Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, on Monday said that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) either needs to make changes or step down from his role leading the Republican caucus.
“We need either a change in direction from this speaker, or we need a new speaker,” Amash said at a town hall in Michigan, according to CNN.
Members of the Freedom Caucus helped oust former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and are known for their hard-line stances. They opposed the House leadership’s bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, contributing to the legislation’s failure. However, leadership’s inability to whip enough support for the bill’s passage has not led to a flood of calls for Ryan to step aside. The chair of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), said at the end of March that there had not been discussions about replacing Ryan as speaker.
Amash also criticized President Donald Trump and Ryan for giving Republicans talking points to use during the House recess.
“When we go home for the weekend, they give us a set of talking points. They say ‘here are your talking points,'” he said at the town hall, per CNN. “That’s not the way you’re supposed to represent a community.”
Hmmmm…wondered when the rumbling would start.
Freedumb Caucus sees an opportunity? Let the infighting intensify.
LOL. I love to see this. Please spill more tea, Amash!
As for Ryan, I seriously doubt he’s going anywhere anytime soon.
Good luck with that. It was the Freedom Caucasians’ complaining that led to the milquetoast Speaker they have now. Unless you could anthropomorphize kicking poor people, I don’t think you could get 218 Republicans to vote for anyone.
Yes son, (patting him on the head) giving you talking points for the weekend is exactly how a unified party works. It is how a unified party gets most of its agenda enacted when you have the House, Senate and the White House. It has worked for centuries.
This got me curious how many FY17 appropriations have passed, halfway through the fiscal year. At zero, Rumpublicans are right on pace for another manufactured crisis.
I certainly have no use for this ace in the hole from Michigan or anyone else from the rich white man’s freedom caucus. But the so-called moderates who helped kill Rumpcare should change parties and elect Pelosi Speaker. She knows that the House is not an episode of the Bachelor, and that stuff gets done by quietly wrangling together a disparate coalition, behind the scenes.