New House Speaker Mike Johnson once called abortion “truly an American Holocaust” and suggested the Supreme Court follow the overturning of Roe v Wade with a closer look at gay rights.
Johnson, a Louisiana conservative who has endorsed Donald Trump for 2024 president, made comments about abortion on a radio program in May 2022 after a heated hearing on the subject.
Then just a congresswoman, Johnson demanded that a gynecologist give her position on performing the procedure when a baby is “halfway through the birth canal.”
Speaking The Vince Coglianese Showthe host spoke to Johnson about what he saw as the moral bankruptcy of abortion and asked him to comment on its effects on the black community.
“It really is an American Holocaust…their response is to try to ignore it. The reality is that Planned Parenthood and Big Abortion set up their clinics in the inner cities and see these people as easy prey.”
New House Speaker Mike Johnson once called abortion “truly an American Holocaust” and suggested the Supreme Court follow the overturning of Roe v Wade with a closer look at gay rights
Johnson introduced his question during the hearing to Dr. Yashica Robinson, a board-certified gynecologist and board member at Physicians for Reproductive Health and the only doctor on the panel, said she would “clearly support the right to terminate an abortion.” unborn child of one week old.’
“So I would like you to explain to us, in your medical opinion, at what point in the pregnancy an abortion should no longer be an option?” the conservative asked.
Robinson explained that “every pregnancy is unique and different” and that “patients should access care on a case-by-case basis.”
Johnson interrupted her to ask, “Let me ask you: Do you support the right of a woman who is seconds away from giving birth to a healthy child, to have an abortion?”
“I don’t think the question you’re asking realistically reflects abortion care,” Robinson responded.
From here they went back and forth, seemingly unwilling to accept the other’s arguments.
Johnson also has conservative views on LGBTQ+ rights, according to CNN, which tracked down an interview the chairman did on the day Roe v Wade was overturned, in which he defended Justice Clarence Thomas’ decision to reconsider same-sex marriage.
“A very bad law has been made,” he said. ‘They have made a mess of our jurisprudence in this country in recent decades. And maybe some of that needs to be cleaned up.”
Johnson also has conservative views on LGBTQ+ rights, according to CNN, which tracked down an interview the Speaker did the day Roe v Wade was overturned in which he defended Justice Clarence Thomas’ decision to reconsider same-sex marriage.
During the hearing, Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana (left) Dr. Yashica Robinson (right) discussed her position on late-term abortions
Johnson, a Louisiana conservative who has backed Donald Trump for president in 2024, made comments about abortion on a radio program in May 2022 after a heated hearing on the subject
However, a spokesperson for Johnson said this CNN after the comments came to light, he considers the Supreme Court’s decisions lifting restrictions on the use of contraception, banning gay sex and legalizing same-sex marriage “as settled law.”
In his career as a lawmaker and lawyer, he has been a staunch social conservative, including efforts to jail doctors who perform abortions after six weeks, Bible study in public schools and an end to hate crime laws.
He once criticized the American Civil Liberties Union for “convincing an entire generation of Americans that there is a so-called separation of church and state.”
Johnson also wrote for laws criminalizing sodomy and does not include protections for LGBTQ people under hate crime laws.
He also supported a law in Arkansas that prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children.
Johnson last week gave his full support to Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, while simultaneously defending the former president’s claims that his 2020 election loss was fraudulent.
“I’m all in for President Trump,” Johnson said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (pictured here) on Tuesday gave his full support to Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, while simultaneously defending the former president’s claims that his 2020 election loss was fraudulent.
Exactly how much it will help Donald Trump’s campaign remains to be seen. Johnson has little name recognition and embarrassing Facebook posts from 2015 resurfaced on Tuesday
“I expect him to be our nominee, and we need to make Biden a one-term president.”
Exactly how much it helps Trump remains to be seen. Johnson was little known before he was elevated to chairman last month and still has little name recognition outside Washington political circles.
And he expressed his support on the day it emerged that he had once condemned Trump on Facebook.
“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and moral center that we so desperately need back in the White House,” Johnson wrote in 2015 in messages found by the New York Times.
His words were challenged in the comments and he replied: ‘I’m afraid he might break more things than he fixes. He is naturally hot-headed, and that is a dangerous trait in a commander-in-chief.”
Johnson was a lawmaker in Louisiana at the time.
He then wondered whether Trump could bomb a head of state just because he showed disrespect to him.
“I’m just kidding about this,” he wrote. “I just don’t think he has the attitude to be president.”
Johnson isn’t the only one who changes course when it suits him.
Trump’s administration was filled with officials who supported other candidates or were openly hostile to him in 2016.
And Johnson served on Trump’s defense team during the president’s first impeachment trial.
Trump is the clear frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He is seen here at the UFC 295 event at Madison Square Garden
“During his 2016 campaign, President Trump quickly won over me and millions of my fellow Republicans,” Johnson told the New York Times.
“When I got to know him personally, shortly after we both arrived in Washington in 2017, I came to appreciate the person he is and the qualities of him that made him the extraordinary president that he was.”
In his CNBC interview, he also defended Trump’s position on the 2020 election.
Trump “just felt like he was cheated in the last election,” he said.
Democrats were quick to highlight “MAGA Mike’s” hardline views.
Democratic National Committee spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said: “MAGA Mike Johnson sees Trump as yet another anti-abortion and election-denying extremist who will do everything in his power to pursue a radical, anti-freedom agenda if re-elected president.
Even though MAGA Mike once admitted that he thought Trump was ‘dangerous’ and ‘unfit’ to serve, he is so determined to chip away at Americans’ freedoms and undermine Social Security and Medicare that he is still willing to is to support Trump.’