House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faced a short-lived Republican revolt on Tuesday against his efforts to block the House from voting to end President Trump's tariffs.
Why it matters: House Republicans have increasingly chafed against the economic impact of the tariffs, with some enraged at Johnson for shutting down a vote on them until April 2026 at the earliest.
What happened: A half-dozen Republicans initially voted against a Republican procedural measure that would have prevented a vote through March to end the emergency declaration upon which the tariffs are based.
- If the measure had failed, it would have essentially ground business on the House floor to a halt.
- Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) ended up flipping to voting for the measure, while Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) and Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) maintained their "no" votes.
- Johnson reached a deal with the holdouts to change some of the tariff-related language. GOP leadership plans to hold another rule vote Wednesday that will shorten the time frame under which a vote is barred by the emergency declaration.
What they're saying: "If we're saying that Congress is not going to be able to assert itself on this issue, that, in my view, is a problem," Kiley told reporters.
- "We want to reconsider that issue in its own right," he said. "Let's not do it as a paragraph that snuck into a six-page rule on a whole bunch of other unrelated stuff."
