Mike Johnson Walks Away After Landslide Defeat

Hey guys, welcome back to today's video. Today is Friday, November 6th, 2026. Happy Friday. Today we are going to be talking about some news that broke two days ago. Across the country, as many things were being called across numerous competitive races that were coming down to the wire, many of which have yet to be projected by the Associated Press and many respectable networks across the country, what was lost in all of it was this bit of news around Mike Johnson. The incumbent speaker of the House of Representatives and the present day Republican leader on the House side. He has now made the decision, I think, in a way that really got swept under the rug. As we talked about flips in Texas and Kansas and South Carolina and the verge of Democrats to win in Mississippi and Alaska. Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, is deciding now he will not be running for minority leader and instead be returning as a normal member. of the House of Representatives, rather than a member of Republican leadership. Now, this decision, I think, is a very striking one, and one that signals that this era of Republican politics is starting to come to a close. Marco Rubio is the most recent public cabinet official who has seemingly made the steps and seemingly set up the pathway to leave the Trump administration. We saw today earlier that Susie Wiles made the decision to go ahead and And withdraw herself from. From the chief of staff role, Stephen Miller, is going to take it in her stead. And we're starting to see this exodus, that after a midterm election where Republicans got absolutely demolished, those who want a future for themselves tend to abandon ship. Marco Rubio is doing it, Susie Wiles is doing it, and now evidently, so is Mike Johnson. But I think it's also because Mike Johnson came into the speakership In no small part, due to the fact that Kevin McCarthy could not inspire confidence amongst the Republican House caucus. You see, the issue with Kevin McCarthy is that he kept literally nobody happy. That's why even with a majority, he could not win consistent votes and was ousted less than a year of being named Speaker. Mike Johnson came in as a compromise candidate, someone who was relatively unknown, certainly wasn't high up there in the names that we floated for potential speakership, but absolutely I absolutely became someone who was of note. Because of the way he had executed the last two years as speaker, arguably three. You see here that Mike Johnson had led the Republicans into a devastating defeat in the midterm elections. The most bad showing for the GOP by what we expect in terms of the outstanding vote share since 1990 for the GOP, the last time the Democrats beat them by such a significant amount. And to think that this is Mike Johnson's first midterm election, most speakers last far longer than he. It isn't just that he would last as speaker, but rather remained in leadership. Nancy Pelosi had been minority leader, majority leader, speaker of the House. It didn't really matter what it was. It depended on what was happening across the House and who was in power and who was speaker or not. But ultimately, we saw and have seen that typically these types of representatives stick around a lot longer than just three years. But evidently, Mike Johnson sees no real clear political future. Now, Mike Johnson made the decision in a private call. With Republican members of Congress. So clearly somebody went to the press and said, Mike Johnson is on his way out. What I think that signals is that as we are seeing this exodus of Susie Wiles, members of Trump's DOJ, people in the attorney general's office, Marco Rubio as the biggest name, there seems to be this distance that is being brought about by the types of Republicans who want to make a pivot and recognize that the Trump era of politics ushered them in. to a devastating collapse. Say what you will about President George W. Bush or H.W. Bush or Ronald Reagan or, you know, Gerald Ford or the Republicans that had predated the president of the United States. And you will find that they have had some very difficult elections. In 2006, Bush lost control of the House and the Senate, just as Trump did this time around. But in many of the conversations I had had, even with some of the top political experts across the country, not many people expected this midterm to be worse than 2006. Some people thought it could be a mix between 2006 and 2018. But Maybe not necessarily to the degree that the Senate and the House were foregone conclusions together and for the Democrats. But that obviously ended up being the case. And Marco Rubio, you know, is the Secretary of State. He's not the person who you look to and say, you are to blame for this loss. You can make the comparison through and the accusation through the war in Iran. But more broadly speaking, it is Mike Johnson who is the face of House Republicans, not any cabinet official, not any Republican operative, but the Speaker of the House, even more so than John Thune on the Senate side. Because of his visibility, far more people know who Nancy Pelosi is than they know Chuck Schumer. I'd argue that they get talked about in relatively similar cases, but for the case of Mike Johnson, he is certainly more well-known than John Thune. And I think that works to his detriment. What I also know about this is that the Republicans are reading the tea leaves from the midterm cycle. They know that these results are not going to invite them any ability to do much in the next House. They won't be able to pass any major pieces of legislation. They won't be able to do what they want to in terms of the budget. They are going to be strapped. And who wants to be minority leader of that? It paves the way for the next generation of Republican leaders in the House, and they're already starting to divvy out who's going to run for what. Names like Jim Jordan are being raised, Steve Scalise being raised, people that clearly want more political power in the House of Representatives, but Mike Johnson stood in their way. And I think that to me, I'm not really as much concerned about Who does end up as minority leader for the Republicans, it's more important who is the speaker and arguably who's on the majority side. But I see that this tells us something. That Mike Johnson making the departure reminds me a lot of when Paul Ryan suddenly decided in April of 2018, just seven months out from the election, that he would not seek an additional term. It was a surprise. It was something that you might have been able to expect if you had known him at full form. But very surface level, Mike Johnson had espoused constant confidence. He was always saying Republicans not only