Most people don't know too much about the new Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson. He's gone mostly under the media's radar during his time in Congress. So, Glenn finds it odd that the corporate media immediately started attacking him. But that might be "a pretty good sign," Glenn argues. "Be cautious," he warns, but we might finally have a good speaker. And his first test, the next government spending bill, is right around the corner.
TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Oh, my gosh, the new speaker is here. You are excited?
STU: Mike Johnson.
GLENN: He's the one who we've been looking for. He's the one.
Now, let me tell you a little bit about what I know about Mike Johnson. Okay. Now that we have that covered, let me tell you how I view this.
The media loves Mike -- or hates Mike Johnson.
STU: Today.
GLENN: Hates him. Yeah. Hates him.
STU: Passionately hate him.
GLENN: Remember when McCarthy was Hitler.
STU: Oh, yeah. He was the most right-wing Speaker in history.
GLENN: Yeah, this is Hitler's Hitler. This is the one who Hitler looked up to. Oh, my gosh. That guy is bad.
STU: I noticed that in the coverage. All of a sudden, Kevin McCarthy is a moderate guy. This guy, he's crazy.
GLENN: Oh, he's nuts.
Okay. So here's the thing.
I'm just going to give you. I want you to do. I want you to view this in a different way.
I remember being on the air, when the -- I don't remember, white or black smoke came out of -- of the Vatican. And we were like, got a new pope.
And the media was like, oh, we're going to hate all these popes. All these popes, they're bad popes.
This pope is going to be a really bad pope. They're so bigoted. And then Francis, they pulled out the name.
I mean, immediately, within ten minutes. Everyone on CNN, MSNBC, was like, oh, he's a good pope. He's one of the best popes ever.
He's going to be, wow.
We love this guy. And I remember looking at Stu saying, uh-oh. There's something really wrong with this guy. Okay?
STU: Uh-oh pap.
GLENN: So what did we do?
We didn't know. We had a pretty good indication, because the media loved him.
Seeing that the media does not love Johnson, I think that's a pretty good sign.
But just like this pope, I didn't want to say, uh-oh. More than, be cautious.
So I'm going to say the same thing here. Be cautious.
But maybe, we have a good pope. Or, I mean, a good speaker.
Unlike, I said, be cautious. This guy could be a nightmare.
Be cautious.
This guy might be good.
STU: Yeah. Look, it could be good.
His voting record, isn't all that much better than McCarthy's. Pretty much the same.
GLENN: But McCarthy was not that bad.
STU: It seems like a catastrophe.
The question was, is the risk worth it, for this type of outcome?
As we said in the beginning, most likely, what will happen, is someone similar, like McHenry, or McCarthy or Scalise. Is the guy that will get through. And that's probably what will happen.
He is conservative. Like, he's very good on issues like pro-life. He didn't have that problem with McCarthy really either.
And, of course, they're not going to ban abortion. Well, they only have the House. Like, that won't happen.
GLENN: Right. So here's the thing.
We will know quite quickly, because we have the spending bill coming up.
And what a surprise, it happens right before the holidays. Happens right before Thanksgiving. Huh.
Nothing bad ever happens in Congress. When we all go away, for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
STU: Right. We have our holiday parties. And they have their holiday parties. And their holiday parties are much better than ours. They spent trillions of dollars.
GLENN: Right. So we'll see. With this first holiday party.
If we --
STU: He's already indicated, Glenn, by the way, he will support a spending deal to go forward.
So this is not like a guy who will reverse the things like Matt Gaetz said, for example. He was opposed. He was upset about. This is a guy who he outwardly said, he wants to sign a short-term spending deal, to get us through these times, so the government doesn't shut down.
So, again, I think you'll get similar -- that's not the worst thing in the world.
GLENN: How long is the short-term thing? Like, if you give it to February. I'm not thrilled with this, by any stretch.
Because something will come you up. And they will be like, you know what, we need a little more time.
Short spending bills is not the answer. However, a -- a CR is really bad. And if he gives us another continuing resolution, where they don't -- they don't -- they don't even try to put spending, back where it belongs, there's trouble.
STU: I mean, look, they're going to spend some sort.
They will get some sort of spending package through. It might be short-term. It might be more of a continuing resolution.
They're going to do it. The question is whether there will be any concessions. You may get a few concessions to conservatives.
Of course, with those concessions, always come concessions to the left.
So you might say, well, we will not spend this many dollars on this thing, that conservatives don't like.
Maybe you cut some of the Ukraine spending out. Whatever the issue of the day is.
Of course, at the same time, to get this stuff through, what usually happens is there's little gifts to the moderate side of the Republicans.
And in this case, because you have to work with the Senate and the president on it, you wind up giving concessions to people on the left too.
There's only so much of what a Speaker can do, which is part of the reason why the last few weeks didn't make all that much sense. Right? They can't do much.
Hopefully at the very least, and it seems like he will be. He will be good on these investigations. He won't be Jim Jordan on them.
But he at least can be someone who is aggressive, and hopefully allows the truth to come out, and that's the main thing that the House can do right now.