House Speaker Johnson pushes ahead on aid for Ukraine, Israel

Table Of Content

• McCarthy nominated speaker in internal GOP vote but he faces conservative resistance
• Johnson says he "feels very good" about speaker vote
• Jeffries: Democrats will continue finding common ground with GOP "whenever and wherever possible"
• Column: McCarthy’s fall was sudden, but a long time coming
• Emmer leaves Republican conference meeting, won't say if he's still in the race
• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says Speaker Mike Johnson should resign as Democrats signal potential support
• List of speakers of the United States House of Representatives

House Republicans are planning to hold another candidate forum at 6 p.m., now that Emmer has dropped out of the race, Republican members told reporters. Rep. Kevin Hern, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, told reporters that he decided to forgo his candidacy for speaker and is instead supporting Rep. Mike Johnson. House Republicans have begun voting on the first ballot for their speaker nominee after convening to elect a fourth candidate just hours after Emmer, who won the conference's nomination earlier Tuesday, withdrew his candidacy amid growing opposition. The House has now been without an elected speaker for three weeks, which means that it has not been able to consider or pass legislation to address a rising number of domestic and foreign crises, including providing aid for Israel or Ukraine. Any candidate for speaker can lose only a handful of votes and still win the speakership because Republicans hold such a small majority in the House.

McCarthy nominated speaker in internal GOP vote but he faces conservative resistance

The third nominee, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, dropped out of the Republican race for speaker just four hours after he was elected Tuesday. He failed to persuade far-right members of the conference to support him on the floor. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founder of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and someone Mr. Johnson has described as a mentor, was the next member to be elected speaker designate in a secret ballot. He had Mr. Trump and the far right in his corner, but ultimately failed to win over more centrist members of his party who steadfastly refused to support him.

Johnson says he "feels very good" about speaker vote

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, another co-sponsor, suggested others could follow before the House breaks next week to pressure Johnson to step down. First elected to the House in 2006, McCarthy has worked his way up the ranks of Republican leadership, serving a majority whip and majority leader under former House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan. He took over as the top Republican in the lower chamber in 2019, when Democrats gained the House majority. If the motion is brought to the floor, the three Republican votes supporting it could be enough for passage if they are joined by all Democrats in the chamber.

Jeffries: Democrats will continue finding common ground with GOP "whenever and wherever possible"

Two days before her interview on that network, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) announced he would back Greene’s motion to vacate order against Johnson, becoming the third Republican overall to back the call to oust the speaker. Republican House members told CNN that their constituents back home are angry about the dysfunction in Washington as the lawmakers expressed renewed fears that the chaos could cost them their House majority. The Pennsylvania Republican said he hasn't decided whether he will endorse a candidate.

Column: McCarthy’s fall was sudden, but a long time coming

Emmer's victory was a surprise, since the predicted "red wave" in the midterm elections never materialized under his leadership of the NRCC. McCarthy was tapped as the nominee in an internal meeting of the Republican conference by a secret-ballot vote of 188 to 31, multiple sources in the meeting confirmed to CBS News. McCarthy first ran for speaker in 2015 to succeed Speaker John Boehner, who was retiring. But he abruptly withdrew from the race, a sign he recognized he didn't have the votes. He went on to serve as House Speaker Paul Ryan's No. 2 at the leadership table, and since then has developed close relationships with many of the conservatives who derailed his initial bid for the top slot. McCarthy is regarded as skilled at developing personal relationships across his conference after years of criss-crossing the country campaigning and raising money for GOP candidates.

Democrats weigh helping Johnson avoid being ousted as House speaker - The Associated Press

Democrats weigh helping Johnson avoid being ousted as House speaker.

