The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro mocked the Republican “clowns” in the House of Representatives for threatening Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) gavel and holding the rest of their peers “hostage” on his show Monday.
“The Republican caucus continues to be a complete hellscape. The Republican caucus in Congress is split between a very small group of Republican congresspeople who are clowns and who wish to basically do their clown act on TV for money and notoriety and the vast majority of Republicans who actually would like to pass bills that they believe are the best thing they can get for America,” began Shapiro. “That doesn’t mean the best bill possible, because the best bill possible is not possible when you have a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President of the United States. You still have to pass funding allocations. You still have to make sure that defense is funded. You still have to make sure — if you’re a big fan of the entitlements — the entitlements are funded. These are all things you still have to do.”
He continued:
But there’s a group of Republican congresspeople who have decided that it is very important that they be very famous. And in order to be very famous, they’re going to do things like challenge the speakership of the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who is more conservative on policy than any of them.
This would be the same group of clowns who decided to oust Kevin McCarthy for no reason other than Matt Gaetz had some sort of vengeance plan against Kevin McCarthy. And then it turns out they replaced McCarthy, who was doing fine, with Johnson, who’s even more conservative than McCarthy.
And then Johnson, it turns out, has the same exact incentive structure as every other Speaker of the House. Namely, he has to get things done with an incredibly slim majority, right now effectively a one-vote majority. And then the idea is that they’re going to go after Johnson.
So here’s what needs to happen now. Mike Johnson needs to nuke the stupid rule negotiated by Kevin McCarthy to get the speakership that allows any member a motion to vacate. That needs to die; it’s a dumb rule. It’s a rule that basically allows one congressperson, or a group of 5 or 10 congresspeople, to hold hostage the entire Republican caucus.
“The speaker is supposed to be able to do vote counting. The speaker is supposed to be able to negotiate. Mike Johnson should nuke this dumb rule right now. And if he requires Democrats to help him do it, then he should get Democrats to help him do it,” said Shapiro. “And if you don’t like that, you should blame Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s the one who decided to bring the latest quixotic attempt to take down the Speaker of the House for no reason other than to get her name on TV? There is no logic here. There is no rationale here. There is no reason here. This rule needs to die.”
Enough of the Congressional clown show. Speaker Johnson should immediately nuke the idiotic rule that one person can hold hostage all of Congress by bringing a “motion to vacate” against the Speaker. If that means getting Democratic votes + a majority of Republicans, Johnson… pic.twitter.com/jsOuxjHrjS
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 8, 2024
Notably, the conservative commentator went on to challenge Greene, Gaetz, and the rest of their cohort on the merits of their opposition to aid for Ukraine as well.
“The question that I have for many of the Republicans who are opposed to Ukraine aid is: What is the objection to the Ukraine aid? Not in the amount, that’s a reasonable objection. Not in the verification procedures as to where the aid goes, that’s a reasonable objection. My question is: If you are a person who full scale believes that we ought to withdraw aid from Ukraine, what is the American, hard, realpolitik national interest in watching Russia just take the country? That’s my question,” added Shapiro.
“Do you believe that without American aid, including the American weaponry that really is what the aid is. When we sign a check to Ukraine, we’re not actually signing a check to Ukraine. We’re creating a credit on a ledger, and then Ukraine uses it to buy our old weaponry. That’s actually what’s happening. But if you believe that we should cut off aid to Ukraine, here’s the question: Are you willing to watch as Vladimir Putin marches into Kyiv? Is that what you’re willing to do?”
