Senior Democrat says party will save House speaker from ousting – on one condition

A senior Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has said his party will help prevent the ouster of House Speaker Mike Johnson if the Louisiana Republican allows a defence aid package including humanitarian aid for Gaza to receive an up-or-down vote on the House floor.

Brad Sherman, a California Representative who serves as the second highest-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs panel, told The Independent Mr Johnson could receive Democratic assistance on a vote to remove him if he ensures that the humanitarian aid provisions remain in the bill he has promised to put to a vote this week.

“We’ve got to pass it and it’s got to include the humanitarian aid,” he said. “I think if he does that, and then there’s a motion to vacate the speakership because he did the right thing, even if he did it in four separate notebooks on unlimited colored papers, the Democrats will not allow it [the motion to vacate] to pass.”

Earlier in the day, Mr Johnson refused to heed calls for his resignation from a far-right colleague after he agreed to allow the House to consider legislation to authorise further military aid to Ukraine along with defence assistance for Israel and Taiwan.

The Louisiana Republican was urged to step down by Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie during a meeting of the House GOP Conference on Tuesday after Mr Johnson said he was putting forth legislation to fund Israeli and Ukrainian defence needs over the objection of members such as Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, who weeks ago filed a motion to remove him as Speaker after he allowed the House to vote on funding the federal government for the rest of the current fiscal year.

Mr Massie, a MIT-educated engineer who routinely opposes all government