Can Mike Johnson Survive As House Speaker? 53:21

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Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Naeem Araza. Today, after our conversations with Ben Masrick and the Land of the Giants teaser on Twitter, we are pivoting away from Elon, finally.

Finally. We're going to talk about someone much less powerful, who's the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. No, he's very powerful. But, you know, odd in a different way. And someone I have my eye on a lot and want to talk about what he's doing. He seemingly came out of nowhere, but he, of course, didn't come out of nowhere. He sort of seemed to plot his way up to the top. And so we're very interested to know more about him and the challenges he faces over the next couple of weeks because government shutdown, all kinds of bills, etc., etc.,

Yes. And he did not come out of nowhere, as you said. It was just last January that we were talking about Kevin McCarthy's painful bid for House Speaker, which went 15 rounds, more marriages than Elizabeth Taylor has had. And one of the things he had to do, of course, was allow this vote of no confidence, a single member of Congress to bring a vote of no confidence, which Matt Gaetz did on October 2nd, after which we saw three weeks of ridiculousness in a speakerless House where there were

I don't know how many, five candidates? Many, many, many candidates. Steve Scalise. Yep, Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, Tom Emmer, and then they landed on Mike Johnson, which I think they were exhausted and accepted him because he seemed like a nice fella, a smiley fella. And of course, Donald Trump played a disproportionate role in this, you know, for someone who's completely out of government in this selection of the House Speaker, he weighed in on Steve Scalise's health.

He seems supportive of Jim Jordan, but he definitely didn't like Tom Emmer. Didn't think he was MAGA enough, called him a rhino. And then we land with Mike Johnson, who's someone who is quite faithful to Donald Trump, served on his impeachment defense team, among other things, and is a little bit out of nowhere. Yep. Did you know about him before this came through? I didn't. I mean, I was aware he was in that election denial group. He was probably the better-dressed person, I remember thinking. Oh, interesting suit that guy has.

But I paid attention to him because of what he looked like. He looked very friendly and sort of preppy. But I didn't really know anything about him. You know, he's from a district in Louisiana. The 4th Congressional District. Yeah, and he's not very powerful except being part of the MAGA group that tried to defend Donald Trump. Of course, being MAGA could be a big booster for you in today's Republican Party. Yes. So today we wanted to find out what all that mess around the House speakership selection exposed, who Mike Johnson is.

and what it means to have this man as second in line for the presidency. And we're doing that with three guests.

Nia Malika Henderson, Tina Nguyen, and Mariana Sotomayor. Nia Malika is a senior political analyst for CNN. Starting next month, she'll be joining the Bloomberg opinion team as a politics and policy columnist. Tina is the national correspondent at Puck, a former conservative activist. She's also Puck's resident MAGA expert insider and the author of the forthcoming book, The MAGA Diaries. Mariana is a congressional reporter at The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she spent five years at NBC News, where she covered Congress.

And the Biden campaign. So it's a group of people that really would know a lot more about Mike Johnson and sort of the dynamics of what's happening right now as he faces an enormous challenge of leading the House of Representatives at a very critical moment. One of the things that's particularly important is that we are just days away from the budget blowing up and having to negotiate another deal.

Of course, this is where Kevin McCarthy came out. Do you think that the Democrats made a mistake in not backing McCarthy? No, no, no. It's not our business. It's their business. You know, they have to pick. The Republicans have to pick the Speaker of the House. They are in the majority. And so that's all typical Democratic blather that they tend to beat themselves up over. This is their group. They decide who they want to be their leader.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of pushback right now. I mean, we'll see what happens with Mike Johnson. He seems very, he's hard to read. And so I'm very interested in hearing from these guests who have covered him and covered Congress about what direction they see this going. Why are you so keen on doing a deep dive on him? Because on Pivot, you said there's something...

off about. Creepy about him. Yeah. Yeah, creepy about Johnson. Well, I'm no expert. Neither of us are experts. So it's really good to bring in people who really understand what's happening on the ground there and who covered this area for a long time. And each of these people have done that. Secondly, you know, he's in a very powerful position. He's second in line to the presidency.

Third, his obsession with gay issues, stopping gay people essentially, is really bizarre. It reminds me of the 80s. I have not heard a voice like that since the 1980s, especially involved in gay conversion, which is making gay people straight, especially with this group called Exodus, who I used to write and know a lot about way long time ago.

And so to see it coming back like this is really... Talk a little bit about that group, Exodus. Exodus tried to convert gay people into straight people. They were particularly heinous in the way they did it. And, you know, much pilloried after a while, but he was quite involved with it. And so that's obviously, it piques my interest. I listen to

Quite a few of his, several dozen of his podcasts with his wife, which are disturbing because they're, you know, he's so biblically oriented. And again, I feel like this is a secular government, at least. He's more than welcome to have his religious beliefs because of the way the Constitution is set up. And so his stressing of using biblical standards.

teachings in terms of governing is a little bit disturbing, I think, in a multifaceted society, a multidenominational society. And so I'm interested to understand who he is. Of course, the church and evangelicals have a big voice in government, have been very influential. I mean, Catherine Stewart's reporting for The Times has been excellent on this, the power worshipers.

