President Joe Biden told reporters “no” he’s not concerned that Speaker-elect Mike Johnson of Louisiana would overturn the presidential election results in 2024 if Biden wins reelection.
In 2020, Johnson sent an email from a personal email account in 2020 to every House Republican soliciting signatures for an amicus brief in the longshot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral college votes from multiple states.
After the election was called in favor of Biden on November 7, 2020, Johnson posted on X, then known as Twitter, “I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.’”
Pressed Wednesday on why he wasn’t worried Johnson might attempt to overturn a free and fair election, as he did in 2020, Biden said, “Because he can’t — look, just like I was not worried that the last guy would be able to overturn the election.”
“They had about 60 lawsuits, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court — every time they lost,” the president added. “I understand the Constitution.”
Earlier in the news conference where Biden was speaking with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, a reporter informed the two leaders of the news Johnson had secured the votes to become speaker.
Biden responded, “I hope that’s true because we have to get moving, we have to get moving.”