Skirmish erupts on CNN over Trump exerting control over House speaker: 'That's a problem!'
CNN commentators clashed over the ouster of the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee by speaker Mike Johnson.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) has told colleagues that Donald Trump "personally" ordered the House speaker to remove him from the panel overseeing the CIA and FBI, which Johnson disputes, because the president-elect sees him "basically an intel community sycophant," but Republican strategist Brad Todd argued the move was "completely legitimate."
"The speaker has wide latitude to pick the chairman of committees," Todd said. "It's only right that Mike Johnson have a little bit more latitude to pick the chairman and, by the way, if he deems that part of the reason to pick that chairman is to to cooperate with the Senate intel chairman Tom Cotton, who is from Arkansas, same state as Rick Crawford, who's going to be the new chairman of [House] intel is from, that's his right. If he wants to pick someone who could work with the administration, that's his right. I think this is a completely legitimate move by by him, and Turner is not the most popular member of the Republican conference. That's probably playing into this, too."
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Mark Preston, a senior political analyst for CNN, said the move showed Trump had an unhealthy level of authority over the government that violated the founding principles of American democracy.
"That's his right, but the reality is that when they set up the government, when the founders set up the government, there were three equal, you know, separate branches of government, and right now that doesn't exist in Washington, D.C.," Preston said. "Donald Trump controls the legislative branch right now, controls the executive branch and some would argue he also controls the Supreme Court right now. So this town is entirely run by Republicans, and Mike Turner, as far as him being removed, Johnson didn't give any reason why he was removed, and it seemed like Turner was doing a fairly good job at a pretty volatile time right now in in our foreign policy."
Axios reporter Alex Thompson said the move was likely a preview of the incoming administration.
"I think 'concerns from Mar-a-Lago' is going to be a phrase we're going to repeat a lot over the next four years," Thompson said, making air quotes with his fingers. "You know, Mike Johnson is also, you know, the broader context is there's a little bit of a competition between who has more influence over Donald Trump, Mike Johnson or [majority leader] John Thune on the Senate side, and you're going to see both of them trying to cater to Donald Trump over who can, you know, lead legislative strategy."
Todd interjected, saying that Trump needs Johnson's support as much as Johnson needs Trump's, and he said the president-elect would be better served by a committee chairman he trusts, but former White House aide Kate Bedingfield argued that he was understating that dynamic.
"It is true that the leaders of the Congress are going to work with the president of the United States, but what is unique about this situation is that in Donald Trump, you have a president who has flouted political norms, has flouted constitutional norms," said Bedingfield, the former communications director for president Joe Biden. "I mean, go back to the underlying issue that seems to be at play here, which is Turner's criticism of Trump, you know, getting on the phone and behaving in a way that runs counter to historically the way a president would conduct himself, and I think the idea that Mike Johnson is going to kowtow to Trump by putting somebody in place who will stand back and say, it's fine for Donald Trump to put his own political interests ... ahead of the security interests of the United States."
"That's a problem," Bedingfield added. "This is not a normal situation where you have leaders in Congress trying to work with a president. You have a president demanding leaders who are not going to hold him accountable for behavior that is potentially dangerous to the interests of the United States of America."
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