Johnson: Dems ‘Pushed the Pendulum Too Far’ with Trump, It’s ‘Backfiring’
Washington, D.C. has been unusually drama-free with Congress scattered for the Memorial Day break. Of course, New York was more than happy to pick up the slack with its sham trial against former President Donald Trump — a prosecution, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) warned Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, that’s put our entire country at “a crisis point.”
The Republican leader, like so many conservatives, has watched the proceedings with alarm, understanding all too well the political volatility that might result. “I’m hearing a lot of frustration, and I’m hearing dismay,” Johnson said on “This Week on the Hill.” “You know, people are losing faith in our institutions across the board,” he warned, “… not the least of which is our system of justice.” Frankly, the speaker pointed out, this whole charade “is a serious threat to a constitutional republic. … And I think we’re at a crisis point, because people see what is happening here.”
The facts are clear, Johnson insisted. Americans “see that President Trump is quite obviously being targeted because he is the nominee of the Republican Party for president, and he is a threat to them. He’s leading in the polls, as we mentioned earlier; he’s leading in the swing states — almost all of them now against President Biden. And they’re terrified that he’ll be reelected, the radical Left. And so what do they do? They use the justice system to go after him, try to diminish him, try to keep him off the campaign trail, and do real damage to his chances to win back the White House. I don’t think it’s going to work … but I do think it’s doing serious — and hopefully, not permanent — damage to the people’s faith and our system of justice.”
On the flip side, the case has certainly seemed to galvanize Republicans, who sent the former president a resounding message of support with their dollars after the guilty verdict. In a stunning windfall, Trump’s campaign headquarters said it was inundated with contributions after the 45th president was convicted of 34 felonies. The $53 million haul shattered records, nearly matching what the GOP candidate had raised in the last six months of 2023. And according to two of Trump’s advisors, “This momentum is just getting started.”
And that’s exactly what should worry Democrats. “In a funny kind of way,” former Speaker Newt Gingrich argued, this whole conviction may “backfire on the Left and leave them, I think, weaker than they were if they never [had] gone down this road.” He’s right, according to ABC, who found Trump’s favorability actually increased after the verdict. Across a large swath of the country, he pointed out, “I think people just looked up and said, ‘This is now so sick that I have to get involved.’”
Johnson, who’s been in 112 cities since last October, can testify to that. In his conversation with Perkins, he pointed to one of the biggest signs of momentum for Trump, which is the “enthusiasm gap” between conservatives and the Left. “The Republican Party is animated. And the more … the Democrats try to abuse our justice system and engage in lawfare against our nominee, President Trump, the more energy and enthusiasm there is in the Republican base. It actually is [boomeranging] on them pretty fantastically.”
Then, of course, there are all the actual problems from the last three years of Biden’s policies — “the economy, the cost of living, the rising of crime rates, the open border” — each failure digging the hole deeper for this White House. “I mean, every issue hits home to people,” the speaker insisted. “And I think that the Republicans and an increasing number of other demographics that have never been reliably Republican — [the] Hispanic community, African American community, the Jewish community — I think they’re going to come out and vote in droves for the Republican side, and they’re going to return the levers of power in Washington back to our side, because they desperately need and deserve answers to all these great challenges, and we’re going to supply them.”
In the meantime, Johnson is celebrating the news that Republicans have reinforcements in the form of Vince Fong, who’s taking Kevin McCarthy’s seat from California. “He will bring our Republican majority back to 218 votes. So I will double my majority,” he half-joked. “I can’t wait.”
It will certainly be helpful to the GOP, which has its work cut out for itself in the six-month ramp-up to the election. “When we get back after Memorial Day,” Johnson wanted people to know, “we’re going to address this [anti-Israel] International Criminal Court madness that we talked about. Congress will move on our legislation, and then we’ll shift immediately into and concurrently be working on our appropriations cycle. We’re trying to get our 12 separate appropriations bills done. We have a very aggressive schedule now through the end of July to move that through the process. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of work,” he underscored.
But jumping back into the work of the American people will also help Johnson’s party paint a stark contrast to what the Left is focused on: jailing Trump. “I mean, as fed-up as everyone is with virtually everything right now, every metric of public policy having been destroyed by the Biden administration, people are very optimistic that we can turn this around. They really are. And that’s what the latest polling shows.” The only election ad Democrats are running is a “raw abuse of power.”
As far as the speaker is concerned, the president’s party “pushed the pendulum too far. I think it truly is going to be swinging back in the right direction. … I’m telling you,” Johnson emphasized, “something’s happening out there, and it’s going to be very positive for November.”
AUTHOR
Suzanne Bowdey
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.
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