Mike Johnson Wrote the Forward for a Racist, Homophobic, Anti-Poor Book That Endorsed Pizzagate and Denigrated a Prisoner of War

With George Santos’s expulsion drama taking up all the attention in Congress this week, you might have forgotten that the new leader of the House, Mike Johnson, has a history of deeply homophobic remarks that have come out on a near-daily basis since he was elected, as well as equally shitty takes on things like abortion, mass shootings, and democracy. But he does! And on a whole bunch of other stuff as well.

CNN’s KFile reports that Johnson wrote the forward for and then promoted a 2022 book written by Scott McKay called The Revivalist Manifesto, which:

• Says poor voters are “unsophisticated and susceptible to government dependency” and easy to manipulate with “Black Lives Matter ‘defund the police’ pandering”;
• Describes Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as the “queer choice” for the Cabinet job, calls him “openly, and obnoxiously, gay,” and refers to him as “Gay Mayor Pete Buttigieg”
• Claims the Biden administration purposely let undocumented immigrants into the US for voting purposes;
• Says Barack Obama’s “chief selling point was that he was black”;
• Writes of the debunked conspiracy theory that Democratic officials ran a pedophile ring out of a pizza shop: “The Pizzagate scandal was born, and though some of the most outlandish allegations made in it were clearly disproven, other elements were not; the whole thing just seemed to be dismissed as debunked, and no explanation was ever given”;
• Suggests Supreme Court Chief justice John Roberts had ties to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein;
• Declares John McCain used five and a half years as a prison of war during Vietnam “as a political get-out-of-jail-free card.”

In the forward, Johnson writes: “Scott McKay presents a valuable and timely contribution with The Revivalist Manifesto because he has managed here to articulate well what millions of conscientious, freedom-loving Americans are sensing.” The congressman, per CNN, also actively promoted the book on his public social media platforms and even interviewed McCay in an episode of the podcast that he cohosts with his wife . During the episode, Johnson said, “I obviously believe in the product, or I wouldn’t have written the foreword. So I endorse the work.” Again, all of this happened last year.

After CNN’s story was published, a spokesman for the Speaker told the outlet that Johnson had never read the passages CNN highlighted, and that he “strongly disagrees” with them. McKay called the article a “hit piece.”

In Fox News’ alternate reality, DeSantis beat Newsom last night