Mike Johnson is the new Speaker of the House. The Louisiana Republican won the gavel on Wednesday, three chaos-filled weeks after the party ousted Kevin McCarthy from the position earlier this month. Republicans voted unanimously to make him second in line to the presidency.
Johnson, who was elected to the House in 2016, is serving just his fourth term in Congress and is the least experienced Speaker elected to the position since the 1870s. Three other candidates, Reps. Steve Scalise (R-La.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) failed to convert their nominations into a successful floor vote, paving the way for Johnson.
Johnson may lack seniority, but he has a hardline, fundamentalist, and Trump-friendly record — which garnered a nod of approval from the former president hours before the vote. Trump was quick to congratulate Johnson after he won the gavel. “Congratulations to Rep. Mike Johnson,” he wrote on Truth Social. “He will be a GREAT ‘SPEAKER.’ MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Johnson served on Trump’s defense team in both of his Senate impeachment trials. He was also a key figure behind efforts in Congress to challenge Trump’s 2020 election loss. Johnson organized support from 126 House Republicans for an amicus brief to a Texas lawsuit that sought to invalidate millions of votes from four key battleground states won by Joe Biden in 2020. The lawsuit was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court.
As for his policy positions, Johnson is a hardline opponent of abortion rights and has proposed national abortion bans on multiple occasions. He also voted against efforts to codify the right to marriage, regardless of the gender of the couple, into federal law.
Johnson has also advocated for deep cuts to Medicare and Social Security programs, at one point arguing that if the right to abortion did not exist, there would be more able-bodied workers in the economy and Republicans would not be forced to cut benefit programs.
The most conservative members of the Republican Caucus are celebrating Johnson’s rise to the most powerful position in the House. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the architect of McCarthy’s ouster, told far-right political activist Steve Bannon on Wednesday that “if you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention.”