Mike Johnson Vows to Back Trump on Most Horrifying Campaign Promise

During an appearance at conservative think-tank the Hudson Institute on Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson endorsed Trump’s nightmarish desire to deport 15 to 20 million undocumented immigrants from the United States, saying it’s “needed.”

“We will be dealing with this for decades to come. President Trump has said we want to start the largest deportation effort in history,” said Johnson. “It’s needed. We need to find all these dangerous people, criminals. They’ve emptied out prisons in Central America and sent them all over the border.”

Beyond endorsing Trump’s horrific anti-immigration policy, Johnson called for an isolationist approach to U.S. foreign policy, saying, “The Republican Party is not one of nation builders or careless interventionists. We don’t believe we should be the world’s policemen.” Johnson also called to cut costs on “overall spending” to prioritize funding the country’s defense budget, describing the cuts “essential for our long-term survival.”

The Hudson Institute advertised Johnson’s appearance ahead of time as a discussion about “threats to the U.S.-led world order,” specifically from China, Russia, and Iran, and a conversation that would detail “the speaker’s agenda to bolster the credibility of US deterrence, strengthen alliances, improve America’s hard power, and maintain freedom, security, and prosperity for the American people.”

“We are realists,” claimed Johnson about the Republican Party and his endorsement of the largest deportation in U.S. history, despite Pew Research data suggesting the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as of 2021 was roughly half of the 20 million Trump wants to deport. “We don’t seek out a fight. But we know we have to be prepared. We have to be prepared to fight, and if we must fight, we fight with the gloves off.”

While Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday on the Texas coast, knocking out power to at least two million homes and killing at least two people, Governor Greg Abbott was enjoying a trip to East Asia.

Abbott left for South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan on Friday as the storm was forecast to hit Texas on Monday. He went ahead with his nine-day trip anyway to “drive forward progress in industries critical to the future of the global economy,” according to a press release from his office.

Many in Texas and on social media didn’t see it that way, as Abbott’s trip seems quite similar to Senator Ted Cruz’s infamous 2021 trip to Cancun when the state was hit with a winter disaster. The Lose Cruz PAC pointed out that Cruz was also whale-watching in Southern California over the weekend.

Cruz himself did post a video on Monday near a flooded highway in Houston.

One Texan pointed out the arrogance from Texas Republicans.

Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell pointed out Cruz’s history, and wondered about Abbott and those like him facing any accountability in the Lone Star state.

Abbott seemed to foresee a backlash on Sunday, posting a statement that he was “in daily contact with Texas Division of Emergency Management & local officials to ensure preparation for Hurricane Beryl.”

“Your safety is our top concern.”

Others weren’t convinced.

House Speaker Mike Johnson promised Monday to slash government spending, so that he can bulk up America’s already massive military budget.

During a speech at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute, the Louisiana Republican outlined the Republican Party’s vision to strengthen America’s foreign policy, and subsequently weaken other essential facets of its government.

“To meet our defense needs, Congress has to work to grow our economy and significantly reduce our overall spending,” Johnson said. “I promise you that come 2025, spending reform will become a top priority for our new Republican majority.

“They’re not going to be easy conversations, but they’re essential for our long-term survival. Congress has to prioritize truly essential needs of our nation, and national security has to be top of that list,” he added.

If they keep the majority in 2025, Johnson and the House Republicans will likely continue to push for cuts to health programs such as Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and of course, Social Security.

In 2023, the United States spent $1.4 trillion, or 21 percent of its total spending, on Social Security, the most of any spending area. In a sign of how crucial that program is, the government expected that year to provide essential retirement benefits to 48.6 million retired Americans, 2.7 million spouses and children of workers, 5.9 million surviving spouses and children of deceased workers, and 8.8 million disabled or injured workers.

The same year, the U.S. spent $820 billion on national defense, accounting for nearly 13 percent of the nation’s total spending and dwarfing the spending of the next nine nations. Defense spending increased by $55 million from 2022 to 2023, accounting for aid to Ukraine. One can only imagine how much it will increase with America’s continued support of Israel’s deadly military campaign in Gaza.

The Republican National Committee’s policy panel overwhelmingly approved a Trump-crafted platform proposal on Monday ahead of a formal vote later this week, cementing Trump’s particular brand of politics as the official platform of the Republican Party. As part of the 20-point list of “promises” should Republicans win an electoral trifecta in November, the platform promises to “secure our elections,” hinting that the party is prepared to re-elevate conspiracies on election fraud and push renewed restrictions on voting.

The proposed platform section on election security states: “We will implement measures to secure our Elections, including Voter ID, highly sophisticated paper ballots, proof of Citizenship, and same day Voting. We will not allow the Democrats to give Voting Rights to illegal Aliens.”

