0:01

Tomorrow Friday House Speaker Mike Johnson

0:03

will travel tomorrow lago to give

0:05

a joint speech with cans It

0:07

it's less defended Donald Trump on

0:09

election integrity. Trump like starts and

0:11

a lot but on Capitol Hill.

0:13

Johnson is stuff he wants to

0:16

pass legislation to fund the war

0:18

in Ukraine but hardline members of

0:20

his caucus are blocking him my

0:22

tracks and as completely betrayed our

0:24

contracts and his leadership cannot be

0:26

allowed to continue going forward. His

0:28

main antagonist Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor

0:30

Green. Sent a letter to house

0:33

republicans on Tuesday tearing into Johnson for

0:35

surrendering to Democrats By which she meant

0:37

working with them to prevent a government

0:39

shutdown. Green is threatening to callebaut oust

0:42

Johnson, and if she does well, look

0:44

at what happened to Kevin Mccarthy. The

0:46

office of Speaker of The

0:48

House of The United States

0:50

House of Representatives is hereby

0:52

declared vacant. Com

0:55

of and today explained Speaker Mike

0:57

Johnson. I

1:02

am you arrive at all host of Decoder

1:04

My show that big ideas and other problems

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right now on Decoder were doing a mini

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here. Tune in every Monday and Thursday for

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new episodes of Decoder. wherever you get your

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1:44

before we get into the show today,

1:47

I haven't asked for you. This month

1:49

my colleagues that foster launching a special

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You can go to box.com/give

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to contribute and thank you sincerely

2:08

for your support. Speaker's

2:15

Edge. It's today Explained.

2:17

I'm Noelle King with New Yorker

2:19

staff writer David Kirkpatrick who's been

2:22

writing about speaker Mike Johnson for

2:24

years. So you might remember that

2:26

when Johnson became speaker a lot of people

2:28

were very surprised. They were like, who is

2:30

this guy? David Kirkpatrick was

2:33

not surprised because he'd interviewed

2:35

Johnson. Well, I'll tell you, to

2:37

be honest, I left those conversations and I

2:39

thought, wow, this guy

2:41

is going someplace. At that

2:43

time, he was nobody I'd ever heard of

2:46

before, but it was clear that he

2:48

was an extremely capable politician

2:51

and a charismatic figure. He

2:53

was a mover inside the conference, if you will. I

2:56

asked David for Speaker Johnson's

2:58

lore. So Mike Johnson

3:00

grew up in Shreveport,

3:02

Louisiana. His

3:06

father was a firefighter, a

3:08

firefighter whose specialty was hazardous

3:10

materials. And when Mike

3:12

Johnson was about 12,

3:15

I believe in 1984, his

3:17

father was called to a fire at a

3:19

cold storage facility. And there was a huge

3:21

explosion. His partner was killed.

3:24

Johnson's father was very, very badly

3:26

burned across pretty much all of

3:28

his body. He narrowly

3:31

escaped from that fire by

3:33

crawling through a tiny hole,

3:35

reportedly just 12 inches wide. And he

3:37

was a big guy. So

3:39

around Shreveport, if you spend any time

3:42

there, everybody knows the story. Pretty

3:45

much everybody believes that only a

3:47

miracle could have saved Mike Johnson's

3:50

father. After

3:52

that accident, as his father was

3:54

slowly and painfully

3:57

Recuperating, he changed. No,

4:01

he was advised to seek a

4:03

place to live where the air

4:05

my be a little bit drier,

4:08

a little bit less humid forests

4:10

recuperation and that set him off

4:12

somehow on i kind of voyage

4:15

of discovery. And so while young,

4:17

My Johnson and his mother and

4:19

his siblings became more and more

4:22

committed to their evangelical church i

4:24

am Louisiana. His father drifted into

4:26

kind of new age circles or

4:29

and was married and divorced. A

4:31

few times and became something

4:33

said i'm very different had

4:35

drifted away from the family.

