Home Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday endorsed Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, whereas defending the previous president’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

“I am all in for President Trump,” Johnson stated on CNBC’s “Squawk Field.” “I count on he’ll be our nominee, and we now have to make Biden a one-term president.”

Johnson instructed he had already thrown his weight behind Trump, saying, “I’ve endorsed him wholeheartedly.” But it surely was unclear when the Louisiana Republican had beforehand given Trump his official backing.

Trump had not formally endorsed Johnson when he turned the Republican Get together’s fourth nominee for speaker final month, amid a drawn-out scramble to interchange ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

However Trump gave what he known as a “robust suggestion” to “go along with the main candidate, Mike Johnson, & get it performed, quick!”

Trump has dominated the 2024 Republican presidential area, however it’s uncommon for a celebration’s chief in Congress to publicly endorse a candidate this early within the race, earlier than the primary major vote has been solid.

Johnson endorsed Trump in 2020, and he backed Trump’s efforts to overturn his Electoral Faculty loss to Biden. Johnson led a Supreme Courtroom temporary signed by greater than 100 different Home Republicans in assist of a Texas lawsuit that aimed to low cost the election leads to key states that Trump misplaced.

Johnson on Tuesday known as himself one of many “closest allies President Trump has in Congress.”

Requested about Trump’s efforts to problem his loss in 2020 — together with latest reporting during which his former allies stated Trump deliberate to refuse to go away his workplace — Johnson was unwavering.

“It could actually’t be about personalities, it is obtained to be about insurance policies and ideas,” Johnson stated, arguing that Trump’s had been superior to Biden’s.

Requested once more about Trump’s frequent, false claims that the election was stolen by means of widespread fraud, Johnson stated, “I take him at his phrase, I do imagine that he believes that.”

Pressed on Trump’s well-documented airing of lies and deceptive statements, Johnson stated, “There are lots of people in Washington who say issues that aren’t correct on a regular basis.”

However he maintained that Trump’s views concerning the 2020 election outcomes are “deep in his coronary heart.”

“He simply felt like he was cheated in that election,” Johnson stated, “and I feel that is a core conviction of his.”

Johnson added that Trump “does imagine within the rule of regulation. I imply, have a look at what he did on the Supreme Courtroom, for instance.”

The speaker additionally dismissed questions on Trump’s 4 pending prison instances, dismissing all of them as politically motivated “lawfare.”