Preet Bharara:

From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Stay Tuned In Brief. I’m Preet Bharara. Republicans in the House of Representatives recently elected a new speaker, 22 days and three failed elections after they ousted former speaker Kevin McCarthy. Now new House Speaker Mike Johnson is the most powerful Republican lawmaker in Washington. The Louisiana representative is a staunch conservative and a Trump ally, who played an important role in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. What does this mean for the Republican Party, for Congress, and for America? Joining me to discuss it all is Annie Karni. She’s a congressional correspondent for the New York Times. Annie, welcome to the show.

Annie Karni:

Thanks for having me.

Preet Bharara:

So, I want you to explain to all of us in a moment who Mike Johnson is, where he came from, and how come most of us have never heard of him before. But first I want to ask you how he got to where he got, and you wrote a piece a few days ago, and there’s a paragraph in the piece in The New York Times. This may not have been your intent, but it caused me to laugh aloud. You said, “Mr. Johnson’s quick ascent came when members of the conference were worn down and ready to accept someone whom they did not view as an obvious choice or the party’s natural leader in waiting. Instead, he cleared a lowered bar. They view him as someone sufficiently conservative, and who they do not personally despise.”

Annie Karni:

Yeah, that is just-

Preet Bharara:

That’s the standard now?

Annie Karni:

Completely factual statement.

Preet Bharara:

Someone who they did not personally despise.

Annie Karni:

Not meant to be funny. Yeah. I mean, what we learned through the month of October with this endless speakers battle was that so much of what happened, and the trouble that various members had in getting 217 votes, which is needed to become speaker, was just bad blood, feuds, personal rivalries that just meant that some of their colleagues would absolutely under no circumstances ever vote for them. And Mike Johnson, who never served in leadership before, who never chaired a powerful committee, has had less opportunities to make enemies, and that helped him after three other failed candidates. No one personally despised this guy. So, that absolutely helped him get the support he needed. And this is not someone, as I said, no experience in top tier leadership. If you had said in January, Mike Johnson is going to be the speaker, anyone who’s claiming they predicted this is lying or was just lucky. I mean, no one saw this coming.

Preet Bharara:

What you’re saying sort of reminds me of the famous phrase, I think it was uttered by the actress Sally Field, “You love me. You love me.” Mike Johnson saying, “You don’t despise me. You don’t despise me.”

Annie Karni:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

What about some of the other people? Was Steve Scalise despised by too many people also?

Annie Karni:

Yeah. Well, he wasn’t seen as sufficiently hard right and-

Preet Bharara:

Steve Scalise was not.

Annie Karni:

Trumpy enough, yes. So, Steve Scalise was despised by McCarthy for a long time. They had a real rivalry for years. Steve Scalise was cut out of most of what happened in Congress, despite being the majority leader and the number two, because they have this terrible relationship. He thought that there was a theory that that helped him in the speakers race that followed McCarthy’s ousting because no one could say the debt limit deal was Steve Scalise’s fault, he wasn’t even in the room. But Trump wanted Jordan, the far right wanted Jordan, even after Steve Scalise won the secret ballot to make him the speaker designate, the MAGA base wanted Jordan and McCarthy’s allies were kind of pushing for Jordan too, partly because they didn’t like Scalise. So yes, he had enemies. There was personal dislike there, and there was this sense that we can get Jordan, so let’s move past this and get someone further to the right.

Preet Bharara:

Okay. So, who the heck is Mike Johnson?

Annie Karni:

Mike Johnson is a, well, he probably became most well-known in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results when he played a key role, maybe not as much as Jim Jordan, but close in trying to help rally support for trying to overturn the results. He recruited Republicans to sign a legal brief in support of a Texas lawsuit that was rooted in baseless claims of election regularities. He told House Republicans that Trump was “anxiously waiting to see which of them were going to be loyal and sign on to the brief.” And this was so out there that even the conservative leaning Supreme Court ultimately rejected this suit. So, he rose to some prominence as one of the leading election deniers in 2020. But before that, he was sort of a mild-mannered Louisiana Republican who had never run a competitive race. He didn’t even have an opponent in last time, so no one really looked into him.

