House Republicans are warning Speaker Johnson, R-La., against making any potential \u2018side deals\u2019 with the GOP rebels threatening to oust him.<\/p>\n
Johnson is holding his second meeting in as many days on Tuesday afternoon with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky. They made several demands of Johnson on foreign aid and government funding in a two-hour closed-door meeting on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not immediately clear if they will back off their threats if their requests are fulfilled, but several House Republicans told Fox News Digital they hope Johnson stands firm against their demands unless he decides something is in the best interest of his conference.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think his job as speaker is to listen a lot, and then he has to ultimately make a decision, so I don\u2019t have a problem with him listening,\u2019 Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern, R-Okla., said on Tuesday morning. \u2018What I would have a problem with \u2013 and we had this problem with Speaker McCarthy \u2013 is when you start making special deals, side deals and hidden deals\u2026 then people [say]\u2026 \u2018What about my deal?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hern was referring to the closed-door conversations ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., held with members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and their allies, at times shifting House GOP policy after hours behind closed-doors with those members. That includes side deals he made in January 2023 to win the speaker\u2019s gavel after a record 15 rounds of voting.<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s hard to equate him and Speaker McCarthy, they\u2019re just entirely different and they had a different approach to most of everything,\u2019 one GOP lawmaker granted anonymity to speak freely told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
The GOP lawmaker argued that the concessions being asked of Johnson were mostly non-controversial, but added, \u2018I just feel like it\u2019s not good practice to establish separate arrangements with separate members.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018My management style has always been \u2013 you never, ever, ever grease a squeaky wheel,\u2019 Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., said when asked about potential side deals. \u2018Because if you do, you\u2019re going to end up with more squeaky wheels.\u2019<\/p>\n
Fox News Digital reported early on Tuesday that among the requests Greene and Massie made to Johnson were assurances that the House would not vote on any more Ukraine aid and a pledge to defund Special Counsel Jack Smith\u2019s investigation of former President Trump.<\/p>\n
They are also demanding that Johnson vow to block any legislation from getting a House-wide vote unless it has the support of a majority of the House GOP \u2013 a long-standing informal provision called the Hastert rule, named after a former Republican speaker.<\/p>\n
Greene confirmed those requests when she arrived at Johnson\u2019s office on Tuesday afternoon for their second meeting.<\/p>\n
\u2018These are not unreasonable requests. These are the right things to do. These are the right things to do for our conference,\u2019 Greene told reporters.<\/p>\n
Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital he did not believe Johnson would agree to their requests, and called them \u2018nonsense.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Look, they get to weigh in, they get a vote. That\u2019s what they get. They don\u2019t get to form our total policy,\u2019 Meuser said.<\/p>\n
A second GOP lawmaker granted anonymity to speak freely acknowledged there would always be \u2018concerns\u2019 about possible side deals with House Republicans\u2019 razor-thin majority.<\/p>\n
\u2018I think there\u2019s always concerns about that, that there\u2019s specific members that are getting more attention than others from the speaker himself,\u2019 the second GOP lawmaker said. \u2018But, you know, overall, I think it\u2019s kind of like, we\u2019re just trying to figure out how to move forward on some of this stuff. Everybody realizes the majority is so thin, that, you know, anybody could walk into the speaker\u2019s office and make demands.\u2019<\/p>\n
Johnson was asked about some GOP lawmakers\u2019 concerns about his negotiating with Greene and Massie during his weekly press conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s not a negotiation, OK? This is how I have operated as speaker\u2026 Everybody knows I have lengthy discussions, detailed discussions on a daily basis with members across the conference. There are 217 of us. It takes a lot of time,\u2019 Johnson said. \u2018So I take Marjorie\u2019s ideas and Thomas\u2019 and everybody else\u2019s equally, and we assess them on their own value and where we can make improvements and changes and all of that. And that\u2019s what this is.\u2019<\/p>\n\n
House Republicans are warning Speaker Johnson, R-La., against making any potential \u2018side deals\u2019 with the GOP rebels threatening to oust him. Johnson is holding his second meeting in as many days on Tuesday afternoon with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky. They made several demands of Johnson on foreign aid and government <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}