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What's next after MTG fails in bid to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC, shares his perspective on US politics.
This is what we're watching in US Politics this week: More turmoil in the House.
Georgia member Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's made quite a name for herself as an outspoken opponent of Republican leadership and a prolific fundraiser online, this week triggered another motion to vacate the speaker. The second this year. Only this time it was against Mike Johnson, the speaker who replaced Kevin McCarthy after he was removed during a motion to vacate earlier in the year.
The big change this time was that Democrats rallied to Johnson's side, defending him against the Republicans that tried to take him out and resoundingly defeating the measure, which really takes a lot of the wind out of the sails of future rebellions against the Republican speaker at least for the rest of 2024. Democrats and moderate Republicans are both tired of this level of chaos and want to defang the Republicans, who want to make life harder for the leader of the House of Representatives. That doesn't mean they're all allies now however. Mike Johnson is going to spend the rest of the year pushing very partisan measures across the floor of the House of Representatives in order to draw a contrast between Republicans and Democrats that voters understand when they go to cast a ballot in November. There will be a very small number of must pass legislation coming up.
Right now, Congress is working on reauthorization of the FAA. Later in the year, they're going to have to once again pass a budget bill to keep the government funded. Those will probably be very bipartisan measures. And one of the big ironies of the extreme polarization that's happening in the House, including within the Republican faction, is that the House is now effectively functioning more like the bipartisan Senate, which requires a supermajority of 60 senators, and which is always a bipartisan coalition in order to get almost anything done.
That's now the situation that the House finds itself in. The House is typically the significantly more partisan body. But because of the Republican dissenters against Johnson, they've turned the House into a much more bipartisan place, which really won't get much done this year. So one lesson from Marjorie Taylor Greene this week is that if she comes to the king, she better not miss, she came for the king and she missed. And now she's going to find herself on the outs with the Republicans, probably for the rest of the year.
Thanks for watching. Tune in next week.
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- Mike Johnson has a plan to avert the shutdown – will it work? ›
- Meet Mike Johnson, US House Speaker & DC's most Googled person ›
- Trump bigfoots House Speaker Johnson ›
- Chaos on Campus: Speaker Johnson's visit fans the flames at Columbia as protests go global ›
Mayorkas impeachment: Reps. Lofgren & Spartz on House vote on DHS secretary
The US House of Representatives is voting on a Republican-led resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the immigration crisis on the southern border. On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sat down with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), who both sit on the House Immigration subcommittee, moments before the vote took place for their thoughts on the first impeachment of a cabinet secretary in modern history.
“[The impeachment] has nothing to do with meeting the constitutional standards,” Lofgren, former chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, tells Bremmer, “It’s a complete waste of time.”
House Democrats say the vote is unconstitutional and politically motivated, but the GOP, which has a razor-thin three-vote majority in the House, accuse Mayorkas of a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and beaching public trust.
“I always believe that ultimate responsibility lays [with] the top executive,” GOP Rep. and Ukrainian American Spartz argues, “We need to send the message that can’t allow executives not to do their duty to the public.”
Watch the full interview on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on public television beginning this Saturday, February 10. Check local listings.
Meet Mike Johnson, US House Speaker & DC's most Googled person
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC, shares his perspective on US politics.
Who is Mike Johnson?
Mike Johnson became the most commonly Googled person in Washington, DC, this week when he won a surprising bid for the House speakership after Republicans failed to rally around multiple nominations from across their caucus once they removed former speaker Kevin McCarthy from his seat several weeks ago.
Johnson is a fourth-term congressman from Louisiana who is somewhere in the middle of the Republican conference, If you look at his voting record and ideological positions. He's got a lot of attention from the media for his role, both in trying to overturn the 2020 election results and also some of his comments on Social Security, Medicare, and abortion. But this is really a mainstream Republican House member who is going to struggle in his new role as speaker, having no leadership experience or any experience in passing bills whatsoever.
That lack of experience will be tested almost immediately with the upcoming November 17th government shutdown deadline and a bipartisan push to provide up to $106 billion in additional aid for Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel, and, of course, securing the southern border. That package probably would pass the House and Senate overwhelmingly once it comes together out of the Senate. But Johnson himself is trying to leverage his role as speaker, along with his fellow conservatives, to get cuts and appropriate spending starting in 2024.
And that's going to be the big story of early next year, because what's likely to happen is that Johnson will punt government funding and take the threat of a government shutdown off the table into January or maybe even April. And make the rest of this year, this fight about foreign aid.
