The Journal. - Mike Who? The New Speaker of the House

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

Just a few days ago, Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was so unknown that fellow Republicans had to google his name. Now he’s Speaker of the House. WSJ’s Siobhan Hughes explains his meteoric rise. Further Reading: -Mike Johnson Elected House Speaker, Ending Three Weeks of GOP Feuding  -New Speaker Mike Johnson Made His Name as Cultural Conservative  Further Listening: -Why the House Still Doesn’t Have a Speaker  -The Fight Over Speaker of the House  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the last three weeks, Republicans have been scrambling to find a speaker for the House of Representatives. They cycled through multiple nominees and several floor votes. Tensions were high. One Republican lawmaker went so far as to call the situation a dumpster fire. But yesterday... The Honorable Mike Johnson of the state of Louisiana, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives for the 118th Congress. So the House of Representatives got a new speaker, and it's Mike Johnson?

I've never heard of this guy. Neither have many other lawmakers. The senators spent the other day Googling who is Mike Johnson. And one of Mike Johnson's own colleagues even sends out a press release congratulating Jim Johnson for his victory. So he is a relative unknown. That's our colleague Siobhan Hughes. Even though Mike Johnson might not be that well known, Chavon says his speakership could be a game changer for the GOP. Mike Johnson is going to be one of the most conservative speakers this country has seen in decades. The right wing of the party, what was previously considered the fringe of the party, has barged into the inner sanctum,

and now it's got one of its own people sitting on the throne. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Thursday, October 26th. October 26th. Coming up on the show, Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House. With Air Canada, you can enjoy free beer, wine, and premium snacks in economy class. Now extended to flights within Canada and the U.S.

Cheers to taking off this summer. More details at aircanada.com. Can you remind us how we got here? Like, just quickly walk us through what has happened over the past three weeks. Well, the big thing that happened is that Matt Gaetz and a group of seven other Republicans pushed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy out of the speakership. The reason for the push? McCarthy worked with Democrats to pass a bill that avoided a partial government shutdown. But ousting McCarthy created a different problem for Republicans.

It meant they had to find a new speaker. And it has not been an easy process. First, Republicans nominated Steve Scalise, the second highest-ranking Republican in the House. But Steve Scalise had a problem. He had been in the establishment for too long. The Republican conference said it wanted something different. It didn't want same old, same old.

It didn't want the people who'd been calling the shots to continue calling the shots. So he got taken out. I just shared with my colleagues that I'm withdrawing my name as a candidate for the speaker-designee. So Scalise was out. The second nominee was Representative Jim Jordan, a firebrand conservative from Ohio who is not considered part of the establishment. He's a member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. But Jordan had his own issues. When Jim Jordan tried to run, Jim Jordan made enemies with people who'd wanted Steve Scalise to be in power.

And so Jim Jordan was out. Unfortunately, Jim is no longer going to be the nominee. We'll have to go back to the drawing board. So Scalise was out, and now Jordan was out too. Next, a third name surfaced. Tom Emmer from Minnesota, the House majority whip. But he didn't even last long enough to get a vote on the House floor. He had the problem of being part of the establishment.

He was opposed by Donald Trump. He'd taken some votes that conservatives didn't like. For example, he voted in favor of giving federal recognition to same-sex marriage. By the afternoon, Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer had clinched the nomination. By 5 p.m., he had dropped out. Every other Republican had some baggage until all of a sudden, after Tom Emmer dropped out, Mike Johnson became the heir apparent. What did you think when you first started hearing Mike Johnson's name come up?

Well, I will confess to not being particularly astute on this point. I thought he is a backbencher. He doesn't have the type of leadership experience and deep ties you would think somebody would need to be in that spot. And so, frankly, I kind of wrote him off. So walk me through then how the vote for the speakership ultimately played out. So once Mike Johnson became the speaker designee that he had won the votes from within the conference, we went to the floor vote on Wednesday. And you could feel the tension starting to dissipate. You could feel Republicans breathing a sigh of relief. And as we went down the roll call vote in alphabetic order by last name, the Republican yes votes came in, one after another with no dissent.

