Massie sounds like he's all but ruled out any chance of backing a second term for Speaker Johnson. While Massie has been keeping a list of complaints and checking it twice, the last straw may be the latest spending scramble, which Massie has long-predicted would come down to the wire before the holiday break.
"It's going to be the same old thing, warmed over, written behind closed doors, and rolled out here," Massie said months ago. "And we're going to be told 'Vote for this and you can go home and open presents with your kids. Don't vote for it and you're going to be stuck here.'"
The prediction has prompted a new nickname for the Kentucky lawmaker: "NostraThomas."
"We just won the elections. We have a mandate. And he's giving away the farm. He's turned this thing into a Christmas tree. He's let people tack things on. A 30-page bill has become a 1,500-page bill full of pork," he told media as the negotiations continued this week.
There’s a cognitive disconnect among my colleagues who hated Speaker Johnson’s CR, but still plan to vote for @SpeakerJohnson in 2 weeks.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 19, 2024
That 1557 page bill was a product of the swamp that uniparty Johnson was happy to facilitate. He couldn’t understand why we didn’t lap it up.
As the conversation switched to a clean Continuing Resolution, or CR, with a debt limit increase, Massie took to X to ask," Isn’t that what Speaker (Kevin) McCarthy was vacated for? How times change."
Massey's opposition to the eleventh-hour spending decisions and other maneuvers by Johnson could spell trouble for the Republican leader's political future.
Johnson has a narrow Republican majority to work with in the 119th Congress and can't afford to lose Massey's support. Although the Hill reports the threshold for victory can be lowered if members vote "present" or are absent.
Even so, the Kentucky representative's vocal opposition could still put Johnson's path to leadership in question as previous GOP seats are vacated by President-elect Trump's appointments.
