Affirmation of Mike Johnson’s Trumpian bona fides came yesterday from none other than Matt Gaetz, the rightwing lawmaker who successfully ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s post earlier this month and kicking off three weeks of crisis in the House. Here’s what Gaetz had to say about the chamber’s new leader, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:
Mike Johnson’s ascent to be speaker of the US House of Representatives proves Donald Trump dominates the Republican party and “Maga is ascendant”, the Florida congressman Matt Gaetz said, using an acronym for Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America great again.
“The swamp is on the run, Maga is ascendant and if you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to Maga Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement, and where the power of the Republican party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention,” Gaetz told the former Trump campaign chair and White House strategist Steve Bannon on his podcast on Wednesday.
Gaetz precipitated three weeks of leaderless chaos inside the Republican party, and therefore the House, when he triggered the removal of McCarthy this month. Seven other Republicans voted to make McCarthy the first speaker ever ejected by his own party but Gaetz orchestrated the move.
At one point in the chaotic three weeks it took Republicans to elect a new speaker of the House, the party nominated conservative firebrand Jim Jordan for the post, only to see him lose the election and drop out after more lawmakers objected to his embrace of rightwing causes. But as the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly and Sam Levine made clear yesterday, Mike Johnson believes in many of the same things – and now, he’s the leader of the chamber. Here’s more on what they found:
Mike Johnson’s emergence as the new speaker of the US House of Representatives has earned the relatively little-known Louisiana Republican a turn in the national spotlight.
That spotlight has illuminated positions and remarks many deem extreme.
He tried to overturn the 2020 election
In the modern Republican party, supporting Donald Trump’s lie about the role of voter fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden is hardly an outlandish position. But Johnson took it further.
After the election, he voiced support for Trump’s conspiracy theory that voting machines were rigged. Later, he was one of 147 Republicans to object to results in key states, even after a pro-Trump mob attacked Congress on 6 January 2021, a riot now linked to nine deaths and hundreds of convictions.
Johnson also authored an amicus brief filed to the supreme court in a case in which Texas sought to have swing-state results thrown out. According to the New York Times, a House Republican lawyer said Johnson’s brief was unconstitutional. Nonetheless, he persuaded 125 colleagues to sign it, using tactics some thought heavy-handed.
The supreme court refused to take the case. On Tuesday, Johnson refused to take a question about his work on Trump’s behalf – smiling as fellow Republicans booed and jeered the reporter.
He was a spokesperson for a ‘hate group’
Before entering politics, Johnson worked for the Alliance Defending Freedom – designated a hate group by the Southern Law Poverty Center, which tracks US extremists.
According to the SPLC, the ADF has “supported the recriminalisation of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ+ adults in the US and criminalisation abroad; defended state-sanctioned sterilisation of trans people abroad; contended that LGBTQ+ people are more likely to engage in paedophilia; and claimed that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society”.
On Wednesday, the ADF senior counsel, Jeremy Tedesco, denied the organisation was a hate group and attacked the SPLC designation as partisan.
“The truth is, Alliance Defending Freedom is among the largest and most effective legal advocacy organizations dedicated to protecting the religious freedom and free speech rights of all Americans,” he said.
He opposes LGBTQ+ rights
In state politics and at the national level, Johnson has worked to claw back gains made by LGBTQ+ Americans in their fight for equality.
In 2016, as he ran for Congress, he told the Louisiana Baptist Message he had “been out on the front lines of the ‘culture war’ defending religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and biblical values, including the defense of traditional marriage, and other ideals like these when they’ve been under assault”. He has since led efforts for a national “don’t say gay” bill, regarding the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues in schools, and is also opposed to gender-affirming care for children.
On Wednesday, the Rev Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, said: “Johnson has made a career out of attacking the LGBTQ+ community at every turn. His positions are out of touch with the clear majority support for LGBTQ+ equality in our country. His new leadership role is just further proof of the dangerous priorities of the GOP and the critical stakes for our democracy – and for LGBTQ+ Americans – in 2024.”
Good morning, US politics blog readers. With Mike Johnson’s election as speaker of the House of Representatives yesterday, the chamber can finally get back to work – and so can the Democratic strategists who are sure to use his rightwing beliefs as evidence that the GOP is too extreme to rule. The Louisiana lawmaker was an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump’s attempt to disrupt his 2020 election loss, opposes abortions and LGBTQ+ rights, and rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. The GOP has only a four-seat majority in the chamber, and Democrats are keen to topple some of the 18 Republicans representing districts Joe Biden won in 2020 and retake the majority next year – a campaign Johnson seems to be at the center of.
One of the first orders of business before Johnson will be finding agreement on a measure to fund the government beyond mid-November, when its current authorization expires. He’ll have to choose between insisting on deep cuts in spending that could alienate voters and potentially his own fellow lawmakers, or a more moderate proposal meant to keep the lights on while longer-term spending is negotiated. That’s a story that will play out in the weeks to come, but one thing is assured: Democrats will be watching.
Here’s what else is happening today:
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Joe Biden has no public events planned today, after staying up late yesterday for a state dinner with the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese. The usual press briefing takes place at 1pm eastern time.
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A manhunt is under way in Maine after a gunman killed 16 people. Follow our live blog for the latest on this developing story.
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Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic speaker of the House, will address first-year students at Georgetown Law School this afternoon – and perhaps weigh in on Johnson’s emergence.