are going to win the House, but we are going to gain seats. My polling looks different than what you're seeing. On the national stage, and you'll see that across the board here that you are finding that many Republicans are making this exit because they know now is the politically opportune time. They aren't going to be blamed as much as, you know, the other Republicans who stick around and usher them into defeat yet again in 2028. I think broadly my issue here, though, with Mike Johnson is that it kind of is clear he was in it for the Republican majority and in it for almost nothing The thing about Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner is that they were there for their party through thick and thin. And I think this is kind of the exact example of the type of Republican leader that very clearly is here because he was installed in 2023, but was not someone and is not someone who is largely seen as a cheerleader outside of being in the majority. He's not someone who wants to work to reclaim it. He's not someone who believes he has the ability to. And I think that's because he reflects on these results and says. I am the worst performing House Republican since 1990 on the national level. Let me make my departure. And so while it might actually be, to some degree, a smart political move for the Republicans to move out Mike Johnson, I also think in a very self-deprecating way. He has made this decision because he sees how devastating these results actually are. And to me, that reads as a sign of they are fearful, not just of what did happen, because the results are said and done for. They are fearful of how the Democrats are going to use their majority in the next two years. Because chances are, we have now seen the Democrats unleash the oversight committee against Donald Trump and his family members and insider traders within the White House. You are going to find that the next two years are going to be the Trump administration's biggest nightmare. Because the House Democrats and the Senate Democrats have the mandate and the majority to really do however they please in terms of bogging down workflow for the White House, limiting the powers of the president. Preventing any nominations to the cabinet or the Supreme Court or really any judicial position. This is the case of the Democratic Party being ushered in to an expansive advantage on the House and Senate side. And to see here that Mike Johnson is waving the white flag and giving up entirely, I think, is emblematic of a larger issue for Republicans that many of their party members, including members of leadership who you'd think would be here to any end. Immediately moved when the going gets tough. When things start to get difficult, the immediate reaction, in my opinion, has not been to abandon ship. But that seems to be the case here. And I'm not here to tell you that I think that Mike Johnson is a good or bad person for leaving or Marco Rubio is a good or bad person for signaling a departure. What I am saying is that the political implications of it to me read as they recognize the devastating loss and very clearly believe they had something to do with it and very clearly believe that it's not salvageable enough or that it would be no fun to be in the Trump administration or in the Republican leadership caucus for the next two years. Because they know the next two years are going to be brutal for Donald Trump and the Republican Party at large. So we'll continue to see who decides to make the decisions here. What we know is that Mike Johnson, of course, in this decision to step aside, will allow someone to replace him as minority leader here. We'll see who does end up running, but it's already being floated that there are some top names here, namely Steve Scalise, who right now is the House Majority Leader and House Judiciary Chair, Jim Jordan. Another big name who was floated for speaker back in 2023. We will see what happens here. Some have already started eyeing up the possibility of running, but the new Congress needs to be sworn in and the decisions need to be made in January. But I can guarantee you they are already starting to court the freshman members of Congress to vote on their side because ultimately speaking. These Republicans are going to get ahead of this, and they know that with Mike Johnson's departure, their pathway to a new Republican House face is on the way. And it will be one of them. It will be one of Scalise or Jordan or a notable name, because they are going to go with someone that they can recognize and someone who can actually win enough votes to be propped up on this national stage and on this all-encompassing House leadership role. As we continue onward, of course, I will keep you updated as more and more of these Republicans decide that they are jumping ship, abandoning their posts, leaving some of the highest ranking positions in the House because they know how devastatingly brutal the next two years are going to be for their party, and they want no part of it And I think part of them recognizes that a big reason why Democrats did as well as they did is because of people like Speaker Johnson, and it's because of people like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and it's because of people People like Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Who make these decisions, call the wrong shots, make the president unpopular, make the party fall out of favor with the American public. And now they're making the decision consciously to split over, move over and say, maybe this wasn't my line of work. Maybe this is not where I was best suited, because evidently the American people spoke very loudly on election night. And resoundingly rejected the status quo and the president and his biggest allies on the House side, on the Senate side, in the White House. And so the next two years, I think, are going to be quite brutal for the Republicans. And only time will tell to see if this new wave of House Republican leaders or Republican leaders across the country end up lasting through the end of the term. Because Mike Johnson made it through about half of it. But now he's making the decision consciously to go ahead and remove himself as a leader in the House Republican conference, which leaves it wide open for a new face. So thank you guys so much for watching this video. Make sure to comment down suggestions below. Subscribe on the left if you haven't already and check out the Instagram and Twitter at the bottom left of the screen. There's also a Discord server for you to go ahead and join. On the screen, there's a video for you to watch and then a playlist for my 2026 post-election analysis videos. Again, thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you all later today.