Mike Johnson: The Man Who Knew Too Little

When all non-essential government services were suspended at the beginning of October, that also seemed to include the House Speaker Mike Johnson’s brain-processing power. But unlike the rest of the government, the Louisiana Republican has no intention of turning it back on.

Take for instance, Johnson’s recent non-response to the mounting calls that the Pentagon turn over footage of the U.S. military issuing a second strike on an alleged drug trafficking vessel. When asked directly on December 2 whether he believed the Defense Department should release the unedited video, Johnson replied that he wouldn’t “prejudge” whether the strikes had violated any laws. He then noted that he was “pretty busy yesterday” and “didn’t follow a lot of the news.”

This peculiar tic first became noticeable when Johnson started to deliver daily press conferences about the so-called “Democrat Shutdown” in October. The issue wasn’t just that the speaker claimed not to know anything about his own government, but that he insisted on answering questions anyway. After shamelessly purporting his own ignorance, Johnson would then proceed to pull political discourse away from reality.

There were several times when Johnson seemed to think he could get away with simply pretending not to read the news—specifically when it came to turning a blind eye to the abuses of Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

In late October, Johnson claimed he couldn’t comment on a Presbyterian minister whom federal immigration agents shot in the face with a pepper ball during an anti-ICE protest near Chicago. “I haven’t seen or heard any of those videos,” Johnson said—despite the fact that just two weeks earlier, he’d been asked directly about the incident. At the time, Johnson replied, “I’ve not seen them cross the line yet,” quickly moving on to accuse protesters of violence.