Vendetta against Johnson Backfires: ‘I Did Not ... Come Up Here [to] Deal with This Kindergarten Atmosphere’

Compromise didn’t use to be a dirty word in Congress. There was a time, not too long ago, when Americans wanted the two parties to try to work together. Now, according to Republicans, it’s grounds to lose your job. This is the bizarre conundrum Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) finds himself in thanks to the irrational wing of the GOP — who, despite holding a whisper-thin majority, expect their leader to somehow call the shots with only a third of Washington’s power levers.

The made-for-TV drama that is the House speakership took another turn this week when Democrats vowed to pull Johnson out of the fire if his party does the unthinkable and carries out their threat to vacate the chair. “If she [Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene] invokes the motion,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D) warned, “it will not succeed.”

The idea that Joe Biden’s party would offer the 52-year-old Louisiana native a life raft has raised plenty of eyebrows. What are Jeffries’s real motives, they wonder? Some Democrats, like Rep. Annie Kuster (N.H.), are messaging that this is just transactional politics. “He was a man of his word and kept his word,” she pointed out about the speaker’s decision to bring Ukrainian aid to the floor. In a joint statement, House Democratic leaders hinted at a governing partnership that “turns the page … on Republican obstruction.”

Greene, Johnson’s shrillest critic, demanded to know “what slimy backroom deal [Johnson made] for the Democrats’ support.” But what if, as his 1990s predecessor said, this is just the pragmatism the moment demands? “Does anybody realistically believe that there’s any plausible strategy at 218 or 220 [members] that is going to [get] Republicans [to] stick together? You’re inevitably going to be in a coalition government,” Newt Gingrich conceded. “You can’t pass anything of significance if you start out every morning with six or eight people wanting to destroy you when the margin is two.” Honestly, he admitted, “I think that he is a much more disciplined and patient man than I am. Remember, I had 16 years trying to create a majority. We had built a team, and we were operating as a team. He had 15 minutes. I, frankly, admire the speed at which he’s learning.”

But waking up every day to a group of “narcissists,” as Gingrich called them, “people who think that they individually get to screw up everything” for Republicans — is no picnic. “I think, actually, he’s doing a pretty decent job considering how almost impossible it is. He’s patient, he’s calm, he is trying to understand whether or not there are paths that might work, and trying to come up with formulas that enable him to get something out of the House.”

The challenge Johnson has — one he inherited from Kevin McCarthy — is that when you have the majority, “you want to be positive and get something done, and the country expects you to get something done. So that’s why I think this is a real challenge. The demons that Gaetz unleashed by going after [Kevin] McCarthy are still out there. You can’t govern by shooting yourself in the head every day.”

And ousting Johnson now “would be totally stupid,” the Republican argued. “My question [to Greene and others] would be, ‘Show me the 218 votes you’ve got for somebody,’ because otherwise what you’re doing is putting us through three weeks of looking like idiots.’ You’ve got to remember,” Newt reiterated, “this is not some game at a PTA meeting. This is the House of Representatives. It has serious constitutional obligations. We live in a dangerous world, and we look like we are absurdly incapable of governing ourselves.”

Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) enthusiastically agreed, pointing to the world’s problems as reason to put aside this nonsense. On Tuesday’s “Washington Watch,” the longtime member told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that he hopes Greene “will be deterred from [moving forward].”

“I mean, Mike Johnson is an extraordinarily noble man, a good man — very effective, very smart,” Smith insisted. “He’s rising to the occasion of being speaker. I don’t think it was in his plans to do this any time soon. And he did step up, and he’s doing an extraordinary job under unbelievably hard circumstances. So … I’m glad that the Democrats will not vote to throw him out of that position. I hope no Republicans do either,” he said, adding that it would be a “very bad path” for anyone, including Greene, to follow.

After all, Smith pointed out, “There [are] just so many pressing issues. We need to be united as a party” or else Americans “get swiped by these kinds of shenanigans.” “I don’t think it’s helpful,” he argued. “It’s not healthy.”

His Missouri colleague, Mark Alford (R) echoed the sentiment. “I think it’s a mistake,” he told Perkins on Wednesday’s show. “I’ve said it’s a mistake all along. I think Mike Johnson is a man of God with integrity, doing the best he can under the circumstances of a two-seat majority. And I can’t get a straight answer as to who would they replace him with? Who could get the necessary votes to pass the legislation … that could advance us forward as a nation?” he wanted to know. “There is no answer to that. I think this is just causing further disruption and chaos within our conference, within our body. And at this time, when we do not have an effective leader in the White House, someone has to lead.”

At their weekly Bible study on the Hill, Alford and a handful of other congressmen seemed to share the frustration that these GOP rebels are creating chaos out of “pride,” not “principle.”

Frankly, Alford said, “I did not give up my career and my security … and invest a lot of time and attention away from my family to come up here and deal with this … kindergarten atmosphere. We are better than this as a nation. I came up here to get things done.”

For his part, Johnson is trying to reconcile the relationships he had before October and the tension he feels now. “Some of my closest friends are in the Freedom Caucus,” he pointed out in a sweeping and gracious article in The Atlantic. “Philosophically, there’s not an ounce of daylight between us.”

It must feel like an alternate universe, then, when the people giving him the benefit of the doubt aren’t his longtime friends but Democrats like Nancy Pelosi. To reporter Elaina Calabro, she called Johnson “a person of integrity.” As someone who also held the gavel, she seemed surprisingly sympathetic to the young attorney. “Personally, I respect his authenticity; I disagree with his politics, but that’s okay.” She added, “If you’re just sitting in the back bench, and then they tap you to become the speaker, they shouldn’t complain when you don’t know how to be speaker from day one. … I’m not here to criticize him; I just want him to do well.”

Republicans should want the same. And frankly, their decision to keep sabotaging Johnson comes at the party’s peril — and maybe, Gingrich warns, America’s. “I would blame head-on the people who are acting like selfish idiots” for this mess. “I would just say, ‘You’re the people giving the Democrats working control [of Congress].’” The members who truly have this nation’s greatest good at heart wouldn’t be wasting time wounding their own. Asked what he would say to the Greenes of the caucus, Newt replied, “Decide if your love of country isn’t greater than your love of self.”