It's a recognition of who we are before a holy God.
All of us, every single one of us, have fallen short of His glory, and we're in need of a Savior, and we're in need of His grace every day, every minute of every day. And recognizing that puts you in a position to have the kind of eternal perspective and the humility that's necessary to do difficult things and to do difficult jobs. Well, that's the speaker of the U.S. House, Mike Johnson, and he's my special guest today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. It's a privilege to connect with the speaker to discuss his faith, his family, and how his work in the government kind of gets accomplished day by day.
It's not easy to be in leadership. I have seen that over my 35 years at Focus on the Family, and we'll talk about that and how his faith guides his daily decisions. Mike Johnson became the speaker of the House in 2023. He served in Congress since 2016, and before that, he was a representative in the Louisiana State House.
He and his wife Kelly have been married for 25 years, and they have five children. Mr. Speaker, welcome to Focus on the Family. Well, thanks for being here, and thanks for having me. Now, I'm going to ask you some questions that I think take you back before we get into kind of the political landscape and some of the issues we're facing as a nation. But this is my wife, Jean.
She loves to know more about the person, whether we're watching football or watching the news and political figures, so I'm doing this for her. But I want to go back to your parents were teenage parents. They weren't married when they had you, probably thought about maybe not being able to keep you, or an abortion. Describe that revelation as you grow up.
You find out your parents were, you know, not in the best place to have you. Yeah. Yeah, I've shared this story a few times in recent years.
It never had never been relevant. We didn't talk about it a lot until I got into politics, but I'm the product of teen pregnancy. My parents were not high school sweethearts, but seventh grade sweethearts, and they said they dated from junior high on, middle school on, and their junior year of high school, I was conceived. And it was exactly, almost exactly, Jim, a year before Roe v. Wade, January of 72.
I was born January 30th. And during the pregnancy, of course, your friends said, you know, you can go get that taken care of. And my parents were both raised Catholic, nominal Catholic families, but they just knew somewhere deep in their heart that was not right. And thankfully, I was allowed to be born. And so they dropped out of high school and got married to start a family. That's what you did in the 70s.
If you're going to take that step. And so my dad became a firefighter. And I'm the oldest of four children.
They had three others in pretty close succession. And we had a great loving family. And I've always been very deeply committed to the issue, the sanctity of human life, because it's so real to us.
And, you know, that's the story of a lot of people. It's just not spoken of. And I think in that context, that's what confuses people who oppose life, because they think we're just in this for a political fight.
It's much deeper. This is a moral crisis in the country. When you look at the states that have been restrained from doing abortion through their state legislatures, I think there's 22 or so similar to Florida.
Florida's one with Governor DeSantis. I saw a report not long ago about 83,000 babies have been saved in these 22 states because of those restrictions. Being a child who could have been aborted. I mean, what do you say to those 83,000 kids that it was due to the law that was changed that, you know, kind of persuaded those parents in some form or fashion not to have an abortion? And now they're alive. They get a chance at life.
And every single one of those children, their lives have an estimable dignity and value. You know, our declaration for our country, our nation's birth certificate states that so clearly. And I like to remind audiences that all the time. That's what makes our nation different and distinct is that we boldly proclaimed what we said was a self-evident truth that all of us are created by God. And you and I both know we've talked about before. I mean, that is the foundational premise. It's in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and we abandon that premise at our peril. You know, you said something a moment ago that caught my attention, which is your parents knew that wasn't the right thing to do. And I think part of the challenge today is fewer and fewer people understand that.
It was so interwoven. It was a necessary evil that they talked about back in 1973 because of these certain circumstances that abortion had to be available to women. But most people felt this is not a good thing. Now they're doing TikTok videos celebrating their abortion, taking the life of a child. And my question is more centered around the change of culture. The idea that everybody kind of even back in the Clinton era, it was rare, legal and safe. I mean, I used to say it's not safe. Obviously someone dies through abortion.
But this idea of rare, it seems to be out the window now. And they're celebrating this idea that abortion is the way to go. It's depravity on parade. And they're celebrating it, as you said, in a cultural sense, society wide. That's what's been happening for the last several decades. It's what we've been working — you and I and all of us — working to push back against. But it is a cultural tide. And we have long since abandoned the idea of a culture of life. And now our challenge today — all of us — is to rebuild that, reach out a renewed hand of compassion, explain to people the facts, and that every life is valuable.
As we said, we have a lot of work to do. Yeah. I just want to go back to your parents and close that chapter. But your dad was a firefighter. My brother-in-law was a firefighter in Beverly Hills. That was a nice place to be a firefighter. But in that regard, he had a tragic accident and went on disability.
