Elaine Godfrey and Russell Berman: “Johnson’s own members, in the past month, have accused him of stretching if not wholly disregarding the truth, and his assertion last Wednesday that he has a firm grip on power was correct only in the most technical sense. On the day he uttered it, a group of Johnson’s most electorally vulnerable soldiers abandoned him to help Democrats force a vote on extending health-care subsidies, and a longtime lawmaker became the 25th House Republican—with many more expected to follow—to announce that he would not seek reelection next year.”Said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY): “This place is disgraceful.”“In the preceding weeks, a member of the speaker’s leadership team—Representative Elise Stefanik of New York—publicly denounced Johnson as ineffective (shortly before she announced that she was, for now, quitting politics altogether), and another high-profile (albeit perpetually aggrieved) Republican, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, pined, in the pages of The New York Times, for the sturdy hand of Nancy Pelosi.”

Source: Washington Post December 24, 2025 04:05 UTC