Mike Johnson in crisis mode as he becomes face of 'full-blown disaster': analyst

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is driving his party into the ditch with his strategy to navigate the federal government shutdown, David Lurie wrote for Public Notice on Tuesday.

This comes amid other reporting on how President Donald Trump's ever-changing shutdown narrative is often stepping on Johnson's strategy and leaving him guessing.

"It’s been a tough month for the beleaguered speaker," wrote Lurie. "After shutting down the House weeks ago to avoid a vote to compel Trump to release the Epstein files, these days Johnson holds news conferences multiple times a week to 'explain' why Republicans are so determined to make Affordable Care Act health coverage prohibitively expensive for millions of Americans that they are, literally, taking food out of the mouths of babies."

The fact Trump is largely absent from the proceedings has only put greater pressure on Johnson, Lurie added.

Democrats remain firm in their demands to pass an extension for ACA subsidies for millions of people as a condition for providing the votes to reopen the government, although reports indicate some Democrats are looking for a bipartisan off-ramp.

"Johnson has compounded what is becoming a full-blown disaster for his party by appointing himself to make the case for Republicans’ politically irrational, and increasingly amoral, course of conduct," wrote Lurie. "The speaker is a bad explainer, to say the least. Nearly every time he (and more rarely Trump) appears before the cameras to sell the GOP’s lies, he manages to unintentionally tell the truth — or, as Johnson puts it, 'get lost in facts.'"

Meanwhile, he wrote, Johnson is not just facing pressure on the shutdown, but constantly has to answer for everything from brutal immigration raids that round up innocent people, to Trump pardoning a crypto billionaire and claiming he didn't remember doing it. Johnson is generally left to say he isn't aware of the controversy and has no comment.

The problem, Lurie concluded, is that "because Trump and his fellow GOP 'leaders' have made their refusal to negotiate with Democrats a bizarre 'principle,' when — as seems increasingly certain — they’re forced to make a deal to reopen the government, Trump, the self-styled dictatorial strongman, will end up substantially diminished. But at least we can hope the poor children of our very rich nation will come out of the imbroglio Trump and Johnson have manufactured with sufficient food to eat."