Bulwark Takes - Mike Johnson: Twerpy Liar Who Wants Americans To Hate Each Other

Episode Date: October 11, 2025

Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell go off on House Speaker Mike Johnson — the “Eddie Haskell of MAGA.” They call out his fake piety, his loyalty to Trump over the country, and his awful attempt to brand peaceful protesters as “anti-American.”

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the bulwark from Sam Stein's office. And I am here with our, what is your job? Publisher. Sarah Longwell, you're the publisher. It's Friday afternoon. People are very pissed at the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, that little twerk for good reason. He was over on Fox and Friends talking about the protesters. And I think it's probably better just to listen to him in his own words. And then we can react, Sarah, unless you have a Mike Johnson hot take. You want to get off first. Now, let's put it in. Let's put it in. Drive it. Here is the Speaker of the House. They have a hate America rally that's scheduled for October 18th on the National Mall. It's all the pro Hamas wing and the, you know, the Antifa people.

They're all coming out. And I just, I'm beyond words. I can't believe they're actually doing this. I hate America rally, Sarah. I hate America rally. It's all Hamas and Antifa. I don't know. If it's just me, having just done that interview with George Redis, you know,

the American citizen and veteran that got thrown in jail for three days, it seems like to me the people that hate America are the people that are menacing, the American people and are threatening our free speech rights and threatening the rule of law and not the people that are exercising their protest rights. But that's just me. What do you think about the hate America rally? A few things. Number one, let's pray for a stric and effect on this, right? Oh, okay, are they mad that people are going to march? It sounds like they're scared that people are going to march. They want to get out there and define it before it happens because they're worried the marches are going to be big. There's going to be a big pushback and they don't like it.

So they're trying to define it. And I hope that by them doing this, It just raises the salience for people of the fact that this is happening. There is a No King's protest. Yeah, me too. Just real quick on the No Kings protests. You know, I do think there obviously are people that have been very engaged and wanted to go to those protests. And the protests have been real and, you know, both of us have attended them. And yet, I think like in the broader culture, right, like just like the energy around it.

Sometimes for a protest really get energy, you need to be really mad about something in particular, you know, not just like, I'm mad about all of the things. things um and um and and this sort of thing maybe maybe spikes people's juices up enough to say fuck you i'm going to attend one of those so-called hate america rallies and i'm going to wear my fucking american flag pin and i'm going to bring my sign i don't know i think there's something to that uh i yeah absolutely number one number two i have attended these like you just said like i've gone i just did one of the free dc ones the idea that this is a mass and antifa no it's not let me tell you what it is a lot of patriotic boomers in in in in their reef sandals or i don't know what kind of is it but they are lovely and uh when i was at one somebody had just listened to the focus

group podcast okay you know who's not humas is not listening to the focus group podcast all right yeah uh our audience has not grown that wide uh it's not even it's not even like angry college kids like it really is it was a lot of people with strollers and like so This idea that they were trying to frame it as hate America and say that it is, you know, these are basically terrorists. Like, go check one out, guys. See how many fanny packs you see. Because it's a lot because people need a place to hold their chapstick and their sunscreen.

That's just, it's just not a hit that's going to take either. You know, it's like one of those things, back of the old world bank protests or like, you know, even some of the Black House Matters for it, as or at least of the most, the ones where there's the most public unrest in Kenosha. For example, that attack landed because there was like a hint of truth to it in some places, you know, where there was real violence and disorder. That hasn't been the case at the no Kings rally. It's like there is no hint of truth to it at all. And, you know, I had Jacob Soberoff on the pod today.

