Mike Johnson

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 25th of October 2023, the House of Representatives voted 220-209 to make Mike Johnson its 56th speaker. Every Republican in attendance voted for him. Johnson, a lawyer from Louisiana, became the first speaker in American history from his state, and he was sworn in the same day. In his first remarks, he told his colleagues: "I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you. All of us."

  The man who spoke those words had arrived at the gavel by an unlikely road. How does a lawmaker with so little national profile end up leading the House? What did years as a litigator for religious causes teach him about law, politics and public argument? Why did a speaker who once voted against aid to Ukraine later push a large aid package through Congress? And what does it mean to run a chamber where a handful of votes can decide whether the speaker keeps the job?

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• 2. Fewest Enemies

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  On the 3rd of October 2023, the House removed Kevin McCarthy as speaker, and Representative Matt Gaetz soon floated Johnson's name as a possible replacement. Ten days later, on the 13th of October, Johnson said he would not run. He endorsed Jim Jordan instead. The same day, NBC News reported that he might reconsider if Jordan dropped out.

  On the 21st of October, Steve Scalise and Jordan had both failed in their bids, and Johnson declared his candidacy. Tom Emmer beat him on the 24th of October, 117 votes to 97, on the fifth ballot. Emmer then withdrew. Later that day, House Republicans chose Johnson as their fourth nominee. On the third ballot he took 128 votes, against 43 for write-in candidate Kevin McCarthy and 29 for Byron Donalds. Donald Trump endorsed his bid.

  Johnson had served only six years and ten months in the House. That made him the speaker with the shortest tenure since John G. Carlisle in 1883. Axios described him as the least experienced person to fill the office in 140 years. It argued that being little known outside Capitol Hill left him few enemies able to derail his campaign. Representative Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican, agreed. Buck said Johnson won "because he has the fewest enemies of anybody in the Republican Party".

  Several commentators later offered warmer verdicts. In May 2024, Politico wrote that Johnson had aligned himself with Trump "while not being treated like a golden retriever". It called him an authentic movement conservative who had been "successful in isolating his critics". Politico also reported that House Republicans praised him for avoiding "making promises he can't keep".

  That same month, conservative columnist Marc Thiessen wrote in The Washington Post that Johnson had gone "from accidental House speaker to one of the most consequential House speakers in a generation". Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker, wrote in the Washington Times that he was "deeply impressed". Gingrich called it "the most challenging speakership since the Civil War".

  Nancy Pelosi, a former Democratic speaker, offered a measured view. She said the two had little in common philosophically. But she added: "if you can trust somebody to be a person of his or her word you can find common ground." In July 2024, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece headlined "Mike Johnson, Leader of the Free World". It praised a speech he gave at the Hudson Institute, which also carried a promise about China that returns later in this story.

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• 3. Courtroom Crusader

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  In 1984, a fire in Shreveport, Louisiana, killed a firefighter and severely injured Pat Johnson, the father of a boy who would one day lead the House. James Michael Johnson was the eldest of four children of Pat and Jeanne Johnson, whose marriage ended after 23 years. Pat later became a HazMat consultant. Johnson graduated from Captain Shreve High School, then earned a business degree from Louisiana State University in 1995, becoming the first in his family to finish college. In 1998 he received his law degree from the university's Paul M. Hebert Law Center.

  From 2002 to 2010, Johnson worked as an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, now called the Alliance Defending Freedom, a socially conservative legal advocacy group. In 2004, he defended Louisiana Amendment 1 against legal challenges. The amendment wrote into the state constitution a definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. That same year he joined the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, where he served until 2012.

  In August 2010, Louisiana College named Johnson the founding dean of its new Pressler School of Law. The school never opened, and he resigned in August 2012. College president Joe Aguillard, whom a university vice president accused of misappropriating money and lying to the board, blamed Johnson's departure for the school's failure. The college soon fired Aguillard, finding that he had "engaged in numerous improprieties and falsities in his representations not only to school donors, but to the Board of Trustees".

