Johnson Throws Trump Under Bus at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Stop

Speaker refused to repeat or endorse Trump's lies about the 2020 election

Oct. 7: Johnson confirms that Biden’s been president for almost four years … Trump will goose U.S. debt twice as much as Harris … Oct. 7 attack commemorated … Harris media blitz …

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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), appeared Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” in an interview with George Stephanopolous’s back. (Screengrab / ABC video.)

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who comes after only the vice president in the line of presidential succession, refused yesterday to say that former Pres. Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

Now, everyone else is screaming that Johnson also refused to say that Pres. Joe Biden won. But if all of you Newsfuckers were only interested in what everyone is saying/screaming, you wouldn’t be Newsfuckers, now, would you?

And, besides, did Johnson really refuse to say Biden won? We’ll get to that!

Here’s the initial exchange between Johnson and “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: …I do want to ask you a question that Senator Vance did not answer at this week's debate. Can you say unequivocally that Joe Biden won the 2020 election and Donald Trump lost?

JOHNSON: See, this is the game that is always played by mainstream media with leading Republicans. It’s -- it's a gotcha game. You want us to litigate things that happened four years ago when we're talking about the future. We're not going to talk about what happened in 2020…

First of all, the Republican “we” are not talking about the future. Twenty-five percent of their slogan — Make America Great Again — is about the past. “Again.” It’s a fictional past, but the MAGA vision for the future is explicitly a return to that imagined past of way more than four years ago.

And the obvious reason for litigating 2020 is to get some sense of the future — and whether, in said future, Johnson will use his new position as speaker to steal the 2024 election.

As the Washington Post notes, Johnson was obsessed with the 2020 election for quite a while!

“...Johnson led a congressional effort to overturn the presidential results in four battleground states, gathering 125 House Republicans to join him in signing a Supreme Court brief claiming that the results were fraudulent… Johnson was also among the Republicans who, on Jan. 6, 2021, voted against certifying the electoral college vote for Biden in two key battleground states.“

But check out the part from yesterday that the Post didn’t quote. Here’s Johnson explaining why he hasn’t been beating the 2020 drum lately (italics added for emphasis of the part where Johnson is pleading to Trump):

“Joe Biden has been the president for almost four years. Everybody needs to get over this and move forward…

“I work with the president of the United States all the time. Joe Biden has been the president for four years. There's not a question about this, okay? It's already been done and decided, and this is a gotcha game that's played…”

This is Johnson saying Biden’s legitimate. He can’t say that with the magic words everyone wants for the same reason he keeps calling it a gotcha question. It’s a gotcha question because Trump is gonna get him!

Is it important to highlight Johnson’s refusal to say the magic words? Absolutely: To heighten awareness and galvanize both voting and efforts to protect the vote.

But it’s also important to spotlight Johnson’s refusal to say Trump’s magic words. It’s not as if he can’t! Other politicians say them. Trump says them. And they all seem to be okay. For now.

So Johnson’s reticence is an important weapon Democrats would be remiss to overlook. He’s refusing to legitimize Trump’s claims. The most powerful Republican in the country. The most openly theocratic, theocracy-craving House speaker we’ve ever had. The guy who wants a 100% Trumpist Supreme Court to outlaw contraception, pre-marital sex, post-marital divorce, and post-marital sex.

That guy won’t say Trump won.

BREAKING: Trump Will Hurt Economy More, If You Read Headlines Backwards

A new study out today finds that both rePresident Donald Trump and President Kamala Harris would increase the national debt. But which one would do it more apparently depends on where you read this story.

The study comes from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) — a non-partisan organization that defines “responsible” as something short of housing and feeding everyone while giving them free health care. The CRFB says that if he carries out his promised plans [pause for laughter], rePresident Trump will increase the federal debt as much as almost five times as much as Harris would.

The estimated debt resulting from Harris’s campaign plans is $3.5 trillion. Trump’s ranges from $7.5 trillion to $15.2 trillion.

