When Rep. Mike Johnson was elected Speaker of the House last year, Christian nationalist religious-right activist Rick Green was “literally in tears” because, he said, Johnson “is one of our guys.”
“We’ve been praying for this,” Green gushed at the time. “We’ve been praying for leaders that have a fear of God, that we know have a foundation of biblical truth.”
“This is a moment to stop what you are doing and thank God for this happen,” he declared.
Christian nationalist religious-right activist Rick Green says he is “literally in tears” that Rep. Mike Johnson has been elected Speaker of the House because “this is one of our guys.” pic.twitter.com/dtl8nGkqW1
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) October 25, 2023
But the elation of that moment is now long gone as Green, like many others in the right-wing movement, has soured on Johnson.
Green, founder of Patriot Academy and a co-host of the radio program “WallBuilders Live” with religious-right pseudo-historians David and Tim Barton, appeared on the “FlashPoint” program last night where he declared that he has lost faith after the GOP House Speaker orchestrated a bipartisan bill to secure foreign aid to Israel and Ukraine.
“I will admit I was wrong,” Green said. “I’ve known him for over 10 years. I believe he is a man of faith. He’s been a great constitutional attorney. He was a great congressman before being Speaker. And for the first few months, I kept saying, ‘Okay, I’m gonna give him a little more rope, give him a little bit more rope. He keeps kicking this stuff [down the road]; that’s not how I would do it but I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes and in the closed-door meetings and what he’s learning. I’m going to trust his judgment for a little while.’ No more.
Green said that the foreign aid bill has “caused me to lose faith.”
“I know Johnson’s in an impossible position,” he said. “One vote majority. It’s an impossible job. All that good stuff. But I was wrong about his demeanor. I thought his demeanor would be perfect for the job right now. It’s not. You need a fighter. You need a Newt Gingrich-type or a Donald Trump-type in the speakership that’s going to take it to the mat and say, ‘We seal the border or you getting no funding for anything else. We will shut down the federal government.’ And frankly, I think that would probably be a blessing to most people in America right now with the way that it’s running things.”
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