Speaker Mike Johnson insists he is not taking orders from Donald Trump, yet continues to rubber stamp the former President’s demand to shoot down any Democrat-initiated immigration legislation in advance of the election.

Can the Speaker point to one instance he has not been a mouthpiece for the former President? He has relentlessly agreed with him since the Election denial campaign of 2020. The evidence favors a House Speaker with his “pants on fire.”

The Speaker depends on the short memory of American voters. When no one was listening, he said,

“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House,”  in a lengthy post on Facebook on Aug. 7, 2015, before he was elected to Congress and a day after the first Republican primary debate of the campaign cycle. [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/us/politics/mike-johnson-donald-trump.html ]

Challenged in the comments page by someone defending Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson responded: “I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”

Somewhere in Mike Johnson’s evolution as a political animal, he became a henchman for the former President, became an Election Denier, and, complying with Trump’s expectations, now promises to block legislation to reinforce border security. Even his reluctant support could save lives and decrease illegal immigration in the short term. At least he could let the bill show its inadequacy until Trump was elected to a new administration. The danger is that it might succeed in alleviating the problem. How inconvenient that would be for Mr. Trump’s campaign!

Politicians have the prerogative to change their minds, but they probably should make a good story about why. Not political convenience. Not appeasement of power-brokers. Not compromising with a man who “lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.” There’s no explaining how Rep. Mike Johnson became a born-again believer in Donald Trump.

And there’s no explanation of how a born-again believer could become a disciple of a man who “would break more things than he fixes.  . . . a hot head by nature . . . a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”  Those were prophetic words about Donald Trump in 2015.   Not these words about Trump’s denial of the Election results of 2020:  “I take him at his word. I do believe he believes that.”  This is the same man Johnson said, “lacks a moral center.”

So how do we reconcile the Mike Johnson who warned us about Trump in 2015 with ““I’m all in for President Trump, I expect he’ll be our nominee, and he’s going to win it . . .” https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/politics/mike-johnson-donald-trump-endorsement-president/index.html.

I think someone’s pants are on fire.