Massie Roasts Johnson for Recessing Ahead of Important Votes

GOP Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky laid into House Speaker Mike Johnson in an hour-long floor speech yesterday, ridiculing the weak sister from Louisiana for falsely claiming that Massie is not a “fully participating member of Congress,” then ordering a recess to duck on Massie’s Epstein Files Transparency Act II and the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Massie ran down the reasons to pass the second Epstein bill to uncover the secret files, as well as the reasons to impeach Hegseth. He also showed that Johnson’s claim — that Massie isn’t doing his job — is a shocking calumny.

The speech was Massie’s chance to answer Johnson, who has personally insulted Massie because he is not part of President Donald Trump’s clucking flock of wattled MAGA cultists, notably those in Congress. Their leader: The head of Trump’s chicken coop on Capitol Hill, Johnson.

Massie’s speech was a “point of personal privilege.” 

The House defines “questions of personal privilege as ‘those affecting the rights, reputation, and conduct’ of Members, Delegates, or the Resident Commissioner individually in their representative capacity,” Congress.gov explains:

Under this rule, a Member may rise to a question of personal privilege on the floor to respond to criticism of integrity specifically in relation to his or her representative capacity. … It is the Speaker who determines whether an allegation or statement gives rise to a question of personal privilege.

To his credit, Johnson permitted Massie to address the speaker’s calumnious remarks.

Massie’s Comment “Stupid”

“Roughly three weeks ago, the speaker of the House said, ‘Let me tell you how stupid Thomas Massie’s comment is,’” Massie began. Another of Johnson’s remarks, Massie said, was this: “That is a nonsensical statement by someone who is not participating as a full member of the Congress, and it’s really sad that he doesn’t.”

“Well, I’m here today to let you know that I’m a full participating member of the House of Representatives,” Massie continued:

In fact, when other people want to go home, I’m here to work. I’m here to get justice for the Epstein victims, the survivors. I am here to get the price of food and fuel down for our constituents. We’ve got solutions; we just refuse to pass them.

Massie then explained that he introduced a discharge petition to pass the first Epstein Files Transparency Act last year, and that he predicted the House would delete days from its calendar to duck a vote. Indeed, Massie said, just two votes short of the 218 needed to pass the petition, Johnson recessed the House to avoid swearing in a new member who would have been the vote to pass the measure. The measure did pass 427-1, and it passed the Senate by unanimous consent. President Trump signed it. But Massie’s point was that Johnson was an obstacle … and still is.

Johnson Recesses to Avoid Vote

Now, Johnson is at it again. He not only recessed for two weeks to block the second transparency act, as Massie predicted, but also added a day to duck a vote on Hegseth’s impeachment. Thus did Johnson call Massie “ludicrous” and a not “fully participating” congressman.

“I was called ‘not a fully participating member of Congress,’” Massie continued:

I’m the one who most wants to be here those two weeks, and they got canceled. And I said they would probably cancel them. And we were told, “Oh, no, that’s a ludicrous idea. Let me tell you how stupid Thomas Massie’s comment is.” Those were the words of the speaker. Forty-eight hours later, what did he do? Exactly what I predicted. He cut two weeks off of this calendar. So why did he just cut another day off the calendar? He had some more choice words for me because I predicted this as well. On Tuesday, as a fully participating member of Congress, I introduced eight articles of impeachment against Peter Brian Hegseth.

But, as The New American reported yesterday, Johnson wanted to avoid the vote and recessed. His excuse: Members must go home to campaign for November’s midterm elections.

Massie explained his eight articles of impeachment at length.

“Speaker Johnson says I’m not a fully participating member of Congress,” Massie continued:

Well, it took a long time to write eight articles of impeachment. It didn’t take much time to conceive them. If you’re looking over at the administrative branch and trying to give an award for the person who’s racked up the most illegal and unconstitutional acts, there’s one clear winner. It’s Peter Brian Hegseth, secretary of Defense, who has done that. So, it was easy to conceive of these articles of impeachment, but it wasn’t easy to write them. They are watertight.

And no one has challenged the articles, he said, not even the “online brigade of paid media grifters who typically rally for MAGA and the president while they’re collecting their checks.”

High Prices

Massie said Congress should convene every day on the calendar and address the issues facing Americans, notably high gas prices caused by the war in Iran.

“The [Hormuz] strait isn’t just shut down for American farmers who are paying more for fertilize[r], for American consumers who are paying $7 a gallon for diesel,” he said:

It’s over 6 now, I’m afraid before the election it could hit $8 a gallon. Why would we recess when we can do something about that?

What is the thing we should do? We should walk away from that mess [in Iran]. We should have never got in it. Will the strait be shut down to us? Yeah, probably for a while. But there’s other people who didn’t bomb Iran. They’ll let them through. They can bring our fertilizer over and then our farmers can make the food and it won’t be so damn expensive in the grocery store. And the truckers can carry the food to the supermarket and it won’t be so damn expensive in the supermarket.

That’s what we should do. We should also, while we’re at it, bring our troops home. Shut down those bases. Iran’s missiles cannot hit the United States. They cannot reach here. What can they reach? At least a hundred of our bases or bases that we use from other countries. We put targets for them right inside the radius of their missiles.

And so one way for Congress to let Trump know the war must end is to impeach Hegseth, he said.

Massie also denounced Congress itself.

“The day I got here and realized that this game was rigged, I said, ‘I’m not playing this game. I am going to tell people what is going on up here. I’m going to tell people how they sell committee seats,’” he said, adding that the seats are really “for rent.”

“People get up here, the game’s rigged,” Massie continued:

I decided not to play the game. And for 14 years, as a fully participating member of Congress, contrary to what the speaker [says] — who just canceled two and a half weeks of session. By the way, we will have been in Congress, I think, eight full days since July, between July and the election. Isn’t that crazy? Where else can you get a job that pays almost $15,000 a month and benefits, and some months you don’t even have to come to work? And the months where you do come to work — there’s three weeks, but we call a week four days. And four days, well, we wouldn’t have to travel on our own time. So four days is actually two days because we need a day to get here and a day to go home. So … two days is a week up here, and three weeks is a month — if we feel like working that month. 

Massie’s career in Congress ends when new House members are sworn in on January 3. Taking his place will be Israel-First GOP Representative Ed Gallrein, who defeated Massie in May’s primary election.

The Israel Lobby purchased the seat for Gallrein because Massie opposed the war in Iran, which Trump started after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fed him a bowl of codswallop about the ease with which the Iranian regime would be toppled.

The U.S. intelligence combine warned that Netanyahu’s claim was “farcical.” Then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard warned Trump that the regime would not collapse.

Trump ignored her.