House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has not had a great year. His razor-thin GOP majority 218-214 majority is hanging by a thread; he’s got a party that’s consistently rebelling against him; and his rivals are already licking their lips over his gavel. In his own (alleged) words: He’s “sick of this shit.”
So sick of said shit is he that he also just Alt-F4’ed a half-day of planned votes on Wednesday, a day after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) filed a surprise impeachment resolution against War Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “The House has done its work,” Johnson told reporters, explaining his sudden—and convenient!—decision to send lawmakers home a day early.
The House recess was originally scheduled to start Thursday, and is a routine seven-week follow-up to the elections, allowing members of Congress to focus on campaigning and their home districts.
“There it is,” Massie tweeted on Wednesday: “Just as I predicted. They’re canceling Congress tomorrow to avoid the vote on IMPEACHING [Hegseth].”
“These people are such incredible cowards,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) added in her own video. “Mike Johnson and Donald Trump are so afraid that the Republicans and Democrats in Congress would vote for that resolution of impeachment and that it would pass because they know that what Pete Hegseth has done.”
“Speaker Johnson, the WEAKEST speaker of all time, was so scared that we had the votes to impeach Hegseth and hold him accountable that he’s sending us all home to make sure it doesn’t happen,” added Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.).
Massie’s impeachment resolution—which was kept under wraps from GOP leadership—was presented on the House floor on Tuesday, shortly after the congressman announced in a press release his intent to present the measure. The resolution spans 34 pages and argues that Hegseth violated the War Powers Resolution of 1973 when the U.S. initially struck Iran at the end of February, killing the country’s supreme leader as well as a school full of students. Specifically, it points out that the law requires the U.S. government to receive congressional authorization before starting a war (it never did) and remove military forces from unauthorized combat within 60 days (it’s been 200).
The early departure also puts a pin in Congress’ growingly partisan conversation about AI, or whether it should regulate the technology at all. (Johnson, in step with Trump, doesn’t seem to think so.) On Wednesday, more than 100 Dem. lawmakers signed a letter to Johnson asking him to cancel the upcoming recess so they could focus on legislating AI safeguards.
Johnson, in response to backlash, called it “ridiculous” to say he sent everyone home early to avoid a vote. He called Massie “someone who wants attention,” and accused the move of being a “publicity stunt.” Mhm. Same guy who refused to swear in an Arizona lawmaker who just so happened to be the final signatory to force the release of the Epstein files last year, BTW.
And on that note, Johnson sending everyone a day home early also postpones progress on Massie’s discharge petition for a Part II of the Epstein Files Transparency Act—which, if passed, would force the lower chamber to vote again on releasing the files in full. Currently, the lawmaker just needs one more GOP signature. “We were at 190+ signatures last night,” he wrote in continuation of his earlier tweet.
Welp. Looks like you’re in for quite the stressful holiday, Johnson.
