Hours after Democrats took the House, Speaker Mike Johnson gathered his staff on a Wednesday morning phone call and told them he will not stay on as Republican leader. The guy who rose from total obscurity to the speakership is now heading back toward it, and he's leaving a leadership vacancy that two of his colleagues are already sprinting toward.
The Phone Call Nobody Wanted to Make
Here's what we know from NBC News, which cited four sources on the call: Johnson told his staff Wednesday morning that he's out as the top Republican in the House once the new Congress begins. The announcement came just hours after Republicans took what the outlet described as massive losses in House races on Tuesday.
Punchbowl News got the scoop first. Which tells you something about how quickly this news moved from a staff call to the rest of Washington. Nobody in that building can keep a secret for longer than it takes to find a phone.
Johnson did win re-election to his own Louisiana seat Tuesday night, so he isn't leaving Congress. He's just leaving the part where he's in charge of anything.
Two Terms and a Very Short Honeymoon
Johnson has served two terms as speaker. He got the job in October 2023 after Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy, and at the time he was about as well known nationally as the third-string long snapper for a Division II football team.
He held the gavel through a stretch that Republicans spent mostly bending toward President Trump. That arrangement worked great right up until the voters got a say. Now the party that handed him the keys is scrambling to figure out who inherits the minority.
It's unclear whether Johnson will serve out his full two-year term as a rank-and-file member or bail early, the way some former speakers have done. If you're him, you probably check the exit rows.
Scalise Raises His Hand
Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the No. 2 Republican, a close Johnson ally and a fellow Louisiana Republican, plans to announce a bid for minority leader on Wednesday, his office said. So the line of succession runs straight through the same state, the same leadership team, and the same bunch of people who just lost the majority.
That's a bold pitch to your colleagues. Vote for the guy who sat next to the guy who lost. Experience matters, sure, but so does not being at the scene of the crime.
Republicans hold their internal election for the post on Nov. 10. That's six days from now, which is roughly the amount of time it takes for a defeated party to move from shock to knife fight.
Jim Jordan Wants to Fight the Investigations
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio is also running, and he told colleagues in a letter Wednesday that he's "battle-tested on the oversight front and prepared to combat Democrats' myriad investigations of Trump."
Read that again. His opening argument for leading House Republicans is that Democrats are coming for Trump and he's the guy to stop it. Not a plan to win the majority back. Not a pitch about what voters want. The platform is Trump's legal and political defense, delivered with the confidence of a man who has done this before.
Jordan also wrote, "I know the Democrats' playbook." He should. He spent years running the Oversight committee himself, back when oversight meant something more specific to him.
And Then There's the Whip Race
In what NBC called a surprise, Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, chairman of the Republican Study Committee and head of the largest conservative caucus on Capitol Hill, said he'll challenge Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota for the whip spot. That's the No. 2 leadership job in the minority.
So within hours of the election, the conservative wing was already moving to take over the second-ranking slot. Nobody waited for the autopsy. They went straight to the inheritance.
The party just got walloped, and the first instinct inside the caucus is to fight about who gets the better office.
The Dingo Take
The Speaker resigned his leadership post mere hours after his party lost the House. A normal person would call that a Thursday. In Washington it passes for accountability.
Look at what the candidates are actually offering. Scalise is the continuity pick, which is a fascinating thing to sell right after the thing you were continuing just got repossessed. Jordan is running as a human shield for the president against investigations that haven't started yet. And Pfluger is picking a fight over the whip job before the confetti has been swept off the Democratic watch parties. Not one of them has said a word about why voters walked away.
That's the real story under the leadership shuffle. A party gets handed a clear message on Tuesday and spends Wednesday arguing about who gets the corner office in the minority. Johnson will probably stick around as a backbencher, quiet and unbothered, a man who rode a chaos wave to the top and got dropped off in the shallows. The Republicans choosing his successor have a week to decide whether they learned anything. Based on the first day, the smart money says no.
Comments