You said he tickled your spidey sense. He turned your spidey sense on. It sounds almost like you're a little scared of Mike Johnson, or is that fair? I am scared. I heard the voice. I haven't heard since the 1980s, and I thought it was long gone, and here he is again. And so...

You know, at the time it was disturbing. And now to have it still around among someone in such a position of power, you never thought someone with these kind of beliefs would get into such a position of power. But here they are. So, you know, it's a risk. I'm not a single identity voter. Like, it's not just because I'm gay. It's just that he represents a lot of the really dangerous parts of the Republican Party to me that got pushed down long ago. But again, I'm no expert. And that's why I want to talk to the experts. But a regression of progress, in fact.

Correctively. The Exodus founder ended up apologizing for harming gay teens and shutting down the group. Obviously, Johnson has not apologized for his point of view on any of this. Of course, I don't think he's sorry. Yeah. Okay, we'll unpack the Johnson diaries with our guest. We'll also get into the future of what he does, the votes ahead of him, in particular, the budget. And...

What the House will look like beyond 2024, obviously upcoming presidential election, Biden is down in the polls, everyone is freaking out. Polls showed Trump beating Biden in battleground states. I know you're going to tell me it's still early, Cara. It's still early. I'm sorry. Obama had very low ratings at this time. So, you know, I'm not, it's a year out. Anyways, we'll ask our guests about all that and how the House is going to shape up under this new speaker. Let's take a quick break and we'll be back with Niamh Malika Henderson, Tina Nguyen, and Mariana Sotomayor.

Mariana, Nia Malika, and Tina, thank you for joining me. And thanks for taking time out. I think it was, Mariana, you said you were running after House members. You got here just chasing them. Is that your job right now? Chasing? Yes. A lot of chasing. A lot of asking questions. Yeah. The whole questions are my favorite part of all of coverage of Congress, as I recall when I did it a long time ago. But anyway, let's talk about the House.

Let's start out with a question for all of you. What does the process through which Mike Johnson became speaker tell us about the state of the House Republican Conference in one sentence? Nia Malik, are you first, then Mariana, then Tina? Chaos. I don't even need a full sentence. I'll just say chaos. Chaos. All right. There you go. Mariana? Combative tensions coming to a head. Tina? Pure exhaustion.

Going towards the best option that they thought was great at the time and then it turned out absolutely not. Absolutely not. Wow. All right. So you've got some points of view. All right. Let's start with that, Tina. You pointed at the MAGA movement was confident but not elated by Johnson's election to the speakership.

That's a little surprising to some because his nickname is MAGA Mike. He was one of the architects behind the movement to overturn the election. Explain why MAGA World is less than excited about Mike than most people would assume. The reason they went for Jim Jordan to begin with and then Byron Donald right after him is because Mike Johnson has been really quiet

throughout the entirety of the Trump administration, very much a background player. And more importantly, he's into compromise, which just goes against the DNA of what a MAGA person is. Going into Mike Johnson being elected speaker, there was a huge blitz behind the scenes where he was reaching out to all of these MAGA members going, hey, actually, I'm really, really conservative.

Here are all my beliefs. Here's my background. Here's my resume. You just didn't see it because I was kind of quiet the entire time. And they had to go out and pitch that to the MAGA Media Sphere who had to pitch that to the rest of the movement. And they had to sell it as a win. And it's really terrifying.

Right. And one of the most important things in being a member of the populist movement is that you are loud, you're vocal, and you're constantly trying to change people's minds. Right.

him not being that person made it a harder pitch and him not being the type of person who'd want to burn it all down made selling Johnson to the wider populist base a bit of a harder stretch. And even right before he was elected, Steve Bannon was going on his show in War Room going, hey, you know what? We'll take him. He's got the right beliefs. He may not be the type of fighter that we want, but

But, you know, he'll do. I would note he's not part of the House Freedom Caucus also. Nia Malika, what about the Democrats? You said they will be pleased to have an election-denying culture warrior who they can paint as an extremist. Do you think his ascension makes it more or less likely the Democrats take the House in 2024? Listen—

I think it's anybody's guess what happens with the House. He will, I think, be a great foil for Democrats who are going to run on this idea that Republicans with Trump at the helm are just extremists. That worked in 2022 for them with abortion as kind of the centerpiece of that argument. And so someone like Mike Johnson, who is very, very conservative, almost a radical person,

Christian nationalist in some of his beliefs. I'm sure they will tie him, particularly if you think about those 18 or so members of the House GOP who are in those Biden districts, tying those folks, their vote for Mike Johnson, who is

has held all sorts of out-of-the-mainstream ideas, particularly around LGBTQ rights and LGBTQ individuals, abortion, contraception, you name it. They are there. And so I imagine this is going to be an easy thing for Democrats to do.

