Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) has frequently called into conservative talk radio shows in his home state to pedal conspiracy theories and racist rhetoric. In a call on Thursday, Johnson said he did not feel threatened by the almost exclusively white Capitol insurrectionists, but “might have” if the crowd were Black Lives Matter protesters.
“Even though those thousands of people that were marching to the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn’t concerned,” Johnson said on the Joe Pag radio show.
“Now, had the tables been turned — Joe, this could get me in trouble — had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters,” Johnson continued. “I might have been a little concerned.”
In an earlier radio call-in, Johnson prefaced his comments with the same diffuser, “this could get me in trouble,” when he said the Capitol insurrectionists didn’t seem like armed insurrectionists.
Johnson’s blatantly racist comments garnered immediate criticism from Democrats with Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin) saying, “We’ve moved from just plain old fringe, extremist rants to fringe extremist and racist rants,” also that the Senator’s comments were “seriously embarrassing to our state,” in a statement.
“I reviewed many of the videos and statements we submitted during the Impeachment trial,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California). “The mob murdered a police officer and injured 140 other officers. They would have hurt you if they got their hands on you. That’s why Senators hid that day. Remember?”
