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You may not have heard of Republican Mike Johnson prior to him taking over as the Speaker of the House, but he’s been quietly pushing his ultra-conservative Christian values for years.
Johnson is a particularly dangerous politician because although his party is so divided they can’t get anything done, despite having a majority in the House, he has made it clear that he wants to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy with just the veneer of democracy to appease the masses. He opposed no-fault divorce, has said he would support a ban on birth control, wants to grant personhood to fertilized eggs, and also opposes gay marriage, gender-neutral bathrooms, and gender-affirming care. He may occasionally seem less diabolical when compared to Representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene, but make no mistake; Johnson wants to strip everyone except for straight, cis, Christian men of their rights.
Luckily, he’s also been making a fool of himself throughout his career. From his bizarre rules about porn to comparing himself to Biblical figures, Johnson has no shortage of hilarious and embarrassing flubs for us to revel in.
He accidentally defended Nazis
During an October 16 press conference to address the government shutdown and other issues, Johnson accidentally slipped and said, “we defend that evil ideology” while talking about a recently resurfaced image of Republican staff member Dave Taylor that shows a swastika in the background.
Johnson likely meant to say that the GOP has “defended against,” but he slipped up and instead acted like Republicans defend Nazism. Oops. There is a reason why critics are calling it a Freudian slip.
Being called out by a conservative news network
When a MAGA-friendly news network calls you out, you know you’ve blown it. In the middle of the October 2025 government shutdown, Johnson was speaking on the Newsmax show Finnerty, when he was confronted with polling that shows that Americans are blaming Trump for the shutdown while the Trump administration attempts to pin it on Democrats.
Johnson was caught off guard and sputtered that the “mainstream and legacy media” are on the Democrats' side and are “repeating their false talking points…the facts are on our side.” This is despite the fact that it was a rightwing news program that brought these facts up to him.
He got brutally fact checked
His Democratic colleagues and the entire internet quickly fact-checked Johnson when he went on CNN and scolded Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) for not “working” even though he has refused to swear her into Congress.
“She should be working for her constituents,” he told Jake Tapper. “She should be in her office. She should be working, or in the district for her constituents.”
Everyone from the MeidasTouch Network to Democratic Representative Greg Stanton to random people on the internet was quick to point out that she legally cannot start working until he does his job and swears her in.
He ran away after losing
Speaker Mike Johnson 'bolts from the Capitol' after 'embarrassing' DOUBLE LOSS after the House GOP failed in their impeachment vote of Alejandro Mayorkas for his immigration policies, as well as a loss on a vote to send $17.6 billion to Israel. https://t.co/j6ISyAsgeW
— ocanannain 💙💛 (@ocanannain) February 7, 2024
Back in February, Johnson had one of his most embarrassing moments on Capitol Hill, and watching him go down in flames was glorious! After months of listening to Republicans drone on about increasing aid to Israel and wanting to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the issues were taken to the House floor for a vote, and both suffered a stunning defeat. This loss was particularly humiliating for Johnson because Republican’s have a majority in the House and supposedly had overwhelming support for this legislative fight. The loss was so bad that conservative congressmen spoke out, including Rep. Troy Nehls, who called the vote “Shameful. Embarrassing,” USA Today reports.
He made his son his porn "accountability partner"
COMPROMISE ALERT: Speaker Mike Johnson uses software Covenant Eyes (learned about at a Promise Keepers retreat) that scans all his electronic devices & gives a weekly report an "accountability partner" his 17 yr old son (so basically don't watch porn or your son/dad will know😬) pic.twitter.com/SSWpB9IIDB
— Receipt Maven (@receiptmaven) October 31, 2023
In 2022, Johnson made the truly bizarre choice to admit that he and his son — yes, his teenage son — are each other’s porn “accountability partners,” meaning that they both have an app on their phones that gives them each a weekly report on what sinful content the other person has viewed. That’s not creepy at all.
“He’s 17, so he and I get a report about all the things that are on our phones, all of our devices, once a week,” Johnson explained in an interview at Louisiana’s Cypress Baptist Church. “If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice.”Johnson went on to brag that his son has never watched porn. Right. “I’m proud to tell you, my son has a clean slate,” he said.
He wanted to be a locker room pervert
Last year, while talking about why Johnson is against gender-inclusive bathrooms, he admitted that, given the chance, he would have dressed as a woman to sneak into a girl’s locker room. “I went to Captain Shreve High School,” Johnson continued. “I graduated in 1990. My crew, my boys… I can tell you, they would’ve said, ‘Hey, next Thursday is gender identity day, man. You know, we’re going to self-identify as girls, and we’re going to be in the other locker room.’ It opens it up to high jinks and all sorts of problems.”
So basically, he’s anti-LGTBQ+ and a creep. Got it.
He compared himself to Moses
While speaking at a Christian nationalist event last fall, Johnson compared himself to Moses and said that God told him to prepare for a "Red Sea moment." And because he's a moron, Johnson failed to notice the cameras pointed at him and didn't realize that his speech, given to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, was being recorded and posted to their Facebook page, Rolling Stone reports. In his speech, he revealed that while vying for the Speaker of the House position, he thought the Lord was trying to "choose a new Moses." At first, he assumed he was supposed to be Aaron — the prophet's brother — until God told him that he needed to "set forward" and be Moses.
So he's dumb and arrogant. What a winning combination.
He blamed school shootings on evolution
Things getting so comical in the USA. Yet another mass shooting and unbelievably new speaker Mike Johnson blamed school shootings on the teaching of Evolution! You can’t make this shit up. Looking forward to witch trials next.
— CHAEYOUNG Park 🐻🇰🇷 (@Susan16Park) October 26, 2023
Not only has Johnson blamed school shootings on abortions, but he has also pointed a finger at teaching evolution in schools. In a 2016 sermon, he explained that evolution teaches that there is “no right or wrong” or “sacred value” to life, which leads kids to shoot up their schools…we guess?
“People say, ‘How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?’ Because we’ve taught a whole generation—a couple generations now—of Americans, that there’s no right or wrong, that it’s about survival of the fittest, and [that] you evolve from the primordial slime,” Johnson said, Vanity Fair reports. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there’s nobody sacred to whom it’s owed. None of this should surprise us.”
Unsurprisingly, his logic is hard to follow.
He acted like IVF is new technology
.@SpeakerJohnson says that IVF will not be an issue for Congress to deal with.
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) March 7, 2024
He tells @TonyDokoupil that he believes in the “sanctity of life” but supports IVF, when asked about Alabama’s Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos have the same legal rights as children. pic.twitter.com/N6VQGW4DXd
Not only is Johnson so pro-life he’d be at home in The Handmaid’s Tale, but he also believes that life begins at fertilization. While the GOP grapples with how in vitro fertilization fits into their dystopian vision of a pro-life America, Johnson is out here acting like IVF is a brand new technology we don’t fully understand yet.
“It’s something that we’ve got to grapple with,” he said in an interview with CBS Mornings, Politico reports. “It’s a brave new world. IVF’s only been invented I think in the early '70s … we support the sanctity of life, of course, and we support IVF and full access to it.”
Do you think he realizes that the ‘70s were 50 years ago?
No one wants to come to his party
This year the House GOP’s annual retreat will be sparsely attended thanks to Johnson. Each year, the event is led by the current Speak of the House, but this time around hardly any Republicans have indicated they’ll be attending, Newsweek reports. There are 219 Republican representatives in the House, but fewer than 100 are planning to be there — how embarrassing for you, Mike. We’d almost feel sorry for the guy if he wasn’t, you know, homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic.
