Congress

Mike Johnson tries to keep a lid on partisan tensions after Kirk’s slaying

Published

1 year ago

September 11, 2025

Not even two hours after Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in Utah, Speaker Mike Johnson sought to hold a moment of silence for the young conservative activist.

It lasted only a few seconds before the situation devolved into yelling and chaos, leaving Johnson banging his gavel as he tried to restore order in the House. Ever since, he’s been struggling to convince both sides of the chamber to keep partisan finger-pointing from spiraling out of control.

Over the past 24 hours, Johnson has been the most powerful elected Republican urging lawmakers and Americans generally to keep things from escalating both online and in person. The Louisianan’s approach is largely in keeping with the way previous speakers might have handled the traumatic situation, but it is out of step with a polarized political culture that has come to color most everything that happens on Capitol Hill.

“What I’m going to do is what I’ve always done,” Johnson told reporters later Thursday. “I’m always about turning down the temperature and encouraging members to walk in the dignity of their office and treat one another with dignity and respect. And I think it’s an important moment for leaders to say that.”

Johnson’s approach is informed in part by his role as nominal leader of the whole House, Republican and Democrat, and his responsibility for managing the security of its 435 members. On Thursday, he described a new burst of private concerns from lawmakers in both parties about their own safety, citing the skyrocketing tensions.

Just last week he noted an uptick in threats against members of Congress during an address to a meeting of G7 country legislative chiefs. On Thursday, Johnson indicated would expedite a review of enhanced funding for lawmakers’ security — a pilot program of money that’s set to expire at the end of the month. He also suggested to a small group of reporters that Republicans were considering boosting funding for member security in a government funding stopgap.

“People are scared to death in this building,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said Thursday. “I mean, not many of them will say it publicly, but they’re running to the speaker talking about security.”

But inside the Republican caucus, he is dealing with more than requests for bodyguards and security cameras. He is dealing with the rage of his own members, some of whom were quick to point the finger at their Democratic colleagues Wednesday.

Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, during the chaos following the moment of silence, yelled and pointed across the aisle. “Y’all caused this,” she said, before hurling expletives at Democrats.

On Thursday, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) warned on X that the “Gloves are Off,” adding, “We will not allow these people to take our country. They are 21st Century Brown Shirts.” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said in his own X post that he’s “going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”

Johnson — who told reporters shortly after the shooting that Kirk was “a good friend” — is taking a different rhetorical tack. He chose to make an appearance on BLN Wednesday night, in addition to an interview on GOP-friendly Fox News, where he played down the floor outburst as “a reflection of the emotion of the moment” and urged his members and others to take the temperature down.

While Johnson has cited threats to members of Congress generally, there is no doubt that he is himself a target. His immediate predecessor as speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, was personally affected by politically motivated violence when her husband, Paul Pelosi, was brutally attacked in their San Francisco home in 2022.

Yet Johnson is also under intense pressure from some of his fellow Republicans to do more to protect the rank-and-file, with some infuriated that the speaker is insulated in his own security bubble and doesn’t have to deal with the same level of fear.

“We’ve got to protect people who run for public office or no one will, and that’s heavy on our hearts and minds as we also work through the trauma of what happened yesterday,” Johnson said Thursday.

Some Democrats think Johnson could still do more to call out the bipartisan nature of political violence as many in his party blame the left, as well as call out gun violence generally.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to blame the speaker in a vacuum,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) said Thursday. “But … I wish that the speaker had gone to [House Minority Leader Hakeem] Jeffries and said, ‘We had two tragic shootings today — one at the elementary school in Colorado and another with Charlie Kirk in Utah. Can we have a moment of silence for both of those things?”

Johnson will be tested inside his own party in the coming weeks by requests from his members that could further strain partisan tensions. Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri is calling on him to allow Kirk to lie in state in the Capitol — an honor normally, but not always, reserved for elected officials. Luna is calling for a statue of Kirk to be placed in the Capitol, while other Republicans are pressing to award Kirk the congressional gold medal.

Johnson could find it difficult to keep those passions under wraps, but he appears to take his role as an institutional steward seriously.

Just moments after the outburst on the floor Wednesday night, Johnson swore in the House’s newest member, Democrat James Walkinshaw of Virginia. In his ceremonial office just off the House floor, Johnson posed for a customary photo with Walkinshaw. The speaker turned to the Democrat and said he hoped he had a long career on Capitol Hill. “We’ll try to get everybody under control here,” Johnson added.

Mia McCarthy and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

2 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

2 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

8 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday released text of legislation intended to ban the use of Flock surveillance cameras and other license plate readers.

Flock has faced severe public backlash against the surveillance technology following reports that police officers misused the technology to track women, and it has the largest network of license plate readers across the U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) hosted a hearing last month probing its potential misuses, although the company’s CEO Garrett Langley did not appear.

The latest bill, unveiled Friday and named the Ban Flock Act, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from the technology and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use automated license plate readers.

“At a time of growing concern about the unchecked power of artificial intelligence, Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” Sanders, who has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI technology, said in a statement. “We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly condemned the surveillance capabilities of the technology and said the bill would “enforce our constitutional right to privacy and protect Americans from both corporate and government surveillance.”

“No one should have this unchecked surveillance power at their fingertips,” Merkley added.

Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches.

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.