Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told Fox News he sees cognitive decline in President Biden: “This isn’t a personal slight to him. It has to do with age and acumen.”

“Before arriving in Washington less than a decade ago, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a deeply religious Christian, was a legal crusader associated with a fringe evangelical movement called ‘young Earth creationism,’ based on a literal reading of the Bible’s Book of Genesis that posits the Earth is only several thousand years old,” the HuffPost reports.

New York Republicans made a motion to bring an expulsion resolution against Rep. George Santos (R-NY).

The action forces a full House vote within two legislative days.

“Rep. John Sarbanes, a Democrat currently representing suburbs stretching from Columbia to Annapolis, announced Thursday that he won’t seek re-election in 2024 after nine terms in Congress,” the Baltimore Banner reports.

“New House Speaker Mike Johnson has joined his conservative Republican colleagues in voting against abortion and same-sex marriage, but has drawn the most attention for his efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat,” Reuters reports.

“His new role gives him huge clout steering the chamber, and a seat at the table with Democratic President Joe Biden and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer in negotiating bills of all kinds. But after action Congress took last year he’ll have little ability to interfere with the 2024 presidential election, unless he refused to follow the law.”

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) “pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor count for triggering a fire alarm as lawmakers scrambled to pass a funding bill before a government shutdown deadline,” the AP reports.

“He will pay a $1,000 fine and serve three months of probation, after which the false fire alarm charge is expected to be dismissed from his record under an agreement with prosecutors.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is introducing a measure to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) over her comments on Israel, Politico reports.

“The privileged motion will follow a fast-tracked process that bypasses House committees and has to be considered on the floor within two days.”

“Democrats are likely to respond to Greene’s resolution by pushing a retaliatory censure against the Republican firebrand herself, citing her history of incendiary rhetoric — including her past flirtations with antisemitic tropes and comparison of vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.”

“House Republican speaker nominee Mike Johnson is working to convince ultraconservatives to avert a Nov. 18 government shutdown, a signal that even hardliners in the GOP may be willing to compromise on a short-term spending deal,” Bloomberg reports.

“Johnson spelled out a plan in a letter to his colleagues on Monday that lacked key details on government funding levels and US support for Ukraine and Israel. But it didn’t draw immediate blowback from Republicans who have tried to leverage the threat of a federal funding lapse to make deep cuts and enact conservative policy priorities.”

Nick Catoggio: “That’s the whole party in one clip. There’s Johnson, smug at having been not merely absolved by his colleagues for abetting a coup attempt but commended for it with their nomination for speaker. There’s Scalise and Elise Stefanik, two members of leadership leering like gargoyles at the idea that they should care about the party’s turn toward insurrectionism. And there’s Virginia Foxx, one of the elder statesmen in the conference, goading the press to just shut up about it already.”

“Participants, enablers, apologists. That’s the House GOP. They’ve moved on from their attempt to block the peaceful transfer of power, they’re eager for you to know —unlike a certain someone for whom they’ll all be campaigning three or four months from now.”

Charlie Sykes: “Matt Gaetz may be loathed and detested by his colleagues, but in the end, it was Gaetz and his fellow members of the crazed slavering jackal caucus who feasted on the carcass of the GOP normies.”

“Gaetz and his confederates blew up the House, destroyed Kevin McCarthy, torpedoed Steve Scalise, and watched Trump shiv Tom Emmer. They bullied. harassed, and exhausted the majority, and on Wednesday they got a full-throated election denier and coup-plotter as speaker.”

“For a few halcyon moments, it looked like the center would hold as a modest rump of ‘moderates’ blocked the ludicrous Jim Jordan. But in the end, the squishes did what squishes do; and their defeat was as comprehensive as it was condign.”

Donald Trump gave the new Speaker of the House a new nickname Democrats will likely use as well: “MAGA Mike Johnson.”

Playbook: “Johnson is about to become for Democrats what Nancy Pelosi was for Republicans: a base-motivating, money-raising boogeyman who embodies everything they dislike most about the other party.”

“Some New York Republicans say they’re going to push ahead with a formal resolution to expel embattled Rep. George Santos, Republican of New York, now that the House is open after its three-week speaker stalemate,” CBS News reports.

Playbook: “While the threshold for expulsion is high (you need two-thirds of Congress to agree to it), even allowing such a vote will put Republicans in an awkward position of either voting to expel him or potentially imperiling their governing majority by saving Santos — which will, of course, open them up to attacks from Democrats come 2024.”

“House Republicans’ three-week-long nightmare is over. But for new Speaker Mike Johnson, the nightmare is just beginning,” Politico reports.

“While it was all smiles and standing ovations from his GOP colleagues yesterday, the new leader is about to run smack into the tough reality that he just got promoted to the worst job in Washington.”

“That includes the pleasure of dealing with the egos, rivalries and demands of a bitterly divided GOP Conference … of negotiating with Democrats eager to flip the House and see him fall flat on his face … and let’s not forget about the public scrutiny that’s already ratcheting up on a man who has probably received more attention in the past 48 hours than he has in his entire career.”