Congress

Republicans’ faith in Mike Johnson is fading fast

Published

4 months ago

May 1, 2026

Speaker Mike Johnson faced down a bruising “hell week” and ultimately pulled several key GOP bills across the line. But it came at a cost.

Republicans say Johnson’s habit of making last-minute, often contradictory promises to keep his tiny majority functioning is starting to catch up with him. Frustrations over his leadership, they say, are at an all-time high.

“I think this guy has divided us with a smile,” said Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), a longtime Johnson skeptic who has grown more vocal with his criticism and now says “without question” he will vote against keeping Johnson as top GOP leader in the next Congress.

This week’s chaos came to a head late Wednesday, with multiple members of key Republican factions yelling and swearing at Johnson on the House floor and in closed-door meetings.

Johnson tried to quell a rebellion among conservative hard-liners by privately reneging on an agreement with a group of midwestern Republicans that would have tied legislation allowing year-round sales of an ethanol fuel blend to the must-pass farm bill.

When some of the ethanol provision’s backers ran back to the floor to try to figure out what happened, they were too late. Some later confronted Johnson, who is now promising a future vote on the matter.

“Bullshit,” Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) yelled at the speaker as he tried to explain what happened later in the day, according to three people who participated in the huddle and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

This week’s floor chaos was just the latest example of Johnson leading crisis by crisis, ultimately pulling off GOP priorities but leaving a trail of disgruntled members and staffers in his wake, according to more than a dozen Republicans interviewed for this story.

It all comes as rank-and-file lawmakers grow increasingly worried about their ability to govern over the coming months and retain their majority in November — and amid quiet conversations about who else might be capable of leading the House GOP. While Johnson successfully managed this week to end the record shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security and fend off the lapse of a key surveillance program, more challenges loom.

A long-term deal to maintain those spy powers remains elusive, the Senate is expected to reject the farm bill House Republicans approved Thursday and members are agitating for yet another party-line reconciliation bill that stands to continue surfacing the GOP’s internal divides.

Johnson told reporters Thursday that complaints about his leadership style amounted to “fake news.”

“No one in this conference can say that I went against my word on anything,” he said. “You had requests and demands on opposite sides of the conference that were literally irreconcilable. If you meet one group’s demands, you can’t meet the other. And so it takes a lot of time to get people to a consensus and an agreement on that.”

“Everybody’s very happy with their work,” Johnson said. “It’s all smiles.”

Wagner hardly appeared thrilled as she recounted Wednesday’s events in an interview Thursday.

“We were promised a vote on this,” she said of the ethanol measure. “We went back to do our work in our offices, and then a deal was cut on the floor. … And once we became aware of it, we needed to extend those discussions.”

The ethanol measure, allowing year-round sales of a fuel blend high in corn-derived alcohol, vexed a coalition of Republicans who saw the measure as harming petroleum and refiner industry interests in their districts as well as ultraconservatives who had ideological objections.

The result of the infighting was that a Wednesday vote on the budget blueprint for a planned immigration enforcement funding bill stayed open for more than five hours as dozens of Republicans withheld their votes until they got a satisfactory response.

To placate them, Johnson ultimately agreed to delay consideration of the farm bill for a time — only to reverse himself again after livid ag-state members demanded a vote on the farm bill before the scheduled weeklong recess, leaving the ethanol issue for later.

That in turn enraged hard-liners like Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who accused Johnson of going back on his word from only a few hours earlier.

In a closed-door meeting just off the House floor Wednesday night, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) complained about how farm-state members always vote in line with GOP leadership only to get jilted on their own priorities.

During a separate “family meeting” in Johnson’s office, Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.), who sits in a Johnson-appointed slot on the Rules Committee, asked why they should believe the speaker when he promised a future vote on the ethanol issue. Johnson had already promised the group a vote in late February that did not materialize.

Miller, a former White House aide to President Donald Trump, said he ultimately agreed to vote for the budget measure out of his support for Trump and after Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin personally asked him to. But he said the episode demonstrated why he thinks Johnson is unfit to lead Republicans beyond this Congress.

“It’s pretty debilitating when you’re supposed to follow a guy into battle, and I wouldn’t trust him to get out of a wet paper bag with an M4,” he said.

Johnson was happy to put the 76-day DHS shutdown behind him Thursday, telling reporters that “sometimes it’s an ugly process” but that he has “never broken my word to a single person in this building.”

But the instances of disarray on the floor have piled up in recent months, and not all of them can be attributed solely to the GOP’s tiny majority. Last week, Johnson and other leaders appeared unaware of serious concerns in his conference’s ranks about legislation curbing Endangered Species Act protections. They were forced to postpone consideration of the bill.

The week before that, the House cleared an extension of temporary immigration protections for people from Haiti — the latest instance where a Democratic-led discharge petition had succeeded in commandeering the GOP agenda.

