The last time that Speaker Mike Johnson faced a threat to his speakership, the Democrats rescued him to spare the country from chaos, but if Johnson doesn’t have the votes from the Republicans to be elected speaker, the Democrats aren’t going to help.
When CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Rep. Connolly if Democrats would save Johnson, he answered:
I don’t speak for the Democratic Caucus, but I do speak for myself, and I can tell you definitively there is no chance of that. Zero. Uh, we’re voting for Hakeem Jeffries. And, and, by the way, that, Jim, if I can, If there are a lot of people who vote present on the Republican side, the risk for them, those votes don’t count toward the majority.
And that, that, we have 215 sure votes for Hakeem Jeffries. If enough Republicans vote present, we could actually elect Hakeem Jeffries, not Mike Johnson, as Speaker.
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It is not a coincidence that Connolly used the same language as Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who said when asked about saving Johnson, “ There will be no Democrats available to save him, or the extreme MAGA Republicans from themselves based on the breaching of a bipartisan agreement that reflected priorities that were good for the American people. We’re gonna have to continue to work on several of those as we move forward, including plusing up resources for community health centers, which is a bipartisan priority that Republicans walked away from.”
The Johnson speaker election isn’t likely to turn into the same debacle that Kevin McCarthy unleashed when he ran for speaker, but Democrats have a much different attitude than they did in the last Congress.
If Mike Johnson ends up in deep waters, Democrats aren’t going to toss him a life preserver.
What do you think about Democrats refusing to help Mike Johnson? Share your thoughts in the comments below.