By Joan McCarter
Daily Kos Staff
REPUBLISHED BY:
New House Speaker Mike Johnson has already made a public and enthusiastic endorsement for 2024: “I’m all in for President Trump,” Johnson said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” last week. "I have endorsed him wholeheartedly," he added. Now he’s made it official with a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the would-be dictator’s ring. He was also attending a fundraiser there held by GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida, according to Punchbowl News.
That’s an about-face from a younger, perhaps more idealistic Johnson, who as a state legislator said in 2015 that Trump “lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.” He also said Trump was likely to “break more things than he fixes,” being “a hot head by nature,” which “is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”
Wild that after all those predictions that all came true, Johnson is so enthusiastic to endorse Trump for 2024. But of course, that conversion came during Trump’s disastrous administration, so much so that Johnson became an architect of the insurrection. As Mark Sumner wrote at Daily Kos, “No member of Congress did more to overturn the 2020 election.”
That was bad. This is worse. Johnson is the highest-ranking official to make the endorsement: It has the stamp of the House of Representatives on it. Even former Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been careful enough of appearances to hold off on making a 2024 endorsement official before the primaries. So when Johnson says he’s one of the “closest allies President Trump has in Congress,” he means it. And now he’s got the “pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago” badge to prove it.
He also could have been thanking Trump for his endorsement in the speaker election. "My strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, & GET IT DONE, FAST!" Trump wrote on fake Twitter after all the other candidates flamed out. Trump’s first choice was Rep. Jim Jordan, but now he’s got an even better puppet in Johnson, who cleans up a lot better than Jordan.
Johnson is likely trying to ease the coming weeks of fighting with the hardcore MAGA faction of his conference, who are incensed that he decided to keep the government funded and operating with the help of Democrats. He might be looking for Trump’s help in smoothing over those hard feelings. But it’s not a great thing for the non-MAGA wing of the conference, particularly the “Biden 18.” Those swing-district representatives need all the distance they can get from Trump.
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