4:37

So Johnson Young My Johnson

4:39

went through that kind of

4:42

shocked and promise of his

4:44

father's accident followed by his

4:46

father's kind of abandonment. See.

4:52

Becomes. For. Lack of

4:54

a better word, a leader or in

4:56

his school communities that kind of boy

4:58

who the teacher says please you watch

5:01

the class while I have to go

5:03

run an errand. You know somebody who

5:05

for better or worse other children look

5:07

up to any takes on that role

5:10

you know in a within his own

5:12

family. His mother begins to treat him

5:14

like a kind of surrogate father do

5:16

is three younger siblings. And

5:19

tell me about his time as. A

5:21

Theater Kiss. His friends from Freeport

5:23

say that back in the day when

5:26

he was in high school, he was

5:28

almost as if she theater as he

5:30

was in politics. Made as you might.

5:32

Guess. From the current My Johnson he

5:34

he ran for every student office he

5:37

could and was involved in the in

5:39

a statewide student government at all that

5:41

stuff But he was also a very

5:43

avid actor and when he was actually

5:45

selected by the Poconos The House to

5:47

be the new speaker, his mother told

5:49

an old friend of his like oh

5:51

my goodness. I. Thought it was

5:53

just another play that Mike was it. I could

5:55

hardly believe that it was. troops he says so

5:58

he like cedar. he likes to tix. childhood

6:00

politics, teenage politics. And then after graduating

6:02

from high school, where does Mike Johnson

6:04

go next? So

6:07

Mike Johnson goes to Louisiana

6:09

State University. I believe he's the

6:11

first in his family to attend

6:14

college and then on to Louisiana State

6:16

Law School and begins practicing law. You

6:18

know, he's grown up in Louisiana as

6:21

a Southern Baptist and he is

6:23

grown up committed to his family's church

6:26

very much in tune with the values of

6:28

that church and of his state and

6:31

he's drawn right away to conservative

6:33

Christian causes. He becomes

6:35

a protege of Tony

6:38

Perkins. Americans understand the definition

6:40

of a marriage is what it's been for 5,000

6:42

years. It's the union of a man and

6:44

a woman. He's now the head of

6:46

the family research council and was then

6:49

a Louisiana State legislator and read out

6:51

of law school. He's involved in a

6:53

very high-profile case against a Baton Rouge

6:55

abortion clinic. Abortion care, the stated topic

6:57

today is of course an oxymoron. It

7:00

was sort of an expose where people who had

7:02

worked at the abortion clinic were trying to expose

7:04

what they considered poor practices

7:06

there and that became the grist

7:08

for some legal battles and for

7:10

some legislation to try to place

7:12

restrictions on abortion clinics in the interest

7:15

of safety and also of course in the

7:17

interest of reducing the availability of abortion. There

7:19

is no right to abortion in the Constitution,

7:21

period. It never was. It's not in its

7:23

text, it's not in its structure, not in

7:25

its meaning. Around

7:28

the time he was finishing up law school,

7:30

he was volunteering with an

7:33

evangelical Christian youth group and as

7:36

a volunteer he would drive his

7:38

SUV into downtown Baton Rouge and

7:41

pick up a bunch of kids from what he

7:43

called inner-city neighborhoods when he talked to me and

7:46

he got to know one young boy whose name

7:49

was Michael James. One

7:51

day he goes to pick him up and he

7:53

learns from the boy's siblings that he's moved out.

7:55

He's living in a trailer, I think,

7:57

crowded with several siblings and a single mother. and

8:00

they say he's gone and Mike Johnson says, as

8:02

he told me, like, what's going on? Where is

8:04

this kid? And they say, oh, he's out behind

8:06

the Walmart. So Johnson drives over

8:09

there and sure enough, this young

8:11

man at the age of 14 had set himself up

8:14

in a cardboard box and was planning just to

8:16

take up residence behind the Walmart. So

8:18

Johnson says, you know, get out of there, get in

8:21

the car, takes him home, and

8:23

the young man effectively moves in

8:26

with Mike Johnson and his young wife.

