Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has made it clear that Democrats will not come to the rescue of Speaker Mike Johnson after his controversial deal to pass a short-term continuing resolution (CR) with Democrat support.
The CR, which averted a government shutdown, has left Johnson vulnerable to backlash within his own party, fueling speculation about his tenuous hold on the Speaker’s gavel.
From time to time, Johnson has caved into the Democrats, such as by removing the SAVE Act—which would have required proof of citizenship for voter registration—approving funding for Ukraine and supporting numerous other bills that stand in opposition to conservative values.
In May 2024, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate Johnson’s speakership, expressing dissatisfaction with his decision to pass spending bills with Democrat support.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other Democratic leaders announced they would vote to table Greene’s motion in exchange for a Ukraine aid agreement.
The motion was successfully tabled with a vote of 359-43, with 163 Democrats and 196 Republicans supporting Johnson.
However, recent developments suggest that Democrat support for Johnson may not be guaranteed in future challenges.
Following a contentious spending deal in December 2024, Jeffries stated that Democrats would not intervene if Johnson faced another rebellion from his Republican colleagues.
Recall, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) accused Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) of secretly negotiating a bloated $1.7 trillion spending bill behind closed doors for nearly three months.
Lee revealed that the controversial legislation had been in the works for 85 days without the public’s knowledge, an act he characterized as an affront to transparency and accountability. Senator Lee predicted dire consequences for those involved, specifically targeting Speaker Mike Johnson’s hold on power.
Thomas Massie criticized Speaker Johnson for initially planning to split the spending bill into multiple pieces but ultimately caving to Democrats’ demands for an “all-in-one” bill.
“This was in fact correct when you tweeted it, but speaker Johnson flipped his decision after the meeting when he spoke to Hakeem Jeffries and realized he could get Democrat votes to pass all the legislation as one bill.”
Massie has also announced his intention to vote against Johnson’s reelection as Speaker on Jan. 3, with several other Republicans remaining undecided.
President Trump is reportedly peeved at House Speaker Mike Johnson and is reconsidering his support for him following last week’s government funding debacle.
Appearing on Inside with Jen Psaki, Jeffries made it clear that Democrats see no reason to rescue Johnson or the “extreme MAGA Republicans” from the consequences of their internal discord.
Jen Psaki
I know there were some pieces in this bipartisan agreement that were stripped out of the bill before it went to the Senate—some of them were saved in the Senate. But because of this chaos, there have been questions about whether Mike Johnson is at risk of not being the Speaker of the House in a couple of weeks. What do you think?Hakeem Jeffries
I think that’s a real risk, and there will be no Democrats available to save him or the extreme MAGA Republicans from themselves based on breaching a bipartisan agreement that reflected priorities beneficial to the American people.We’ll have to continue working on several of those as we move forward, including increasing resources for community health centers—a bipartisan priority that Republicans walked away from, even though it benefits people in urban America, rural America, small-town America, the heartland, and Appalachia.
But we’ll wage those battles over the next few weeks and months, given that this is only a short-term continuing resolution expiring on March 14.
Jen Psaki
That means the vote, just for everybody paying attention at home, is going to come up again. There’s going to be another push to raise the debt limit and keep the government funded.I mentioned how over 170 Republicans voted for this bill, even though Trump threatened primary opponents. Do you think Trump has lost the hold on the caucus he once had?
Hakeem Jeffries
That’s an open question and one of the narratives that perhaps emerged in Congress recently. We saw a willingness by some far-right extremists in the House Republican conference to defy Donald Trump on the debt ceiling.This means that despite their plan to stick the American people with trillions of dollars of debt to jam tax cuts down their throats—partly by cutting Social Security and Medicare—Democrats will remain united in pushing back.
Donald Trump will have to find the votes for that reckless scheme among House Republicans and House Republicans alone.
Video via Behizy:
Mike Johnson made a backroom deal with Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries to screw America, but now Jeffries says not a single Democrat will vote to rescue Johnson’s speakership.
“There will be no Democrats available to save him or the extreme MAGA Republicans from themselves based… pic.twitter.com/dGduiADNvs
— George (@BehizyTweets) December 24, 2024
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