All posts tagged "mike johnson"

'I'm appalled by him': Epstein survivor slams Mike Johnson for 'theatrics' amid big vote

A Republican voter and woman who is a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse called out House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) over delaying swearing in of Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) and the vote for a bill to release the Epstein files.

Epstein survivor Haley Robson told CNN anchor Pamela Brown on Wednesday that she feels disappointed by Johnson and President Donald Trump, who she voted for, over their handling of the files and discharge petition.

Brown asked her what she would tell the president.

"The flip flop in the back and forth has been nothing short of nauseating and embarrassing," Robson said of Trump. "I think that you [Trump] had 2024 campaigned on this, so it's very overdue for the survivors. I think that if you would like to clear your name once and for all, and let's put the past behind us so we can all move forward in a positive direction and finally get the justice and clarity that we deserve. I suggest that we follow through with our promises. We follow through with what we have said we were going to do, because at the end of the day, we only have integrity and we only have our word. So I would like to see him sign this and let's get through it."

She also reacted to Johnson's comments that Tuesday's landmark legislation was a political show vote.

"Well, I was present in the room when they were doing the votes, as well as all the survivors. And I can say the only theatrics I saw was from him [Johnson]," Robson said. "I think some of his comments were on that fine line. This is not a hoax. There is no theater coming from us or the survivors on our end. I'm appalled by him in general, and I've lost a lot of respect by him."

For 44 days, Grijalva, who was a deciding vote in the discharge petition, was not sworn in. Robson blamed Johnson for delaying the vote amid the government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history.

"You will never convince me that shutting down the government for 50 days — and in those 50 days was when we needed them the most. And in those 50 days, we don't know what happened. We just know that you wouldn't swear in Adelita Grijalva. And I'm sure there was more pressing issues and policies that came to light in that decision making. But this has been an issue that has been very important to the American people, and something that he campaigned on," Robson said.

Brown clarified that the shutdown last 44 days.

"And when you have a policy or procedures that need to be done for the American people, I feel it's in America's best interest and the people's best interest. If you follow through and get things done, instead of just closing off, surely they are the adults. Surely they can figure it out," Robson added.

Johnson has said that he was concerned that releasing the files could harm innocent people or other survivors who wanted to stay private, and that he wanted to add amendments, Brown said.

"Well, no, that's actually inaccurate in my opinion, because the survivors that don't want to be public are Jane Doe's," Robson explained. "They've been protected and their names have been redacted this whole time as Jane Doe's."

'He finally learned his lesson': Mike Johnson pummeled by GOP colleague over Epstein delay

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was dragged Sunday by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) over having dragged out efforts to force the Justice Department to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein, with the Kentucky Republican proclaiming Johnson to have “finally learned his lesson” after being forced to schedule a vote on the issue for next week.

“I think he finally learned his lesson. He should have brought this to the floor back in July or September,” Massie told The Washington Post in its report Sunday. “He drug this out. It’s caused nothing but political pain when he could have done the right thing politically, but also morally by bringing this to the floor immediately.”

Renewed calls for the DOJ to release its files on Epstein – the disgraced financier who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges – kicked off in July after the agency concluded that it could not identify any co-conspirators of Epstein’s, and that he had, in fact, died by suicide, contrary to speculation that he may have been killed.

The DOJ subsequently closed its investigation into Epstein and potential co-conspirators, a decision that outraged many MAGA supporters and Democratic voters alike. Johnson initially pushed back against legislative efforts to continue the investigation, including one launched by Massie through what’s known as a discharge petition, a tool that can circumvent legislative leadership and force a vote on a particular measure after receiving 218 signatures.

Johnson refused to schedule any bill for a vote that would have compelled the DOJ to release its files on Epstein, forcing Massie to pursue his discharge petition, which last week received enough signatures and forced Johnson to schedule a vote on the Epstein bill for this week.

President Donald Trump’s name appears thousands of times in the relatively small sampling of Epstein files that the House Oversight Committee has released in recent weeks, and Trump himself has launched an aggressive campaign to block the vote on the Epstein bill.

