House Speaker Mike Johnson departs the House floor on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., November 18, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump's loyal congressional supporter, House Speaker Mike Johnson, refused to rescind his endorsement of a pro-Trump House candidate even after being directly informed of vulgar and hateful comments that man has made.
“Just because you let somebody [expletive] you doesn’t mean I have to give a [expletive] about your political opinions," Republican nominee Brendan Herrera said in a past comment shared with Johnson by CNN anchor Jake Tapper on Sunday, according to Mediaite. "The fact that you kept your [expletive] trophy doesn’t make you any less wrong about the dumb [expletive that you say.”
After playing the clip, Tapper told Johnson, “That’s him disparaging moms. He’s also in a video testing a Nazi-era submachine gun. He called it the ‘original ghetto blaster.’ You [saw] him goose-stepping to a Nazi marching song in a podcast two years ago. He joked, ‘We should abolish old people.’ I have to say, I know you’re not a voter in that district. You didn’t nominate this guy, but I was surprised to see you endorse him and fund-raise for him. What does candidacy say about the Republican Party’s more extreme candidates?”
Johnson replied, “That’s, look, detestable language. You know how I feel about all of that, Jake. But I also know Brandon Herrera has been out running a very effective campaign and explained to people that he has apologized for all that. He was a podcaster and a provocateur and tried to get attention. That’s not the way I speak or think, and that’s not the way most do. But that was his persona online, right?"
The Speaker concluded, "Right now, he’s running as a very serious candidate for Congress and a very thoughtful guy. I was with him at the convention. We talked about all this. I said, Brandon, when you get to Congress, and he will be there, you’re going to join this team and help us to save America, preserve freedom and bring down costs for the American people. That guy’s laser-focused on doing that, and he is far superior to the candidate he is running against down in that district in South Texas.”
In addition to the comments shared by Tapper in that clip, Herrera has also joked about veterans committing suicide and quipped that he should shoot himself so he can be considered an "honorary veteran." Despite most Americans suffering from the ongoing affordability crisis, Herrera has complained that the roughly $174,000 salary he would receive if elected to the House would be a "90-plus percent pay cut" for him (although it is unconfirmed he really is as wealthy as he claims to be). Herrera has also bragged about owning a 1939 English version of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic and genocidal manifesto "Mein Kampf," although he denies being anti-Semitic and instead says he owns the volume because he enjoys historical books.
Earlier in his Sunday interview with Johnson, Tapper noted that behavior like Herrera's makes it difficult for Republicans to take the moral high ground when denouncing extreme candidates on the Democratic side.
“You talked about some of the more extreme DSA-type candidates the Democrats have,” Tapper argued. “Republicans have some candidates like that on their own. For instance, Brandon Herrera, he’s a House candidate in Texas. You have endorsed him. You have fundraised for him. Before he started becoming a... congressional candidate, he [was] a YouTuber, and he has said some offensive, sexually explicit, crude things about women and children."