You're the oldest son. You kind of learn to take on responsibility. How old were you when that happened? And what did those years look like afterward?
Yeah, September 17, 1984. My father was the assistant chief training officer of the Shreveport Fire Department in my hometown in northwest Louisiana. And he was also the co-leader of the Hazardous Materials Team. They got a call they thought was routine. And they went to a cold storage facility in the southwest part of our city. And it was an anhydrous ammonia leak. And in hindsight, we all know the facts now, but the owners of the plant were trying to cover their own backsides because they were supposed to report that within hours of the leak.
But they let it go for about two weeks. And so when my father and his co-workers showed up, they put on their rubberized chemical suits and went inside the building. And as his co-worker, his co-captain, was driving a forklift to lift my father up to cap the leak, an explosion happened and the building blew. And my dad got burned. Eighty percent of his body third-degree burns.
And his co-captain sadly perished from his injuries in the fire. And it changed our whole lives. It was a different trajectory we were on. But prior to that, I was 12 when it happened, my whole aspiration was to be the chief of the Shreveport Fire Department. And I grew up at the Fire and Police Training Academy.
We literally lived across the street from it. You know, I loved the fraternity of the, you know, fire service and all of that. And that was the culture that we grew up in. But after that, they encouraged me to take another route. And I was the first person in my family to go to college and wind up at law school and somehow wound up here.
I'm sure they're proud of you and we're proud of you. But dad passed away. Is your mom alive? Mom's alive? Yes, she's, you know, she's only 17 years older than me.
So she looks like my sister to this day. My father passed away tragically three days before I was elected to Congress in 2016, December. And he wanted to be there on election night so badly, but he got cancer in his latter days and just couldn't make it. But, you know, I feel a certain sense of his, I don't know how to say it, but I feel like my dad knows from heaven, you know, what's happening here. And he's sort of enjoying it that way. I have to think that way. Well, in some ways you are the captain of the Fire Department because there's a fire burning in the culture and God's called you to put the fire out. And metaphorically speaking, it burns here like a wild blaze every day.
Yeah, it's crazy. Let me ask you this most important question. Of course, our viewers and listeners are going to appreciate this. The mystery of becoming a Christian, you know, your faith in Christ. Why don't you describe it for us, when that happened, what it meant to you and what he means to you, especially for the Christian listener. But many, many non-Christians listen. Last year we had 193,000 people come to Christ.
So you're going to have people hearing you right now that are going to be hearing this for the first time. Well, I was blessed in that regard, Jim, is that my father, when I was two years old, my father was led to Christ in a dentist chair. Yeah, no kidding. That is a miracle.
It is a miracle. And that dentist named Larry Weeks, Dr. Larry Weeks, became a formative figure in our household. And so my parents, he invited them to church and they began going to a non-denominational Bible church out in the country, out where we lived. And that's what I grew up in, that environment.
And it was real. It was a committed group of believers. And, you know, the lessons we learned from the Bible were not something you just talked about on Sunday morning, but we were told that that was part of a full worldview. We didn't know the term worldview at the time.
I think that was developed later. But it was a way of life that you don't, it's not a one day a week, you know, thing. It's seven days a week.
It's 24-7. It's who we are. And so faith was very real to me. I saw my dad miraculously, you know, healed and recovered from his injuries so much as one can be after being burned so severely. You know, faith was very real to me. And that's, I grew up with that understanding. I was, I was, got saved when I was seven years old and baptized in a horse trough behind our country church. And it's been a very real thing to me ever since. And when Kelly and I got married 25 years ago, she was raised, we're blessed, she was raised in a Christian household as well.
And it's just been who we are. When you became the 56th Speaker of the House, again, congratulations on that. I was telling everybody, man, this is a God thing. Because he just got elected in 2016.
Yeah. And here you were kind of in a junior spot, it seemed like, you know, you weren't in Congress that long. And eyes turned on you. Why do you think that happened? I mean, look, it's not a job that I ever aspired to or expected to have, for some very practical reasons. I'm from a small state, Louisiana, was trying to be a loyal lieutenant. And as everyone knows, I don't have to recount all the series of events that happened last October. But I just want to say, I mean, I was, I was, we were all deep in prayer at the time. It was a very dangerous time for the country. And I just felt very clearly the Lord has spoken in my heart to just be prepared and, and, and be ready. And I just assumed I was to be prepared to be a lieutenant to whomever the next speaker was going to be.
And over the series of three weeks when Congress was closed down, we get you under our constitution, you can't operate if you don't have a Speaker of the House. It was a serious situation. I remember that.
