Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, without mentioning Congressman Thomas Massie by name, proclaims himself mystified as to what "contrarian House Republicans" expect to accomplish by opposing Mike Johnson as Speaker.

Massie then gave him a list, and Gingrich kept on posting as if Massie's list did not exist.

But it does exist, unlike Gingrich's answer.

Massie, who was better on COVID than all his current critics, and has been a stalwart on Russiagate, January 6th, and the rest of the hoaxes, is said to be "grandstanding" when he opposes Mike Johnson, who any damn fool knows is a bad candidate and whom nobody actually defends on the merits.

By later this year half of these people pushing for Johnson will be pretending they never supported him. Mark my words.

The consensus on Twitter — including from even the Defiant L's account — is that we need to "trust Trump" (they are using those exact words), who says he wants Johnson.

Nobody ever said, "Trust Thomas Jefferson," because the presidency wasn't a cult back then.

Here was the Massie response to Gingrich — which, as I said, was of course ignored:

First let me note that the "vote for Mike" camp is not trying to make the case that Mike Johnson is endowed with the qualities necessary to lead our conference. Even you have limited yourself here to procedural justifications for his speakership rather than telling us why he is a good or capable leader.

Even if Mike's entire goal is to do everything Trump wants without debate or question (which I would argue is not healthy for the institution of Congress), he's not going to be good at it. He already demonstrated this month that he won't tell the President what is achievable and what is not achievable in the House, and he lacks the situational awareness himself to know what can pass and what cannot.

1. "What do we hope to gain?"
A competent Speaker who has the will and the ability to capitalize on this once in a decade opportunity. Johnson is not up for this task. Also, we want a Speaker who inspires the public and who can make our case in the media, so we can keep the majority for the second half of Trump's term. Johnson nearly led us to the minority in what was a banner year for Trump. He is certain to lose us the majority in 2026.