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Somebody's got to win. So I know what you're all thinking, because I was thinking it too. Who is the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson? He is a relatively unknown member of the House of Representatives. He's only served for eight years, just for comparison's sake.
People who have served as Speaker of the House before him have racked in at least double digits in terms of years spent. Kevin McCarthy served for 16 years. Nancy Pelosi served for 20 years before they became Speaker of the House. He's only served four two-year terms. So here's a little briefer on Mike Johnson. His mentor is Jim Jordan, the House Freedom Caucus leader who actually lost
the speakership race last week because moderates found him to be too extreme. Mike Johnson did not vote to certify the 2020 election and, in fact, argued that there were irregularities.
He worked on Trump's legal defense for both impeachments. He has extreme views on abortion. He's always voted against legal abortion. And he initially voted for Ukraine spending, but has voted against every bill since then. He really has no experience in leadership. But maybe that doesn't really matter anymore when the rest of the caucus is worn out and you have the approval of Donald Trump. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is what will it be like having a MAGA speaker?
And I figured I'd bring in one of the top experts on all things MAGA. That is my colleague, Tina Nguyen. Tina, you are an expert on all things MAGA. I'll take that title.
Yes. We know that you escaped the movement. You have a bestselling book, soon to be bestselling book, coming out about it. So how does a MAGA movement, which we've seen through Donald Trump and his presidency, translate into a MAGA speaker? I feel like while I was covering the Trump presidency, Congress, even with
Republicans in charge always seemed to be like a balance to Trump's most MAGA instincts. And they were always sort of trying to, I don't know, keep him in check, whether it was Paul Ryan as speaker, Mitch McConnell. I don't think we've ever seen a MAGA speaker before. And that's what they're calling Mike Johnson. How do you see this playing out?
Yeah, this is a weird situation for me because on paper, in his voting record, in his background, in the way that he is approaching social issues, the way that he, you know, voted against Biden's certification as president in 2020. That's pretty MAGA right there. The thing is, is that he has a soft touch. But.
But for what it's worth, most of the Republican Congress did not vote to certify Joe Biden's election. Right. But then again, none of them are speaker now except for him, right? Right. And...
The key differentiator between Mike Johnson and the rest of what we currently know as MAGA is that he is nice. He is soft-spoken. He is willing to work with others. He is not a firebrand. He is not a Jim Jordan-style fighter. He's not a Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, burn-it-all-down kind of person. His rhetoric has not reached that level. In fact, he was one of the more... I think even before...
any of this happened, no one was ever going to tap him as a rising member of the MAGA movement if, you know, a prominent member of Congress at all. Like, he's sneaky MAGA. I think that's the best way to put it. Or like a MAGA in sheep's clothing or something like that. Kind of, yeah. A Jim Jordan in sheep's clothing. I forget who put it as Jim Jordan in a jacket. I think that was the House Dems, but that's probably the best way of putting it. And
To my knowledge and in my recollection, I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever come across someone who presents themselves as Maga, but is also, you know, calm and even-tempered. Like, he has all of these qualities that are not necessarily...
you know, the type of central casting manga that you get. A lot of people are trying, a lot of people, he's not going to try to burn down the house from the inside is what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. Uh, one of the things that people pointed out to me was that he has a tight relationship with Steve Scalise because they're both, um, they're both Louisiana Republicans and they speak the same language. They come from the same caucus. Um, even if they're not necessarily on the same page, ideologically, uh,
he can still build that bridge. And after three weeks of this utter nonsense in the House, I think the MAGA wing was like, you know what? We'll take this guy as a win. He's not going to be the kind of fighter who burns down Congress whenever he wants. He's not going to be the kind of Jim Jordan pugilist that we prefer. But we can spin this as a win. We've got a conservative in the House. We've got a conservative with the gavel.
he's willing to work with others. Frankly, he's better than Kevin in their interpretation and the way that they are pitching this to their voters. And... But is he really better than Kevin? Because he's going to have to pass a spending bill in a few weeks. And let's see if he actually passes it to keep the government open. Yeah. I mean, let's... The big question is, like, if he can...