And remember, October 7, it happened in Israel, and you know, China was making provocations, you know, we were concerned about them maybe invading Taiwan. I mean, it was a crazy time. And and so ultimately, you know, it became clear to me that the Lord really spoke to my heart and said, it's time to step forward.
And my colleagues nominated me and we were elected, we somehow we got the first unanimous vote for speaker for our party in decades. It really was a God thing. I mean, look, there's a passage of Scripture that I only halfway jokingly share, people say, how do you explain that? I said, passage of Scripture says, God chooses the lowly things to confound the wise. It's, it's, God gets the glory when the unlikely person is elevated. And there's no better explanation than that.
God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called, as we're often reminded. I kind of know what you feel like. Yeah. Coming behind Dr. Dobson. Yeah, right, right.
Yeah. Let me ask you this, Mr. Speaker, when you were made the speaker, people immediately, media immediately attacked your Christian faith. Tell me, you know, there's so many wonderful attributes to being a Christian that, you know, benefits not only you personally, your family, culture.
What is the deal? Why do people attack us the way they do because we believe in love, joy, peace, goodness, mercy? I mean, these aren't bad things. No, the principles of righteousness, truth and brotherly love you would think would be embraced by everyone. They were, by the way, previous generations, as we know. In fact, you go back and read the annals of our history and you read the floor speeches and the, even the speeches of presidents and certainly leaders in Congress, they all spoke openly about their faith, about the importance of how we're one nation under God, you know, that they made it our national motto in the mid part of the 20th century. Prior to that, it was always understood. So they formalized it and finalized it. And all those things were just a deeply embedded part of our country, this deep religious heritage about who we are, dating back, as we noted earlier, to the Declaration of Independence, our nation's birth certificate.
But it's gone out of fashion now. And so I think the reluctance and I think the pushback is because truly Bible believing Christians espouse the idea of moral absolutes and truth. There is a truth. There's not a million truths. It's not your truth. There is the truth. And if we're bold enough to stand for that principle, which is good for individuals, families, communities, states and nations, then that is somehow an affront to people. And, you know, I understand it. It's a sad thing. But if you're a person of faith, get ready, the arrows will come. Certainly if you are given a position and a platform of this nature, that's going to happen. We knew it would.
And it's no fun. But you know, we learned is when we were young, the biblical admonition to bless those who persecute you, you know, a soft word turns away wrath, you know, all those all those ideas that I didn't sound so good. Oh, yes, it did. Oh, yes.
I didn't know we'd have Brexit every every day, every day, especially you. Yeah, but it those principles actually work. Yeah, you know, and, and it does change the atmosphere. And when you react that way, it has an effect on others. And, you know, we're just living it out. In response to the duty of a Christian. You point to Micah six, eight. What does that scripture mean to you?
And what is it? Well, it's it's pretty simple formula. He's shown the Oh, man, what is good and what the Lord requires of the act justly love mercy, walk humbly with your your God. I mean, the idea is that we have to do all those things.
And we can't do it in our own strength. John 15, five says, I'm the vine you're the branches without me, you can do nothing. But then over in Philippians, we learned that with Christ, we can do all things, you know, so it's a recognition of who we are before a holy God, all of us, every single one of us have fallen short of his glory. And we're in need of a Savior, and we're in need of His grace every day, every minute of every day. And recognizing that puts you in position to have the kind of eternal perspective and the humility that's necessary to do difficult things and to do difficult jobs. And all we're responsible to do, Jim, is our best in our duty every single day, as flawed as we are, you know, and trust that that God is sovereign, and he's working on his will.
And that's what allows me to sleep very soundly for the four hours I'm allowed every night. Because I know that our country is in desperate times right now. I mean, these are this is the most dangerous time since World War Two. People have lost sight of the of the foundational principles of the country, they've been eroding. And we need steady hands of the wheel, we need people who understand these eternal principles and will and are willing to stand on the truth that our country was built upon.
It's never been more important than it is right now. I think it's so difficult. You know, 2 Timothy 2 22 to 26 is a really tough part of Scripture because it says don't get caught up in ridiculous quarrels because they lead nowhere and endure evil. Endure evil? I mean, really? Lord, do you know the evil we're under?
You know, that kind of thing. And then at the end, it's saying simply so that those who are taken captive by the enemy might escape his snare. This is my paraphrase. And no longer serve him, you know, serve God. And, you know, very few people have a chance in their vocation to see it quite the way you can see it as Speaker of the House.
