House Speaker Mike Johnson does his best Trump impersonation, says as ‘happy warrior’ he’s had ‘kind’ interactions with Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Mike Johnson performed his best impersonation of President Trump’s Queens-style accent during the latest episode of “Pod Force One,” out Wednesday, while recounting how the commander in chief named the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Johnson affectionately imitated Trump after being prompted by The Post’s Miranda Devine to do so while describing a meeting Republicans had in the Oval Office during early discussions about the megabill.

“‘What are we going to name it? What are we going to call it?’” Johnson recalled the president saying, while emulating Trump’s brassy outer-borough drawl, with pursed lips and the signature hand-waiving.

---

Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington. Subscribe here!

---

The GOP speaker explained that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) informed the president about a few acronyms Republicans thought of for the marquee bill, but Trump already had his mind made up.

“He goes, ‘No, I just think we call it the One Big Beautiful Bill. Don’t you think that’s great? That’s so simple, it’s great, you know?” Johnson continued while channelling his Trump accent during the relevant quotes.

“And 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?’”

Johnson had to inform Trump that exclamation points aren’t “a thing in legislation.” The House speaker has occasionally whipped out his Trump impersonation in the past.

During the wide-ranging interview, Johnson opened up about his surprisingly pleasant relationship with one of Trump’s greatest foes — Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

“She’s very kind. I try not to make enemies around here, and we have bitter policy disputes and disagreements, but it’s not personal. It shouldn’t be,” the House GOP leader said of his rapport with Pelosi.

“I always admired Ronald Reagan as a happy warrior and his kind of ethos was Reagan’s 11th commandment: you don’t speak evil of another Republican, certainly. But he even was friendly with his political foes, right?”

He also lauded Trump as “dialed in like no Commander in Chief has been in recent memory.”

Devine then pressed Johnson about whether he would ever be interested in serving as president. As Speaker of the House, he’s currently second in line to the presidency after the vice president.

“I don’t think about that,” Johnson said. “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.”

The GOP leader later opened up about his leadership style in the House, in which he is forced to deal with a notoriously rambunctious caucus and razor-thin majority.

---

Full episode

---

“I’m really as much a mental health counselor as I am a legislator, a policy director, because you’ve got to do all these things simultaneously, and you have to deal with everyone with their individual preferences and peccadilloes,” he reflected.

“It’s not always easy. But we had a one-vote margin for most of the first 100 days, the smallest in history. It would seemingly be an impossible set of circumstances.”

Despite all the stresses of navigating an, at times, unruly caucus, Johnson insisted that “I genuinely love everybody I serve with” and remains well aware of “what makes them tick.”

Johnson had been abruptly thrust into the speakership in late 2023 after House Republicans mounted a mutiny against former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).