NOT LIKE MIKE

First MAGA Casualty as Speaker Mike Johnson Calls It Quits

The top House Republican won’t run for GOP minority leadership.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s time in Republican leadership is up after the devastating losses on Election Night.

The top House Republican and close ally of Donald Trump said he won’t run for House minority leader.

He made the announcement on a call with staff Wednesday morning, according to Punchbowl News.

The decision came just hours after Republicans suffered a blowout in the midterms.

Democrats swept the House and Senate, surpassing even the more optimistic expectations of a blue wave. Instead, it was a blue tsunami.

The final numbers have not been officially called for the size of the Democrats’ House majority, but they quickly surpassed the necessary 218 seats to retake the majority early on Election Night.

They picked up three seats in Iowa, including a rural district. They flipped several seats in North Carolina. Florida and Texas Democrats held off GOP gerrymandering efforts to pick up additional seats.

Democrats lost not one of their competitive House races and were on track to pick up at least 40 seats.

The monumental results put them in a position to even surpass the highest number of Democrats elected to the House in the 21st century, which was 257 following the 2008 election. NBC News is projecting they’ll win 258 seats.

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Throughout the midterms, as he barnstormed the country and even on Election Day, Johnson insisted Republicans could hold the House even as the polls spelled disaster for his party.

The Louisiana lawmaker, who rose from obscurity to be elected speaker in October 2023, spent the past two years bowing to Trump’s every demand and twisting himself in knots to defend the president’s actions.

He fought against efforts to rein in Trump over his war in Iran, toiled relentlessly to block the release of the Epstein files, including sending members home, and pushed through the president’s tax bill and money for ICE.

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When Johnson found himself on the receiving end of questions about Trump administration or family corruption and a series of other damaging stories for the president, the Speaker often pleaded ignorance and acted as if he hadn’t seen the reports to avoid even the appearance of a split with the president.

Trump often lavished praise on Johnson for his work over the past two years and strung him along to big events and Mar-a-Lago.

But the knives are out after the Election Night wipeout. Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, indicated early Wednesday that he was running for minority leader.

The Ohio MAGA Republican was repeatedly rejected when he ran for speaker in 2023, which paved the way for Johnson’s rise.

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Sarah Ewall-WicePolitical Reporter

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