  In 2015, Johnson founded Freedom Guard, a nonprofit law firm devoted to religious liberty cases, and served as its chief counsel. That year, Kentucky officials withdrew millions of dollars in tax breaks from the Ark Encounter theme park in Williamstown. Johnson represented the park and its owner, Answers in Genesis, in federal court. The court ruled for his clients, finding that excluding the ark from the tourism incentive because of its "religious purpose and message" violated the First Amendment. Afterward Johnson said: "The court has affirmed a longstanding principle that the Constitution does not permit a state to show hostility towards religion. The First Amendment does not allow Christian organizations to be treated like second-class citizens merely because of what they believe."

  In September 2016, Johnson summed up his legal career as "defending religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and biblical values, including the defense of traditional marriage, and other ideals like these when they've been under assault". In 2018 he began teaching online courses as an adjunct professor at the Helms School of Government at Liberty University. From roughly 2015 to 2022, he also sometimes guest hosted Tony Perkins's radio show Washington Watch.

  Elective office came in 2015, when Jeff R. Thompson left the Louisiana House's 8th District seat to become a state district judge. Johnson ran to succeed him and was unopposed. In April of that year, he proposed the Marriage and Conscience Act, which would have barred the state from treating anyone adversely over their beliefs about marriage. Critics called it a shield for people who discriminate against same-sex married couples. Governor Bobby Jindal promised to sign it and argued in a New York Times editorial that "musicians, caterers, photographers and others should be immune from government coercion on deeply held religious convictions".

  Opposition came from several quarters. IBM and other regional employers objected, citing the hiring difficulties it would cause. Baton Rouge councilman John Delgado, a fellow Republican, called Johnson a "despicable bigot of the highest order". Johnson answered that he wished Delgado had reviewed his record before making "such hateful, wildly inaccurate statements". On the 19th of May 2015, the House Civil Law and Procedure Committee voted 10-2 to table the bill. Only Ray Garofalo joined Johnson in support, and Republicans and Democrats alike voted against it. Jindal responded with an executive order enforcing its intent.

  Johnson spent 2016 championing a different cause, the Article V route to amending the Constitution through a national convention. He helped lead the Louisiana House in petitioning Congress to call a "Convention of States", and he later held hearings on the idea in Congress. His next campaign was already underway, and it would carry him out of Baton Rouge for good.

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• 4. Faith and Family

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  In the late 1990s, Johnson and his wife appeared on television to promote new Louisiana laws creating covenant marriages. Under that arrangement, divorce is much harder to obtain than under no-fault divorce. In 2005 he took the message to ABC's Good Morning America, saying: "I'm a big proponent of marriage and fidelity and all the things that go with it."

  Johnson married Kelly Renee Lary on the 1st of May 1999. Their primary home is in Benton, Louisiana, and they have five children. One of them, Michael Tirrell James, is an adopted son. The couple met him at an event for Young Life Ministries, and they took legal guardianship of him when he was 14. James, who keeps a private life with his family, has said: "If the Johnsons hadn't taken me in as a teenager, my life would look very different today. I would probably be in prison or I might not have made it at all." In 2015, a German television story about the purity movement showed Johnson attending a purity ball with his 13-year-old daughter Hannah. Since March 2022, the couple have co-hosted a podcast called Truth Be Told, where Johnson has called the Word of God "the ultimate source of all truth".

  His views on abortion are among his most consistent. In 2015, Johnson blamed abortion and the breakup of the nuclear family for school shootings, saying that when a generation hears life is expendable, "you do wind up with school shooters". In 2015 and 2016 he led an anti-abortion Life March in Shreveport-Bossier City. He opposed Roe v. Wade. In Congress he supported bills banning abortion at fertilization and at 15 weeks. He also co-sponsored the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a second bill on late-term abortion, and the Heartbeat Protection Act of 2021. All three would impose criminal penalties on doctors, including prison terms of up to five years.

