Today we're going to talk about Mike Johnson's semi-successful speaker election and what it means about the House and its relationship to Trump.

And I've got two interviews this week. I speak with Senator Adam Schiff about the prospect of Trump retaliating against him and other members of the January 6th Committee and the Senate's plan for facilitating independent media.

And I'm joined by former Pete Buttigieg Senior Advisor, Liz Smith, that discuss how

Democrats can win in red states. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.

After one really long, really drawn-out round, Mike Johnson managed to cobble together

enough support to reach the 218 vote threshold to retain his grip on the speaker's gavel.

This happened after there were three defections that included Thomas Massey, Ralph Norman,

and Keith's self, only for Trump to call Norman and self, ultimately getting them to rescind

their votes for the other Republicans and change them to Johnson.

And let's be clear, Trump needed Johnson to win.

He endorsed the guy, which doesn't come without a price.

That endorsement meant that Johnson would promote Trump's agenda without presenting himself as an

obstacle to his worst impulses, that he would be a malleable little foot soldier, which is

exactly what Trump needs. In exchange, he gets Trump's green light, his endorsement, which means that

the rest of the GOP falls in line.

And when those three Republicans dared step out of line, maybe they want their 15 seconds

of attention, all it takes is a phone call from Trump and maybe the threat of a primary

challenge funded by his human credit card, Elon Musk, and suddenly they fall right back in line.

And the reason that this is so striking is because, let's not forget, this is the same

GOP that just two years ago needed 15 rounds to elect a speaker.

For this party of arsonous and chaos agents to offer barely any dissent this time around

goes to show the extent to which they have contracted every ounce of their autonomy over to Trump.

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