{"id":1027879,"date":"2023-10-26T21:25:43","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T21:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/?p=1027879"},"modified":"2023-10-26T21:25:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T21:25:43","slug":"maga-mike-johnsons-extreme-record-uncovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/maga-mike-johnsons-extreme-record-uncovered\/","title":{"rendered":"MAGA Mike Johnson\u2019s Extreme Record Uncovered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-19.png?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1027880\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Practically nobody knew who Mike Johnson was yesterday morning, and everything we have learned since has proven that Johnson\u2019s speakership cements the extreme MAGA takeover of the House Republican Conference. Since getting the gavel, Johnson has received nothing but praise from Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans \u2013 who\u2019ve dubbed him \u201cMAGA Mike\u201d \u2013 while facing new scrutiny for his role leading efforts to overturn the 2020 election, fighting for a national abortion ban, railing against equal rights for the LGBTQ community, and working to gut Social Security and Medicare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Johnson is a staunch ally of Donald Trump who has received nothing but praise from the former president and his MAGA minions since becoming speaker. They\u2019ve even nicknamed him \u201cMAGA Mike.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/111298085904737707\">Trump<\/a>: \u201cMAGA MIKE JOHNSON!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/house\/4275944-gaetz-johnson-victory-proves-maga-power\/\">Matt Gaetz<\/a>: \u201cMAGA is ascendant, and if you don\u2019t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement, and where the power of the Republican Party truly lies, then you\u2019re not paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/4275247-speaker-race-shows-limits-lengths-of-trumps-influence\/\">Trump<\/a>: \u201cWe think Mike Johnson is going to do really well. He\u2019s popular. He\u2019s smart. He\u2019s sharp. He\u2019s going to do fantastic\u2026 I think he\u2019s going to be a fantastic Speaker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/10\/25\/politics\/mike-johnson-speaker-what-matters\/index.html\">CNN<\/a>: \u201cWhy Trump is so happy about the new House speaker\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/4275247-speaker-race-shows-limits-lengths-of-trumps-influence\/\">The Hill<\/a>: \u201cJohnson won the gavel with the full support of the Republican conference Tuesday, including lawmakers closely aligned with Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/10\/25\/politics\/mike-johnson-speaker-what-matters\/index.html\">CNN<\/a>: \u201cBut the record suggests [Johnson] is no less partisan, particularly on issues of importance to Trump, like the 2020 election and Republicans\u2019 effort to impeach President Joe Biden.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Johnson is refusing to answer questions about his role as a behind-the-scenes \u201c<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/10\/03\/us\/politics\/republican-election-objectors.html\"><strong>architect<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u201d of Trump\u2019s Big Lie \u2014 helping spread election conspiracy theories and leading the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2023\/10\/25\/mike-johnson-trump-election-gambit-00123611\">Politico<\/a>: \u201cA relatively junior House Republican at the time, Johnson was nevertheless the leading voice in support of a fateful position: that the GOP should rally around Donald Trump and object to counting electoral votes submitted by at least a handful of states won by Joe Biden\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cA review of the chaotic weeks between Trump\u2019s defeat at the polls on Nov. 3, 2020, and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack shows that <strong>Johnson led the way in shaping legal arguments that became gospel among GOP lawmakers who sought to derail Biden\u2019s path to the White House<\/strong> \u2014 even after all but the most extreme options had elapsed. As Trump\u2019s legal challenges faltered, Johnson consistently spread a singular message: It\u2019s not over yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2023\/10\/25\/speaker-mike-johnson-election-denier\/\">Washington Post<\/a>: \u201cIn the weeks after the 2020 election, an obscure Republican lawmaker from Louisiana led a congressional effort to overturn the presidential results in four battleground states that had helped secure Joe Biden\u2019s victory over Donald Trump\u2026 <strong>Johnson played one of the most significant roles of any member of Congress in the effort to overturn the election<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Johnson is an anti-abortion extremist who\u2019s repeatedly supported and voted for a cruel national abortion ban.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/10\/25\/us\/politics\/mike-johnson-house-speaker.html\">New York Times<\/a>: \u201cIn Congress, Mr. Johnson has voted for a national abortion ban and co-sponsored a 20-week abortion ban, earning him an A-plus rating from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. After the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in June last year, he celebrated.