Mike Johnson is the new Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America. He is a brilliant constitutional scholar, a family man, a devout Christian Southern Baptist, a fellow from Louisiana, and someone I was elected to Congress alongside in the House Judiciary Committee.
00:01:03.460This is an exciting and special episode of Firebrand because we've got a Speaker of the House,
00:01:10.640MAGA Mike Johnson, a brilliant constitutional scholar, a family man, a devout Christian Southern
00:01:17.580Baptist, a fellow from Louisiana, someone I was elected to Congress alongside, someone who sits
00:01:23.400literally next to me in the House Judiciary Committee.
00:01:25.820We work together on the Armed Services Committee to make sure that our military is protected, that we are
00:01:31.000strong, and that we are not overburdened by endless foreign wars without any goal or purpose or vision.
00:01:40.020I cannot tell you how excited and vindicated I feel that Mike Johnson is the Speaker of the House right now.
00:01:47.120I made all of you a promise when we filed the motion to vacate that we would have a Speaker of the House who was more conservative and more honest.
00:01:56.180And we have checked those boxes thoroughly with electing Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.
00:02:03.220Such a great guy, such a great father, such a great husband.
00:02:06.260He's got a terrific wife, Kelly Johnson.
00:02:08.440And I want to give you a little taste first of his first remarks as House Speaker.
00:02:14.480To my colleagues, I want to thank you all for the trust that you have instilled in me to lead us in this historic and unprecedented moment that we're in.
00:02:26.620The challenge before us is great, but the time for action is now, and I will not let you down.
00:03:32.860We're going to get to all the things that Kevin McCarthy did to try to scuttle this moment and sabotage Mike Johnson and really all of us in just a minute.
00:03:41.840But I want to get to the plan, because it's not just about the man, it's about the plan.
00:03:47.100Today, hot off the presses, we get a letter from House Speaker Mike Johnson regarding the path forward for the Congress.
00:03:54.220Go ahead and put that up on the screen for me, and I'll read you part of this message from the Speaker.
00:04:02.540I would begin by proposing the following immediate steps concerning our unfinished appropriations bills and our schedule for the remainder of this Congress.
00:04:11.680We all understand that our next speaker must be prepared to negotiate from a position of strength with the Democrat-controlled Senate and the White House.
00:04:20.480The only way to secure that position is for the House to have passed all 12 of our appropriations measures.
00:04:28.680I am confident we can work together to accomplish that objective quickly in a manner that delivers on our principled commitments to rein in wasteful spending and put our country back on a path to fiscal responsibility.
00:04:41.900He continues with a detailed calendar description that we will do the energy and water appropriations bills this week.
00:04:50.500We will do interior, environment, transportation, and the legislative branch next week.
00:04:55.660We will do criminal justice thereafter.
00:04:58.920And then in the week of November 13th, we will do the Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services, and ag as well.
00:05:07.700This is an actual plan centered around single-subject spending bills.
00:05:14.020It's a plan that doesn't require us to surrender to omnibus legislation or continuing resolutions that lead to more continuing resolutions.
00:05:24.180I had some reporters ask me, oh, well, if Mike Johnson needs some sort of bridge government funding bill, will you oust him if he needs that?
00:05:33.420And we will not apply the exact same standard to Mike Johnson that we applied to Kevin McCarthy because Kevin McCarthy was so insincere and duplicitous about what he was doing.
00:07:29.880And so Mark Molinaro, a moderate freshman Republican from New York, stands up and makes sort of an obvious but yet still out-of-the-box suggestion after Tom Emmer had withdrawn from the speaker contest yesterday.
00:07:46.340Molinaro said, look, why don't we just take a poll to see where people stand on the guy who came in second to Emmer, who was Mike Johnson, and see if that's someone we could rally behind.
00:07:56.380And to do that, to take that path, we needed unanimous consent from all the members.
00:08:28.220Because as Mike was working to bring together the coalition, as he was gelling our team, McCarthy inspired a write-in campaign to get people to vote for McCarthy.
00:08:55.080And so, Johnson, being the total, I think, sophisticated thinker that he is, along with Steve Scalise, said,
00:09:03.980Well, if we've got 43 people still voting for McCarthy, let's have a roll call.
