House Speaker MAGA Mike made an appearance on ABC’s This Week this Sunday and was asked by host Jonathan Karl about the reporters who turned in their press credentials and walked out in unison this Wednesday, rather than agree to the Defense Department’s new restrictions Hegseth wanted to impose on them.
Johnson, of course, defended Hegseth and then pretended that he’s been “very transparent” because he gives a lot of speeches, and also used that as an excuse for them refusing to do their jobs (along with lying again about the government shutdown.)
KARL: We’re out of time, but I just have to ask you what’s happened at the Pentagon. Do you have a sense for why the secretary of Defense seems to be afraid to interact with journalists who cover him? I mean —
JOHNSON: I reject the premise. There’s nothing — there’s —
KARL: I mean, the guy — the guy —
JOHNSON: Far is not part of the secretary of war’s make-up, OK?
KARL: Well, I mean, the guy’s only had two briefings since he was — became secretary of Defense. And — and — and —
JOHNSON: He’s — he’s — he’s very transparent.
KARL: And they’ve basically forced the — the Pentagon press out of the building unless they would agree to — to — to sign a pledge that would make it impossible to — to be independent journalists.
JOHNSON: I — I can’t remember, and I don’t think you can either, a secretary of defense who has been so transparent, out in the open, talking about priorities, principles and things.
KARL: Oh, I can. I covered the building and — and I traveled around the world with secretaries of defense. I interviewed them. I questioned them in the Briefing Room. Other reporters did as well.
JOHNSON: But did all those secretaries —
KARL: That doesn’t with this one.
JOHNSON: — come out and do public speeches as often as Hegseth does? To be everywhere all the time among the troops?
KARL: Well, public speeches where he summons — but I mean, answering questions.
JOHNSON: He’s restoring —
KARL: And of course, I mean, you guys haven’t brought him up to ask about what’s happening in Venezuela.
JOHNSON: Yes. We’re not in session because Chuck Schumer shut the government down. OK? We have a lot of things to do. But I would tell you this about the secretary of war. We are winning, we are restoring peace through strength, that’s one of our core principles.
KARL: Don’t you have questions about Venezuela?
JOHNSON: What about it?
KARL: Would you have questions about what is happening in Venezuela? We have this build-up around Venezuela. We have the targeting of these boats. I mean, you must at least have questions about it?
JOHNSON: Targeting of the boats?
KARL: I know we have questions.
JOHNSON: You have drug cartels bringing in fentanyl and boatloads of it that would kill potentially hundreds of thousands of Americans? What we’re doing is reel storing —
KARL: You have no questions about how they’re doing it?
JOHNSON: No, I believe in peace through strength. I think that the president and the commander-in-charge of ensuring national security and the safety of the American people. And I think most commonsense Americans look at that and say thank goodness. You take out one boat full of fentanyl, you save hundreds of thousands of American lives.
It was the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 49 during the Biden administration. We are fixing that. And that’s why the American people put a strong commander-in-chief back in the office.
Karl let him off the hook after that and ended the interview. If a Democrat did one one hundredth of the illegal crap Trump has done since taking office, they’d already be impeached and kicked out of office, but Republicans are just fine with all of it as long as it means they remain in power. And if a Democrat had tried to pull the same thing as Hegseth at the Pentagon, they’d all be screeching about it on television every hour on the hour about what an affront it is to the free press in America.
They don’t care about a free press. They don’t care about democracy. They don’t care about criminality as long as the crimes are being committed by Republicans, and they don’t care about international law. And they only care about oversight when there’s a Democrat in the White House.