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House Speaker Mike Johnson draws on faith as he fights to hold the Republican majority · Best of: Features

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  House Speaker Mike Johnson draws on Faith as he fights to hold
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  the Republican majority, Written by Lisa Mascaro This article is being
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  read by an automated voice generated by Everlett. Bangor, Maine, the AP.
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  Ever the optimist, Speaker Mike Johnson said he believes Republicans will hold
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  on to their US House majority, defying a surge of Democratic momentum
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  in the final stretch of the midterm elections that will determine control
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  of Congress. It's the crowds he says he's seeing as he crosses
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  the country campaigning for GOP candidates, The caliber of recruits and incumbents
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  he calls work horses, not show horses, and The
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  nearly half a billion he has raised for House Republicans. He also
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  has faith. We run to win, and that's biblical. You run to
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  win, he told the Associated Press during a campaign stop in Maine,
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  and I believe that we will. The Speaker of the House is
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  one of the most consequential elected officials in the United States, second
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  in line of succession to the president’s While Johnson quipped to Fox
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  News recently that he may return to his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana,
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  to start a lawn care business if Republicans lose power on november
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  third, he fully expects to buck an American midterm tradition that often
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  sees the President's party dumped in Congress. It can be said that
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  Johnson, who has drawn so close to President Donald Trump that he
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  routinely fields one AM calls, they spoke the night before as Trump
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  rallied in Alaska, walks on the sunny side of the street. That's
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  despite voter frustration over high prices in the Iran War, and his
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  own challenge of leading one of narrowest House majorities in modern times.
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  In his three years as Speaker, Johnson has pushed past the doubters
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  and naysayers, holding his thread then GOP majority together to deliver Trump's
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  agenda. He notably led the package of the big tax breaks and
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  social service cuts bill. Most days he does not have a single
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  vote to spare. So many times everybody had written off there was
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  no way he was going to be able to pull off a
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  particular vote, said Republican Representative Mark Harris of North Carolina, who joined
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  the Speaker on the campaign swing. Yet he always seems to pull
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  out the win in the end. In the interview, Johnson did not
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  speak brashly about expanding the House majority on Election Day, as he
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  has in the past. But on track to visit more than twenty
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  states and forty congressional districts, though November, he said the political mood
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  reminds him of the twenty twenty four election that swept Republicans to
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  control of Congress and the White House. It's not going to be
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  a giant majority, he said, but I genuinely believe that we will
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  have a working majority. Accidental speaker becomes emboldened by Trump. Johnson
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  first fell into the Speaker's job almost by accident, a desperate choice
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  by his GOP colleagues, after a contingent of renegade Republicans ousted his
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  predecessor, then Representative Kevin McCarthy, R. Caliph, in twenty twenty three. Johnson
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  had been a lower level member of House leadership, but distinguished himself
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  before the january sixth, twenty twenty one attack on the Capitol by
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  organizing support for Trump's false claims of widespread fraud in the election
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  that he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. In the time since, Johnson
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  has secured proximity to Trump's power. He joined Trump at a UFC
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  fight in New York, and once gifted the President a speaker's gavel
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  as Trump signed the one big beautiful bill into law. It was
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  a symbolic act, but one that critics saw as giving away the
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  authority of a coequal branch of government. More recently, Johnson abruptly sent
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  lawmakers home early rather than face a vote forced by Republican Representative
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  Thomas McSee of Kentucky to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as lawmakers
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  tried to halt the Iran War, which has not been authorized by
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  Congress. Over Coffee in Bangor, after rallying for House candidate Paula Page,
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  a former governor, Johnson brushed back criticism that Congress has eroded under
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  his watch as Trump works to amass executive power. Absolute nonsense, Johnson
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  said. We did not yield Article I authority to the President, referring
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  to the powers spelled out in the Constitution. We used our own,
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  he said, to muscle GOP priorities past democratic opposition. As House Majority
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  teeters, Trump's agenda is at risk. Johnson has focused they election on
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  Democrats he portrays as communists. A handful of far left liberals backed
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  by the Democratic Socialists of America are on the ballot. US Representative
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  Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, who is in
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  line for the Speaker's gavel if his party sweeps to power, is
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  preparing a first one hundred days agenda for when them new Congress
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  convenes in January, if there is a change in control. What the
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  Republicans will do if they retain power is less defined. Lots of
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  planned, Johnson said along the same course of what we've been doing,
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  less taxes, less regulation. Trump wants to go big for his legacy,
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  he said.
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  We have big things on the horizon that we can do. The
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  President has essentially purged the House GOP ranks of those perceived to
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  be disloyal. Among them are Massey, who lost his primary, and Marjorie
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  Taylor Greene of Georgia retired early, after breaking with Trump over release
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  of the Geoffrey Epstein Files. Pressed how he would keep Republicans in
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  line. Johnson said he is preparing to change the House rules if
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  he returns as Speaker. There's going to be some changes that are
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  going to make the machinery work smoother, He said. Praying for the
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  speaker and the country Faith has often been strong among House leaders.
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  Two former speakers, Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich, are Catholics, as is
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  John Boehner, who invited Pope Francis to address Congress. Johnson, a former
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  constitutional lawyer, who was first elected alongside Trump in twenty sixteen, is
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  expected to win his own reelection next month. My faith is a
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  huge component of how I think and how I act and what
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  I do, said Johnson, who led a public prayer on the National
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  Mall as part of the nation's two hundred fiftieth anniversary. He is
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  drinking lots of coffee these days, he said, cutting back on the
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  Celsius, and still has one thousand four hundred and thirteen unread text
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  messages, a slight dip from the frightful number reported a few months
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  ago by the Wall Street Journal. Tex is from someone praying for
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  him. Johnson said he is grateful for the outpouring of prayers he
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  receives for him and the country. I pray for God's will, and
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  I believe God's will is for us, and not the Communists, to
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  be in charge of America, Johnson said. And it does say in
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  the New Testament, you run the race to win, he said, citing
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  one Corinthians nine twenty four. This is a biblical admonition, so we
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  will.