House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday publicly endorsed Donald Trump for president, becoming the highest-ranking Republican so far to back the former president’s 2024 bid.
“I’m all in for President Trump, I expect he’ll be our nominee, and he’s going to win it, and we have to make [Joe Biden] a one-term president. We have to do that,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told CNBC.
While the newly minted speaker, like his ousted predecessor, is a longtime Trump ally, Johnson’s endorsement marks a notable departure from Kevin McCarthy, who stopped short of formally backing Trump’s third run for the White House. On Tuesday, Johnson – who said he has endorsed Trump “wholeheartedly” – dubbed himself “one of the closest allies that President Trump had in Congress” and said Trump had “a phenomenal first term.”
Johnson voted to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. A constitutional lawyer, he also served on Trump’s impeachment team, though the role was largely ceremonial.
On Tuesday, Johnson defended the endorsement in light of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, arguing that the former president truly believes the election was stolen and it was not a power grab. “I take him at his word. I do believe he believes that,” he said. “Remember, I was one of his lawyers. I worked on the impeachment defense team twice to defend his position, and I know how he thinks, and he’s convinced that because of all of the irregularities and everything else, that he was still entitled to that.”
Still, the speaker’s endorsement comes the same day as The New York Times unearthed a Facebook post Johnson made in 2015 calling Trump a “hot-head” and arguing he “lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.”
McCarthy, both in his role as speaker and since he was…
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