Seth Meyers
Late-night hosts both celebrated and condemned House Republicans’ choice for a new speaker of the House on Wednesday evening. After over three weeks of chaos and squabbling in Congress, all 220 Republicans in the House voted for Mike Johnson of Louisiana, “a far-right conservative that almost no one has heard of”, said Seth Meyers on Late Night.
“I think they’re trying to bore everyone into forgetting how extreme he is,” he continued. “Mike Johnson is the fake name they give you when you call tech support so it sounds like you’re talking to someone in Kansas when you’re definitely talking to someone in Albania.”
Johnson was so under the radar that even Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, admitted to a reporter that she would need to Google him before offering comment. “Well when you Google him, you’re going to need to put in more information than just the name Mike Johnson,” Meyers advised. “Mike Johnson is such a common name, most of us went to school with one.
“My Mike Johnson played baseball,” he added. “This Mike Johnson played a key role in the effort to overturn the election results” and was, according to the New York Times, the “most important architect” of the electoral college objections to the 2020 presidential election.
Nevertheless, he now leads the largest body of Congress and is second in line to the presidency, which Republicans celebrated with a large gathering on the Capitol steps. When asked about his unfounded objections to the 2020 election at a press conference, the caucus booed the reporter.
The response inflamed Meyers: “Imagine booing someone for asking a simple question after you paralyzed the government for three weeks of spectacle and humiliating incompetence where you screamed and yelled at each other like a bunch of street pigeons fighting over a french fry.”
Stephen Colbert
“Our long national nightmare is finally different,” said Stephen Colbert on the Late Show on the conclusion of the speakership chaos. “Mike Johnson – that is a name. He is the most generic-sounding congressional leader since the election of speaker James Kirkland Brand,” he joked.
“Finally, a man who appeals to all factions of the Republican party: the Maga faithful, the social conservatives, the white nationalists and the horny Beetlejuice goblins,” he added, as an image of Lauren Boebert was shown.
Johnson’s successful bid for speakership after several swift failures – Jim Jordan and Tom Emmer, among others – was facilitated by the fact that, according to Politico, there weren’t enough people who hated Johnson to oppose his rise. “You know what they say about Mike Johnson: to know him is to … meh,” Colbert joked.
“But don’t let the apparent blandness fool you – Johnson is not only an election denier, he played a leading role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election,” he continued. And Johnson holds other extreme views. In newspaper editorials, he has called homosexuality “inherently unnatural” and a “dangerous lifestyle” that could possibly destroy “the entire democratic system”.
As for Republicans’ celebration on the steps of the Capitol, Colbert had harsh words. “That’s not normal,” he said. “They celebrated their momentous achievement of having a leader. That’s the sort of ceremony that’s usually celebrating the passage of Medicare or ending the war. Instead, this was announcing ‘we have found the key to the executive washroom. By the way, the little soapy thing is empty, but we will fill it!’”
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel admitted that when it comes to Mike Johnson, “I’ve never heard of him, either.”
But he did learn that Johnson defended Trump in one of his impeachment trials and voted to decertify the 2020 election results. “So he checks off all the important boxes. Also anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-conspiracy theory – he seems terrific,” Kimmel deadpanned.
“Not only is he not the best choice for speaker, you can’t even definitively say Mike Johnson is the best Mike Johnson they could’ve chosen,” said Kimmel, listing possible alternative Mike Johnsons including the US sprinter and at least five players from the NFL.
“You could go to the middle of the phone book and pick any of the hundreds of Mike Johnsons, each one would be a better choice for speaker because not one of them tried to overthrow the presidential election in the House he now represents,” he continued. “But instead, Republicans swipe way right on this Mike Johnson, who looks like a kid dressed up as a congressman for Halloween.”
Joe Biden said he looked forward to working with Johnson to find common ground, and “Johnson said he looked forward to burning democracy to the ground,” Kimmel joked.
