Bulwark Takes - Mike Johnson Barely Avoids Huge Embarrassment With Razor Thin Vote

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

It was a close call for Speaker Mike Johnson tonight, with the House GOP barely managing to pass a budget resolution. Is this a win or red flag for conservative leadership? Tim Miller, Sam Stein and Joe Perticone discuss.

Hey everybody, it's Tim Miller with The Bulwark here with Managing Editor Sam Stein and our man on the hill Joe Perticone. We had a wild night over on Capitol Hill, the first of many I suspect, as Mike Johnson brought the budget resolution, a non-binding resolution to the floor. Well, Joe explained exactly what that entails tonight. He thought he had the votes and he didn't think he had the votes and he thought he had the votes. He didn't think he had the votes. He thought he had the votes. He didn't think he had the votes. And they ended up squeaking it by with a one vote majority. All right, Joe.

So explain to us what happened here. So they're voting on the or they voted on the budget resolution, which is not actually doing anything. No money is being spent or cut in this. What it does is it lays out a framework for what they plan to do. And so that's why you read about there being cuts in it. What it does is it instructs them and all the committees to go and find these cuts. And so when they say, oh, it doesn't cut Medicaid, Medicaid's not mentioned in it. Well, no, but it does instruct the committee responsible for Medicaid to magically find $888 billion to go cut. So that's why everyone or all Democrats were opposed to this.

What happened was they were maybe going to vote all day and then they passed the rule, which is a procedural thing around 130 today. And the rule passed easily. Usually Republicans will tank their rule votes when they're mad, which is a relatively new concept, but it's just what they do. So everyone was on tip of their seats tonight. Edge of their seats, tip of their toes. Tip of their, I was thinking both. Or tip of their tongue.

And when they were voting on something else prior to it, they kept the vote open for a long time, which signaled to everyone, uh-oh, a Republican speaker showed up to a vote series without counting all the votes first, which Jim Nance says is a tradition unlike any other. And then they decided to pull it. They were just like, we're not going to vote on it tonight.

Are we just going to let that master's reference pass? That was very nice, Jeff. I admit it. So they pulled it, and then they said everybody go home. Just sneak it in a little gymnast line. I appreciate it. They sent everybody home. So everyone walked down the steps.

It's nice for the first time in months in D.C. So everyone got out. They got in their idling cars driven by their staffers. We're like, let's get out of here. And then 10 minutes later, they're like, no, no, we're voting again. Which means they did something to flip the three of the four holdouts. The only holdout was Thomas Massey. And then they, then there was like another surprise when Brittany Pedersen from Colorado just showed up for this final extra vote with her one month old. That's why she's been out. And then another member who's had knee surgery and has been out just like hobbled onto the floor. And so then it became they could only lose one.

And they managed to flip some of the biggest hard holdouts like Tim Burchett, Warren Davidson, and then Victoria Sparks will do it. Hard holdouts. These guys always flip. I guess. Tim Burchett was praying on the house floor. He had to pray about it. He didn't have any commitments.

Crazy Victoria Sparks, whose English is questionable uh who knew what she doesn't have to do with anything well maybe she didn't know what a hard no meant when she said she was a hard no i guess her english is iffy she's like kind of an esl member of congress uh and warren davidson sounds like he got a call from mr trump it is i just think sam like the fat you know your buddy buddy Jake Sherman, fast break Jake Sherman, was reporting that in 15 years he's never seen a vote opened

and then they pull it. Then they're like, OK, we're not actually going to vote on this like that. And then and then they reopen it to call them back. So it was kind of unprecedented. And the fact that they had to do this kind of arm twisting on a bill that once again doesn't do anything. It's just like the outline of a budget. I think augurs poorly for the debates to come. Yeah, I suppose not. Because at some point you've got to actually put some cuts to these things, right? Like some numbers.

And it's easy to vote in the abstract. But when you're telling the committees that you have to find $880 million, is that it? Or billion? I don't know. It's one of those. Billion, I think. And likely Medicaid cuts, then that becomes a lot harder for the moderates, if they are in still existence. I will say, though, this did follow a very familiar pattern, right?

Like we saw this exactly with the speaker's race. We saw with the government funding bill. You start with the moderate to express concern. They get some vague promises. They always inevitably fold. I mean, when's the last time any of us have seen, honestly, when's the last time we've seen a House Republican moderate take a principled stand in not vote for something? Was it McCain? Well, McCain, Obamacare. Yep, that would be one. And I guess we've seen a couple now in the Senate with Murkowski and Collins. Okay, in the House.

Just think about the House. I can't think of one. Boy, it's hard to think of a House Republican moderate. So usually they cave. But even when they cave. I guess Nancy Mace was kind of a moderate when she voted to overthrow Kevin McCarthy over personal issues. And then she fully took the red pill. I don't know where she was on her journey from moderate to anti-trans there's no lines there um but it usually follows that and the moderates always cave first because they're idiots and they don't know how to negotiate yep and the conservators always are like

you know what even though they caved i'm still not happy with this thing. Let's make it more conservative. And the moderates are always like, okay, I'm not going to reverse that. I'll still be on board. And then there's always three or four conservatives, and usually it's Victoria Sparks, and usually she says I'm a hard no. I'm a hard no. I'll never

move. I'll never move. Hard might be a kind of a different context in her native tongue. You know, I don't know, though. There's some like, oh, this is good. This is a big win for Johnson out there. I don't know. It's a win.

