Biden signals desire to work with new speaker while campaign undercuts him as ‘extreme’

President Joe Biden has a blank slate with new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and is using it to make bipartisan overtures, while his aides portray him as extreme.

The uneasy dynamic will be tested next month as the federal government faces the prospect of another shutdown on Nov. 17.

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After three weeks of dysfunction, as House Republicans decided who would replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the GOP is under “a lot of pressure” to demonstrate it can govern, according to party strategist Alex Conant.

“Speaker Johnson has every incentive to start passing legislation and show that House Republicans can work with the Senate and White House,” the Firehouse Strategies founding partner said. “If Republicans can’t be effective in the majority, they’ll quickly find themselves back in the minority.”

Simultaneously, Democrats think they can win back the House in next year’s elections, and that begins by defining House leadership as extreme, according to Conant, though Republicans retain their advantage in RealClearPolitics‘s average generic congressional ballot polling by less than 1 percentage point, 43.8% to 43.3%,

“The White House is going to try to put as much pressure on the House as possible because they think the Republicans are still divided,” the strategist said.

For fellow Republican strategist John Feehery, Biden would prefer to deal with Johnson so he can appear centrist, despite their differences regarding “big items.”

“He’s going to have to figure out a way to do some of that Irish charm on one hand and beat up Johnson with the other hand to achieve his goals,” the EFB Advocacy partner said.

“Johnson’s a pretty smart guy and he knows what he needs to be able to sell to his caucus,” he added. “The media and the White House, they want to prove that the Republicans are irresponsible and can’t govern. But the incentive for Johnson is to prove that they can govern and that people can trust them with control of the Congress.”

Biden seemed to welcome Johnson’s election this week, saying the White House and lawmakers “have to get moving” during his joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. In a longer statement, he congratulated Johnson and pledged to work with him “in good faith on behalf of the American people,” citing past bipartisan collaboration on infrastructure, China, gun reform, and veterans care.

“By the same token, the American people have made clear that they expect House Republicans to work with me and with Senate Democrats to govern across the aisle — to protect our urgent national security interests and grow our economy for the middle class,” the president said. “We need to move swiftly to address our national security needs and to avoid a shutdown in 22 days.”

“Even though we have real disagreements about important issues, there should be mutual effort to find common ground wherever we can,” he went on. “This is a time for all of us to act responsibly, and to put the good of the American people and the everyday priorities of American families above any partisanship.”

Prior to Thursday’s classified briefing in the Situation Room to discuss his $106 billion Israel and Ukraine supplemental funding request, Biden’s only known interactions with Johnson were last spring when they celebrated LSU women’s basketball’s 2023 NCAA championship in the East Room and last summer when he attended the congressional picnic on the South Lawn.

Biden’s campaign was less diplomatic, underscoring Johnson’s conservative record and contending voters have now rejected “extreme MAGA ideology at the ballot box” twice.

“Donald Trump has his loyal foot soldier to ban abortion nationwide, lead efforts to deny free and fair election results, gut Social Security and Medicare, and advance the extreme MAGA agenda at the expense of middle-class families,” Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said. “Twenty-two days before Congress must act to avoid a government shutdown and while our allies overseas at war depend on our help, extreme MAGA House Republicans elevated a man to second-in-line to the presidency who still won’t admit President Biden won the 2020 election.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre distanced Biden from his campaign’s rhetoric, answering a question about whether the president thinks Johnson is a “MAGA extremist” by insisting she would “let the speaker speak for himself.”

“He has defined himself in that way,” she said. “I’m not going to prejudge. I’m just not going to prejudge what the relationship is going to be like now that he’s speaker.”

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House Democrats’ campaign arm similarly described Johnson as “nothing more than Jim Jordan in a sports coat,” comparing him to the House Judiciary Committee chairman. In a messaging memo, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee emphasized that the 18 House Republicans representing districts Biden won in 2020 supported the new speaker.

“Similar to potential Speakers Scalise, Jordan, and Emmer, the DCCC is committed to ensuring that every battleground member of the Republican conference is tied to Speaker Johnson’s extremism and disastrous legislative record,” the organization wrote in an email.