Mike Johnson, the Trump-backed, controversial Republican from Louisiana, secured his second term as Speaker of the House of Representatives on Friday afternoon. He was formally nominated by U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), a fellow far-right Christian conservative and the newly elected Chair of the House Republican Conference. In her nominating remarks, McClain emphasized “God,” “faith,” and “traditional American values” as central themes.

Johnson has “close ties to Christian right — both mainstream and fringe,” according to NPR. His actions have been described by experts as showing a “strong embrace of the ethos of Christian nationalism—a cultural framework that advocates for a particular expression of Christianity to be fused with American civic life, with the government vigorously promoting and preserving this version of Christianity as the principal and undisputed cultural framework.”

Congresswoman McClain told colleagues in her floor speech that House Republicans “are focused on the issues that the majority of Americans care about: God, family, country, faith, freedom, and traditional American values.” She went on to describe Johnson as “steadfast in his values of faith, family, and love of this country.”

Lisa McClain cites “God” as “one of the issues that the majority of Americans care about” pic.twitter.com/4iiElQMmPV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 3, 2025

In 2021, her first year as a member of Congress, McClain earned a “0%” from the ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union. Included in that scorecard was her vote against the Equality Act, which “would provide LGBTQ people with explicit, comprehensive protection against discrimination under federal civil rights laws. In addition, it would update federal civil rights laws to address modern forms of discrimination, including against all women and people of color. It would do so by updating and modernizing the scope of public spaces and services covered under the law, as well as expanding protections from sex discrimination in public spaces and services and in taxpayer-funded programs,” according to the ACLU.

READ MORE: ‘Could We Check That?’: Dumbfounded Fox News Host Falls for Former Congressman’s Joke

The following year McClain delivered a fist-pounding interview praising the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision supporting the right of a high school football coach to pray on the field. Posting video of her remarks, she opted to invoke “LGBTQ issues.”

When teaching about LGBTQ issues in school is encouraged but a football coach praying leads to years in federal courts, it’s time to be concerned about the direction of our country. pic.twitter.com/8ps7v2hUVG

— Chairwoman Lisa McClain (@RepLisaMcClain) June 28, 2022

That same year McClain “took aim at Democrats over their push to restrict guns for Americans under 21 years of age in comparison to what she said were their views on age and parental consent when it comes to gender transition procedures,” Newsweek reported.

In 2022, McClain voted against protections for same-sex marriages.

Also that year, McClain “made a series of false claims in a short speech at former President Donald Trump’s rally outside Detroit on Saturday – notably including an assertion that Trump, who has endorsed her for re-election, was the president who caught terrorist Osama bin Laden,” CNN reported. She also falsely claimed that under President Joe Biden, unemployment was at a 40-year high, whiten it was under a 52-year low, and suggested President Biden had not actually won the 2020 election.

In 2023, McClain was one of 26 Republicans on the powerful House Oversight Committee who refused to sign a simple, two-sentence statement denouncing white supremacy:

“We, Members of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, together denounce white nationalism and white supremacy in all its forms, including the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory. These hateful and dangerous ideologies have no place in the work of the
United States Congress or our Committee.”

McClain, in her nominating remarks Friday, also declared that the American people “gave us an opportunity to get back to normal and to get back to the real issues that the country faces right now. People want the opportunity to take care of their families. They simply want to provide for their children and give them a prosperous future.”

“And ladies and gentlemen, we have the opportunity today to do just that. We have an opportunity to take our country back with Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate majority leader John Thune and President Donald J. Trump in charge,” she said, to a standing ovation. “We have the opportunity to put America first again. We have an opportunity to do something about crime. We have an opportunity to do something about the border, and we have an opportunity to take care of our veterans.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: January 6 Rioters Are ‘Political Dissidents’ Declares Spouse of Trump Cabinet Nominee

Image via Reuters

Fox News co-host Brian Kilmeade appeared dumbfounded after falling for a joke by now-former U.S. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), the once-powerful chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus who lost his seat in the GOP primary last year after Donald Trump supported his Republican opponent.

In the lead up to this afternoon’s vote for Speaker of the House, where Mike Johnson has a razor-thin majority and his re-election is controversial among some in the GOP, Good posted a tweet jokingly declaring, “I will NOT be voting for Mike Johnson for Speaker todat [sic].”

Good has no vote since the new House is being sworn in today and his time in office has ended.

But live, on air, in an interview with U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Kilmeade breathlessly announced, “Well, I got bad news. Congressman Bob Good just tweeted out, he will not be voting for Mike Johnson.”

