Speaker Mike Johnson continues to prove he's very bad at his job. Republicans have been talking out of both sides of their mouth and lamely trying to defend the indefensible on the government shutdown, along Trump's bizarre shit-posting on Truth Social.
Johnson gave a press conference on the shutdown this Friday, and even the Fox "news" reporter wasn't buying his nonsense on Trump and Vought:
Republicans are scrambling to downplay just how much enjoyment President Donald Trump is evidently extracting from preparations to fire federal workers by the thousands amid the government shutdown.
Speaking at a press conference Friday about Trump’s plans to make massive cuts to essential programs amid the government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson admitted that the president was “trolling” Democrats. But at the same time, Johnson claimed that Trump and White House Budget Director Russell Vought took “no pleasure” in making the cuts.
“Now, are they taking great pleasure in that? No. Is [Trump] trolling the Democrats? Yes. I mean, yes! Because that’s what President Trump does, and people are having fun with this,” Johnson said, likely referring to the trough of (often racist) AI slop the president has offered up to mock Democrats in the wake of the government shutdown.
Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram pressed the speaker on his claim. “Square something for me. How can you say, ‘They take no pleasure in this,’ and then the next minute say, ‘Oh, they’re just having fun and trolling people?’” he asked.
“So, the effects are very serious on real people, real Americans. We support federal employees who do a great job in all these different areas. But what they’re trying to have fun with, trying to make light of, is to point out the absurdity of the Democrats’ position,” Johnson said. “And they’re using memes and all the, you know, tools of social media to do that. Some people find that entertaining. But at the end of the day the decisions are hard ones, and I tell you they’re not taking any pleasure in that.”
They can't defend any of what they're doing, so they just keep lying about it over and over again.
