Mike Johnson Steps Smack Into a Major House Intra-GOP Foodfight
Another conservative appeared to be sour on House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday amid what has turned out to be a major party upheaval.
Texas Representative Chip Roy said he is “beside himself” after witnessing Johnson help out another Republican colleague, Tony Gonzales, who has openly berated some caucus members as “scumbags.”
“I’m being attacked. Conservatives are being attacked,” Roy told KTSA News. “I cannot tolerate what’s happening to the people that I think are fighting for this country… the primary season matters.”
Roy’s comments come amid a growing push from members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus to penalize Gonzales after he went scorched earth on the party’s moral standards over the weekend. More caucus members have endorsed Gonzales’s primary opponent, a far-right social media influencer.
“I served 20 years in the military. It’s my absolute honor to be in Congress, but I serve with some real scumbags!” Gonzales told CNN on Sunday.
“Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime,” he continued. “Look, it didn’t surprise me that some of these folks voted against aid to Israel, but I was encouraged to see by a nearly 10-to-1 mark that Republicans supported our allies on the battlefield.”
If push came to shove, Gonzales said he didn’t believe Johnson would lose the gavel—even though the beleaguered speaker has been bleeding support in the weeks since Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate in March. The fracture came after Johnson worked with Democrats and Senate Republicans to pass a $1.2 trillion omnibus bill, with the House GOP torching him for accomplishing one of the legislature’s primary annual responsibilities: funding the government.
But Johnson’s recent (successful) efforts to pass a foreign aid bill reminded others that there are adults in the room willing to push back on Greene’s intraparty drama—even if she only needs a handful of conservative defectors to actually kick Johnson out from leadership.
“For some reason, these fringe people think as if they have the high ground. They do not,” Gonzales told CNN. “I assure you, the rank and file members that normally are kind of easygoing, doing the right thing, put their head down, they vote yes or no but they’re not public about it—those days are over. The fight is here.”
“If someone pokes you in the chest, the way you take care of a bully is you bloody their nose.”