‘I Definitely Have No Fs to Give’: House Republican Bucks Pressure to Fall In Line and Back Speaker Johnson

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) pulled no punches this week in criticizing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and making the that he should not win the speakership again in Friday’s House GOP vote.

Massie spoke to the Wall Street Journal for an article published Thursday in which he said, “Even if he thinks he’s going to be the guy who does what Trump wants him to do—he’s not that good at it.” Massie also said he was willing to tank Johnson despite President-elect Donald Trump’s endorsement of the speaker, saying he was all out of “Fs to give.”

CNN’s Phil Mattingly led a panel discussion on the topic Thursday and Tia Mitchell, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Washington Bureau Chief, made the case that Trump’s endorsement is “not enough” to ensure Johnson holds on to his job.

“Quite frankly, there are some members of Congress, Republican members, who just are not happy with Mike Johnson’s leadership, and they’re willing possibly to split with Trump to stick true to their principles,” Mitchell said, adding:

They’re, you know, they don’t like the continuing resolutions. They don’t like that he’s added spending mainly to try to compromise with Democrats on these spending bills to avoid government shutdown.

So there are plenty of very conservative House Republicans who don’t necessarily want to pick a fight with Donald Trump, but they do believe their principles call them to kind of stick to what they feel like they came to Washington to do. And that kind of puts them at odds sometimes with Speaker Johnson. We see that with Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example. She’s a big ally of President Trump, but she’s one of Mike Johnson’s biggest critics.

So usually she falls in line. But there are others who seem less willing to do so. So that’s why Friday is going to be such a toss-up.

“Chief among them is Thomas Massie, who is one person, one member who’s come out and said explicitly, ‘I’m a No,” Mattingly replied, adding:

Mike Johnson could afford to lose one Republican and still be able to become speaker, it’s the rest of need to worry about if people are trying to figure out who Thomas Massie is. One, this isn’t rare for him. And two, there’s this great profile of him in the Wall Street Journal where it says, ‘Massie waves off the political risks. He’s survived attacks by Trump and his own party before his wife of three decades died last year. Massie says, quote, I don’t know how to say this without cussing. If they thought I had no Fs to give before, I definitely have no FS to give now.’ Is Massie a symptom of something broader or is he just Massie?

As the discussion continued, CNN’s Jeff Zeleny argued that he doesn’t imagine the House GOP will devolve into chaos the way it did after Speaker McCarthy was ousted. “But boy, Speaker Johnson, Trump made him sweat it for a little bit a few days without giving that endorsement. But he got it sort of going into the holidays. I would be surprised if there’s a repeat,” Zeleny noted, adding:

And Monday is a key deadline because that is when the Electoral College certification happens. So if there’s a speaker fight at the same time, that means it slows down, that’s hard for me to imagine.

Massie also posted a lengthy screed earlier in the week, roasting Speaker Johnson’s leadership. Massie concluded by writing “the emperor has no clothes and the entire conference knows it but few will say it. The general public knows it too. Please don’t shoot the messengers.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.