The new House speaker is Mike Johnson. Who?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2023
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
Correction: A previous version of this episode incorrectly stated where Rep. Tom Emmer is from. The audio has been updated to remove the error.
After three long, chaotic weeks, the nation finally has a new House speaker – U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson from Louisiana. So who is he? And how did Congress get here?
Read more:
On Wednesday, 220 Republicans finally chose their new House leader: a congressman from Louisiana named Mike Johnson.
But the man who’s second in line for the presidency is a relative unknown, even to political insiders. Philip Bump breaks down what is known about Rep. Johnson and how House Republicans finally came together to vote for the conservative congressman.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This afternoon, the House elected a new speaker. |
| 0:05.4 | Finally. |
| 0:06.4 | The race of the speaker in the hood isn't formed at all. |
| 0:09.6 | So, like Mike Johnson, then... |
| 0:11.6 | Cheers. |
| 0:14.6 | ...220 Republicans voted to make Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana their leader. |
| 0:23.4 | Therefore, the honorable Mike Johnson of the state of Louisiana, having received a majority |
| 0:27.9 | of votes cast as duly elected speaker of the House of Representatives for the 118th Congress. |
| 0:38.6 | That's right, a relatively unknown Republican from Louisiana, who has only been in Congress |
| 0:43.4 | since 2017, is now in charge of setting the legislative agenda for the House, helping |
| 0:50.4 | the country navigate some of its thorniest issues, and is second in line for the presidency. |
| 0:57.9 | So, um, you're probably asking yourself, who exactly is Mike Johnson? |
| 1:05.6 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 1:09.5 | I'm Ella Hayes-Addy. |
| 1:11.4 | It's Wednesday, October 25th. |
| 1:13.8 | Today, say hello to the new speaker of the House. |
| 1:18.5 | Post columnist Philip Bump tells me more about the man leading the House now, and why it |
| 1:23.2 | took Republicans this long to finally pick a leader. |
| 1:26.6 | All right, Phil, we're going to talk about everything who this person is, how we got |
| 1:36.4 | to this point, but am I crazy for being like, who is this congressman? |
| 1:42.4 | Like, how just unknown is he? |
| 1:44.7 | Well, I think a good measure of how unknown he is is the fact that when senators were asked |
... |
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