WASHINGTON — When Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) mentioned that Republican Donald Trump won the presidential election in November, House Republicans responded with a standing ovation.
However, they all sat down and fell silent when Jeffries explained why he appreciated their applause: his party isn’t home to election deniers.
“Two months ago, the American people elected Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States of America,” Jeffries said from the dais in the House chamber.
Loud cheers and whistles filled the room as Republican lawmakers rose to their feet to celebrate Trump’s victory.
“Thank you for that very generous applause,” Jeffries said with a smile. “It’s okay. “There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle.”
GOP lawmakers were no longer celebrating. Democrats stood up and cheered even louder as Jeffries spoke.
“One should love America when you win and when you lose,” the minority leader stated. “That’s the patriotic thing to do, and that’s the America that House Democrats will fight hard to preserve because we love this country.”
There are several dozen election deniers in Congress. Four years ago, 147 Republicans voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, fueling the false narrative that they were stolen from Trump.
They lied to the public in plain sight, just hours after an insurrection at the Capitol sparked by the same lie they were spreading.
Some of these people can now be easily normalized. However, none of this is normal. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), who was reelected as House speaker on Friday, was the architect of the legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election results.
And Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who made headlines Friday for being one of the few Republicans to reconsider backing Johnson for speaker, has urged Trump’s White House to declare martial law in 2021 to prevent a peaceful transfer of power.
Norman was later asked if he regretted doing that. He claimed he had one: he misspelled “martial law” in a text message to then-White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
“Our LAST HOPE is to invoke Marshall Law!! Please urge the President to do so!!” Norman texted Meadows at the time.
It is unclear how many election deniers will be in the new Congress. As of January 2023, more than 170 newly elected and returning Republicans had denied or questioned Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