There are a couple of big ticket items that I think he can address immediately in order to keep the conservatives on board. As someone put it to me recently, it was like he needs to address the border, more funding for the border, less spending on Ukraine and cutting down the size of government spending. If he can get try to deliver on all three of those, the conservatives will be like, OK, cool, we're we're satisfied.
Maybe they're just cutting him a break. I mean, because that's pretty much what Kevin McCarthy was trying to do. He was. But the thing is, is that McCarthy had the optics of being an establishment dealmaker who was playing both sides and flip-flops. He was not as like he did not have the through line of conservatism that he
MAGA congressmen and MAGA voters want. And that, I think, is the most important aspect to understand when you look at why Mike Johnson won the speakership race versus everyone else who had experience in leadership and qualities and the ability to raise money. Like, these are all toxic qualities to the base. It sounds like completely, it sounds completely counterintuitive if you come from, you know, normal Washington world, but
People want to see Washington burn it, like burned down. The thing is, is that they will accept someone who doesn't want to burn it all down immediately and will probably do it at a slower pace. Just as long as the guy, just as long as they believe the guy is going to work on burning it down. Okay. Like a small fire or just kind of like a... Controlled fires. Yeah.
Like, when you're trying to clear a forest of weeds, you want to have a controlled fire and have it, like, contained over here and then contained over here. Yeah. But here's the question. How did people even come to accept that Mike Johnson was that person? Like, no one knows who he is. I'm sorry. He's been a congressman for...
four terms. That's for two-year terms. So he really hasn't been around for very long, since 2016. I didn't know who he was. I don't know if he was like... I've never seen him raise the roof at CPAC either. I doubt he has much name ID. I heard that he raised $500,000 last year. As a reference, Kevin McCarthy raised $80 million last year for the party. So...
So he's pretty rank and file. So I guess I was just sort of surprised that like everybody from the MAGA movement would just buy into it. Was it because Steve Bannon said, oh yeah, we like this guy or Trump put out the tweet on Truth Social saying, you know, go for Mike Johnson or Matt Gaetz. Like, is it all because he just has a lot of endorsements that he's MAGA and everybody's just like, okay, if Steve's saying it, if Matt Gaetz saying it, if Trump's saying it, he must be MAGA. Well, he was working
the phones a lot over the past couple of days convincing all of these lawmakers individually that he actually was as conservative as them. Like, his voting record...
His voting record does reflect that, but he never did the thing that most MAGA congressmen do, whereas in which they like run to War Room or Fox News and get a whole bunch of clips about how much of a fighter they are. Then they run to CPAC and they're like, yeah, make America great again. I love Donald Trump. Like the MAGA movement is so much about these media hits 24-7, 365, you know,
It's all about attacking people. It's all about getting that clip of you like raising an establishment Republican to the ground. And that's how you perpetuate your life cycle. Here comes Mike Johnson, who is probably extremely conservative out of a ruby red rural Louisiana district.
who, like, he'll probably never get out. He will never, he will likely never get kicked out of that district or primaried or whatever. And he was able to build a career without having to run a whole bunch of hits on War Room or even like beg Donald Trump to like him or not. So, well, the problem, I doubt he, well, I mean, he has a career, but like,
he's definitely not a star in the party. He's not fundraising like the others are. I mean, Jim Jordan goes on Fox News and raises millions of dollars through the grassroots. You know, I don't know, maybe Mike Johnson will be able to do that, but there's going to be a lot of pressure on him to be able to raise money. And he doesn't have the kind of relationships with billionaires that Kevin McCarthy had. I doubt Kevin McCarthy is really going to stick around to make Mike Johnson a successful speaker in the way that he would have if it was someone like
Jim Jordan, who he weirdly formed an alliance with out of his hatred of Steve Scalise, his number two. But now Steve Scalise may have actually found someone to puppeteer around, you know,
Because he can pass on his, you know, his fundraising apparatus to Mike Johnson. Some people that I was speaking to about this said, it's hard to imagine, you know, Steve Scalise playing the Tom DeLay role that he played years ago over Denny Hasser, the speaker, even though he was majority leader, in which like he kind of ran the shop. Not only did he run the shop, he like basically ran the shop.
basically staffed the shop, whipped, fundraised. He did all of it for the speaker as majority leader. And that like perhaps Steve Scalise might fall into this role for Mike Johnson because Mike Johnson like...
