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House Speaker Mike Johnson warned on Monday that the principles that made America a model for other nations are under attack, telling reporters at his first news conference since the midterm elections that he fears those principles will be openly challenged in the next two years of Congress.
"Everyone wants to be like America, and there's a reason for that. And those principles are under assault — they're under great challenge. And I fear that in the days ahead, in the next two years of this Congress, they will be openly challenged," Johnson said on Capitol Hill.
Johnson was speaking a week after Democrats swept both the House and the Senate on November 3, ending Republican control of Congress. He won re-election to his own Louisiana seat, but he confirmed on Monday that he will remain Speaker only until early January, will not run for minority leader in the next Congress, and will not endorse in Tuesday's vote to choose his successor as Republican leader. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Majority Leader Steve Scalise are both running for the post.
"There's not much more that any of us could have done, and the people have spoken," Johnson said after the defeat. He had told his staff last Wednesday that he would not seek the minority leader job, a decision reported by Reuters, the Associated Press and USA Today.
Johnson had sounded the same warning before the election. On Election Day itself, he told the Todd Starnes Show podcast: "The things that made America are under assault right now, and we must stand up and we must do the right thing and God will continue to bless our nation." He predicted then that Republicans would defy the polls and keep control of Congress. The election did not go the way he predicted.