House Speaker Mike Johnson defended President Donald Trump’s posting of a sophomoric AI video of himself dumping what looks like piles of feces on protesters from a fighter jet at a “No Kings” rally over the weekend.
Over the weekend, the president posted on Truth Social an AI video of himself wearing a crown while in a fighter jet dropping massive bombs of brown liquid fecal matter on protesters at the massive “No Kings” rallies, which were meant to protest Trump’s expanded use of executive power, including sending military and National Guard units into Democrat-led cities and his mass ICE arrests.
The Independent asked the Speaker of the House about Trump’s weekend post at his daily press conference keyed to the shutdown on Monday.
“The president uses social media to make a point,” Johnson responded. “You can argue he’s probably the most effective person who’s ever used social media for that. He is using satire to make a point.”
The speaker did not say what point the president was making.
Johnson held Monday’s press conference with the rest of House leadership and with House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-Md.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). During it, they pointed to a handful of signs from some protesters calling for the execution of the president.
“He’s not calling for the murder of his political opponents,” Johnson said. “And that’s what these people are doing.”
Over the weekend, more than 7 million people gathered at various “No Kings” rallies across the country to oppose Trump’s policies and unilateral use of executive authority. In the build-up to the rallies, Republicans had called it them “hate America” gatherings, a talking point leaders used throughout the press conference on Monday.
Specifically, they blamed the rallies for Senate Democrats refusing to pass a clean continuing resolution, known as a CR, to keep the government open.
“Now that their ‘hate America’ rally is over, I hope that at least five Senate Democrats will finally do the right and responsible thing by breaking ranks with Chuck Schumer, passing our clean CR and reopening the government if they continue to refuse, we’re going to continue to hold them to account,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told reporters.
The government is set to enter its third week of shutdown as Democrats have refused to pass the stopgap spending bill to keep the government open. Senate Democrats say they want to attach an extension of Covid-era enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace.
But Republicans in the House seem uninterested in doing so. Johnson has kept the House out of session, arguing that the House has done its job in passing a clean resolution. Harris called the tax credits “corporate welfare for big, profitable health insurance companies that have already made a fortune off Obamacare.”
Roy, a hardline conservative who has stated his objections to big spending before ultimately folding to vote for major tax cuts and budget-busting initiatives Trump supports, also similarly criticized the rallies.
Specifically, he cited a Chicago teacher who was fired for putting a gun signal to her neck during the protests and Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for attorney general in Virginia, who sent texts messages threatening violence toward Republican colleagues.
“Where are the Democrats that are crying out about how horrific that was, and by the way,” he said. “The truth is, we have a president. We don’t have a king. We have a president who loves our country, who rightly said yesterday that he’s working his ass off to make this country great.”
In addition, Johnson pushed back on the ideas that Trump was acting like a king or an authoritarian.
“If President Trump was a king, he would have closed the national parks on the National Mall. We couldn’t have had the rally out here, by the way,” Johnson said.
The Senate will reconvene later on Monday to once again vote on the continuing resolution to reopen the government. But there is little sign any votes will change.
