Republican cowards anonymously going after him in the media on the matter need to sit down.
There are plenty of things that warrant criticism levied at Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (e.g. Ukraine aid with no border security).
But his visual display of support at former President Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan isn’t one of those things.
And yet, three feckless GOP lawmakers ran to The Hill over the weekend to chastise him for the show of force. Why? Because they’re concerned the party might have to cede the higher ground on family values.
So vociferous were they in their disdain for Johnson’s actions that they rose up and openly declared their anger to the outlet … anonymously.
Useless eunuchs.
How could the Speaker associate himself with “salacious bits of detailed, pornographic testimony,” one lawmaker wondered aloud.
A second lamented that after seeing Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, at the trial, they said to themselves, “Tell me this isn’t so.”
“It’s not a good look — at all,” a third chimed in.
You know what’s not a good look? Failing to stand behind the presumptive GOP nominee for the presidency while he continues to get pummeled on all sides by malicious Democrat prosecutors armed with specious allegations.
This trial isn’t about a porn star. It isn’t about family values either. Republicans will never have to forfeit that higher ground so long as the Bidens and Clintons are the face of the resistance party.
It isn’t even about hush money payments of which there is already established legal precedent: Former Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards famously skated on six felony charges stemming from efforts to conceal an extramarital affair by using over $1 million in campaign contributions.
This is about fair elections. It is about democracy.
It’s about stopping rogue Democrats who have banded together at the behest of their own presidential nominee to at the very least, take his political opponent off the campaign trail, or at worst, imprison him.
That seems to be a slightly larger issue at hand, no?
This case is about lawfare. Not allowing the current administration to send this nation into a spiral toward autocracy. The very type of tyranny they project onto Trump himself.
Johnson gets this. On this matter – attempting to jail political opponents – you would think every member of the Republican party could band together.
“They have weaponized and politicized the American judicial system to go after a political opponent. It is wildly inappropriate,” the Speaker said.
What is difficult to understand about that concept?
Johnson added:
“As a former litigator and attorney myself, I find it to be outrageous, and I think it was certainly appropriate for me to state that there on the grounds.”
It is beyond appropriate. It is necessary.
Reassuring Trump that there are those in his party willing to stand with him on this vital issue may be the single most important thing Johnson has done during his short tenure as Speaker.
Running to the media to anonymously chide him for it is spineless. Those cowards in particular, and any other flakes in the GOP need to know it, feel it, and be reminded of it right up until November.
