In an interview on Newsmax TV’s The Steve Malzberg Show, Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas said that, despite the dissatisfaction of Tea Party conservative Republicans, John Boehner’s job as House Speaker is safe.
Huelskamp, himself a Tea Party conservative, said, “A lot of folks, again, are unwilling to challenge the status quo, especially if it’s their own establishment.”
“I’ll just say, the class of ’94 seems to have a lot more guts and gusto than the class of 2010 because they were willing to take down Speaker [Newt] Gingrich,” Huelskamp added. “But I don’t see that happening anytime soon in today’s Congress.”
In addition, Huelskamp said he believes President Obama has had no plans to negotiate a deal with House Republicans. His focus has been on rejecting Republican compromises.
“I mean, the president has absolutely no circulated ideas, he’s just sitting there saying, ‘no, no, no,'” he said. “We have passed 16 bills to keep the doors of government open and the president and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid have rejected all of those – but we’re still pushing back on ObamaCare, so really [it’s a] mixed bag right now and not a lot of action. Just a lot of talk.”
Regarding ObamaCare, Huelskamp said, “If this goes down, our leadership fully expects to cave and surrender and declare strategic retreat again and let ObamaCare fully ramp up.”
According to Huelskamp, at this point the only hope is to ask President Obama again to negotiate on ObamaCare.