Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has repeatedly amplified former President Donald Trump's lies that the 2020 election was somehow stolen by Democrats engaging in widespread fraud. He organized a Senate hearing on so-called election irregularities, where he continued to promote the lie.
After this lie resulted in a mob of pro-Trump extremists mounting a deadly failed insurrection against the U.S. Capitol, Johnson defended the rioters.
Now, in a secretly recorded video from journalist Lauren Windsor, Johnson admits that the voting totals in Wisconsin check out, and said Trump's defeat was due to his failure to win enough Republican votes.
Watch below.
Johnson says:
"There's nothing obviously skewed about the results. There isn't."
He also emphasized:
"The only reason Trump lost Wisconsin is that 50 thousand Republican voters didn't vote for him. They voted for other Republican candidates. ... Collectively, Republicans got 1.661 million votes—51 thousand more votes than Trump got. Trump lost by 20 thousand. If all the Republicans voted for Trump the way they voted for assembly candidates, he would've won. And he didn't get 51 thousand votes that other Republicans got, and that's why he lost."
Nevertheless, Johnson still said he would support a partisan forensic audit of the state's results, as is currently happening in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Social media users soon began calling him out.
Others praised Windsor for coaxing the truth out of him.
It's unclear if Johnson's comments will see Trump supporters discard him to the "RINO" pile.
