House speaker insists 'best days ahead' as GOP infighting boils into open revolt

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Thursday insisted that the "best days are ahead of us," just hours after a sharply critical report charged that some "House Republican women are in open revolt" against him.

Speaking from inside the U.S. Capitol, Johnson on Thursday told reporters, "steady at the wheel, everybody," and, "it's going to be fine. Our best days are ahead of us. Americans are going to be feeling a lot better in the early part of next year," according to Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman.

"Speaker Mike Johnson is staring down a revolt from House Republican women," NBC News reported, adding: "a number of high-profile Republican women are fleeing the House for other opportunities, weighing retirement or quitting Congress early, fueling some concern that GOP women's ranks could be depleted in the next Congress."

Politico this week described Johnson's House of Representatives as "spinning out of control."

Suggesting that House Republicans "can't stand each other," NOTUS added that "rank-and-file Republicans are increasingly frustrated with their leadership -- and much of that frustration is spilling out into the open."

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), whose resignation from Congress shocked the political sphere, told NOTUS, "My bills which reflect many of President Trump's executive orders ... just sit collecting dust. That's how it is for most members of Congress's bills, the Speaker never brings them to the floor for a vote."

NBC News cited action taken by U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), filing a discharge petition on banning congressional stock trading, as an effort to "go around Johnson and force a floor vote."

Publicly, Luna expressed that she is "frustrated" and "pissed" -- while also calling Johnson "a good guy."

Apart from Greene's broadsides against Johnson, perhaps the most publicly extreme attack on Johnson has been from a member of his own leadership team.

"Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the chair of House Republican Leadershi