Arizona's senators are fed up with Mike Johnson's BS

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, shown in early September.

House Speaker Mike Johnson was confronted in the halls of the Capitol by Arizona Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly over his flimsy excuse for refusing to swear in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won her special election over two weeks ago.

“Ms. Grijalva, Rep-elect Grijalva, has not yet had a scheduled date because she was elected after the House was out of session,” Johnson claimed, as reporters and cameras captured the exchange.

“How much is this actually you just don't want her to be on the Epstein discharge?” Gallego replied, referring to how Grijalva represents the tipping-point vote on a bipartisan discharge petition that would force a vote on releasing the government’s long-suppressed files on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

“It’s totally absurd. You guys are experts in red herrings,” Johnson said, adding that it had “nothing to do with Epstein.”

“You just keep coming up with excuses,” Gallego eventually responded. “This is an excuse so she doesn't sign on to that.” 

Johnson, like President Donald Trump, has struggled mightily in deflecting attention from the GOP’s refusal to release the Epstein files.