Massie, however, doesn’t believe that Trump is implicated in the files, and dismisses Trump’s opposition to seeing them released as an effort to protect his friends and donors from embarrassment.

“I think this is all about the president trying to protect his friends and his donors,” Massie told the Post.

Epstein victims 'who have not spoken before' to fly to DC to confront Mike Johnson

Victims of Jeffrey Epstein “who have not spoken [publicly] before” are poised to arrive in Washington, D.C. next week to put pressure on lawmakers amid fears that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) may use his authority to block an effort to force the release of files related to Epstein.

The Epstein victims will be speaking at a press conference sometime next week, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) announced this week during an appearance on “Breaking Points,” a follow-up to the explosive presser held early last month, and is set to coincide with a potential vote on a bill that would compel the Justice Department to release all of its files on Epstein.

“We have a press conference that Thomas Massie (R-KY), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and I are planning next week, and a number of survivors from around the country are going to be flying in, some who have not spoken out before,” Khanna said.

“Mike Johnson keeps thinking 'okay, if you just shut down Congress long enough, people are going to forget,' but he doesn't realize that this story has gripped the American people. They know there were horrific acts that were committed, and I think when they hear from these women again – these brave women – next week, it's going to make sure that we have action and an overwhelming vote in the House.

Khanna and Massie have introduced what’s known as a discharge petition, which, with 218 signatures, would force a vote on a particular bill – in this case, a bill that would force the DOJ’s hand in releasing files on Epstein. The petition secured its 218 signature this week after Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) was sworn in, 52 days after she was elected to Congress.

And yet, despite the discharge petition being specifically designed to circumvent House leadership and force a vote on a particular measure, Johnson could still very well attempt to block it, Khanna warned.

“Johnson has dozens of procedural motions he can try to obstruct it; we could spend the whole day talking about the tools he has,” Khanna continued.

“The confidence I have though is that there are a lot of Republicans who do not want the discharge petition tool to be rendered useless, they want to use it… to get votes on other reforms, so I'm hopeful the coalition will hold to say you've got to bring this for a vote. If Johnson stops the petition from getting a vote, that will hurt any Republican who wants to bring any bill using that mechanism.”

Khanna’s concerns have been echoed by Massie, who in July warned that Johnson may “try to pull a fast one” and rewrite House rules in an effort to block their discharge petition.

'Most disappointing member': Colleagues skewer Speaker Johnson as House closes — again

WASHINGTON — The federal government may be open, but the House of Representatives is closed for business. Again.

The record-shattering 43-day-long shutdown coincided with an impromptu 53-day vacation for House Republicans.

To end the shutdown, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had to call the House back in session. He did. For roughly eight hours Wednesday. Then he gave House members the rest of the week off.

“What do you make of Speaker Johnson?” Raw Story asked Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). “You guys have just been gone for, like, more than a month, but you guys are just here for one day and then you're gone?”

“He's the most disappointing member of the U.S. Congress,” Beyer said, just off the Capitol steps Wednesday. “There was the opportunity to do a lot of other work that needs to be done in committee after committee, and that didn't get done.”

Instead of making up for lots of lost time, Congress still intends to take off the full weeks around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That means there are only four more legislative weeks in the year. And when the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, the 2026 midterm elections formally begin, which historically has meant an end to most legislating in Washington.

Still, Johnson’s all smiles for the cameras.

“Republicans are going to deliver for the people,” he told reporters this week.

“We're ready to get back to our legislative agenda. We have a very aggressive calendar for the remainder of this year. There'll be some long days and nights here, some long working weeks, but we will get this thing back on track.”

That’s what Democrats are afraid of.

‘Wow’

The reason House members got a 53-day vacation, even as the longest shutdown in history lasted 43 days, is because after the House passed its initial continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government on Sept. 19th, it left town — even though government funding didn’t run out til Oct. 1st.

Johnson intended to jam the Senate by forcing the upper chamber to either adopt or reject the House measure.

It took 53 days for senators to craft their own compromise. That needed the House to come back to town to sign off. It did so, and President Donald Trump signed the bill into law on Wednesday night.

