The Sergeant Schultz Defense: Mike Johnson (T-LA4) “Knows Nothing”

Nov 6, 2025 11:54 PM EST, Thu

“Hogan’s Heroes” was a CBS sitcom set in a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in Nazi Germany during World War II, and centers around a group of Allied prisoners who use the POW camp as an operations base for sabotage and espionage activities directed against Nazi Germany. It ran for 168 episodes (six seasons) from September 17, 1965, to April 4, 1971,

‘I don’t know anything about that’: Mike Johnson becomes the low-information House speaker

Confronted with questions he should know how to answer, the House Republican leader has proven to be surprisingly ignorant about current events.

Nov. 4, 2025, 10:46 AM EST By Steve Benen

It’s been nearly two weeks since Donald Trump signed one of the most scandalous pardons of his presidency, extending clemency to Changpeng Zhao, founder of the crypto exchange Binance, who helped finance the president’s stablecoin and put money in the Trump family’s pockets. The president has since had multiple opportunities to explain why he took such a step, and he’s failed in humiliating fashion.

What does House Speaker Mike Johnson (T-LA4) think about this intensifying controversy, brought to the fore during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Sunday night? “I don’t know anything about it,” the Louisiana Republican said on Monday morning in response to a reporter’s question.

Days earlier, a reporter asked Johnson about the Trump administration’s personnel purge at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and whether congressional oversight might be in order. The House speaker said he didn’t know about that, either.

Five days before that, amid widespread reports about the president seeking a $230 million payment from the Justice Department, Johnson was asked for comment. He was again stumped. A day earlier, he was asked about the White House importing Argentinian beef, and the Louisiana congressman said he wasn’t up to speed on that, either.

As MSNBC’s Jen Psaki noted in a segment a couple of weeks ago, the House GOP leader has claimed ignorance in recent weeks on everything from Trump’s crypto dealings to the president’s reported relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, U.S. citizens being detained by federal immigration agents to a would-be assassin plotting to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY8).

In politics, there’s a phrase for Americans who struggle to keep up with day-to-day news and current events and who tend to be ill informed about key issues. They’re known as “low-information voters.”

In 2025, the nation appears to have a low-information House speaker. As this clip from “The Daily Show” helped capture, Johnson’s ignorance has not gone unnoticed.

In fairness, it’s worth emphasizing that there’s an alternate explanation for the frequency of Johnson’s “I don’t know” answers: Maybe the House speaker is actually well informed, and he’s simply pretending to be clueless to avoid answering politically difficult questions.

Or put another way, perhaps Johnson is dishonest, not oblivious.

If this is the better explanation, the Republican leader is welcome to pitch this defense to the public, though I have a hunch he won’t.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

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