National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) chairman Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) finally publicly backed House Speaker Mike Johnson — or at least sort of.
Asked repeatedly for several days whether or not Hudson has confidence in Johnson, NRCC spokesman Will Reinert refused to answer the question or provide a statement from Hudson for several days straight until moments before a secondary extended deadline on Monday afternoon. Reinert finally gave a statement saying that Hudson stands with Johnson for now, but the fact this statement took the NRCC several days to produce is yet another sign of just how unpopular Johnson has become among his colleagues in rapid fashion.
“Just like President Trump, Chairman Hudson supports Speaker Johnson,” Reinert said in the statement that the NRCC did not produce until Monday afternoon seconds before Breitbart News was set to publish a story detailing how the NRCC chairman would not say where he stood on Johnson.
Reinert has not answered follow-up questions from Breitbart News about why it took so long for the NRCC to provide this statement, nor has he answered how many internal discussions the party committee had about this matter before finally producing the statement. But this nine-word statement in many ways raises more questions than answers, and casts serious doubt on whether top House Republicans really do stand with Johnson or if they are ready to move on to a more effective leader soon. It also raises serious questions about whether House Republicans are actually prepared to defend their majority in November’s congressional elections, or if they will blow a historic opportunity to hold or expand it.
Hudson and House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) are the only two members of House GOP leadership who voted against warrantless surveillance as part of Johnson’s push last week to renew section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Johnson cast the deciding vote to kill a bipartisan amendment with broad public support that would have required federal officials to obtain a warrant when engaged in surveillance of American citizens. The package in question passed the House after Johnson led 86 cohort Republicans in a vote to kill the amendment, and the package does in fact require officials to get a warrant when engaged in surveillance of members of Congress. Johnson and his cohorts provided no such identical protection to the hundreds of millions of American citizens that Congress purports to represent.
Joining Johnson in undercutting Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights were House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House GOP conference chairwoman Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). Johnson’s support for warrantless surveillance of Americans came as a surprise to many astute political observers because before he was Speaker of the House he supported this effort to rein in the deep state’s powers. But since he became Speaker, Johnson flip-flopped on the issue turning against what he previously supported. Johnson claimed in the lead-up to the vote last week that once he became Speaker he got a classified briefing in the Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF)—the facility in which those with security clearance like members of Congress receive classified briefings and information—that changed his mind on the matter.
One member of Congress who had access to every bit of information Johnson did on this matter and remained opposed to warrantless surveillance voting properly unlike Johnson on the amendment in question told Breitbart News that members were joking amongst themselves that deep state actors must have shown Johnson a severed horse’s head in the SCIF to get him to flip. Johnson’s office, when given multiple opportunities through spokesman Raj Shah, has not actually denied that reference to The Godfather to Breitbart News even though it seems unlikely that he was actually shown an actual severed horse’s head in the SCIF even if he was just blackmailed or threatened there.
Seconds after Johnson’s great betrayal on the floor of the House in Washington DC last week on Friday morning, he boarded a flight to West Palm Beach, Florida, where he would attend a press conference on Friday evening with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. It is unclear how Johnson got to Mar-a-Lago so quickly but it does not appear as though he took a commercial flight. If he flew private—and if so who paid for it as private jets are extremely expensive, and who flew with him on the plane—remains a mystery that Shah on Johnson’s behalf refuses to answer questions about. Joining Johnson at Mar-a-Lago on Friday evening was Hudson, the NRCC chairman who purportedly oversees GOP efforts to hold the House majority and ostensibly to add to it. While Republicans—given the map and breakdown of battleground districts—should have a decent shot at holding the House in November despite all of their other problems, it appears as though efforts to do so are failing significantly at the moment as Hudson sat there with Johnson on Mar-a-Lago’s patio begging Trump to bail them out with endorsements of their favored candidates in key places.
That’s what makes Hudson’s very slow pace to back Johnson–and to do so with a weak nine-word-long statement from a spokesman, not even one from himself–so particularly interesting. The NRCC chair could have easily just said he stands with Johnson to put any questions to bed, but instead through his staff decided to let this question linger. That’s not to suggest that Hudson is somehow gunning for Johnson—he clearly is not, as Hudson is in Johnson’s leadership team heading the campaign side efforts of the House GOP’s formal party committee. What it does show is just how toxic Johnson has become to House Republicans in record time even for a conference plagued by major issues dating back more than a decade to now former Speaker John Boehner’s tenure.
Johnson’s spokesman, Shah, previously told Breitbart News on Friday that the speaker does not intend to resign his position and will try to ride out any questions about his future while holding onto the gavel. But continuing to wield that very gavel depends on maintaining the trust of basically every single House Republican as even just one member breaking from him might be enough to dislodge the gavel from Johnson’s grip. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has offered up a motion to vacate resolution that would do just that, but Greene has not as of yet decided to force a vote on it by introducing it as a privileged resolution. She—or any other House Republican—could do that at any moment, thereby forcing a vote within a handful of days in the chamber, a vote that Johnson would almost certainly lose as evidenced by the fact that even his closest confidantes like Hudson do not have the courage or the fortitude to quickly stand up for him publicly with a simple press statement.
But perhaps most interestingly, while Johnson at his press conference with Trump—which was extremely icy between the two of them given that Trump did not even let Johnson answer any press questions—got the former president to at least for now say he stands with the speaker, both Johnson and Hudson have been silent all day Monday as Trump began his trial in a New York courtroom. Both Shah on Johnson’s behalf and Reinert on Hudson’s behalf have refused to answer why the Speaker and NRCC chair have not said anything on the opening day of Trump’s trial.
Reinert, Hudson’s spokesman, did send a very old tweet from a year and 11 days ago seconds before the deadline for comment from Hudson bashing Trump’s trials:
Reinert also sent an older quote from Hudson in Politico from back in March–weeks ago–saying House Republicans are betting on Trump in 2024.
“I was one of the first people that endorsed Trump this cycle, and I’m proud to run with him. I think he’s a net positive everywhere for us. So if somebody asked, I tell them, ‘embrace him, he’s our nominee,’” Hudson said in that quote to Politico which was published way back on March 26, nearly three weeks ago. “I mean, he’s wildly popular everywhere right now. He’s winning every battleground state.”
But again, Hudson and Johnson are still both silent nearly a full business day into the opening day of Trump’s trial in New York.
The next major policy question facing Congress, especially in the aftermath of Iran’s attack on Israel this weekend, is a matter of whether a foreign aid plan will pass. Globalists have been desperate to funnel yet more American tax dollars to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, and may very well try to do so in the coming days. Whether Johnson goes forward with reported efforts to do that could determine his fate but one thing is extremely clear: Outgoing Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell is salivating at the possibility of tying the more Ukraine cash he has desperately pushed for for over a year to an Israel aid package. Whether Johnson is bamboozled by McConnell yet again could seal the deal for him one way or another.
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