Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Friday how a private conversation he once had with President Joe Biden nearly a year earlier revealed that the president’s memory was failing.
“He has not been in charge for some time — and I know this by personal observation, and now the whole world knows it, and it’s been very concerning to me,” Johnson said in an “Honestly” podcast interview with The Free Press’s founder and editor, Bari Weiss.
Johnson confirmed a June 2024 Wall Street Journal report utilizing unnamed sources who described how the speaker reacted to Biden’s state during a late February 2024 White House meeting involving sending military aid to Ukraine.
Johnson privately expressed concern to Biden on the sidelines of the meeting that Biden’s freezing of U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) — reportedly to review the U.S.’s status as the world’s largest natural gas exporter — would drive European allies into dependence on Russia’s supply. This would indirectly fund Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine and cripple several multibillion-dollar LNG export projects in Johnson’s home state of Louisiana.
“And he looked at me, stunned, and said, ‘I didn’t do that,’” Johnson recalled.
“And I said, ‘Mr. President, yes, you did — it was an executive order three weeks ago.’ And he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ He’s arguing with me,” Johnson continued. “I say, ‘Mr. President, respectfully, can I go out there and ask your secretary to print it out while we are here together — you definitely did that.’ He goes, ‘Oh, you’re talking about natural gas!’”
Biden then claimed he signed the order to conduct a study on the effects of LNG, according to Johnson, who then told the president the policy was not merely a study but was already in effect in Louisiana, where the export terminal was. The policy was massively damaging the economy and national security, Johnson recalled telling Biden.
“It occurred to me, Bari, he was not lying to me. He genuinely did not know what he signed. And I walked [back] into that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, ‘We’re in serious trouble — who’s running the country? Like, I don’t know who put the paper in front of him but he didn’t know.’ (RELATED: Biden-Harris Staffers Reveal How They Manipulated ‘Disinformation’ To Hide Biden’s Mental Decline From Voters)
From inauguration weekend in D.C., @SpeakerJohnson and @BariWeiss dive into Elon vs. Bannon, why he calls Biden “the worst president ever,” his vision for a GOP-led “new golden age,” and his best Trump impression.
Presented by Uber and X. pic.twitter.com/84PiXyI0op
— The Free Press (@TheFP) January 18, 2025
Johnson said it was not first lady Jill Biden who had been running the White House for the past year and a half but suggested that some people Biden accepted into his government from his Democratic presidential primary rivals came up with policies that Biden signed, “incongruous as they were, as dangerous as they were.”
Johnson said “without any personal animus” he stood by his characterization of Biden as “the worst president in the history of the country.” He added how he felt sorry for Biden as the president was “in the twilight years of his life.”
Reflecting on his narrow Jan. 3 reelection as speaker, Johnson said Republicans seemed fractious relative to Democrats because the latter had a socialist, collectivist or unionist ideology while Republicans were often independent and ruggedly individualistic. He hailed the Republican ethos but admitted it was great “until you have a one-vote margin, and then you need everybody to move together.”
It was challenging but necessary to encourage consensus but not at the cost of anyone’s principle, he added. Love for one’s colleagues would foster tolerance and overlook their frustrations and failings, he added.
Johnson said President-elect Donald Trump supported him because of their “great relationship” over the years since 2017 when they both came to Washington. He had disagreed with Trump over a few policy matters but Trump knew the disagreement was in good faith and appreciated it, he said. “Now we talk almost constantly,” he said.
At some point, Johnson performed a Trump impression, amusing Weiss and the audience. He also revealed he has been working on a book about conservatism.
Read the full article here
