Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) stated Tuesday that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) doesn’t have the votes to maintain the gavel and that he stays undecided on whether or not he can help the Louisiana Republican within the Friday ground vote, regardless of President-elect Trump endorsing Johnson.
“I remain undecided, as do a number of my colleagues, because we saw so many of the failures last year that we are concerned about that might limit or inhibit our ability to advance the president’s agenda,” Roy said Tuesday on “Varney & Co.” on Fox Enterprise.
Later, Roy stated Johnson doesn’t but have the help to be Speaker.
“Right now, I don’t believe he has the votes on Friday,” Roy stated.
A number of different Republicans — together with Reps. Andy Harris (Md.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Victoria Spartz (Ind.) — are persevering with to withhold help for Johnson regardless of Trump’s endorsement. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has stated he’ll vote for an individual apart from Johnson, has additionally signaled that Trump’s endorsement didn’t change his thoughts.
Johnson can solely afford one Republican defection within the Jan. 3 Speaker election, assuming all members are current and voting for a candidate. The Home’s incoming 215 Democrats are all anticipated to vote for Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and Republicans are anticipated to have 219 members in attendance that day.
Roy floated two options to Johnson: Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the Home Judiciary Committee.
“Individuals say, properly, Chip, who would you select in any other case? Mike’s a pal and perhaps he can reply the decision and ship an agenda and a plan. Byron Donalds is an effective man and a superb pal. I nominated him two years in the past. Jim Jordan’s a superb man and a superb pal. There are different members of management within the convention who might do the job,” Roy stated.
Jordan confirmed help for Johnson after Trump’s endorsement Monday, and Donalds advised The Hill in December that he supported Johnson for Speaker regardless of his dealing with of the funding invoice.
Roy stated that whereas he “respects” Trump helps Johnson and that he likes Johnson as a pal, he has issues with numerous actions by the Speaker during the last yr — not least of which was the short-term spending deal that went by means of a number of iterations earlier than closing passage forward of Christmas.
“We violated the 72-hour rule twice, which means we didn’t have time to read a bill. We had to have Elon [Musk] and Vivek [Ramaswamy] and the president and JD [Vance] come in to kill a 1,500-page monstrosity, cut it down to 100 pages. It still spent $110 billion unpaid for,” Roy stated.
He later added: “The failure before Christmas, I cannot overstate, it’s a glimpse to come if we don’t organize the conference to be able to deliver for the American people. We are not going to be able to bend on the things that matter. We must cut spending if you want inflation to go down and for people to afford to live in this country.”