Listen, we've seen this in politics before. It happened with Nancy Pelosi trying to sort of paint the entire party using the politics of one person. So, yeah. Pelosi was that, but she was also famous for doing everything she could to protect members in her caucus and shield them from taking tough votes that would come back to hurt them. Based on his first two weeks as speaker, that doesn't seem to be Johnson's style, does it? He kind of wants them to...

pony up, essentially. Well, you know, that's the thing. He is the least experienced speaker to be in this position. You know, in some ways, the fact, you know, you sort of mentioned that people didn't really know who he was. In some ways, that was good for him because all of the stories that are coming out now, yeah, he was a blank slate. That was a feature, not a bug. I think it'll probably end up being a bit of a

bug for him is an inexperience and then some of his views as well. The fact that he isn't a great fundraiser, maybe that comes with the job. You have the title, then you kind of, the money comes to you, but that's yet to be seen at this point. Yeah. So Mariana, you've written that Johnson brings historic weakness to the role of speaker. Explain what you mean and how it constrains him and in the various ways that Nia Malika just mentioned. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, just to expand on what you just said, essentially, he has no experience. He's never held a gavel as a committee chairman. He has never, even though he was in leadership, it was a very, very small position, like small enough that members did not know where he was on policies. And

that was a benefit in some ways. People, Republicans will say they were just so exhausted. It was a tiresome process. They really did think they could never find someone who could get all Republican votes. And then Mike Johnson kind of ascended. He was actually not a hard sell to the House Freedom Caucus because he did come in during the 2016 election and has always been someone who has vouched for

former President Donald Trump. He was the guy who led an amicus brief, who got over 100 Republicans to sign on to that. So, you know, that was not necessarily too hard for members. I had actually heard from a number of conservative members even before Johnson kind of emerged and threw his hat in the ring as someone that they thought

could potentially do this. However, very quickly, we're going to find out what kind of leader this guy is. And so are so is the Republican conference because. Right. Because they don't know. They don't know. That's the thing. And I've had especially vulnerable Republicans, those Biden 18 members say, oh, my gosh, we were so tired. We were just wanting to get this over with. No one was doing their research about this guy and what he believed. Mm hmm.

That could potentially be detrimental. And we are seeing in his leadership style right now, you know, he seems to be –

He's obviously leaning more towards the far right. And part of that is also just kind of weighing where members are across the conference. Like right now to fund the government, he's like, so we have this approach, option A, option B, option C. Like he literally was just in conference with the PowerPoint saying these are the things. Let's talk it out. The government is funded until November 18th, for those who don't know. But what is the strategy of passing those funding bills from that PowerPoint and how is it working?

Well, this is the tricky part, as it's always been for House Republicans. They're the only Republican majority in Congress. Democrats obviously still have the majority in the Senate. There is a Democratic president. Many Republicans in the House will tell you that we're going to have to find some bipartisan consensus to fund the government, to pass a number of foreign aid supplementals, pass a number of other things like the federal aviation reauthorization, making sure that pilots can fly next year.

All of those things. However, Johnson knows that he has to pass the most conservative bill possible out of the House. And a number of moderate and pretty pragmatic Republicans have kind of given up on

let's just send the Senate something that'll actually become law because they know with their razor thin margins, they just have to pass the most conservative thing. So that's kind of what he's proposing. Things that don't make sense and will absolutely not be taken up by the Senate. One of the options that he has put out there is just a clean extension of current government funding levels till January. We could all get a holiday. And then everybody kicks it down the road. Correct. So is it a good idea to kick it down the road then? Kick

it down the road, give him more time to build these relationships with these hardline conservative members, see exactly what they will and won't budge against.

And frankly, a lot of them are just as tired as the moderates are. And it's possible that they could give up. Last week, the House passed a bill with funding for Israel, not for Ukraine, and also to cut funding for the IRS. Johnson said that if the Senate sends a bill back with aid to Israel and doesn't include spending cuts, he won't bring it to the floor. Nima Lika, do you think he's bluffing? Feels like bluffing to me. Yeah, I mean, a

Apparently, and I think this was in the Washington Post, they sort of hatched this out at the Heritage Foundation. And this was something that he settled on, partly because the administration was open to this in previous deals around the debt ceiling. Listen, it seems a bit risky given where Republicans are on Israel, where they have historically been, particularly where white evangelicals have been on Israel to kind of tie it to this

cutting, hiring of IRS agents, which doesn't even make fiscal sense.

It certainly seems like a risky move for him. But listen, you know, he has got to follow through, I think, with this idea that there needs to be cuts, that there can't be runaway spending. There certainly can't be runaway spending on foreign wars that don't involve Americans. You know, that's a real populist idea brought to the Republican Party by Donald Trump. Chuck Schumer, the Senate leader, called the bill stunningly unserious, which is... Yeah.

