Mike Johnson Gets Squeezed

“Speaker Mike Johnson is in an extraordinarily unenviable position,” Punchbowl News reports.

“More than 10 months into his speakership, Johnson finds himself in the same pickle that’s plagued his GOP predecessors. For Johnson — a real movement conservative who has a good relationship with former President Donald Trump — the experience as a Republican speaker was supposed to be different. Yet it’s exactly the same.”

“With just 19 days until the federal funding deadline, Johnson is pushing a bill that most lawmakers and Congress watchers understand is dead on arrival — a six-month stopgap package with the SAVE Act attached to it. The stated objective is to ensure election integrity, which Johnson termed a ‘righteous’ pursuit and Trump says is needed to save the country. The practical objective is to try to establish a House GOP negotiating position in the face of unified Democratic and White House opposition.”

“Johnson’s detractors are aplenty — especially inside the House Republican leadership, where the speaker’s seemingly earnest determination is being met quietly with sneers, jeers and head shaking.”