Tensions flared in the House of Representatives on Thursday when a group of conservatives confronted Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., over his foreign aid plan, leading to another Republican trading barbs with the group of rebels.

A group of lawmakers that included Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and others could be seen huddled with Johnson on the House floor after morning votes. 

The discussion appeared to be interrupted a short while later when Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., confronted the group, and wound up in a particularly heated back-and-forth with Gaetz. Van Orden later told Fox News Digital that he called Gaetz “tubby” and dared the GOP rebels to trigger a vote for Johnson’s ouster – a threat he’s facing from Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who were not in the group.

Gaetz later told reporters that the conversation with Johnson was “tense” and that they were expressing opposition to his $95 billion proposal of separate bills for aid to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific. 

‘DEFINITION OF INSANITY’: FRUSTRATED HOUSE REPUBLICANS BLAST GOP REBELS’ THREAT TO OUST JOHNSON

It comes as Johnson faces blowback from members on the right of his conference over the plan, which is roughly the same cost as the Senate’s combined Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan funding package passed earlier this year. 

“We don’t want to pass his bill. The only win we’ve got in the House of Representatives is blocking the Senate supplemental. If we’re going to throw in the towel on that, what are we doing here?” Gaetz asked.

A key difference in Johnson’s plan is having House members vote on each of the bills separately before sending them in a combined package to the Senate – in order to give lawmakers the opportunity to take a stand on each issue and separating the politically fraught matter of Ukraine.

But conservatives balked at the lack of U.S. border security provisions tied to the Ukraine bill. Indeed, a GOP lawmaker familiar with the confrontation on the House floor told Fox News Digital that they were pushing Johnson to consider options that include border policy rather than going forward with his planned Saturday foreign aid vote.

“I thought we were making some real headway, and then had a member walk up and just start name-calling and just getting in people’s faces,” the GOP lawmaker said.

JOHNSON LIKELY FORCED TO GET DEM HELP ON FOREIGN AID PLAN AS REPUBLICANS DECRY LACK OF BORDER MEASURES

Republican Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden came to Johnson’s defense during the back-and-forth. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

They were almost certainly referring to Van Orden, who later told Fox News Digital that he joined the fray because he noticed the speaker needed “a swim buddy,” a term for a teammate that Van Orden borrowed from his days in the Navy SEALs.

“Gaetz was speaking to the speaker in a matter that I just, I did not think it was appropriate,” Van Orden said. 

“They start calling me stupid – incredibly juvenile things. And so I said something along the lines of, ‘Kick rocks, tubby,’ to Matt … And the reason I did that is because Matt Gaetz is a bully. He just got up in my face, and I’m not gonna be intimidated by that guy.”

Van Orden is one of the many rank-and-file Republicans who have accused House Freedom Caucus members and their allies of hurting the conference with hardball tactics against their fellow GOP lawmakers.

He said he dared them to make good on threats to call a motion to vacate, a procedural maneuver that would trigger a vote on ousting the speaker.

MASSIE THREATENS TO OUST SPEAKER JOHNSON IF HE DOESN’T STEP DOWN OVER FOREIGN AID PLAN

Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said Van Orden is ‘not a particularly intelligent individual.’ (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

When asked about his confrontation with Van Orden later, Gaetz called it “very puzzling and concerning.”

“The only thing I gleaned from it is that Mr. Van Orden is not a particularly intelligent individual,” Gaetz said.

He added that his confidence in Johnson was “diminishing” over his actions on foreign aid.

Currently, a vote on those bills is expected Saturday evening. Another border security bill that Johnson put forward to ease GOP concerns was blown up on Thursday night before it could get to the House floor by conservatives who accused Johnson of putting it up as a messaging bill with no real momentum.