Frustrated House Democrats accuse Johnson of living in la-la land, in part because the new measure reopening the federal government expires as soon as Jan. 30.

“We should be here every day to make up for the 53 days that we weren't here,” Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) told Raw Story on the Capitol steps.

“But also, what we did was just gave ourselves another deadline. So we need to start working. We should have been working from Oct. 1st to meet that deadline.”

A formerly bankrupt businessman occupies the White House — a fact not lost on most Democrats.

“Well, if you were dealing with corporate management, you'd probably say it wasn't too efficient,” Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) told Raw Story, just off the floor of the House, about the funding process.

“You'd probably say you'd find a little bit more to manage.”

“It feels like they're just putting Trump in the driver's seat by being gone for upwards of a month?” Raw Story asked.

“It does, and I think that's what he liked,” Davis said. “And I think that's what they like.

“And so it's kind of like a camel, humping to please, and I think they're trying very hard to stay in the good graces of the president. Please him, please him, please him, please him.”

One thing that likely displeased Trump: on Wednesday, after delaying for weeks, Johnson was forced to swear in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ).

She immediately joined a majority of her House colleagues in signing a discharge petition, which forces Johnson to bring up for a vote a measure demanding the Trump administration release the full “Epstein files.”

For former Jan. 6, 2021 committee members like Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), it’s clear: the Speaker kept the House out to forestall seating Grijalva.

“I think it's about the legislative days to ripen the discharge petition,” Lofgren told Raw Story while walking through the Capitol.

Like others on the left, Lofgren felt her suspicions were only confirmed by Wednesday’s release of new emails from the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that directly named Trump.

“Wow,” Lofgren said of the documents released by the House Oversight Committee. “Wow.”

‘A double whammy on our democracy’

Many Democrats fear Republicans’ absence from Washington for the past month made Trump’s case that the White House holds all the power.

“We adjourned when Trump wanted us to adjourn and we come back whenever Trump gives the okay, or the directive, to come back and what we consider is what his agenda is,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) told Raw Story.

Congress is “blatantly subjugating itself to executive authority,” Johnson said.

Like most on the left, Johnson says he’s disappointed because Speaker Johnson, a constitutional lawyer by trade, is ceding Congress’s constitutional powers.

“The House is no longer acting as an independent Article I institution. It's an organ of Article II,” Johnson said.

“That's revolutionary in and of itself, especially when the Supreme Court is giving away legislative power.

“So it's a double whammy on our democracy. After 249 years, this experiment is under direct assault from both the executive and the judicial branches.”

Republicans aren’t buying that, especially when it comes to the continuing resolution to keep the government funded at, mostly, last year's numbers.

Far from it. Republicans are cheering for themselves.

“This is monumental. We're doing the CR, which is fantastic,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) told Raw Story ahead of Wednesday’s vote to reopen the government.

The measure also included three of the 12 spending — or appropriations — bills required to fund the government for a full year. Those included funding for Congress itself, the agriculture sector, military construction and veterans affairs.

“So this is not a ‘just for today’ thing,” Van Orden said. “It's an amazing thing for America today, and it comes to you from the Republican Party.”

Rank-and-file Republicans argue the extended recesses the Republican majority just gave itself didn’t impact the other nine full-year spending bills Congress has to fund before Jan. 30.

“We've already read them. They're nothing new. They already passed through committee a long time ago,” Van Orden said. “In order to get back to regular order, you got to get back to regular order.”

‘He just lied’

Throughout the shutdown, House Democrats held in-person caucus meetings at the Capitol, along with occasional press conferences, even as Speaker Johnson addressed the cameras himself.

“In his daily press conferences, he just lied again and again and again,” said Beyer, from Virginia.

“He also used the most extreme language, you know, this ‘Marxist’ and ‘communist’ and all this crazy stuff. I mean, I'm not big into name-calling, especially things that are sort of disconnected from reality.

“Also, I thought there was a pettiness and meanness about the way he managed this place. Locking all the doors. Not lifting the [security] barriers. Of course, staff had to wait in line 30 and 45 minutes to get in in the morning because they would lock all the doors.”

Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) speaks. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

But beyond abused employees or hurt feelings, Democrats feel their base was energized by the shutdown.

“I believe the American people are ready to stand up and insist that we rehabilitate and strengthen this democracy for the next 250 years,” said Johnson, from Georgia.

“The people are enlivened, even if the House has been MIA?” Raw Story pressed.

“That's right. They're even more engaged now,” Johnson said. “They are more aware of the stakes of what this democracy means for their pocketbooks, for their ability to afford to live in this country, and people are connecting the dots.

“They're recognizing that MAGA — Trump and Republicans — are all about tax cuts for billionaires and multi-millionaires and tariffs for everyone else.

“It's getting to be unbearable. The American people want relief. So they have become even more attuned to what's happening since this shutdown began, and they're going to be engaged next year in these elections.”

Hayes, the Connecticut Democrat, said her party’s fight wasn’t about the midterms.

“The midterms are a long way off, and a lot of people are going to get screwed between now and then,” Hayes told Raw Story.

“So our goal can't be we fix this in the midterm. We work every day to do something. Anything — or, you know, get caught trying.”

'Backfired spectacularly!' New Dem stuns with 'barnburner' speech roasting Mike Johnson

Reactions started rolling in on Wednesday after an awkward moment between Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) after she waited weeks amid the government shutdown to be officially sworn in — more than 40 days after she was elected.

Grijalva, the first Latina American woman to represent Arizona in Congress, was elected to replace her late father. Johnson, who has faced mounting pressure over the shutdown and when he planned to swear in Grijalva, is also confronting questions over an alleged attempt to block the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

In her speech, Grijalva vowed to be the 218th signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Social media users responded to the tense encounter between the two lawmakers:

"Adelita Grijalva was playing no games with Mike Johnson he was red AF," author and educator Kimi Wilson wrote on X.

"Johnson to reporters just now as he poses for photo w/ new Rep. Grijalva: “I really like this lady, and she’s gonna make an excellent member of Congress," Courthouse News reporter Benjamin S. Weiss wrote on X.

"Rep. Adelita Grijalva called Mike Johnson blocking her swearing in 'an abuse of power.' 'One individual should not be able to unitaterally obstruct the swearing in of a duly elected member of Congress,'" Kyle Griffin, executive producer of The Weeknight on MSNBC, wrote on X.

"Speaker Johnson finally did his job and swore in Adelita Grijalva, who was elected OVER a month ago. Next order of business? Release the full Epstein files and give Adelita’s constituents the representation that they deserve in Congress," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote on X.

"Not the most important thing, but kinda feels like Mike Johnson refusing to swear in Rep. Grijalva backfired spectacularly. He could have done that quietly anytime over the last 50 days. Instead, he does it on the House floor where she delivers an absolute barnburner of a speech everyone will see," actor and comedian Mike Pusateri‬ wrote on Bluesky.

"For 7 weeks Johnson stonewalled, delayed, and twisted himself in knots to justify not swearing in Adelita Grijalva. He disenfranchised over 800,000 Arizonans, depriving them of their voice in Congress, and blocked the vote to release the Epstein files. His behavior was shameful," ‪Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes‬ wrote on Bluesky.

'It's not illegal!' Clash erupts over Mike Johnson stalling swear-in for newly elected Dem

A clash erupted over the long-delayed swearing-in of a Democratic congresswoman-elect who won a special election nearly two months ago to replace her late father in the House of Representatives.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is expected to administer the oath of office for Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) on Wednesday, after the House returns to action for the first time since mid-September to consider a plan to end a record government shutdown, and Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright told "CNN This Morning" that the delay was unacceptable.

"When Speaker Johnson made that comment, he left out one caveat," Seawright said. "[A previous delayed oath] was the request of the incoming member to delay the swearing in for one reason or another, but for 800,000 people in Arizona went without representation after a decisive victory in that race, which I think is not only unconstitutional, it's a matter of political malpractice. After a 54-day paid taxpayer vacation. Republicans are now finally back to work. But in the midst of all that, he could have easily sworn her in to allow 800,000 Arizonans to have representation – Democrat, Republican, independent, or those who do not, who did not even participate."

