Second House Republican joins far-right effort to oust Mike Johnson

A second House Republican has joined the effort to oust the speaker, Mike Johnson, escalating the risk of another leadership election just six months after the Louisiana congressman assumed the top job.

Congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican of Kentucky, announced on Tuesday that he would co-sponsor the motion to vacate resolution introduced last month by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia.

“[Johnson] should pre-announce his resignation (as Boehner did), so we can pick a new Speaker without ever being without a GOP Speaker,” Massie said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The former House speaker John Boehner resigned from Congress in 2015 after a fellow Republican, then congressman Mark Meadows of North Carolina, filed a motion to vacate the chair. In October, Kevin McCarthy became the first speaker in history to ever be formally removed from his job via a motion to vacate vote.

Speaking to reporters after a Republican conference meeting this morning, Massie predicted that Johnson would lose the vote on the motion and would become the second speaker to lose the gavel.

“The motion is going to get called, and then [Johnson] is going to lose more votes than Kevin McCarthy,” Massie said.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Johnson remained defiant that he would not resign and accused his critics of undermining Republicans’ legislative priorities.

“I am not resigning, and it is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs,” Johnson said. “It is not helpful to the cause. It is not helpful to the country. It does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda.”

Massie’s announcement comes one day after Johnson unveiled a plan to advance a