‘You Can’t Govern By Shooting Yourself in the Head Every Day’

As Speaker of the House Mike Johnson fends off another conservative rebellion over his four-part foreign aid plan, he’s garnering support from former speaker — and infamous conservative pugilist — Newt Gingrich.

Gingrich, who claimed the gavel in 1995 after leading Republicans to their first majority in the House in nearly 40 years, is a somewhat surprising ally for Johnson. As a junior member of the House, Gingrich pioneered the style of confrontational conservatism and bare-knuckle partisan brawling that today’s Republican hard-liners — led by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz — have seemingly made their signature.

But times have changed, Gingrich said this week when I called him to ask whether he had any advice for Johnson. With a conservative like Johnson in the speaker’s chair, Gingrich told me, it’s time for Republicans to shut up and fall in line. “The truth is, I would blame head-on the people who are acting like selfish idiots,” Gingrich said, name-checking Gaetz.

Having faced down his own Republican-led coup attempt in 1997, Gingrich urged Johnson to hold his ground and pass the foreign aid packages — even if it ultimately costs him the speakership.

“Brave men die but once,” he said. “A coward dies a hundred deaths.”

The following has been edited for clarity and concision.

You tweeted the other day that Speaker Johnson is “working to lead the most complicated House since the Civil War.” That’s a pretty bold claim. What makes his job uniquely hard?

Well, he has the narrowest majority in modern times, and it’s not a true majority, because he’s got six or eight narcissists — people who think that they individually get to screw up everything.

Do you want to name any names?

I think they self-define. I’d start with [Matt] Gaetz, but I would say the list goes on. He’s the super narcissist.

So first of all, he doesn’t have a real majority. He has a technical majority for the purpose of organizing committees and theoretically controlling the flow of legislation, but he doesn’t have a working majority on the Rules Committee. He doesn’t have an ability to deliver 218 votes for virtually anything. He has 30 or 40 members who ideologically wake up every morning knowing that they’re gonna vote no — they’re not sure what the issue is, but they know they’re going to vote no. And then he’s got this last 30 or 40 [members] who need to do something to go on TV and send out fundraising emails, and they don’t frankly care if they screw up our party or the country, if that’s what it takes for them to be so important. So he has an enormously complicated job.

How would you rate his handling of the situation?

I think, actually, he’s doing a pretty decent job considering how almost impossible it is.

He’s patient, he’s calm, he is trying to understand whether or not there are paths that might work, and trying to come up with formulas that enable him to get something out of the House. Frankly, the danger for the hard right is that if they teach 120 or 130 members that the only way to get anything done is to work with the Democrats, they’ll end up with much worse legislation than they would get if they would actually work as a team. So it’s a real challenge, I think, and I’m watching what he’s doing and I have great sympathy for how hard his job is. 

But back in the ’70s, you famously said, “One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage people to be nasty.” Do you think Johnson is nasty enough to be speaker?

I think you have to take situations in their historical context. In the 1970s, we had a Republican Party that was in the minority — and would remain in the minority for a total of 40 years — that was unable to go to the floor to debate and that was able to stand up to the left. You needed people who were tough and who were willing to take on Tip O’Neill or Jim Wright or the entire left wing of the Democratic Party. In that sense, Trump is sort of a prototype of that kind of approach. He’s tough enough to stand and fight, not just limply hide in the corner.

The challenge you have once you have the majority is that you want to be positive and get something done — and the country expects you to get something done. So that’s why I think this is a real challenge. The demons that Gaetz unleashed by going after [Kevin] McCarthy are still out there. You can’t govern by shooting yourself in the head every day.

So it’s fair to say you think it would be a mistake if members moved forward with the motion to vacate?

It would be totally stupid. My question would be, “Show me the 218 you’ve got for somebody,” because otherwise what you’re doing is putting us through three weeks of looking like idiots — which Gaetz managed to do. It was bad enough that it took 15 ballots for McCarthy to finally win. But to then turn and destroy his speakership, throwing the entire party and the entire House into [chaos] …

You’ve got to remember, this isn’t some game at a PTA meeting. This is the House of Representatives. It has serious constitutional obligations. We live in a dangerous world, and we look like we are absurdly incapable of governing ourselves.

It seems clear at this point that if Johnson passes Ukraine aid with Democratic support, he’ll face some sort of motion to vacate. What do you think he should prioritize: passing Ukraine aid or keeping his speakership?

Brave men die but once, a coward dies a hundred deaths.

So pass Ukraine aid?

Do what you think is historically right, and then if your party is dumb enough to punish them for doing what you honestly believe, then you shouldn’t be there anyway. 

You don’t give any credence to the conservatives’ arguments that the U.S. has already given too much to Ukraine?

I believe we have to defeat [Vladimir] Putin, period, whatever it takes. If Putin wins in Ukraine, the next stage will be Putin in the three Baltic States and Poland, and then we will be faced with a genuine world war.

That sounds like it would be bad. 

The biggest change I would make is to let Ukrainians do combat in Russia. It’s a typical Biden-ism that Russians get to destroy your infrastructure, the Russians get to kidnap children, the Russians get to gang rape women, the Russians get to destroy hospitals, but Ukraine shouldn’t attack inside Russia. That’s totally stupid.

