Mike Johnson - The Miracle Speaker with Bunni Pounds

0:00 We'll come right to you and I will have a picture here. Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and today on The Strang Report we're going to talk about what everybody in America is talking about and that's the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who is a congressman from Shreveport, Louisiana that most of us had never heard his name until a day or two ago and suddenly he's number three in line for the presidency. And today we're going to talk to Bunny Pounds, who is one of the most interesting people I think I've ever met.

0:46 And she actually knows Mike Johnson and when I found out I said let's do a special live strang report to kind of get the behind the scenes and you may want to share this with others, put it on your social media because this is hot for today, Friday, October 27th. And where, you know, this just happened 48 hours ago was the vote and then Mike Johnson gave a speech to Congress, which I saw online and it was magnificent. So rather than me talking more, let me say welcome to you Bunny, thank you for fitting this in on a very busy schedule.

1:27 I think it's important that Christian people, those who follow The Strang Report, those who follow us on Christmas news and so forth, know what's going on because often we don't know who to trust, we don't know what to believe, even some of the conservatives, even some of the conservatives in the Christian space all have access to grind and so forth. But I was impressed that you know Mike Johnson personally. So let me welcome you and ask you how you got to know him. Well, it's great to be with you, Steve. And yeah, I've been working in politics for 16 years with members of Congress and I got to know Congressman Mike Johnson through a couple of his colleagues, Congressman Michael Cloud down in Victoria, Texas and Congressman Chip Roy and others.

2:16 But I've always followed his career. He used to work for Alliance Defending Freedom and First Liberty Institute. He fought for religious liberty for over 20 years. And then he ran for the state house in Louisiana. He won in a landslide really. There was real not hardly any competition because he had such an incredible resume as a constitutional attorney, a strong believer. And so he ran for the state house, was a stalwart conservative in Louisiana and then ran for Congress. That's a fairly conservative part of the country. You know, in some parts of the country, somebody with his credentials would have been crushed on purpose or even targeted by the left.

3:00 But here it's almost like he was a little bit stealth, you know. And so as you got to know him through some of the people he worked with, did you ever think that he would emerge as Speaker of the House? I didn't, but I saw something with Congressman Johnson. He is a unifier. He just has a way about him. Number one, he understands the Constitution. We had long conversations because I lead a nonprofit Christian ministry called Christians Engaged and he's very active in getting the church and the body of Christ to understand the importance of prayer, voting and engagement. He actually teaches congressional classes in churches.

3:40 And so we were having conversations about how we can work together on that. And I was so impressed in the couple of hours that I spent with him, again, not a deep relationship, but enough to understand his heart for the Lord, his heart for America, his heart for the Constitution. And yeah, he's the seventh in leadership. So he's pursued, you can take a couple of routes in Congress. You can be a flamethrower and a Freedom Caucus member and you can try to create chaos to help the broken system that truly is broken in Washington, D.C. Or you can go kind of try to work with leadership and try to get conservative legislation through that route.

4:23 We have believers on both sides of that that are strong and they're amazing people of God. So Mike is one of those ones that's kind of tried to work with leadership. He wasn't one of the 20 that stood up and ousted McCarthy or didn't vote for him. He voted for Speaker McCarthy at the beginning of the year. But he has always been hugely pro-life, huge religious liberty, always stood up for Israel, always been a social and fiscal conservative. He's one of those ones that has always fought against government spending, even in leadership. And I think it says a lot about him that he's got like a 92% lifetime voting record with the American Conservative Union and 90% from heritage action, even in leadership.

5:13 That's unheard of because a lot of times in leadership, you have to make compromising decisions and you have to do what's good for the team. Mike has always stood up for his conscience and if you just look at his voting patterns, you would be impressed. Well, I am impressed with what I've heard and read about him. There was an article today in The Epic Times that says 30 things to know about Mike Johnson. It was really very interesting if people wanted to check it out online. And also, you had an interesting article that first ran in the stream and then in Charisma News, which people may want to read as well. But so, you know, we don't need to go over the facts as much.

