Gotta hand it to Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson: He continues to find creative ways to be the absolute — and I mean absolute — worst. With Donald Trump’s megaphone gone, he’s really the source for the most bonkers, disgraceful senior Republican in Washington.
After voting to acquit Trump on Saturday — and yelling at Mitt Romney for having the gall to vote for witnesses — Johnson today went on a local Wisconsin right-wing radio show to spew his idiocy. And boy did he have a lot of idiocy to spew today. Johnson spouted venomous lies, exaggerations, and grievances over the course of a 15-minute interview that I really, really wish I didn’t listen to (but hey, someone’s gotta do it).
Here’s the money quote:
“This didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me... If that was a planned armed insurrection, then it was really a bunch of idiots.”
Ron Johnson really said that. He admitted to one gun being confiscated, but somehow overlooked the “alarming number of weapons” seized by police from the rioters and plum forgot about the VAN FILLED WITH EXPLOSIVES that was found near the Capitol.
I wish that were his only awful quote. The whole thing is terrible. The audio is below and my story continues right beneath that.
He starts by going off on Black Lives Matter and “Antifa,” brushing aside the five people who were killed in the Capitol insurrection and wondering aloud how many people died in protests last summer. Yet another conspiracy theory from the guy who laundered Trump’s lies through Senate hearings and TV appearances. This is the guy who held “electoral fraud” hearings in the Senate after repeating obvious lies about suspicious “irregularities” and continues to push very discredited and dangerous Covid “treatment.”
Then, he spoke about the attack on the Capitol itself.
“I never felt threatened. I didn’t foresee this. They made up their own standards in terms of incitement. The first question was ‘Was this predictable? Was it foreseeable?’ And the answer was no, it wasn’t. I don’t know any Trump supporters who would do that.”
Pretty remarkable, right? He watched the entire three days of the Democratic House Managers’ presentation, filled with all of the very public appeals Trump made for his base to “fight like hell” and march on the Capitol and get violent — and then said none of it was foreseeable? The guy helped incite the riot!
His comments about who rioted are even more absurd. The people who stormed the Capitol were carrying Trump flags, wearing MAGA hats, and have openly said that they went wild and wreaked havoc because Trump told them to do so. As such, Ron Johnson is thusly responsible for it. His actions directly led to the feces-smearing white nationalist mob that overwhelmed the Capitol. He almost caused the deaths of several Senators and the Vice President. And he can’t admit a single mistake.
Johnson is up for re-election in 2022, and thankfully, he has a progressive Democratic rival already hot on his heels.
As I’ve written before, I’m doing some work with Tom Nelson, the candidate who put that up. He’s the only declared Democratic candidate in the state right now and honestly, he’s a perfect match for this state. He’s the son of a pastor, a lifelong Wisconsinite who is fiercely progressive and has spent his entire career fighting for working people.
He put this up last week, right in Johnson’s hometown:
And it turns out that Ron did see it… and he definitely did not like it, as he said in this radio interview!
Tom was the State Assembly Majority Leader for a time and has been the County Executive in Outagamie County, near Green Bay, for nearly a decade. It’s a solidly red area, but he’s managed to win by being a popular populist, connecting with people in ways no other candidates can boast. He’s in favor of Medicare for All and very focused on unionizing and supporting workers, which also separates him from others that might run.
We need to beat Ron Johnson in 2022. The man is a straight-up villain.
If you want to help Tom take down Ron Johnson in 2022, CLICK HERE to DONATE to Tom Nelson’s campaign.
P.S. I have a political newsletter called Progressives Everywhere, which focuses on health care, voting rights, workers’ rights, and criminal justice reform—especially in red states. We’ve raised over $5.8 million to help flip seats in tough districts and red states. A few weeks ago, I did a big story on progressive ballot initiatives in red states with a leader of the ballot movement. Last week, I reported this feature on expanding the Supreme Court. I’ve helped put the spotlight on then-unknown progressive candidates like AOC, Mondaire Jones, Katie Porter, and many others during their primaries. It’s news you won’t find anywhere else—or at least, it’ll be in the newsletter before you’ll find it anywhere else.
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