- House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday: “I’m all for President Trump.”
- He advocated for this when embarrassing Facebook posts resurfaced
- In 2015 he said: “He lacks the character and moral center that we desperately need.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday fully endorsed Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, while defending the former president’s claims that his 2020 election loss was fraudulent.
“I’m all for President Trump,” Johnson said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“I expect he will be our nominee, and we need to make Biden a one-term president.”
It remains to be seen how much it helps Trump. Johnson was little known before his appointment as speaker last month and still enjoys little recognition outside Washington political circles.
And he gave his endorsement on the day it was revealed that he had once condemned Trump on Facebook.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (pictured here) on Tuesday fully endorsed Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, while defending the former president’s claims that his 2020 election defeat was fraudulent
It remains to be seen how much it helps Donald Trump’s campaign. Johnson has little name recognition and embarrassing Facebook posts from 2015 resurfaced on Tuesday
“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and moral center that we desperately need back in the White House,” Johnson wrote in 2015 posts found by The New York Times.
His words were questioned in the comments and he responded: “I’m afraid he would break more things than he fixes. “He’s a hothead by nature, and that’s a dangerous trait in a commander in chief.”
At the time, Johnson was a Louisiana legislator.
He further wondered whether Trump could bomb a head of state simply because it was disrespectful to him.
“This is only half a joke,” he wrote. “I just don’t think he has the demeanor to be president.”
Johnson isn’t the only one who changes course when it suits him.
Trump’s administration consisted of officials who supported other candidates or were openly hostile to him in 2016.
And Johnson was part of Trump’s defense team during Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Trump is the clear frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He is seen here during the UFC 295 event at Madison Square Garden
“During his 2016 campaign, President Trump quickly won over me and millions of my fellow Republicans,” Johnson responded to the New York Times.
“When I got to know him in person shortly after we arrived in Washington in 2017, I came to appreciate the person he is and the qualities that made him the extraordinary president he was.”
In his CNBC interview, he also defended Trump’s stance on the 2020 election.
Trump “just felt like he was cheated in the last election,” he said.
Democrats were quick to highlight “MAGA Mike’s” hardline positions.
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said: “MAGA Mike Johnson sees Trump as another anti-abortion, vote-denying extremist who will do everything in his power to pursue a radical anti-freedom agenda if he will be re-elected president.”
“Although MAGA Mike once confessed that he thought Trump was ‘dangerous’ and ‘unfit’ for office, he is so determined to legislate away Americans’ freedoms and cut Social Security and Medicare that he is still willing to To support Trump.”