5:58 There's a lot of stuff out there. I want to know the kind of inside baseball things, some of the things that you're talking to me about to lead up to this interview. And one of them, which you kind of touched on because you were talking about the Freedom Caucus and other things, you know, it seems to me that the Democrats or those on the left seem to stick together 100% voting on some issues and a lot of Republicans don't. In fact, there's a term called Republican in name only. We call it Rhino, R-I-N-O for short. You never hear of a Democrat in name only.

6:41 Never. Even though there are obviously differences, you know, on the spectrum and just full disclosure. I was a Democrat for many years, but here in the South, the Democratic Party was very, very different. At least we had conservative Democrats in the state of Florida. I finally got to where I couldn't vote for any Democrat and I thought I need to change my registration. In Florida, you either register or vote Republican or Democrat, which doesn't mean anything, except that you can only, you're closed primaries. But I tell people that I'm a reluctant Republican because we're disappointed so many times, but we have no option.

7:23 I mean, what are we going to do? Vote for a socialist? I don't think so. You know, Rhino is better than a socialist, but there are many and I realize this is a little bit off topic, but it also relates to what I want to hear from you because a lot of Republicans will run saying one thing and when they get to Washington, there's not a bit of difference between them and the Democrats, except on maybe one or two hot button issues. But you're saying that Mike Johnson is consistent. He's not a Rhino. Correct. It seems that the Republicans wanted to get rid of Speaker McCarthy because they perceived him at least. I don't want to accuse him of that, but he was not as conservative, but apparently there are four different sort of factions within the Republican Party that I found very interesting when you described them to me.

8:15 So why don't you just tell us where they are and where you think that Mike Johnson falls in that spectrum? Yeah. I mean, the thing with the Republican Party, Stephen, is we've got, it's a large big tent party where the Democrats mostly get elected from very strong urban areas. Republicans get elected all over the country. So you've got, yeah, nuances within the Republican House caucus. You've got Republicans that are elected from California and New York that are not social conservatives for the most part and they're not fiscal conservatives, but they believe in a strong national defense and they believe in liberty to a sense.

8:57 And that's why they call themselves Republicans. You've got, you know. Sometimes there are districts where you can't get elected if you don't have the art by your name and they know that and so that's how they run. But anyway, go ahead with your description. No, that actually is a good point. There are people that run as Republicans because they can't get elected anywhere else and they, you know, are more democratic leaning. Then you've got people that, you know, they're working within the bipartisan problem solvers caucus. They're the ones that are working across the aisle trying to solve national problems. Conservatives can be conservatives and moderates. Then you've got the Republican Study Committee, which is the largest conservative caucus in the House.

9:42 It used to be kind of like the Freedom Caucus 20 years ago. They were the ones, you know, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan and some of those guys were fighting against government spending. But the more the Republican Study Committee's ranks kept growing, I think there are over 140 members now. The more that got kind of diluted. Mike Johnson was the chairman his sophomore year, which is unheard of to get in as a sophomore to be the chairman of that committee and that caucus. And they're like known for policy. And then Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan back in the day when they were trying to fight against Obama, they created the Freedom Caucus.

10:25 And they just felt like the Republican Study Committee was not strong enough and they wanted to do different tactics. And they didn't really disagree with policy, but they disagreed with the way they felt like they weren't aggressive enough. And so we saw that when Mark Meadows took on Boehner and the Freedom Caucus as a lot of power in times like now this year, they've had more power than every time in their history because of the small minorities in the strong majorities and small majorities in Congress. And in the Trump years, they kind of flowed with everybody else because they were kind of doing what the will of the executive branch was. But yeah, it's really important for people to understand when they're looking at a member of Congress, what's the district they represent?

11:12 What are the things that they're trying to accomplish? And look at all of that before just kind of throwing them under the bus. Well, I think that's very wise. And Christians sometimes, well, let me back up, Christians are usually kind of politically naive. They just are. Sometimes because politics is considered dirty or they feel that if they have to compromise it all that they're somehow doing wrong. I mean, there's a lot of different reasons, but I so admire the way that you get in there and others like you and how you are trying to educate people and you say that Mike Johnson is doing the same thing.