And the White House said Biden would veto it. He absolutely will. Were you surprised to see those IRS cuts? Listen, I agree with Schumer. It is unserious. It has no chance of passing. It's such a big issue, I think, for this administration, for just national security, for our relationship with Israel, that kind of picking it and linking it to this, it was almost like let's throw something against the wall and see what sticks. And that's what happened.

It also spends more money. Johnson says he wants funding for Ukraine, but wants to be separate from a bill to fund Israel and include border aid. Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, want to continue sending aid to Ukraine. Game this out for us, Mariana. Is Johnson setting up a showdown with McConnell? And if so, who wins? I go with the old turtle, but...

I mean, in some ways, yes. You know, it was not surprising to go back to the IRS just very quickly. It was absolutely not surprising from the House Republican perspective that that would be what was attached as a spending cut, even though it's not a spending cut. The reason why is because it was the first bill that House Republicans actually passed this year to defund the IRS, the 87,000 agents, which is

Right.

They're not going to be able to do that because there's so much controversy around a number of other cuts. So to your question about Ukraine, I mean, it is a generational difference, both obviously in age between McConnell and Johnson, but also I think in politics. Because McConnell is still this like John McCain era of we need to defend our democracies. We need to do whatever possible to help Ukraine.

Johnson is of this newer, younger, far right, and of course, America first MAGA movement. He is essentially saying we can't, and we've seen it happen, that the support for sending money to Ukraine is...

among House Republicans is dissolving. And the new proposal is to add border security, which, of course, is a big rallying cry for Republicans. And there's now a number of Senate Republicans saying that that also has to be attached here. But that's also going to add to the deficit because it's a whole new amount of funding. So as much as Republicans are saying, like, we need cuts, everything that they're proposing and slating as cuts are not that. Sorry.

Or not that. So they're also trying to, as you noted, passing 12 appropriations bills as opposed to an omnibus budget bill. Can you just explain that for people? Yes. They want to separate them. That's technically how Congress should work. In the Constitution, it says, you know, the House has the power of the purse, must fund the government every year. That is the number one priority. You have to fund the 12 appropriations.

government departments. And that's why they want to pass, House Republicans want to pass each bill individually. That's how it used to be way, way back in the day. I don't think Congress has actually, both the House and Senate, passed 12 appropriation bills in over two decades. You might need to fact check me on that one. But it

It's just been, you know, these continuing resolutions, continuing spending from decades ago. And, you know, there's some updates that have happened over time, but it becomes usually because you're facing this deadline to fund the government, a big omnibus bill. Just package everything together, add some extra stuff that we want to get done in there, and that funds the government for the year.

If you ask me, I kind of think we might be living in a CR world, which is what the far right does not want. They do not want that. And they will probably oust Johnson for that at some point next year. All right. So what's the best guess about how long Johnson will last as Speaker? Tina, then Nia Malika, then Mariana? If he makes it to April, I will be very impressed. You know, I'll give him—I think he's going to make it through the election, through November. Okay.

Because? Because the chaos and there's no other choice. I mean, is you know, he was kind of out of nowhere. So I don't think there's any other person who could get 217. Mariana? I also give it to the spring. And the reason why is because all of the fights and they will always be for Republicans is on spending. And that's what got McCarthy out because he sided with Democrats eventually for living in a CR world.

We're just continuing resolution, continuing resolution. The far right's going to be upset right now. They're OK voting for one because literally they say we want to have a holiday. We want to have Thanksgiving and Christmas. But when that incentive is gone and, you know, Johnson is trying to ultimately have to negotiate with the Democratic Senate, a Democratic president, is that the cue for Republicans to oust him? That could happen. We'll be back in a minute.

All right. So let's get to Johnson's social views. Johnson has so many extreme views, we can't get into all of them. I've been listening to his podcast quite a bit. But here are a few highlights. He has doubts about the separation of church and state. He seems to be a creationist. He and his 17-year-old son monitor each other's Internet histories to make sure they don't look at porn. And, of course, he's obsessed with gay people. He wrote an op-ed supporting gay people.

Supporting the criminalization of gay sex, he worked to ban gay marriage in Louisiana. And for years, he worked for one of my least favorite organizations on the planet, Exodus International, the infamous anti-gay conversion therapy group. Neal Malika, have we ever seen a House speaker so singularly committed to homophobia before? No, I don't think we have. You know, listen, in reading his bio and his ideology, and one of the things I think he said was that if you wanted to know his worldview, you just read the Bible. Right.

You know, you always think about Newt Gingrich and the way in which he tried to, and I think very successfully, looking at where Mike Johnson is now, wed Christian ideals, Christian ideology to government, right? And so this is kind of, in Mike Johnson, the fruition of that. You look at other past speakers, they weren't as ardently anti-gay, fervently anti-gay as Mike Johnson is. But listen, I think this is where...

a lot of Southern white evangelicals are on these issues. Listen, you know, I grew up in the South, so a lot of these ideas that he has are shared by lots of people I went to high school with. My mother, you know, is fairly Christian, fairly skeptical, should we say, of same-sex marriage, even though I'm in a same-sex marriage.

