A joke has been making the rounds among House Republicans about Mike Johnson.
The GOP House speaker relies so heavily on President Donald Trump to whip votes and manage his fractious caucus that Trump is, for all practical purposes, running the House himself, the joke goes, but NOTUS reported that most members passing that quip along believe it’s essentially true.
Trump is in on it, too, the outlet reported. In at least one meeting with Johnson and a small group of lawmakers, the president turned to the speaker and delivered the line himself.
“I have two jobs,” Trump said to laughter in the room, according to NOTUS. “Being president and being speaker.”
Time and again this Congress, Johnson has turned to Trump when his own tools of persuasion have fallen short, NOTUS reported. With a majority so thin he can afford to lose only two Republican votes on any partisan bill, and a conference fractured between hard-line conservatives and more traditional members, Johnson has repeatedly picked up the phone — or asked Trump to, the report added. The president has obliged, calling holdouts, pressuring them, and on at least one memorable occasion, berating a member on the House floor in real time as their name burned red on the voting board overhead.
According to multiple sources, Johnson has in several instances directed members seeking to bring legislation to the floor to first obtain White House approval — a delegation of authority that has left some veteran lawmakers quietly stunned, the outlet reported
“In my adult lifetime, I have not seen an executive branch with as much input and influence over the chamber than this one has,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-AK) told NOTUS.
Johnson’s allies argue the arrangement is a practical necessity, not a structural failure, according to NOTUS. With margins this tight, they say, every vote requires solving a different puzzle, and the president’s involvement is the only reliable solvent.
But critics within his own party are less forgiving.
“It is a total shirking of responsibilities to the White House,” one House Republican told NOTUS.
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