His decision to shut the House down at a moment of crisis around AI is the act of a reckless charlatan.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson at the Capitol on September 16, 2026.(Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The need for congressional oversight and regulation of AI is only growing clearer. Just this month, top AI researchers said that the irresponsible development of new technologies posed an existential threat not just to jobs and privacy but to humanity itself. Nobel Prize winners such as Geoffrey Hinton, widely recognized as the “Godfather of AI,” confirmed the assessment. Executives of the AI behemoths that have already consolidated so much of the nation’s wealth acknowledged that they could no longer control their own creations.
Everyone who’d been paying honest attention to the development of artificial intelligence recognized that tech enthusiasts and critics, geeks and Luddites, were identifying threats that had to be addressed by members of Congress—each of whom, let’s not forget, pledges to guard the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Yet President Trump belligerently refused to take the threat seriously—effectively blocking immediate legal and regulatory remedies at the federal level. Trump dismissed all the expert testimony as “a HOAX,” making it clear that executive departments and agencies would not ride to the rescue.
But House members who had been following AI issues leapt into action. “The time for real guardrails on AI is now,” said US Representative Lori Trahan, a former tech-company executive from Massachusetts who is now a key member of the House Artificial Intelligence Caucus. She argued that it was time “to get Congress off the sidelines and put safety, transparency, and accountability first.”
US Representative Greg Casar, the Texas Democrat who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus and represents the tech hub in and around Austin, warned, “Despite its potential deadly consequences, cutting-edge AI technology is less regulated than the average food truck. That must change. In just four years, we have gone from the first version of ChatGPT to AI models so powerful they cannot be properly controlled. Congress should immediately ban AI systems too powerful to control.” US Representative Ro Khanna, the California Democrat who represents Silicon Valley, and other tech-savvy members urged House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) “to keep Congress in session until we have taken meaningful action to regulate AI.”
Unfortunately, Johnson—astonishingly, a more ignorant and disengaged leader even than Trump—had different ideas. The speaker displayed no sense of urgency or responsibility on AI. Just the opposite: He opted for the petty politics of the moment and chose to shut down the House at precisely the moment when it should have been fully engaged.
The headlines told the story on Wednesday: “House speaker calls early recess before midterms amid AI regulation frenzy,” declared The Guardian. The conservative Washington Examiner announced, “Johnson cancels last day of votes before midterm elections despite AI panic.” CBS reported, “As AI rhetoric heats up, Congress stalls on action.”
In one sense, these headlines gave Johnson more credit than he deserved. AI may not have been all that high on his list of reasons for shuttering Congress. The speaker’s primary motivation has always been to do Trump’s bidding. It was transparently obvious that Trump wanted Congress to go dark in order to block action on Republican US Representative Thomas Massie’s resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and on efforts by Massie and Khanna to secure the release of information related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
But, in a broader sense, Johnson’s determination to protect Trump politically —even when questions about existential threats to humanity are at stake—sums up why he is at once a uniquely damaging and dangerous congressional leader.
There is no question that Johnson’s refusal to allow the chamber he leads to perform its constitutionally mandated responsibilities makes him a failed speaker. His absolute uselessness to anyone except Donald Trump has hastened the diminishment of an already dysfunctional legislative branch as a check or balance on executive power—or as a source of meaningful oversight for federal departments and agencies.
That’s dangerous from a systemic standpoint. But the danger Johnson poses does not end there.
Between the reemergence of right-wing red-baiting and Donald Trump’s use of the chilling National Security Presidential Memorandum–7 to criminalize left political organizing, we’re seeing McCarthyism reborn before our eyes.
This assault on democracy cannot be ignored or wished away. Resisting it requires bravery in the face of threats and repression, a steadfast commitment to the truth, and the unwavering belief that we can—and will—overcome this darkness.
We must have an independent media that sets the record straight, unearths corruption and abuses of power, and advances a politics of justice and dignity for all if we’re to win this fight.
That’s why I’m writing to you today. This September, The Nation needs to add 100 monthly donors to sustain our progressive journalism. Your contribution makes the next investigative report, the next truth-speaking column, and the next pathbreaking essay all possible.
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Onward,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation
Johnson is more than ready to shut the House down for political purposes, even in moments when pressing national concerns have arisen. As such, he is prepared to take the whole of the Congress out of play, since there is little that the Senate can do to address AI issues—or other concerns—if the House refuses to engage.
No one knows precisely how serious or far-reaching the challenges from AI are. But what we do know is that the House has checked out of the debate at precisely the point when it should be checked in.
Johnson argues that AI corporations should take the lead in regulating themselves. But, as US Representative Delia Ramirez (D-IL) explains, “You and I know that, despite what Trump and Johnson say, AI companies can’t and won’t regulate themselves.”
Mike Johnson’s oath-of-office-breaking lies—to himself and to his country—make the best case for voters to cast their November ballots with an eye toward eliminating the Republican majority that handed him the speakership. And that’s because Johnson is the most dangerous speaker in the history of the House. He poses a threat to the Constitution and to humanity that can no longer be ignored by an electorate that, despite our many divisions, should unite in defense of the future that this charlatan refuses to prioritize or protect.
John NicholsTwitterJohn Nichols is the executive editor of The Nation. He previously served as the magazine’s national affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. Nichols has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.