Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) declared on Tuesday his intention to become a co-sponsor of a motion aimed at removing Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from his position as the leader of the House.
During a confidential conference meeting, Massie informed his colleagues that he intends to co-sponsor the motion to vacate resolution, which was submitted by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) at the end of last month.
Three GOP members present in the meeting confirmed this, making Massie the first politician to publicly support Greene’s initiative.
Massie’s declaration occurred within a day of Johnson’s presentation of a proposal to facilitate foreign aid passage in the House.
This plan involves voting on three distinct pieces of legislation to provide help to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, as well as a fourth measure addressing additional national security concerns.
However, Johnson deviated from his previous stances by excluding border security measures from the plan.
This decision came after several months of Republicans, including the Speaker, insisting that any assistance for Ukraine should be accompanied by legislation to tackle the situation at the southern border.
Consequently, this move faced strong opposition from conservatives.
During the press conference following Tuesday’s meeting, Massie cited Johnson’s actions regarding Ukraine aid, government funding, and the reauthorization of unwarranted surveillance as reasons for his support of the overthrow campaign.
“There’s only one person right now who could stop us from going into what happened last fall, and that’s Mike Johnson,” Massie said.
“He’s cleaning the barn, that’s obvious. He had three things to do: he wanted to do an omnibus that broke all the spending records; he wanted to do FISA without warrants; now he wants to do Ukraine. Those are the three things. There are people riding him like a horse here, they don’t care when the horse collapses, I do, because it’s gonna throw our conference into turmoil.” he added.
During the closed-door conference meeting, the Kentucky Republican urged Johnson to step down from the Speakership, but the Louisiana Republican refused to comply.
Both Greene and Massie have refrained from disclosing the timing of their potential vote on the motion-to-vacate resolution.
However, their endorsement as conservatives implies that Johnson will most probably want the support of Democrats if he wishes to continue on in the position of Speaker.
[READ MORE: Trump Blasts ‘Assault on America’ Before First Day of Trial]
