{"id":625,"date":"2024-11-11T11:12:32","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T11:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/why-the-little-secret-between-trump-and-speaker-johnson-matters\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T11:12:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T11:12:32","slug":"why-the-little-secret-between-trump-and-speaker-johnson-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/why-the-little-secret-between-trump-and-speaker-johnson-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the \u2018little secret\u2019 between Trump and Speaker Johnson matters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Donald Trump\u2019s rally at Madison Square Garden was ugly and vulgar in a great many ways<\/a>, but it was also lacking in subtlety. There was text, not subtext. The Republican and his allies relied on chainsaws, not scalpels.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, there was a point during the former president\u2019s comments that was unexpected.<\/p>\n

Partway through the GOP candidate\u2019s comments, Trump referenced House Speaker Mike Johnson, who also appeared at the New York City gathering. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be around for a long time, I predict,\u201d the former president said about the Louisiana congressman.<\/p>\n

This was itself a comment that likely raised eyebrows among members of Congress: It\u2019s not exactly a secret that Johnson\u2019s standing in the House Republican Conference is precarious, and even if the GOP is able to maintain its majority in the chamber, the conventional wisdom suggests he\u2019d face an intraparty fight to hold onto the speaker\u2019s gavel.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, Trump\u2019s \u201cprediction\u201d will likely be seen as a signal of support that might very well improve Johnson\u2019s chances.<\/p>\n

But it was what the former president said in the next breath that I cared about more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gotta get the congressmen elected and we gotta get the senators elected, because we can take the Senate pretty easily, and I think with our little secret we\u2019re going to do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact,\u201d Trump said while looking in Johnson\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n

Appearing to point at the House speaker, the former president added, \u201cHe and I have a secret. We\u2019ll tell you what it is when the race is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a rule, national candidates never say this. In fact, it largely defeats the purpose of campaigns: White House hopefuls tend to talk all about the things they want to do after the election so that they can claim a popular mandate once they succeed.<\/p>\n

And yet, there was Trump, bragging about having a \u201clittle secret\u201d with the speaker of the House.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to say with confidence what he might\u2019ve been referring to, though a Politico report<\/a> noted that they were potentially \u201csinister comments that could be a reference to the House settling a contested election.\u201d<\/p>\n

The morning after the event, Rep. Dan Goldman appeared on CNN<\/a> and shared some related thoughts. \u201cI think the secret yesterday that [Trump] referenced very likely may relate to his compact with Mike Johnson to \u2014 as a back-up plan for when he loses \u2014 to overturn this election on Jan. 6,\u201d the New York Democrat said.<\/p>\n

Watch this space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Steve Benen<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of\u00a0MaddowBlog\u00a0and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s rally at Madison Square Garden was ugly and vulgar in a great many ways, but it was also lacking in subtlety. There was text, not subtext. The Republican and his allies relied on chainsaws, not scalpels. With this in mind, there was a point during the former president\u2019s comments that was unexpected. Partway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}