After several bruising weeks for Speaker Mike Johnson, a soft-focus podcast interview alongside his wife, conducted by Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s top advisers, had all the ingredients for a flattering reset.
What emerged from the interview instead was a portrait of a Republican leader barely keeping his head above water in a job to which he does not appear particularly well suited, a conversation full of tragically revealing details packaged as rueful humor but with the biting sting of truth.
“We have this joke that I’m not really a speaker of the House,” Mr. Johnson, who represents Louisiana, said in the latest episode of “The Katie Miller Podcast.”
It came across as less of a joke and more of an assessment of how he has chosen to wield his power.
The comment was in line with how many of his political adversaries view his weak handling of the job he was thrust into two years ago with little leadership experience. (Even President Trump has joked, “I’m the speaker and the president.”)
Ms. Miller’s newish podcast offers conservative leaders a warm bath of an interview. They are peppered with questions about their family routines and their favorite foods. But even on this forgiving platform, Mr. Johnson presented himself as a man toiling to fulfill his duties at a moment when his weak grip on his conference appears to be slipping even further.
The conversation that Ms. Miller facilitated with Mr. Johnson and his wife, Kelly, meandered from what time Thanksgiving dinner should be served, to how to raise children who don’t identify as transgender, to how to keep a long marriage strong. But the throughline was Mr. Johnson’s sense of being crushed by his workload and the demands of his job managing an unruly Republican majority.
“I haven’t had a vacation day in two years. I haven’t been off in two years, literally,” he said. “Last Christmas, I was taking calls from members with their drama. It takes everything out of whomever serves in the position — and by extension, their family.”
Later: “Even when you think the work of the day is done and you put the phone down, it can be 11:30 at night — ‘ring ring,’ another crisis. You’re sort of like a firefighter, in a way.”
When asked the odd question “What is a hill that you would die on that no one else would?”, Mr. Johnson responded not by naming a quirky obsession but by describing a management style that sounded highly dysfunctional: “There’s a hill every 10 minutes.”
“You die on hills all the time,” Ms. Johnson, a licensed pastoral counselor, interjected.
Sitting together in the speaker’s office, the Johnsons appear perfectly practiced and coifed. Ms. Johnson’s bright orange lipstick exactly matched her suit and her shoes. The two know how to do this; they used to co-host a podcast about religion and politics.
But they both revealed in their conversation with Ms. Miller that they are barely holding it together.
Mr. Johnson said that he had not had the opportunity to try artificial intelligence because “my life is not normal right now, OK? A.I. has been becoming popular, really, during the term of my speakership.”
They sold their house in Shreveport, La., Ms. Johnson said, because keeping up with the maintenance and the lawn was too much of a burden.
When asked about the daily routine at home, the answer was pure chaos.
“We’re in triage every day, and every day is different. There’s no pattern or schedule,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’re kind of in survival mode right now. We order in food because we just don’t have the time or luxury of cooking.”
The biggest problem appears to be the sheer amount of incoming.
“I think literally 100,000 people have my cellphone number,” Mr. Johnson said. “The greatest challenge of my day is trying to keep up. Because I miss literally hundreds of calls and text messages in a day. The peril is, I don’t know how important it was, what I missed.”
Accidental dialing is also a problem, according to his wife.
“She’s like, ‘Make sure your phone is off! You’re talking about, you know, this is related to national security, who’s listening?’ I don’t know.”
Successful leaders in Washington often thrive on chaos. But Mr. Johnson appeared to be burdened by it all.
The interview, released on Tuesday night, landed at a precarious moment in Mr. Johnson’s speakership. Dissatisfaction with his leadership style is growing and some lawmakers are even considering following Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s example and resigning before the end of their terms.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy warned this week that Ms. Greene’s shock resignation should not be seen as a one-off event.
“She’s almost like a canary in a coal mine,” he said.
Mr. Johnson’s “woe is me” persona about the workload he is carrying has often rubbed other lawmakers the wrong way. So has his overly deferential relationship to Mr. Trump (not that many Republicans have shown themselves to be able or willing to act any differently).
On the podcast, Ms. Miller pressed Mr. Johnson on the perks of the job, which, unsurprisingly, were revealed to have to do with proximity to the president.
“I’ve been able to go with the president to a lot of cool stuff,” Mr. Johnson said.
The speaker said his “redneck” friends from Louisiana were most impressed when he got to attend the L.S.U. championship game at the Super Dome in 2020.
“They think that is the greatest thing of all time,” he said. “I was with President Trump in the box while we won the championship. That’s pretty cool.”
The Johnsons did manage to present a few new facets of themselves on the podcast. Ms. Johnson revealed that her husband is a talented portrait painter.
Mr. Johnson said their son asks to be dropped off a block away from his school, because he is embarrassed of the motorcade.
Ms. Johnson revealed that her husband “eats almost everything except cranberry sauce, mayonnaise and bananas,” which could have been viewed as subtly undermining of Ms. Miller, who revealed on the debut episode of her podcast that Mr. Miller eats only mayonnaise. Literally.
Mr. Johnson said his two daughters work on Capitol Hill, one as an attorney on the House Oversight Committee, another on immigration issues for the House Judiciary Committee.
But they also appeared frightened of making a misstep, even in response to questions that could not possibly have landed them in hot water.
When asked whether she would rather be late for church or late for a plane, Ms. Johnson agonized.
“That’s a hard question!” she said. “I don’t want to miss my flight but I don’t want to be late for church! That’s a tough one.”
Neither could name a single thing that they disagree about. They even agreed that men’s brains are like waffles — good at compartmentalizing — and women’s brains are like a mess of spaghetti and meatballs.
Mr. Johnson’s dream dinner party was revealed to be eating salmon with Jesus, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
But when would he possibly have the time?
“The all-in commitment — we had no idea,” he said when asked what was the most unanticipated part of assuming the gavel. “That’s the most surprising.”
Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times.
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