What’s going to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) do?
That’s the quiet query bouncing round Washington this month because the events race furiously towards Election Day — when each the Home and White Home are up for grabs — and former President Trump is already laying the inspiration for difficult the outcomes if he loses.
Johnson will retain the Speakership by means of yr’s finish whatever the election end result, guaranteeing he’ll play a serious function in no matter occurs instantly afterward. And that operate will assume outsized significance if Trump contests a loss, Republicans preserve Home management and Johnson preserves his Speakership subsequent yr, which might put him in place to gavel in Congress’s certification of the presidential outcomes on Jan. 6, 2025.
4 years in the past, when Trump challenged President Biden’s victory, Johnson was a key a part of the struggle. Not solely did he again his White Home ally, he additionally crafted the authorized rationale for disputing Trump’s defeat, which accused some states of adjusting voting guidelines through the COVID pandemic in violation of the Structure — an argument adopted by many Republicans within the Capitol.
This time round, Johnson is now not the backbencher he was in 2020, however he could also be battling to stay Speaker within the face of assaults from conservatives inside his personal ranks — a struggle wherein Johnson’s place on a possible election problem could possibly be a key think about whether or not he retains his job.
Johnson has been adamant that he’ll play truthful, vowing a strict adherence to the legislation whatever the election outcomes — a message he and his workplace amplified this week.
“I’m going to follow the Constitution. Article 2 of the Constitution is very clear, Congress has a very specific role and we must fulfill it,” Johnson mentioned Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “I’ve demonstrated over and over that we are going to do the right and lawful thing. So you can count on that. We’re going to do our job.”
In the identical interview, nevertheless, Johnson refused to acknowledge that Trump misplaced the 2020 race — ”It is a gotcha sport that is performed and I’m not taking part in it,” he mentioned — regardless of noting that Biden is president. The feedback drew headlines and fueled issues from Trump critics that Johnson would put his loyalty to the previous president above the Structure.
These critics — together with nearly all Democrats — had been livid with Johnson’s function in Trump’s 2020 problem, which led on to the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And heading into subsequent month’s razor-tight elections, they’ve little doubt the place Johnson would come down if Trump contests a loss to Vice President Harris.
“Everyone should have their eyes wide open about Mike Johnson, and they should know that this guy cannot be anywhere near the Speaker’s gavel on Jan. 6 of 2025, because you can just guarantee that he will be conspiring with Donald Trump to try to gum up the election results,” mentioned Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “You can guarantee that there will be mischief.”
Johnson’s Republican allies have extensively dismissed the warnings from throughout the aisle, characterizing the Speaker as an sincere actor able to uphold the legislation. They preserve that Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer, had each proper to voice his authorized opinion following the 2020 contest.
“Everybody’s got a right to appeal through courts,” a Home Republican, who requested anonymity to debate the delicate subject, instructed The Hill. “But once those are worked through we shake hands and accept who the winner is.”
They’ve additionally defended Johnson by declaring that there’s no political incentive for the Speaker to divide his social gathering by publicly contradicting Trump so near Election Day.
“I think that Mike Johnson is a good man, he’s gonna do the right thing,” the Home Republican mentioned. “It’s like, you don’t want to honestly just pick a fight with the former president … right now. So he’s just trying to be tactful.”
Democrats, nevertheless, suspect extra devious intentions. They’re pointing to Johnson’s feedback final month when he vowed to uphold the Structure — “if we have a free, fair and safe election.” Democrats mentioned Johnson used the qualifier to counsel the chance that the method will probably be rigged.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who led the particular investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, warned that Johnson’s rhetoric heading into Election Day sounds so much just like the language Trump utilized in casting doubt on the integrity of the method 4 years in the past.
“In this democracy, where we normally settle our differences at the ballot box, it’s a real challenge for us when our leaders are sending signals that, ‘I lose only because it was stolen or that something was fraudulent with the process.’” Thompson mentioned.
“It’s not good for our democracy; it’s not good for our country,” he continued. “And if Speaker Johnson is using that same language now, then he poses a clear and present danger to the orderly transfer of power.”
Democrats acknowledge that they’ll have little leverage to dictate the certification course of if they continue to be within the Home minority subsequent yr. With that in thoughts, they’re utilizing the specter of election “dirty tricks” as a marketing campaign message as they search to flip management of the decrease chamber.
“Democrats are campaigning not just for a win but for a landslide,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional legislation professor who sat on the Jan. 6 panel, instructed The Hill. “We want election vote totals that are so clear and robust that they can’t be stolen away by trickery and corruption.”
Even some Republicans are important of the best way issues transpired after the 2020 elections, when almost your entire forged of Home GOP management voted to overturn the outcomes with none proof to again Trump’s claims of widespread fraud. Johnson, on the time, had promoted Trump’s baseless assertions that the election was “rigged” by a conspiracy of corrupt election officers, overseas governments and crooked software program corporations.
These GOP voices are fast to acknowledge the antidemocratic nature of the “stop the steal” marketing campaign, although some are additionally pushing again towards the Democratic argument that the menace is extra pronounced this yr with Johnson as Republican chief. One referred to as that declare “fearmongering.”
“Anytime you’ve got members of Congress talking about not certifying the election, it’s a problem. But it’s not a bigger problem now than it was four years ago,” mentioned a second Home Republican, who equally requested anonymity. “The narrative that it’s a bigger problem today than four years ago is fearmongering.”
At a rally in Michigan final week, Trump doubled down on the false declare that he received the final election, telling the viewers: “We did great in 2016 and a lot of people don’t know that we did a lot better in 2020. We won. We won. We did win. It was a rigged election.” And towards the top of the vice presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) refused to reply whether or not Trump misplaced the election, saying “I’m focused on the future.”
A number of Home Republicans are already making strikes to distance themselves from a possible campaign towards the 2024 election outcomes.
Six GOP lawmakers — all of whom hail from battleground districts — signed a bipartisan dedication final month pledging to respect the winner of the election that’s licensed by Congress in January 2025 after “all legal means to challenge election results in the courts have been exhausted.”
Republican Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.), Nick LaLota (N.Y.) and Anthony D’Esposito (N.Y.) signed the pledge. All six characterize districts Biden received in 2020.
Regardless of that pledge, Democrats are nonetheless nervous in regards to the postelection panorama if Trump loses to Vice President Harris and launches an effort towards the outcomes.
“The Constitution says a lot of things that these guys have thumbed their nose at. So I’m not sanguine at all about how Mike Johnson would preside over a session that would confirm Donald Trump’s defeat,” Huffman mentioned. “I don’t think he could bring himself to do it.”
