Five Senior Republicans Anonymously Price Riding Mowers in Speaker’s Hometown

SHREVEPORT, La. — A riding-mower dealer in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s hometown says five senior House Republicans called this week asking about zero-turn mowers, financing and how fast a man can start a lawn business, each asking him not to use their names.

“Every one of them said, ‘I’m not authorized to discuss this,’ then asked about deck width for 20 minutes,” said Hollis Mulchmore, 63, owner of Mulchmore Mower & Small Engine. “One kept saying he wanted something narrow. Narrow, but stable.”

The calls came the week five senior Republican lawmakers, granted anonymity, told Politico the House had all but slipped away and the party was now focused on limiting the scale of the defeat and saving its Senate majority. Johnson recently told Fox News he might come home and start a lawn business if Republicans lose, a remark he later called “tongue in cheek.” Mulchmore ordered extra inventory anyway, “in case the tongue comes out.”

One caller asked whether mowing only half the yard counted as limiting the damage. Another asked if any model came with a smaller attachment he could save if the big machine went under. “He kept calling it ‘the Senate,’” Mulchmore said. “I told him we don’t service that area.”

Delphine Thatchwell, of the Ark-La-Tex Turf Dealers Council, said lawmaker inquiries usually spike “about three weeks before anybody in Washington admits anything,” citing a chart drawn on a seed-company calendar.

After Johnson told CBS News that if, “heaven forbid,” Republicans lost the majority, he would expect colleagues to keep him as leader, Mulchmore moved his only two-seat mower out front and renamed it “Divided Government.”

When this reporter left, the shop phone was ringing again, and Mulchmore answered the way he now answers every 202 number: “Mulchmore Mower, you’re on background.”