Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) was very critical of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on the House floor on Wednesday after Johnson went to Manhattan to watch the trial for former President Trump’s criminal hush money case.
“Mr. Speaker, look at the front page of today’s New York Times.” It’s not possible. “This is a picture of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who is second in line to become president, standing in front of a courthouse as a prop for Donald Trump and trying to get in the way of a criminal trial. It seems that Republicans don’t care about law and order unless it affects them,” McGovern said.
He went on to talk to other House members on the floor and said that Johnson and a few other Republicans who voted for Trump in New York pulled a “stunt” that “diminishes this House of Representatives.”
Mediaite picked up on what McGovern said: “Their candidate for president has been indicted more times than he’s been elected.”
The lawmaker from Massachusetts was told to be quiet and follow House rules by not talking about personalities with people who are likely to be president.
It wasn’t against the rules for McGovern to say that Republicans “have the nerve” to complain about the criminal justice system.
“Give me a break.” Their credibility has been lost on this subject. “That’s sad,” he said.
McGovern kept talking and said that the people of the United States “deserve better” than for the Speaker of the House to spend time trying to change the way the courts work in New York. He said that Johnson is “wasting his time trying to make sense of all the former president’s crimes” when there are “real problems that we need to deal with.”
Johnson, Sens. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), and other Republicans with ties to Trump, such as Vivek Ramaswamy, all went to his court date on Tuesday. Johnson called the case against Trump “election interference” and said that prosecutors were trying to keep the former president out of the campaign trail when he spoke outside of court.
The Speaker said Trump is not guilty and that he is a friend.
