Three Republicans have held out on voting for Mike Johnson as speaker of the House. Kentucky's Rep. Thomas Massie, who openly said he'd vote against Johnson over the past few days, voted for Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota.

"You can start cutting off my fingers," Kentucky U.S. Rep Thomas Massie said. "I am not voting for Mike Johnson.”

Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) has spent much of his dozen years in Congress waging lonely political crusades while working as a behind-the-scenes tactician in fights over Republican leadership and spending.

"Almost all of my colleagues know that Mike Johnson is not equipped to be speaker, but nobody wants to say the emperor has no clothes," Massie said.

Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie was vocally critical of Mike Johnson ahead of Friday's vote to reelect him House speaker.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R, Ky.) has cast the first Republican vote against Mike Johnson. Massie said ahead of the session Friday that he planned to vote against the Louisiana Republican, instead voting for Rep.

Thomas Massie, the congressman representing Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, was ultimately the only GOP representative to vote against Rep. Mike Johnson for speaker of the US House of Representatives.

This time was supposed to be different. But while House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday avoided the dayslong ordeal that his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, endured to become speaker, his relatively swift victory was hardly a unifying moment.

WASHINGTON – House Republicans gave Mike Johnson the speaker's gavel for another two years on Friday – along with a warning. Nine GOP lawmakers at first either abstained from voting for Johnson or voted for another person for speaker.

Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson was reelected House speaker on Jan. 3, after two Republicans changed their votes.