But if you read this story on the country’s #1 news website, CNN.com, or in a newspaper running the Associated Press version, you could be forgiven for thinking Harris’s plans would explode the debt more. How come?

Because those versions mention Harris first, even in the headlines:

Try to imagine the sports pages…wait, lemme start over. Try to imagine we still had sports pages. And then try to imagine that the Gotham City Knights football team beat the Metropolis Meteors in the Super Bowl, but the headline reads: “Meteors Win Super Bowl, but Knights Win It More.”

Ironically, it’s the New York Times, bete noir of many a media-scrutinizing Newsfucker, and the dying Washington Post, who get it right with clean and simple headlines.

I wouldn’t even have begrudged the Times a shot at Harris in there. After Trump.

The way the Washington Post handled it is especially elegant:

So, why would CNN and the AP put Harris first? The answer, annoyingly enough, is not that they want Trump to win because it will boost ratings. (I know, I know, I’m so naive about CNN…after having, y’know, worked there for only four years.)

There are a few things going on here. One is that everyone in media’s looking for a hook to pique your interest. And a lot of people — which means a lot of people in media — think of Democrats as profligate. So, Harris’s debt numbers aren’t surprising. The most compelling storytelling therefore is “Boring expected thing BUT WAIT also this SHOCKING TWIST!”

That approach conflicts with the mission of journalism, but whatevs. 

The real problem with these stories is they don’t even question the assumption that debt and deficits matter. Trump has said the U.S. economy could simply grow so much that tax revenues would make up the difference. Doubtful, but that kind of thing has happened…under Democrats.

And there’s a growing (I hope) school of thought¹ that deficits and debt only matter if countries think they matter. Just like money only exists because we think it does.

The idea that debts matter, the taking-that-for-granted-ness of these stories, is the real bias here and by far the most dangerous. Not just because of how it drives policy, but because it eclipses actual, real-world costs.

Only the New York Times folded in — albeit secondarily — another new study with actual, immediate impacts for actual people. Because the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy did its own study, of the impact Trump’s tax cuts and tariffs will have.

The upshot: Trump’s economic policies amount to a tax increase for everyone. Except the richest 5% of people in the country. And that should be headline news.

Oct. 7, 2023, Was Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Extremely, Unthinkably, Very Bad

It was one year ago today that Hamas did an extraordinarily terrible thing. It’s understandable that we grasp for comparisons…looking for boxes to contain the world’s horrors.

But Oct. 7 was not 9/11, in quantity or quality. Approximately 1,200 people were killed.

With Israel’s much smaller population, that’s proportionately the equivalent of if more than 35,000 people died in the U.S. on 9/11.

And the death toll rose again just yesterday with confirmation that the body of a fatality had been taken into Gaza from the Nova Music Festival. It remains in Gaza still.

So do 101 hostages, who have been held prisoner for 365 days by the same people who murdered 1,200.

We also still don’t have a clear picture about the role of sexual violence in the attacks, the raping Hamas did. There was and is a lot of misinformation and propaganda about Hamas rapes — much of it spread credulously by journalism’s self-styled gatekeepers of veracity. But it would be naive and ahistorical to believe that no rapes occurred. It’s always been a weapon of war.

The terribleness of Oct. 7 was the point — because true terror and terribleness makes your enemy resort to also-terrible things and thus stain themselves in the eyes of the world.

That was the lesson Israel should have taken from America’s galactically botched military, political, and cultural response to 9/11. Instead, Israel is commemorating the day with fireworks bottle rockets rocket attacks on Lebanon and Gaza. Here’s what the conflict looks like, reduced to a bloodless, non-heart-wrenching, Axios map showing where the bloody, heart-wrenching suffering is:

Israel has now killed 41,000 people out of Gaza’s 2.1 million people. Has anyone come up with the if-it-were-9/11 equivalent of that? Israel, too, stands accused of rape — and some Israelis have resorted to violence to protect the accused rapists.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has escalated his campaign of de-escalation-by-escalation. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said this morning it’s sending more ground troops into Lebanon.