Just the number of staffers that you need. The office of the speaker is four times larger than the office he came from. They have to set the calendar for the entire house. They have to put bills on the floor. They have so many things to do and they're going to be completely overwhelmed on top of having to raise money for the party. So it's like you sort of wonder like who's going to step into that void and assume that power because he's just not ready for it.
And I've been told it will likely be Steve Scalise and Elise Stefanik, who's another member who is in leadership, that they have a really close relationship with him. And last week when, you know, Kevin McCarthy was trying to prop up Jim Jordan, he saw himself as the Tom DeLay to Denny Hasser, the Jim Jordan who couldn't whip and couldn't fundraise the way that he could. So I don't know. I think there's like a new power balance that's like shifting right now in front of us in Congress.
Yeah. And it's really around like weak MAGA leaders. Like if Jim Jordan would have won, he would have been a weak fundraiser and would have been weak at whipping. And now we see another MAGA speaker who, yeah, maybe he makes the hardliners on the right happy, but he's probably not operational. So you need the insiders to make him work, right? Yeah, right. And then the risk that he runs there is that if he sees, like if he...
If he appears to be too much of a puppet to Scalise or establishment forces, or if he seems to negotiate with Democrats a little bit too much, then
That flip that turns that like would automatically flip the MAGA side against him. Like he was the best option out of everyone left because he was appealing to moderates and he was like acceptable to MAGA. I wouldn't go so far to say that he was the guy that they wanted the most. They would have rather stood by Jim Jordan without if they would have liked Jim Jordan the most.
And they wanted Jim Jordan ever since the first speaker's race. If Jim Jordan's out of the equation, they would have gone with Byron Donalds or any number of young MAGA rising stars on the CPAC circuit. Byron Donalds was never going to get to 17, primarily because he is way too young and also way too MAGA. Like he has so many public statements where he would basically just like,
be inflammatory towards the establishment, they would see him as Jim Jordan light. Mike Johnson is such an unknown that the question is, will this MAGA caucus actually trust him to get things done for them? Like right now they can sell him as a social conservative, but like what, but like the, what is their Rubicon? What is the point in which his ability to appease moderates becomes too, too,
unacceptable for them. I can't tell. Neither can they. I think everyone is... Everyone I've spoken to, they're confident, but they're not elated, if that makes sense. Yeah, and I think they're going to need to back their guy for a little bit, right? Mm-hmm. And they're going to have to give him a little bit of strength. Who knows?
I mean, at least that's what I was gathering when you're hearing Matt Gaetz is trying to repair the relationship between the last guy who ran for Speaker and Trump, Tom Emmer.
He went down in flames because Trump said, Emmer's a rhino and he's not conservative enough. The interesting thing about Trump and the Trump of it all is like, Trump can kill someone, right? He can get 50 people to vote against you, but he can't build a coalition across the party. He can't name a speaker and get them to win. Like he said, vote for Jim Jordan and he couldn't do it. He couldn't cross the line. He struggled to get...
McCarthy the votes when he first ran in January of last year. So like, it's kind of a weird thing. And like, I know that Trump obviously wants to take credit for all of it, but I don't know. I think he's proven that he can kill a candidate, but he can't make a candidate. And I wonder, you know, what that means in the future. Or does it just mean that the party was worried that with Tom Emmer at the helm and Trump not behind him, that they would have a hard time raising money from the grassroots? Yeah.