Congressman Jordan replied, “Well, remember Brian, Bob Good has left so I — maybe there’s some other name, but I, Bob Good is…”

READ MORE: January 6 Rioters Are ‘Political Dissidents’ Declares Spouse of Trump Cabinet Nominee

Kilmeade, appearing to talk to his producer, replied, “Could we check that?”

“What are you saying he’s? —” Kilmeade continued, looking down.

“Bob Good lost that close primary back in that Virginia seat,” Jordan continued. “John Maguire is the new member there, John will be voting for, uh, Mike Johnson, for Speaker.”

“Alright,” Kilmeade replied. “Good point. He’s not there anymore, so I shouldn’t have brought that up. My bad. But he put that out. Evidently.”

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Kilmeade was mocked for being unaware that a well-known Congressman lost in a close primary in June that went into a recount that was in the news for months, and not finalized until August.

“It’s the professionalism that I respect,” snarked Meidas Touch podcaster Fred Wellman, a political consultant and military veterans activist.

“How this group of jokers expects us to take them seriously, I do not know,” observed award-winning author Jennifer Erin Valent.

“This is utterly hilarious,” noted political writer Mona Burns. “Evidently Fox ‘News’ hosts (& producers) are also unaware that Bob Good is no longer a sitting member of Congress .. Seriously cannot make this stuff up.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

lmao pic.twitter.com/pAXgjEaEPN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 3, 2025

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Conservative Fox News personality Rachel Campos-Duffy on Friday referred to January 6 rioters as “political dissidents,” a term traditionally reserved for individuals persecuted for opposing authoritarian or oppressive governmental authority or policies. Renowned figures who have been described as political dissidents include Martin Luther King Jr., Alexei Navalny, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Nelson Mandela.

Campos-Duffy, a longtime Trump defender, is married to former U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), a former lobbyist and Fox Business co-host, who is now President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Transportation. The Duffys met when they were both contestants on a reality TV show.

In January 2024, Campos-Duffy claimed, “Democrats getting nervous. Their January 6 narrative is crumbling as security footage that was once blocked continues to be released to public.”

In April, Campos-Duffy posted an angry rant over a claim that a bed and breakfast operator who calls herself the “J6 praying grandma” might be sentenced to a year in jail. Months later, in August, the Associated Press reported that her “misdemeanor case has become a cause célèbre among conservatives critical of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 prosecutions. Prosecutors accused her of ‘profiting off the celebrity of her conviction’ with a slew of media appearances questioning the integrity of the court system and the jurors who convicted her.”

READ MORE: JD Vance Schooled by German Ambassador Over Defense of Far-Right ‘Nazi-Lite’ Party

“What the hell is happening in America???!!!” Campos-Duffy wrote. “Illegals who broke into our country aren’t in prison. Joe & Hunter Biden sold the country out to China. They aren’t in prison. BLM protesters who torched our cities didn’t go to prison. But a grandma who prayed in our Capitol on January 6 gets one year in prison!!!”

The woman was not sentenced to a year in jail but was sentenced to “six months of home confinement in her Capitol riot case after the judge railed against ‘offensive’ comments she has made about the criminal justice system,” the AP reported.

Last month, Campos-Duffy described Trump’s nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, as a “great pick,” and wrote: “I hope he starts with exposing the January 6 lies.”

In 2023, Campos-Duffy called the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack a “sham” committee.

On Friday, in a segment on “Fox & Friends,” Campos-Duffy declared, “They’ve been directing agents to go after political dissidents from J6—from January 6—instead of going after terrorists.”

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to pardon at least some of the January 6 rioters, Reuters reported last month.

In that segment (video below) she made suspect claims regarding U.S. funding of the Taliban and “Islamist rebels in Syria.”

Campos-Duffy also declared the FBI, Dept. of Defense, and Dept. of Homeland Security have “given us zero confidence.”

READ MORE: Republicans Use New Year’s Attacks to Push Border Narrative and Fast-Track Trump Nominees

“They’ve said nothing with the border open and terrorists flowing over our borders,” she claimed, before attacking criticism of former Fox News co-host Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Defense.

“We know that within the military, they were flagging Pete Hegseth as a white supremacist, because of a tattoo.”

Hegseth has multiple tattoos, some of which reportedly have been linked to Christian nationalism and white supremacy.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy, who is married to former Fox host/Trump DOT nom Sean Duffy, says the Biden administration was “directing agents to go after political dissidents from J6, from January 6, instead of going after terrorists.” pic.twitter.com/nrxml6yCxG

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) January 3, 2025

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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license