PHOENIX, ARIZONA — Steven K. Bannon, former Trump White House chief strategist and host of ‘War Room,’ told Breitbart News that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) must cede his gavel by the end of 2024 for the good of the MAGA movement.
Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, caught up with Breitbart News at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix on Saturday night and called for Johnson to step down within days. He detailed that there is a swell of opposition to Johnson within his own conference as the presidential election certification looms on January 6.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and his colleagues “are going to try and play every game in the world” during the election validation on January 6, Bannon said.
“Johnson should, right now, resign… Here is the bottom line, and [Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief] Matt Boyle knows this better than anybody; he’s the single best reporter on Capitol Hill, and he has been for about 15 years; he knows right now is that there’s 10 to 15 to 20 guys who are hard-nosed on Johnson and are not going to be changed,” Bannon detailed.
“And President Trump, if he liked Johnson before he doesn’t like him now because Johnson failed to deliver,” Bannon continued. “So I think it’s time… in the week before Christmas and New Year’s, let’s change our leadership and knock out the vote, come back on the third, do the vote, get a new leader like a Jim Jordan — just throwing out a random name — and let’s get on with it so on January 6 we can certify the election, and you can start doing the confirmations. The Senate is ready to go; the House is working on the first reconciliation, which is going to be the border and energy. We have so much work to do. It’s got to be what the British call a ‘close-run thing.’ It has to happen now.”
Saturday night’s interview came after Johnson failed to include a debt ceiling increase, as Trump had desired, in the third rendition of the continuing resolution President Joe Biden signed into law on Saturday.
“Well, Johnson delivers 1,500 pages, had not told Vivek [Ramaswamy], had not told Elon [Musk], had not told the president, had not told anybody in the House,” Bannon said of Johnson’s initial version of the continuing resolution, dubbing it a “spending orgy for” House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
“Of course, it’s going to get blown up,” he added.
Bannon emphasized that the continuing resolution should have been the least complicated endeavor for 2025.
“My fear is: This was going to be the easiest exercise we had in all of 2025: just pass a simple [continuing resolution], which, as you know, the Breitbart readers hate, the War Room audience hates, but we’re prepared to do it because it kicked it down to President Trump when Russ Vought and Scott Bessent and President Trump’s team, and Johnson couldn’t even do that right. Johnson screwed that up by including 1,500 pages and gave themselves a 35 percent pay raise, and got them off Obamacare, which is why the guy got shot in the back in New York City.”
“This is outrageous; Johnson’s got to go as Speaker of the House,” he added. “I think that’s the lesson. Tacking on the debt ceiling to that is just going to cause confusion. It’s all now kicked into President Trump’s administration; he’s going to have to sort it out.”
“But I got to tell you, that was the easiest exercise and what we have to do between ending the forever wars, like Ukraine, Middle East, deporting 15 million illegal alien invaders, and getting our arms around these deficits, getting our arms around the $36.5 trillion in debt; it’s madness if we can’t do the easiest one. Simply, I think you need new leadership in the House, and President Trump’s team, I think, has to engage now with House leadership and say, ‘Hey, no more surprises, we need to know everything.’”
