Tapper shuts down Mike Johnson’s latest spin on Trump’s remarks

CNN host Jake Tapper showed two clips with evidence of Donald Trump making serious threats against his critics, and yet House Speaker Mike Johnson he refused to face reality.

In a heated discussion about State of the Unionthe pair clashed trumpThe threatening rhetoric of “enemies from within” used during the presidential race.

“In several interviews this week, Donald Trump repeatedly referred to prominent Democrats and others on the U.S. left, American citizens as ‘the enemy from within.'” And he suggested that, as president, that he would want to use the National Guard or the military against them,” Tapper began before playing a clip of Trump making chilling threats against “the lunatics on the radical left.”

But after watching the video, Mike Johnson defended the comments.

“Jake, you know, that’s not what he’s talking about there, when he talks about his marauding gangs of dangerous, violent people who are destroying public property,” he said after a brief awkward silence.

The response led to an argument with Tapper, marked by numerous interruptions and muffled speech as they spoke to each other.

“Governor Youngkin (of Virginia) tried it on me, too,” Tapper replied. “(Trump) was very clear. He was asked about it later because Fox always likes to be a Donald Trump a chance to clean it up. And he always says, ‘no, no, I said what I meant.’ . That’s what he said when asked about it the next day.”

The second clip from a recent Fox News interview showed Trump directly calling Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff the “enemies within.”

“That’s what he’s talking about, using the US military against non-marauding Venezuelan gangs,” Tapper clarified.

The Republican deputy, however, did not budge on his position. As he muttered “wait a minute,” Tapper went on to suggest that he would find it “disgusting” to hear another politician threatening Mike Johnson with military action.

“Well, thank you and some have said that about us because they don’t like my politics,” Johnson replied. “I didn’t hear President Trump in that clip say he’s going to get the military on (Congressman) Adam Schiff. That’s not what he’s saying. You have two different clips in two different contexts. What President Trump is saying is that the they had been attacking and defaming since the day he came down that golden escalator. Everyone knows it’s true.”

“In 2015, 2016, that’s when it started. He has been the most attacked and slandered political figure in the history of the United States. They tried to kill him twice in the last few months. This is real, and I really feel it. And Jake, you were also under attack like him all the time. They, I mean Iran, who has assassination attempts against him…”

Tapper interjected, “That’s a combination!”

The CNN host also had to point out that Schiff and Pelosi were not behind the former president’s assassination attempts. While Johnson agreed with this, he said the political attacks on Trump had been “relentless” and “baseless” before later talking about how Ukraine was invaded by Russia and Israel was attacked by representatives of Iran during Joe Biden’s term.

“You’re answering a completely different interview question,” Tapper said.

Read more at The Daily Beast.