GOP members vent frustration with Johnson as House set to vote on last minute massive spending bill

Some GOP House members are publicly venting their frustration with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., as the House prepares to vote Friday on a massive spending bill that was released at the last minute.

The full legislative text of the 1,012 page "minibus" spending package was released by Johnson's office around 2:30am on Thursday.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus announced a news conference for Friday morning on the "Johnson-Schumer-Biden Omnibus." In a news reference, the caucus promoted the event on X with the title, "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems," a reference to the famous hip-hop song by Sean Combs, known as "P-Diddy" and the Notorious B.I.G.

"This 1,000-plus page spending bill was presented to members less than 36 hours before the vote, breaking the House Rule that requires members to have 72 hours to review major legislation," the release read.

"It spends $5.5 Million per word, fully funds and continues the Biden border crisis, and it is loaded with radioactive 'woke' earmarks - all of which is owned by anyone voting for this bill. This is not what Republicans promised America," the release also read.

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, said there's a lot of chatter behind the scenes in the House about whether the House GOP should keep Johnson as speaker if the GOP maintains control of the chamber in 2024.

"There's a lot of conversation about that, as we look at, you know, hopefully defending our majority, hopefully growing it frankly, right? Can we set somebody up to be a more effective speaker? And I think part of it is we don't have a unified plan. If you look at the party as a whole, the party hasn't had a new platform since 2016," he said on the "Just the News, Not Noise" TV program on Thursday night.

"The GOP was reluctant to embrace Donald Trump, and they never really fully implemented his platform. It wasn't updated in 2020 and to this day, you've really got like free range Republicans making some similar promises, but we haven't united behind something. And look, Mike Johnson confronted something no other speaker has. He had to become speaker mid-Congress so he wasn't set up for success. But nevertheless, there's a lot of disappointment," Davidson added.

Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., said he's voting against the spending package on Friday and that fiscal conservatives are not satisfied with Johnson's strategy on the budget. "He's got strong relationships with the real fiscal social groups out there who I know are saying to him, 'Mr. Speaker, what are we doing here?" Brecheen said Thursday on "Just the News, Not Noise."

Brecheen expressed hope that Johnson could change course in 2025. "My hope is he becomes invigorated after this because of all the people who, you know, who love him but are saying, 'What are you doing here?'"

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted from his position in October after putting a 45-day temporary funding bill called a Continuing Resolution (CR) on the House floor, which House conservatives opposed. It passed, at the time, with more votes from Democrats than Republicans.

A group of eight Republicans, along with all Democrats in the chamber, who voted in favor of a motion to vacate the chair, which led to McCarthy's removal. 

Since that time, Johnson has put a series of short-term funding bills on the House floor that passed with the help of Democratic votes.

It appears that the spending package up for a vote on Friday will play out the same way.

Many conservative Republicans are unhappy with the last minute release of the bill on Thursday shortly before the planned vote on Friday. "At 2:32 am—when Americans were sleeping—the Swamp released its second half of the omnibus," Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., wrote Thursday on X.

Clyde continued to say that "1,012 pages that spend $1.2 TRILLION of taxpayer dollars on disastrous policies. The House is still expected to vote on this monstrosity TOMORROW MORNING. Washington is beyond broken."