Who Is Mike Johnson? The New Speaker of the House The New York Times

Table Of Content

• Republicans who opposed Jordan for speaker are now rallying behind Johnson
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• Calmes: Hapless House Republicans weaponized impeachment. It backfired
• Legal Experts: Expect More Delays Following SCOTUS Hearing on Trump’s Immunity
• Ukraine, Israel aid advances in rare House vote as Democrats help Republicans push it forward

After the Dobbs decision overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, Johnson suggested that now women would produce more “able-bodied workers,” whose payroll tax contributions would help save Medicare and Social Security. Mike Johnson’s victory ends three weeks of squabbling among House Republicans — and cements their pro-Trump, hard-line faction as the face of the national party. The House rejected the right’s favorite to replace McCarthy, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan. Two other Republican nominees, Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, were in the McCarthy mold; their candidacies fizzled for lack of support (and, in Emmer’s case, from former President Trump’s drive-by shooting). The humiliating impasse gave rise to talk of some bipartisan arrangement to run the House — MAGA’s worst nightmare.

Republicans who opposed Jordan for speaker are now rallying behind Johnson

The potentially single-digit margin ushers in a new era of divided government in Washington. Going into the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats knew historic trends would favor that the party out of power gains seats. House Democrats' razor-thin five-seat majority, plus a significant number of retirements by veteran members, set up an uphill battle for them to retain power. Yet despite those historical headwinds, Democrats did much better than expected in this year's midterms and kept control of the Senate. In the 2022 midterm elections, two issues — abortion rights and democracy protection — mobilized many voters to elect more Democrats and far fewer Republicans than both parties expected. Johnson’s opposition to abortion — he favors a national ban — and to same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ rights and protections is well documented in his pre-Congress work as an attorney for the socially conservative Alliance Defending Freedom.

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Jeffries closed his remarks declaring, "Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. He's doing a great job under difficult circumstances and no amount of election denialism will ever change that reality. Not now. Not ever." The Democratic leader also vowed that his party will continue to support Ukraine to defeat Russia's aggression. "Our commitment to Israel's security is ironclad and Israel has a right to defend itself under the international rules of war against the brutal terror unleashed on its citizens by Hamas," Jeffries said. He noted that Democrats provided support for legislation to raise the debt ceiling, avoid a government shutdown and provide disaster relief funding.

Calmes: Hapless House Republicans weaponized impeachment. It backfired

Rep. Jim Jordan, who on Friday lost his third round of voting and later lost in a secret ballot, is no longer a nominee. House Republicans are once again scrambling with no clear path to elect a new speaker after voting to push Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan out of the race — the latest sign of the chaos and divisions that have engulfed the majority party and left the chamber in a state of paralysis. Only hours later, Mr. Emmer told Republicans in a closed-door meeting that he was dropping his bid, according to a person familiar with his decision who divulged the private discussion on the condition of anonymity. A social conservative, Mr. Johnson is a lawyer and the former chairman of the Republican Study Committee. House Republicans chose and then quickly repudiated yet another of their nominees for speaker on Tuesday and rushed to name a fourth, pressing to put an end to a remarkable three-week-long deadlock that has left Congress leaderless and paralyzed.

Legal Experts: Expect More Delays Following SCOTUS Hearing on Trump’s Immunity

"Who knows, we might end up back at Speaker McCarthy. He's still got the most votes on anybody in that room." Some on the right opposed to Mr. Emmer cited his vote in favor of codifying federal protections for same-sex couples. Others railed against Mr. Emmer’s vote in favor of a stopgap spending bill put forward by Mr. McCarthy, the speaker at the time, to avert a government shutdown. Still others said he was insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump, because he voted to certify the results of the 2020 election won by President Biden.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson to visit IC on Sunday, support Miller-Meeks - UI The Daily Iowan

House Speaker Mike Johnson to visit IC on Sunday, support Miller-Meeks.

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He quietly made deals with the most conservative members of the conference in order to win the speakership in January. Rep. Mike Johnson, who came in second to Emmer in the final ballot, told reporters he's trying to help Emmer flip the remaining holdouts. Emmer can only afford four defections in a vote on the House floor to still win the speakership. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida proclaimed on social media that she would not be supporting Emmer in a floor vote.

Republicans fear no speaker candidate can get 217 votes: "It's going to be very difficult"

Gaetz and seven other Republicans, representing less than 2% of the country, were enough to oust McCarthy against the wishes of 95% of the Republican caucus, with Democrats uniformly hewing to the bipartisan tradition of refusing to support a speaker of the opposite party. In other words, the Republican firebrands, who think the worst sin imaginable is to work with Democrats, voted with Democrats to oust their leader. The Israel-Gaza war is also contentious among House Democrats, with liberals clashing with some Jewish colleagues early on in the war. That prompted Democratic leadership to attempt to keep attacks from becoming personal. Over the weekend, 37 liberals voted against sending $14 billion in aid to Israel over concerns that humanitarian aid would not reach Gaza, joining 21 Republicans who did not support the measure over spending concerns. Johnson faces backlash from hard-right members of his party after he joined Democrats on Saturday to pass a critical foreign aid package that included $60.8 billion of aid for Ukraine.

It marked a victory for the far right that has become a dominant force in the Republican Party, which rose up this month to effectively dictate the removal of an establishment speaker and the installation of an arch-conservative replacement. "Congressman Sessions believes he can forge a positive path as a conservative leader who can unite the Conference," Sessions' office said in a statement. "My hat is in the ring, and I feel confident I can win the votes where others could not. I have no special interests to serve; I’m only in this to do what's best for our Nation and to steady the ship for the 118th Congress," Bergman said in a statement. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, is running for speaker, according to a spokesperson from his office.

The components would then be automatically stitched back together into a single package sent to the Senate where hardliners there are also planning procedural moves to stall final approval. “It just shows how the Republicans cannot manage the House and the House floor to get things done,” Meeks said. He added that in his 26 years in the House, he had never seen one party have to help the other like Democrats did this week. A member of a joint program between the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia, he was in the crowd watching Johnson speak.

GOP Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, who has endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds, said he could support any of the eight candidates. There is also disagreement about whether members will automatically fall in line behind whichever candidate gets the most votes, foreshadowing that the same divisions that have trapped the House GOP in this crisis are not showing any signs of letting up. When you're five people or eight people and you undercut the majority, there's a price to pay. Bacon had a message for those members who set the process in motion by voting to vacate the chair, which ended the speakership of Kevin McCarthy.

At a forum Monday night, speaker candidates pitched their ideas to the rank and file in the party. Donalds voluntarily withdrew from the race after the fourth round, and Hern dropped off the ballot, according to lawmakers. Republican Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota is now the GOP nominee for speaker, besting Rep. Mike Johnson in Republicans' final secret ballot, according to House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik. The vote indicates that Emmer faces a tough road to securing the 217 votes needed to win the speaker's gavel. "One of the things that I think won a big round of applause inside the room was that Tom Emmer said, 'Listen, we're not gonna do this shell diplomacy," Johnson told reporters. "We're not gonna break up in small rooms. I'm not gonna say one thing to you differently than what I'm gonna say to you."

Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., also entered the race by Sunday's deadline for Republican candidates, Stefanik confirmed. The Louisiana Republican on Saturday released a letter confirming his bid and saying any leader must work to restore trust in Congress, work to grow a Republican majority and more. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., vice chair of the House Republican conference, is also seeking the speakership. "There's a lot of people that appreciated what we did," Scott told USA TODAY about his first speaker campaign.