Mike Johnson gets NIGHTMARE news ON AIR over Epstein files

When are you going to swear in Representative-elect Adelita

Grahama?

As soon as we get back to legislative session, when Chuck Schumer allows us to turn the lights back on.

Why haven't you done it already?

Because this is the way the institution works. I'm following the Pelosi precedent, by the way. When my dear friend from Louisiana, Julia Letlow, was

elected to fill the seat of her deceased husband because of Pelosi took 25 days to swear her in. By the way, also- Are you saying, go ahead, let me stop you. Are you saying that Nancy Pelosi refused to swear her in earlier? No, I'm saying, that's my very point is, this is the normal process.

My understanding is that was the date that actually the representative elect, Letlow at the time, requested.

No.

You know, she had obviously heard- Okay, here's some Pelosi President, okay? And what about the Johnson President?

Because you swore in two Republicans the day after their election.

I'm happy to answer. I'm happy to answer. Pelosi President, Pat Ryan, Joe Siempelinski, they were elected during an August recess. So 21 days later, when the House returned to regular legislative session, they were administered the oath. That's what we're doing. We're not in session right now. Rep. Gohalva was elected after the House was out of session. As soon as we return to legislative session, as soon

as the Democrats decide to turn the lights back on so we can all get back here, I will administer the oath on the first day. You could swear in tomorrow, right? No, not tomorrow. No, we couldn't have a date set. She was elected after. Okay.

Okay. Let me ask. So if you're following Mike Johnson's logic here, the reason that he won't swear in representative elect Adelita Grohova is because he's following the Pelosi precedent. Only small problem here. Then Speaker Pelosi waited 25 days to swear in a lawmaker because that lawmaker asked Pelosi to be sworn in on a specific date. And when John Carl tells that to Mike Johnson, all Johnson can do is immediately try to pivot to something

else because Johnson's argument only holds water if you don't push back. What Mike Johnson has are Fox News talking points, little one-liners that he can trot out on right-wing media, knowing full well that he'll never be challenged on any of it. He calls it the Pelosi rule and then Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram and Jesse Watters all nod like little lemmings and nobody bothers to say, yeah, Pelosi chose that date because

she left it up to the representative-elect. In this instance, the representative-elect is begging to be sworn in and you keep saying no. But when John Carl does it, you can see the extent to which Mike Johnson short circuits, has no response, and immediately pivots elsewhere. But then of course the goalposts move.

You see, this is different because when Pelosi did it, the House was in session, but in this instance the House is out of session, so it's totally different. Now notwithstanding the fact that Mike Johnson himself swore in two Republican lawmakers while the House was out of session just months ago, which should already undermine the entire argument

that he's trotting out here, the broader point is that Republicans will literally make up any rule that suits them in that moment. Remember when Merrick Garland was nominated by Barack Obama to sit on the Supreme Court and Mitch McConnell decided by fiat that the new standard, apropos of nothing, became,

you cannot give a hearing to a Supreme Court nominee when the Senate is in a different party than the President during an election year. Completely made up, out of whole cloth. But they needed to put forward any excuse to serve as some tenuous basis to refuse to vote on Obama's nominee. And frankly, even if it wasn't an election year, it would have been some other excuse.

You can't give a hearing to a nominee in a cycle where a party opposite the president took any majority in Congress. You can't have a hearing if there wasn't a national census within the previous five years. You can't have a hearing if the nominee's birthday fell on a Tuesday of that year. It doesn't matter how nonsensical the excuse is. It doesn't matter what the excuse is.

It doesn't matter how untethered to reality it is. The point is that they will latch onto any excuse, any words, to prevent democracy from working if it is not working in their favor. And look, my thinking all along is that this is a short-sighted strategy by Mike Johnson because at some point he's gonna have to swear in Adelita Grijalva and that all he's doing right now is just buying himself one day at a time. This is just a

24-hour strategy on repeat. But I spoke about the prospect of Mike Johnson indefinitely preventing Grajava from being sworn in, meaning indefinitely preventing her from being the 218th vote on that discharge petition to force the release of the Epstein files. I spoke about that with Congressman Dan Goldman. Here's what he had to say. He can't keep Representative-elect Grajava out of the House forever. At some point, he's going to have to swear her in. Maybe, look, maybe, like, maybe he's thinking like, oh, try me, you know, challenge accepted, but the reality is at

some point she's gonna have to come in. She will sign this discharge petition. It will be in a situation where it should then come to the floor for a vote, but even then, I mean, if Mike Johnson is willing to keep her out of the house for as long as he has, almost three weeks, when usually these representative elects are sworn in within 24 hours, then who knows what he'll do when the rules, the norms stipulate that a discharge position has to come to the floor.

Let me give you an example. When Trump implements tariffs under some of the statutes, it is required to come before Congress in order to be essentially ratified. Congress gets a say to endorse the tariffs and the rationale for the tariffs. And you've got, it requires, I think, there are 15 session days before it

is ripe to come to the floor. Mike Johnson literally put in one of the rules that they, Republicans, generally have to pass in order to bring a bill to the floor for a simple majority vote. He literally put in the rules that the clock

on that particular bill introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Greg Meeks would stop. So it would never get to 15 days and it would never be right for a vote so that the Republicans would never have to vote on Trump's tariffs. So that that just shows you the lengths he will go to to avoid normal process, regular order, and frankly, what the statute and law requires to protect Donald Trump and to supplicate

himself to to the president.

So again, for these Republicans, when we expect them to play by the rules, we are only exposing ourselves as fools. They're not playing the same game as us. They are not partners in democracy. They'll cosplay as a small-d Democratic party when it suits them and completely abandon democracy when it does not.

Here, it doesn't. And frankly, when the left yells, well, that's not fair, those aren't the rules, all we do is expose ourselves as fools. All we do is expose our own naivety. Because they have told us, every which way, a thousand times over, that they do not care about playing by the rules.

Again, we are playing two entirely different games. And the only thing worse than what the GOP is doing is the Democrats' inability to recognize it. Which is why it will not suffice to reason with these people. We have to defeat them. We have to make sure that they never hold power again.

This is no way to govern. You wouldn't get on the soccer field where one team is at full strength and the other team has bricks tied to their ankles, would you? That's what's happening here. Democrats will never win against a Republican party for whom rules do not exist. And now, those same Republicans are currently in the process of entrenching their majorities forever.

So I'm asking everybody watching to find your circles of people and make them your responsibility as we head toward this off-year election and even the midterms in 2026. Find 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 people, make sure they know the stakes of these upcoming races. If they live in New Jersey or Virginia, there are elections happening just days from now. If they live in California, make sure they vote for Prop 50 to be able to counteract the GOP's power grab in Texas and Missouri and other states across the US.

There are elections happening just a couple of weeks from now on November 4th all across the US. the US. This is a 5 alarm fire right now and we need everyone on board to ensure that we don't on the president.