Conservative warns Speaker Johnson 'is not a run-of-the-mill Trump toady'

In a scathing column for MSNBC, longtime conservative Charlie Sykes warned that newly elected Speaker Michael Johnson (R-LA) should not be underestimated when it comes to being a Donald Trump supplicant.

According to Sykes, Johnson may have occupied his seat in the House in total obscurity until recently, but he has been a key player in Trump's attempts to take back power and there is no reason to think Johnson won't use his new position of power to further those goals.

After lamenting the demise of what he called the last of the GOP House moderates who ended up throwing in the towel and voting for the extremist Johnson as their new leader, Sykes labeled the new speaker as "not a run-of-the-mill Trump toady."

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As he explained, "Johnson was a central player in pushing a lawsuit that would have thrown out tens of millions of votes in states that Trump lost. Even worse: Johnson touted some the wooliest of the Kraken-level conspiracy theories including the bizarre lie that voting software came from 'Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.'"

Noting that Johnson has previously gone down the same election conspiracy rabbit hole that cost Fox News $787 million after being sued by Dominion Voting Systems, Sykes added, "those lies have propelled Johnson into the presidential line of succession."

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Summing up the state of the House Republican caucus in light of Johnson's ascension he added, "The MAGA-fication of the GOP is complete. And the moderates? Who will ever take them seriously again? Because it turns out that there are no normies left."

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