But he also has been kind of hitting the right wing talk show circuit. He hosts a religious podcast with his wife. He’s been writing Op-Eds since he was in the state legislator in Louisiana. So, there’s this huge paper trail and audio trail of him espousing extremely conservative views on social issues and just making it clear that he’s an evangelical Christian who thinks that Christianity belongs in the middle of the national political discourse. He’s been arguing this for years. He really believes that God has ordained him to be here in this moment, to lead in this moment. And some people are saying that if you put together all of the views he’s espoused, it basically he’s like a textbook example of Christian nationalism, which is a label he has not used to describe himself. So, he’s known maybe best for the election denialism. But deeper is this is a guy that’s deeply motivated by his Christianity, that’s what’s driving him.

Preet Bharara:

Can I ask a dumb question? Did his Republican colleagues who had speaker election fatigue and placed a great bit of emphasis on not despising someone, did they fully appreciate his conservative record?

Annie Karni:

Yeah, I think so. I think that only someone deeply conservative like this could have won. So, there was four candidates, Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, Tom Emmer, and Mike Johnson. Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson are the two that are further right. Scalise and Tom Emmer were the two that were seen as insufficiently Maga, and they went down the hardest. Steve Scalise and Tom Emmer never even got a floor vote. It became clear that there was no path for them, and they dropped out behind closed doors. Jim Jordan, it backfired. The more center leaning Republicans or those Republicans from districts Biden won in 2020, they put up a fight against Jim Jordan, in part because he tried so hard to bully them that that backfired.

But I never heard in the issues with Jim Jordan issues that he was too far right. I heard personal issues that they didn’t like being bullied into backing him, and they didn’t like how he had treated Steve Scalise. So, it was all internal politics, not like I can’t support him because his views on abortion or his views on the election, that was not widely voiced. And I think the hard right would’ve absolutely killed any candidate who wasn’t Trumpy and hard right. And the word moderate is a bad word. It gets you decimated on Twitter, but the more center leaning, pragmatic Republicans went along, and I think it shows you where the real bent of this Republican Conference is at this point.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. So, now it’s been a few days. What’s the feeling in the Republican caucus in the house? Are they satisfied? Are they thrilled? Are they happy? Does some of them have buyer’s remorse? How are they feeling?

Annie Karni:

I think so far they’re happy to have moved past that period, which is deeply embarrassing to some. They called themselves a clown car trying to search for a new clown to drive the car. And I mean, a lot of them wanted to just move on from looking completely dysfunctional, which voters don’t really like. And I think so far they’re thrilled because Johnson has made it clear in his opening moves that he plans to tailor legislation to keep his Republican conference united, and to not make the mistakes that McCarthy did, which was to alienate the far right. And I mean we can talk about his first big move was this Israel aid, and he did it in a way that was totally partisan, that looks like it’s designed to appeal and to flash his conservative credentials, rather than be something that could actually quickly pass and get signed by the president into law.

So, I think that mostly they’re quite happy with this guy, even people who are not the hard right. People just didn’t like Kevin McCarthy. He had made promises for so long, there was no trust. And I have to say, Johnson has this southern Christian niceness that I think Democrats will have a hard time making a political bogeyman out of him like they could with Jim Jordan. I mean, he’s only done Fox interviews so far, but he comes across as very pleasant, not in your face, not belligerent. And it’s like as far right as Jim Jordan, but it comes under a much nicer smile and smoothness.

Preet Bharara:

I hear he is someone who’s not very personally despised.

Annie Karni:

Yes, exactly.

Preet Bharara:

Though in hearing you talk, I feel like I had a guest on some months ago to talk about the United Kingdom, and when I asked “How’s Rishi Sunak doing and what’s the feeling?” It was kind of the same answer. Everyone’s just happy that the clown show is over as somebody who is presentable.

Annie Karni:

Yes.

Preet Bharara:

Very Conservative, but presentable. There’s a lot of parallels I feel like between-

Annie Karni:

Also, people keep saying, “How long is this guy is going to last? I give him three weeks.” And it’s like I give him actually some more runway. I think that what we definitely learned is that if you take someone out of this speakership, it’s really hard to get someone else back in. So, I don’t think any Republicans really want to do that again. So, I think he might have some time.

