Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is apparently cooking up a last-minute plan to rescue the Republican Party’s midterm hopes — and the more you dig, the more it looks like a political hand grenade he’s holding with the pin barely in place.
According to CNN analysts Lauren Fox and Sarah Ferris, Johnson is pushing GOP committees to draft ideas for a fresh economic bill, potentially using it as a launchpad to revive the Trump agenda. But there’s a catch: Johnson is already juggling internal chaos and a razor-thin majority, and the stakes are absurdly high.
“Johnson has instructed chairmen to come up with a menu of ideas they’d like to see in another GOP economic bill,” Fox and Ferris wrote. “But whether the bill is focused on health care, tax policy or further deficit reduction is still not clear.”
And clarity is not coming anytime soon. The analysts note Johnson’s record this week alone: losing a floor vote nobody thought was at risk and being forced to pull several measures from the agenda. In short, Johnson is trying to assemble a major legislative vehicle while quelling fights over party priorities and begging members to show up for votes — a precarious balancing act that could backfire spectacularly.
Fox and Ferris aren’t sugarcoating the risks. They liken Johnson’s plan to the GOP’s Obamacare repeal attempt in 2017, which collapsed under internal discord and highlighted Republican incompetence. “Johnson’s agenda 2.0 plan is a long-shot effort that comes with no shortage of potential downsides for him and for the party,” they wrote.
The danger is obvious: trying and failing could hand Democrats a midterm gift while emboldening frustrated conservatives who are already calling for sweeping federal budget cuts. Moderates aren’t thrilled either. Nebraska Republican Don Bacon told CNN that pushing a divisive agenda “creates a very polarized environment. I think it’s bad to lean on it.” New Jersey’s Jeff Van Drew echoed the sentiment, urging the GOP to “really regroup” and “hope the party don’t do something stupid”.
Johnson may think he’s engineering a last-minute lifeline for the GOP, but the current chaos suggests he’s more likely to ignite a political dumpster fire. Narrow margins, internal fights, and ideological clashes mean this ambitious economic bill — meant to rejuvenate the party — could end up highlighting GOP dysfunction just months before the midterms.