00:09:08.860Let's see if those 43 members will stand up and say they still want McCarthy back and suffer the ridicule that that would have brought down on them, rightfully.
00:09:17.620And those 43 votes, when we went to a roll call, withered to nothing.
00:09:25.440Not a single person voted for Kevin McCarthy publicly, even though they were willing to do it anonymously, in private, in a secret meeting.
00:09:34.460After Mike Johnson was designated, it's typical for the speaker-designate to go out to the microphones and address the media about their plans, their vision, their prevailing in the designation election.
00:09:49.980And Mike was the first one who said, No, I'm not leaving this room and going out in front of the cameras.
00:09:54.480You're all going to stand here with me, and we will invite them in, and we will do this as a team, all united together.
00:10:02.840And he began that press conference in humble and sincere prayer.
00:10:06.900It was so touching to see this man of God with one hand on the Bible, with one hand raised, talking about how we can fulfill America's great vision together.
00:11:25.460And, it's always amazing to see what the Internet will generate.
00:11:29.320One thing that Speaker Mike Johnson has generated has been a lot of intense, rigorous oversight of some of the worst people in the United States federal government.
00:11:40.760The clip I am about to show you is Mike Johnson questioning Attorney General Merrick Garland.
00:11:51.060What you are about to watch is the most effective questioning that any member has engaged in this Congress with any witness.
00:12:00.660And, I do not say that lightly because I think I'm pretty good at asking tough questions of people who don't want to give honest answers.
00:12:07.380But, there is nothing like what you're about to watch.
00:12:09.540So, what was going on at the time, you had critical race theory sweeping across school boards and curriculum offices in public education all over the country.
00:12:19.780And, then, Garland has to deal with the fact that his own son-in-law is making money off of critical race theory.
00:12:29.220While, then, Garland is going after the parents who are complaining about it.
00:12:39.600Mr. Attorney General, millions of Americans are deeply concerned today that instead of addressing the most pressing issues facing our country,
00:12:50.340we're watching the Biden-Garland Justice Department be weaponized.
00:12:54.960That you are using your authorities now to advance far-left policies and attack Republican-led state actions and erode constitutional norms.
00:13:02.700The most recent case in point has been brought up this morning.
00:13:05.300Your memorandum directing the FBI and other Department of Justice officials to get involved in local school board debates.
00:13:11.940It concerns us that it was issued just five days after the National School Board Association sent a letter to President Biden which referred to concerned parents
00:13:19.320as the equivalent of, quote, domestic terrorists and perpetrators of hate crimes, unquote.
00:13:25.080Given the timing of all this, your memo appears to have been motivated by politics more than any pressing federal law enforcement need.
00:13:31.760This is concerning to us, and it's worthy of investigation.
00:13:35.300It also concerns us that your actions may have been motivated by your family's financial stake in this issue.
00:13:41.900Published reports show that your son-in-law co-founded a company called Panorama Education.
00:13:47.360We now know that that company publishes and sells critical race theory and so-called anti-racism materials to schools across the country.
00:13:54.300And it works with school districts nationwide to obtain and analyze data on students, often without parental consent.
00:14:01.660On its website, the company brags that it's surveyed more than 13 million students in the U.S.
00:14:06.360It's raised $76 million from powerful investors, including people like Mark Zuckerberg, just since 2017.
00:14:15.980Are you familiar with Title V of the Code of Federal Regulations, which addresses the rules of impartiality for executive branch employees and officials?
00:14:24.580I am very familiar with it, and I want to be clear once again that there's nothing in this memorandum which has any effect on the kinds of curriculums that are taught or the ability of parents to complain about the kinds of…
00:14:41.220I understand your position on the free speech of parents.
00:14:45.340The question is the thing that has concerned many of those parents that are showing up at these school board meetings, the very basis of their objection and their vigorous debate, as you mentioned earlier, is the curricula, the very curricula that your son-in-law is selling.
00:15:02.160So to millions of Americans, I mean my constituents, I was home all weekend, I got an earful about this.
00:15:08.020But subpart E of that federal regulation says an employee of the executive branch is discouraged from engaging in conduct that's likely to affect the financial interest of someone close to them.
00:15:20.120Your son-in-law, your daughter, clearly meets that definition.
00:15:25.620And so the question is, did you follow that regulation?