And it became apparent that Mike Johnson was going to clinch this easily and with unity. And I will tell you, this happened so quickly that Mike Johnson said even his wife did not have time to catch a flight up here to be on hand for the swearing in. What was the mood like in the room when he finally won the votes? On the part of Republicans, it was euphoric. On the part of Republicans, it was euphoric. On the part of Democrats, it was respectful. There was a recognition that at least business could get back to its basics. People could get back to their jobs. To my colleagues, I want to thank you all for the trust that you have instilled in me to lead us in this historic and unprecedented moment that we're in. During his first address as Speaker, Johnson said his party would, quote,

fight vigorously with Democrats, but also seek to find common ground. The people's house is back in business. Okay, so tell us more about Mike Johnson. What's his story? Mike Johnson's personal story is that he grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. He is the son of a fireman who, when Mike Johnson was 12 years old, was so badly injured in the line of duty that he could no longer work again. He was disabled.

Mike Johnson went on to become the first in his family to go to college. He became a constitutional lawyer, and he used his background to pursue certain social goals. As an attorney in Louisiana, Johnson defended a ban on same-sex marriage before the state Supreme Court. He became a state legislator in 2015 and entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 2017. During his tenure, he strongly opposed abortion, and in 2022, he introduced a bill that would make it illegal to knowingly bring a minor across state lines to get an abortion. Johnson is also a conservative on fiscal issues.

He wants to dramatically shrink government programs, like Social Security and Medicare. He touched on that during his address yesterday. The greatest threat to our national security is our nation's debt. And while we've been sitting in this room, that's right, the debt has crossed almost $33.6 trillion. He nodded to some of that side of his agenda, saying he wanted to start a debt commission. He said that spending had to be cut, linking spending to some of the high inflation the country is continuing to deal with.

So that's going to be a key thing to watch in the months ahead. So I understand that Mike Johnson is a conservative, but how far to the right would you say he is? He's far to the right. And even just going through some recent votes, and I would say this is a Republican leadership, maybe not Kevin McCarthy, but somebody like Steve Scalise is very conservative. Mike Johnson is far to the right of them. He voted against keeping the

government open at the end of September when government funding was going to expire. He voted against federal recognition of same-sex marriage. He voted against funding for Ukraine. So he's far, far on the right of the conservative spectrum. What's his relationship like with former President Donald Trump? Mike Johnson has a close relationship with President Trump, at least on the issues where the two of them are aligned. And the big evidence of that has to do with the 2020 election. Mike Johnson had persuaded dozens and dozens of House Republicans to sign on to an

amicus brief supporting a lawsuit that was trying to challenge the results of the presidential contest in four swing states that Biden had won. He voted against certifying the results from Arizona, voted against certifying the results from Pennsylvania. And so Mike Johnson and Donald Trump line up essentially on this notion that the election was stolen and was unfairly awarded to Joe Biden. There's no corroborated evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. One of the big appeals of Johnson was that he was seen as an anti-establishment candidate. He's a relative newcomer to Congress and doesn't have

deep ties to corporate donors. There's a sense among Republicans that the country operates on a series of backroom deals struck in the offices of leadership without any input from the rank and file, and therefore without any ability to impose any sort of breaks or limits. And so they want a different type of leader. And so what are Mike Johnson's anti-establishment credentials? Well, Mike Johnson has never cut any of these backroom deals because he hasn't been in their room to cut them. But now, he will be. That's after the break.

