One would think Speaker Mike Johnson has a lot of extra time these days to learn about what’s happening in the world. After all, he’s kept the House of Representatives in recess since Sept. 19. He and other lawmakers are still getting paid while not working during this record-longest government shutdown, even as other government employees — like air traffic controllers — are working but not getting paid.
Johnson seems to be keeping the House out so he can use that as an excuse to not swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat who won a special election in Arizona on Sept. 23. She now holds the record for the longest wait to be sworn in. Once she’s officially a member, she’ll be the last signature needed for a bipartisan effort to force a vote on releasing the files of late sex trafficker (and Donald Trump friend) Jeffrey Epstein.
But even with all that free time, Johnson seems quite ignorant during his daily press conferences and interviews. He frequently responds to questions about big things in the news by claiming he doesn’t know anything about it and hasn’t seen it before. Multiple videos have been going viral that are just clips of Johnson answering various questions by insisting he doesn’t know anything. Either he’s hiding in a cave all day except during his media appearances, or the politician who claims the Bible informs his politics is repeatedly lying to avoid answering tough questions.
And even when he does answer a question, it doesn’t seem like Johnson really knows reality. Like when he insisted last week that Republicans are not “in charge of government” even though they control the White House, Senate, and House (and even the Supreme Court). Or like yesterday (Nov. 5) when he tried to downplay this week’s election results by claiming that “what happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue.” Which is an odd argument given the big wins Democrats racked up in purple states like Virginia and Pennsylvania and even a red state like Mississippi.
In a less publicized moment, Johnson also similarly offered an inaccurate attack last week on the constitutional principle of church-state separation. During an event at the Museum of the Bible hosted by the Family Research Council (a Republican activist group that recruits churches to engage in partisan politics), FRC head Tony Perkins asked Johnson, “Mr. Speaker, what do you say to your friends in the media who say, ‘Separation of church and state?’”
“It’s ridiculous!” Johnson quickly declared.
Now, I’m not sure if I’m the intended audience of “friends in the media” given that we did publish the first exposé of Johnson’s Christian Nationalistic sermons and church presentations and I broke the story of his false claim about Thomas Jefferson reading a prayer every day (even though it wasn’t written until decades after Jefferson’s death). Either way, it’s worth unpacking Johnson’s latest attack on church-state separation because it’s clearly another example of when the speaker doesn’t know what’s going on. So this issue of A Public Witness offers a friendly report on why church-state separation is not ridiculous and reflects on a surprising voice singing some opposition to Johnson’s worldview.
Don’t Know Much About History
On Jan. 1, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Baptists in Connecticut famously calling the new country’s constitutional protections “a wall of separation” between church and state. Two hundred years later, a Baptist from Louisiana wants to pretend the wall doesn’t exist.
Johnson started off this year by reading what he falsely called “Thomas Jefferson’s prayer.” He thought the idea that Jefferson “recited” it daily offered proof to Johnson’s work today in pushing Christian Nationalism. And while that turned out to be fake, Johnson last week dismissed as “ridiculous” the actual words of Jefferson.
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