I think the second part is definitely a little bit true. With regards to the first part about Trump's power, I think what you have to understand is that Trump is not necessarily the arbiter of what MAGA is, but the MAGA movement does not mind that. They trust his instincts. They trust that where it counts the most, he is a very anti-establishment fighter, and
he will waver on some of the details and be like, oh yeah, you know, abortion's kind of great. Oh no, you're all mad at me. Oh, you know, abortion's bad now. That's like one of infinite examples. But the thing is they have to trust that ultimately whoever they choose as leader will have their backs 24-7. And they definitely could not do... And like, even though Jim Jordan is...
the most MAGA person. Trump is not able to dictate exactly how the party is going to go. And also Jim Jordan is sort of a notorious... Well, I don't know about Jim Jordan himself these days, but the movement he built is notorious for aggressive tactics and hardball bullying. And...
It's just a situation where like it was just never going to happen because he had too many bridges burned over the past several years and a legion of people who liked burning bridges following him. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been a lot of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.
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So basically what I'm gathering from all this is that Mike Johnson was the only conservative who had fewer than four enemies. Yes, actually. He was sufficiently conservative to
Because he's never really done anything. Although he wants to criminalize abortion and have a nationwide ban, but he hasn't really offended anyone in the process. But he's never really been in a position to offend or make enemies. Oh, yeah. Imagine what it's going to be like for him to make decisions and public statements. I don't know what that kind of person is going to look like. He just hasn't been in the spotlight. And now that he's going to have to take firm public stances on things...
that's just sort of the, that's sort of the ammo that's going to alienate one wing or the other of this party. He's going to, you think he's going to be tripping all over himself, right? Oh yeah. It's either like, Oh, you're not a muff of a fighter or, Oh, you're too insane.
Yeah. He's going to need a lot of help. A speaker that needs support means that there's going to be a lot of puppet masters around him. And that's probably Steve Scalise and Elise Stefanik. And I think that means the Kevin McCarthy establishment is going to be heading quicker than we thought to K Street. Yeah, I mean, I thought Kevin McCarthy would stick around for longer if he had appointed his own speaker. But looks like Steve Scalise won in the end. Like, God, this...
The past three weeks were so much, Tara. Yeah, I know. It's been a really crazy time to think. You know, it's funny. I was talking to Jake Sherman of Punchbowl a few weeks ago, three weeks ago. And we were just kind of talking about what might happen. And he said, you know, I think it's going to be a dark horse. And I was like, I think so too. Because it's kind of like with Paul Ryan, where no one really knew who it was going to be. And then it ended up being randomly Paul Ryan, you know, as speaker. Yeah.
What they always say is that if you show... If you're so hungry for it, you're never going to get it. Like, that's just how it is in the house. Like, you can't desire it too much or you won't get the speakership. And so maybe that's why, Mike Johnson. Or they just are all worn out. Like, perhaps they're all just that worn out at this point. Yeah, the fact that the Maga-Wayne coalesce behind Mike Johnson, who is...
for all of his social conservative credentials, kind of a normie, says a lot about how tired this movement is. Like, all they just want, basically, is someone to hold them at night. I think it was more that the moderates actually gave in. Because he wasn't their ideal speaker. Tom Emmer was. They couldn't get him over the line. Yeah. Well, they couldn't get him over the line, but the thing is that Tom Emmer was always going to be a non-starter with them. Even if you had Matt Gaetz whip him,
Like, Emmer just reeks of establishment, and that's something you cannot really wash off of you unless you are extremely talented at cutting deals like Kevin McCarthy. And even he could only survive, like, I don't know, seven, eight months. So...
Anyone lesser than Kevin at dancing across that, dancing on that line was just never going to be an option for them. I think I had people texting me in all caps, anyone but fucking Emmer. I just don't understand why Trump hated Emmer so much because he didn't because he voted to certify the election. That was enough. Yeah.
