Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) referred to himself as a “wartime Speaker” during a House Republican leadership press conference Tuesday.
Johnson responded to the efforts within his conference to oust him, calling a motion to vacate him from his role “absurd” and he refused to resign.
“Right now, we’re in a political struggle, a battle, between a completely different vision for the country,” Johnson told reporters. “We have colleagues in the Congress who … envision that America should be remade in the form of some sort of, you know, European-style socialist utopia. That is a road to Marxism, communism, you know, socialism.”
“For us to accomplish our mission, which is to save the republic, we need to add more Republicans to the House and grow the House majority so we have more votes. We need to win back the Republican majority in the Senate, and we need to restore Donald J. Trump to the White House as our nominee,” the Speaker said. “I believe all those things will happen, but we have to have a united front, and we have to have our members work together.”
“We're in dangerous times, as has been articulated here, around the world, and here at home. We need steady leadership. We need steady hands at the wheel. Look, I regard myself as a wartime Speaker,” Johnson continued.
“Former Speaker Newt Gingrich posted a couple days ago on his social media that this is the hardest challenge that’s faced a Speaker probably in the history of the country, in the moment that we’re in right now. He said, arguably, maybe comparable to the Civil War, but maybe worse — a single-vote margin at a difficult time when the nation is terribly divided,” Johnson added.
