Massey stands up against Johnson retaining speaker’s gavel: ‘He doesn’t have my vote’
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., announced he will not vote to keep House Speaker Mike Johnson as speaker next year.
“He doesn’t have my vote,” Masi told CNN’s Manu Raju. Asked if he would change his mind, Massie said it would take a “Christmas miracle.”
Massie supported Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s push to remove Johnson as speaker earlier this year, but a bipartisan majority ultimately voted to remove Johnson.
Johnson may face blow from speech rivals as Conservatives oppose government funding scheme
“This is the new paradigm in Congress. Nancy Pelosi and a majority of Republicans voted to keep single-party Speaker Mike Johnson in place,” Massie tweeted at the time.
This week, Johnson advocated for support for a more than 1,500-page government spending measure that would avert the looming prospect of a partial government shutdown.
Johnson said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday that the spending measure would postpone government funding issues until March, when Republicans will take control of Congress and the White House, allowing Republicans to “determine spending in 2025.”
The measure also includes disaster relief funds and aid to farmers.
“Disaster relief and farm aid is not ‘pork’. It’s called governance. That’s what we were elected to do,” Republican Rep. Greg Murphy declared in a post on X.
Massey made colorful analogies about foreign aid and mocked speaker Johnson with artificial intelligence-generated images
Left: Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024; Right: House Speaker Mike Johnson after the Republican conference on Dec. 17, 2024 Address to the press at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Left: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, via Getty Images; Right: ALLISON ROBBERT/AFP, via Getty Images)
But conservatives have slammed the proposal, and Elon Musk has spoken out against it.
President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Vance also weighed in. Everything you want.”
“Republicans want to support our farmers, fund disaster relief, and position our country for success in 2025. The only way to do that is to pass a stopgap appropriations bill without Democratic giveaways while raising the debt ceiling. Except Anything beyond that is a betrayal of our country…” they said in the statement.
After Trump’s election, House Republican leaders scrambled for a Plan B, and Musk led conservative fury against the spending bill
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., poses with Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at McDivot’s Indoor Sports Bar in Grimes, Iowa, on January 7, 2024. (Ron DeSantis) speaking at a campaign event. (Anna Chanmemaker/Getty Images)
Massey mocked Johnson this week by sharing an artificial intelligence-generated image depicting the speaker holding a hose while a house burned in the background.
He shared the photo after declaring in a tweet that “U.S. foreign aid spending is like watering your neighbor’s yard while your house is on fire.”
