House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that there would be legal fights if Democrats were to put forward a new nominee to replace President Joe Biden.
A partial transcript follows:
RADDATZ: They’re — Mr. Chairman, first of all, I disagree. What you’re saying is not necessarily an objective fact.
But I want to ask you about what’s happening with President Biden. As of this morning, it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere. But if he does leave office, you said this week that Republicans would likely file lawsuits against any attempt to replace Biden with the Democratic nominee. How would that be done?
JOHNSON: Well, these elections take place at the state level. Each state has its own system, and some states simply cannot change the candidate that was chosen over a long period of time through a democratic, lowercase-D democratic process. 14 million Democrats voted to select Joe Biden as their candidate.
So I think it’s wrong and illegal under state rules for a small group of people to try to change candidates behind the scenes. That’s not the way it should be done.
So I think that at least in some jurisdictions, they’re going to run into some legal obstacles and there’s going to be some compelling arguments that this shouldn’t be happening, so if that’s their intention and their plan, I think they’re going to get in some legal trouble. So, we’ll see how it goes.
I know the Democratic Party is in total disarray, but the Republican Party is more united than it’s ever been. So we look forward to November in this election cycle. It’s going to be an interesting time for the American people.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter Follow
