First, another House Republican comes out and support a motion
to vacate the speakership.
Congressman Paul Gosar is joining what Marjorie Taylor Green and
Thomas Massey in their bid
to to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
And this comes as a House has voted to advance
a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine,
Israel and other US allies.
ABC News contributing correspondent Rachel Bay joins me now live
from Capitol Hill.
Rachel, you just spoke with Representative Thomas Massie,
who says more Republicans are going to be joining this
movement to oust Johnson.
Now we're hearing about Representative Paul Gosar.
Are there rumblings of, of other names that are being
thrown around?
Yeah, Alex, we're up to three,
three people who are on the record saying they want
Speaker Johnson to step aside or they're going to try
to oust him.
Marjorie Taylor Green, Thomas Massey,
who I just spoke to.
And now a third one,
as you just mentioned, Paul Gosar,
who is a Republican from Arizona.
But importantly, Massey just told me in an interview that
that's not going to be all that.
More people are actually going to be joining.
Take a listen to what he just said.
Yeah, I mean, the the
speaker's overdrawn on political capital and he's going to go
bankrupt after this vote where he forces through this $100
billion
foreign aid package without any border security on it.
I think there will be others to join.
The significance of having three on the motion to vacate
is that's the margin of our majority.
And it shows that without Democrats,
if this were to be called,
he would lose his seat.
Now, Massey told me that the hope of this group
that are trying to push out Johnson is that they
can grow their numbers slowly but surely.
And that like a ratchet,
he said the pressure on Johnson to step aside will
just grow.
Former Speaker John Boehner actually stepped aside and resigned
before he was ousted in a similar sort of fashion.
Tom Massey said he's hoping that basically the same thing
will occur here.
He hopes that once they get to a dozen lawmakers,
Johnson will, quote, see the writing on the wall and
we'll end up going.
So we'll see if that happens.
Alex. Well, that was great.
Great on you to, to,
to wrangle Representative Massey for,
for that interview. But I was listening to him and
he said that he believes that Speaker Johnson is overdrawn
on political capital.
What, what, what does he mean by that?
I mean, look, conservatives are furious that he's turning to
Democrats to get things done.
Usually, if you have the majority in the House,
you rely on your own party to pass legislation,
and that's not been the case here.
They have such a slim margin,
they can only lose a couple of people
to pass anything. Now they can only lose 1.
Given a number of members have actually resigned and left
Congress early,
that means that Johnson has had to turn to Democrats
to get anything moving.
That's what he's doing right now with this foreign assistance
package that's going to be passing the House tomorrow.
It's what he did on government spending a few months
ago.
It's what he did on this massive sort of surveillance
bill that they were able to pass,
sort of renew what's known as FISA.
And conservatives are saying, look,
they don't like it. And so that's why they're trying
to sort of push him out.
I guess the question I have,
though, is if they're even successful at doing this,
who do they think is they're going to replace him
with that will actually do what they want to do,
which is to sort of reject bipartisanship?
And where does that even get them,
given that Democrats control the Senate,
they control the White House,
and you got to compromise if you actually want to
move legislation,
Alex. Well, and it, it does appear to be a
caucus divided here.
But for supporters of, of,
of Speaker Johnson, I mean,
some are frustrated about this call to,
to, to vacate, right. And,
and they've, they've been pressuring him to essentially call this,
call this bluff, if you will.
Yeah, that's right, Alex. I've talked to a lot of
Republicans who say he should just rip the Band-Aid off,
call it to the floor,
and that they think if he does that,
he'll actually win. But right now,
we are saying that the numbers here,
that's not necessarily the case unless Democrats come in and
save him.
With three Republicans on the record saying they would support
a motion to oust him,
that's enough. If Democrats are not sort of in the
equation here,
if they sort of vote like they did when Kevin
McCarthy was ousted,
which is, you know, if they didn't move in to
save Kevin McCarthy,
then Johnson would become the 2nd
speaker in American history to get his gavel taken out
from under him.
Now, there are talks right now amongst Democrats to step
in and save Johnson in a way that they did
not for Kevin McCarthy.
But the reality is that if he wants to call
the bluff,
it's going to be a real risky move here.
Thank Democratic leader Kim Jeffries is is set to speak
soon.
So we'll we'll see, we'll see if he if he
weighs in on that.
But Rachel Bait, thank you for for for that update.