Preet Bharara:

Can I ask a question about the rule? So, my understanding is McCarthy had to subject himself to a sort of easy removal mechanism to get the speakership in the first place, and he sowed the seeds of his own demise in some ways, as the rules matter. Is it still possible to remove the speaker on the Republican side in the same way McCarthy was, or has there been a rule change?

Annie Karni:

There hasn’t yet been a rule change. You could still do that. No one’s going to do it, and I think they’re going to change it. It’s not like a priority because I don’t think he thinks anyone’s coming at him with that right now. They plan to change it, but right now you still could.

Preet Bharara:

Okay. Now, has Mike Johnson ever worked with or even met his counterpart in the Senate, Mitch McConnell before?

Annie Karni:

No. I mean, they don’t know him, the Senate, they don’t know him at all.

Preet Bharara:

So, what’s the feeling in the Senate Republican caucus about Mr. Johnson?

Annie Karni:

I mean, he met with McConnell for the first time this week or last week. I mean, he started out with a very kind of aggressive posture on this first thing that they would need to work together on, which is a bill to get aid to Israel, which Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans want to couple with Ukraine aid, and he is refusing to do that. So, he’s starting with a deep foreign policy disagreement where he’s representing the deeply conservative, America first view of funding foreign wars. And Mitch McConnell is firmly on the other side of that argument, so. And now I don’t know how this ends.

So, the House passed their bill. I think that part of the idea was that the Republicans could say, “Look, Democrats voted against aid to Israel,” which is something that’s usually really bipartisan. Now the Senate’s going to do their version and send it back to the House, and then Johnson’s going to be… that’ll be his first real test. He’s going to have to get them to pass something. And how is he going to do that with a Senate passed bill that he has said he won’t? I don’t know, we’ll see. I don’t know how they get out of this.

Preet Bharara:

I guess we’ll have to see. So, what about the Democratic caucus in the house and their leader, Hakeem Jeffries? Do you have a sense of how they’re going to get along and what the strategy is for maybe some kind of potential possible? Can we say it? Bipartisanship?

Annie Karni:

On what? On this?

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, so I guess on nothing.

Annie Karni:

I mean, Jeffries is like, I’ve never seen such a disciplined politician. It almost makes him boring to cover. I mean, he is on his talking points all the time. He and Kevin McCarthy had a good relationship. I’m sure he would say he wants a good relationship with Johnson that will have open channels of communication. They have to avoid a government shutdown. I don’t think there’s a lot of opportunities for bipartisanship. Jeffries was kind of whipping votes against this Israel only aid bill, trying to get Democrats not to back it. But in general, Democrats have been really united this Congress and trying to make a stark contrast with the other side. Weird moment when Democrats voted to not expel George Santos. So, there have been some strange moments of bipartisanship, but not on big issues that mattered to most Americans yet.

Preet Bharara:

Explain that George Santos vote then.

Annie Karni:

It was a strange one. Some New York Republicans moved to expel him because of all the crimes he’s been indicted for, and more than 20 Democrats voted against it, voted to keep him. And I think there was, part of it was some of them made an argument about precedent, that you have to let the legal let it play out. You’re innocent until proven guilty. This is not the way to make him go. I think some of them felt firmly like Republicans need to deal with their own issues and their own trash, which is kind of like the Democrat’s philosophy on everything from saving McCarthy in January to saving him now.

It’s like, this is your problem, not our problem. And then I think that, I don’t know, it’s a weird one. If George Santos left, there’s no way a Republican would win that seat. It would shrink the Republican majority from four to three. That seems like it would be advantageous to Democrats, but maybe they’re also thinking that these New York Republicans who want him out so badly, that’s partly because they’re scared they’re going to lose. He’s baggage for them. Maybe the Democrats think that’s baggage for you is good baggage for us, and more of you will lose if he’s here possibly.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, it’s very sort of odd to me.

Annie Karni:

Yeah, it was odd to me too. One of the weirdest moments was when George Santos in defending himself yielded time on the floor to Dan Goldman, who’s a democrat in New York.

Preet Bharara:

My friend, my former colleague.

Annie Karni:

Yeah. So, Dan Goldman spoke with George Santo’s time to explain why the Republicans who wanted Santos gone were just politically motivated, and it was a weird moment of alliances.

