Boehner is having trouble whipping votes.
House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) had been planning to call up on the House floor last week a measure from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) that would have removed him as Speaker of the House if it succeeded—intending to embarrass Meadows—but abandoned the plan after his entire leadership structure learned that they did not have the votes to re-elect him as Speaker before the August recess.
“[House Majority Leader Kevin] McCarthy was making phone calls—he was whipping it—and so was [House Majority Whip] Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA),” a senior conservative movement leader who’s had many personal and direct discussions with various House GOP members about this told Breitbart News in an interview last week.
“I know members personally who were called by Steve Scalise. So they had the entire leadership whip team frantically making phone calls to members to whip the vote because they wanted to attempt to embarrass Meadows and call the vote [on Wednesday last week] so it’s not hanging over Boehner’s head.
“What they found out was the exact opposite. They found out bad things would happen, that literally they would be calling the vote without knowing what would happen. Therefore, they did not call the vote and now they have this issue hanging over John Boehner’s head for the next five weeks.”
The best way to set an amygdala on edge is to violate expectations. When you briefly realize that things are not as they seemed, you go on alert, and become hyper-aware.
Republicans are sensing that things are not as they seemed. Donald is saying things that used to be verboten. He is insulting people who used to be un-insultable. He is breaking all of the rules that Republicans used to think were sacrosanct. The old rules suddenly are not applying as they did.
Republicans sense the winds are changing, and don’t want to associate too closely with the old guard if they are about to be overthrown. Up until now, Boehner had been untouchable, but not anymore.
We have Donald the thank.