Representative Buck: Speaker Johnson Will Not Be Faced with a Rebellion

House Speaker Mike Johnson will not face a rebellion from within his own Republican Party, Rep. Ken Buck told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” Sunday.

The Colorado Republican, who recently announced he would retire from the House, said, “I don’t think that most Republicans blame Speaker Johnson for the problems that he is now facing.”

He added that those problems “were created during the [former House Speaker Kevin] McCarthy time period, and Speaker Johnson is doing a good job to work his way through those issues.”

Buck is a longtime member of the House Freedom Caucus who has been critical of the way Congress spends money and was one of the eight Republicans who first voted to oust McCarthy from the speakership, The Hill reported.

Buck explained his vote in October to oust McCarthy by saying, “I supported Kevin McCarthy in January because I thought he was the person best positioned to keep our promises to our constituents, [but now] it’s clear that we need a principled speaker who can keep his word not just to members of Congress, but to the American people.”

Buck told “Face the Nation,” however, that Johnson would not face the same fate, despite his two-step continuing resolution bill to prevent a government shutdown that had nearly twice as much Democratic backing as it did Republican support in the House.

“I don’t think he’s going to face a rebellion,” Buck said. “I think he’s going to face support when he finds ways to reduce our national spending, our $36 trillion debt at the end of next year — $1 trillion of money that is being spent to service that debt.”

He stressed that “those are real existential issues that America needs to deal with, and I think Speaker Johnson is going about it the right way.”