Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson's Speakership already seems to be in peril. The Freedom Caucus is nipping at his heels for not inflicting enough pain with the looming shutdown just seven days away. Parts of the federal government will shut down if a deal or a continuing resolution (CR) isn't signed into law ASAP. However, members of the Chaos Crew want to see everything burned to the ground, so that's a problem. And behind the scenes is former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, an individual who likes to break things.
" I can't take anymore," Bannon said on his podcast. "I can't take anymore. So Johnson's now committed to five or six different alternatives. Right? Every time he gets in a room, he commits to something."
"Yo, dude," Bannon said later. "I wouldn't be so confident of anything right now. You're a mess. You're a hot mess."
Bannon thinks Johnson lacks courage.
"Courage. Courage. And courage means in the defining moment, you have to step into conflict," he said. "Dude, you're just a wimp. It's not hacking it. The country's in a crisis."
"You got all the leverage in the world if you have the titanium stones to say, hey, guess what, Biden? If you're going to have an invasion on the border, if you're going to spend money like crazy, If you're going to do this, hey, your illegitimate regime is going to shut down," he insisted. "You can suck on this because we are the House of Representatives, and I am Speaker of that House, empowered by the Constitution of the United States and the founding fathers of this nation."
"That's what I need to hear," he added. "I don't need to hear your wimpy...[IMITATES PIG NOISES]"
Bannon was still not done.
"The country's in a crisis," he said again in case you didn't hear him the first time. "Stop going home at 10:45 in the morning with nothing done. I don't wanna hear oh, you know, you're going to come back."
"God, we don't have enough time. I need a CR," he continued. "You need a CR? Where were your asses over the three weeks of Christmas, anybody in this audience take three weeks off? You would love to take three weeks off, spend it with your family. Maybe at two weeks, you say, hey, should I go back to work? Kidding. You people are going to go down in history as nothing but a bunch of disgusting wimp losers."
"In fact, you're not even going to be remembered by history," he added. "You're not even going to be remembered by history because you weren't in the fight in the moment, you had to be in the fight. And we know the only reason you're scared now is because of this audience."
And it doesn't look like Johnson is open to any of Bannon's preferred changes:
Well, Bannon will be "remembered by history," so he knows a little bit about that. Historians won't be kind to that slob, though. Sure, Johson might just be a blip in history, but that will be determined by how long he can hang on to his role as Speaker. And according to recent history, that doesn't look good for him. You knew what you signed up for, Mike.