I mean, and again, not everything Republican and Democrat is wrapped in that bubble. But spiritually speaking, there's so much in that of good and evil and discerning the right thing to do. And I think, you know, personally, it is a struggle because you want to get up and I played football. You want to do some head whacking, you know, because you're going, come on, this is right.
So obvious. But God calls us to a higher standard. And it's a tough standard. It is a tough standard. I think it's harder to do that standard, which is to love your enemy. Yes. Than it is to hate your enemy. That's that comes pretty easily. Oh, of course. That's our fallen nature.
And we're prone to that. And but, you know, what I've found is when you practice that passage in Second Timothy rings so true, and it is so applicable, and I have it posted on my desk to remind me every day it says the servant of the Lord must be gentle to those who attack him, right? Because the whole idea is to everyone, everyone, right? And love the minority leader. Right, exactly.
But the thing is, when you take on God's perspective, and you see people the way he does, then it allows you to go past the barbs and the arrows, and to go to the heart and to love that person as as Christ does, you know, and it is a truly liberating way to live. I mean, I don't, I don't carry grudges. I don't, I don't keep a record of wrongs you and it turns out that's exactly the the approach that must be taken right now. We've had the smallest majority in U.S. history, right? Had a one vote margin in our majority for five months.
I don't have the luxury of carrying grudges. I, you know, I have to practice those principles every single day. And you know what? It works.
The biblical formula works because it was written by the one who made the rules. Let me ask you this because, again, the division in the country is so high in cable news. You know, we tend to watch one station over another and family members even watch one station. And you know, you say to your spouse, boy, they'll get it now. And they say they don't watch that channel. You know, so the information is very bifurcated in the country.
And I think all that to say, how do you cope in your role with persuasion and talking with people behind the scenes, trying to get them to? Well, let me let me go to the movie, Reagan. Did you see that? I haven't seen it yet.
I haven't had time. So I interviewed Dennis Quaid. Oh, yeah. I think that was the last person I interviewed.
So there you go. But he talked about and I saw it in the movie itself. There's a scene where your predecessor Tip O'Neill went to Reagan's bedside when he was shot and prayed for him. Kissed him on the forehead, in fact.
Okay, would that happen today? Well, it's funny because I told that story several months ago, when someone was asking me about my relationship with Hakeem Jeffries, who's the Democrat leader, right? He's my, you know, opposing force in the house. And Hakeem is a professing Christian as well. And I said, well, he's my brother.
And they went, what, you know, and because no one talks like that anymore. You're supposed to be at war. Listen, we do have to fight for our principles. We never we will never we can never compromise core principles, biblical truth, we're not gonna do that we're supposed to fight but there is a biblical manner in which we are to do that, you know, fight the good fight of the faith. But there's a way to do that contend for the faith.
Yes, but you do it in the right spirit. So even though Hakeem and I agree on almost nothing, policy wise, I respect him as an individual, I love him as a friend, we're supposed to even love our enemies much less our colleagues in the building. But it changes the atmosphere of the place when the two leaders are willing to sit down across the table. We debate and argue, but we do it in the right spirit. And that was the Reagan tip O'Neill model.
That's good to hear. They didn't agree about much of anything, but right. But they, at the end of the day, they knew that work was different than how they treated one another. And they were actually great friends.
We need more of that in the country. When I when I told the example of tip O'Neill going to Reagan's bedside to kiss him on the forehead after the assassination attempt, which is a famous event in history, I started getting, somebody heard the clip, it was on another podcast I did. And, and people were Oh, so you want to go, you know, kiss Joe Biden on the forehead.
What? No, we're talking about the principle. And the idea that it's that is so foreign to people to hear that story now is very telling about where we are in society. In the last few minutes, separation of church and state, there's such a misnomer. You know, I went and read the letter that Jefferson had written to the Danbury Baptist, Danbury Baptist, it actually is quite clear. I don't think it lends itself to separating the state from the church.
But I mean, it is like taken over the culture. Even for us, you got to be thinking about how much can we say in public about our faith in Christ? We're the ones on our heels, the others, those that oppose us would speak about anything all day. Why do we have that perspective? And used to be a religious liberty lawyer?
Yeah, yeah. So and I had to explain that concept everywhere it went all over the country. The so called separation of church and state people believe is in the Constitution. And it's actually the opposite. I mean, the first freedom we have in the Constitution, the first thing listed in the Bill of Rights is the free exercise of religion. And what Jefferson clearly meant in his letter was that they wanted to make sure there was not a the government establishing one national denomination, one national church like the Church of England, which had been taken over by corruption in which everyone had lamented. They didn't want the state to establish religion.
