Rep. Elise Stefanik said Speaker Mike Johnson would lose an election to lead the House if a vote were suddenly called.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Tuesday night, the New York lawmaker said Johnson is an “ineffective leader” who is losing control of the Republican party.
“He certainly wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll-call vote tomorrow,” said Stefanik, a close ally to President Donald Trump. “I believe that the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership. It’s that widespread.”
Johnson replaced former Rep. Kevin McCarthy to helm the lower chamber in 2023, accepting the speaker’s gavel after a historic series of multiple rounds of voting. He easily won reelection to the speakership earlier this year on a near-party-line vote.
It’s not the first time Stefanik, who is running for governor, has criticized the speaker.
Earlier this week, she accused Johnson of blocking provisions to the National Defense Authorization Act that would notify Congress if the FBI begins investigating federal candidates.
Johnson, she said Monday in a post to X, is “getting rolled by House Dems attempting to block my provision to require Congressional disclosure when the FBI opens counterintelligence investigations into presidential and federal candidates seeking office.”
Still, Johnson appears to have the favor of Trump, who has been able to keep a lid on most GOP internal disputes this year and was credited with mediating the quarrel between Johnson and Stefanik.
But in an interview with Playbook, Stefanik pointed out that between Trump and Johnson, “one has historic support among Republican voters, and one has catastrophic, plummeting support among Republican voters.”
Meanwhile, Democrats watching from the sidelines have cheered on the in-fighting with glee.
“THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTING!” a Tuesday memo from the DCCC highlighting the Stefanik-Johnson feud said.
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