Voters in Calexico have resoundingly ousted the first out transgender member of the City Council and her council ally after a bitter recall campaign rife with accusations of transphobia and political cronyism in the struggling city on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Nearly 74% of voters in the April 16 special election supported the recall of City Councilmember Raúl Ureña, according to early results released by the Imperial County registrar of voters Wednesday night. Ureña, who uses all pronouns but prefers “she,” publicly came out as transgender after taking office, becoming a target for harassment online and in person.

Nearly 73% of voters supported the recall of Councilmember Gilberto Manzanarez, another outspoken young progressive.

Roughly 77% of ballots received had been tallied by early Thursday, said Linsey Dale, the registrar of voters.

Both Ureña, 26, and Manzanarez, 30, said they believe the recall campaign — which thrust the almost entirely Latino city of 38,000 into America’s culture wars over gender identity — was largely motivated by transphobia. Recall organizers said that their campaign was rooted in concerns about rising homeless numbers and lagging economic development, and that Ureña’s personal life and sexuality were not factors.

After the election, Ureña said she remained “hopeful and optimistic, even with these results.”

“We will not give up on social justice in the Imperial Valley,” Ureña said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

At a City Council meeting Wednesday night, Manzanarez said the city’s political old guard, some of whom were leaders in the recall movement, unfairly blamed the young council members for problems — such as the deteriorating downtown and understaffed police, fire and public works departments — that existed years before Manzanarez and Ureña were elected.

“It’s very easy to point to downtown and make sure that people understand that it’s not OK. How long has it been that way? Did it start being that way in 2022? Absolutely not,” said Manzanarez, who was elected in November 2022.

Maritza Hurtado, a leader of the recall campaign and former mayor, declined to comment on the results.

In a previous interview with The Times, Hurtado, a member of the City Council from 2010 to 2018, called Ureña and Manzanarez “toxic” left-wing activists. She said they dismissed downtown merchants’ concerns about crime, public drug use and rampant homeless encampments, focusing instead on what recall proponents saw as more frivolous projects, such as installing charging stations for electric vehicles that most people in town cannot afford.

Hurtado, 58, said Ureña used gender “as a card this whole time,” dismissing people with legitimate political grievances as transphobic and racist.

Turnout for the special election — which cost Calexico more than $128,000 — was about 23%, with an estimated 4,933 votes cast. Dale said that number could fluctuate, with additional ballots arriving by mail in coming days.

“Imperial County, unfortunately, and I hate to say this, we’re generally at the bottom end of the state when it comes to turnout,” Dale said. During the March 5 presidential primary, she noted, 22% of registered Imperial County voters cast ballots, the lowest turnout in California.

Still, she said, the Calexico special election “was very passionate on both sides, and I feel that it encouraged a lot of voters to come out who might not have done so before.”

Maritza Hurtado, a local businesswoman and former mayor of Calexico, helped lead the effort to recall two young progressives on the City Council.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

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When they first came into office, Ureña and Manzanarez were hailed as young changemakers in Calexico, an impoverished town separated from the sprawling city of Mexicali, Mexico, by a steel border fence.

Ureña was first elected in 2020, at age 23, with 70% of the vote. In 2023, she held the rotating one-year title of mayor.

Ureña was ushered in to finish the term of David Romero, a council member who went to federal prison after taking bribes in exchange for providing a guaranteed city permit for a cannabis business. Another then-council member, Rosie Fernandez, had pleaded guilty earlier that year to driving under the influence; she was sentenced to probation and had to install a court-ordered alcohol-detection device in her vehicle. She later lost her bid for reelection.

In October 2022, state auditors released a scathing audit that said Calexico had been in the midst of a “financial crisis” for a decade and was at high risk for potential waste, fraud and mismanagement. Previous city councils, the audit said, approved budgets based on unreliable financial data, and the municipality overspent, pushing its general fund into a deficit from fiscal years 2014-15 through 2018-19.

Ureña was reelected in November 2022, a month after the audit was released. She and Manzanarez were the top vote-getters in an at-large contest for two seats.

