House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.) responded Friday to a question about whether he would vote to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) following his motion to resign. I didn’t take it.
“Well, he’s serving at the pleasure of 218 members of Congress, but I can’t defend him as speaker,” Goode told “The Hill on NewsNation” when Johnson was the leader. When asked if he deserved to be removed from his role, he replied:
Mr Goode was unhappy with the spending levels included in the bipartisan spending package passed by the House of Commons on Friday, and offered Mr Johnson some criticism. But he acknowledged that the narrow Republican majority puts the speaker in a difficult position.
“Mike Johnson is clearly in a tough spot, winning the narrowest majority in the history of this country,” Good said. “That being said, we could have fought better. We didn’t do that, so I can’t defend his performance.”
His comments came after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who was expelled from the Freedom Caucus last summer, filed a motion Friday calling for Johnson to step down. This is the same procedural move that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) used to end his term as House majority leader after less than six months.
He introduced the proposal as the House races to vote on a six-item spending package to avoid a partial government shutdown.
“This is basically a warning,” Green said, adding there was “no timeline” for forcing a vote on the motion. The resolution is not privileged and will not be considered until after the Easter holidays.
“I respect our conference. I have paid all conference dues. I am a member in good standing and do not want to cause distress to the conference or cause chaos in the House. ” she said Friday.
“But this is basically a wake-up call, and it’s time to go through a slow process and find a new Speaker of the House who’s not going to side with the Democrats, but who’s going to side with the Republicans with the Republican majority.” ,” Green said. He added that he has been one of Johnson’s most vocal critics.
Her move alienated both some moderates and far-right Republicans. Rep. Mike Lawler, a moderate Republican in the battleground district, criticized the move as “ridiculous.”
Representative Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana), a member of the Freedom Caucus, defended the speaker, calling the move a “mistake.”
“I consider Marjorie Taylor Greene a friend. She’s still my friend. But she just made a huge mistake,” Higgins said in a video Friday. “For one of our Republican colleagues to call for his removal now is truly abhorrent to me and I oppose it.”
Just before Friday’s vote on the spending package, Goode was asked about forcing a vote to remove Johnson, and he dismissed the idea.
“Every day you ask us about the status of the chair, and I don’t think anyone would have talked about the chair so bluntly or so flippantly a year ago here,” he said.
“We focused on policy, we focused on behavior, we focused on performance, or lack thereof,” Good added. “And we’re doing the same thing today.”
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