The NPR Politics Podcast - The Fight To Fire The House Speaker — Again

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Some members of the House Republican conference are mad at Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for a variety of reasons. But do they have the votes to kick him out of his role — and send the House back to the paralysis it faced last year? This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, congressional reporter Barbara Sprunt, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.This podcast was produced by Jeongyoon Han & Kelli Wessinger. It was edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Helen, and I'm taking a stroll around my neighborhood park in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Ooh, wow. It is a beautiful spring day here. The roses are in bloom, the mulberry trees are starting to fruit, so I'm doing my best not to step in any mulberry goo. This podcast was recorded at 1.17 p.m. on Wednesday, May 8th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Enjoy the show. I think that must be our first Turkmenistan timestamp. It's gotta be, right? That is very

cool. Oh, for sure. But how great. I gotta say the mulberry, it's the worst. It gets, I have one outside and it like gets everywhere. It stains your floors. So, you know, I hope you're able to avoid it. They are quite gross. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And Speaker Mike Johnson's hold on his job seems safe, at least for now. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to hold off forcing a vote to try to remove him from office, though she could, of course, bring that up for a vote at any time. Barbara, can you remind us what exactly is Marjorie Taylor Greene's problem with the way that Mike Johnson's done his job? Well, I would say there's a couple things. She doesn't like the way that he's been working with Democrats to get things done. Remember, he has a very small majority, the smallest majority that you can have.

And so some bipartisan cooperation is to be expected, especially on getting things done, like the spending package, which is one of the things that she has big criticisms of. She filed the motion to vacate resolution back in March. After that, passed the House with more Democratic support than Republican support. And she's been holding it over his head ever since then. But this picked up steam again sort of in earnest after the House voted on a foreign age group of bills, including one for Ukraine, which is something that she's long had as a line in the sand for her. She thinks there shouldn't be money sent to Ukraine. There should be money addressed to the southern border of this country. And this is a common refrain from her. So that's her little problem with Johnson. Barbara, what exactly is Greene asking Speaker Johnson to

do here? There are four areas that she's talked about wanting from Johnson. A pledge of no additional funding for Ukraine, no funding towards the special counsel investigation into former President Trump. And she wants 12 separate appropriations bills and not another omnibus led by, in her words, Senate Majority Leader Schumer, who sort of, in her words, rammed it down their throat the last time. And the final thing is she wants them to adhere to something called the Hastert rule, which is basically a pledge from Johnson that he'd only bring legislation to the floor that has the support of the majority of the Republican conference. That's a little ironic in some ways, because at the same time, she's advancing, you know, this threat of the motion to vacate,

which is something that the majority of her Republican colleagues do not want her to bring forward. Well, Barbara, explain how this works. Well, this is where, like early on, the math has ruled a lot of the conversations around the House and around Capitol Hill. And so there was speculation early on that if he were to survive something on the floor, a vote on the floor, which, as Sue said, can be triggered, you know, at any time by Greene herself, that Democrats would likely have to weigh in to support him. And there were murmurings that they would. And then, of course, about a week or so ago, top congressional Democrats made a statement saying, indeed, we will save Johnson. If she brings it to the floor, we're not going to let her get away with adding chaos, in their words, to the proceedings of the House. We're not going to let her get away with adding chaos, in their words, to the

proceedings of the House. We're going to try to table it right away so that it doesn't actually come down to the type of thing where every single person has to vote yay or nay on the floor. They want to dispense with it pretty quickly. And that can't happen without Democrats. Well, politically, what does that mean for Johnson if his bacon is saved by Democrats and he's still the speaker? Does that make him weaker? What what does that do? In the end, I don't think that it wounds him more than say he's wounded now. The same people who are mad at him now, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, like Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey, who's signed on to this resolution of hers.

They're going to still be mad. And they're going to talk a lot about how Democrats are saving him. And, you know, of course, when Democrats, if Democrats do save him, it sort of adds to the Greens argument that, you know, he's operating far too closely with Democrats. But the math is the math. And a lot of his conference is aware of that. Now, I will say, if she keeps bringing this up here, you know, again and again, in some ways, it hurts him, I think, just from dominating the news cycle. And it's it, you know, it can hurt him from pushing other priorities forward. That's as much something about the media, I think, as it is about Congress. Mara, usually these things are considered inside baseball, only lawmakers really care, decide about them. But I do think it's notable that Donald Trump has injected himself into this. He has reportedly, and our colleague

Franco Ordonez confirmed, that he has been working behind the scenes to speak to both the speaker and Marjorie Taylor Greene to smooth this over and to make sure it doesn't come up for a vote. And it does sort of suggest that Donald Trump sees something in his own interest in not having another brutal speaker fight. Yeah, they want to avoid chaos. Of course, chaos is what happened in the beginning of this Congress when it took 15 ballots to get Kevin McCarthy over the line. So he has praised Johnson. He said he's doing a good job. He's sent very clear messages to Marjorie Taylor Greene that this isn't a good thing to do.