She doesn't like the fact that I took my three-year-old daughter to a drag queen story hour. That's something that I think Mike Johnson probably wouldn't like either. So this is a real new development, I think, for this amount of power, you know, for a speaker to have to also share those kinds of views, particularly where we are in America right now for gay people. We're in a different place for the T part of the LGBT community.

Sure.

But listen, he is on brand for the Trump version of the party. He's a southerner. He's a white male. He is very much into the culture wars. But, you know, and if you look back, I think a lot of the most anti-gay things he said were, you know, in the early 2000s.

that was really where, A, a lot of Americans were, but certainly a lot of Republicans, too. Right. But Tina, does it stay an animating force within the movement? As you mentioned, there's no short of energy around trans. That seems to have picked up. But attacking gay people and their families straight on is a bit of a throwback at this moment. Perhaps not. It is a bit of a throwback. And one of the notable things about Trump coming into the party was that he espoused a sort of tolerance for transphobia.

Gay people, some lesbians, but mostly gay people into the party. Peter Thiel became a backer. Milo Yiannopoulos became a major figure in the movement. You still see like gay Republicans have a place in this. Yes.

And it's not quite clear whether Mike Johnson actually fully slots into the modern MAGA movement. I would be curious to see whether the populist base that would have voted for Bernie then switched over to Trump, who popped up in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, whether they are going to be comfortable with this speaker anymore.

And one other thing about the current state of the Christian nationalist movement is that they genuinely believe with all of their heart that there is some sort of dark satanic power taking over the American government and that they have to fight both on an individual level and by electing Donald Trump back as president to fight against that. It's always had a very tenuous relationship with the MAGA establishment. Think your Roger Stone's

But I would say that he falls more into the Mike Lindell category of MAGA than he does like the Don Jr. type. The various flavors of MAGA. All right. Let's play a clip of Pete Buttigieg talking about Mike Johnson's homophobia.

I will admit it's a little bit difficult driving the family minivan to drop our kids off at daycare passing the dome of a Capitol knowing that the Speaker of the House sitting under that dome doesn't even think our family ought to exist. Being gay was a choice. That was a choice that was made way above my pay grade.

But my lifestyle is that I'm a dad. I'm a married father of two. A beautiful boy and girl, twins, two years old. And our family deserves to be protected.

It deserves to be supported, just like every American family. Well done, Pete. Mariana, are Johnson's hateful views on gay people an impediment for Democrats who want to get bills passed, or is it an advantage for Democrats? I think so. I mean, Democrats are just ready to go out on the campaign trail and be like, do you see who this guy is? Oh, you don't know who he is? Let us tell you about him. And...

While you were playing that, I was just imagining, if it weren't Pete Buttigieg, let's say it is a voter who shows up at a town hall living in Biden and 18th Districts.

And they say just that to that Republican member because here's the thing. There were a couple of Republicans who did confront Johnson about this before they voted for him, most notably because we remember during Speakership Week, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who voted to codify same-sex marriage, went down largely in part because many evangelical and very religious Republicans here on the Hill confronted him about it, just yelled at him for several hours about— Yes, they did. —just questioning his morality, right? Yeah.

Someone like Mark Molinaro, he is a freshman Republican in New York, actually told his conference, what are you talking about? Like, we should not be fighting about this. This is – this has become accepted in the U.S. And this is not going to help us. He was one of those people who actually talked to Johnson that evening about –

before he voted for him and confronted him about this. And what some of these members have since said is Johnson's line has been, listen, I no longer represent my Louisiana district. I represent all Republicans across the country. So I will try. I try and not put amendments on the floor, bills on the floor like his, which is essentially a derivative of the don't say gay Florida law on the floor.

That is something he is going to have to prove himself. But again, these Republicans, imagine, again, not Pete Buttigieg, but constituent Pete going and telling Mark Molinaro, you still voted for him, though. Yeah. I feel betrayed. And that's the issue at the end of the day. There's other views he has. He called abortion a holocaust. He's co-sponsored all kinds of anti-abortion legislation, including Life at Conception Act.

which could in theory criminalize not just abortion, but also morning-after pills and IUDs. Not surprising, some Republican senators are worried that it'll bring anti-abortion legislation to the floor at a time when that's the last thing they need. They keep losing on it. Nia Malika, have you heard any rumbling about this? Do you think he's likely to do this and essentially shoot his party in the foot?

