‘He’s Gotta Go!’ Steve Bannon Whips Up Crowd Against Speaker Johnson Amid Budget Battle

Steve Bannon gave Mike Johnson (R-LA) a vote of no confidence in front of a MAGA-friendly crowd as the House speaker grapples with a looming government shutdown.

CNN’s Dana Bash played a clip of Bannon telling a gathering in Arizona that Johnson doesn’t have “the right stuff” to push through a spending bill that will meet the approval of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

“Clearly, Johnson’s not up to the task, and he’s gotta go, right?” Bannon said at a Turning Point USA conference. “He’s gotta go! Should Johnson be speaker of the House?” Bannon asked to a resounding, “No!” from the crowd.

“President Trump, these are your people,” Bannon continued. “He doesn’t have that, what we call the right stuff, right? That combination of guts and moxie and savvy and toughness!”

Bash lent some perspective on Johnson’s situation.

“The reality of what Mike Johnson or anybody who would be in his job right now has to deal with, and that is yes, he made a bipartisan deal and he did that knowing full well that a lot of his fellow Republicans are not going to vote to keep the government running no matter what,” Bash said, continuing:

So, he needed to bring on some Democratic priorities and Democratic votes. That’s like governing, legislating 101, usually. What was really interesting is what he did last night. We were talking in the last segment about those 38 Republicans voting no on Donald Trump’s approved package, which included raising the debt ceiling. Used to be, somebody like Nancy Pelosi would say, “I’m not going to bring anything to the floor that I know won’t pass.” He knew it wouldn’t pass. That is something that he clearly needed to do to show Donald Trump. This is where your Republican Party is right now. So, it’s not me, it’s them.

Trump and Musk voiced their disapproval of a bipartisan bill earlier this week, and a bill supported by the pair was voted down on Thursday. The House has until midnight Friday to pass a spending bill or face a government shutdown.

Watch the clip above via CNN.