Momentum grows to remove Johnson over potential change to ouster rule

Momentum is growing quickly behind the effort to remove Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from power if he moves to alter the motion to vacate rule as part of a package of foreign aid that’s expected to pass through the House this weekend.

Johnson is reportedly flirting with a proposal to raise the threshold for forcing a vote on a motion to vacate, which can currently be called by a single lawmaker. That would reverse an agreement that former GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) cut with conservatives in January of last year as a condition of gaining their support for his Speakership.

Johnson, for his part, denied Thursday that he is considering such a modification. But during an interview Wednesday with CNN, the Speaker said the ouster mechanism “has been abused in recent times,” adding “maybe, at some point, we change that.”

The denial has done little to mollify the conservatives, who huddled with Johnson for a long and tense discussion on the chamber floor Thursday — a meeting that featured plenty of yelling. Afterward, some of the conservatives said they’re ready to support a motion to vacate if Johnson endorses the rule change making it harder to launch that very process. 

“It’s a red line for me, for sure,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) told reporters after the gathering broke up.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who led the effort to oust McCarthy from the Speakership in October, would not commit to supporting Johnson’s removal over the rule change but suggested that it could be the last straw for him.

“I think a motion to vacate is something that could put the conference in peril, and Ms. Boebert and I were working to avoid that,” Gaetz said. “Our goal is to avoid a motion to vacate. But we are not going to surrender that accountability tool, particularly in a time when we are seeing America’s interests subjugated to foreign interests abroad.”

The increased chatter around Johnson’s potential removal comes as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) continues to dangle her motion to vacate over the Speaker’s head. Greene has not said when she plans to trigger a vote on her resolution, but she’s been a loud and forceful critic of Johnson’s performance since he replaced McCarthy, particularly over his willingness to negotiate deals with Democrats on prominent issues like federal spending, government surveillance and, most recently, aid to Ukraine and other democratic allies overseas. 

Johnson is attempting to placate his conservative critics by splitting the components of a Senate-passed foreign aid package into three separate pieces providing aid to Ukraine, Israel and Indo-Pacific allies, including Taiwan. And he’s seeking to sweeten the deal further with two additional bills, one on a host of foreign aid proposals favored by Republicans, including provisions to ease the financial burden on U.S. taxpayers, and the second to strengthen security at the southern U.S. border. 

All five bills are expected to hit the floor on Saturday. 

But while the effort has secured the backing of President Biden, it’s failed to win over the conservatives it was designed to appease. 

“He’s serving Ukraine first and America last, and that would be the worst thing to do,” Greene said. “I can’t think of a worse betrayal ever to happen in United States history. And here’s what’s really ironic: the constitutional attorney, Mike Johnson, is literally betraying the American people in order to keep his grip of power on the Speakership.”

Punchbowl News reported Thursday morning that top House GOP leaders and aides were adding a change to the motion to vacate in the rule for the foreign aid legislation.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who sits on the Rules Committee and has backed Grenee’s motion to vacate, said he has not heard about such an alteration being added to the rule.

“I asked [Rules Committee Chair Michael Burgess (R-Texas)] if he was aware of any language, he said he’s not seen any language, and he’s the chairman,” Massie said. “He said he was aware, as I was, of the speculation in the press, but that he hadn’t seen any language to that effect for this rule.”

Greene stopped just short of saying a rule change would prompt her to force a vote on her resolution, but she suggested it would entice many more Republicans to support her gambit and put Johnson on even thinner ice than he already is. 

“If Mike Johnson goes in there and attaches to the rule — and the Rules Committee is meeting right now, so we’ll see when that vote takes place — if he attaches a rule to change the motion to vacate and then uses Democrat votes on the Rules Committee, he’s going to prove exactly what I’ve been saying correct,” Greene told reporters on the Capitol steps. 

“He is the Democrat Speaker. I don’t think that’s ever happened in history before. And that’s going to be the message that will definitely change everything.”

The remarks came as the House Rules Committee was in the midst of debating the rule that will govern Johnson’s four-bill approach to foreign aid. It was unclear, however, if the rule contains the threshold change to the motion to vacate that stirred such controversy Thursday morning. 

“We’re meeting, but they haven’t shared with us any text. So we don’t know,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), the senior Democrat on the Rules Committee. 

A change to the motion-to-vacate harkens back to McCarthy’s quest for the Speaker’s gavel in January 2023, when conservatives pushed him to lower the threshold from a majority of the conference to one single member — a demand the California Republican ultimately swallowed, which led to his demise months later.

Gaetz on Thursday said he and other conservatives asked Johnson on the House floor “to clarify that he would oppose any change to the threshold.”

“We did not obtain the clarification we sought,” he added.

Pressed on Johnson’s response, Gaetz said: “He was equivocating, we didn’t really get an answer.”

The floor huddle also touched on Israel and Ukraine aid, according to one GOP lawmaker who was present for the conversation. The conservatives, they said, were “trying to get the Speaker to understand a conservative viewpoint.”

“He’s not worried about losing the Speakership… He seriously is worried about Ukraine, and that’s not our concern. Our concern, of course, is Israel and separating the two, and our border,” the lawmaker said.

One request the conservatives made, according to the lawmaker, was an idea first floated by Gaetz: hold off sending the foreign aid legislation to the Senate until the upper chamber stages a vote on H.R. 2, the border package House Republicans passed last week that has been deemed a non-starter by Democrats.

“He didn’t think he could do it,” the lawmaker said of Johnson’s response.

The huddle grew particularly tense after Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), a leadership ally, joined the conversation, according to attendees.

“We were trying to have a conversation among intelligent people and Mr. Van Orden joined,” Gaetz said. “Mr. Van Orden repeatedly kept demanding that we call for the motion to vacate. That wasn’t where we were at the beginning of the discussion.”

“It was very puzzling and concerning to me that Congressman Van Orden, in a conversation we just had on the floor, repeatedly was insisting that we call a motion to vacate to the floor,” Gaetz later added. “He was demanding it in kind of a unhinged way.”

Gaetz went on to say Van Orden “is not a particularly intelligent individual.”

The GOP lawmaker, who requested anonymity to discuss the private conversation, said Van Orden told conservatives “I hope you do bring” the motion to vacate, in a way to try and call their bluff. The Wisconsin Republican also called others in the conversation “tubby.”

“Van Orden was threatening everyone and he’s telling us to, he hopes to go ahead with a motion to vacate, and nobody in the group wants a motion to vacate,” the GOP lawmaker said.

“Hey tubby, bring it on, you know, kind of thing, if you think you’re man enough,” the House Republican added, recalling Van Orden’s comments.

Van Orden confirmed in a brief interview with The Hill Thursday that he called Gaetz a “tubby” during the huddle after the Florida Republican said he was a “squish.”

“He used the term squish, said I’m a squish,” Van Orden said. “It’s so petty and childish.”

Van Orden said he responded, telling the group “I do not think that someone who has not, someone who does not have multiple combat tours, that held one of their friends’ hands as they died in Afghanistan, I don’t think they should be calling people squishes who have.”

“Apparently that triggered Matthew,” Van Orden continued. “And he started saying you’re not a smart person, you’re dumb, you can’t tie your shoes, and everything. I said something along the lines of, you know, kick rocks, tubby, to Matt Gaetz.”

The Wisconsin Republican went on to call Gaetz and other hardline conservatives “a bully.”

“They have been bullying this conference since we took the majority and I’m not gonna tolerate that any longer,” he said. “They way that you get a bully to stop is you push back hard.”

Nick Robertson and Al Weaver contributed. Updated at 3:55 p.m. ET