Mike Johnson and John Thune Play Good Cop, Bad Cop to Ease Chaos

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have settled into a routine to navigate difficult politics: Johnson tells his members yes and Thune tells the House no.

In today’s Congress, with slim GOP majorities, each leader has battles within their own chamber. But across the Capitol, Johnson and Thune have worked out a delicate balance: Thune provides a reality check while Johnson offers a sympathetic ear to his lawmakers’ wide-ranging views.

And during weeks like this one, Thune sometimes serves as a punching bag for Johnson to hide behind on difficult House votes, where he can only lose two members and still pass things on party lines with all lawmakers voting.

The dynamic is a key reason Congress was able to move past two hot-button fights this week: reauthorization of a controversial spy powers tool, and a vote to finally fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 76-day shutdown.

Their relationship will be critical to passing the other items atop Republicans’ to-do list, including another ambitious party-line bill to fund their priorities before the midterm elections. The two are regularly in coordination, meeting weekly to talk about legislative priorities.

“Leader Thune and I are in almost constant contact, our staffs are, almost every day,” Johnson said this week. Despite that coordination, they don’t always move in lockstep, instead pursuing the strategy best suited to their chamber.

Listening to Dissenters

For Johnson, that strategy involves listening to his disparate conference’s demands before high-stakes votes, something that has insulated him from the rank-and-file backlash that doomed some of his predecessors.

This week, he spent hours meeting with his most troublesome members as they warred with each other, ultimately offering concessions to the rebels.

Thanks to Johnson’s appeasement strategy, House conservatives got a central bank digital currency ban attached to a reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act the House passed Wednesday. It was a symbolic victory, as the bill was quickly scrapped by the Senate in favor of a clean short-term extension, something Johnson and his conservative backers expected.

House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to members of the media this week as Congress worked through a packed schedule.

Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Even the most notorious dissidents in the House GOP aren’t blaming Johnson for the loss.

Read more: Hardline Digital Currency Push Upends Lawmakers’ Spy Powers Plan

“John Thune is an issue,” said conservative firebrand Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who was one of the members holding up FISA this week.

Conservatives are growing increasingly frustrated that no matter what they do, in their eyes, the Senate is there to disrupt it.

“They have total disrespect for the House,” Freedom Caucus member Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) said of the Senate. “As we’re working through everything, they basically said we will take nothing that the House did.”

This doesn’t mean everyone in the House GOP is thrilled with Johnson right now. Audible yelling could be heard on the House floor and in private meetings Wednesday as Republicans fumed about the deals Johnson negotiated. Still, Johnson’s toughest critics tend to give him far more grace than his predecessor Kevin McCarthy received.

“He’s in a tough spot,” Self said of Johnson.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), another member of the raucous House Freedom Caucus, equated Johnson’s job to “nailing Jell-O to a wall.”

Norman was a leading advocate for attaching the CBDC ban to the FISA reauthorization, which House leadership initially resisted but later allowed.

“All we can do is control the House,” Norman said of the language being scrapped in the Senate.

Senate Sympathizes

Thune, for his part, is sympathetic to what Johnson needs to do to get his caucus in line—even if the back and forth jamming creates headaches for the both of them.

“He has to do what he has to do,” Thune said. “I know that.”

Thune said both chambers have differing hurdles with the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, and that he knows Johnson needs every Republican in his chamber. He called that a “real challenge on a good day.”

“We work through the differences, but recognize that part of it is just institutionally by design the way the two bodies function is really different,” Thune said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the chambers’ varied rules are bound to create differences.

Photographer: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Senate Republicans blame the differences between the two chambers for the problems, even if they don’t always understand them. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called the House a “total black box.”

“I try not to watch what’s going on over there,” Hawley said.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said both Johnson and Thune “have tough jobs” in “demanding circumstances.”

“I understand the House has some frustrations, but I think Senator Thune is doing a solid job,” Hoeven said. “He works very hard to try to accommodate not only the Republican caucus in the House, but work closely with Speaker Johnson.”

Even if their own chambers understand the challenges, the dynamic for the leaders and the blame game could still bring more woes to the Republican conference as they move forward with more challenging votes on their agenda.

“It’s the problem of having slender majorities,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said. “It’s a tough job.”