8:28

We took custody of Michael and made him

8:31

part of our family 22 years ago when

8:33

we were just newlyweds and Michael was

8:35

just 14 and out on the streets and nowhere

8:37

to go and on a very dangerous path. He

8:39

didn't live with him continuously. I think from time

8:41

to time, he would make an effort to move

8:43

back in with his birth mother always unsuccessfully, but

8:46

he went back to the Johnsons and he lived

8:49

with them off and on for, I think, three

8:51

years before Mike Johnson

8:53

moved back to Shreveport, his

8:55

hometown, and his son,

8:57

as Johnson refers to him, James

9:00

moved down on his own to Florida at the age

9:02

of 18. This story that you told

9:04

in 2024 is a bit

9:06

of a Rorschach test. How does

9:09

the now adult Michael James, how

9:12

does he tell this story when he speaks publicly?

9:14

He doesn't often speak publicly. He

9:17

declined to talk to me, but the

9:19

Daily Mail, the intrepid British

9:21

tabloid did reach him by phone at his

9:24

home in Los Angeles, where he's now a

9:26

father himself with a few kids, and

9:29

he was very grateful. He feels like

9:31

the Johnsons, Mike Johnson and his wife,

9:34

really saved his life, that he would

9:36

have ended up in prison or worse

9:38

had it not been for the Johnsons' intervention.

9:41

So I know a lot of people on

9:43

the left are prone to all

9:45

kinds of conspiracy theories about Mike

9:48

Johnson and his adopted black son. So how

9:50

did you end up speaking? No

9:52

one knows. And this

9:54

is my adult black son. My

9:59

name's Michael. and hey guys, I'm his

10:01

adult black son. I'm only

10:03

11 years younger than him and I'm kind of a secret.

10:06

But the adopted black son gives Mike Johnson a lot

10:08

of credit. Alright, so Mike

10:10

Johnson is now a young

10:13

lawyer. He goes on to have four children

10:15

of his own, so add father to it.

10:18

When does he add politician to the resume? Well

10:21

I think if we're being frank, it

10:23

was always clear that he was gonna

10:26

end up in politics. You

10:28

know, he went into practicing

10:30

law as an advocate for conservative

10:32

Christian causes at what is

10:34

now the Alliance Defending Freedom. His

10:37

colleagues there said even then, they used

10:39

to refer to him as a senator

10:41

from Louisiana. His political interests and his

10:44

political skills were evident from the get-go

10:46

and he was always sort of poking

10:49

around in that direction. It

10:51

was not a surprise to see him later

10:53

run for office initially as

10:55

a member of the Louisiana state

10:58

legislature. Louisiana is the latest state

11:00

to introduce a controversial religious freedom

11:02

bill. Religious freedom and

11:04

the protection of religious freedom against government

11:06

intrusion is a state interest of the

11:09

highest order. So he ran for office

11:12

around 2014. So

11:14

that's a period when gay rights are

11:16

a big issue around the country. The

11:18

United States is moving towards legalization

11:21

of gay marriage and acceptance of

11:23

gay marriage. He was coming

11:25

from a background as a conservative Christian legislator

11:27

and so some of his signature issues were

11:30

opposing gay rights, you know, and trying

11:32

to put forward legislation that

11:34

would protect, as he put it, conservative

11:37

Christians from having to accept gay marriage.

11:39

None of us here in this warm,

11:41

welcoming state are in favor of discrimination,

11:43

but we are in favor of protecting

11:45

our freedom. It didn't become law in

11:48

Louisiana, but that's what he was most

11:50

known for. It's

11:54

a winner for him. You know, he's from

11:57

northwest Louisiana, which is a part of Louisiana

11:59

that's culturally... very much like Texas,

12:01

a conservative Protestant Southern Baptist

12:03

area, and he is very

12:05

much in tune with a

12:07

majority of his constituents in

12:09

that district. And so

12:11

he was, I think, quite popular

12:14

and successful and well positioned to

12:16

move on to national office. The

12:23

New Yorker's David Kirkpatrick, he'll be back

12:25

with us. Coming up, Mr.

