'Skullduggery is at work': Mike Johnson shamed for jumping the gun in CNN debate criticism

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is already declaring this week's presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump rigged against the GOP — before it has even happened. And MSNBC columnist Hayes Brown is having none of it.

Johnson spoke out as Trump and his allies frantically try to backpedal from repeated efforts to proclaim Biden mentally incompetent as they fear they have set too low a bar for him to win in the public eye, with some even planting conspiracy theories that Biden will be on drugs through the debate to keep his energy levels high.

"'I expect everybody will be watching,' Johnson told Tony Perkins, president of the archconservative Family Research Council, on the latter’s new show, 'This Week on the Hill.' (Johnson appears on every episode of the recently launched show.) 'I also expect that CNN is going to rig it as much as possible and make it as favorable as they possibly can for President [Joe] Biden, but I don’t think it’s going to work.' As obvious as that spin is, it also suggests a lack of confidence in the GOP’s standard-bearer," wrote Brown.

It is worth noting, Brown wrote, that the debate will be unlike past debates set up by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has now released its planned venues from its contracts and raged about being cut out of the loop.

Both candidates determined that the format and scheduling of the traditional debates didn't make sense and agreed to new ones. But that hardly means the CNN debate is going to be rigged.

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On the contrary, noted Brown, "CNN’s rules have been public for weeks. There will be no live audience, no use of props or written notes onstage, and the candidates’ microphones will be muted except when it’s time for them to speak. Both camps have already agreed to these rules, though it’s easy to imagine Trump afterward claiming he was unfairly silenced. The two sides even decided via coin-flip that Biden will stand at the lectern on the right of the screen while Trump will get to deliver his closing statement second, having the last word."

But by casting aspersions, Brown wrote, Johnson is laying the groundwork for damage control and GOP grievance if Trump fails to win the debate.

"Johnson is providing the talking point that we should expect to hear from all corners of the GOP by Friday morning," he wrote. "Much like the conspiracy theory that Biden was wearing a hidden earpiece in the 2020 debate, there will be no evidence of misconduct from the network.

"But it apparently seems much easier to convince Republican voters that skullduggery is at work than to admit that their candidate, who if elected will be the oldest person to hold the presidency by the end of this term, has lost a step or seven."