Former firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz, who instigated the House GOP toppling of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year, declared that resistance to House Speaker Mike Johnson “is now futile” in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s endorsement.
But that and Trump’s endorsement did nothing to pacify Johnson’s most outspoken House critic, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who had come out in opposition to his speakership bid.
“I respect and support President Trump, but his endorsement of Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan,” Massie replied on X, posting an image of an article detailing Trump’s past support for former House GOP leader Ryan.
“We’ve seen Johnson partner with the democrats to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget.”
Massie, 53, who endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 GOP primary and feuded with Trump in the past, has been peeved at Johnson’s handling of spending fights and last week promised to vote for another speaker.
The Kentucky rep was one of the GOP hardliners who opposed Gaetz’s bid to topple McCarthy in the fall of last year.
Gaetz, 42, who opposed the most recent attempt to depose Johnson (R-La.), 52, in May, warned that jettisoning the Louisianian from the speakership could imperil certification of Trump’s electoral victory.
“Trump endorsing Johnson is ‘art of the deal’ level practicality. We could never have held up McCarthy two years ago for concessions if a Trump certification hung in the balance. Now, it does,” Gaetz wrote on X.
“We were able to hold up McCarthy because Republican voters weren’t all that eager to see us getting back to being Biden’s bitch (which Kevin ultimately did anyway). The resistance to @SpeakerJohnson is now futile.”
Earlier in the day Monday, Trump bestowed on Johnson his “complete & total endorsement,” in which he warned Republicans not to “BLOW THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN.”
The speakership vote is slated to take place this Friday, Jan. 3, 2025, which is three days before the certification of the 2024 election occurs next Monday.
When the House of Representatives lacks a speaker, it is largely limited to the grovel for the gavel. In theory, though, the lower chamber might be able to tweak the rules to allow for a caretaker speaker.
Republicans are set to have a threadbare majority in the lower chamber, leaving little breathing room for Johnson. McCarthy had taken 15 votes before locking down the speaker’s gavel in January last year.
Other equivocating Republicans indicated that Trump’s endorsement did not move them much.
“I understand why President Trump is endorsing Speaker Johnson as he did Speaker Ryan, which is definitely important. However, we still need to get assurances that @SpeakerJohnson won’t sell us out to the swamp,” Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) wrote on X with an article about Trump backing Ryan and late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Ryan retired from Congress halfway through Trump’s first term in the Oval Office.
After Trump’s endorsement of Johnson, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) told Fox News that he also hasn’t “publicly or privately committed yet.”
“I do want to speak [with] the speaker just to see what his plans are, because there are some issues that I think need to be worked out.”
Instead of maneuvering to oust Johnson, Gaetz believes his former colleagues should focus on working to “make him the best version of himself (which was more like the 2023 vintage of Mike).”
Gaetz had spearheaded the revolt against McCarthy (R-Calif.) in the fall last year after the former speaker pushed through a stopgap measure to avert a government shutdown. He was joined by seven other Republicans and a solid bloc of Democrats.
The mutiny ground Congress to a halt for nearly a month as Republicans battled over whom to anoint as their next speaker. Trump opposed the toppling of McCarthy.
Ironically, in the time since, Johnson wrangled through five similar stopgap measures to forestall a shutdown and Gaetz neglected to pine to oust him. Gaetz opposed an effort to oust him in May after Johnson pushed through a packaged replenishing aid to war-torn Ukraine.
McCarthy has long accused Gaetz of conspiring to oust him due to his refusal to intervene in the House Ethics Committee investigation into him.
Last week, the panel released a damning report on Gaetz which unfurled accusations that the former rep used illegal drugs, paid women for sex and had sex with a minor.
Gaetz has denied having sex with a minor but admitted to being a womanizer who drank and smoked during his partying days. He stepped down from the 118th Congress last month after Trump tapped him as US attorney general — a gambit that went up in flames.
The Sunshine State Republican is set to debut a political show on One America News Network and has seemingly ruled out returning to the 119th Congress.