12:28

Johnson goes to Washington. Support

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I'm not an aide. I'm new speaker of

16:31

the house, Mike Johnson. Oh, I see. All

16:35

right, who? Mike Johnson. No

16:39

one's going to forget that. It's today explained

16:41

we're back as is David Kirkpatrick

16:43

of the New Yorker as is speaker Mike

16:45

Johnson. We're going to pick up his story

16:47

in 2017. That

16:50

is the year he gets into national office. And

16:52

that is also the year that President Donald Trump

16:54

gets into national office. What

16:56

is that relationship like initially? You

16:59

know, it's interesting that you should ask when Donald

17:02

Trump rode down the Golden Escalator and first

17:04

appeared in the national stage. Johnson

17:06

was very skeptical. You know, he rode

17:09

on Facebook. You know, this guy is

17:11

problematic. The thing about Donald Trump

17:13

is that he lacks the character and the

17:15

moral center we desperately need again in the

17:18

White House. I am

17:20

afraid he would break more things than he

17:22

fixes. He's a hothead by nature.

17:24

And that is a dangerous trait to have

17:26

in a commander in chief. But

17:29

you know, as the primaries went on

17:31

and as Mike Johnson himself

17:33

entered the primary for a

17:36

Republican congressional seat from Shreveport,

17:38

he came around and he

17:40

became an early and steadfast

17:43

Trump supporter. You know, that that class

17:45

of lawmakers, all the classes of lawmakers

17:48

who were elected in the Republican Party

17:50

with Trump at the top of the

17:52

ticket kind of bear the

17:54

mark of Trump. They tend to be a little

17:56

bit more Trump and a little bit less Reagan

17:58

than their predecessors. And that's very much

18:01

true of Johnson. How does

18:03

Johnson then begin to build his

18:05

own political power in Washington? So

18:08

Johnson arrives in Washington with

18:10

a lot of connections. Because

18:13

he's come up through the Alliance

18:15

Defending Freedom, which is an increasingly

18:18

important part of the Christian conservative

18:20

movement. He was actually on a

18:23

kind of leadership panel of the Southern Baptist

18:25

Convention, which is the largest Protestant domination in

18:27

the U.S., advising the

18:29

convention on politics. He was sort of one

18:31

of the heads of its political arm. So

18:35

he shows up really well

18:37

connected on the right, especially the

18:39

Christian right. And that's kind of

18:41

his foundation. So early

18:43

on, actually in his second term,

18:45

he's elected the chairman of the

18:48

Republican Study Committee. It's

18:50

kind of a quasi-establishment conservative movement,

18:52

and in fact includes a majority

18:54

of Republican House members. So

18:57

already in his second term, Mike

18:59

Johnson is the chairman of a

19:02

body that represents most of the

19:04

conference. It's become a frequent springboard

19:06

to leadership, and he's already clearly

19:08

in the running. When

19:12

you look on paper and you lay out

19:14

his career as we just have, he looks

19:17

like he's on a rocket ship to the

19:19

top and he's terrifically ambitious, which is true.

19:22

But he comes out of

19:24

his Southern and conservative Christian

19:26

upbringing with a terrific

19:28

set of manners. As

19:30

some Democrats said to me, he is by far

19:33

the most polite member of the far right that

19:35

you will meet in the U.S.

19:37

Congress. How came Jeffries and I are colleagues

19:39

and friends and have good relationship with him?