Can Johnson survive in the long run if Democrats have to step in and save him from a motion to vacate?

He is speaker of the House.

Sure, but can he survive if Democrats decide to step in to defeat a motion to vacate?

It depends on how many Republicans that would alienate.

How many do you think it would alienate?

Thirty or 40.

Which would be enough to oust him, right? 

Not if there are 40 or 50 Democrats. 

That’s true.

What are you going to do? Are we going to run around every day, stick your finger up in the air and see whether or not Matt Gaetz blows on it?

Do you ever look at the House and think, “If I was speaker, I could get these knuckleheads in line?”

You can’t keep them in line, because the technology’s changed. They have the ability to make noise, they have the ability to go on television, and they have an ability to use the internet to raise money from [people] who only know who they are because they saw them on television, so what do they care?

How would you handle them if you were in the speaker’s chair?

I would do what is right and tell them it’s their problem. Do you want someone who is going to be a coward and who’s going to spend every day making sure that all 218 or 219 members are happy? Then you need to get somebody else. If they want a leader, I’ll be glad to lead.

That is what I said — several times. We once had a rebellion, and at the end of the rebellion I had a meeting and I said, “I will stay as speaker only if I’m speaker.” 

Sorry — you’d stay only as long as you were speaker?

There was a brief moment when several members of the leadership decided they didn’t like me and they tried to oust me, and I said, “I want all of you to understand: I’m only going to stay if I remain the speaker.”

So do you think Mike Johnson should resign if he loses the speakership?

Why would he resign? 

You just said you told [leadership] that you’d only stay if you were the speaker. So I’m wondering if you would give him the same advice.

Johnson should say to his conference, “I’m going to listen to everybody, make my best possible judgment and then we’re going to move — and if that’s not the kind of speaker you want, you need somebody else.” But I’d like to [know what the hard-liners’ desired] characteristics are. Do you want somebody who can’t make a decision? Does anybody realistically believe that there’s any plausible strategy at 218 or 220 that is going to have enough Republicans stick together? So you’re inevitably going to be in a coalition government. You can’t pass anything of significance if you start out every morning with six or eight people wanting to destroy you when the margin is two.

The truth is, I would blame head-on the people who are acting like selfish idiots. I would just say, “You’re the people giving the Democrats working control — and as long as you think that’s a great success, well, you must be doing the right thing.” 

Why do you think Johnson hasn’t said that yet?

I think that he is a much more disciplined and patient man than I am. Remember, I had 16 years trying to create a majority. We had built a team, and we were operating as a team. He had 15 minutes. I, frankly, admire the speed at which he’s learning.

Have you been in touch with him to offer any counsel?

Oh, I don’t offer counsel. I might offer ideas.

Have you offered ideas then?

I talk with his team regularly. 

Do you think the legislative challenges you mentioned above are reflective of something deeper that’s gone wrong with the GOP?

We have an interesting challenge, in that [Nancy] Pelosi was the leader of a party that believes in machines. So they legitimized Pelosi punishing [them], because they’re a machine — they are essentially the Sopranos-go-to-the-election.

We are a party of individuals. I was once talking to Kurt Russell, and I asked him why is it so hard to get conservatives to get together in Hollywood, when liberals love to get together? He said, “Well, conservatives are the people who don’t want to go to meetings.” So the party is genuinely individualistic, and at its best it produces remarkable talent and remarkable leaders. But it means that you have to lead by persuasion — you can’t lead by punishment. I’d rather have Mike Johnson calmly, patiently trying to listen to and understand his team, rather than have a thug-like dictator in the Pelosi tradition.

You came to power in part through your willingness to punch up at Republican leadership and break some procedural and political norms. You don’t find anything sympathetic about these figures on the right who are using some of the same tactics that you helped pioneer?

I don’t think that’s an accurate history. The only major fight where you’ll find that I was going against my leadership was when George H.W. Bush broke his word and raised taxes. I at times disagreed with my leadership, and I at times offered amendments or helped other people offer amendments, but I consistently was part of the team. I woke up every day thinking I was a Republican. My effort was to strengthen the party, recruit more candidates and deal with issues. We didn’t focus on trying to beat other Republicans. We focused on trying to beat Democrats.

So that’s the major difference between today’s conservatives and you? That you were playing on a team and they’re not?

During the 16 years where we worked to create a majority, a substantial amount of our senior leadership was happy to be calmly, quietly cutting deals, and we were fighting the Democrats and making it harder. But there was no point where we would have split the party. I always tell people: You can get away with almost anything if you tell the leadership in advance, but you can’t surprise the leadership. So my relationship with [former House Minority Leader] Bob Michel was tense at times, because he wasn’t always happy with me. But he always knew where I was coming from, and he knew what I was trying to do, and he knew that when push came to shove, I was a party loyalist. Some of these guys are basically ego-loyalists. 

What would your message be to the hard-liners who are threatening to tank these bills and oust Johnson? 

Decide if your love of country isn’t greater than your love of self.