Listen, I think if he does, he's going to hear from Donald Trump because Donald Trump very much understands that this is not a winning issue for Republicans. He is trying to sort of negotiate on this and on the one hand, take credit for the Dobbs decision, but also kind of shift his position on it. So I would doubt that he wants to negotiate.

make Donald Trump mad. I mean, Donald Trump is trying to massage this issue. Senate Republicans are too. They know that some of the language around this, that Republicans need to change it. 2022 did not go well for Republicans at all on this issue. And if you look at all of the sort of pro-choice debates

bills and measures that have happened in different states from Kansas to Kentucky, the pro-choice side has won. So you think he won't bring it to the floor because of this? I doubt it. I doubt it. Listen, I think it's way too risky. I think, again, he's going to run afoul of Donald Trump. Because listen, I mean, part of what the mandate for House Republicans is, is to make things harder for Biden, which could mean all sorts of things around impeachment. And

easier for Donald Trump to win the White House. That is the ultimate goal, particularly for somebody like Mike Johnson. You know, he's a Christian evangelical. They see Donald Trump as their warrior, as an almost messianic figure. So he would take a dive on abortion, something that's animated him. That's my sense of it. That's just my guess. Given...

that Donald Trump is still the leader of the party and that Mike Johnson has been deferential to Donald Trump and carrying water for him. So I'm just curious, you all seem to agree with each other on where this is all going. I'm curious what you might disagree on. You know, if he decides to keep to his promise, I don't just represent Louisiana, I represent all Republicans. I mean, he's got to understand what policies will endanger Republicans.

Right.

All of those controversial bills went away because McCarthy, listen, McCarthy, he and Johnson have voted similarly along the way. I think the difference is, as we've kind of pointed out through all these different examples, is that Johnson really staunchly believes in all of these things. McCarthy is like, let's go. I'm trying to be a people pleaser, trying to appease the people over here, over there. Also, it's very smart politically, electorally about what is going to help the Republicans maintain the majority.

they pulled all those bills. Like, they never put it on the floor and scheduled them. But to this day, we haven't seen, you know, any kind of federal bans come up. Republicans don't want to talk about it. I would be surprised if Johnson puts it on the floor. All of you the same way. He's not going to stick to his...

what his feelings are. I agree with one caveat, which is I am very curious as to whether the activist base and the religious base are going to be agitating for him to try to do something with the power that he has. I mean, he comes from a rural base in Louisiana, like very religious, very Catholic. I actually lived in Baton Rouge for a hot second. And the number of people who were like, who just like kept going to church all the time was like,

This is Thursday, people. What the heck? So there's not just that, but his relationship with the activist base and specifically the religious activist base is ironclad. He was a lawyer for the Alliance for the Defense of Freedom, which is a legal group that files legislation challenging things like same-sex marriage protection, prayer in schools. Will they be OK with him saying,

And deciding, okay, now is the time I'm going to start dialing back on being the culture warrior and then finally fight for the things that I have been telling people that I've believed for decades. The danger is that they could turn around, look at him and go, wait, so were you just using us to get ahead in your career and now you're just trying to keep your power? Mm-hmm.

Who knows if that's going to happen, but that's something that's going to be like living rent free in my head for a while. All right. So is the difference between McCarthy and Johnson purely aesthetic? At the end of the day, is Johnson just McCarthy with less fundraising because Johnson is dealing with the same constraints as McCarthy? Yeah, I think there is a difference again.

They have voted the same, but McCarthy has always kind of wanted to appeal to everyone. The fundraising thing is huge. Republicans are crying. They're like, we're totally screwed on the fundraising front. And it gives an advantage to Democrats. Listen, I think McCarthy was experienced. He kind of was from the more moderate wing of the Republican Party. This guy, Johnson, is a true Trumpist. He was elected in 2016. He certainly is a Christian leader.

nationalist. And I think if you think about what McCarthy would do, he would sort of genuflect to that side of the party. But he wasn't of that side of the party. And Mike Johnson certainly is. McCarthy said Nancy Pelosi broke a promise to save him. She denies ever making that promise. There's an argument out there that Democrats could have been better off in a McCarthy speakership. Is that true? Each of you. Let's start with you, Tina, and then go to Niamh Malika and then Mariana.

Probably. No one really knows how Mike Johnson's going to operate. He's coming up with these galaxy brain schemes to keep the government open. That's making nobody happy. At least for Kevin McCarthy was predictable and anyone knew that they could strike a sort of deal with him. Like Democrats to an extent kind of MAGA people to an extent kind of. But that was good enough.

Yeah, I totally agree. They probably were going to be better off with McCarthy. But at the same time, it was always going to end this way. McCarthy's days were numbered from the time he got the gavel. Mariana? Yeah, I think that Democrats, there were some of them who liked McCarthy being able to work with him. But I do think they see a Speaker Johnson way more advantageous electorally.

Because he is, yeah, like they're like, this is almost a gift for us to be able to go out there and be like, look, this is every single Republican voted for this guy. Yeah. Every single Republican that we're running against supports this guy. And here's all the things that he believes. Do you think the Republicans will keep the House majority next year? I know you can't predictions, but I'd like you to make them. Nia Malika first, then Mariana, then Tina.

