Politicians returned to the Congress in Washington, D.C., this week from their August break, and House Speaker Mike Johnson was eager to get back to not working for the American people.
Rep. Johnson, R-La., serves only one person as speaker – Donald Trump. He'll do anything for the former president now attempting a return to the White House. Johnson will even threaten to shut down the government.
Johnson inserted what he had to know was a poison pill in his new proposal to keep funding the government until March. It injects one of Trump's most common lies – that Democrats rely on votes from noncitizens to win federal elections like the presidency – into the everyday duties of politicians running the government.
Or, in Johnson's case, not running it.
His threat to push our government into a shutdown has nothing to do with what happens when government funding runs out on Sept. 30 and everything to do with Nov. 5, when voters pick our next president.
Trump on Tuesday doubled down the demand he made less than two weeks ago that Republicans shut down the government, lying on his social media platform that "DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO 'STUFF' VOTER REGISTRATIONS WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS." Have you ever met a rational person who conversed on social media that way?
Johnson, with a constituency of one these days, appeared on CNN Tuesday afternoon and supported Trump, even as his own Republican colleagues were backing away from him on all this.
If the House speaker wants to swap in shameless pandering for running the government, then we........