The Ghost of Kevin McCarthy Haunts Mike Johnson's Spending Nightmare
Republicans are eating their own again as another Speaker faces the same shutdown politics that destroyed his predecessor
Mike Johnson learned nothing from Kevin McCarthy’s spectacular flameout, and it’s about to cost him his job.
The Louisiana Speaker spent Friday night huddled in his Capitol office with the same gang of House Freedom Caucus members who torpedoed McCarthy in October 2023. Outside his door, 47 Republicans had already signed a letter threatening to vote against the $2.1 trillion omnibus spending package that keeps the government running past March 28th. Inside, Johnson was making the same desperate promises that McCarthy once made—promises he can’t keep without Democratic votes, which means he’s already dead.
I’ve watched this movie before. The ending never changes.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Johnson’s math problem is identical to McCarthy’s: he can only lose four Republican votes on any given bill. With 47 GOP members openly revolting and another dozen privately expressing “concerns” (Washington-speak for “I’m out”), Johnson needs Nancy Pelosi’s help to avoid a shutdown. The same Nancy Pelosi who Democrats spent two years calling a relic before realizing she was the only adult in the room.
The omnibus bill includes $847 billion in defense spending—a 3.2% increase that should make Republicans happy. It doesn’t. The same package allocates $912 billion for domestic programs, including $78 billion for education and $95 billion for healthcare initiatives that have Freedom Caucus members screaming about “woke spending priorities.”
Here’s what really stings: Johnson negotiated this deal in January, shaking hands with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Biden in the Oval Office. Those handshake photos are now being turned into attack ads by his own party members.
The House Freedom Caucus wants $200 billion in cuts. Johnson can deliver maybe $20 billion without losing every moderate Republican from purple districts. That $180 billion gap isn’t a negotiating position—it’s a suicide pact.
Chip Roy’s Revolution
The revolt is being led by Chip Roy of Texas, the same congressman who nominated Kevin McCarthy for Speaker 11 times before helping destroy him six months later. Roy’s political consistency is breathtaking in its cynicism.
“Mike Johnson campaigned as a conservative,” Roy told reporters Wednesday. “He’s governing like Paul Ryan.”
That’s a knife twist disguised as criticism. Paul Ryan, for all his faults, actually passed budgets. Johnson can’t even get his own conference to show up for votes.
Roy’s letter, co-signed by usual suspects like Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, and Andy Biggs, demands Johnson include border wall funding, parental rights legislation, and—my personal favorite—a provision defunding any federal agency that uses the term “climate change” in official documents. This isn’t governing; it’s performance art for primary voters who think compromise is a four-letter word.
The Gaetz Factor
Matt Gaetz hasn’t forgotten that Johnson voted to certify the 2020 election results. Yes, Johnson later signed onto the Texas lawsuit challenging those results, but Gaetz remembers the original sin. In Gaetz’s world, redemption is impossible and revenge is eternal.
Gaetz filed his motion to vacate against McCarthy on a Tuesday. He’s already drafted one against Johnson. The only question is timing.
“Fool me once, shame on McCarthy,” Gaetz said at a closed-door conference meeting last week. “Fool me twice, and I primary your ass.”
Gaetz represents a Florida district that Trump won by 37 points. He doesn’t need to compromise with anyone, which makes him the perfect destroyer of Speakers who do.
The Senate’s Waiting Game
Chuck Schumer is playing this perfectly. The Senate Majority Leader hasn’t said a word about House Republican infighting, letting Johnson twist in the wind while Democrats prepare to be the adults in the room—again.
Schumer’s calculation is simple: let Republicans destroy themselves, then step in at the last minute to prevent a shutdown that hurts federal workers in Democratic-leaning Northern Virginia, Maryland, and other blue-state enclaves. Democrats get to look responsible while Republicans look insane.
This strategy worked during the 2018-2019 shutdown under Trump, when polling showed Americans blamed Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin. It’ll work again, especially with Johnson as the face of GOP dysfunction.
The Senate already has 60 votes for a clean continuing resolution through September. Mitch McConnell, bless his tactical heart, has been privately telling Republican senators to stay out of House business. McConnell survived his own leadership challenges by never getting involved in other people’s civil wars.
Biden’s Leverage
President Biden is in the strongest position he’s been in since taking office. His approval ratings have climbed to 47%—not great, but good enough—and Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans on government competence by 12 points.
