© Penn Chan for The New York Times
Donald Trump has earned a reputation as the nation’s most prominent and powerful election conspiracy theorist, but to the extent that there’s a competition for the silver medal in this ignominious category, House Speaker Mike Johnson is a clear contender.
Indeed, after Trump’s defeat in the 2020 race, it was the Louisiana Republican who took the lead on Capitol Hill, effectively becoming the White House’s congressional point man, doing his best to overturn the results and hand the outgoing president illegitimate power. Johnson even echoed a discredited conspiracy theory involving Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Dominion Voting Systems — nonsense that even many Trump acolytes didn’t feel comfortable repeating.
With this in mind, it wasn’t too surprising to see Congress’ top GOP lawmaker echo his party’s baseless conspiracy theories regarding California’s latest elections, though one word in his pitch was of particular interest.
RAJU: But what evidence is there to prove the California election is rigged?MIKE JOHNSON: Look, some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream it's impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively that something is wrong here.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-08T19:56:22.798Z
Apparently comfortable speaking on behalf of the nation, Johnson told reporters on Monday afternoon that “everybody knows” that the process of counting votes in California “stinks to high heaven.”
Asked the obvious question about conspiracy theorists’ lack of evidence, the House speaker added, “Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream that it’s impossible to prove, but I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.”
It was an implicit acknowledgment of an inconvenient truth: Johnson and his cohorts simply don’t have any evidence. The speaker and other Republican leaders don’t know if their baseless ideas are true, but they apparently want the public to know that their conspiracy theories feel true.
It’s the basis for a debate, not about election administration processes, but about vibes.
But Johnson’s use of the word “instinctively” stood out, in part because it was so foolish, in part because of its familiarity.
A couple of years ago, for example, during a Fox Business interview, the House speaker asserted that there are now “terrorist cells set up around the country.” Asked how many, Johnson conceded that he had no idea — despite his access to intelligence at the highest levels — but added that we are “intuitively” aware of the problem.
Similarly, after Trump’s 2020 defeat, Johnson also insisted that “a lot of us know intuitively” that there were problems with the vote tallies. After the Senate rejected the House’s impeachment effort against then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Johnson said “we know already intuitively” that Mayorkas deserved to be punished. When the House speaker unveiled legislation to ban noncitizens from voting — which is already illegal, and which effectively never happens — Johnson declared at a press conference, “We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections.”
Among the obvious problems is the simple fact that instincts and intuition are utterly irrelevant when dealing with factual questions like these. Elections are either proper or they’re not. Voters are either casting legal ballots or they’re not. Evidence either exists or it doesn’t.
His track record suggests this basic dynamic is lost on the House speaker in fundamental ways.
What we’re dealing with, in other words, is a political leader who believes gut feelings are a legitimate substitute for knowledge. They are not.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
The post Speaker Mike Johnson says his election conspiracy theories feel ‘instinctively’ true appeared first on MS NOW.
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