  In a 2017 House Judiciary Committee meeting, Johnson argued that Roe made cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid necessary, because abortion shrank the labor force and hurt the economy. In January 2023 the House passed his resolution condemning vandalism and violence against pro-life facilities, groups and churches. After the Dobbs decision, he said abortion policy belonged to the states. In May 2024, he said he would not try to pass a nationwide ban.

  His views on evolution are equally firm. Johnson rejects the scientific consensus and favors creationism. He helped the Creation Museum secure millions of dollars in tax subsidies to build the life-sized Ark Encounter, which teaches that the earth is 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's Ark. In a 2016 sermon, he asked how a young person could open fire on classmates. His answer was that Americans had been taught "that there's no right or wrong, that it's about survival of the fittest, and you evolve from the primordial slime".

  In 2023, Johnson co-sponsored legislation declaring that life and personhood begin at conception, with no exception for in-vitro fertilization or embryonic stem-cell research. After the public backlash to an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that treated embryos as children, he announced support for access to IVF. On the 7th of March 2024, he clarified that he opposed federal legislation to protect it, calling it a state issue.

  On same-sex relationships, his record from the early 2000s drew the sharpest scrutiny. In 2023, CNN's Andrew Kaczynski pointed to editorials Johnson wrote for The Shreveport Times calling homosexuality "inherently unnatural" and a "dangerous lifestyle". Asked about them, Johnson said: "I don't even remember some of them...I was a litigator that was called upon to defend the state marriage amendments." He describes himself as a Bible-believing Christian who genuinely loves all people.

  In a 2003 article, he argued that same-sex marriage could put the country's "entire democratic system in jeopardy". He opposed the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision, and his employer, the Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a brief supporting criminalization. He also provided legal services to Exodus International, which promotes gay conversion therapy, and worked with it on the Day of Truth. In 2005, he campaigned against the Day of Silence, an annual anti-bullying event.

  Johnson opposed Obergefell v. Hodges. Shortly after becoming speaker, however, he said: "I am a rule-of-law guy. I made a career defending the rule of law. I respect the rule of law. When the Supreme Court issued the Obergefell opinion, that became the law of the land, OK." In 2022, he introduced the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, which would bar federally funded institutions, including public schools and libraries, from mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity. Critics compared it to Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law. In July 2023, he spoke against gender-affirming care for minors, and he co-sponsored legislation to make it a felony.

  In November 2024, Johnson reserved single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House office buildings for people of the matching biological sex. The policy came less than a month after Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress.

  The same faith shapes his view of government. His inaugural speech as speaker rested his politics on his Southern Baptist beliefs. He has referred to the "so-called separation of church and state", arguing that "the founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around". In April 2018 he joined Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and actor Kirk Cameron to argue for student-led prayer in public schools. He has named the evangelical author David Barton as an influence.

  When Representative Andy Ogles posted that "Muslims don't belong in American society", Johnson declined to condemn it. He said the language was not what he would use. But he called the imposition of Sharia law a serious issue and said his concern was "not about people as Muslims".

  His record on other social questions is shorter. In 2016, he opposed expanding medical cannabis in Louisiana, and as of 2023 he had twice voted against decriminalization. At a 2017 town hall, he said he believed the climate was changing but questioned the scientific consensus that humans cause it. By October 2023, he had received $338,125 in donations from the oil and gas industry during his time in Congress.

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• 5. Trump and the Election

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  In 2015, Johnson wrote on Facebook that Donald Trump "lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House". He called Trump "a hot head by nature" and wrote: "I just don't think he has the demeanor to be President." Within a few years, he had become one of Trump's most committed defenders on Capitol Hill.

  The path to Washington began on the 10th of February 2016, when Johnson announced his run for Louisiana's 4th congressional district. John Fleming, its holder for eight years, was running for David Vitter's Senate seat. Johnson won the 10th of December runoff over Democrat Marshall Jones, 87,370 votes to 46,579, or 65% to 35%. He was sworn in on the 3rd of January 2017. Later margins included 64% to 34% in 2018 and 60% to 25% in 2020. In 2022 he ran unopposed, and in 2024 he beat fellow Republican Joshua Morott, 86% to 14%.

  In Congress, Johnson served as a deputy whip and sat on the Judiciary and Armed Services committees. He chaired the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in Congress, from 2019 to 2021. He then spent two years as vice chair of the House Republican Conference. The House Freedom Caucus PAC backed him, and he often attended its meetings without formally joining. After the 2022 midterms, Representative Andy Biggs proposed him as a compromise speaker candidate when Freedom Caucus members opposed McCarthy.

  One episode from this period followed him into the speakership. In 2022, Johnson wrote the foreword to The Revivalist Manifesto, a book by Louisiana blogger Scott McKay. The book uses homophobic slurs about Pete Buttigieg and implicitly endorses the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Johnson promoted it on his podcast, saying: "I obviously believe in the product, or I wouldn't have written the foreword. So I endorse the work." After he became speaker, a spokesperson told CNN that he had never read the passages in question and had written the foreword as a favor to a friend.

  During Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in 2019, Johnson said Trump had "cooperated fully" and "done nothing wrong". During the first impeachment that year, he told White House officials to ignore congressional subpoenas. He called this "legitimate executive privilege in legal immunity". Johnson served on Trump's legal defense team in the Senate trials of 2019 and 2021, and both ended in acquittal.

  His votes in those years followed the party's priorities. He voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017, calling it "the first comprehensive tax reform in 31 years". In 2018 he named entitlement reform his "number one priority". He backed Trump's 2017 order restricting immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. He voted for the 2017 American Health Care Act, which would have repealed the Affordable Care Act. In 2019 he opposed the Raise the Wage Act, a bill that would have lifted the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, and he opposed it again in 2021. In 2019, he led a Republican Study Committee effort to replace the Affordable Care Act that would have ended its Medicaid expansion.

  The defining controversy came after the 2020 election. In early November 2020, Johnson said he had spoken to Trump twice and urged him to "exhaust every available legal remedy". On the 17th of November, he spoke about voting machines made by Dominion. "There's a lot of merit to that," he said. "And when the president says the election was rigged, that's what he's talking about. The fix was in." By October 2022, Johnson said he had never supported claims of massive fraud.

  In December 2020, Johnson led 126 Republican House members in signing an amicus brief backing Texas v. Pennsylvania, a Supreme Court suit contesting the election results. The Court declined to hear the case, ruling that Texas lacked standing to challenge another state's election. In January 2021, 120 representatives objected to certifying results from both Arizona and Pennsylvania, and Johnson was among them. Another 19 objected to one of the two states. The New York Times called him "the most important architect of the Electoral College objections". It reported that his argument of "constitutional infirmity" persuaded about three-quarters of the objectors. He contended that state officials had violated the Constitution by loosening mail-in and early voting rules during the COVID-19 pandemic without consulting their legislatures. In all, 147 Republicans voted to overturn the results.

  On the 19th of May 2021, Johnson and all seven other Republican House leaders voted against a national commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Thirty-five Republicans and all 217 Democrats present voted to create it. Johnson endorsed Trump's 2024 campaign, and Trump returned the favor. Trump has called him "a good man who is trying very hard".

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• 6. A Divided House

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  Only 209 bills became law during the 118th Congress, the one in which both McCarthy and Johnson served as speaker. Since 2000, the average Congress had passed 372, and since 1989 the average was 380. No Congress had enacted fewer laws since the first half of the 20th century. The first half of that Congress, under McCarthy, had already produced the lowest total of any previous Congress, partly because of unrest among Freedom Caucus members. Removing McCarthy did not end the division, and Johnson's handling of spending talks stirred anger of his own.