Listen, yeah, predictions are always difficult, especially when they're about the future. But I will say, I actually think Democrats are going to take it. I mean, the majorities are what they are, so slim. They're those 18 Biden districts. It's going to be chaotic. I think Democrats

the electorate is going to favor Democrats in 2024, which I know is not a popular theory given the recent polls we've seen. Yeah, I'm going to ask that in a second. Mariana? I'll answer it this way. The amount of House Republicans that I've heard from who have said they are going to lose the majority is enough to believe that they're going to lose the majority. And the reason why is because they haven't been able to govern. Like, Democrats have never asked a speaker. They've never just, whether it was a full week or, as we saw, a month before,

They've never just shut down the House from being able to do business. And they know that Democrats have that argument. Right. Tina? Yeah. I mean, unless something ridiculous happens, maybe the Democrats completely collapse over Israel, the Republicans are going to lose it. The Democrats are going to be cohesive and keep together. The Republicans are forever going to be fighting each other over culture wars, right?

There is really almost no way that they keep it together long enough to maintain power. So, Nia Malika, what effect, if any, now you just mentioned the recent polling on Biden, will these Johnson speakers have on the presidential election? Democrats obviously are freaking out over the latest Times-Siena poll, which shows Trump

beating Biden. Does Johnson hurt or help Biden? Listen, I think he helps Biden. I think Donald Trump helped Biden. The sort of anti-Trump coalition that he was able to form was all about Donald Trump being an extremist and terrible at the job of bringing the country together and

dealing with COVID, just being a disaster of a president. And I think Democrats can very easily tie Mike Johnson to that chaos and to that extremism. So I think he's very much a help to Democrats. What about you, Tina?

I honestly don't think he's going to weigh into that calculation for voters. Biden is Biden. He's responsible for his own failures. I'm just like summarizing the argument. Trump oversaw an era of relative prosperity compared to Biden. A lot of people still have quote unquote questions over the legitimacy of 2020. And Trump, I think, has been out of the

Out of the like constant stabbing into everyone's brain space on a regular basis with a tweet that they've sort of forgotten that chaos and see him being put on trial for various things. They believe that the quote unquote deep state is after him.

And Trump is looking in their minds better and better by comparison, just from like the lens of nostalgia, even though he was a bit of a crazy uncle. And it is going to take a lot of creative but strong messaging for the Democrats to tie the chaos of the MAGA contingent in the House to Trump.

what a guy with executive powers and privileges like Donald Trump would be able to do for them. Like he's one guy. He can act unilaterally. The MAGA House members have to work with people who disagree with them, which is what the founders intended, but what the MAGA movement doesn't really like. And what about you, Mariana? What do you think the impact will be? You know, I think that the one argument that House Democrats can make, something that resonates and voters just know, is the

the certification of the 2024 election. House Republicans were in power when we saw all of that happen, right? So Democrats can just go out there and say, you need to elect Biden because literally the Speaker of the House currently led the

the movement in the House to try and overturn the election results. If you put House Democrats back in the majority, we're not going to allow that to happen, whether it is Trump who wins or Biden. Like, we will certify the election results. So the extremist thing continues to work in the end, even if they're

arguing with Biden, even if they're mad at Biden over whatever happens to be happening on any given day. Right now it's about Israel, but it could be about anything. Does that come back? Is that the most animating thing for Biden?

Absolutely. I think that is going to be the secret sauce of the Biden election, re-election campaign. It worked in 2020. You know, I think these polls are, to I think Tina's point, they sort of reflect that Donald Trump has receded a bit, right? He's sitting in a courtroom and has been for weeks and he isn't doing, he isn't, he's doing

the same crazy things, he isn't getting the same amount of attention right now. That'll change at some point. You know, I mean, Biden's problem was always that people never really loved Biden in the way that they loved Obama. They were kind of Obama Democrats. They're not really Biden Democrats who love Biden. It was just he was the person who could beat

Donald Trump and sort of be the vector for all of that anti-Trump sentiment and fear that people had in 2020. So I think they're going to try to get the band back together and really kind of drill down on those themes to voters, particularly independent voters, the swing state voters, the suburban moms, suburban white women, that whole coalition of voters. All right. So I want to end with a clip from the West Wing. I'm sure you've seen it making the rounds on Twitter. It started with Mike Johnson saying,

If you want to know about his views, you can just pick up the Bible and cut to Jed Bartlett from West Wing, fictional president Jed Bartlett, dressing down the religious right-wing radio host. I'm going to play part of that clip. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination. I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does. Yes, it does. Leviticus. 1822. Chapter and verse.

I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery, a sanctioned in Exodus 21-7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? Dots. The monologue continues. It's great. I can't play the whole thing, but that still works, each of you. The devil can quote scripture, too.

Meaning? I mean, that would just sort of be the response that a conservative activist or a conservative voter might have towards Biden making the same or any Democrat making the same response to Mike Johnson. Like, OK, sure, you've read the Bible, too. Fantastic. But this is what we believe and we're going to fight for it. I also do have a pretty...

All right. So any other thoughts on using that, that extremism? No, I think that's going to be the core of the Biden message and the Democrats message that the GOP is extreme, is out of step with modern American life.

