House Speaker Mike Johnson defended Donald Trump after the president posted a bizarre AI-generated video of himself dropping feces on No Kings protesters.
The video, which the president posted to Truth Social late Saturday night, was Trump’s way of responding to millions of anti-Trump protesters taking to the streets for some 2,600 No Kings events across the country on Saturday.
The speaker, who considers himself a religious man, was asked at his daily press conference on Monday about Trump’s video, which shows the president wearing a crown as he dumps sewage on protesters from a fighter jet emblazoned with the words “King Trump.”
“Speaker Johnson, you say Democrats had a Hate America rally, but what does it say that the President of the United States over the weekend released a video of him pooping on the American people?” the reporter asked.
“The president uses social media to make a point,” a visibly uncomfortable Johnson responded. “You can argue he’s probably the most effective person who’s ever used social media for that.”
Johnson went on to claim Trump was using “satire to make a point.” The speaker also argued the president was not calling for the murder of his political opponents, which he accused protesters of doing.
Millions of protesters held largely peaceful protests across the U.S. on Saturday where they carried anti-Trump signs and an array of other posters with political messages opposing fascism.
The speaker reacted to the protests by saying he supports freedom of speech, but claimed that some protestors were “trying to incite violence.” He also argued that no one should not mock a president who has already faced two assassination attempts.
“What those people are advocating for is, at its essence, un-American,” Johnson said. “And when they go the next step and they call for violence on political officials in an environment that is already, it’s already a heightened threat environment, it’s dangerous stuff.”
Nearly seven million people took part in Saturday’s demonstrations, which occurred in every state, according to organizers of No Kings, which is a network of progressive groups fighting against Trump’s agenda.
Despite claims from Republicans that the protests were anti-American, many of the messages displayed at gatherings across the country included praise for the U.S. Constitution and hope for the country’s future.
Police in New York City and Washington, D.C., where the protests drew the largest crowd, said there were no protest-related arrests that day.
“Congratulations, they didn’t burn any buildings down,” Johnson said sarcastically at his press conference Monday. “That’s a big achievement for the left, to have some kind of gathering where they don’t have a looting and riots and burn a building down.”
Some demonstrators specifically touted the massive peaceful protest in Washington, D.C. over the weekend and noted how different it was from when Trump-supporting rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
While Johnson dismissed the president’s AI video of him dumping on Americans as satire, Trump critics called it a perfect metaphor of his presidency.
Singer Kenny Loggins, whose hit 1986 song “Danger Zone” from Top Gun was used in the video, has also demanded that his tune immediately be removed.