- The House Republican circus rolls on ›
- McCarthy is ousted as House speaker. What comes next? ›
- Paralyzed US House is an “absolute nightmare” - Sen. Chris Murphy ›
- House Republicans will vote yet again ›
- Biden's 2024 prospects slip even as Democrats make gains - GZERO Media ›
- What's next after MTG fails in bid to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson - GZERO Media ›
Speakerless House shows weakness to US adversaries, says Rep. Mike Waltz
It's not a particularly comfortable moment to be a House Republican on Capitol Hill. Unable to agree on a Speaker, the House remains paralyzed and unable to do crucial work on a wide array of domestic and foreign policy priorities. Israel, of course, is at the top of that list. Republican Congressman Mike Waltz worries that the paralysis on Capitol Hill is playing right into the hands of America's adversaries.
"Our adversaries smell weakness in Washington right now," Rep. Waltz tells Ian Bremmer on an episode of GZERO World. "We need to get our act together and move the country forward." And yet, the House remains without a Speaker. What will it take to remove this logjam and get the House back to work?
Watch more on this episode: America's tightrope walk with the Israel-Hamas war
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Paralyzed US House is an “absolute nightmare” - Sen. Chris Murphy
A House (of bickering Republicans) divided against itself, cannot stand. Forgive the redux of Abraham Lincoln's famous quote, but it seems particularly relevant in light of another week of total paralysis on Capitol Hill. Namely, within the House Republican caucus.
According to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who sat down with Ian Bremmer for an interview on GZERO World, the chaos in the House chamber due to Republicans' inability to nominate a House speaker may, in fact, be a feature, not a bug. "The House is just an absolute nightmare, and it's a really bad look for the United States. It weakens President Biden's credibility abroad."
"Republicans are weakening America and weakening people's faith in government, but it has national security consequences when people don't know whether, even the things we have perfect consensus on, like support for Israel, can actually get a vote and pass."
Watch more on this episode: America's tightrope walk with the Israel-Hamas war
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
- Jordan’s shot for the speaker, close to no avail ›
- McCarthy is ousted as House speaker. What comes next? ›
- GOP-led US House will get tougher on China — but not as much as you'd think ›
- Paralyzed US House can’t even wave to Israel ›
- Meet Mike Johnson, US House Speaker & DC's most Googled person - GZERO Media ›
A collage showing the US Capitol, former US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Washington chaos rings alarm bells in Ukraine and Europe
You’ve heard the news. Rebel Republicans and unsympathetic Democrats ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his job yesterday. That post is now officially “vacant.” For now, Patrick McHenry (R-NC) holds the post of Speaker Pro Tempore to ensure there’s someone there to keep the lights on and the process moving toward the election of a new speaker.
Americans (and the world) are now trying to figure out what it all means. But keep in mind, this has never happened before. The only previous attempt to fire a speaker of the US House of Representatives failed, and that was 113 years ago. The cliché “uncharted waters” fits perfectly here.
But … you’ve got questions, lots of questions, and I’m here to give you the best available answers.
We just survived a shutdown threat last weekend. Should we expect more of these congressional showdowns?
Absolutely. Current funding for the government runs out on Nov. 17, and we may not have a speaker to make a deal by then. Even if the House is able to elect a new speaker well before then, that person may feel obliged to continue this game of legislative chicken well into next year by continuing to offer only short-term government funding deals in exchange for concessions from Democrats. In short, the “shutdown showdowns” have only just begun.
Who will be the next speaker?
Get ready for a potentially bloody fight among Republicans. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), conservative Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Kevin Hern (R-OK) have already made moves to enter the race, but there will be more names. For now, Scalise has the most friends with votes, so he’s the early favorite.
Can McHenry, the temporary speaker, get stuff done while we wait?
Again, we’re in uncharted waters. McHenry, McCarthy’s hand-picked successor, has an open-ended ability to preside over House business. There are no rules that prevent him from holding the job indefinitely.
But because this has never happened in American history, the limits of McHenry’s authority aren’t clear. The House parliamentarian is the person with the responsibility to tell us what the rules say. (Be glad you don’t have that job.) Whatever the rules-interpreter/rules-keeper decides will create a precedent.
What does all this chaos mean for Ukraine?
It’s bad news for Volodymyr Zelensky, to be sure. It’s possible that Congress will approve new money for Ukraine before the end of the year, but it’s looking a lot less likely now than it did a few days ago. There are a sizeable number of House Republicans who don’t want the US to send more money to Ukraine, certainly not the additional $40 billion that President Joe Biden wants.
