Chip Roy dodges question on whether he would back motion to vacate Johnson

Rep. Chip Roy sidestepped a question on whether he would back a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) over the bipartisan spending deal passed over the weekend.

CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Roy on “State of the Union” on whether he would support a motion to vacate Johnson that was filed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) last week over the $1.2 trillion government funding bill that the House ultimately passed on Friday. Roy said the question was about “palace drama,” but declined to say whether he would support it.

“At the end of the day right now, what I want to do is try to make sure the American people can win the end of this rainbow. This bill has now been passed. We’re spending money that we don’t have or can rack up more debt. I disagree with that. I want to focus now on securing the border in the United States. I want Israel funding,” Roy told Tapper.

Roy suggested that Johnson should not put a bill that would approve funding for Ukraine on the House floor when answering the question, but it is still unclear whether he would support the motion to vacate.

“To answer your question, the big decision point for the Speaker — we should not put Ukraine funding on the floor of the House unless we have come to an agreement then we’re going to make sure that Israel is taken care of properly, that we pay for this stuff and that we do what we’re supposed to do to secure the border of the United States,” he said.

He also noted that he did not support using the motion to vacate against former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last year.

“I disagreed with it. It was a mistake. Kevin was actually honoring most of the agreement that we came up with. We were actually having bills that we had 72 hours to read. You know what? That got violated this last week. Mike was wrong,” he said.