Preet Bharara:

What’s the relationship between Mike Johnson, not with the MAGA movement generally, but with Donald Trump specifically and personally? And how can we expect Donald Trump’s influence to be felt with the new speaker?

Annie Karni:

Donald Trump was thrilled with this choice. Mike Johnson is an unequivocal believer that the 2020 election was stolen. He considers himself a Trump acolyte. I mean, this whole Congress, the House has been sort of acting as Trump’s political instrument at various moments, and I think we should expect that it continues to do that. It seems clear that they still think an impeachment inquiry into Biden will go forward at some point. One question that a lot of people had was like, oh, if Mike Johnson is the speaker in 2024, can he overturn the election results? And the answer is no. That’s not something that will be in his power to do. But I think we can expect a close connection between Johnson and Trump as we get closer to the election. I think if we’re looking at, I mean, his first move was all about playing to the conservative hard right, over getting something done quickly. So, if that’s how he’s going to go forward, we’ll see a close connection there and we’ll see the House continue to be Trump’s instrument.

Preet Bharara:

So, with respect to Mike Johnson, apart from what you described as his central role in election denial and his adherence to religion as sort of the center of his ideology, what are some other things that people in the center might object to with respect to him?

Annie Karni:

His views on abortion and on homosexuality in particular are extremely out there, extremely extreme, and he hasn’t really answered any questions yet about his past writings. He’s called homosexuality, not just same sex marriage, but homosexuality itself. He’s described as “Inherently unnatural, a dangerous lifestyle.” He sponsored a bill that put basically a national version of Florida’s don’t say gay law, he wants a national abortion ban. But so on the issue of same-sex marriage, on the issue of abortion, he’s far outside of the mainstream. And I mean, even on those two issues.

Preet Bharara:

Even on Republican mainstream.

Annie Karni:

On same-sex marriage, the majority of the country, the majority of Republicans are on board with same-sex marriage, a bill to Federally mandate same-sex marriages passed with strong bipartisan support last year, and both the House and the Senate was signed into law. On abortion I mean, we saw the backlash against the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the last election. So, he has big political vulnerabilities on these issues where he’s far outside the mainstream of his own party.

Preet Bharara:

Final question, the people who sort of instigated all of this, or were at the sort of center of it, including McCarthy, who lost the trust of his colleagues. But people like Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, will they just continue to exist in the same way in the House, or will there be some shuffler shift?

Annie Karni:

The weird thing is everyone’s continuing to exist in the exact same way, except for Kevin McCarthy who’s gone and removed from any power and is a rank and file Republican for the first time in decades. Everyone else, you would think that if you were Steve Scalise and you tried to be speaker and you conference rejected you, Tom Emmer, he’s the number three Republican. You try to be speaker, the conference brutally rejected you, and yet you go back and you serve as the House leadership. It’s very strange. You would think that the whole thing would be reshuffled, but it’s not. Matt Gaetz, he won. I mean, he’s walking proudly in the halls of Congress. He removed a man he hated and got the guy he’s referring to as MAGA Mike, and he’s thrilled. So, everything is the same. Just one man is gone, and the speaker is a hard right Christian conservative, and that’s the difference.

Preet Bharara:

Well, it was a lot of drama.

Annie Karni:

Yes, it was.

Preet Bharara:

Congratulations to the person who’s not personally despised by so many folks. Annie Karni, thank you so much for your insight. Thanks for being on the show.

Annie Karni:

Thank you.

Preet Bharara:

For more analysis of legal and political issues, making the headlines become a member of the Cafe Insider. Members get access to exclusive content, including the weekly podcast I host with former US Attorney, Joyce Vance. Head to cafe.com/insider to sign up for a trial. That’s cafe.com/insider. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me at @PreetBharara with the hashtag #AskPreet. You can also now reach me on Threads, or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338. That’s 669-24-Preet. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned In Brief is presented by Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The senior producer is Matthew Billy. The audio producer is Nat Weiner. The editorial producers are David Kurlander, Noa Azulai, and Jake Kaplan. The production coordinator is Claudia Hernández, and the email marketing manager is Namita Shah. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.