Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) echoed electoral conspiracy theories espoused by President Donald Trump, saying election results in “blue states” like California “just look[] on its face to be fraudulent,” even though there’s no proof.
Johnson’s comments come as Republicans push to advance restrictive new voting legislation in Congress.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Johnson was asked about Trump’s recent statement on a far-right podcast that Republicans “should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 — places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
Johnson acknowledged that states, not the federal government, control the administration of voting, before then giving credence to Trump’s impulses.
“What you’re hearing from the president is his frustration about the lack of some of the blue states, frankly, of enforcing these things and making sure that they are free and fair elections.”
Johnson then pointed to states like California, where mail-in ballots postmarked by election day are counted up to seven days after, saying the slow tabulation of mailed votes raises suspicions of foul play.
“We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on election day in the last election cycle, and every time a new tranche of ballots came in, they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost, and no series of ballots that were counted after election day were our candidates ahead on any of those counts,” Johnson said. “It just looks on its face to be fraudulent.”
“Can I prove that? No, because it happened so far upstream,” Johnson added.
“We need more confidence in the American people in the election system. It’s essential,” Johnson continued. “And everybody, no matter what party you’re in, should agree with that.”
As Republicans push for new legislation to impose photographic identification requirements on voters for the stated purpose of preventing noncitizen voting, Republican election administrators conducting lengthy reviews of their voter rolls have turned up precious view instances that have actually happened.
A deal to end a partial federal government shutdown was almost derailed by far-right House members demanding the inclusion of the photo ID proposals in the spending bill, before they relented in the face of intraparty pressure, saying they had secured concessions from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to end the filibuster and pass the measure. But on Tuesday, Thune told reporters that no such deal had been made.
Asked about Trump’s comments, Thune said he supports the photo ID legislation, but not his call to “nationalize” elections.
“I’m not in favor of federalizing elections, no. I think that’s a constitutional issue,” Thune said. “I’m a big believer in decentralized and distributed power. And I think it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one.”
Johnson’s comments also came a week after the FBI seized 2020 election records in Fulton County, Georgia, spurred by Trump’s spurious claims of widespread voter fraud. Despite multiple recounts, audits, and lawsuits, there has been no evidence whatsoever of widespread electoral fraud in any federal election.
Instead of pointing to those explanations for American’s plunging faith in elections, Johnson instead blamed policies designed to increase voter turnout broadly.
“Mass mailing of paper ballots — or mail in ballots — and all the other irregularities that have haunted us over the last couple cycles, we need to tighten that up,” Johnson. “Now, the red states have done a lot of good work in that, in that front but it’s the blue states that I’m frankly concerned about.”
