Lame-duck House Speaker Mike Johnson accused voters of making the “wrong choice” in this month’s midterm elections, while warning that Capitol Hill could descend into chaos during President Trump’s final two years in office.
Johnson is set to lose the speakership when Democrats take control of the House in the 120th Congress this January. Despite the Republican Party’s sweeping defeat, which cost it control of both chambers, he praised the first two years of Trump’s second administration and rejected calls for the president to change course.
“I’m not going to tell the president how to do his job. We have an incredible record,” Johnson told CNN on Sunday. The speaker has ruled himself out of the race to become the GOP’s minority leader in the next Congress, less than a week after Democrats flipped more than 40 House seats.
“I’m sorry that the voters made the wrong choice. I really do believe that the next two years is going to be a bit of a circus. It’s going to be chaos… and that’s a great tragedy.
“If we had kept the majority, we would stay on course to continue delivering for the people and I just don’t know how that’s going to work [going] forward.”
Johnson is the most senior Republican who has lashed out at voters for making the so-called “wrong choice” at the ballot box.
A postmortem into the GOP’s shellacking is underway, with Vice President JD Vance blaming the bloodbath on the Iran war, while President Trump alluded to how the conflict drove up gasoline prices.
Instead of scolding voters, outgoing Florida governor Ron DeSantis blamed “corporatist Republicans” for young Americans having a negative perception of capitalism and leading towards socialism.
Meanwhile, buoyant Democrats have already vowed to use their newfound subpoena power to investigate members of the Trump inner circle as well as administration officials following last Tuesday’s blowout victory.
Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, is facing impeachment – either in the lame-duck session of Congress or when Democrats take up the majority.
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Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who is poised to take the speaker’s gavel in the new year, has already vowed he is a “hard yes” on impeaching Hegseth, claiming the Secretary of War has “abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran.”
Democrats are set to meet Tuesday to discuss the resolution – which is being spearheaded by lame-duck congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).
Johnson, meanwhile, believes it would be a foolish move to impeach Hegseth amid the conflict with Iran.
“Impeaching a cabinet secretary right now, especially the Department of War in the middle of hostilities abroad, would be a terrible look,” he told CNN.
“We don’t impeach cabinet secretaries for political gain or cheap tricks and I think everybody knows that’s what that is.”
The last cabinet secretary to be impeached was Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in February 2024.
He was accused of a willful and systematic refusal to comply with immigration laws and a breach of public trust.
His impeachment never went to trial in the Senate – with the upper chamber dismissing the charges as unconstitutional.
