- Biden and Trump will debate Thursday at 9 p.m. ET in Atlanta
- House Speaker Mike Johnson: Trump ‘is in a good place’ ahead of the debate
- Johnson says Trump should focus on future, not the the past
(NewsNation) — When Donald Trump takes the debate stage Thursday night in Atlanta, House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to see him talk about the road ahead.
“What he should say is ‘let’s talk about the future and not the past. We can’t re-litigate what happened in 2020,” Johnson told “On Balance with Leland Vittert.”
Johnson says he’s been with Trump in the past few days, and describes the former president as “in a good place.” He adds that a win for Trump will be successfully sharing his vision for another term.
“People are fed up with what the Biden administration and what they’ve done to the country. They want change, and they are excited about President Trump getting another term,” said Johnson.
He also said it should be easy for voters to distinguish words from action.
“There are two men who’ve actually been president, so disregard the rhetoric. Look at the records of these two men. We were all doing better under President Trump.”
On other subjects, Johnson said he was happy to see New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman lose his primary election.
“We’re glad to see members of ‘The Squad’ go down. It’s a toxin to the system. I think they tried to push that pendulum so far to the left, that it’s now beginning to swing back. Republicans are going to perform very well in New York because the left went too far to the left.”
On the move by Florida Republican Anna Paulina Luna to invoke a rarely used House procedure to try to arrest Attorney General Merrick Garland: “I don’t even know if there is a mechanism to do it. Although it’s technically allowed in the law, it hasn’t been done for over a hundred years – for a reason. We’re talking through what all that looks like.”
Garland has refused to release the audio tapes of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur on the classified documents found in his home and a former office.
“That is not an outrageous request. It’s something we have to do pursuant to our Constitutional responsibility. I think we’ll get it.”