House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed the moment he knew that President Joe Biden was not “in charge” after an exchange at the White House last year.

The Louisiana Republican spoke about the January 2024 incident during an interview on the podcast “Honestly” for The Free Press, telling host Bari Weiss about his “personal observation” on Biden’s behavior.

“You said Biden is the worst president in the history of the country. With him about to leave office, do you want to revise that, or do you still stand by it?” Weiss asked.

(Video Credit: The Free Press)

“No, I do stand by it, and I say this without any personal animus at all. I mean, in some ways, I actually kind of feel sorry for Joe Biden,” Johnson replied.

“He’s in the twilight years of his life. He obviously has not been in charge for some time, and I know this by personal observation. Now the whole world knows it, and it’s been very, very concerning to me over the last year and a half since I’ve had this story,” the speaker continued before recounting how the president seemed to forget he had signed an executive order pausing the export of liquified natural gas (LNG).

Johnson recalled there were “big national concerns” when he stepped into the leadership role and that his attempts to meet with the president were unsuccessful.

“The Speaker of the House should be able to talk to the president, especially in times of great national interest and calamity. But they wouldn’t let me meet with him. His staff kept giving excuses,” he told Weiss.

“This went on for like eight or nine weeks. I was told, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Speaker, he doesn’t have time.’ What are you talking about? I’m second in line to the presidency. He has time. I need to talk to him,” Johnson said.

When they finally “relented,” Johnson recalled asking Biden directly why he paused LNG exports to Europe.

“Like, I don’t understand. Liquefied natural gas is in great demand by our allies. Why would you do that?” Johnson recalled asking.

“He looks at me, stunned, and says, ‘I didn’t, I didn’t do that.’ I said, ‘Mr. President, yes, you did. It was an executive order, like, three weeks ago,'” the speaker continued.

Johnson then recounted how Biden clarified by saying he authorized a “study on the effects of LNG.”

“I said, ‘No, you’re not, sir. You paused it. I know. I have the export terminals in my state. I talked to those people this morning. This is doing massive damage to our economy and national security,'” he recalled telling the president.

“It occurred to me, Bari, he was not lying to me. He genuinely did not know what he had signed,” Johnson concluded. “I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, We’re in serious trouble. Who is running the country? I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.”

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Frieda Powers

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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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