Mike Johnson 'avoided a shutdown' but 'won't avoid the conservative blowback': report

With a federal government shutdown looming, far-right Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and House Democrats worked out a bipartisan stopgap funding agreement that passed 336-95 on Tuesday, November 14. Now, the measure goes to the U.S. Senate for approval.

A similar bipartisan agreement that former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) worked out with Democrats in order to avoid a shutdown led to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) triggering a "motion to vacate" and McCarthy being ousted from his position. And Daily Beast reporters Riley Rogerson and Matt Fuller expect far-right House Republicans to turn on Johnson as well.

"Speaker Mike Johnson avoided a shutdown; he won't avoid the conservative blowback," Rogerson and Fuller explain in a report published on November 15. "After House Republicans ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in early October because he put a stopgap government funding bill on the House floor, Johnson isn't at risk of losing his new job for doing the same thing. But that doesn't mean conservatives aren't deeply disappointed that Johnson opted not to barrel toward a shutdown in some doomed gambit to extract spending cuts from Democrats."

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The House Freedom Caucus, Rogerson and Fuller note, "overwhelmingly opposed the measure to simply extend government funding until January 19 for some programs and February 2 for others."

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) is highly critical of the stopgap measure, telling the Daily Beast, "There's so many things that are wrong with it, and I wish the speaker had chosen a different path. And we'll see how it unfolds."

But Rogerson and Fuller don't see a major appetite among Freedom Caucus Republicans to oust Johnson as speaker — at least not yet.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Virginia) told the Beast that he "vehemently opposed" the bipartisan measure but added, "We want to support our speaker."

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Rep. Eli Crane (R-Arizona) told the Beast that he's willing to give Johnson "a little bit of a grace period." But when he was asked if a motion to vacate was on the table, Crane responded that it was "possible."

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Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).