Yes, he became the speaker of the House of Representatives in one and a half attempts. But he still does not control his ward.
House Speaker Mike Johnson delivers a statement following his re-election as speaker on the first day of the 119th Congress.
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“You can start cutting off my fingers. I will not be voting for Mike Johnson tomorrow.” Rep. Thomas Massey told disgraced former Rep. Matt Gaetznew anchor on One America News Thursday night. The gory image of the Kentucky conservative was a foreshadowing of the ritual torture Johnson’s naysayers hoped to inflict before returning the speaker’s gavel to him. A dozen or so would-be detractors, who did not take as hard an opposition line as Massey but also did not pledge their support, seemed to want to symbolically cut off a finger or two of Johnson before pledging their support. They demanded deals that Johnson wouldn’t take.
In fact, Johnson came into Friday’s meeting saying he was confident he would win the first vote, only to lose to a relentless Massey, who voted for Tom Emery as promised – the only vote he could afford to lose. The former (at that time) speaker was wrong, according to my calculations. He lost two more: Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who voted for extremist Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, and Rep. Ralph Self of Texas, who voted for Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida. Six members of the freedom faction refused to vote when called; everyone voted for Johnson when the bell was called at the end.
As in every other speaker vote, all Democrats voted for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
But in the end, it didn’t matter. Johnson was smart enough not to swing the gavel to get the session closed and went to cajole and twist the arms of Norman and Self. At one point he left the cell with his head hanging, then remembered the cells, looked up and waved. Good optics.
We still don’t know how Johnson got these two to switch sides. Perhaps making promises he can’t keep. Officially, the House again held an open vote, with Norman and Self switching their votes, and Johnson’s opponents didn’t get a chance to chop off a figurative finger or two.
What we know.
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People call it a first-ballot victory. I’d say he won by 1.5 votes.
At times, MSNBC’s brainy Brendan Buck, who worked with embattled former GOP Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan, insisted that simply losing three votes and then regaining two was good news for Johnson. maybe But I don’t think there’s any good news for Johnson after today.
Johnson certainly benefited from the fact that no Republicans ran against him, and President-elect Donald Trump enthusiastically endorsed him. But Trump also fixed some of Johnson’s past and future woes by plucking three members of the GOP caucus to serve in his cabinet. The embattled speaker will continue to rely on Democrats to pass legislation. Which makes it more likely that, despite Friday’s win, Johnson won’t outlive his term.
However, it should be called Trump’s first victory during his co-presidency with Elon Musk. We know Musk helped reverse the bipartisan ruling to keep the government open last year before Trump weighed his own reservations.
then, Musk has started a war with Trump’s top MAGA friends over the H-1B visawhich admits talented non-citizens, claiming it is a benefit of American capitalism. Trump eventually sided with Musk over longtime allies like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer. Musk went all out by telling MAGA critics, “Take a big step back and GET YOURSELF in the face,” he told user X, who opined that H-1Bs shouldn’t exist. “I will go to war over this issue that you cannot understand.”
And just a few days ago, after Trump strongly endorsed Johnson and Kentucky’s Massey aired his grievances, Musk undercut Trump slightly with Messi tweeting: “Maybe you’re right but we’ll see how it goes.”
Messi lost that battle but could still win the MAGA war.
There was one dramatic moment for Democrats when non-voting delegate Stacey Plunkett of the Virgin Islands spoke out against the unfairness of representatives of territories and colonies who have only a symbolic input into important decisions because they can sit in the chamber. , but not to decide his future. Democrats rose to applaud her, but she was ruled out of order. If Democrats had done more than applaud Plunkett and worked toward statehood for at least Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., along with fairer status for others, our political reality might be different.
Instead, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries promised to “put down our swords and pick up our plowshares … to make life better for ordinary Americans.” It was an anxious moment for me. “America is too expensive. Too many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck,” he said. Why does Jeffries cover us as if both sides oppose solutions to economic inequality? It’s just the Republicans.
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Yes, he promised to protect Social Security and Medicare from unnamed opponents. He delivered several other thorns. But we’ve already seen that movie. He didn’t name the GOP; – he addressed the “opposition”. He redeemed himself a bit by mocking those who pretend Joe Biden lost in 2020 and pointed out that Democrats are people who accept elections when they win and when they lose.
There is so much turmoil in the MAGA “movement” that it is the only thing that makes politics tolerable right now. But we cannot change the country with schadenfreude. And perhaps we cannot change the country with the kind of democratic leadership we have now. I hope I’m wrong.
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