'Shut up!' GOP isn't eager to discuss Speaker Mike Johnson's 2020 election reversal efforts

When House Republicans chose Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as their fourth speaker nominee in three weeks, a common reaction was: Who? "I googled him, and I know he's from Louisiana," Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-N.C.) told Politico early Wednesday. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also said she planned to google the four-term congressman. 

After he was elected House speaker on Wednesday, with the backing of all 220 Republicans present, two points became clear: He is a hard-right social conservative, backing a no-exception national ban on abortion and vociferously opposed to LGBTQ rights; and he was a leading advocate for trying to overturn Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 election, as Politico and The Washington Post detailed Wednesday.

Also clear: Republicans weren't eager to talk about Johnson's 2020 election denialism. When a reporter asked Johnson on Tuesday night about leading the effort to overturn the 2020 election, he silently shook his head as other House Republicans booed. "Shut up!" yelled Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.). "Next question," Johnson said.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"We're not talking about any issues today," Johnson told reporters after being sworn in as speaker, in response to a question about whether he still believes the 2020 election was stolen. "We will talk about all these things in detail," he added when asked about the events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Johnson got 126 Republicans to sign a legal brief backing a Texas challenge to Biden's win in several other states, and when the Supreme Court threw that out, he "played a key role in articulating a rationale for Republican lawmakers to oppose certification of the 2020 results on the floor," The New York Times reported.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who opposed Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-Ohio) speaker bid in part because of his actions to overturn Biden's 2020 win, told The New Republic that Johnson's legal efforts were "fundamentally different than somebody who is actively involved in moving the protesters from the Mall up here" to the Capitol. Besides, he said, ousted Speaker "Kevin McCarthy voted to decertify, and he was leader of our conference at that time. That's even scarier."