11:57 Let me ask you where you think this is going to go right now. You know, people are calling him a conciliator. Apparently people are glad that he's not Jim Jordan or some of the other names that were put up. But you know, that's going to change. And in just a few days they have to vote on the budget and continuing resolution, all this kind of stuff. Why don't you kind of walk us through that and what you think is going to happen in the next 30 days? Well, there you are. Look at that picture. That's a great picture. I bet you never thought that we'd be talking about him being a speaker of the house, but there you are. Yeah, it was really fun, Steve. We took a group of 50 plus Christians to DC and we prayed and ministered to 10 members of Congress and two senators back in July.

12:46 And Mike Johnson was the first member that said he wanted to meet with us and he posted on his Instagram that Christians engage was one of the greatest national organizations to engage Christians. And that was just a few months ago and here he is, Speaker of the House. I never could have imagined that that would happen. And then why do you think it's going to happen in the next few weeks and months in terms of the things I was mentioning? And then leading up, you know, and just barely over a year, we're going to have a presidential election. We're also talking about, there's actually talk about Biden being indicted. You know, I mean, you know, and that's really a discussion for another day.

13:26 But you know, Trump made a phone call that I don't think there was anything wrong with a phone call and they indicted him for it. It looks like the Bidens took real cash money in the terms of bribes. And I mean, it's just unthinkable to me how there can be such a double standard. But the House of Representatives is one who, who indicts and then of course the Senate has to find him guilty or not. And with the Senate basically being in, in Democratic hands, you know, there's almost no chance he would ever be found guilty. But talk to me about where you see this going and what the possibilities are.

14:07 Well, I think Speaker Johnson is very close to Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan's been leading some of those investigations and Speaker Johnson's been on the Arms and Services Committee and he's been on a subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government. And I think that's key for you to understand because he's very versed in this and he really wants to find justice. I think he, to his core, believes in justice. So he's going to go after injustices. And but we're, the other thing that really attracts people to him in the, in the House Conference is he's been a proponent of splitting up these spending bills into single spending bills.

14:49 We shouldn't have these omnibus bills where you just put Ukraine funding, Israel funding, domestic spending, all of it together and you just vote on billions of trillions of dollars, right? So he's been a proponent of splitting up the spending bills and that's what Congress wants to see, especially on the House Republican side. They want to see debates happen on those spending bills. So I think we're going to see some movement. Now, is he going to be able to get that done in the next, you know, 20-something days before they have to fund the government again? Or will they just do a funding bill and then say, we're pushing that down the road, but the next one, we're going to be splitting it up and we're going to do all that.

15:30 I think we'll, we'll, time will tell, but I think he's going to work with the House Con, Conference to start changing the way they do business there. I hope so. That's what we're praying for. You know, I've been very impressed with how outspoken he's been about his faith in his kind of acceptance speech or his inaugural speech. A speaker, he actually said that God puts people in positions. I remember that he broad did out and said all, all of us were put in our positions by God, but I mean, just the fact that he would reference God. And then on Sean Hannity last night, he made a rather remarkable comment. Why don't you tell us about it?

16:12 It was amazing, but it's really what has always been in his heart. He was asked the question, you know, people want to know what you believe about the issues. And his exact quote was, well, Sean, well, go pick up a Bible on your shelf and read it. That's my worldview. I have a biblical worldview. And so, you know, people, well, what, what does that mean? Well, that means he actually believes the Bible as it relates to the sanctity of human life, biblical marriage, Israel, debt and taxation. The Bible has a lot to say about all the issues of our day. And I know Speaker Johnson believes in the Bible. And you know, that just sets the left's hair on fire.

16:54 You know, I mean, they, they can't believe anybody would actually be like that. And of course they want to squash it to where it's just not socially acceptable to even talk like that. If you're going to talk like that, do it in hushed tones in the privacy of your church. And then they don't want you to do anything with it. But I personally believe that when people are just full disclosure out front, when they push back, you know, in a, in a reasonable, gentle, hopefully godly way, that the other people actually back off some because, you know, I believe, like Pascal said, that there's a God-shaped vacuum in everyone.