And, you know, again, it worked in 2022. And they're certainly hoping that Biden, even given that he's sort of out of step with modern American life because he's in his 80s, they're hoping that that works again. Marianne, last word. Yeah, I think going back to the clip you just played, something that started to emerge in 2020 were Democrats speaking about the religion, saying exactly kind of like how President Bartlett was saying.

It's all right.

I like that last point Mariana was making that you can't let Republicans kind of hold

The power of values of the Bible, even in our secular state, they can't let them be the party of righteousness. Right. They like to be. That's their favorite stance. But yes, that's true. You know, I think Pete Buttigieg, I think, is a particularly good spokesperson for this with a family van. He was laying it on thick, you know, family van, twins, drop daycare. There was so many like, I'm a regular Joe like the rest of you. And I think most people do respond to that. Mike Johnson's trying to soft pedal what was a clear message.

dedicated career to anti-gay activity. Dedicated career. Not just, I don't, how gay people make me uncomfortable. It's, what can I do to stop them?

So I think that's a real bad message in this era. Yeah, it seems like a number one animating issue for him. Yeah. Well, abortion is one issue in which Democrats can get righteousness back in some way. I mean, it's not a biblical righteousness, but a righteousness of liberty and what a lot of Americans and a lot of women believe in. And there's a great episode on The Daily this week where they were talking about Biden being down in the polls and one of the ways in which to drive voter turnout is

in an election that is a stead, heard and told us a lot of voters just aren't enthusiastic about is to make, you know, abortion a down ballot issue or put it on the ballot in some way. I think, you know, abortion and gay marriage are not the areas that Republicans want to litigate with Democrats on because they're not on the right side. I think he represents the

A lot of stuff that mostly middle-of-the-road voters aren't very interested in. And, you know, I think probably they could have picked a better speaker than this guy, especially since he's inexperienced, who could have been a little bit more of a warrior about things that maybe do animate voters like crime and violence.

Safety issues around immigration. I think definitely more people are more concerned about it than than you realize. But abortion and going after abortion and gay marriage seem a huge error on the part of Republicans, which is all of them said they thought the House would be lost by the Republicans because they can't govern.

Yeah. There was a lot of agreement amongst that panel, right? Not as much disagreement as sometimes our panels show. But one thing they did disagree on is how long he will last with Tina and Mariana thinking it was just till April and then Nia Malika thinking, oh, he'll hold the seat till election. They'll be very curious if he only lasts till April. One, what drives his downfall? It seemed to be around the budget and keeping government going. And two...

Will the power of the House get even more MAGA or less MAGA? I think that's something that we'll have to watch and see. I don't know. At some point, they have to show they can govern, not just yell about governing. You know, I mean, I think that's really it. They are showing themselves to be people that can't govern, and they have the power, and therefore, it's never a good look to do that. It depends on how much it matters to voters, but I think the chaos definitely has had its toll. And we're not going to see that for a little while, but it's a circus. It's not something you want to be

Yeah, I think that's true for most voters. I think there's some slight base of voters, Trumpy voters, who think, oh, you know, this whole system is screwed, so watch it implode. And they're happy to see it implode or happy to see it held hostage, right? That has returned. And Nia Malika said...

saying that Trump is receding, that he's not getting as much attention to voters. I was thinking about that. He's also not getting as much attention from the media, of course, which is playing a big part in this, right? He's not in the mainstream conversation, you know, other than coverage of his indictment. He's not given a

quote-unquote platform in the same way he was in 2016. No. At some point, that will have to shift. That will shift. Yeah, as soon as the primary is over, everyone will start to focus again on crazy Donald Trump. And he's busy being crazy over in courts. It's just, you know, he's just yelling at judges. Soon he'll be yelling at voters. The thing that struck me most in that conversation, and really the Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson thing is,

Kevin McCarthy is a vessel for ideas, and he will compromise because he'll do what's in his own self-interest. And when you have someone who's devout, who really believes in a cause, then let's see if they work out. But the idea of compromise seen as something that's— Yeah, it's depressing. That's so depressing in a body that is made for compromise. So the whole time I was thinking, how do we get more young people, people who want to get shit done—

into government. Well, I'm not so sure young people are being so compromising these days either, are they? On college campuses, yeah. Yeah, I mean, come on. Everybody just has to go into their corners. Okay, well, how do you get more open-minded people forget their age? I, you know... It's hard. Think about people like John McCain. Think about people like, I hate to say this, Ronald Reagan. But, you know, there was a lot of compromise happening. Sometimes it took a long time for them to get there. Yes, it did. Yes, it did. So...

I know. So we have to go through the bad to get the good, maybe? Yeah, I guess. Anyways, read us out. Today's show was produced by Naeem Eraza, Christian Castro-Osel, Kateri Yoakum, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Mary Mathis. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan. Our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get to be Speaker of the House. If not, it's a motion to vacate for you. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow.

Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.