Conservative commentator Carrie Sheffield took exception to Seawright's assessment of the situation.

"With all respect, you're trying to gaslight Republicans for the shutdown when it was Democrats who were doing it," Sheffield said. "So I'm not really buying that because Republicans, when [former President Joe] Biden was in office, they voted 13 times to give him a clean [continuing resolution]. The Golden Rule is that you do unto others as you want them to do unto you, and unfortunately, the Democrats in the Senate were the ones who really did this shutdown. So they have themselves to blame for keeping this congresswoman out of office. It's not illegal. She's wrong about that, because obviously there is precedent of this happening and there was no legal ramifications against Nancy Pelosi at that time."

Seawright wasn't persuaded by her explanation.

"Well, again, Nancy Pelosi was asked to delay the swearing in, and Johnson could have sworn her in in the midst of it, in the midst of the government shutdown," he said.

"She said it was illegal," Sheffield interjected. "That's an important thing to accuse the speaker of the House of illegal criminal [conduct]."

"Well, there were lawsuits filed," Seawright fired back. "They are going to answer that question. There were lawsuits filed by the Arizona attorney general that the courts will ultimately decide whether it's legal or not. But the fact is, in the midst of the government shutdown, he could have sworn her in if he wanted to."

- YouTube youtu.be

'Full crisis for Mike Johnson': Massie predicts avalanche of GOP lawmakers will defy Trump

House Speaker Mike Johnson will finally swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) after lawmakers return to Washington, D.C., after nearly two months out of action, and that means the Jeffrey Epstein discharge petition will finally reach the necessary 218 signatures necessary to force the release of his criminal files by the Department of Justice.

Grijalva will be sworn in Wednesday afternoon, more than 50 days after winning a special election to replace her late father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), on Sept. 23, and she intends to sign the petition circulated by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) to force a vote on the full release of the Epstein files – which President Donald Trump has fought hard to avoid, reported Politico.

"That in itself will be the culmination of months of drama that blew up into a full crisis for Johnson this summer, with a GOP mutiny grinding the floor to a halt and forcing leaders to send the House home early for August recess," Politico reported. "The uproar over a possible Epstein cover-up faded but never disappeared entirely."

The rarely used mechanism will most likely come to a floor vote the first week of December, according to estimates by senior Republican and Democratic aides, and even if it passes the House, the measure would still require approval by the Senate – where it's expected to die – but the issue will reignite controversy over the well-connected late sex offender's crimes.

“I’m certain the House vote will succeed,” Massie told Politico. “Some Republican members who are not signers of the petition have told me they will vote for the measure when the vote is called. I suspect there will be many more.”

“I even wonder if Speaker Johnson might advise politically vulnerable members to vote for it,” Massie added.

Johnson has options to block the bill from coming to a floor vote, but has said he won't do that, and Republicans on the Rules Committee have told him they won't do it for him.

"GOP leadership circles estimate several dozen Republicans are considering backing the effort on the floor, even after Trump officials convinced several hard-liners to keep their signature off the discharge petition," Politico reported.

Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) have been outspoken in their support for the release of Epstein's files, despite intense pressure from the White House and senior Republican leadership, and they're expected to vote in favor.

“They’re all still on board,” Massie said.

Trump – a former longtime friend of Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell – has repeatedly insisted the matter is a "Democratic hoax," and Massie predicts a “last, desperate effort” by the White House to undermine the effort to release the DOJ files.

“But I expect that effort to fail,” Massie said.

“Even if one signer were to remove their name, there will be another member showing up later that will get us to 218,” Massie added, in an apparent reference to a special election next month in a safe Democratic seat in Texas. "All that matters is we reach 218.”

'Wait, wait, wait!' Mike Johnson hushes MAGA lawmaker shouting at disruptor

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) hushed his GOP House colleague Wednesday after she began shouting at a person disrupting Johnson’s press conference.

