(New York) The new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, gave his support Tuesday to Donald Trump in the race for the Republican nomination, a decision which constitutes a symbolic reversal compared to his predecessor.
Mr. Johnson, an unwavering ally of the former US president, declared Tuesday morning in an interview with CNBC that he supported candidate Trump “wholeheartedly”.
Mike Johnson, a little-known Louisiana representative, became House speaker late last month when Kevin McCarthy was ousted by far-right Republicans.
Mr. McCarthy had been an early ally of Donald Trump and one of the first elected officials to publicly align with him following the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol. But he did not officially support the ex-president this time for his possible return to the White House.
He drew the ire of Donald Trump’s supporters after wondering aloud in an interview this summer whether the ex-president was the strongest candidate among the very large group of his rivals. The field of candidates has narrowed in recent weeks, but Mr. Trump’s lead has remained steady in the polls.
The ex-president celebrated Kevin Johnson’s ascension to speaker of the House by dubbing him “MAGA Mike Johnson.”
Hours before Mr Johnson’s comments on Tuesday morning, the New York Times underlined one of his publications on Facebook, from August 2015, before his election to Congress. He criticized Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential candidate, saying, “he doesn’t have the character and moral center that we desperately need back in the White House.”
In response to someone commenting on his post, Mr. Johnson wrote, according to the newspaper: “I’m afraid he’ll break more things than he fixes. He is a hothead by nature, and that is a dangerous character trait for a commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
But Mr. Johnson, a social conservative, later became a staunch defender of Donald Trump, including during his first impeachment in 2019 and through the 2020 election, echoing some of the defeated president’s conspiracy theories. He had also filed a brief in a lawsuit that sought to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.