  On the 26th of October 2023, the day after his election, Johnson met President Joe Biden for the first time as speaker. They attended a bipartisan White House briefing on the administration's requests for aid to Ukraine and Israel. In November, Johnson proposed a two-tiered stopgap spending bill that kept funding near its current levels. The Freedom Caucus and other conservatives opposed it. It passed the House on the 14th of November with 209 Democrats and 127 Republicans in favor. The Senate approved it the next day, and Biden signed it.

  On the 17th of November, Johnson announced that 44,000 hours of security footage from the January 6 attack would be released to the public. Until then, only criminal defendants and the media could request it. On the 1st of December, the House expelled Republican George Santos, 311-114. Johnson voted against, calling it "a regrettable day".

  In early January 2024, appropriators agreed on topline spending levels that differed little from McCarthy's earlier deal. Hardliners pressed Johnson to abandon it, at first claiming he already had. He clarified that he had not. Conservatives then urged him to back a full-year continuing resolution, which under McCarthy's deal would trigger automatic spending cuts.

  Johnson also pushed a hard-edged measure. The House first voted on the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on the 6th of February 2024, and it failed after a small Republican rebellion. A week later, on the 13th of February, it passed 214-213. Johnson had championed the resolution.

  On the 6th of March, the House passed a $459 billion "minibus" covering six of the twelve appropriations bills. The party's rightmost faction fiercely opposed it, arguing it had no substantial conservative policy wins. On the 22nd of March, a second minibus of $741 billion funded the remaining departments. Most Republicans voted no, and it passed with Democratic votes. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene responded by filing a motion to vacate Johnson's speakership. She could have forced an immediate vote but chose to send what she called "a warning". The warning would be tested over a separate fight, one involving billions of dollars in foreign aid.

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• 7. Aid, Allies and Adversaries

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  In February 2023, Johnson said: "American taxpayers have sent over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine in the last year. They deserve to know if the Ukrainian government is being entirely forthcoming and transparent about the use of this massive sum of taxpayer resources." It was not his first word on the war. In February 2022, he had condemned Russia's invasion and called for sanctions on its economic interests and its exclusion from global commerce. In April 2022, he voted for the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act. Before he became speaker, though, he twice voted against sending Ukraine military and financial aid.

  As speaker, Johnson first said he was "open to talks" on Biden's request for more money for Ukraine's counter-offensive. In December 2023, he said aid would depend on new border-security measures. In January 2024, he opposed a bipartisan border package, sponsored by Senate Republicans, that also included aid for Ukraine and other allies. It failed in the Senate.

  Then in April 2024, Johnson put forward a $61 billion Ukraine aid package with no border provision. It passed with bipartisan support, and Biden signed it. Aid to Israel and Taiwan moved in separate bills with the same support. The package also included a bill forcing TikTok to separate from its Chinese Communist Party-controlled parent company, ByteDance. Another measure let the government fund Ukraine's war effort with assets seized from Russian oligarchs. Some media and politicians called it a "Churchill or Chamberlain" moment. Johnson said the classified briefings he received played a significant role in his decision.

  On the 8th of May 2024, Greene, who strongly opposed more Ukraine aid, introduced her motion to vacate on the floor. The House voted 359-43 to table it. That included 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats voting to kill it, with 11 Republicans and 32 Democrats voting no. The Democrats who backed Johnson said they did so because of his role in funding the government and Ukraine.

  On Israel, Johnson visited the country in February 2020 with the 12Tribe Films Foundation. The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC was his largest donor in 2023. The first measure the House took up after he became speaker was a resolution supporting Israel after the October 7 attacks, and he voted yes. On the 30th of October 2023, Johnson suggested rescinding IRS funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to pay for $14.3 billion in aid to Israel. The House passed that aid bill on the 2nd of November.

