While stumping for former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) appeared on Fox News to discuss how House Republicans will fight more aggressively for border security in March while stipulating that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is doing as well as he can to avoid removal as Speaker.
Rep. Gaetz said March would allow House Republicans to "link up this latter CR and make a demand on the border," referencing the latest continuing resolution passed by the House, saying it is urgent.
"When I am out in the country, particularly here in New Hampshire, [voters] think it is crazy when they say you are funding a government with no demand that the border be shut down. Like, what government are you funding if the border is so open that millions of people have been released into the interior as a real drain on the system? We were talking about it here with voters. And so, I think that we have got to take the political high ground of a border fight. Mike Johnson has to do that in March. He has told me he will," Rep. Gaetz continued.
Some House Republicans are supposedly considering plans to remove Johnson due to the recent continuing resolution he helped pass with Democrats. But Gaetz, who led the charge in removing Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), is not among them and said Johnson is not under threat, using the analogy of recovering after surgery before it can occur again.
"Kevin McCarthy had a four-seat majority," Gaetz added, "Then we kicked out [George] Santos (R-NY), McCarthy took his marbles and went home, a guy took a college presidency, and Johnson has a one-seat majority, which is actually four times less powerful than having a four-seat majority when counting votes. And so we have to give him probably a little more grace."
Moreover, Gaetz suggested Johnson has already performed better than McCarthy under current circumstances, such as the proposal to offset funds for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to go toward Israel as they battle Hamas, saying, "While Johnson has not yet engaged in the border fight that he must engage for us to keep our majority and for him to keep his job, at least he is peeling back some of the stuff that we had to deal with with Kevin McCarthy."
