Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refused Sunday to condemn comments from former President Donald Trump and his family that suggest Democrats were behind assassination attempts on Trump.
“I don’t think they’re saying that the Democratic Party tried an assassination attempt. I think what they’re alluding to is what they’ve all been saying. They have got to turn the rhetoric down,” Johnson said in an interview with host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.” “For years now, the leading Democrats in this country, the highest elected officials and the current nominee for president have gone out and said that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, that the republic will end if he’s reelected.”
Johnson said he needed more context since he had not watched the rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania — and instead deflected to talking about the “massive crowd” that Trump was pleased with. But the speaker added that Democrats calling Trump a “threat to democracy” is “absolute nonsense, and they have incited dangerous people to do dangerous things.”
“We need everybody on all sides to turn the rhetoric down and let’s have a debate about the records of these candidates, not the rhetoric,” Johnson added. “Let’s talk about the policies, not the personalities.”
Stephanopoulos pressed Johnson on whether he supported comments that Eric Trump, the former president’s son, made at the Butler rally. “They tried to smear us. They came after us. They impeached him twice, and then, guys, they tried to kill him. They tried to kill him, and it’s because of the Democratic Party. They can’t do anything right,” Eric Trump said at the rally.
The host also asked what other context Johnson could need and if this counts as that type of rhetoric.
“I’m not going to parse the language of what people say at rallies,” Johnson said. “I could give you pages and pages of crazy comments by the leading Democrats in this country. That’s not what this is about.”
Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer, was also one of the architects in the House behind arguing against certifying the 2020 election results before he was speaker. When asked if he could say unequivocally that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election — after Trump’s running mate JD Vance declined during the vice presidential debate to say if Biden won — Johnson deflected.
“This is the game that is always played by mainstream media with leading Republicans. It’s a gotcha game,” Johnson said. “You want us to litigate things that happened four years ago when we’re talking about the future. We’re not going to talk about what happened in 2020. We’re going to talk about 2024, and how we’re going to solve the problems for the American people.”
Stephanopoulos added that Trump regularly states he won the 2020 election and baselessly claims that it was rigged.
“I’m the speaker of the House. I work with the president of the United States all the time. Joe Biden has been the president for four years,” Johnson said. “There’s not a question about this, OK? It’s already been done and decided, and this is a gotcha game that’s played and I’m not playing it.”
As for what Johnson will do on Jan. 6 of 2025 — if he is speaker and Kamala Harris has won the election — Johnson said he is going to “follow the Constitution.”
“Article 2 of the Constitution is clear. Congress has a specific role, and we must fulfill it,” Johnson said. “I’ve made a career defending the Constitution. I always have, and I’ve demonstrated over and over that we are going to do the right and lawful thing. So you can count on that. We’re going to do our job.”