Speaking on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Johnson opened the presser to questions and called on a reporter when a voice could be heard shouting.

“I’ve called on somebody else,” Johnson said as the individual continued shouting over the reporter. “We’re having a press conference, thank you!”

The individual disrupting the presser, who based on Johnson’s response is likely a Democratic House member, continued shouting at Johnson, and yelled something about “starving the American people.”

Johnson fired back, demanding that she “should respect free speech!”

“I can’t hear you because we have someone who doesn’t respect the rights of their colleagues over here,” Johnson said. “I’d love to talk with you, come to my office, okay?”

The individual disrupting the presser then shouted “you have an obligation” before Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), among the most loyal members of Congress to President Donald Trump, fired back: “You have an obligation!”

Johnson immediately raised his hand to McClain, telling her “wait, wait wait,” an apparent attempt to quell her rage and avoid an all-out shouting match between the two.

"You should respect free speech!"

House @SpeakerJohnson snaps at someone disrupting the House GOP presser. pic.twitter.com/ujUIrTiOYt
— Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) November 5, 2025

Here's how the GOP is burning its own in the shutdown fight

Before the No Kings demonstrations two weekends ago, I suggested that the shutdown of the government would look different afterward.

Previously, the view had been that the congressional Democrats were demanding health insurance subsidies expanded during the Covid era. That made it look like a policy fight. If you wanted Obamacare subsidies renewed, you took their side. If you didn’t, you didn’t.

Then 7 million Americans came out in a massive display across 50 states. They protested against a president whose ambitions are clearly despotic and whose claims to authority are illegal and illegitimate.

Deepening the impression was Donald Trump’s reaction. He posted a fake AI video of him wearing a crown, flying a fighter jet and bombing protesters with what can only be called s--t. That, however, paled compared to him bulldozing the entire East Wing of the White House, an act of utter impunity for the law, the Constitution and the republic.

This combo of allegation and reaction appears to be reshaping some perceptions of the shutdown. Instead of fighting over health insurance premiums, which are painful enough, the Democrats look like they’re advancing a legitimate form of resistance against an illegitimate ruler.

This new perception came to light in reporting by the Associated Press published over the weekend: “Democrats are confident they have chosen a winning policy demand on health care plans offered under Affordable Care Act marketplaces, but there is an undercurrent that they are also fighting to halt Trump’s expansion of power” (my italics).

That report was featured on the front page of the Hartford Courant, under the headline: “Trump using shutdown to consolidate powers.”

The AP report says the Democrats’ resolve will be tested later this week. At that point, it will be a month since federal employees went without pay. SNAP benefits will end Nov. 1. (One in eight people lives on food stamps.) Plus there’s a shortage of air-traffic controllers. The report suggests the more airport delays there are, the more pressure there is on Democrats to vote for the GOP’s “clean CR.”

But the reverse is more likely to be true. The Republicans are feeling heat from below, as their supporters face dramatically increasing health insurance premiums, especially in states without expanded Medicaid coverage. Food stamps benefit plenty of Republicans, too. Oklahoma has the fourth-greatest number of recipients, according to one survey. Louisiana has the second-most. (New Mexico is No. 1.)

If I’m right, and the shutdown is being seen more broadly as legitimate resistance to Trump’s illegitimate rule, the point could be made more memorable by GOP voters going hungry while watching Trump build his gold-gilt “ballroom” paid for by “friends.” And if that pain goes on long enough, the Republicans risk reminding their base that, though they dislike the Democrats, their lives are entwined with their policies.

It’s the Republicans, not the Democrats, who need an off-ramp. They risk revealing that Trump’s power is more important to him, and to them, than the health, well-being and freedom of their supporters.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the legal explanation by the White House for why it can’t fund food stamps beyond Nov. 1 “certainly looks legitimate to me.”

“The contingency funds are not legally available to cover the benefits right now,” Johnson said.

The law, in other words, stops Trump from taking action.

But the law never stopped him before.

