WASHINGTON — Home Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) stated Tuesday that the widespread voter fraud he’d warned about all 12 months turned out to not be an issue in final week’s elections that Republicans occurred to win.
“I’m joyful to report back to you that due to all of the emphasis we positioned on that, and due to all the eye the American individuals placed on it, that I feel we had been in a position to restrict, to a excessive diploma, the quantity of fraud and irregularity and most of the issues that involved all Individuals after 2020,” Johnson stated in response to a query from HuffPost.
Johnson spoke in entrance of the Home steps, at a lectern adorned with a “New Day in America” signal, as Republicans are on the verge of controlling each Congress and the White Home following final week’s decisive victory by former president Donald Trump and Republicans in Senate and Home races.
In Could, talking on the similar location, Johnson had warned that voting by undocumented immigrants introduced an “unprecedented and a transparent and current hazard to the integrity of our election system.” On Tuesday, he stated noncitizens could have voted “in some locations across the nation,” however that it wasn’t an issue for the election outcomes because of efforts by state lawmakers and Republican ballot watchers.
“In order that’s signal. It’s one other hopeful purpose, one other factor to have a good time about our new day in America,” Johnson stated.
Chip Somodevilla through Getty Photographs
Not all Home races have been known as, however Republicans are main in many of the remaining contests and can possible retain management of the Home with a slim majority with Johnson as speaker. The Louisiana Republican stated Republicans would hit the bottom operating subsequent 12 months with tax cuts and deregulation.
It’s not clear if Republicans’ “America First” agenda will even embrace the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, the invoice Johnson and Trump stated earlier than the election was needed to stop Democrats from committing huge voter fraud. Amongst different issues, the proposal would require voters to show their citizenship in an effort to register, fairly than merely asking them to attest to it beneath penalty of perjury.
There have been remoted cases of noncitizens voting in federal elections, but it surely’s a relatively rare phenomenon and never one thing that’s tipped an election earlier than. Johnson admitted in Could that whereas he knew “intuitively” that noncitizens vote in massive numbers, there’s no proof.
Democracy In The Stability
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Nonetheless, Johnson hooked up the SAVE Act to a must-pass authorities funding invoice this fall, and Trump even inspired Republicans to close down the federal government if Democrats wouldn’t comply with the reforms. (Johnson finally relented and Congress handed a clear authorities funding invoice.)
Trump, for his half, complained Democrats had been “CHEATING” on the poll on the afternoon of Election Day, however didn’t revisit his claims that night as favorable returns got here in.
Johnson prompt Tuesday that Trump’s margin of victory was extensive sufficient that even when noncitizens voted for Democrats in vital numbers, it didn’t have an effect on the end result.
“The mantra and what we stated on the rallies, and what President Trump was apt to say on a regular basis, is we needed to make it too massive to rig — and we did,” Johnson stated.