00:15:29.960Did you have the appropriate agency ethic official look into this?
00:15:33.460Did you seek guidance as the federal regulation requires?
00:15:36.300This memorandum is aimed at violence and threats of violence.
00:15:40.920I understand that, but did you seek, excuse me, did you seek ethics counsel before you issued a letter that directly relates to the financial interest of your family?
00:16:15.580You're not answering my question, Mr. Attorney General.
00:16:17.500With all due respect, will you submit to an ethics review of this matter, yes or no?
00:16:21.180There is no company in America or, hopefully, no law-abiding citizen in America who believes that threats of violence should not be prevented.
00:16:30.620There are no conflicts of interest that anyone could have.
00:16:33.840According to you, but sir, with due respect, that's the purpose of the federal regulation.
00:16:37.940We need objective third parties to review our activities.
00:16:41.060You don't get to make that decision yourself.
00:17:07.860There are no conflicts of interest involved when the Justice Department…
00:17:11.440Okay, okay, according to you, I got that.
00:17:13.680I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but you are not respecting our rules, our constitutional norms, and the federal law that directly applies to your activities.
00:17:24.240This is why people are losing faith in our institutions.
00:17:26.680They're losing faith in this Department of Justice.
00:17:28.620And you and I both know, as constitutional attorneys, that if the people lose their faith in our system of justice, if they lose their faith in the idea that justice is blind, that they're not two standards,
00:17:40.360that there's one standard of the law, and that everybody…
00:17:44.860Oh, the time of the gentleman has indeed not expired.
00:17:51.180It is only getting started from the speaker's rostrum.
00:17:54.400I will definitely miss Mike Johnson sitting next to me in the House Judiciary Committee, really leaning into the important work that needs to be done.
00:18:01.400And there is some criticism of me still that I am getting in the way of that work.
00:18:14.640How were the impeachment hearings going under Kevin McCarthy?
00:18:19.020Because what I saw was one impeachment hearing that began with the best Republican witness saying that he didn't believe our evidence supported impeachment.
00:18:29.100So that's what you get with someone like Kevin McCarthy and his experience trying to guide this when the reality is with a brilliant litigator and lawyer and constitutional scholar like Mike Johnson,
00:18:43.280you're going to see us move at, I think, a lot more effective pace and with a lot more just proficiency, proficiency that you hadn't seen under Kevin McCarthy.
00:18:55.840So judge us by the work of the Johnson speakership, if not the reputation and the skill set that you just saw on display as he was skewering Merrick Garland.
00:19:52.160And frankly, until we get the White House, the Biden administration is able to ameliorate any effort that we put forward to try to secure the border.
00:20:01.660But you've got to have somebody who understands the border.
00:20:04.800Not the border between K Street and the Capitol, but the border between the United States and Mexico.
00:20:11.940And Mike Johnson showed that in his questioning of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, who undeniably deserves censure, impeachment, ending his salary.
00:20:22.980He deserves every consequence that the United States Congress can bring to bear.
00:20:27.720Take a listen to Mike Johnson questioning Secretary Mayorkas.
00:21:06.820We've had people testify under oath that say, and you just defined the term, you're telling me that you don't know who determines what is false?
00:21:13.860Congressman, what we do at CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is identify the tactics that adverse nation states use to weaponize disinformation.
00:21:37.760The reason the framers of our Constitution did not create an exception for quote-unquote false information from the First Amendment is because they didn't trust the government to determine what it is.
00:21:46.460And you have whole committees of people in your agency trying to determine what they define as false or misinformation.
00:22:06.960The court found specifically it's a finding of fact that is not disputed by the government defendants, the Biden administration, your agency, the FBI, or DHS.
00:22:14.400They determined you made you and all of your cohorts made no distinction between domestic speech and foreign speech.
00:22:22.480So don't stand there and tell me under oath that you only focused on adversaries around the world, foreign actors.
00:22:44.620Mike Johnson is a bit of a cult figure in Florida's first congressional district because as we have shared our questioning of attorneys general and FBI directors over the years,
00:22:55.780with Mike Johnson sitting next to me, you always get the best reactions, the thoughtfulness, the engagement.
00:23:03.320He is not only a terrific communicator and a terrific interrogator, he is a terrific listener.