Mike Johnson gets warning House return poised to go 'sideways pretty fast'

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was warned Tuesday that, just because a faction of Democrats caved on the government shutdown, his path to getting the House up and running smoothly again is still fraught with peril.

Above and beyond facing a vote on releasing the notorious Jeffrey Epstein files, which has the White House on edge, Johnson is facing a fractious caucus concerned by the state of the economy — with the midterm elections just one year away.

With the House set to reconvene imminently, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, a former House Republican, claimed the speaker is facing serious challenges to his leadership.

“He doesn't have a massive majority in the House of Representatives,” the “Morning Joe” host told his panel. “He's got, at least I think, a dozen Republicans that won in seats where Joe Biden won. If you look at the extraordinary political bleeding that Republicans suffered last Tuesday in Virginia, in rural parts of Virginia, where they are feeling the cuts that are coming, whether it's the food assistance or whether it's coming to whether they can take their child to a medical facility 10 miles from their home, or if they have to drive 65, 70 miles from their home, those Republicans and those Biden swing districts can see these the trends, the trend lines do not look good with Republicans.”

“You know, again, saying no to helping people out, whether it's with food assistance or helping Americans out when it comes to paying for skyrocketing costs for their health care,” he continued. “So you add those 12 and you put MTG [GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene] in there and a couple of other people who represent rural districts who are saying to Republicans, you all are sealing your own political fate.”

“I don't think it's going to be as cut and dry as the speaker thinks it's going to be,” he predicted. “I've been in [former GOP Speaker] Newt Gingrich's House, where there's a majority of 4 or 5. It ain't a pretty sight for the speaker when things go sideways. And with this Republican caucus in the House, things can go sideways pretty fast.”

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