By Don Terry | Sunday, November 30, 2025 | 4 min read

For months, there’s been a quiet anxiety humming through Republican leadership, and now it’s starting to spill into public view. The news that Speaker Mike Johnson and Donald Trump reportedly feared the most is beginning to materialize, and it’s happening faster than many expected. We’ve talked about this possibility before, but new reporting is giving it far more weight: several additional GOP members of the House are seriously considering resigning mid-term, and not in subtle fashion. Punchbowl News, which has deep sourcing inside the House, is now confirming what had been whispered privately and dismissed by some as exaggerated.

Over the weekend, we reported that more Republican departures were on the horizon following Marjorie Taylor Greene’s abrupt resignation. At the time, the suggestion that a wave of exits could destabilize the House seemed bold. But with a special election coming up in Tennessee’s 7th District—a tough climb for Democrats, but not an impossible one—the margins are razor thin. If Democrats managed to flip that seat, and if even two more Republicans were to walk away, the House majority could collapse. Johnson could lose the speakership, and Democrats could regain control months before the midterms even arrive. It sounded dramatic, but it’s looking far more realistic now.

Punchbowl’s reporting includes comments from a senior House Republican who didn’t hold back. According to this lawmaker, the White House—Trump’s orbit during his tenure and its lingering influence now—has treated members “like garbage,” and Johnson has allowed it because it suited him politically. The frustration stretches across the ideological spectrum: appropriators, defense hawks, fiscal conservatives, and the rank-and-file who don’t usually make headlines. What they all share is a sense that the current power structure is dismissive, arrogant, and uninterested in letting members do the basic work of representing their districts. They can’t even get agency responses or simple grant announcements without being stonewalled.

Morale, this member said, has never been worse. There’s a belief among House Republicans that they’re heading straight into the minority after the midterms, and that some colleagues won’t stick around to watch the collapse happen. Early resignations, they warned, are “coming,” and the entire institution feels like a tinderbox. The claim that Johnson could lose his gavel before the term is over—once dismissed as overblown—is now being echoed by members who typically stay far away from dramatic predictions.

Not long after Punchbowl published their piece, the floodgates opened. Reporter Jake Sherman said that once the story went live, he received a cascade of texts from House Republicans agreeing with every word. Several said openly they didn’t see the point of staying in Congress if all they were expected to do was vote on censure resolutions and act as props. Some even questioned what it means for Congress to be a co-equal branch of government when leadership has turned the House into little more than an extension of the executive—something the founders never intended.

Even Rep. Victoria Spartz, not known for dramatic statements, publicly admitted that Greene wasn’t wrong in her reasons for leaving. She said she couldn’t blame anyone for abandoning an institution that, in her view, had betrayed the people it was meant to serve.

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy weighed in as well, telling Fox News that Greene’s exit was “the canary in the coal mine” and that Congress should brace for more resignations. Hearing that from McCarthy—who experienced firsthand how volatile this caucus can be—adds even more gravity to the situation.

Then came the fiasco involving Trump’s surprise plan to roll out a health care proposal during Thanksgiving week. He hadn’t briefed House Republicans, many of whom believed their marching orders for years were to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, not extend its subsidies. When they heard Trump intended to unveil a plan that did just that, they rebelled. The message they delivered was blunt: go forward with this announcement without us, and you’ll trigger a mass resignation. Within hours, the plan was abruptly pulled, leaving networks like CNN scrambling mid-broadcast to explain the sudden reversal.

Amid all this, Johnson has insisted that nearly every Republican supports what he’s doing, but that assertion rings hollow to anyone actually listening to the members themselves. Publicly, privately, anonymously, and now increasingly on the record, they’re saying the opposite. They’re exhausted, frustrated, sidelined, and aware that their majority is hanging by a thread.

What was once a quiet hum of discontent is turning into something much louder—and the coming weeks may determine whether the House can even function long enough to reach the next election.

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