But the converse was also true. They did want a vibrant expression of faith in the public square. So this is what the founders understood if you're going to have a self-governing society, a self-governing people, a self-governing government, then you had to have a moral consensus beneath that to hold it together. Because they understood, remember, they were students of scripture, they understood that all men are fallen and fallen and prone to corruption, and that power corrupts.
And as Lord Acton observed, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now with education, is there ever a chance we can get people to again look at these core foundational truths that will rejuvenate the country? Well, let me be an ambassador. It's kind of a revival. It is.
It is. I believe, I believe that's certainly possible and definitely needed. I do believe I am an optimist. I believe our best days are ahead of us.
I believe we can come out of the darkness. And the pendulum went so far, it clicked. And I believe it's beginning to swing backwards. We're seeing that dynamic around the country.
You're seeing it. Now, here's the challenge, though. We have to walk into that vacuum and share truth in a compelling way, in a way that people understand. There's nothing new under the sun, as scripture reminds us, right? But we have to, we have to present the timeless eternal truths in a way that's relevant to today so that people listen to that, and it's compelling to them, and they're drawn to that truth. That's what Second Timothy 2 is all about.
Yeah, so true. Right at the end here, focus on the family. We're about marriage and parenting mostly, and we, you know, try to create and work with people like you to support policies that promote the family. When you look at all of the research right now, whether it's Dr. Brad Wilcox at University of Virginia, Melissa Kearney, a secular researcher, an economist at MIT, who just wrote the book The Privileged Two-Parent Family, all the research shows that the healthiest place for a child to be is within an intact mom and dad home. That child has the greatest likelihood of success, finishing high school, going on to college, and having a good life in every way, spiritually, emotionally, financially. So why do, why does the government seemingly fight those things that would undergird, strengthen the family? I'll give you an example.
In Australia, if you're going to file for divorce and you have children under 18, there's a six-month moratorium while you get counseling as a couple. That's kind of interesting. Public policy should advance strong two-parent families. I mean, that's the idea. The social science has never changed.
It's always said that. And we know it intuitively, and we know it biblically certainly, because that's how God designed it. The first institution is marriage and the family. And any public policy that advances timeless, I think, self-evident truths is good. We ought to encourage stable families. We ought to have public policy and tax policy and all other incentives that do that, because it's good not just for those families, but for society at large. And the data shows that.
Yeah. Well, for us, we don't care if there's a D or an R behind the name. We're so grateful that you're willing to do the right things to support the family, to strengthen the family, because we think that's where it all starts. That's where society starts. And we are grateful to you for standing on those principles and for your faith in Christ. Thank you for your courage. Well, thank you. Thanks for focusing on the family's just essential work. Appreciate that.
The value of it and the importance of the ministry right now, I think it's never been more important. And you've done such a good job today. You get five hours of sleep today.
Yeah, I have jet lag. You did great. God bless you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, my friend. Great to see you. To the listener and viewer, I want to say thank you for joining us and listening in on this great discussion with the Speaker of the House. I thought it was really informative, and it gave you a little deeper perspective about Mike Johnson, the man, and a little bit about his family. Gene always appreciates hearing more about the spouses and the kids and things like that.
You know, politics is just a grueling vocation for those who undertake it. And I'm grateful that God has placed Mike Johnson in the role as Speaker. And I hope you got a sense of his commitment to the Lord and what is important to him. I think also here at Focus on the Family, we're trying to inform you. The Daily Citizen, which is a free e-newsletter, you can subscribe at that. Just go to the Focus on the Family website.
You'll find your way to it. Again, it's Daily Citizen. It's free. It'll give you an update on what's happening on a daily basis in the news. And then also I want to mention our great option ultrasound program, which is $60 to save a baby's life. We've been doing this for over 20 years now. We've saved over half a million children from abortion.
It's a great program. It has multiple prongs such as helping the pregnancy resource centers to staff up, to give them the help that they need to help that woman in need. And ultimately, to help that woman choose life. $60 saves a baby's life.
I hope you can do that. If you've never given to Focus before, why not give to that as the starting point of your support to the ministry. Also, you can subscribe, as I mentioned, to the Daily Citizen or donate to Option Ultrasound by calling 1-800, the letter A in the word family, or follow the link in the program description. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
Please join us again tomorrow when we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Hey, this is Dr. Greg Smalley with Focus on the Family. If you're married, you know it takes work for two lives to become one. Your wins and losses are often tied to who you are and how you work together. The Focus on the Family marriage assessment provides a combined report that considers your individual strengths, areas of growth, and how unique people like you can better come together. To get started on your marriage assessment, visit MarriageStrengths.com. That's MarriageStrengths.com.
