Despite green-lighting a massive continuing resolution to keep the federal government in business, while not securing commitments for heightened border security and an end to government “weaponization,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is not in danger of being booted from his post.
The source for that ought to know; he ousted the last guy.
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said Monday that Johnson deserves a “little grace” as he juggles fighting back against the leftist demands of President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats, while trying to satisfy House conservatives like Gaetz and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Gaetz last week complained that he had voted against the “turd sandwich” continuing resolution because it did nothing about the border. He said at the time that Congress was set to fund the entire federal government as an amendment to a bill about duck hunting.
On Monday, while campaigning with former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire, the Fort Walton Beach Republican said he didn’t think Johnson was in political peril from lawmakers on the right.
He compared it to some surgeries that have “mandatory recup(eration) time” before the patient can have the same surgery again.
“That’s probably how I would view the speakership right now,” said Gaetz, who engineered the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year.
Read: Florida Reps. Matt Gaetz, Cory Mills Slam Pentagon Chief Austin For “Willful Dereliction Of Duty.”
He added that it’s not fair to “score” Johnson on the same scale as McCarthy.
Johnson now has a one-seat majority, which is one-quarter as powerful as the slim four-seat majority McCarthy inherited a year ago.
“And so we give him probably a little more grace,” Gaetz said.
Gaetz suggested Johnson could try to be a little more aggressive with the hand he’s been dealt. For example, he could attack President Joe Biden even more on the border crisis, which is beginning to affect the entire country.
“While Johnson has not yet engaged in the border fight that he must engage for us to keep our majority and for him to keep his job,” said Gaetz, “at least he is peeling back some of the stuff that we had to deal with with Kevin McCarthy.”
Gaetz reiterated, as he had said last week, that he was confident Johnson would fight for more border security when the continuing resolution expires in March.
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