Many Democrats have been happy to watch the internal drama and gloat, mocking the GOP’s disarray and papering over the pains their own caucus experienced when they were in power. But they have insisted the drama of the past few months stands alone.

“First reaction is: ‘Oh, my God, this would never happen under Nancy Pelosi,’” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said in an interview, harking back to speakers of the past. “In fact, it probably wouldn’t have happened under John Boehner or Paul Ryan or even Kevin McCarthy.”

Johnson has defenders inside the GOP ranks, such as Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who said “he’s doing fine” and “the bills are moving.” He also continued to enjoy the support of the most important Republican — Trump — who has shown no outward sign of dismay with Johnson’s leadership.

“These are complex issues, and sometimes they take more than five minutes to work through,” Lawler said.

Johnson will be tested as soon as lawmakers return from recess. The pro-ethanol Republicans say Johnson pledged to orchestrate a standalone vote on their measure the week of May 12, according to six people involved in the talks. Many Republicans expect it to fail since it will no longer be attached to a must-pass bill.

“Do I believe him? Probably not,” one of the House Republicans involved said about that timeline.

Wagner, when asked whether she had confidence in Johnson and GOP leaders, singled out House Majority Leader Steve Scalise for having “really stood up in the pack” and “gave his word in terms of how we would move forward.”

Even the members who weren’t part of the back-and-forths over ethanol blends or surveillance safeguards or budget priorities this week were dismayed by how it all went down.

Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), a veteran House member who announced his retirement earlier this week, parked himself on the House floor during part of the meltdown. Asked later what he thought of the interactions, he said, “I just thought we got to get it together.”

“We probably didn’t have it together when we started voting,” he said. “Probably should have waited until we were sure. It’s a lot of wasted time.”

Congress

House Democrats watch closely as Hakeem Jeffries vows to rein in rogue members

Published

7 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats have spent the better part of two years looking on in glee as House Republicans have struggled to wrangle their narrow majority and enact a consensus agenda.

Now, eyeing a potentially small majority of their own, they are eager not to see the shoe quickly land on the other foot — which is why Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is under fierce internal pressure to crack down on a surprise rebellion this week.

The decision by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine) to support a Republican procedural measure that would have otherwise failed — essentially bailing out Speaker Mike Johnson’s floor agenda — prompted Jeffries and fellow Democratic leaders to decry a “breach of trust” and promise a “serious response.”

Rank-and-file members are watching closely to see if Jeffries follows through on those threats and moves to rein in rogue members who could undermine the party agenda and his own leadership.

“If there’s no understanding that we need to stay together on procedural measures, then we’re going to be like Republicans,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Committee Democrat and a Jeffries ally. “I mean, they can’t get anything done because everybody’s going off in different directions.”

Many Democrats are hoping Jeffries will set an assertive tone and send a message that some protest tactics will not be tolerated in a future majority. The situation is of particular interest to members given the slate of insurgent hard-left members poised to join the caucus next term — some of whom have openly discussed adopting strategies embraced by the hard right.

“It’s an open secret — we don’t want to end up with our own Freedom Caucus,” one House Democrat granted anonymity to speak candidly said in an interview, referring to the fractious ultraconservative group. “You see how a core group of people can stop the workings here … when it’s continual and it’s just about grandstanding. … We don’t want that.”

“I’m not saying that those folks coming in are going to operate in that way,” the member added. “We don’t know. But we’ve got to tighten up the systems.”

Already, House Democrats have competing views about how and when to punish the rogue members. Multiple members, for example, have privately suggested kicking Gluesenkamp Perez off of the Appropriations Committee — a highly coveted assignment.

Gluesenkamp Perez represents a district President Donald Trump won in 2024.

But others acknowledge that leaders have little leverage against the duo. Golden is leaving the House at the end of this term, and Gluesenkamp Perez is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the country.

Keeping her seat in a district President Donald Trump won by 3 percentage points in 2024 could determine the outcome of the midterm elections, and she has made her clashes with party leaders a core part of her political identity.

Some members — including progressives who used procedural votes for leverage during Nancy Pelosi’s speakership — also cautioned leadership from overpolicing members.

Asked about how Jeffries should “punish” the members, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a former chair of the Progressive Caucus, said, “We’re not kids, and he’s not our dad.”

“I’m elected by 750,000 people. I get to make my decisions about what I want,” Jayapal said before adding, “At the same time, I think there has to be a strong commitment to the team.”

“I think that there can be certain reasonable expectations — for example, to flag how one may intend to vote on something,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said. “I also think that the idea that there will be consequences depending on how that is laid out could create a slippery slope.”

Both of the rebels are shrugging off the intense reaction from Democratic leaders and some of their colleagues. Golden said he voted with Republicans to advance a bill he cosponsored benefiting lobstermen in Maine; Gluesenkamp Perez said she voted to support Golden and “people who make their livelihoods and heritage on the water.”

“I do not have a polished political strategy,” she told reporters Wednesday. “I know my community, and that’s who sent me here, and that’s who I am thinking about.”

