It was his first day again in Washington after an extended winter break, and Speaker Mike Johnson was underneath strain to cross a short-term funding invoice to keep away from a authorities shutdown inside days.
With hard-right Republicans in full revolt over the plan, everybody in the Capitol was keen to know what the inexperienced chief would do subsequent, and whether or not it’d lead to his ouster.
After spending lower than six minutes answering questions at a information convention, Mr. Johnson shut down reporters’ shouted questions with a silent cue, like a cab gentle switched off, signaling he was now not obtainable: He held his smartphone to his ear and speed-walked out of sight.
It is a ploy that Mr. Johnson has used regularly to dodge questions since the fall when he received the place of speaker, and with it the tough job of governing with a deeply divided and shrinking Republican majority in the House.
Before he was elected in October, Mr. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican in his fourth time period, routinely stopped for hallway interviews. They are a staple of a lawmaker’s life on Capitol Hill, the place credentialed reporters roam freely in all however just a few safe areas, buttonholing members of Congress wherever they will discover them. Mr. Johnson would usually cease and speak in the marble corridors surrounding the House ground, submitting to impromptu and generally prolonged question-and-answer periods with reporters earlier than and after votes.
But since successful the gavel, Mr. Johnson has taken to avoiding that ritual, using one in all the most typical techniques in a member of Congress’s playbook to accomplish that: speaking, or pretending to speak, on the telephone. These days, as he strides by way of the Capitol from his workplace to the House ground and again, Mr. Johnson’s most popular posture is inaccessible. And it most frequently includes utilizing his iPhone as his buffer.
The “on the phone” gesture serves as a defend in opposition to the undesirable hallway interrogation, an all-purpose nonverbal rebuff that conveys busyness with out seeming to stonewall, and carries with it the risk of maximum awkwardness if ignored. (Is it a pretend telephone name, a sick child or the president of the United States? It’s arduous for journalists to inform who, if anybody, is on the different finish of the line — and that’s the level.)
On the events when he’s not holding his telephone to his ear whereas strolling, Mr. Johnson is typically taking notes or reviewing papers. Photographers have complained that it’s tough to seize an image of Mr. Johnson trying up.
And if he’s not busying himself with one other activity, Mr. Johnson nonetheless solely hardly ever engages in questions on the work earlier than the House, or the rest. What was he doing to rejoice his birthday, a reporter requested him on Tuesday morning, his 52nd birthday, as he made his manner by way of the Capitol.
“Working,” Mr. Johnson replied brusquely. He answered no different questions.
His distant strategy is a placing change from the manner Mr. Johnson’s two speedy predecessors dealt with the public-facing portion of the strongest job in Congress. Kevin McCarthy, a chatty extrovert, couldn’t resist talking with reporters a number of occasions a day as he made his manner round the Capitol, partaking in walk-and-talks and holding impromptu information conferences in Statuary Hall.
As he turned extra embattled, Mr. McCarthy appeared to have interaction with the press much more, generally holding a number of spur-of-the-moment gaggles a day and getting into unexpectedly into tv reporters’ dwell photographs, the place he was sport to speak extra. Even on his worst days, Mr. McCarthy at all times appeared to find time for the media, even when his generally garbled utterances wanted to be cleaned up with yet one more back-and-forth with the press.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi additionally regularly answered questions as reporters trailed her round the constructing. She held a solo weekly information convention as effectively, sometimes taking questions for about 30 minutes.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the longtime Republican chief from Kentucky, additionally holds weekly question-and-answer periods with reporters exterior the Senate chamber. But exterior his formal information convention, the taciturn Mr. McConnell has a extra direct and chillier manner of deflecting hallway queries he needs to keep away from: He merely stares straight forward and retains strolling, as if the questioner doesn’t exist.
Some observers speculate that Mr. Johnson’s comparatively skittish posture stems from his inexperience in his new publish. His aides insist it’s strategic; he doesn’t need to muddy the message of the day. Aware that every one of his feedback are actually scrutinized underneath a microscope, Mr. Johnson’s strategy assumes that much less is extra.
That means becoming a member of a weekly information convention with different House Republican leaders, a gaggle affair the place his is one voice amongst a number of, and little else. His aides observe that he provides to his slim media footprint underneath the Capitol dome with a much bigger presence in tv interviews.
Commuting by way of the Capitol generally is a conversational minefield for lawmakers. Journalists and photographers, who lurk in each hallway and stairwell, are an accepted a part of the ecosystem of Capitol Hill, and answering their questions on the information of the day is an anticipated a part of the job for elected officers.
For those that love consideration, the media scrutiny is a perk.
“My motto is, ‘Almost all press is good press,’” mentioned Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, who has a fame for sometimes being unavoidable for remark. Mr. Khanna mentioned it had by no means occurred to him to use his telephone to keep away from questions. He mentioned he’d be extra possible to dangle up if a reporter approached him to chat.
But for lawmakers much less keen on answering questions, the “on the phone” technique is a helpful manner to sign that journalists looking for feedback and quips ought to hunt elsewhere.
“I would actually do it as a joke,” mentioned Al Franken, the former Minnesota senator and comic. “I would just do that thing with my hand, thumb in ear, like, ‘I’m on the phone.’ Sometimes I’d say I’m on the phone with the president.”
Mr. Franken mentioned it may very well be an efficient manner to dodge reporters, however he admitted it hasn’t been a very plausible technique for navigating the Capitol since the Blackberry went out of trend. “He doesn’t want to be accessible,” he mentioned of Mr. Johnson. “That’s sort of up to him. Then he has to just live with the consequences, which is your writing a piece about it.”
For some, the penalties embody being caught in a lie. Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, pretended to be on a name as he left the Capitol in June 2022, as reporters pressed him to clarify his function in making an attempt to ship a slate of pretend electors to an aide to former Vice President Mike Pence.
“I’m on the phone,” Mr. Johnson mentioned. Except he wasn’t.
“No, you’re not — I can see your phone; I can see your screen,” Frank Thorp V, a reporter for NBC News, responded.
Mr. Johnson finally gave up the ruse, placing his telephone again in his pocket and responding to the reporters trailing him. (“That’s a complete nonstory,” he lastly mentioned, including, “I don’t know what you’re even concerned about here.”)
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, who has been threatening to oust Mr. Johnson from the speakership if he brings up any invoice that features extra funding to Ukraine, mentioned the telephone trick simply isn’t her fashion.
“I don’t think you’ll see me walking around on the phone,” mentioned Ms. Greene, who in recent times has taken a friendlier strategy with the mainstream media she used to make use of as a foil. “But I’ll look to see if Mike Johnson tries to avoid me like that.”