This is something that I have learned covering this movement for like seven, almost eight years now. Sometimes you just have to remove the part of your head that tries to think about
rationally in the long term what is good for everybody and brings everyone a positive, happy result. Sometimes you have to just take that off your head and go with your gut and be like, if I were mad at someone, would I be mad at this person forever for doing this one thing or no? And
That's... I mean, he's taken back people who have written tell-alls about him. Trump has literally taken back people who have written tell-alls about him. Has he taken back any... Has he taken back anyone who has...
said that the election didn't happen. I mean, that the election was Biden's. That's the key thing. I think like I feel like Jason Miller, like his top aide may have testified that the election was that he told President Trump that the election wasn't stolen. Yeah, but also but Jason Miller, like he is now Jason Miller's boss. That's the difference. Like Jason Miller does not have the amount of power that a speaker of the House would.
All right. Prediction. How long does Mike Johnson last as Speaker of the House? Oh, my God. We're going to have a shutdown, aren't we, in three weeks? Probably.
The thing is, I don't know whether the Dems are going to drag it into shutdown because the Republicans put some sort of psycho poison pill in there. Like, let's get rid of all of the abortion ever. I think the Republicans that are a really big disadvantage, though, even just these three weeks of not being able to fundraise and like the indelible impression they've left on American psyche about how they're in, they're unable to actually govern. I don't know. I think that they're going to lose the House from that.
Mike Johnson is not going to be the leader of his party. He is going to be the servant of 920 God knows how many different factions that are also ideologically opposed to each other that I don't think it's possible for him to serve all of them without alienating one or the other. That's my prognostication.
So here's my thinking on Mike Johnson. Like, maybe he's able to pass the budget. Maybe the hardliners give him a break. But for the rest of the Congress, I bet he just focuses on fundraising and messaging bills, right? And getting aid. See, the tricky thing is going to be getting aid to Ukraine because the hardliners aren't going to want to get aid to Ukraine. But they'll probably send money to Israel. So...
So that'll be a hurdle for him is whether he gets aid to Ukraine or not. And perhaps he just goes along with the base. But I think there's gonna be a lot of pressure on him from Mitch McConnell in the White House. Right. And his own flank and the members that actually got them the majority, which are, you know, the moderates in New York State and California. Right.
Right. I mean, I could be completely surprised. And Mike Johnson shows a level of political skill and ability that I haven't seen out of him or from anyone close to the MAGA wing before. I reserve the right to be surprised if that happens. But at this point, I think it's kind of a grim proposition for him.
Hmm. So no aid to Ukraine is what you're thinking. That is the only way he keeps that wing next to him. Hmm. Like there are three non-starters with them. Cut all aid to Ukraine, get way more money for the border and cut the government deficit. And like he has to deliver on all three of those items in order for them to have any sort of leeway to grant him on other issues. About all they'll call a motion to vacate and feast on their own.
exactly. You think that they will feast on their own? They'll kill their own. Yeah, but they have to because that's what their bases at home wants. Like there were people, they'll say he's a, they'll say Mike Johnson became a sellout. Basically, that's what they'll say. The people who voted to remove McCarthy were sort of forced into that position by Matt Gates. I think if you like cornered them privately, and I think if you cornered all of these Republicans in deep red districts privately, um,
they would probably tell you, look, I didn't want to have to come to this decision, but now that this motion has been called and put on the floor, my voters will be really pissed off at me if I decide to vote McCarthy in. Or they were worried about being primaried on the right. Exactly. That Nancy Mace is one of the biggest chameleons I've ever seen, right? When they redistricted her seat in South Carolina, she just went MAGA with it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
I mean, you can't really say she's not representing her people, right? Fair enough. Okay. Thanks, Tina. This was great. No problem. Talk soon. Thanks for listening to another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. This wouldn't be possible without my rock star producer, Devin Manzi. If you like my reporting, please sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest. Go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and use the discount code Tara20. If you like this podcast, subscribe, rate it, share it with your friends.
I'll be back again on Tuesday.