19:42

He has a very

19:44

humble, deferential manner that

19:46

he brings to his

19:48

rise through Republican

19:51

politics. And that sets

19:53

the stage for 2020. After

19:58

the 2020 election, when Trump was becomes

20:00

embroiled in challenging

20:03

his loss, his defeat to Joe

20:05

Biden. He reaches out right away

20:07

to Mike Johnson, initially

20:09

just to vent. But

20:12

as the weeks go on, it

20:14

becomes clear that Trump is calling

20:16

on the Republican members of Congress

20:18

to try to reject the outcome

20:20

of the vote. This

20:23

puts the Republican lawmakers in quite a

20:25

bind because Trump's

20:27

arguments were mostly bogus, right? There's no

20:30

evidence to show that the vote was

20:32

rigged. So what is a thinking

20:34

lawmaker to do? And in

20:36

this moment when Republicans in the House

20:38

are feeling quite a bit of squeeze,

20:40

right? Trump is demanding one thing

20:43

and their constituents are all with him. And

20:45

on the other hand, any sense of

20:47

rationality or integrity is demanding something

20:49

different. Mike Johnson presents a

20:51

solution. The argument that we presented to the

20:54

court, which is our only avenue to do

20:56

so, was that the Constitution was clearly

20:58

violated in the 2020 election. He

21:02

says, basically, and I'm kind of

21:04

paraphrasing loosely here, hey guys, we

21:06

don't need to worry about the

21:08

question of evidence because there's a

21:10

purely legal, purely constitutional argument we

21:12

can use to try to find

21:14

fault with this electoral outcome. And

21:17

that is that many states, because

21:19

of the pandemic, took emergency measures

21:22

to make it easier to vote.

21:25

In fact, in many places, state

21:27

officials, election officials, or secretaries of state,

21:29

or even judges ordered

21:31

or imposed these rule changes. But

21:34

look, we find in the Constitution, in

21:36

one of the early articles, it

21:38

says that election rules are supposed to

21:40

be set by the state legislature. The

21:42

Constitution was violated in the run-up to

21:45

the 2020 election. Not always

21:47

in bad faith, but in the aftermath of

21:49

COVID, many states changed their election laws in

21:51

ways that violated that plain language. It's just

21:53

a fact. to

22:00

kind of ceremonially certify the results

22:02

of the Electoral College. He

22:04

stands up in a meeting of the Republican caucus and

22:07

he says, I think that on the basis

22:09

of these constitutional infirmities, we have

22:11

an obligation to reject the results from

22:14

several states. Now, that's

22:16

an argument that is novel, has

22:19

never really been exactly tested by the

22:21

Supreme Court at that time. And

22:23

politically, it's very convenient for the

22:26

lawmakers and quite a few, a

22:28

majority of the Republican conference follows

22:31

him and votes to

22:33

reject the electors from several states,

22:36

all states that Biden had won

22:39

with Republican legislatures. We

22:41

have a responsibility today. The slates

22:43

of electors produced under those modified

22:45

laws are thus unconstitutional. Given

22:48

these inescapable facts, we believe we have

22:50

no choice today but to vote to

22:52

sustain objections to those slates of electors.

