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‘I’d Rather Sit Down With Hannibal Lecter’: Johnson’s Grip on Speakership Slips Further
Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to lead the House of Representatives is growing even more tenuous, and he’s getting hit from all sides.
Johnson is currently facing a possible forced vote, initiated by House Democrats, to pass the Senate’s bipartisan border bill, especially because it includes now desperately-needed funding for Ukraine. House members from both parties are being urged by Democrats and Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to sign a discharge petition, against Johnson’s wishes.
“Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell [is] making multiple public calls just now for House Speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on a Senate-passed Ukraine/Israel aid bill. ‘Let the House speak,’ McConnell told reporters,” Jamie Dupree reports. ‘We don’t have time for all of this.'”
Today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged Speaker Mike Johnson to bring Israel and Ukraine aid to the Floor for a vote immediately.
As he said: Let the House Speak! We have the votes for the Supplemental bill, now let us do our duty and pass it. pic.twitter.com/2YVZZJp64l
— Steny Hoyer (@RepStenyHoyer) March 12, 2024
Early Monday morning Punchbowl News reported Johnson “said he’d actively work against any and all discharge petitions to bring a bill to a vote.”
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The petition needs 218 votes to pass. Once it does Johnson would have seven days to put the bill on the floor for a vote. It is widely expected it would pass by a large margin, although House members have been slow to sign the petition that’s been open for a few hours.
If Johnson is concerned about his “razor-thin” majority, he just got more bad news. U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who transformed from a wild Freedom Caucus member into a wildcard, had already announced he would not seek re-election. On Tuesday afternoon he announced he is leaving Congress “at the end of next week.” That means after next week, on any given vote Johnson can afford to loose just two members‘ votes, “and that’s if there aren’t any absences.”
Some speculate that with a special election next month in New York, Johnson in theory could be facing a 218-214 majority. “That means Johnson could afford ONE defection at most, since a 216-216 tie kills a bill.”
To make matters worse, Johnson says Buck did not tell him he was pulling up stakes and leaving early, although Buck reportedly left Johnson a voicemail 30 minutes before his announcement.
“I was surprised by Ken’s announcement,” Johnson admitted to reporters.
Speaker Mike Johnson was caught off guard by the announcement from Ken Buck retiring early.
“I was surprised by Ken’s announcement. I look forward to talking to him about that,” he told reporters.
He said he did not know in advance: “I did not know.” pic.twitter.com/7egUzQcBRg
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotcnn) March 12, 2024
Buck blasted Republicans, including Donald Trump, in his CNN interview Tuesday.
“It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress. And having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress,” Buck said.
“It is the worst year of the 9 years and 3 months that I’ve been in Congress. And having talked to former members it’s the worst year in 40-50 years to be in Congress,” GOP @RepKenBuck tells me as he announces he is resigning at the end of next week. pic.twitter.com/CZd1I1CzzN
— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) March 12, 2024
The bad news for Johnson’s grip on the GOP conference and his speakership continues.
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This week is the House Republicans’ retreat, in West Virginia.
Less than half of the House Republicans are expected to attend.
“Less than 100 House GOP members are going to the Republican retreat in West Virginia this week, per source familiar,” Politico’s Olivia Beavers reports.
“’I’d rather sit down with Hannibal Lecter and eat my own liver,’ said one House Republican when asked if they are attending the House GOP retreat,” Beavers adds.
Putting the state of Johnson’s leadership in context, Aaron Fritschner, the deputy chief of staff to Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Beyer offers this observation: “Retreat is a week after the House GOP conference largely blew off Johnson’s request that they ‘behave themselves’ during the State of the Union, which they interrupted many times with shouting and boos.”
Some Republicans appear to be celebrating Johnson’s slipping grip.
Republican lobbyist and former Jeb Bush campaign senior advisor Al Cárdenas, the former chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), the group that puts on CPAC, was quick to weigh in.
Calling Congressman Buck a “fine servant of the people,” Cárdenas surmised: “If 3 more gop members resign; then leadership of the House changes and we can vote on budget; aid to our allies; border security and immigration reform. Sad but true that the gridlock at a specially critical time is a Trump-Johnson maneuver. Rep Buck did the right thing short term; although the best are leaving and that means more of an effort to rebuild the place later on.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
