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Mike Johnson’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

“This is what happens when you have leadership who can’t organize a one-car parade,” one senior Republican told NOTUS.

Mike Johnson

Republicans and the White House are confused by Mike Johnson’s strategy. (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images) Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP

Just about everyone is mad at Mike Johnson this week.

The majority of the House Republican Conference, GOP senators, the White House and even members of his own leadership team are fighting with the embattled House speaker and believe Johnson has lost control of his members. They are also confused by his strategy, as he has repeatedly fumbled attempts to get must-pass legislation through the chamber.

“Right now, it’s a shit show,” Rep. Chip Roy said.

Asked to described Johnson’s handling of this week, another member simply said: “fucked.”

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After days of false starts, Johnson was finally able to get the rule on a controversial provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act over the line and ultimately pass the FISA extension with Democratic votes and later pass the Republican budget resolution after hours of cajoling. But his conference walked away from the process scarred.

Some Republicans told NOTUS it was unwise for Johnson to have clumped multiple controversial bills into one rule — including one for Republicans’ budget blueprint for reconciliation. That decision deterred Democrats, who went out of their way to support the failed rule on FISA earlier this month.

“This is what happens when you have leadership who can’t organize a one-car parade,” one senior Republican told NOTUS.

Johnson stood by his game plan and told NOTUS that “this was the only way to have done it, and we’ll get through it.”

“We’ve been working really hard to get consensus in here from all corners of the conference and get all viewpoints,” the speaker added. “It’s sometimes impossible to touch nearly 220 people, but most of the interests certainly been listened to.”

However, everything boiled over on Wednesday night.

To get the rule passed, Johnson had to make a deal with the holdouts. In exchange for their support, Johnson promised that faction of the conference he would postpone a vote on the farm bill, three sources told NOTUS, which has not been reauthorized since 2018, angering another faction of Republicans who wanted the bill on the floor this week.

“Basically, the way I took it is we are trading votes to get a rule passed, and you were going to flush the farm bill down the toilet with that,” one member told NOTUS.

Johnson then went back on that deal and is allowing a vote on the farm bill on Thursday, but with an amended ethanol fuel bill.

House conservatives, particularly Roy, were incensed.

“We had an agreement today and then you changed it!” he yelled, in exchange seen by NOTUS. “I’m going to go vote no!”

Then, Roy slammed the door in Johnson’s face as he left the room.

Johnson told NOTUS “this isn’t the first time” that Roy had yelled at him, and that they had a good discussion and were going to figure things out.

This chaos continued to play out Wednesday night as Johnson received an earful from members who were concerned about the fuel bill and the farm bill. Rep. Stephanie Bice ripped into Johnson on the House floor and Rep. Ann Wagner loudly proclaimed “that’s bullshit” when Johnson was talking.

Things did not get better from there.

A vote on the budget resolution meant to kick off the reconciliation process was held open for hours after a mix of farm-bill-loving Republicans and conservative hard-liners refused to vote for it. Conservatives were also still enraged. Johnson emerged from a meeting with his unhappy members telling NOTUS that he had a “plan to move all the legislation” and that he’d “lay it out” on Thursday for the press the budget resolution passed.

At one point earlier in the evening, Rep. Byron Donalds emerged from the speaker’s office with a plate in hand, telling reporters, “The only answers I got was pizza.”

Johnson and those close to him have been trying to say that by blocking or holding up legislation, Republicans are hindering President Donald Trump’s agenda. That argument landed flat with some.

“I support the president, but the speaker obviously doesn’t listen to members,” another House Republican said.

Many members, including some in Johnson’s own leadership circle and from across the conference, urged him not to put the farm bill on the floor this week when FISA reauthorization and ending the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown demanded their full attention.

“It’s been very disastrous to cram this all into three rules,” one House Republican said. “There should have been a streamlining of the schedule. This is too many things to cram into one — when you have the budget reconciliation, you have FISA and you have your farm bill. It’s just too much.”

This Republican continued saying that Johnson’s leadership has been “chaotic.”

Ending the DHS shutdown could be relatively easy, some members argue, but Johnson has refused to put a Senate-passed measure on the floor — one that just weeks ago he said he was good with.

Members are perplexed as to why Johnson has refused to put that bill on the floor, as it has more than enough votes to pass. Even the Trump administration is losing patience with him.

On Tuesday, the White House sent a memo to the Hill urging Republicans to pass the Senate funding measure quickly. But Johnson has ignored the calls, pledging to not only wait until reconciliation moves further along but also vowing to change the funding measure — which would require the Senate to vote on it again, further prolonging the shutdown.

“The speaker needs to spend less time screwing around at parties at the White House and more time leading,” one Republican member told NOTUS, who also complained about a “lack of strategy.”

Some House Republicans are starting to wonder what the point of being in the majority is if they can’t get even the most basic tasks done.

“If we were to lose the majority now, it’d be a blessing in disguise,” one House Republican said of the party’s dwindling ranks, with more members eyeing the exits each day. “Because maybe then Democrats would go off the rails and do something stupid, and maybe voters would actually give us another chance in November.”

Em Luetkemeyer and Kadia Goba contributed to this report.