done about border security. That obstructionism includes trying to impeach Mayorkas.

Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California used his time to detail how “Donald Trump and House Republicans also have their own ideas for the border” and went on to helpfully list these actual proposed solutions. 

So let's review the majority’s border ideas, that they've actually presented. Here they are:

Donald Trump actually has said that he wants to build alligator moats along the border. That's one of his incredible ideas. 

Another idea that Donald Trump has promoted is he actually wants to electrify the border fence, and maybe even put some spikes on the border. That's another Donald Trump and MAGA-majority border idea. 

Another idea, which I'm not sure how well it would go, is he wants to actually bomb northern Mexico with missiles. That's another Trump idea.

And finally, I think one of the ones that I think is the most grotesque, is suggestions that instead we should maybe just shoot migrants in the legs as they cross the border. So once again, the Donald Trump and MAGA plan is alligator moats, bombing northern Mexico, shooting migrants in the legs, and electrifying the fence, and putting spikes on them. That is the Donald Trump border plan. 

And so again, we are here today with these horrific ideas being presented constantly by the former president. This is all about trying to get Donald Trump reelected. Donald Trump himself is saying he wants no solutions this year out of the Congress. And Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden continue to offer solutions every day and are ready to actually talk about real immigration and border solutions in this country.

The Republican Party has admitted too many times that these committee hearings and impeachment pushes are entirely political maneuvers, fueled by petty revenge and attempted power grabs. These partisan performances have nothing to do with the checks and balances in our Constitution.

Campaign Action

It is primary season, and Donald Trump seems pretty low energy these days. Kerry and Markos talk about the chances of Trump stumbling through the election season and the need to press our advantage and make gains in the House and Senate. Meanwhile, the right-wing media world is losing its collective minds about Taylor Swift registering younger Americans to vote!