During an appearance at conservative think-tank Hudson Institute on Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson endorsed Trump’s nightmarish desire to deport 15 to 20 million undocumented immigrants from the U.S., saying it’s “needed.”
Mike Johnson says Trump plans to round up millions of Latinos into mass detention camps as part of Project 2025: “It's needed” pic.twitter.com/iQWQS7ExU1
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“We will be dealing with this for decades to come. President Trump has said we want to start the largest deportation effort in history,” said Johnson. “It’s needed. We need to find all these dangerous people, criminals. They’ve emptied out prisons in Central America and sent them all over the border.”
Beyond endorsing Trump’s horrific anti-immigration policy, Johnson called for an isolationist approach to U.S. foreign policy, saying, “The Republican Party is not one of nation builders or careless interventionists. We don’t believe we should be the world’s policemen.” Johnson also called to cut costs on “overall spending” to prioritize funding the country’s defense budget, describing the cuts “essential for our long term survival.”
The Hudson Institute advertised Johnson’s appearance ahead of time as a discussion about “threats to the U.S.-led world order,” specifically from China, Russia, and Iran, and a conversation that would detail “the speaker’s agenda to bolster the credibility of US deterrence, strengthen alliances, improve America’s hard power, and maintain freedom, security, and prosperity for the American people.”
“We are realists,” claimed Johnson about the Republican Party and his endorsement of the largest deportation in U.S. history, despite Pew Research data suggesting the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as of 2021 was roughly half of the 20 million Trump wants to deport. “We don’t seek out a fight. But we know we have to be prepared. We have to be prepared to fight, and if we must fight, we fight with the gloves off.”