  On the 14th of November, he called demands for a Gaza ceasefire "outrageous" and said Israel would stop "when Hamas ceases to be a threat to the Jewish state". In April 2024, he criticized pro-Palestinian campus protests, saying Congress would not be silent as Jewish students were "expected to run for their lives". In August 2025, at the Israeli settlement of Ariel in the West Bank, he said the "mountains of Judea and Samaria" belong to the Jewish people "by right".

  On China, in 2020 Johnson co-wrote a Republican Study Committee national security report. It urged tougher sanctions on companies and people tied to the People's Liberation Army and expanded trade with Taiwan, Indonesia and Mongolia. Before 2023, he introduced two China bills. One would stop former members of Congress from lobbying for communist entities, and the other would bar foreign governments from funding U.S. litigation. In July 2024 at the Hudson Institute, he said: "China poses the greatest threat to global peace." In December 2024, he spoke with Taiwan's president, Lai Ching-te, during a stopover in Hawaii.

  In 2024, Johnson opposed adding a warrant requirement to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He had once criticized the program. But he said classified briefings convinced him that reauthorization was vital to national security.

  In June 2025, he supported Trump's strikes on Iran and opposed a bipartisan war powers resolution to block U.S. intervention there. In March 2026, he backed joint Israeli-U.S. strikes on Iran. He argued that Israel was ready to act alone and that staying out could have "devastating" consequences. He called American involvement a "defensive measure" and "absolutely necessary for our defense".

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• 8. The Second Term

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  On the 3rd of January 2025, the opening day of the 119th Congress, Johnson won reelection as speaker on the first ballot. Every House Republican except Thomas Massie voted for him, and every Democrat voted for Hakeem Jeffries. One account adds that he secured the job only after Trump spoke directly with holdout members. The 2024 elections had left Republicans holding the House, the Senate and the White House.

  In early January, Johnson and House Republicans agreed to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion to serve Trump's agenda. Trump had called for "one powerful bill" on energy, the southern border and taxes, then retracted the request. Asked whether the agenda would cut Social Security and Medicare, Johnson said no.

  In February 2025, Johnson urged judges to "step back" from interfering with DOGE's efforts. In March, after several federal judges blocked Trump administration policies, he called this a "dangerous trend". He said that it "violates separation of powers when a judge thinks that they can enjoin something that a president is doing". He added that Congress "can eliminate an entire district court", and said: "We have power over funding, over the courts."

  In May 2025, Johnson backed Trump's use of the National Guard and Marines against the Los Angeles protests. He said California governor Gavin Newsom "ought to be tarred and feathered". Asked about the Qatari jet N7478D that month, he replied: "I'm going to leave it to the administration... it's not my lane."

  In mid-July 2025, Johnson said of the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein: "We should put everything out there and let the people decide." After Trump urged that the matter be dropped, Johnson reversed within a week. He argued the administration needed "space to do what it is doing". In late July, he sent the House home early, ahead of its five-week summer break, to prevent votes on releasing Epstein-related material. He explained there was "no purpose for Congress to push an administration to do something that they're already doing".

  On the 23rd of September 2025, Adelita Grijalva won a special election in Arizona's 7th congressional district. Johnson said he would not swear her in until the government shutdown ended. James Walkinshaw, Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine, elected in other special elections that Congress, were each sworn in the day after they won. Johnson swore in Grijalva the day the shutdown ended.

  During the 2025 shutdown, Johnson kept the House mostly in recess and held no votes on funding bills. New York Times journalist Annie Karni wrote that he largely deferred to the president, held no oversight hearings and kept the House out of session. In her words, he made "himself subservient to Mr. Trump". Critics described him as spending much of the shutdown at daily news conferences defending Trump and insisting the House had nothing to do but wait. One assessment held that this was meant "to render the House irrelevant".

  In the Karni account, Johnson had limited control over his own members. One measure of that is the discharge petition, a route for members to force votes. Its use has increased during his speakership.

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