House Speaker Mike Johnson says he’s found a way to soothe his feuding conference: slipping into his bizarre impression of President Donald Trump.
During a softball interview on Katie Miller’s podcast released on Tuesday, Johnson dubbed himself the “king” of impressions and anointed his Trump imitation the undisputed showstopper.
“We try to be lighthearted, especially in these really tense times,” said Johnson, 53, boasting that “when you can drop a Trump impression in the middle of the tension, everybody kind of laughs a little bit and lightens up.”
He proudly added, “It turns out to be a great tool.” It’s unclear whether he deploys the bit for his colleagues at Trump’s expense or as an attempt to flatter him.
Johnson has trotted out his impression of the president in public on several occasions, channeling Trump’s familiar cadence, trademark pout, and dramatic hand choreography—typically while retelling their private chats.
During an appearance on Miranda Devine’s Pod Force One podcast in July, he reenacted the moment Trump decided to name the GOP’s domestic policy bill the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
“He passed it around to us on a piece of paper in big bold font, and he goes, ‘Now, can we put an exclamation point?’” Johnson recounted, slipping into Trump’s voice. “I said, ‘Sir, we can’t do an exclamation—that’s not a thing in legislation.’”
During his time as speaker, the Louisiana congressman has been extremely deferential to Trump, 79, practically rolling out the red carpet for his whims and letting him steer the party at will.
This is despite having declared in a Facebook post in 2015, “The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.”
He has since distanced himself from those comments, but he was caught offering no pushback when Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean told him in October, “The president is unhinged. He is unwell.”
Johnson responded, “A lot of folks on your side are too, I don’t control him…” seemingly conceding Dean’s point.
The speaker channeled someone else entirely when he served up one of his most hard-to-watch moments during another segment of Miller’s podcast.
Asked by Miller, the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, if he knew country singer Jelly Roll, Johnson responded by awkwardly flashing a “shaka” hand—the “hang loose” sign rooted in Hawaiian culture.
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