Most recently, the president broke federal law to cover the Pentagon’s payroll. (There is no military funding during a shutdown so the White House raided a separate account unrelated to defense funding in violation of the Antideficiency Act and Article 1 of the Constitution. He robbed the American people of their power to control their money)

So Trump will break the law to consolidate his power — in this case, in the hopes of buying the loyalty of those in the armed forces — but won’t break the law if anyone but him is the beneficiary of the crime.

And Johnson isn’t saying which is better.

In essence, Trump and the Republicans are acting like they can do whatever they want to the government, even inflict serious injury, in the belief that their base will stand behind them no matter what. They believe that they can hold their own people hostage in order to create leverage over the Democrats, and that the Democrats, in their rush to win over disillusioned Republicans, will pay their ransom.

That kind of thing has worked for as long as I can remember, but key to the Republicans’ success has always been the idea that government shutdowns were a consequence of policy disagreements and that resolutions to those disagreements were also a question of policy.

However, the Democrats have elevated, or are in the process of elevating, the shutdown so that it’s seen as a weapon against tyranny. After the No Kings protests and after Trump demolished the East Wing (and after a pardoned J6 insurrectionist threatened his life), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the Democrats were fighting corruption as much as they were fighting for affordable health care.

“We have an American president behaving like an organized crime boss, stealing taxpayer dollars in real-time in front of everyone in plain sight,” Jeffries said. “And the Republicans have nothing to say about the emerging crime scene at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Importantly, the Democrats are positioning themselves so that victory can’t come from Trump and the Republicans conceding to demands of policy – whether to renew health insurance subsidies, for instance. Victory can only come from them conceding to demands of power. Indeed, it’s a demand so noble that it’s worth pursuing at any cost.

The Republicans are used to burning their own people as leverage.

They are not used to the Democrats saying, “let them burn.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is among a handful of Republicans raising the idea of nuking the filibuster. (That’s the Senate rule that requires a supermajority of 60 votes for legislation to pass.) Right now, that’s being seen as a sign of strength. After all, the filibuster is the only thing the Democrats have to stop the Republicans.

But I think it’s the opposite.

The Republicans must be aware that even if they gave the Democrats what they asked for, the Democrats can’t accept without complicity in the “emerging crime scene at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” Expanded health insurance subsidies won’t be satisfactory, not when the demand is the return of congressional authority that was stolen by Trump.

And the Republicans must know that Trump will never do that. He will never stop acting like a criminal president, even if every Republican who voted for him sees their lives and livelihoods turned to ash.

GOP rep slams own party after being told it's 'willing to sacrifice you'

A GOP member of Congress slammed his own party in an interview with The New York Times' "The Daily" podcast on Friday, responding to claims that "party leaders are willing to sacrifice you."

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) was elected in 2022 in California's 3rd District and is openly frustrated with his party's handling of the government shutdown and how the House isn’t in session — but that's not all he's upset over.

He’s also against redistricting, which is now endangering his own seat in the House, and called it “incredibly destabilizing" especially when it happens mid-decade.

“I said from the moment this was on my radar that it shouldn’t be happening anywhere. I’m against it in Texas, I’m against it in California. It’s pure political opportunism,” Kiley said.

As a result of Texas redistricting, a demand President Donald Trump made in an effort to keep Republican control over the House, the move could result in Kiley getting drawn out of his own district in California as Gov. Gavin Newsom retaliates to Trump’s order to redistrict in Texas by responding in California.

Kiley still thinks he can win reelection, although his district might look different.

‘It sounds like your party leaders are willing to sacrifice you — in theory — for the party’s ongoing control of Congress and refusing to entertain the idea to introduce a bill that would stop that," host Michael Barbaro said.

“I don’t know what their motivations are, but their inaction is frustrating, certainly,” Kiley said.

Kiley is one of five Republicans in California "who are all but certain to lose their seats in the next midterm elections if voters grant final approval to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s newly drawn congressional districts," according to The Times.

He thinks the Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) needs to bring the House back and has had private conversations with him about it.

"I don't know what his real reason is... I haven't gotten any explanation that makes sense to me," Kiley said.