House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) views his role as a "junior partner" to President Donald Trump — and in so doing, he is undermining the power of Congress as a co-equal branch of government, The New York Times reported.
"In the past couple of weeks, Mr. Johnson removed the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Michael R. Turner of Ohio, acting upon a request from Mar-a-Lago," noted Annie Karni. Furthermore, after Trump was sworn in, Johnson "trailed behind" Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, "breathlessly chronicling Mr. Vance’s first moment setting foot in the Oval Office as if he were a White House staff member," captioning his footage, “I told him and President Trump that I HAD to capture the moment on video.”
Meanwhile, Johnson, who had a mostly adversarial relationship with the previous administration, responded with absolute obedience to the party line when questioned about Trump's trade standoff with Colombia over deportation flights, saying, “Congress will back up the White House.”
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"With that, any past pretense of the party having its own agenda beyond Mr. Trump’s priorities was firmly dispensed with," wrote Karni. This attitude constitutes "a break with the past, when speakers of both parties have been territorial about the prerogatives of Congress, even if it sometimes meant challenging their own president."
All of this comes as Republicans, despite winning unified control of Congress, face significant obstacles to getting Trump's agenda passed, including razor-thin majorities in the House and disagreements between the House and Senate over whether to do one reconciliation bill or two.
Brookings Institution scholar Molly Reynolds told The Times that Johnson's current behavior reflects how little experience he has as a party leader to navigate his role.
“He has to figure out how to work with Trump most effectively to drive the House Republican conference to agreement on things,” said Reynolds. “He needs to figure out if there is a way for Trump to be helpful in doing that.”
