Republican warns GOP should brace for rebellions as 'keys to car' 'wrestled' from speaker

Slim margins in the House of Representatives mean the Republican Party should brace for stalemates, a GOP member has claimed.

The party has seen its House majority thin following the high-profile resignation of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Though it still holds a majority of five, some moderates within the Republican Party have defected on several crucial votes. A threatened government shutdown following a failure to solve a healthcare subsidies bill — along with the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files — highlight the in-fighting taking place in the GOP.

It is something the Democratic Party will be keen to take advantage of this year, and according to Republican Party rep Thomas Massie (KY), the fractured GOP will struggle. Massie suggested moderates in the party had "wrestled" control away from Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump, though there are still problems for the Republican Party to deal with.

Speaking to NOTUS, Massie said, "Mike Johnson has given the keys to the car to President Trump, but we wrestled the keys back and took them for a spin and got the Epstein Act passed right. There may be more discharge petitions, as long as the speaker keeps things bottled up and just does whatever the president does and keeps everything else from happening."

Johnson will find it "hard to escape" the issues plaguing the party, with healthcare subsidies still a sore spot for the GOP, according to political analyst Meredith Lee Hill.

She wrote, "The House returns from the holiday recess to confront old issues that continue to bedevil Johnson — from a politically perilous battle over health care and the ongoing release of the Jeffrey Epstein files to a messy intra-GOP fight over lawmakers’ stock trading and another looming government shutdown cliff."

"But Johnson will find it hard to escape internally divisive clashes as the GOP feels pressure to address the rising cost of living and otherwise firm up its standing ahead of the November midterms."

"But even Republican leaders’ unity-building proposals — such as highlighting fraud convictions in Minnesota — could end up sparking fights," she went on.

"A growing number of conservatives want Trump to reinstate Elon Musk in his prior role as efficiency czar to probe reports of Medicaid fraud and other related projects. But other Republicans, especially key moderates, are cool to the idea."