In remarks on the eve of today’s anniversary, Netanyahu noted that the IDF are now in open conflict with entities in seven nations and/or wannabe nations. For those keeping score at home:

• Hamas in Gaza

• Hezbollah in Lebanon

• Houthis in Yemen

• “Terrorists” in the West Bank

• Iran-backed militias in Iraq

• Iran-backed militias in Syria

• Iran-backed Iranians in Iran 

And that’s not even counting Netanyahu’s personal conflicts. He’s in open conflict with the Israeli people. And he’s using military conflict to forestall his inevitable legal conflict with Israeli prosecutors who would really, really like to put him on trial for corruption now, please.

Vice Pres. Kamala Harris was asked by CBS in an interview airing Monday night about Netanyahu. As it’s being reported, Harris is asked whether Netanyahu is “a real close ally.”

Harris’s response: “The better question is: Do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes.” I’m not sure that’s really a better question. But I’m pretty sure Republican Jesus has an angry frown for her answer.

But that’s also not really how this exchange happened. It’s being reported as Harris addressing her (or America’s) allegiance to Netanyahu. In the actual clip, which is being poorly/selectively quoted, CBS’s Bill Whitaker says, “Do we² have a real, close ally in Prime Minister Netanyahu?”

Do we have an ally vs. is he an ally.

In the full phrasing, it’s clear Harris is being asked to assess whether Netanyahu is acting as an ally of the U.S. Very different question. (We’ll see whether the misread interpretation sticks because it’s sexier.)

Campaign-Media Watch

Vice Pres. Kamala Harris is going on a media blitz that almost looks intentionally designed to piss off legacy news media by not going on them. She appeared yesterday on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. And here’s some of what you can expect in just the next couple days from Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN):

Monday

• “60 Minutes” interview with Harris on CBS

• Jimmy Kimmel interview with Walz on ABC

Tuesday

• Howard Stern interview with Harris on Sirius

• “The View” interview with Harris on ABC

• Stephen Colbert interview with Harris on CBS

It’s a vibes marathon, yall! But don’t be surprised if we get some surprising snippets of substance along the way.

Three Quickies

• The right-wing Supreme Court — the most corporate-friendly in America’s history which includes the era when companies overtly controlled and ran entire towns — actually handed corporate America a loss on Friday, and wins for the environment. The court ruled that the Biden administration can force power plants to reduce mercury and other emissions and can force Big Oil and Big Gas and Big Fracking to curb methane, a huge driver of climate change. Yay.

• Hurricane Milton is coming to fuck up Florida’s Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. Just this morning Milton leapt from Category 1 to 2 to 3. The Fucking News Weather Team and Doppler Radar StormFuckTrackTruck™ is gonna be all over the place with our unique reporting aggregation, including information you won’t find anywhere else except the places we aggregate it from.

• TFN published a paid-subscribers-only piece yesterday on Elon Musk’s campaign appearance Saturday with former Pres. Donald Trump. But, because it physically pains me to put shit behind a paywall, I said I’d include it in today’s newsletter. Well, I couldn’t because it’s already too long. So here’s a secret link for all you cherished Newsfuckers to read it for free.

TCB

NICOLE SANDLER Don’t forget to join me and Nicole Sandler tonight at 5pm eastern, because Mondays are The Fucking News days at The Nicole Sandler Show!

JOURNALISMING You can find my original reporting at Jonathan Larsen’s Substack, and you can support TFN’s original snarking with a donation or a paid subscription.

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Go get ‘em, kids!

1. Modern monetary theory.

2. “We” here means “America.” Old-school journalists were taught that “we” = the news outlet. Because in their capacity as journalists, they’re not supposed to align themselves with any entity other than their journalistic one. I know, adorable. MJGA!