Elise Stefanik Scorches ‘Political Novice’ Mike Johnson: ‘He Certainly Wouldn’t Have the Votes to Be Speaker’

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Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) scorched Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) during a Tuesday evening interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“He certainly wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll-call vote tomorrow,” submitted Stefanik. “I believe that the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership. It’s that widespread.”

From the Journal‘s report:

In the Journal interview, Stefanik painted Johnson’s standing with Republicans as in a state of collapse. She cited matters ranging from members criticizing his decision to keep lawmakers in their home districts during the recent government shutdown, to weak showings in special elections and to what she casts as his failure to address the expected jump in healthcare costs if the party doesn’t reach an agreement with Democrats soon.

“Whereas Kevin McCarthy was a political animal, Mike Johnson is a political novice and boy does it show, with the House Republicans underperforming for the first time in the Trump era,” added Stefanik, who dismissed Johnson’s good relationship with President Donald Trump.

Stefanik and Johnson have been locked in battle over provision she wanted to add to the National Defense Authorization Act. Mediate previously reported on the spat:

It all started on Monday when Stefanik posted a screed on X, saying Johnson was “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.”

The post came after apparent opposition to a Stefanik provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that would require the federal investigators to alert Congress when opening a counterintelligence probe into presidential and federal candidates seeking office, CNN reported.

Stefanik has been pushing the provision for the last few years in response to the FBI probe into the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and its alleged involvement with Russia.

On Tuesday, Stefanik doubled down, saying Johnson “is blocking my provision to root out the illegal weaponization that led to Crossfire Hurricane, Arctic Frost, and more. He is siding with Jamie Raskin against Trump Republicans to block this provision to protect the deep state.”

She added: “This is an easy one. This bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee.”

Johnson pushed back on Stefanik’s claims, putting out a statement that, “All of that is false. I don’t exactly know why Elise won’t just call me. I texted her yesterday. She’s upset one of her provisions is not being made, I think, into the NDAA.”

Johnson added: “I wrote her and said, ‘What are you talking about?’ This hasn’t even made it to my level.”

Stefanik, who announced her New York gubernatorial bid last month, confirmed she’d received a text from Johnson, and countered: “Just more lies from the Speaker.”

“This is his preferred tactic to tell Members when he gets caught torpedoing the Republican agenda,” she went on. “It wasn’t on your radar? This is the ONLY provision in the bill to root out the deep state rot.”

Tensions had appeared to subside on Wednesday morning when Stefanik tweeted, “Great news! After a productive discussion I had last night with President Trump and Speaker Johnson, the provision requiring Congressional disclosure when the FBI opens counterintelligence investigations into presidential and federal candidates seeking office will be included in the IAA/NDAA bill on the floor.”

“This is a significant legislative win delivered against the illegal weaponization of the deep state. And, of course, while this is an important step, there is so much more work to do,” she added, though the détente may be complicated by the Journal story.