No, I'm just – let me give the counter for you. It's a win, of course. Is it? But it just prolongs a larger suffering. We didn't even talk about this stuff when Nancy Pelosi was in charge. It wasn't like, ooh, will she get the budget? It's a big win for her if they pass the budget. Josh Holmes, who's the McConnell guy.

Well, she never had a two-vote majority. Yeah, they did. They had a small majority for a little while. Not this small, but quite small. Josh Holmes posted this. He was McConnell's old guy. He was basically trying to bully the House Republicans into voting for this thing. There's no justification to vote against the budget resolution.

But here's the point that he's making. It has no force of law. It simply allows you to use the budget process to pursue it, to pursue an agenda team ball. Like that's the, that's all this was. It was nothing. It should have just been a,

everybody vote with the speaker. And so they, the fact that they like he needed to call in daddy Trump to twist Warren Davidson's arm at the last second. I don't know, man, Joe, I just,

it seems to me like that he's in deep, deep doo doo. So the, the plan B was just to use the Lindsey Graham version, which is basically the same thing, like give or take a few numbers. And so, failure wouldn't have been bad. And I don't

think it's a win for Johnson at all. It's like, it shows that he has very little control. And he has very little room for error. And it shows that he doesn't count his votes, which is the ultimate sign of a bad speaker. Morning Sam is coming in with

the pundit talk. Oh, it's a a nice win that's a win on the scoreboard for mike johnson you guys are crazy we're crazy it is crazy that he got here that this is where we are he just passed a politically toxic budget like this thing is going to be toxic as fuck he and passed instructions for it yeah okay. Okay. Fine. Whatever. He, he did that somehow losing only one vote. I mean, come on,

look, I don't think it's going to end well for him. I don't think it's going to end well for Republicans, but getting through this vote definitely is a win for him. I think you guys are nuts. Well, and that's for him to get these. You're saying he's's gonna be on covenant eyes

tonight kind of celebrating like maybe for him to get these votes across the finish line the way he did i want to know what happened promises what happened in those 10 minutes that's what i want and as we know with kevin mccarthy when you give away the store it doesn't work out for you doesn't ever what happened in those 10 minutes? What did he give to Victoria Sparks? So, with Warren Davidson, it's probably Trump. Someone handed him a phone with Trump on it.

Please do this for me. And then he just did it. Yeah. Same with the others. What about Tim? Tim Burchard was praying. He probably got a new Carhartts jacket. Is that what he got? Well, like discretionary spending, which is not how you reduce the deficit.

The only way you can do that is with mandatory. So like if he got promised something in the mandatory range, that won't pass. What happens now, Joe? Joe, let's explain this for the viewers. The Senate has a totally different version of what they want to do here. They want to go first with all the border stuff, right? And the House is like one big beautiful bill, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So what happens now?

So they're going to have to like merge their agenda and merge their ideas. How? Yeah, because that will lose 12, 15 Republican votes in the House. So anything they do now after this will be viewed as watering down. And it'll bleed more Republican support. Even if it's not a watered down. And let me tell you how it's going to play out. They're going to all pretend like they're opposed to it.

Victoria will be a hard no. I know. There are a lot of people out there. I be hard now no there are a lot of people out there i'm telling you there are a lot of chip roy is uh he was nowhere here yeah i mean there are a lot of other troublemakers who decided not to pick a fight this time eventually when's don bacon gonna speak up and say no we're not gonna worry about him but eventually andrew where's our dentist friend the details on this the devil to be in the details of this. I'm with you. Look, eventually you would think that they would have to pass something

just out of shame, like that you'll eventually reach a point of shame like they did on the 1900th ballot of the speaker's vote where Donald Trump is just like, you fucking morons got to vote for whatever it is. It'll be the most biggest, beautiful bill of all time. So so eventually it'll happen i'm just telling you there's pain ahead there's a lot of pain what's chip roy gonna do when the chairwoman of the appropriations committee in the senate susan collins says well we have to include nih funding for the universities in maine i'll tell you what's gonna happen they're They're going to say, no, we're not going to include NIH funding.

And Susan Collins is going to say, well, I'm concerned about that. And then she's going to say, she's insightful. But on this case, I think I'll go with you. But I'm going to express my concerns. I'll get some obscure promise from Elon that he'll restore it after the fact. Cynical Sam.

Victoria Sparks is going to say, I'm a hard no. Cynical Sam. me and joe are gonna live in the darkness or the light depending on what you're not in the darkness you're in the light you're in the senate you're you're cynical you're cynical world of realism real real circle no no it is uglier out there than you believe i guess is what i mean joe are saying it's gonna get tough and ugly pin this video Pin this video. Pin this video. See, you were right initially on the tariffs.

I was totally right. This whole bet is always the same. Sam is always on the side of the cynics and they will make whatever choice they have to make to survive day by day. And I will always be on the side of, it's a dumpster fire. They're going to step on their of it's a dumpster fire they're gonna

step on their own dicks and some days they're gonna step on their own dicks and some days they're gonna make the cynical choice and so just on day to day we'll have we'll be on different equations of who's correct all right i want to play poker with victoria are you gonna are you bluffing victoria do you have the cards i do not have the cards joe do you have any final thoughts or wisdom for us from the Hill? I think this is extremely typical. We're going to do this. We're going to do this every 30 days.

We're going to do this in two weeks. We have to fund the government in two weeks. We're going to do it. Yeah. And they're going to do a CR and we'll go through this again and then we're just gonna keep doing it for forever until americans decide to give a couple more seats to the democrats it's exciting yeah all right we'll see how it goes we'll see how that turns out thank you sam and joe everybody else tune in subscribe talk to you soon bye