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jezebel.com\/new-house-speaker-mike-johnson-wants-women-to-pop-out-a-1850958311\">Jezebel<\/a>: \u201cShortly after Johnson\u2019s confirmation, on Thursday New York Magazine\u2019s Irin Carmon resurfaced an old interview between her and Johnson from 2015 when he served in Louisiana\u2019s state House and was working to dismantle abortion access.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the time, Carmon writes that Johnson, who expressed hope that Roe v. Wade would someday be overturned, railed against people supposedly \u2018using abortion as birth control\u2019 and appeared to blame school shootings on abortion: \u2018When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it\u2019s expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>During Johnson\u2019s time as a chair and current member of the ultra-conservative Republican Study Committee, he\u2019s supported slashing trillions from Social Security and Medicare.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/new-house-speaker-had-proposed-trillions-in-cuts-to-social-security-and-medicare\/\">Common Dreams<\/a>: \u201cThe newly elected Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives has previously proposed trillions of dollars in cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and suggested that slashing the programs should be the top priority of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cDuring his tenure as chair of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) between 2019 and 2021, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) helped craft budget resolutions that called for roughly $2 trillion in Medicare cuts, $3 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts, and $750 billion in Social Security Cuts<\/strong>, noted Bobby Kogan of the Center for American Progress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.semafor.com\/article\/10\/12\/2023\/steve-scalise-and-jim-jordan-share-a-major-resume-line-and-democrats-plan-to-pounce-on-it\">Semafor<\/a>: \u201cThese days, the RSC is best known around Washington as a GOP policy shop responsible for crafting proposals to balance the federal budget, often through changes and cuts to Social Security and Medicare.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Johnson has a long history of making hateful comments about the LGBTQ community \u2013 and has supported and introduced legislation that refuses to grant LGBTQ people the equal rights they deserve.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/new-house-speaker-mike-johnson-spent-years-fighting\/story?id=104312903\">ABC News<\/a>: \u201cAn ABC News examination of public records, news reports and documents shows the extent to which Johnson dedicated earlier phases of his career to limiting gay rights, including same-sex marriage and health care access, and through anti-gay activism on college campuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn 2005, the Family Research Council, an influential right-wing lobbying group, honored Johnson for his work defending Louisiana&#8217;s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/10\/25\/politics\/mike-johnson-gay-sex-criminalization-kfile\/index.html\">CNN<\/a>: \u201cSpeaker of the House Mike Johnson has a history of harsh anti-gay language from his time as an attorney for a socially conservative legal group in the mid-2000s. In editorials that ran in his local Shreveport, Louisiana, paper, The Times, Johnson called homosexuality a \u2018inherently unnatura\u2019 and \u2018dangerous lifestyle\u2019 that would lead to legalized pedophilia and possibly even destroy \u2018the entire democratic system.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAnd, in another editorial, he wrote, \u2018Your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis is a free country, but we don\u2019t give special protections for every person\u2019s bizarre choices.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNow, Johnson is the speaker of the House at a time when a majority of Americans are strongly supportive of gay rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/who-is-mike-johnson-republican-speaker-house-louisiana-2023-10\">Insider<\/a>: \u201cLast October, Johnson led over two dozen of his colleagues in introducing the &#8220;Stop the Sexualization of Children Act of 2022.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bill is essentially the national version of Florida&#8217;s Parental Rights in Education Law \u2014 dubbed &#8220;Don&#8217;t Say Gay&#8221; by critics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s led the Human Rights Campaign to condemn the bill as the \u2018latest cruel attempt to stigmatize and marginalize the community.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Practically nobody knew who Mike Johnson was yesterday morning, and everything we have learned since has proven that Johnson\u2019s speakership cements the extreme MAGA takeover of the House Republican Conference. Since getting the gavel, Johnson has received nothing but praise from Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans \u2013 who\u2019ve dubbed him \u201cMAGA Mike\u201d \u2013 while facing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>MAGA Mike Johnson\u2019s Extreme Record Uncovered - Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/maga-mike-johnsons-extreme-record-uncovered\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-10-26T21:25:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-19.png?w=1024\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/maga-mike-johnsons-extreme-record-uncovered\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/maga-mike-johnsons-extreme-record-uncovered\/\",\"name\":\"MAGA Mike Johnson\u2019s Extreme Record Uncovered - 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