A late-night sit-down in the office of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) devolved into shouting and a stormed-out exit Tuesday, in what multiple sources call one of the most heated internal clashes House Republicans have had all year.
Johnson had called the 9:15 p.m. gathering with top GOP leadership, including chairs of the party’s five ideological factions, to discuss a Freedom Caucus push to suspend the federal gas tax through Election Day, an idea championed by caucus chair Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD). The meeting itself was the fulfillment of a promise leadership made to Harris in exchange for his earlier support on an unrelated procedural vote, The Washington Sun reported.
Things fell apart when House Transportation Committee Chair Sam Graves (R-MO), whose committee actually oversees gas tax policy, surfaced an old Harris tweet from 2022 criticizing former President Joe Biden for floating the exact same idea.
“Suspending the federal gas tax is just another Biden Administration stunt to distract from their self-inflicted crisis,” Harris had written at the time.
Harris didn’t take this well, banging on the desk and yelling, “This is [expletive] war! This is war!” according to sources in the room. He tried to storm out, with Johnson urging him to stay and work through it, when Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), a Harris ally, turned on Graves directly.
“Why do you have to come at him personally? You disrespectful fool!” Higgins said, before leaving the room alongside Harris.
One person in the room described the atmosphere afterward as unusually tense, even by the standards of a fractious House GOP conference. Higgins kept the fight going publicly the next day, blasting Graves on X as an “Establishment elitist” with a “lifetime Heritage score of 69” for killing what would have been a three-month fuel tax suspension.
The blowup is just the latest sign of strain inside a House GOP conference Johnson has struggled to hold together on a razor-thin margin, following past flare-ups including a profane outburst Johnson himself directed at Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) in July.
Less than a day after Tuesday’s meeting, Johnson announced the House would wrap its work early and send members home campaigning until after the midterms, triggering fury and a wave of allegations from GOP rank and file that leadership is trying to blow off tough votes.
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