Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is not interested in making a future bid for the presidency, he told The Post’s Miranda Devine on the latest episode of “Pod Force One,” out Wednesday, despite a meteoric rise up the Republican ranks in the House after serving just a few terms.
“I don’t think about that,” Johnson (R-La.) responded when asked if he could see himself in the role one day, adding that the job of commander in chief was a “no” for him — at least for now.
“I think this job, there’s probably a reason I think there may be only one speaker, James K. Polk, who became president after that, because the job is so all consuming and encompassing that it wears everybody out,” Johnson told Devine.
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“I mean, look, I’ll serve in any capacity I want, but I don’t think about that. Never aspired to it. For that matter, I didn’t aspire to this job,” he revealed. “I’m just trying to be faithful in it.”
Polk served as the 11th US president, a Democrat who occupied the Oval Office from 1845 to 1849. Prior to that, he was the governor of Tennessee and 13th Speaker of the US House of Representatives.
Johnson replaced former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy in October 2023 after three weeks of infighting and a slate of other GOP candidates failed to produce a successor. He was first elected to the lower chamber in November 2016.
Earlier in the interview, the reluctant speaker — who was unanimously elected by House Republicans — extolled Trump as a head of state whose breakneck pace is hard to match.
“He is dialed in like no commander in chief has been in recent memory. I don’t know that there is a precedent for a president who’s so engaged,” said Johnson, who is second in line to the office behind only the vice president.
“He’s very unique that way, and the country needs it right now,” the Louisiana Republican told Devine. “And the America First agenda is no longer a slogan. It’s now the law of the land, because of the Big Beautiful Bill, and we got more to do.”
Trump had been so excited by the items crammed into the GOP megabill he even asked Johnson if the Republicans could add an unlikely punctuation mark to the legislation’s text.
“He passed it around to us on a piece of paper in big bold font, One Big Beautiful Bill. And he goes, ‘Now, can we put an exclamation point?’” the House speaker recalled, adding, “I said, ‘Sir, no, we can’t do an exclamation point. That’s not a thing in legislation.’”
Johnson also spoke about the future he foresees for the post-Trump Republican Party.
“I think the movement goes forward,” he went on. “It won’t be the same without [Trump], but he’s done a recalibration of our party in many ways. We brought in new demographics, big groups of people that have not been with us probably since the early ‘80s under Reagan.”
Full episode
“We’re a working class party as we should be, and we represent the core principles, and I’m one of the people who’s trying to keep us tied to the moorings,” he said. “The core principles of our party are the core principles of America.”
Trump has spoken highly of Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as potential followers who could lead the MAGA movement — potentially in a 2028 presidential bid.
