On Tuesday night, Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA 4th District) was named the GOP Speaker-Designate following a closed-door voting among House Republicans.
The officially announced candidates for the Speakership were Byron Donalds (FL), Chuck Fleischmann (TN), Mark Green (TN), Mike Johnson (LA), and Roger Williams (TX) after former Soros-funded group spokesman Tom Emmer (MN) withdrew from the race.
During the final round of voting, Johnson reportedly received 128 votes, while Rep. Byron Donalds received 29 votes. Johnson’s win marks him as the fourth Speaker-Designate for the House, after Tom Emmer, Jim Jordan, and Steve Scalise.
Following his win for the GOP speaker nominee, Johnson conducted a press conference where he emphasized unity within the Republican Party.
Excerpt from his speech:
Democracy is messy sometimes, but it is our system. This conference that you see, this House Republican majority, is united.
I’m honored to have the support of my colleagues and what they understand about this is this is servant leadership. We’re going to serve the people of this country. We’re going to restore their faith in this Congress, this institution of government.
America is the last best hope of man on the earth. Abraham Lincoln said it. Ronald Reagan used to remind us all the time and we’re here to remind you of that again.
We’re going to restore your trust in what we do here. You’re going to see a new form of government and we are going to move this quickly. This group here is ready to govern. We’re going to govern well. We’re going to do what’s right by the people and I believe the people are going to reward that next year. But we have a lot of big priorities ahead of us right now. The world is on fire.
We stand with our ally Israel. We have a very busy agenda. We have appropriations bills to get through the process. But you are going to see this group looking working like a well-oiled machine. We owe that to the American people. The people up here have been sent here by the people of this country to do this job. We are going to do it well. We commit that to you. Thank you for allowing us to go through the process and get to this. It was worth it. We are going to serve you well.
After his speech, a reporter questioned Johnson about his role in challenging the 2020 election results. The reporter was abruptly cut off by other Republicans present at the conference. Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC) can be heard telling the reporter to “shut up.”
WATCH:
It can be recalled that Rep. Johnson was a key figure in the efforts to challenge the 2020 election results. The Louisiana Republican led the charge in drafting an amicus brief that was signed by 125 House Republicans. The brief supported a Texas lawsuit that sought to invalidate the election results in four swing states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin.