House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) affirmed he is standing behind Rep. Max Miller’s (R-OH) reelection campaign despite allegations of domestic violence and child abuse. When asked Monday if he supported Miller, Johnson said “yes,” and that…
Page A2From§Eachthe midnight edition — 1 September 2026
Johnson backs Miller despite abuse allegations; Jeffries defends his Kushner meeting as 'the reality of governance.'
As it ran on the front
Here's the trick, and it's not a new trick, it's the same trick both parties keep in the same drawer: when your own guy does something uncomfortable, you don't defend the thing, you defend the necessity of the thing. Watch the language. Mike Johnson isn't saying the allegations against Max Miller are false or resolved — he's backing the reelection bid despite them, which is a very specific verb tense. Despite. Not 'because they're untrue.' Despite. That word is doing all the work, and it means the allegations are a known cost, already priced in, already budgeted against the value of keeping the seat.
Now flip to the other party, same news cycle, same paper even. Hakeem Jeffries meets with Jared Kushner and calls it 'the reality of governance.' Say that phrase slow. Reality of governance. That's not a fact, that's a permission slip. It's the same grammar as despite — it's a word whose entire job is to let you skip the part of the sentence where you explain why the meeting was worth having. Nobody says 'the reality of governance' about a meeting they're proud of. You say that about a meeting you already know somebody's going to ask you about.…
…(cont) I've watched this long enough to know the tell: whenever a politician reaches for an abstraction — reality, governance, the process, the seat — it's because the concrete noun right behind it is something they don't want you looking at directly. Abuse allegations. Kushner. Those are the concrete nouns. Despite and reality of governance are the curtains somebody pulled in front of them, and both parties know how to pull a curtain, they just use different fabric.
And here's the stakes part, because there's always a stakes part: these aren't two isolated news items, they're the operating manual. Whichever seat, whichever meeting, the muscle memory is the same — protect the structure first, explain later if pressed, and count on the country being too tired to ask the follow-up question. The follow-up question, every time, is the same one: despite, for whose benefit? Reality, whose reality?
“Both parties have the same excuse file, it just wears different letterhead. One leader backs a candidate facing abuse allegations because the seat matters more than the allegation; the other calls a meeting with the guy running interference for power 'the reality of governance,' like reality only excuses your own side. Same trick, different tie color, and the voter's the one who has to live with whichever seat gets kept warm.”
“Look, Speaker Johnson backing Miller isn't an endorsement of any allegation, it's an endorsement of a seat the party needs, that's just math, that's just — okay, that phrasing isn't landing, let me try again. And Jeffries meeting with Kushner, that's bipartisan outreach, that's statesmanship, 'reality of governance' is basically a compliment to how Washington works, it's not a euphemism for anything, did I just call it a euphemism? Strike that.”
The receipts
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) defended his private meeting with Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and top outside adviser of President Donald Trump. Jeffries, who received significant progressive backlash over the meeting, told…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.