22:54

And so it comes as a surprise

22:56

to the public, but maybe

22:58

not so much of a surprise to

23:01

the remembers of the Republican caucus when

23:03

he emerges out of nowhere to become

23:05

the speaker after the fall of his

23:07

predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. First, a

23:10

few words of gratitude. I want to thank leader

23:13

Jeffries. I do look forward

23:15

to working with you on behalf of the American people. I know

23:17

we see things from very different points of view, but

23:20

I know that in your heart, you love and care about

23:22

this country and you want to do what's right. And so

23:24

we're going to find common ground there, all right? How

23:28

would you characterize his tenure since he's

23:30

been speaker? Is there anything that Johnson

23:32

is just doing better than McCarthy, like

23:34

simply just out politicking

23:37

his predecessor? Well, he's

23:39

definitely different than McCarthy. And I

23:41

guess it's too soon to say

23:43

better or worse. You know, Johnson's

23:45

critics would say lawmakers

23:47

want to be led. They

23:49

want a strong hand. They want

23:52

decisions. They want risk-taking. If

23:54

you tell them what to do, they want

23:56

to follow. Johnson

23:58

and his supporters would. say well

24:00

maybe in ordinary times but we're talking

24:02

about a one or two vote majority

24:04

with a lot of differences within the

24:06

conference and that's just not gonna fly

24:09

the only way to lead the republican

24:11

conference is through consensus i

24:13

think that the conference is really not that

24:16

far apart but we all want the same

24:18

things whether you're freedom caucus or you're from

24:20

a district that uh... president biden won all

24:22

republicans want the same things we want lower

24:24

spending big difference with mccarthy

24:27

is johnson is able to

24:29

say look i am a hardline

24:31

conservative you know these conservatives are criticizing me

24:33

and saying all your compromising too much but

24:35

look at my record look at who i've

24:38

been and where i've come from look at

24:40

the attacks i'm receiving for the left i

24:42

am one of you and so his

24:44

stick if you will as speaker is

24:47

a kind of a nixon in china

24:49

act we have that time in the

24:51

past enemies we

24:54

have great differences today what

24:57

brings us together is

25:00

that we have common interests which

25:04

trends and those differences so he's able to

25:06

say look i'm a conservative you can trust

25:08

that in my heart i'm is conservative as

25:10

they get in fact there is no one

25:12

further to the right than me and

25:15

that's why you can trust that absolutely i

25:17

wouldn't be compromising unless i have to but

25:19

i have to and so that's the position

25:21

that he's in and that's the style that

25:24

he's tried to put forward i

25:26

wonder if you can take

25:28

an informed guess at where speaker

25:30

johnson might be heading it doesn't

25:33

sound like this is a man that we've

25:36

we will have seen the end of if things don't

25:38

work out for him in the in the speaker role think

25:41

that's right he's a young man

25:44

he's in his early fifties he's become

25:46

the speaker of the house after very few

25:48

terms i think only one previous speaker

25:50

has risen to that role as quickly so

25:53

he's got something i

25:55

think that he is going

25:58

to try to move some bill to

26:00

try to provide funding to Ukraine. I

26:03

think that he and his friends would

26:05

say that's because he is

26:08

still a Reaganite believer in peace

26:10

through strength, and he's

26:13

not gonna let Putin walk through Ukraine. Sineks

26:16

would say it's also political suicide

26:18

to let Republicans be blamed for

26:20

losing Ukraine. So I don't think

26:22

he's gonna do that. Will

26:25

he be removed? I don't

26:27

know, and nobody knows. What

26:33

happens next? Sinekly, I noticed

26:36

that one of the measures that he's brought

26:38

up to try to attach the

26:40

Ukraine funding would remove

26:42

restrictions on natural gas, which would

26:44

be a big perk to his

26:46

home state. Is there

26:48

a part of him that's thinking, look, if

26:51

I get booted as Speaker, I could be

26:53

Governor or I could be Senator? I don't know. But

26:56

I do think it's safe to say that we have

26:58

not seen the last of Mike Johnson. We

27:05

have seen the last

27:07

of the New Yorkers, David

27:14

Kirkpatrick, for now. Today's episode was produced

27:16

by Amanda Llewelyn and edited by Amina

27:18

El-Sadi. David Herman is our engineer, and

27:21

Laura Bullard is keeping him on their toes.

27:23

The rest of our team includes Hadi

27:25

Mwagdi, Victoria Chamberlain, Jesse Alejandro Cottrell, Halima

27:27

Shaw, and Abhishein Artsy, Rob

27:30

Byers, Patrick Boyd, supervising editor Matthew

27:32

Collett, who has called out this

27:34

week, Miranda Kennedy, EP, Sean Ramos,

27:36

firm co-host. We use music

27:38

by Brickmaster Cylinder and Noam Hasenfeld. Today

27:40

Explained is distributed by WNYC, and the

27:42

show is a part of Vox, which

27:45

is totally free thanks in part to

27:47

contributions from our listeners. Join us at

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vox.com/gift. Thank

27:55

you. you