What Mike Johnson’s Surprise Election Means
Johnson’s election as the new No. 1 in the US House shows just how influential Donald Trump is — but there are limits to his power.
Mike Johnson of Louisiana was sworn in as the new speaker of the US House of Representatives on Wednesday. Surprisingly, Republicans elected him, ending a three-week impasse. His election says a lot about the relationship between Donald Trump and his party.
Photo: Tom Brenner (AFP)
Mike Johnson, 51, suddenly became a U.S. Republican on Wednesday Elected as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives. Amazingly, the previously overlooked representative from Louisiana won all 220 Republican votes. This was not expected as their delegates had stalled Congress for three weeks by first voting out Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the two crown-runners had failed to succeed him.
Donald Trump killed third-party candidate Reno, a “Republican in name only” on social media, calling him a pseudo-Republican. So now Johnson has been elected, a compromise candidate for Republicans, a loyal Trump ally with fewer opponents than the trio he tried before.
In the presidential election, Trump showed how great his influence is in the party: without his blessing, no one can get an important position with the Republicans. Instead of pulling strings behind the scenes, Trump has publicly demonstrated his power by judging congressional candidates on social media.
Trump continues to demonstrate the limits of his powers
However, the election revealed that there are limits to Trump’s power and that he cannot single-handedly decide the fate of the party. Surprisingly staunch moderate MPs blocked Trump from pushing his first-choice candidate, Jim Jordan.
Isabelle Jacoby, editor-in-chief of Bund magazine, discusses what goals Trump is pursuing with theater, what divisions he is exposing among Republicans, what systemic problem lies behind it, how dangerous it is for Europe and the world, and what can be done now. New speakers are expected from Mike Johnson and Fabian Fellman, American correspondent of the “Dages-Anseiger” in Washington, on the current edition of “Everything Clear, America?”, Tmedia’s USA podcast, produced by Mirza Kabatuler.
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