17:35 And I even believe that a lot of these lefties sort of know deep in their heart that what they believe is wrong. And that's why they're just almost violent in, in how they react. And I know that you've probably run into some of that yourself. I mean, I've read part of your new book and boy, you had some real stories to tell too. So give me your thoughts about this. And then I want to move on and talk about your book, which is actually coming out in here it is right here. February 6th, February 6th, which is more than two months away, but the book is actually off press and people can order it ahead of time, which we hope you'll do.

18:17 Go right now to Amazon.com and order it ahead of time and then they'll send it to you on February 6th. But anyway, I had to, you have to forgive me. I'm a, I'm your publisher. So I had to get that little plug in there. Well, and I'm so honored to be in the Charisma House family. Thank you for taking a risk on this book. But yeah, I'll talk about this as it relates to Speaker Johnson. When he came to Congress, his main thing was good governance and civility in Congress. And you can see that even in his speech before the house, even as he addressed his Democratic colleagues, I think we have to have more civility in the house. I think we have to have more civility in every part of government.

19:00 This just screaming at each other is not accomplishing anything. And the American people know that the polls are overwhelmingly in support of more civility in our government systems. So I think what you're going to see with this godly man of God is that he's going to try to have conversations. You can not compromise on your principles, but you know, try to address people as people that God loves, right? People that you want to bring over to your side. So many times we yell and fight and we're not having conversations that can actually change people's hearts and minds. And I think that's what the gospel does. And I think that's what good godly leaders do.

19:41 So that's what I'm trying to do in this book, Steven, and thank you for holding it up so beautifully, is how do we as Christians engage in politics? Of course we know we all should be getting involved in politics and government. But I say, you know, Jesus in politics, one woman's walk with God in a mud slinging profession. It is a mud slinging profession, but there are godly people walking there and there needs to be more godly people. I was just with Tim Barton a few weeks ago down in Corpus Christi, and he made a statement that if we drain the swamp, truly we don't have the Christians and people of faith to fill the swamp. And that's absolutely true.

20:22 So part of my motivation with this book is to motivate Christians to get more involved in politics and government and know that they can walk in intimacy with Jesus while they do it and keep that mud off of them, but also to empower those that are in politics and the political movements to go back to the word of God, go back to civility, go back to the place of prayer, and ask God to deal with our souls so that we can walk truly as Christ followers in these places of influence. You know, I believe that most people who believe in Jesus are like you and me. They just can't vote for the other side. They just can't. But most of them are timid.

21:03 They sort of don't want anyone to know that. You know, they'll vote in the privacy of the polling booth, and good for them. I mean, the statistics of how many people voted for Trump, you know, who are believers, we call them evangelicals, but it included a lot of conservative Catholics and others too, of course, but they won't get involved. And you know, we kind of referred to it a little bit earlier. They're intimidated by it, and it's just dirty. And you know what? It even goes like with the booksellers. Some of the Christian booksellers won't even carry a book quote on politics.

21:44 I'm serious. We're having trouble getting this into the stores in the way that really it should be. So in some ways, we have to go around them, go straight to the people. This is the first time that I've talked about it on my podcast. Normally, we don't talk about it this far in advance, but because you're on the program, I wanted to. It's not too early to order it. You order it, they don't charge you until the book comes out, until they send it. They send it on release day, and then they, you know, then they deem your credit card or however you have a range to pay for it. And that is a vote of confidence. Plus, when the book, it finally comes in the mail, it's like, oh, oh, here's this book I heard about.

22:25 Yes. It's a Valentine's Day present a little bit early. So talk to me in the five minutes we have left about what you hope people get out of this and then maybe we can circle around and tie it into Mike Johnson and what's going on in Washington right now. Well, I picked the two words that most people don't want to talk about. They don't want to talk about Jesus and they don't want to talk about politics, right? But Jesus colors everything in our life. All of us in all parts of culture should be interacting with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so my hope with the book, first of all, is that every Christian goes back to the simplicity of walking with Jesus.