Republicans have frequently railed against noncitizen voting, making it a centerpiece of their messaging during the 2024 election despite it being illegal in federal elections, extremely rare, and typically an accident. In 2020, calls by Trump for unofficial “poll watchers” to monitor polling places and ballot drop boxes led to concerns of voter intimidation. During the 2024 election season, Trump has taken to floating baseless conspiracy theories that Democrats are encouraging illegal immigration to register them to vote and secure their support.

Critics of voter ID laws, such as the ACLU, argue they’re merely an effort to restrict access to voting, hurting registered voters who can’t afford a new ID, have lost access to documents required to obtain an ID, or who are without means to travel long distances to obtain an ID, for instance those living in rural areas and those with disabilities.

Trump has frequently railed against absentee and early voting, decrying both as rife with election fraud to benefit Democrats. The reality is much simpler: Republicans have spent years decrying early and absentee voting, which in turn reduced the number of Republicans who used alternative methods to vote, while Democrats encouraged increased access to voting. While Trump has lobbed conspiratorial attacks against early voting, he himself voted absentee and through early voting in 2020, and, alongside Republican leadership, suddenly changed course on his previous stance, now describing early, absentee, and same-day voting as “all good options.” The impending RNC platform on voting access again diverts the Republican Party from embracing increased voter access, with the possibility that early and absentee voting will be banned in their entirety should Republicans win in November.

Project 2025, the short name for the 180-page ultraconservative plan for a second Donald Trump presidency, has some frightening minds developing its schemes to oust civil servants and severely roll back civil rights, among other authoritarian plots. 

Behind the expansive playbook is its advisory board, made up of dozens of think tanks and advocacy groups, including three that are designated hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the substack Decoding Fox News reported Monday. And despite Trump’s recent attempts to distance himself from the plan, these group’s fingerprints were all over his last administration and will likely be all over his next one. 

The first group is that old standard the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group that brought the very case that overturned Roe v. Wade, sought to recriminalize sex acts between LGBTQ+ adults, and pushed heinous lies about gay and transgender people. 

It’s worth noting that House Speaker Mike Johnson worked at that law group for nearly a decade and former Trump attorney John Eastman was also allied with the group. While in the White House, Trump worked with them too, it seems. In 2018, he invited the group’s senior counsel Tyson Langhofer to speak at a youth outreach event about free speech. 

The second designated hate group is the Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS, a conservative anti-immigration think tank. Its website sports the tagline, “Low Immigration, Pro Immigrant.”

While Trump claims not to be affiliated with those behind Project 2025, CIS has long had its hands in the immigration policy of the Trump administration. While sketching out some of Trump’s harshest immigration policies, former senior White House adviser Stephen Miller heavily relied on data from CIS and would often pass reports from the group on to the president’s desk, as well as to his affiliates at Breitbart for publication, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

The Trump administration reportedly spoke regularly with Jessica Vaughan, who is the think tank’s director of policy studies, according to NPR. The group’s executive director, Mark Krikorian, also said he met with Trump officials to discuss immigration policy, per The New York Times.  

The think tank mostly publishes its own studies and blog posts for the purpose of fearmongering about immigration in the United States. One of its most recent posts posits that Joe Biden’s new immigration policy, which will grant protections to millions of undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens, will equate to a “marriage fraud mill.”

CIS has repeatedly shared links to VDARE, a site that publishes the drivel of white supremacists. The group also lists Jason Richwine—a public policy analyst who once suggested that his research had found that Hispanic people were less intelligent than whites—as its resident scholar. 

The CATO Institute has debunked much of the so-called research produced by CIS, including a report that allegedly used double-counted data on murders committed by undocumented immigrants in Texas. It’s likely that many of the group’s dubious studies have served as fuel for the fire of Trump’s, and the entire Republican Party’s, insistence on an immigrant crime wave. 

As a member of the Mandate for Leadership’s advisory board, CIS’s connections to the previous Trump administration should surprise no one, because despite what the former president may claim, he can be found in every corner of Project 2025 and its “abysmal” policy points, as he called them. 

The third designated hate group is the Family Research Council, which published anti-LGBTQ+ studies based on debunked science, opposed same-sex marriage, bashed laws against hate crimes, and undermined anti-bullying programs. 

Trump also has ties to this group. Last year, he spoke at an event for the group’s Pray, Vote, Stand conference, urging them to back off painting him as pro-life, wanting to distance himself from the position that proved unpopular among voters in the midterms. Trump recently spoke in a prerecorded message at a luncheon co-sponsored by the Family Research Council. 

Project 2025’s advisory board was originally announced on the same day that Roe v. Wade was overturned, as if to present the cast list for the Republican Party’s plan to proceed with the obliteration of civil rights. It would be a mistake to see Project 2025’s policies as anything but essential to Trump’s potential presidency, regardless of what he’d have you believe.