Biden doesn’t need to negotiate. He can sit back, let Republicans cannibalize each other, then sign whatever bipartisan compromise emerges from the wreckage. If there’s a shutdown, it’s Johnson’s fault. If there’s no shutdown, it’s because Democrats saved the day.
The White House has already prepared talking points blaming “extremist House Republicans” for any government closure. They’ve war-gamed every scenario except the one where Johnson actually controls his conference, because that scenario doesn’t exist.
The Historical Parallel Nobody Mentions
Everyone compares this to Newt Gingrich’s shutdown battles with Bill Clinton in 1995-1996, but the better parallel is John Boehner’s slow-motion political suicide from 2011-2015.
Boehner came to power promising to cut spending and shrink government. He delivered neither, which made him a target for the same Tea Party conservatives who elected him Speaker. Sound familiar?
Boehner survived 37 different challenges to his leadership before finally quitting in disgust. Johnson’s already facing his fifth formal challenge in four months. At this rate, he won’t make it to summer.
The difference is that Boehner had institutional support from committee chairs and senior Republicans who remembered when the House actually functioned. Johnson has no institutional memory to draw on because Trump destroyed all the institutions.
The Hastert Rule’s Ghost
Johnson is trapped by the same “Hastert Rule” that destroyed his predecessors: never bring a bill to the floor without support from a majority of Republican members. It’s not actually a rule—it’s a suicide pact that ensures every extreme faction has veto power over basic governance.
Dennis Hastert, the rule’s namesake, is in federal prison for financial crimes related to sexual abuse. His governing philosophy lives on, poisoning every spending negotiation and making bipartisan compromise politically toxic.
Johnson could break the Hastert Rule and pass spending bills with Democratic votes. McCarthy tried that exactly once, on Ukraine aid, and was removed from the speakership within 72 hours.
The Real Stakes
Here’s what gets lost in all the palace intrigue: a government shutdown would furlough 850,000 federal workers, delay Social Security payments to 67 million Americans, and cost the economy an estimated $6.5 billion per week.
None of that matters to the House Freedom Caucus, because none of their voters work for the federal government or depend on federal services. They represent rural districts where hating Washington is more important than understanding what Washington actually does.
Johnson represents Louisiana’s 4th District, which includes Barksdale Air Force Base and depends heavily on defense spending. A shutdown would hurt his own constituents, but Johnson can’t explain that to his conference without sounding like he’s defending the swamp.
This is the bind that destroys Republican Speakers: they have to choose between responsible governance and political survival. The choice used to be easy because responsible governance was good politics. Now it’s political suicide.
The 2026 Election Shadow
Every House Republican is thinking about 2026 primaries, where the most extreme candidate usually wins. Voting for a spending bill—any spending bill—is a potential attack ad. Voting against it might shut down the government, but at least you won’t get primaried.
Johnson’s members aren’t calculating what’s best for America. They’re calculating what’s best for their reelection chances in districts where Trump is more popular than the Constitution.
The Freedom Caucus has already announced they’re recruiting primary challengers against any Republican who votes for Johnson’s omnibus bill. They’re not bluffing—they’ve successfully primaried 23 GOP incumbents since 2018, including 10-term veteran Dan Crenshaw in Texas.
The Endgame
Johnson will survive this week because Democrats will bail him out. He’ll pass a spending bill with 190 Democratic votes and maybe 30 Republican votes, claiming victory while his own party plots his destruction.
The motion to vacate will come in April, probably tied to the debt ceiling fight that everyone’s pretending isn’t happening. Johnson will resign before the vote, just like Boehner did, because losing a public confidence vote is worse than quitting.
The next Speaker will face the exact same problems with the exact same conference, promising the same impossible things to the same ungovernable coalition. The cycle will repeat until either the Republican Party grows up or American voters stop rewarding political arsonists.
I’ve been covering Congress long enough to know which outcome is more likely.
The really tragic part? Johnson’s a decent guy who genuinely wants to govern. He’s also a former constitutional law professor who should know better than to negotiate with terrorists, even when they wear congressional pins.
But decency and intelligence don’t matter in a party that’s decided governing is surrender and compromise is treason. Johnson learned that lesson too late to save his speakership, but just in time to save his dignity.
The government will stay open. Mike Johnson won’t stay Speaker. And we’ll all pretend to be surprised when this happens again in six months with whoever’s foolish enough to want the job next.
Some lessons, apparently, can only be learned the hard way.