And he was at the Chicago protest last night. It was like spontaneous on Thursday night. And the video from that is kind of cute. Like it's a lot of people that wish there at the Cubs games, you know, that wanted to be watching the Cubs games. There's a lot of regular folks. so we're just out there just speaking out and um i just i i don't think this is going to take okay so those that was that was one and two do you have another item on uh only that i think it belies a certain being afraid um from him you know i i think that the the idea that they feel like

they've got to get ahead of this it's just a real tell um but also what i i got to tell Mike Johnson has turned out to be like a, it's like a very banality of evil type guy where there's nothing worse than somebody who touts his Christianity while being, not just supporting a perverse liar, but really willing to go to bat for him. Like Mike Johnson sort of doesn't get enough discredit for how significantly he is abating,

or he is allowing Donald. Trump to carry out his mission of making Mike Johnson's body, his governing body of Congress, irrelevant. And never has it been more true that somebody serves at the pleasure of the president, which, by the way, is not true of Congress. Not true. He serves at the pleasure of the American people, actually. But Mike Johnson very much himself serves at the pleasure of the president, does not feel like he has a job without Trump. And so he has been told to be a good foot soldier and say that these and just that language. I mean, the idea of just calling average Americans, who don't like the idea that you're putting the National Guard in the streets or absconding

with people and sending them off to torture gulags, both Americans and people who have immigrated here. You know, this, like, what, he's a, he's not a good person. A couple of thoughts on that on the Mike Johnson, just on him not being a good person and just his little affect. I'm about to make a cultural reference that is aimed at the boomers that will be there at the No Kings rally. This is a little bit of an out-of-date cultural reference, but it's an Eddie Hammond.

askal vibe, leave it to beaver, you know what I mean? Just like, oh, Mrs. Cleaver, like, I went to church yesterday. But he's, but it's all, it's in service of this just horrible, a president that has actually no moral compunction at all. And he's just trying to put this like 1950s, you know, church boy, you know, altar boy face on all of it. And it's very, it's very ick to me. The other thing, just on a kind of serious level about this whole talking point, Trump has always kind of believed that like disloyalty to Trump is disloyalty to the country ever since the first term since he was president, you know. But at some level, he was kind of an outlier in that way and is like part of his megalomania. But that has now like infected all of them. Like all of MAGA basically takes that posture.

And like Mike Johnson is taking that posture, this notion that like you are anti-American if you are speaking out against the. president and the president's actions when like obviously the exact opposite is true the thing that is American is the ability to go and speak out against your political leaders and something that we can do in this country unlike China and and I think it speaks to just a warped worldview of MAGA that that is like just a talking point that has spread not just from Trump's you know megalomania but but now has spread throughout the political leadership of the party yeah you know you just reminded me of something two things really one is And I can't remember the quotation exactly, but it's like when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and wearing the cross.

And like that is, Mike Johnson's the real embodiment of that. And then the second thing is that I've been thinking a lot with the, we had this conversation at the live show about the civil war of it all. And they're sending the national guards into these cities. And then more I've been thinking about it. And I did a bunch of focus groups. And so I was listening to them. And it occurred to me, the way that people are taking this is, They're turning us against each other.

Like, and this is what Mike John, like, this is the real insidious thing. They want us to hate each other. They are trying using pretext, using provocation to get us to be at war with each other. And there is something sinister and disgusting about wanting to, like, kindle the fire between Americans. And that's what he's doing, though. This is like, it's part of what they're doing right now. He's saying the people who are going to attend these events are Hamas. And they're terrorists.

He is putting the people who are going to those protests. I thought we were not doing that kind of rhetoric. I thought we were worried about incendiary rhetoric and whether or not that that endangers people. Putting a target on people's back. That's right. And so he is trying to do that with these protests. He is trying to say to people for it. It's like it's worse than actually, as I think about it, it's worse than just the original thing that he said.

It is like his goal is to make it so people say, oh, the worst people are about to be in the streets. I better get out there too. It's not just. It's not just denigrating the Democrats. It easily could be interpreted as a call to action among the MAGA types to get out there and be in the streets as well. Well, hopefully they won't be doing that, cowards. But you guys should be. Appreciate the folks that have been putting those on and doing the work.

And I think that there's much to protest in this moment. So shout out to those folks. Google for your local No Kings protest. Sarah, thanks for jumping on with me. we'll be seeing you tomorrow we'll be in new york city for our live show saturday night look forward to being on stage with you love it see you guys all right everybody subscribe to the feed talk to you soon