Another MAGA Resignation Rocks House GOP, Leaving Speaker Johnson Scrambling Amid Majority Peril

By Catie Edmondson and Jonathan Weisman Washington — Dec. 2, 2025

House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican whose grip on the gavel has been tested by repeated revolts from his own party, reacted with visible dismay on Monday to the abrupt resignation of Representative Ralph Norman, a South Carolina conservative and staunch Trump ally who announced he would vacate his seat effective Jan. 3. The departure — the fourth from the Republican ranks in two weeks, following the high-profile exits of Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — has plunged Capitol Hill into renewed chaos, narrowing the G.O.P.’s already razor-thin 219-216 majority to a precarious 215-216 and forcing Mr. Johnson to confront the very real specter of Democratic control before the 2026 midterms. With special elections looming in safely red districts that Democrats are already targeting with early ad buys, Mr. Johnson’s pleas for unity rang hollow as whispers of a “motion to vacate” the speakership echoed anew, underscoring the fragility of a conference fractured by Mr. Trump’s polarizing agenda.

Mr. Norman’s announcement came in a terse two-minute video posted to X late Sunday, where the 71-year-old real estate developer and Freedom Caucus member decried Washington’s “toxic swamp” and the “endless shutdown circus” that he said had eroded his faith in legislative progress. “I came to fight for fiscal sanity and America First, but we’re bogged down in petty wars while the border bleeds and our troops go unpaid,” he said, his voice gravelly with exhaustion. The resignation, effective immediately after the holidays, triggers a special election in his rock-solid 5th Congressional District, where Mr. Norman won re-election by 25 points in 2024. Yet Democrats, buoyed by off-year gains in Virginia and New Jersey last month, have funneled $750,000 into the race through their congressional campaign arm, framing it as a referendum on Mr. Trump’s “chaos caucus.”

Mr. Johnson, 53, learned of the news during a morning leadership huddle and emerged for a hastily called news conference in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, his usual avuncular smile strained into a grimace. Flanked by loyalists like Representatives Gary Palmer of Alabama and Elise Stefanik of New York, he described Mr. Norman as “a dear friend and warrior” but stopped short of pleading for restraint from other potential quitters. “We’re family, and families have tough seasons — but this House will not break,” he said, his voice cracking on the final word. Behind the platitudes, aides revealed a speaker in “full freak-out mode,” who spent the afternoon on the phone with Mr. Trump, begging for a public show of unity amid reports of donor flight and primary threats from MAGA insurgents. “Mike’s staring down the barrel of irrelevance — four quits in a fortnight? That’s not a crisis; it’s a collapse,” one senior G.O.P. aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals.

The cascade of departures traces to the bruising 43-day government shutdown that ended in mid-November, the longest in U.S. history, which left 800,000 federal workers unpaid and slashed $4 billion in economic output, per Congressional Budget Office estimates. Moderates like Mr. Crenshaw, who cited “shutdown fatigue” in his Nov. 20 letter, and Ms. Mace, who decried “partisan paralysis” on Nov. 25, represent swing-district vulnerabilities exposed in last month’s off-year drubbings. But Mr. Norman’s exit — from a deep-red seat — signals deeper rot among the MAGA core, fueled by frustration over stalled priorities like Epstein file declassifications and Mr. Trump’s leaked Ukraine peace plan, which cedes Crimea to Russia in exchange for aid caps. “Ralph was all-in on Trump — if he’s out, who’s next?” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Freedom Caucus firebrand, posted on X, his message viewed 1.2 million times and amplifying calls for Mr. Johnson’s ouster.

Chaos erupted almost immediately on the House floor, where a procedural vote on a minor agriculture bill devolved into shouts as Freedom Caucus members like Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado confronted Mr. Johnson directly. “You promised us fighters, not quitters — but your weak leadership is driving us out!” Ms. Boebert yelled, her outburst captured on C-SPAN and clipped into viral memes. At least 18 hard-liners, including Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Andy Harris of Maryland, signed a letter Monday afternoon demanding Mr. Johnson schedule emergency votes on border wall funding and Epstein transparency, threatening a “motion to vacate” if ignored — a procedural dagger that felled his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, in 2023. Moderates, led by Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, pushed back in a rival missive signed by 22 members, urging “bipartisan bridge-building” to avert special-election wipeouts. “We’re one resignation from the minority — Mike’s got to herd cats or lose the House,” Mr. Bacon said in an interview, his district’s farm economy still reeling from shutdown delays in crop insurance.

Mr. Trump, vacationing at his Florida estate, amplified the discord with a midday Truth Social post: “Another GREAT PATRIOT quits the Swamp — thanks to Leaky Mike Johnson’s DISASTER leadership! MAGA needs STRONG fighters, not RINO weaklings. Primaries for all who fail us!” The message, viewed over 15 million times, drew rebukes even from allies: Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump confidant, told Fox News the resignations were “a wake-up call — not a witch hunt,” while Sen. Susan Collins of Maine warned of “self-inflicted wounds” that could hand Democrats a trifecta in 2026. Polling from a Republican firm, leaked to Axios, showed the G.O.P.’s generic House ballot lead evaporating to 2 points, with independents fleeing amid perceptions of “endless infighting.” On X, #GOPQuitStorm trended with 2.1 million mentions, blending clips of Mr. Norman’s video with memes of Mr. Johnson as a beleaguered shepherd herding feral cats.

Democrats, long accustomed to G.O.P. dysfunction, watched the spectacle with undisguised opportunism. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York issued a statement mocking the “MAGA meltdown,” while his team ramped up ad spends in the special-election battlegrounds, tying the vacancies to “Trump’s toxic takeover.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., scheduled a Tuesday vote on a discharge petition for $60 billion in uncut Ukraine aid — a maneuver that could exploit Republican divisions and force Mr. Johnson into an untenable veto override fight. “The House of Chaos is crumbling from within — we’re ready to govern when they’re done quitting,” Mr. Jeffries quipped during a strategy call, per participants.

For Mr. Johnson, elected speaker after 15 ballots of bedlam in January, the moment is existential. A former anti-abortion litigator with evangelical ties, he has navigated his tenure by balancing Mr. Trump’s bombast — from mass deportations to tariff hikes — with the chamber’s slim margins, often delaying divisive votes to avoid floor defeats. But the resignations have eroded his coalition: With four seats in play, a single Democratic flip could tip the scales. “He’s freaked — calling everyone from Trump to Thune, begging for cease-fires,” the aide said. Mr. Johnson, in a rare candid aside to reporters, invoked scripture: “We’re in the wilderness, but the promised land awaits — if we don’t scatter first.”

The upheaval echoes past G.O.P. implosions: Newt Gingrich’s 1998 resignation amid holiday-season strife, John Boehner’s 2015 exit under tea-party fire. “Trump’s chokehold was always brittle — now it’s breaking under its own weight,” said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton political historian. As the sun set over the Capitol, Mr. Johnson retreated to the speaker’s office for marathon calls, but the resignations’ echo lingers: In a majority measured in margins, one “out of nowhere” quit isn’t just chaos — it’s countdown to catastrophe.