A little over two months have passed since Mike Johnson, Republican leader of the House, appeared on the cover of Time magazine with the headline: The Survivor. It was a recognition of his consolidation of a tricky role through a courtly manner and syrupy speaking style that belie a ruthlessness and an unyielding Christian conservatism.
Unlike his leader, the Louisianan had no problem with the cover, which depicted him in an autumnal gold, bespectacled and groomed and wearing an expression that falls somewhere between combative and unctuous. Since his lightning ascent to the role three years ago, Johnson has been an adroit Trump loyalist. But the waters are turning choppy.
On Monday, Johnson found himself as explainer-in-chief to all sides. First, he had to contend with growing frustration from within sections of the party as the government shutdown reached its 20th day. Marjorie Taylor Green, the Georgia firebrand, has emerged as one of the few Republicans willing to break rank with party consensus and she could contain her frustration no longer.
“The House should be in session working,” she stated on X.
RM Block
“We should be finishing appropriations. Our committees should be working. We should be passing bills that make president Trump’s executive orders permanent. I have no respect for the decision to refuse to work.”
But even as Johnson fielded the usual routine of questions about the stand-off between the Republican and Democratic members of both Senate and House, he also found himself required to dignify the crude and zany social media skit that president Donald Trump reposted over the weekend. Responding to Saturday’s No Kings march, the AI video depicted Trump in fighter pilot regalia and a king’s golden crown, soaring high above the American protestors before releasing tonnes of waste matter on them. Some 2,600 gatherings attracted almost seven million people in major cities and small towns across the United States in a show of protest defined by a uniformly peaceful atmosphere and absurdist costuming.
“The president uses social media to make the point,” said Johnson, with obvious discomfort when asked about why Trump had reposted it.
“You can argue that he’s probably the most effective person who’s used social media for that. He is using satire to make a point. He is not calling for the murder of his political opponents and that’s what these people are doing. I think in one of these photos there is a picture of the president hanging in effigy by a noose. I mean, it’s unconscionable.”
In the afternoon, Johnson was a guest in the White House at a reception for two all-conquering college baseball teams from Louisiana. If Johnson is feeling the pressure from the accumulative effect of the government shutdown, it might have occurred to him that the president seems blissfully unconcerned as he addressed the room. If there is a crisis on the Hill, it was business as usual in the White House: a visit from the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, in the morning, followed by the joint-signing of a minerals and rare earth deal, and then merry baseball talk in the afternoon.
And added to Johnson’s worry-list is the loudening saga behind his refusal to swear in the newest member to Congress, Arizona’s Adelita Grijalva, who succeeded her father, Paul Grijalva in the state’s seventh district following his death from cancer in March. Grijalva was elected on September 23rd. Johnson initially refused to have her sworn in until after the results were certified. Now, he has taken the position that the ceremony cannot take place until Congress is functioning as normal and the House has returned to session. “As soon as we get back to legislative session, when Chuck Schumer allows us to turn the lights back on,” he said on Monday when asked about the delay. Grijalva said a phrase she read describing her situation as “congressional purgatory” as a perfect summary of her limbo. She is in Washington, and wishes to be sworn in immediately, citing a drip-drip list of frustrations, from access to her office to wi-fi connectivity.
“You’re just here,” she told reporters outside the Capitol.
“I mean, right here I had to wait until a member of Congress came to escort me in. Everyone keeps asking where that amazing little button is,” she said pointing to her lapel and the absent congressional pin.
“And that represents 812,000 people. We are going to keep trying to put as much pressure as possible until he realises that he is wrong. He [Johnson] is contradicting himself at this point.”
The Democratic contention is that Johnson is obstructing or willfully delaying Grijalva’s swearing for a specific reason: once that formality has concluded, the new congresswoman has announced her intention to become the final signature on the list of 218 required on the bipartisan petition, led by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie and Californian Democrat Ro Khanna, needed to bring to House a vote to release the Department of Justice files on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Grijalva had made that part of her election campaign manifesto.
After dominating the news cycles in the United States through August, the Epstein files refuse to die and will be propelled into the headline’s again with Tuesday’s publication of Nobody’s Girl, the harrowing posthumous account by Virginia Roberts Giuffre of her years of horrific abuse by Epstein and scores of men detailed in the book. Johnson was recently singled out by Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, over his stalling tactics on Grijalva’s swearing-in.
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“I remember on election night, someone came up to me and said, ‘I don’t think they’re going to swear you in because of those Epstein files,’” Grijalva said in an interview with NPR last week.
“And I thought, ‘oh my gosh, that’s very much a conspiracy theory. Like that’s not going to happen.’ And here we are.”
Now, Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mays, has vowed to sue Johnson for what she is claiming is a breach of Grijalva’s constitutional rights.
“The law is very clear that no speaker of the House has the right to deny a state the seating of a member of Congress,” Mays said.
“No speaker has the right to violate the constitution and I have lawyers downstairs right now drafting the litigation. We are not messing around and the people of the state of Arizona hired me to be their lawyer and to protect them.”
Speaker Johnson’s survival instincts are razor sharp. But on day 20 of the shutdown, he is beginning to look a little rattled.