Posted: Thu, 18 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Emmer leaves Republican conference meeting, won't say if he's still in the race

Democratic leaders also plan to pass legislation that would clarify how Congress certifies the results of presidential elections with a revamp of the Electoral Count Act, a law first enacted in 1887. Confusion over provisions of the law was exploited by Trump and his allies on Jan. 6, 2021 and lawmakers say the new law is needed to prevent another attack on the Capitol. But Democrats' strong performance in the midterms has frozen any movement to replace Pelosi. She says some of her colleagues are urging her to run again for the top leadership post, and says the attack on her husband Paul Pelosi roughly 10 days before the election will impact her decision. The last time the president and top congressional leaders were from different parties was 2019, when Democrats regained control of the House in the 2018 midterms, two years after former President Donald Trump was elected president.

Washington — Rep. Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, won election as the new speaker of the House on Wednesday, ending three weeks of chaos since Rep. Kevin McCarthy's historic ouster. At best, Johnson has been able to carve up a Senate-passed version of the bill into separate parts, as is the preference among House Republicans, and the final votes will be on distinct measures — for Ukraine, Israel and Indo-Pacific allies. Rep. Eli Crane, a hardline conservative from Arizona, also said he was “open” to joining the move to oust Johnson. Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said that he spoke with Johnson on Thursday night to ensure the bill would clear the Rules Committee.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says Speaker Mike Johnson should resign as Democrats signal potential support

Donalds has played a large role in key negotiations between moderate and ultraconservative GOP lawmakers. During Jordan's failed speaker elections, some GOP holdouts voted for Donalds as a protest candidate. Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., was one of the first candidates who jumped into the speaker's race, immediately announcing his candidacy to reporters after House Republicans dropped Jordan as their nominee. In a letter to colleagues earlier Wednesday, Johnson outlined his first priority will be trying to pass the remaining spending bills that have so far languished in the House one by one.

List of speakers of the United States House of Representatives

After roughly two and a half hours, the GOP House speaker candidate forum has wrapped. “Obviously, overwhelmingly, there's a viewpoint that we do get that the American people are frustrated with the processes that we've gone through. I would say back to the American people that I think that these few weeks have given us a better chance to learn about each other,” Sessions said. After roughly two and a half hours, the GOP House speaker candidate forum has ended. The speaker explained they either try to pass the package as he is proposing or risk facing a discharge petition from Democrats that would force a vote on their preferred package — the Senate approved measure.

Mr. Johnson’s abrupt rise to the speaker post this week in the depressed and divided House Republican conference underscores the rightward lurch of the G.O.P., which dumped his more mainstream predecessor, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California. Mr. Johnson said Mr. Jordan called him when he was running for office, because “he knew I was a conservative,” contributed money to his campaign and invited him to Washington for a meeting with him and other Freedom Caucus members. On the eve of the Jan. 6 votes, Mr. Johnson had honed his arguments undermining the election to be more palatable. He presented colleagues with arguments they could use to oppose the will of the voters without embracing conspiracy theories and the lies of widespread fraud pushed by Mr. Trump.

"The American people's business is too urgent in this moment. The hour is late. The crisis is great." Johnson now faces a daunting list of challenges, with a fast-approaching government shutdown chief among them. The House is staring down a deadline of Nov. 17, when current government funding expires. In his blueprint for the next few months, Johnson said a stopgap measure extending funding until January or April may be needed to approve more spending and avoid a shutdown.

“This affirms the path that we took,” Representative Bob Good of Virginia, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, tells reporters. “We went through a lot to get here, but we are ready to govern and that will begin right away,” Johnson says in his first news conference as speaker. “From an outside point of view these last few weeks probably look like total chaos, confusion, no end in sight," he said. "But from my perspective, this is one of the greatest experiences of the recent history of our republic." The vote put him second in line to the presidency, capping an extraordinary period of twists and turns on Capitol Hill.

He has also opposed continued funding for the war in Ukraine, which has emerged as a bitter fault line in the G.O.P. and in the spending battles that any new speaker will have to navigate in the coming days. To show support for racial equality, Mr. Johnson in the past has told audiences that he and his wife adopted a Black teenager they met through an evangelical youth group — like the movie “The Blind Side” but without the N.F.L. prospects, he has quipped. He also opposed legislation to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages — a bill that passed with strong bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate.