Mike Johnson struggled to keep his composure when pressed about swearing in a congresswoman-elect who has vowed to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.
The House Speaker was grilled on This Week Sunday about why Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva has waited weeks to be sworn in—with some suggesting the delay is because the Democrat plans to force a vote on the Epstein files.
After first saying that Chuck Schumer and the government shutdown were responsible for the slowness, the House Speaker then blamed Nancy Pelosi.
“This is the way the institution works. I’m following the Pelosi precedent, by the way,” he said.
“When my dear friend from Louisiana, Julia Letlow, was elected to fill the seat of her deceased husband because of Covid, Nancy Pelosi took 25 days to swear her in.”
“Are you saying that Nancy Pelosi refused to swear her in earlier?” host Jonathan Karl asked, as Johnson insisted that the long wait was normal.
The ABC host added: “Because my understanding is that was the date that actually the representative-elect, Letlow at the time, requested—”
Johnson tried to divert the conversation to “some more examples” of delayed ceremonies, but Karl remained focused on logistics.
After Johnson doubled down on his claim that the so-called “Pelosi precedent” justified the delay, Karl pressed him on what some might see as a Republican double standard.
“And what about the Johnson precedent?” he asked. “You swore in two Republicans the day after their election—”
Johnson didn’t address GOP Reps. Randy Fine and Jimmy Patronis, who were both sworn in while the House was out of session in April. Instead, he deflected back to Pelosi, citing his own examples.
“Pat Ryan, Joe Sempolinski. They were elected during an August recess, so 21 days later when the house returned to legislative session, they were administered the oath. That’s what we’re doing,” he said, adding that Grijalva would be sworn in “as the Democrats decide to turn the lights back on.”
Karl once again clarified: “You could swear her in tomorrow, right? I mean—”
Johnson quickly interrupted and exclaimed: “No, not tomorrow. No, we couldn’t, we wouldn’t.
“There was an exception for two Floridians earlier in this Congress but the reason was they were duly elected, they had a date set, they flew in all their friends and family, and the House went out of session unexpectedly.”
Johnson has resisted calls for a vote on the Epstein files—an effort that critics say could drag President Trump back into the spotlight after he socialized with the disgraced financier in the late 1980s to early 2000s.
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