Don’t Get Too Attached to Speaker Mike Johnson

The Speaker could fade back into obscurity, or instead become President Trump’s top vassal. Photo: Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

Like his defenestrated predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker Mike Johnson is caught in a perpetual squeeze between what’s necessary to keep the country operating and what the wackier members of his conference want. And as Politico reports, it’s a real buzzkill:

To hear Mike Johnson tell it, he’s not having much fun as speaker. He has complained about the long hours and constant travel, according to those who have recently spoken to him, and a series of escalating internal clashes have made the job a joyless slog.

… He’s currently facing a lone-wolf removal campaign from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — one that could easily grow legs if he miscalculates, insiders warn. And even if he does navigate through a rocky stretch ahead, they believe he is ill-suited to lead House Republicans into the next Congress and beyond — particularly if the GOP loses control of the House in November.

Johnson could just hang it all up. But if he wants to remain Speaker, he’ll need support from House Republicans, who don’t want to go through another fight over the Speaker’s gavel, and House Democrats. That seems to be where we’re headed if, as promised, Johnson brings up a Ukraine aid bill that’s even vaguely bipartisan, and then Marjorie Taylor Greene moves on a motion to vacate the chair. It won’t be easy, but Johnson should be able to cobble together a majority to stop that maneuver in almost any case.

The bigger question is Johnson’s longer-term survival as the top House Republican. But he might as well un-furrow his brow, because the decision may be beyond his control. Odds are high that the November election will greatly affect Johnson’s status. One such scenario is by definition curtains for Speaker Johnson, and likely for Leader Johnson, as Playbook suggests:

Many Republicans privately concede that they’re unlikely to keep the House this fall. And if they don’t, there will be pressure on Johnson to step aside from leadership completely, as has happened to GOP speakers who have lost the majority since the 1950s.

[One Republican asked:] “What’s he going to say? ‘Oh, shucks, guys … I ran everything through suspension and lost the majority, and I still want to be your leader’? That’s not going to be tolerated.”

Johnson would then be free to return to the back-bench obscurity from whence he emerged.

If Republicans not only hang onto the House but flip the Senate and the White House, Johnson’s fate will be equally clear — and equally out of his control. In a trifecta scenario, the House Speaker will be one of many foot soldiers in the MAGA army taking over Washington. He’ll hold his gavel strictly at the sufferance of a reelected President Donald Trump. Johnson has shown a pretty robust ability to kowtow to Trump, so he might be all right. But if he annoys Trump, the president could easily have him replaced with a more obsequious Speaker.

Another possible outcome in November is Republican control of Congress with Joe Biden entering a second term. It’s not even that improbable given the GOP advantage in the Senate landscape and the pick-’em status of both the House and presidential contests. Then, at least, House Republicans would share the burden of battling Biden with a Senate majority, relieving the pressure on the House leadership to cut ideological and partisan capers as the sole locus of GOP power in Washington (other than the Supreme Court, of course). It’s true that congressional Republicans might first have to survive the stress test of some wild Trump effort to keep Biden from being certified and inaugurated as president, but if that gets out of hand, all bets are off.

The most complicated post-November situation for Mike Johnson is probably the least likely: the status quo ante. It’s unclear what exactly the failure to flip the Senate and the White House would do to the psychology of the Republican Party. But at the very least, Speaker Johnson would more than ever remain the extremely unlikely top Republican in Washington, and quite possibly a sitting duck for those demanding a change in party leadership.

His life may seem difficult right now, but it could be a lot worse. In any event, voters hold Mike Johnson’s future in their hands.