Soon after, Ureña publicly came out as gender-fluid and transgender and started wearing dresses and makeup in official appearances. Ureña and Manzanarez were handed recall papers the following May.

Recall proponents cited a visible rise in homeless encampments in Calexico’s downtown as a major concern.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Manzanarez and Ureña regularly clashed with other council members and citizens, especially when they criticized the police. They and another council ally, Gloria Romo, often spoke during public meetings in Spanish without translation — infuriating some prominent recall supporters, who called it exclusionary.

In January, Hurtado served Romo with intent-to-recall papers, a signature-gathering effort still underway.

The ouster of Ureña and Manzanarez will leave two of the council’s five seats empty. At Wednesday’s meeting, City Atty. Carlos Campos said the two seats will be vacated once the City Council certifies the results. The council then will have 60 days to decide whether to fill the seats through special election or appointment.

Ureña said she and Manzanarez watched together as the first batch of election results came in Tuesday night. They had “a great party,” she said, even though it quickly became clear they would lose.

“I did not stop dancing,” Ureña said. “Nothing gets through my happiness.”

• Peter Barca, a former Democratic congressman from southeast Wisconsin in the 1990s, announced his candidacy for Congress against Republican incumbent Bryan Steil, who seeks a fourth term.
• Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, previously held by Paul Ryan, has become more competitive after new boundary lines were adopted in 2022.
• Barca’s political history includes previous terms in Congress and leadership roles in the state Assembly.

A Democrat who represented southeast Wisconsin in Congress in the 1990s before going on to become a leader in the Assembly and state revenue secretary announced Thursday that he’s running for Congress again.

Peter Barca announced his bid against Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who is seeking a fourth term. Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, previously represented by former House Speaker Paul Ryan, leans Republican but was made more competitive under new boundary lines adopted in 2022.

The seat is a target for Democrats nationally as they attempt to regain majority control of the House. It is one of only two congressional districts in Wisconsin that are viewed as competitive. The other is western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District held by Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT JUSTICES QUESTION HOW MUCH POWER LEGISLATURE SHOULD HAVE

Republicans hold six of Wisconsin’s eight congressional seats.

Barca, 68, previously held the 1st Congressional District seat from 1993 to 1995. He had previously considered running again for the seat after Ryan stepped down in 2018.

Barca is the first well-known Democrat to get into the race. National Democrats are expected to back Barca’s campaign. The primary is Aug. 13.

Barca, in a statement announcing his campaign, said his long record of public service showed that he was a fighter for working families and contrasted himself with a “do-nothing, dysfunctional Congress.”

“We need someone to step up and start going to bat for our families again,” he said.

The Steil campaign said in a statement that Barca has “put his political career ahead of Wisconsin families” over the past 40 years. The campaign also faulted Barca for opposing a 2016 bill that would have banned sanctuary cities and for voting in 1993 for a budget bill in Congress that raised the gas tax.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella branded Barca as a “sacrificial lamb” who has “put his out of touch policies ahead of Wisconsinites.”

Steil was elected in 2018 by 12 percentage points, and won reelection by 19 points in 2020 and 9 points in 2022.

Barca was elected to serve in the state Assembly from 1985 until 1993 when he resigned after winning a special election to Congress. After he lost in 1995, former President Bill Clinton appointed him to serve as Midwest regional administrator to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

He was elected again to the Assembly in 2008 and served as Democratic minority leader from 2011 to 2017.

Barca was leader of Democrats in 2011 during the fight over collective bargaining rights. While his Democratic colleagues in the Senate fled to Illinois in an attempt to block passage of a bill that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers, Barca helped organize a filibuster in the Assembly that lasted more than 60 hours.

Barca stepped down as minority leader, in part over grumbling from fellow Democrats over his support for a $3 billion incentive package for Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturing company that had planned to locate a massive facility in his district.

Barca left the Assembly in 2019 when Gov. Tony Evers tapped him to be secretary of the state Department of Revenue. He resigned last month.