23:10 My story is I've walked with members of Congress. There's stories about Vice President Mike Pence, the chairman of financial services, former Congressman Jeb Hensreling, Sean Duffy, Lee Zeldin, all my former clients in this book. But my hope is that you can see yourself discipling people one heart at a time wherever you are. If you're a public school educator, if you're a homeschooling mom, if you're a pastor, it is time for us to disciple people, love people, but we can only take them where we've been. And so I want to call people back to loving Jesus and then to walk out as leaders.

23:51 Steve, we have a leadership crisis in this nation right now. And the way that we have a great awakening is for Christians to go back to the simplicity of walking with Jesus and burning with fire in every place of influence so that the people around us see that burning fire and they're drawn to that fire. I hope that that's my story. I believe that that's my story and I believe there's more to come as we mobilize Christians all over the country through Christians engaged to learn the systems and to walk this out in the government and political realms. Well, I'm so glad that you wrote this book and I believe that God is up to something.

24:31 He raised up Donald Trump and he told some prophets. That's why I wrote God and Donald Trump. It looked absolutely impossible. It was a story that the media certainly wasn't covered. That's why I wrote the book. He raised up Mike Johnson. Who would have thought? I mean, a week ago, who would have thought? Yet there are other people like these two men that I mentioned and God, I believe that God has not given up on America and America is a bright shining light. America is also very evil. And was it like Billy Graham said that if God spares America, he's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.

25:12 And hopefully that's hyperbole, but it makes you think, doesn't it? But we're founded on godly principles. God is not surprised by what's happened and sometimes things have to get really bad before they get better. And I believe that there's revivals happening. I mean, just today I heard from Perry Stone, he's at Jensen Franklin's church up in Gainesville, Georgia. And they were having like one or two nights of meetings and they're now in their second or third week and all kinds of people getting saved. We hear these all the time and on my podcast, more and more, I'm going to start featuring this because the second or even the other Christian media, Christianity today doesn't cover this kind of stuff.

25:55 But I think it's important that people know this. And so I want to go ahead and give you the last word and have you encouraged people to go get Jesus in politics. Well, go get Jesus in politics, buy it at Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, wherever you get your books, Christianbook.com. And I'll end with this, Steve. We were in DC again and we were praying for members of Congress and our congressional host, Michael Cloud, said he was getting approached by other Congress people in DC that was like, where is the group that you're hosting here that's praying for us? We need that. And it just hit me just the importance of all of us praying for our elected officials again.

26:37 Our tag here at Christians Engaged is pray, vote, and engage. But so often we send these people to Washington DC or our state houses and we leave them as missionaries on a mission field. And so I want to encourage everybody, pray for Speaker Johnson. This is just, this is a miracle that we have a man of God in this position. It absolutely is a miracle. But we now have a commission pray in the minute or so that we have love. Let's pray. A lot of people who are watching live can pray with us, but people can pray as they watch it later. That's the beauty of some of these technological advances. And God hears our prayers whenever we pray and leave your comments.

27:18 By the way, I didn't say that today, but leave your comments below your questions. We'll deal with them. But why don't you lead us in prayer as we wrap up this podcast? And that's the way that I'll end today. Amen. Well, Laura, we just lift up Speaker Mike Johnson. God, we thank you for this miracle of this man of God who wasn't even running until Saturday. And you put him in this position. Lord, we pray for him and his family, his beautiful wife, Kelly, his kids, Hannah, Abigail, Jack and Will. Lord, we pray for this precious family and we pray that you surround them with your presence. You surround them with protection. We pray over his staff. They're just in shock, I'm sure, as they're contemplating having to add and triple or quadruple their staff for the Speaker's office.

28:04 God guard over him, guard over their chief of staff. Lord, put great staff around him. And Lord, we pray, Lord, for all of us in the Body Christ that you would make us intercessors for Congress, that we wouldn't just be flamethrowers throwing our criticism, but that you would raise us up as intercessors to believe for your will here on earth. We cover him in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for watching. Share this with others and remember to pray. From 1975, Charisma has been at the forefront of reporting on revival, miracles and the move of God in our world.

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