Republican Rep. Mike Lawler argued Sunday that Rep. Mike Johnson should be re-elected as House speaker despite Republican disagreements over whether he should keep the post after his handling of a spending bill that averted a government shutdown last week.
“Mike Johnson inherited a disaster, then [former Rep.] Matt Gaetz and several of my colleagues teamed up with 208 Democrats to remove Kevin McCarthy, which will go down as the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in politics, the New York lawmaker told ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
“Having said that, removing Mike Johnson would be just as stupid. The fact is, these people are playing with fire, and if they think they’re somehow going to get a more conservative speaker, they’re kidding themselves, ” he said, pointing out that Johnson was successful in keeping a Republican majority in the House.
Republicans are expected to hold 219 seats when the new Congress meets on Friday. The election of the Speaker of the House will be the first order of business, and the House cannot move on to other business until that happens. If all Democrats are present and vote against Johnson, the Louisiana Republican can only afford to lose one Republican vote. A Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, has already said he will not support Johnson, while other GOP hardliners have yet to commit to supporting him.
Rep. Mike Lawler appears on “This Week”, December 29, 2024.
ABC
“I’m not going to bend to their will,” Lawler said of his hard-nosed colleagues. “So if they think somehow they’re going to end up in a stronger position by removing Mike Johnson, they’re not.”
Republicans have also argued over H-1B work visas, which allow highly skilled foreign workers to enter the United States to fill specialty occupations.
Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” heads, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, support increasing the number of annual visas, which they claim will bring more talent into the country. But other Trump supporters say those job opportunities should be for Americans.
Mike Johnson addresses members of the press at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, on December 20, 2024.
Richard Pierrin/AFP via Getty Images
In a post on X this week, Musk said “OF COURSE my companies and I would prefer to hire Americans, and we do, as it is MUCH easier than going through the incredibly painful and slow work visa process. However, there is a serious lack of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.”
Criticizing the American workforce, Ramaswamy wrote on X that “American culture has honored mediocrity over excellence for far too long (at least since the 90s and probably longer). It doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.”
After Musk went after critics of his stance in a series of X posts, writing at one point: “I’m going to go to war on this issue that you cannot possibly understand,” former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called him a “toddler “. “
Lawler voiced his support for the H-1B program, telling Karl that it is vital to the economy.
President-elect Donald Trump and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk watch a fight during UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden in New York on November 16, 2024.
Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images
“As President Trump said, it’s a program that he’s used over the years for his businesses, and it’s something that’s obviously been beneficial to our economy,” he said. “The United States was built on immigration, and it is critical to the continued growth of our economy.”
Pressed by Karl about why some Trump supporters strongly oppose visas, Lawler expressed his desire for Americans to fill the needed jobs, “but the fact is that India is producing a significant number of more engineers than we are. So it’s both a function of fixing our education system and having a legal immigration system that works.”
“You can have no immigration at all. It will cripple the economy in the long term,” he said.
