MAGA MIKE

House Speaker Mike Johnson uses a s uses a soft touch to push hard-right politics.

- DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

The Capitol Hill Club, in a white brick town house a few blocks from the House of Representatives, is a social institution exclusively for Republicans. One evening in October, Representative Mike Garcia was eating there alone when Representative Mike Johnson stopped to chat. Garcia is a first-generation immigrant and a retired Navy pilot from a Democratic-leaning district in Southern California. His predecessor, a Democrat, resigned after a scandal four years ago, and Garcia highlighted disagreements with his party to win reëlection in 2022. He was also a loyalist to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a fellow-Californian who had just been ousted by a small band of hard-line conservative rebels annoyed at his willingness to compromise on budget disputes. Garcia had formally nominated McCarthy as Speaker at the beginning of 2023, and his removal deprived Garcia of a patron.