What’s a Mike Johnson?
And the winner of the House Speaker showdown is ... Congressman Mike Johnson! You probably haven't heard of him, but his resume will sound familiar: election denial, a thirst to end Medicare and Social Security as we know them, a fondness for national abortion bans, and a desire to criminalize gay marriage, among many more MAGA favorites. Former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann joins the show to break down Donald Trump's week of bad legal news. And then: President Biden is about to face a new primary opponent. Should he be worried? For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
- Duration
- 1h 4m
- Broadcast on
- 26 Oct 2023
- Audio Format
- other
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(upbeat music) - Welcome to Pilate of America, I'm John Favreau. - I'm Dan Pfeiffer. - On today's show, Joe Biden is about to get a primary opponent, Mark Meadows flips on Donald Trump and former DOJ prosecutor Andrew Weisman joins to help us break down the week of bad legal news for the criminal defendant Republican front runner. But first, the new speaker of the house is allegedly a guy called Mike Johnson. A name that seems intentionally difficult to Google. Just made that one up so you Google Mike Johnson, you don't know what you're getting. Over the last three weeks, Republicans went from a Kevin to a Steve, to a Jim, to a Tom before reaching outside their comfort zone and settling on a Mike. The 51 year old Louisiana congressman who seems just fine with being everyone's fifth choice. Johnson won unanimous support from his Republican colleagues. He's extreme enough for people like Matt Gaetz who calls him Maga Mike. Maga Mike, that's what Matt Gaetz calls him. That's what Donald Trump's calling him too. But he's apparently anonymous enough for the 18 Republicans in Biden districts who are betting that their constituents won't find out they voted for a speaker who talks like this. - You know, we don't live in a democracy because a democracy is two wolves in a lamb deciding what's for dinner. Okay, it's not just majority rules. It's a constitutional republic. And the founders set that up because they followed the biblical admonition on what a civil society is supposed to look like. - Roe v. Wade gave constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children in America. Period? You think about the implications of that on the economy. We're all struggling here to cover the bases of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest. If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn't be going upside down and toppling over like this. - And you know, the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with a software by dominion. But there's a lot of merit to that. The fix was in. You know, I could give an example after example in all these states.
Transcription truncated.
And the winner of the House Speaker showdown is ... Congressman Mike Johnson! You probably haven't heard of him, but his resume will sound familiar: election denial, a thirst to end Medicare and Social Security as we know them, a fondness for national abortion bans, and a desire to criminalize gay marriage, among many more MAGA favorites. Former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann joins the show to break down Donald Trump's week of bad legal news. And then: President Biden is about to face a new primary opponent. Should he be worried? For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.