But you know what? Everyone has their own political incentives and imperatives. And Marjorie Taylor Greene, from what I understand, is fundraising around this. This is something that's good for her brand as the keeper of the kind of most pure MAGA part of the Republican Party, where compromise with Democrats is a sin. What's really interesting to me is that the Democrats are willing to help Johnson keep his job, and they were not willing to step in for Kevin McCarthy. There was a lot of bad blood, a lot of distrust, and they seem to feel that Mike Johnson is an honest broker. But a lot of Democrats are worried that if they save Mike Johnson's bacon, he's going to start

putting things on the floor, messaging bills designed to hurt them in November. So there's a little controversy on the Democratic side, too, about helping Johnson keep his job. Yeah. I mean, Barbara, it does suggest that there is an element of just self-serving politics here on the part of Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I think oftentimes claims that she's doing things for MAGA, for Trump. But if Trump's saying, hey, don't do this right now, and she is still, you know, she's financially benefiting from being seen as the sort of person that's willing to stand up to the establishment. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, this is as much about her brand as it is about the MAGA brand. And I think it's interesting that it's a particular needle that all three of them have to thread because Marjorie Taylor Greene has been a close ally of Trump for a long time. And Trump,

when he's been asked about this relationship between Greene and Johnson, he'll say things like, I think Marjorie has a lot of respect for Johnson, you know, and like he sort of sidesteps it just enough. He emphasizes that they have a very close friendship. So the three majority is in constant flux with recent resignations. But the math for Democrats is pretty simple. They need to net five seats to win the majority this November. Mara, in the orbit of 2024, how competitive is this fight for the House? It's very competitive. I mean, Democrats could win back the majority. And the reason they could is that most of the battleground House seats are in state in districts that Biden won. The battleground for the House is different than the battleground for the White House. Those are swing states that can go either way. But for Democrats who are looking for pickups, there are, I think, 17 House races that are considered toss-ups. And our districts where Joe Biden won. I think that's a really good point to note that the terrain to winning the House majority runs very differently than it terrain does even for the Senate majority and certainly for the White House.

I mean, Democrats are looking at competitive races in states like New York and California. So there's some new seats in the South that were created through new maps. I mean, places that aren't necessarily going to be overshadowed by and totally inundated by presidential campaigning. Well, they're going to be actually ignored completely. Yeah. I mean, nobody's going to campaign in New York for the presidential election. So it's up to Democrats to fight for those seats. So they have a shot at this. I think it's going to be hard, especially depending on what happens at the top of the ticket. I don't think we've ever had a president win, a presidential candidate win and lose the House first party at the same time. That is correct. Both chambers of Congress have never flipped to the other party at the same time

in the same election. So there's a lot of weirdness in the water in 2024. But that should be of no surprise to regular listeners of this podcast. The Senate has an excellent chance of flipping to Republicans. And the House has a pretty good chance of flipping to Democrats. And the White House is a toss up. So that is your 2024 election. But part of what I think is interesting, and we've talked about this before on the podcast, is that the orbit of competitive races for the House just shrinks and shrinks and shrinks and shrinks. And I was looking at races today that are considered just pure toss-ups. No party has a clear advantage in it. It's just 22, maybe 24 seats in the whole House, Ma. That's like 5%. It used to be 45 seats. And we thought that was incredibly small. Look, this is what gerrymandering will do.

I mean, seats are safe for incumbents. You know, partisan gerrymandering is great for incumbents, bad for democracy. It means that members don't have to reach out to swing voters. They just have to worry about a primary challenge if they're a Democrat from the left, if they're a Republican from the right. And, you know, capitalism needs competition. So does politics. So does democracy. And there's very little competition. As you just said, there are very few competitive House seats. It also makes you realize that regardless, like no matter which party wins the House in November, the chances of it being a pretty narrow majority are pretty good either way, right? Oh, yeah, definitely. Although, you know,

that brings up another really interesting point. We have had narrow majorities before, and the Republicans seem uniquely terrible at governing with a narrow majority. Nancy Pelosi was a heck of a lot better at keeping her troops together when she had a very narrow majority. Barbara, do you have a sense that, let's say, for the sake of argument, Republicans hold on to the majority? Would that make Mike Johnson more secure in his grip on the gavel? Or is this something that's just he said that he plans not only to be the Speaker of the House now, but to be the Speaker of the House after the election if Republicans do keep the chamber. He says that's his priority at the moment, making sure that that happens. If it does happen, I think that we're likely to see the same players agitate for another speaker. This is something that like Green and Massey and others

have already talked about. I think it's too early to know how that would shake out. But of course, the real person that he needs to keep his job is Trump. And, you know, there's a long time between now and November and what happens after November. And I think if he's looking at the crystal ball of what's to come, it's in large part has how does Trump reacting to his speakership and how does that change come November? Mara, no matter what happens in the House, Senate and White House, it seems pretty likely that the outcome of 2024 will still be divided government because of those different terrains that are being fought for the House and the Senate and the White House. You can see a scenario where Trump, the Republicans keep the House, they flip the Senate and they get the White House. Sure.

Yeah. I think that would be more of a red wave year that isn't yet clear. But I guess you're right. If Biden wins reelection, it's highly likely that he will not keep control of the Senate for his party. I think it's more a bigger question about divided government. As much as we talk about Washington can't get things done and divided government, but it seems to be the way that the country likes the government to be. They don't necessarily historically like one party running everything. Well, that's so interesting because there's no doubt that voters have chosen divided government over and over again. But divided

government often brings gridlock and voters don't like that either. Voters, hard to please. Yes, yes, yes. Lots of thoughts, hard to please. Hard to please. It's like being Speaker Johnson. All right, let's leave it there for today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Barbara Sprint.

I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Eliason, national political correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.