Speaker Marks First Year during Backbreaking Campaign Swing: ‘We’re Going to Leave It All on the Field’
There weren’t a whole lot of guarantees for Mike Johnson (R-La.) last October. Before catapulting to the top of the House, the young congressman from Louisiana was respected by his colleagues but a relative unknown outside of the D.C. Beltway. Now, a full year into his term as speaker (a milestone few believed he’d reach), the dad of four who took over for Kevin McCarthy has been at the job longer than his predecessor. And, to the surprise of both sides, he’s turned out to be quite good at it.
During one of his many closed-door fundraisers this season, he joked, “I was four inches taller when I took this job. They beat me down mercilessly.” But, in more reflective moments, Johnson admits, “I did not fully appreciate the scope of it — no one can.” In a Saturday interview with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, the speaker’s longtime mentor joked, “I’m actually seeing a few more gray hairs there.” He wondered if that was reflective of Johnson’s grueling schedule.
“Yes,” the 52-year-old smiled, adding, “I pray that it’s all going to pay off.” At last count, the House leader had completed campaign events in an astounding 231 cities in 40 states. “I’m leaving New York City in a moment for Nebraska, and then [on to] Iowa,” he said of his compounding frequent flyer miles. “We’ll be all around the country all the way through November 5th,” the speaker explained. “In this month alone, in October, I’ll do more than 65 cities in 24 states. “We’re going to leave it all on the field,” he insisted, “but it’s going to pay off.”
One of the most eye-opening jobs, Johnson discovered early on, is the amount of money he’d need to bring in for the party. At one point, Punchbowl News reported, the Louisianan balked at the duty, declaring that the Founding Fathers “didn’t intend for the speaker of the House to be the primary fundraiser of the party.” But, as reporter Jake Sherman pointed out, “[T]hey also couldn’t have foreseen that the House would be a billion-dollar battleground every two years.”
Whether or not he wants to do it, this speaker seems to have quite a knack for fundraising — raking in a hefty $27.5 million between July 1 and September 30 alone, including “more than $19.4 million for his committees and another $8.1 million for individual members and candidates,” according to The Daily Wire. “That’s the most money a Republican speaker has ever raised in the third quarter of a presidential election year, according to the speaker’s office.”
Acknowledging the feat, Johnson released a statement saying he’s most thankful that “we have been able to build a team,” which will hopefully “ensure House Republicans can keep and grow our majority. Now with less than one month until the most important election of our lifetimes, another strong quarter shows voters are motivated down the stretch and ready to elect Republicans up and down the ballot to fix our economy, secure the border, and restore peace through strength.”
None of this is thanks to the mainstream media, which seems to be on a relentless crusade to destroy the third most powerful man in the country. There was plenty of uproar last week when Johnson went on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” only to have a third of the interview selectively edited out. Unfortunately for the disgraced network, the attorney had the foresight to tape the discussion himself. Recalling that day he stepped into the studio van, he told Perkins, “I thought, ‘You know, maybe I’ll have a staffer use their cell phone and record because CBS News now is infamous for editing tapes.’” He was referring, of course, to the flattering censorship the network did of Kamala Harris’s unintelligible answers on Israel earlier this month.
The speaker’s hunch turned out to be right. In this instance, “What they did was they cut out — on each of the answers, on the big questions — they cut out the substance of what I was saying,” he explained, “the evidence for the arguments I was making. And it was really a hack job.” But when Johnson’s office released the tape, millions of Americans saw CBS’s bias and partisanship for themselves, and “it turned into a big story.”
No wonder Americans’ confidence in the media is at an all-time low. “You know, it’s just really stunning,” he lamented to Perkins, “these programs that used to be run by journalists, that used to be objective news — they would put the facts out, and let the people [decide] for themselves. They have turned into paid operatives effectively for the Democratic Party. And people are seeing that now. It’s been exposed, and they’ve had enough of it. And I think it’s going to hurt them in the election.”
Asked if he’s heard from CBS since releasing the full conversation, the Louisianan said no. “The old saying in politics is, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. … So they just went silent and made no further comment, which is all you really need to know about that.” Now, Johnson says, he’s encouraging all of his colleagues to turn down pre-recorded interviews, “because that sets them up for that, [but] then also to record your interviews. So you’ve got the receipts if they do this to us again.”
At the end of the day, the speaker wanted people to know, conservatives have a duty to “present the facts, to speak with clarity and consistency and conviction, of course, and push back when they’re engaging in these nefarious activities.” But the important thing, he urged, is “to do it in the right spirit. … And that’s our challenge, and that’s our opportunity right now.”
In this final sprint before the election, Johnson was asked what people of faith should be doing and how they should be processing what’s going on. The young speaker urged Christians to be on their knees — and when they aren’t, to be actively doing their part to send men and women of courage and conviction to Washington. “We need to pray this through, and we need to be engaged as well. [The] calling that we have as believers is really important right now.” Get your friends, family, and neighbors involved, he reiterated, “because everything is on the line.”
“This is the most important election that any of us will ever participate in,” he insisted, “because it decides which road we go down as a nation. And it’s hard to overstate the importance of this. So now is the moment you pray, [but it’s also] the moment to act.”
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.