House Republican “unity” lasted a full day and a half before falling to pieces tonight

| 10:20 pm EDT October 26, 2023
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When House Republicans unanimously elected powerless nobody Mike Johnson as their Speaker specifically because he was a powerless nobody, they tried to pass it off as a show of unity. But when you’re purposely picking the weakest leader you can find, so that you can each carry out your own personal agendas with no one to stop you, the “united front” doesn’t last. In this case it only lasted a day and a half.

Tonight Matt Gaetz decided to out House Republican Jason Smith for supposedly being gay, a weird move given that Smith is the chair of an influential House committee and could easily use this as a basis for trying to get Gaetz expelled. And the House Republicans who are in districts adjacent to George Santos are already taking formal steps to force a vote to expel him.

So congratulations, “Speaker” Mike Johnson. You’re already stuck trying to navigate a vicious personal feud between your members, and you’re stuck trying to figure out how to deal with an expulsion motion that some of your members filed against another member. And it’s still only Thursday. Just wait until House Republicans really start eating each other alive in the wake of the power vacuum created by the most powerless “Speaker” in modern history.