Mike Johnson Joins Trump for UFC, Mar-a-Lago, and Displays GOP Power

WASHINGTON (AP) — There was House Speaker Mike Johnson walking behind President-elect Donald Trump’s entourage into Saturday night’s UFC fight at Madison Square Garden, his stature overcome by the enormity of the scene around him. And Johnson mugging with musicians Kid Rock and Jelly Roll. And there was Johnson on Trump’s airplane, peering over the seat in front of him, a four-top table loaded with McDonald’s meals for the president-elect, his son Donald Trump, Jr., Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — the speaker grinning over the seatback. “Epic,” Johnson said about it all as he arrived back at the U.S. Capitol. The images from Johnson’s wild weekend with Trump provide a snapshot of his proximity to power, the former religious rights attorney just a year on the job as House speaker, now dining at Mar-a-Lago, flying on Trump Force One, appearing near-ringside in Manhattan — and riding shotgun to Trump’s second term in the White House. Taken together the photographs, which boomeranged around social media with stunning disbelief and mocking commentaries, put on vivid display Trump’s command of the Republican Party. It spotlighted not only a political force that has swept control of the government in Washington but a cultural moment for the hypermasculine, partygoing, men, and some women, propelling the movement.