Dem
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GOP
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Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) officially joined the world's oldest profession yesterday, traveling to Mar-a-Lago to yield himself up to Donald Trump (who is, of course, a longtime supporter of that profession). It is not known if Johnson's actions on Friday caused the alarm on his son's Covenant Eyes app to go off.
During their joint press conference, Johnson wore a sh**-eating grin as he nodded and agreed with Trump that there are lots and lots of undocumented immigrants out there who are planning to cast ballots in this November's elections. The Speaker put the number at "hundreds of thousands," and described it as a "serious problem." Trump, for his part, suggested the total is actually in the "millions and millions." Does he say that because he always has to one-up everyone else? Or because you would have to subtract millions and millions of votes from the totals of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in order for Trump to have won the popular vote? Probably both. For his part, Johnson must be wondering where it all went wrong, and how he got hooked into this. In any event, the two men's lies really aren't all that interesting, but if you want more details and a debunking from CNNs fact-checkers, click here.
There are up to three immediate implications of this intercourse. The first is that Trump let his footsoldiers in the House know that they didn't have to keep opposing the FISA renewal. And so, the FISA Section 702 bill passed yesterday, on a strongly bipartisan 273-147 vote. If the Senate approves, then the FISA powers will only be renewed for 2 years, rather than the usual 5. Also, the other part of FISA, Title 1, is still pending.
Second, Trump specifically took time to congratulate Johnson on his work, strumpeting... er, trumpeting: "He's doing about as good as you're going to do." This is a pretty clear message to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and her would-be allies when it comes to vacating the chair. Greene has stuck her neck out a bit here, but it's also the case that the only thing that could plausibly lead to her losing an election would be if Trump turned against her. So, we would guess the threat to vacate is going to quietly go away.
Third, and finally, Trump shared some thoughts with Johnson on aid for Ukraine. It would appear that the former president recognizes that some money is going to the Ukrainians whether he likes it or not, and he does not want to be on the losing side of that. So, he's pushing for the money to be a loan rather than direct aid. That is somewhat meaningless, because such "loans" are rarely paid back by the country that receives them. Still, if Johnson carefully walks both sides of the street, he may be able to convince some members that it's really a loan and some members that it's really not a loan, and maybe get a majority that way. Yes indeed, Johnson is going to have to be a very skillful streetwalker from here on out. (Z)