In a CBS interview, former GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming declared current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, a “collaborator” in threats posed by Donald Trump to the functioning of democracy in the United States.
When the question of certifying the 2020 presidential election results was looming before Congress as January 6, 2021, approached, Johnson avidly supported challenges to the outcome from Trump’s political corner despite the total lack of evidence for the claims of systematic fraud fueling the original push from Trump. Johnson helped shepherd the House GOP’s support for the ill-fated Texas lawsuit challenging Joe Biden’s wins in several other states, and he evidently helped gin up support among House Republicans for voting against Biden electoral votes on the floor.
Johnson has made no significant break with this past trend in his behavior — like through a renunciation — since that post-election period. And he’s in place to help lead the House through the post-election period following the currently unfolding presidential race.
“You look at what Donald Trump is trying to do — he can’t do it by himself,” Cheney told CBS. “He has to have collaborators. And the story of Mike Johnson is the story of a collaborator and of someone who knew then and knows now that what he’s doing and saying is wrong, but he’s willing to do it in an effort to please Donald Trump. And that’s what makes it dangerous.”
Elsewhere, Biden press secretary-turned-MSNBC host Jen Psaki said in a new episode of her show that more attention should be paid to the extremism that Johnson has espoused than what’s been given to the now expelled New York GOP Congressman George Santos. She spotlighted reports that Johnson had written a foreword for a book that boosted right-wing extremism like even the infamous and always unsupported conspiracy theory known as Pizzagate. The volume even included homophobic insults directed at Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is openly gay.
“If you look at what Donald Trump is trying to do, he can’t do it by himself.”
Former Republican Wyoming Congresswoman @Liz_Cheney tells @jdickerson that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was a collaborator in Trump’s attempt to overthrow the last election. TOMORROW. pic.twitter.com/qSejH6W0Mm
— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) December 2, 2023
