CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Confronts GOP House Speaker Over Trump Endorsement — After He Trashed Trump’s ‘Character’ In First Run

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins confronted Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) over his endorsement of ex-President Donald Trump after trashing his “character” during his first run for public office, asking what changed his opinion.

Trump helped push through Johnson’s successful bid for the House speakership, but Johnson was a sharp Trump critic back in 2015:

“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House,” Mr. Johnson wrote in a lengthy post on Facebook on Aug. 7, 2015, before he was elected to Congress and a day after the first Republican primary debate of the campaign cycle.

Challenged in the comments by someone defending Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson responded: “I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”

Mr. Johnson, then a state lawmaker in Louisiana, also questioned what would happen if “he decided to bomb another head of state merely disrespecting him.”

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins confronted Johnson over those comments, and the speaker simply claimed he had endorsed Trump in 2016 — although his name does not appear among a list of state legislators who endorsed Trump in 2016:

COLLINS: Yeah, we’ve heard a lot of complaints from some lawmakers, Republican lawmakers, who’ve been on this show about those CRs and what that spending plan is.

But, Speaker, let me ask you on the presidential race. You have endorsed former President Trump in the 2024 race. That’s a change from where you were when he ran the first time around back into 2016. You said then that you believe he lacked character and a moral center.

I’m curious why your opinion on that has changed now, why you are now endorsing him?

JOHNSON: No, I did endorse President Trump the first time around, before I got to know him, before many of the country got to know him. I just knew a little bit about his reputation and some things he had said.

Look, President Trump and I are very close. We worked very closely together. I was one of his impeachment defense lawyers, as you know, you covered that whole saga. I was very close ally of his in Congress.

I’m convinced he’s going to be the next president of the United States, that he will get a second term. And I’m very much looking forward to that happening because we need him to come in and bring those policies back to fix this country.

COLLINS: How often you talk to —

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: And I think he’s going to have that opportunity to do that.

COLLINS: How often do you speak to him?

JOHNSON: Pretty frequently now. Yeah, every — I don’t know, a few days or so. He is very busy right now, of course, with just finished up the Iowa caucus. In New Hampshire, I think he’s going to finish well. And I think on the Republican side, this nomination will be — will be completed and locked up here pretty soon.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.