Many of their Democratic colleagues aren’t ready to just let it go, however. Several argued in interviews that if every member broke ranks on procedural votes to advance legislation they support, the party would lose significant leverage.

Golden, left, is retiring after his term ends.

“I am generally of the view that if you believe that you are a free agent in this town, maybe you don’t get to use the team locker room anymore,” Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) said, adding that he could not think of a potential punishment “within the scope of what leadership can do that could be opposed by the caucus.”

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said “some tough love“ might be necessary to send a message to the broader caucus: “We’re all in this together.”

Amid the agita, it’s not clear how quickly Jeffries will act. An internal committee dealing with caucus rules met Wednesday and discussed the matter but did not advance any specific proposals for sanctions or rules changes.

Jeffries himself has not committed to a timeline for imposing consequences against the two defectors. He told reporters Wednesday he wants to pursue action “sooner rather than later” as he faces internal questions about whether he can exert the same level of control over Democrats as his predecessor did.

Pelosi dealt with rebellions of her own, including moderates who repeatedly voted with Republicans to amend Democratic bills on the floor. But she pointedly commented on the disloyalty on display this week, with Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez essentially voting to advance the GOP floor agenda.

“We didn’t even consider that anybody would do that,” she said Tuesday. “We never had that problem, so I’m disappointed that they did that.”

Another lawmaker who was happy to comment Wednesday was Johnson, who has routinely contended with GOP mutinies during his time in office — including one that Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden bailed him out of Tuesday.

Jeffries “has a serious problem in his caucus,” he told reporters, citing the “warring factions in his party.”

“I don’t see a way out of that thicket,” he said. “But I’m not going to tell him how to govern his conference, and he doesn’t, or shouldn’t, be telling me how to.”

Congress

Tillis renews calls for Hegseth’s ouster

Published

13 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Thom Tillis renewed his call for President Donald Trump to fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, following the resignation earlier this week of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.

“I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” the outgoing two-term North Carolina Republican wrote on X. “He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force.”

Driscoll, whose long-rumored resignation became official this week, had clashed with Hegseth over the Defense secretary’s reluctance to modernize the Army and his firings of dozens of senior officers. Hegseth has focused more on cultural issues — including grooming and fitness standards — within the department.

“If we had a @SecWar who maintained the same priorities and forward-thinking, he would be fighting to retain talented leaders like Dan and the many flag officers he has forced into retirement,” Tillis charged. “Instead, he is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks.”

The White House and Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment on Tillis’ post.

Tillis, who is not running for reelection in November, has openly clashed with Hegseth since Trump tapped the former Fox News host to lead the Pentagon in 2024.

In May, Tillis told POLITICO he believed Hegseth had misinformed Trump on the dynamics of a war in Iran. Firing Hegseth, he said, was on “a Christmas wish list.” In a book set to be released next month, Tillis branded Hegseth — along with a handful of other White House officials — as “MAGATS” and accused them of “not looking around corners and taking care of this president.”

It hasn’t earned him friends in the administration.

“The media said how brave he was to take me on, but he wasn’t brave, he was just the opposite – HE WAS A QUITTER!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in May. “Now he can have all the fun he wants for a few months, with some of his RINO friends, screwing the Republican Party. In the end it will only get bigger, and better, and stronger, than ever before!”

Congress

No immediate plans to punish rogue House Democrats for bailing out GOP

Published

13 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Despite a stern message from party leaders, a panel of House Democrats did not settle on any particular consequences for the pair of lawmakers who crossed party lines Tuesday to advance an otherwise troubled slate of Republican-led bills.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and fellow leaders said the matter would be reviewed by the Democratic Committee on Caucus Rules, which convened Wednesday morning for a prescheduled listening session.

Attendees discussed possible changes to the rules that govern House Democrats’ conduct for next term. Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), the panel’s chair, suggested to reporters that discussion included what should happen if members vote with Republicans on procedural measures like the one Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) supported Tuesday.

“There’s been a variety of suggestions to change our rules, not just regarding the last couple days, but several suggestions that have been percolating for some time,” Levin said, while adding that any changes would happen only “in the next couple of months.”

The lack of urgency stands in contrast to the stern statement Jeffries and fellow leaders made Tuesday about the rogue members’ “breach of trust” — not to mention the rage some rank-and-file House Democrats are expressing. Some have floated removing the pair from their committees — particularly Gluesenkamp Perez’ seat on the exclusive Appropriations panel.

“Somebody else who is willing to think about other people needs to be on that seat, that exclusive committee,” said one House Democrat granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Jeffries, who was not present at the meeting, also seemed to have a speedier timeline for responding to Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden. He told reporters after the meeting wrapped that he was waiting on feedback from Levin and that the caucus would have conversations “amongst the family about the best way to move forward.”

Asked about his timeline for action against the pair, Jeffries said, “Sooner rather than later.”