11 months ago
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By Wednesday morning, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who initiated the House Republicans' speaker debacle, was already celebrating the impending elevation of a MAGA election denier as the next speaker of the House.
"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," Gaetz gushed on Steve Bannon's podcast "War Room."
Gaetz isn't wrong. Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana ha been a quintessential pro-Trump, pro-insurrectionist flamethrower from the word “go.”
As CBS News' Robert Costa tweeted:
Important to know: Johnson was deeply involved in efforts to keep Trump in power starting immediately after 2020 election. Early Nov. 2020. I know because I spent months reporting on that period and he was part of letters and behind-scenes efforts with key outside groups. I’ve talked with key sources from that time about how Johnson — then all but unknown — worked with allied Trump groups and conservative leaders in a coordinated way to make sure that whole orbit was working together to help Trump.Now, with Johnson officially in control of the gavel, the MAGA wing of the Republican Party will have forced their will on the majority of House Republicans who would have preferred someone more moderate, such as Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, a member of leadership who voted to certify the 2020 election. That's why a cohesive group of House GOP members with at least a toehold in reality coordinated their votes to doom the speaker bid of Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. Jordan built his career on trying to destroy the institution he worked in, engineering the exit of at least semi-reasonable Republican speakers-past, such as Rep. John Boehner of Ohio and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
