DON BACON BECOMES FIRST GOP LAWMAKER TO CALL FOR HEGSETH REPLACEMENT

“We’re using the rules of the House to prevent political hijinks and political stunts,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said at a GOP leadership press conference Tuesday.

“So we’re preventing this nonsensical waste of our time,” he said.

The change comes after House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Gregory Meeks (D-NY) used this House procedure last month to request additional information “on the reckless use of the Signal messaging app by top Trump administration officials to discuss classified military operations.”

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), also filed an ROI asking the Trump administration to turn over communications related to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal after the administration added a journalist to an unsecured text chat discussing military operations.

This isn’t the first time Johnson has used the House Rules Committee to attach procedural changes to unrelated legislation to limit the power of President Donald Trump’s critics. Earlier this year, the House approved a measure to stop it from voting on legislation to undo Trump’s foreign tariffs.

This blocked bipartisan legislation to halt Trump’s new levies that passed the Senate from ever coming to a vote in the House.

Democrats are not the only ones against the rule change.

“I would call it chicanery. I would call it dishonesty,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told reporters. “I mean, it’s just a terrible idea that, you know, he’s actually overturning a law with a rule.”

Paul is leading a new bipartisan resolution headed for a vote this week in the Senate to reverse the emergency authority that Trump is relying on to impose his “Liberation Day” tariffs. The White House has threatened to veto the legislation.

The new House rule says the period from April 29 to Sept. 30 “shall not constitute a legislative day for purposes of [resolutions of inquiry],” effectively shutting down the possibility of raising such a measure until the new fiscal year begins in October.

“So by rule, they said, you know, there will be no legislative days,” Paul said. “So they’ll show up, or they will have legislative days, but we’re just going to say they don’t exist. And I think it’s kind of what gives people a bad taste in their mouth about government.”

Democrats under former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) also used the rules to block votes on national emergencies. In 2021, House Democrats twice used procedural moves to block an effort led by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) to terminate the COVID-19 national emergency and to stop two Senate-passed joint resolutions sponsored by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) to terminate the national health emergency, Roll Call reported.

Democrats, however, are now crying foul.

“This is a tool that the leadership has chosen to use and to put off future votes, put off opportunities for work, for us to work in a bipartisan basis,” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said at a press conference Tuesday. 

“I’m not surprised by this. This is something that they have done, and I would imagine they just continue to do because they are afraid that both Democrats and Republicans oppose their dangerous policies,” he told reporters. 

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Democrats have demanded accountability from the Trump administration since the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he was added to a Signal group chat with Trump administration officials last month containing sensitive information about strikes on the Houthis. The chat included Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, among others.

Democrats have called for the firing of Waltz and Hegseth for misuse of classified information. Last week, centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) split with Trump and became the first sitting GOP member to suggest Hegseth be fired following allegations Hegseth had a second Signal chat with family members to discuss Pentagon business.

Rachel Schilke and David Sivak contributed to this article.