House Speaker Mike Johnson heads to Florida for more Trump butt-kissing

Donald Trump has made House Speaker Mike Johnson’s job impossible, but Johnson keeps going back for more. The embattled speaker is at Mar-a-Lago Friday to announce a big “election integrity” initiative. The announcement is the pretense, anyway; Johnson’s real goal is likely to try to get Trump to call off Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her efforts to oust him from the speaker’s seat. 

Making it all the more demeaning for Johnson, this ring-kissing exercise is happening the day after Trump engineered another humiliating blow to him on a floor vote. Trump told Republicans to “KILL FISA” and 19 of them did just that, delivering Johnson’s fourth loss on a procedural vote. As Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner points out, that’s a thing that is not supposed to happen.

“During both tenures of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the number of rule votes lost was zero,” Sumner wrote. “Throw in former Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner and it’s still zero.”

Some of the hard-line House members who fell in line with Trump on that vote are fine with Trump calling off Greene—as long as it comes with Trump continuing to call the shots about what happens on the floor.