Step back for a moment to last weekend, when most of us were breathing a deep sigh of relief that the shutdown had been averted. To get that deal, pro-Ukraine Democrats had agreed (at least temporarily) to pull new Ukraine funding from the budget deal. They fully intended to fight over that another day, but they set a precedent that Ukraine aid was a bargaining chip they were willing to put on the table.
Anti-Ukraine-aid Republicans saw that, and now they’ll want that concession every time they bargain with Democrats to keep the government open.
OK, so why didn’t Democrats save McCarthy yesterday? They could have done that, right?
Yes, they could have. But the Dems felt McCarthy had backed away from too many promises to deserve saving. From the Dems’ point of view, McCarthy went from condemning Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and calling for an investigation of his responsibility to backing Trump and then to launching an impeachment process against Biden. Democrats made clear early yesterday they had no intention of bailing out a speaker they neither liked nor trusted.
But the Democrats do want to support Ukraine, right? Haven’t they left Ukraine in a precarious place?
Yes, they have.
Here are the scenarios that could protect near-term US aid for Ukraine …
- Republicans could elect a speaker who’s willing to defy dozens of his fellow Republican members of Congress to pass a bill that includes billions more for Ukraine.
- Or Democrats in the Senate could refuse to compromise on Ukraine aid and dare Republicans to shut down the US government.
Neither is all that likely.
By the way, it’s not that all US financial help for Ukraine has stopped. The Pentagon still has $5 billion in additional aid and drawdown authority in its budget. That will meet some of Ukraine’s needs in the coming months.
So, what’s the lasting damage from all this?
Ukraine’s leaders now know the US isn’t a reliable long-term backer, even with a supportive president and the backing of most members of Congress. And they know they’ll have to fight their war differently now. They’ll have to keep more firepower in reserve to be sure they don’t run out of weapons and ammo at a time when new supplies aren’t coming.
They knew that was a risk tied to Trump and next November’s US election. But now, Kyiv must deal with this risk immediately.
Washington’s chaos is also ringing alarm bells across Europe, where leaders know that, particularly on the weapons front, they can’t backfill what will be lost if supplies from Washington begin to run dry.
And the Europeans have to think about their own security. What, they wonder, does all this mean for NATO if this is the future of the Republican Party in America?
In short, a lot of trust has been lost, and it takes much longer to rebuild trust than it does to lose it.
Ousted U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
McCarthy is ousted as House speaker. What comes next?
In a historic first, the most powerful Republican has been ousted.
After just nine months on the job, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was booted on Tuesday when Democrats joined eight Republicans in backing a vote calling for his ouster. Crucially, the vote was brought by the right flank of McCarthy’s party.
How’d we get here? A handful of anti-establishment, far-right Republicans have opposed McCarthy’s speakership from the get-go, but the immediate trigger was the speaker’s decision to work with Democrats over the weekend to pass a temporary spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. Though that stopgap measure, which will expire on Nov. 17, did not include more aid for Ukraine, McCarthy did agree to introduce a separate measure to dole out more funds to Kyiv, infuriating far-right members of his caucus.
The House is now in uncharted territory. The bruised and battered McCarthy, who appeared to relish the job he fought tooth and nail for back in January, said late Tuesday that he would not put his hat back in the ring, and it's unclear who might replace him. Going forward, the tear-it-all-down wing of the party, though small, likely won’t be inclined to back any lawmaker they consider to be part of the GOP establishment they despise, and so it’s unclear who – if anyone – will be able to reap the 218 votes needed to become speaker.
The repercussions are huge. As Congress controls the purse strings, the House and Senate must pass appropriation bills to fund the federal government before the current measure lapses in mid-November. Failure to do so could cause major losses for the US economy (more on that here).
Given the unprecedented nature of the situation, it’s unclear how long it’ll take to vote on a new speaker and whether the temporary speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a McCarthy ally, will bring bills to the floor for a vote.
While this chaos dims the chances of the House passing a spending bill before the mid-November deadline, it also makes the future of US aid to Ukraine increasingly murky. That’s because the right flank of the GOP vehemently opposes ongoing aid to Ukraine, and a new speaker might not want to push the matter given how it panned out for McCarthy.
Despite the fact that a majority of US lawmakers support ongoing aid for Ukraine, it’s the speaker of the House who decides which bills come to the floor for a vote.
A sign of the depths of disarray? When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked a GOP lawmaker on Tuesday evening whether he anticipates a new speaker will be tapped soon, he replied: “I have no earthly idea, brother.”
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in DC, shares his thoughts on what’s likely to come next after McCarthy’s ouster. Tune in here.