Dem
52
Ties
3
GOP
45
Donald Trump is not the only one who's got trouble in paradise. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also has use for some extra aspirin these days.
To start, there's the surprise vote to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who hate Hegseth, hates Donald Trump, and doesn't much care for Johnson, sprung that on the House at the last minute, using parliamentary trickery to force a vote. Massie did that because the last time he tried to hold the administration's feet to the fire (the Epstein files vote), Johnson shut down the House for 3 weeks in a desperate (and ultimately unsuccessful) effort to protect the man who gives him his marching orders.
Massie was right to be worried about more shenanigans, but he apparently wasn't quite "the last minute" enough to actually avoid them. Johnson sent the House home a day early, so as to push the impeachment vote to November. And by "November," we mean "November 9." So, after the elections.
The Speaker's thinking here is obvious: He does not want to force his members to cast a vote that equates to either: (1) I defied the president or (2) I support the unpopular war in Iran. That said, the Democrats will still get a couple of talking points out of this. The first is: "Johnson gave the House 6 weeks off rather than displease his Dear Leader, Donald Trump." And the second is: "Everyone agrees that some sort of action on AI cannot wait. But the Speaker would prefer to placate the President, even if it puts Americans (and their children) at risk."
Meanwhile, they haven't had regular fisticuffs in the halls of Congress since the antebellum era. However, the House Republican Conference very nearly brought that proud tradition back to life this week. With time before the elections running out (in part due to fleeing town a day early), Johnson called for a late-night meeting of the leaders of the five main factions among House Republicans. GOPers have taken to calling those factions the "five families," like the mafia families that run New York. How... delightful.
Anyhow, the purpose of the meeting was to discuss a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax. Some GOP members
want to give Americans a little relief, though only until November 15 or so (for some "unknown" reason). Leading the
charge was House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-MD), with substantial backing from Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA).
Opposing the move was House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Sam Graves (R-MO), who came to meeting armed
with printouts of a
tweet from Harris
in which he denounced the same exact scheme when Joe Biden proposed it in 2022. Very quickly, Don Tattaglia and Don
Barzini Harris and Higgins became irate, while Don Corleone Graves refused to back down. Tables were pounded,
curse words were uttered, and physical violence was threatened. Eventually, Harris and Higgins stormed out. They will
not get their gas-tax holiday, of course.
Naturally, if you start with a conference where there's no margin for error and nearly every member can be a dealbreaker, and then you mix in a speaker who is only mediocre, and you add the pressure cooker of "We may only have a few more months in the majority, and for most of those months we won't even be in session," this is pretty much what you get. (Z)