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Amex. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. So now that Johnson is a speaker, let's talk about one of the most pressing issues that's facing the federal government right now, which is the possibility of a government shutdown. One of the main reasons that Kevin McCarthy lost his job is because he did a deal with Democrats to keep the government running for another 45 days. The deadline is now mid-November. Has Johnson said anything about where he stands on keeping the government running or shutting it down? You know, Johnson's interesting because his rhetoric is very, very high-minded, but we have yet to see what might lie underneath that rhetoric. In making his pitch to House Republicans, Johnson said he wanted to pass a stopgap bill lasting either through mid-January

or mid-April, whatever the conference decides, while House Republicans work on passing full-year spending bills that contain spending cuts. Johnson has left himself a lot of room to maneuver here, a lot of wiggle room, and we have yet to understand precisely the dimensions of his plans going forward. What kind of pressure do you think he's going to face from hardline conservatives who want massive cuts in order to keep the government funded, or from more moderate members of the Republican Party who might want to keep the government running? more moderate members of the Republican Party who might want to keep the government running. Mike Johnson is going to face pressures from both of those wings.

And in that, his situation is really no different than the situation of Kevin McCarthy. Does he face the same risk of being forced out of his job by a motion to vacate from a single member in the same way that Kevin McCarthy did? You know, House Republicans had talked about changing the rules so that a single person could no longer subject the Speaker to a motion to vacate. But it doesn't look like that rules change is going to happen. And so, yes, in theory, Mike Johnson could very well face that same threat. Two of the other big issues that Congress is facing right now are the war in Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas. What has Johnson said about those

issues? The wars in Ukraine and Israel are going to be front and center. Our nation's greatest ally in the Middle East is under attack. The first bill that I'm going to bring to this floor in just a little while will be in support of our dear friend Israel. And we're overdue in getting that done. He said his very first order of business was going to be bringing to the floor a resolution supporting Israel. But after that is going to be the question of the money. President Biden has proposed a $106 billion package that would send aid to Ukraine and Israel and also help manage the flow of migrants at the U.S. border. And already the House Republicans are saying

they're a bit unhappy with that. They would like to see some of those issues divided because, for example, while there's a lot of support for Israel, more than half of the Republican conference does not believe in sustaining support for Ukraine. And so Mike Johnson is going to be right in the thick of it, really from the get go. What about other issues like abortion? Abortion is one that I am watching closely, in part because there's a conversation now within the Republican Party, and you're seeing this crop up at the state level as well, that sort of says, well,

there should be some limit on abortion. So maybe a ban after 15 weeks is actually where the American public is. So it wouldn't surprise me if that were a direction that he would try to go. I would think that the border would also be something that Mike Johnson would want to pursue. He mentioned that in his floor remarks. And while the House has already passed legislation to make it much, much harder, for example, to claim asylum in this country, Mike Johnson indicated this is a matter of urgency. And you could see where he might want to take another go at something like that. So how do you think Democrats feel right now?

I mean, they helped push Kevin McCarthy out of the speaker role by voting alongside those conservative Republicans who wanted him out. But don't you think they'd rather work with Kevin McCarthy, who's a bit more moderate than Johnson? But don't you think they'd rather work with Kevin McCarthy, who's a bit more moderate than Johnson? I don't think there's any question Democrats would rather have worked with Kevin McCarthy. And in fact, I put that question to Hakeem Jeffries over the past week. Hakeem Jeffries is the highest ranking Democrat in the House, the minority leader. I said, do Democrats have any regrets about having not helped Kevin McCarthy in his moment of need? And Hakeem had only a one-word response, which was no, but he did not elaborate on that. And you have to imagine that privately, Democrats are worried about what they have now ended up with.

I will say one thing, though. I will say one thing, though. There is a sense among some Democrats that the politics of having a conservative as House speaker are very, very good for Democrats. And even if you have to suffer some losses over the next year, year and a half, it's OK, because the conservatism of this new House speaker will help Democrats reclaim the House in 2024. What does Johnson's rise to the speaker role say about the Republican Party? It says how far to the right the Republican Party has gone. The Republican Party of Reagan is really long in the rearview mirror. Even the Republican Party of John Boehner that did so many bipartisan deals with Democrats seems to have faded. And the conservative wing of the Republican Party is in the driver's seat, is in the ascendancy,

and really has no intention of leaving anytime soon. That's all for today, Thursday, October 26th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Eliza Collins, Katie Stetsch-Ferrick, Christina Peterson, and Lindsay Wise. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.