Copyright inquisitr
Donald Trump is once again flexing his grip on House leadership, according to insiders who say the president has been privately boasting about how easily he can steer Speaker Mike Johnson. “I’m the speaker and the president,” Trump is understood to have said per NYT, a line two people with knowledge of his remarks relayed to the New York Times. The quip, delivered as Washington lurches through a grinding shutdown fight, reads less like a joke and more like a mission statement for a party still running on Trump’s timetable. The dynamic is hardly subtle. Even before Johnson moved to suspend Congress from October 1, critics were already calling him overly deferential to Trump, a speaker who follows rather than leads. Johnson’s defenders argue he is simply keeping faith with an agenda voters endorsed. His opponents counter that the House has become a staging ground for the executive’s priorities, a place where separation of powers is treated like a suggestion rather than a rule. In Trump’s orbit, Johnson’s value is measured by compliance. The speaker helped marshal Republicans behind the White House’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” spending push earlier in the year, the kind of all-in package that let the administration claim momentum across a grab bag of priorities, energy dominance, border security, abortion restrictions, education reform, all wrapped in an America First bow. The message, stick with the brand, move as one, do not blink. That playbook has only hardened since the latest standoff began. Johnson has refused calls to reconvene the House until senior Democrats show movement on Republican budget demands, a stance that thrills hardliners and infuriates moderates who worry the damage will outlast the showdown. The posture looks familiar, dig in, deny the other side oxygen, frame any concession as a betrayal. It is also the posture most aligned with Trump’s instincts, escalate until someone else breaks. The flashpoints keep piling up. Johnson’s critics say he crossed a line by refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva, a Democratic Congresswoman-elect who would otherwise cast a key vote in a pending petition to force a floor decision on new Justice Department findings tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case. As the official responsible for administering the oath, Johnson has claimed he lacks the authority to do so, a position Democrats call absurd. The politics are messy, Trump has long encouraged conspiratorial chatter around Epstein, but renewed scrutiny of his own ties to the disgraced financier has turned the case into a liability for his administration. Rather than back off, Johnson has spent the week flooding friendly media with the same core argument, Democrats own the shutdown, the president’s moves are justified, the critics are hysterical. He has defended Trump’s decision to pardon former Congressman George Santos, framing it as proof that the administration believes in redemption. He has waved off concerns over a sitting president seeking $230 million in damages from the Justice Department, describing it as a legitimate pursuit after years of investigations. He has even backed Trump’s plan to tear down the White House East Wing and replace it with a grand ballroom, promising the result will be “glorious.” If the behind-the-scenes quote is accurate, Trump’s line about being both speaker and president is not just a dig, it is a diagnosis. Johnson’s conduct in recent weeks, according to those same insiders, has only reinforced the perception that the gavel belongs to Trump as much as it does to the man holding it.
