GOP lawmaker stumbles when interviewer asks if Trump's SCOTUS judges are part of 'Deep State' conspiracy

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) this week stumbled when asked by The New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner why he believed Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices shot down President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

In a lengthy interview posted on Tuesday, Chotiner asked Johnson about a legal brief he filed in which he urged the Supreme Court to take up Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuit aimed at overturning the election so they can determine whether "the Constitution matters and must be followed... or it is simply a piece of parchment on display at the National Archives."

Given the stakes that outlined in Johnson's complaint, Chotiner asked the Louisiana congressman if he was disappointed that all three Trump-appointed judges were not "trying to save the country from descending into a nondemocratic hellscape."

"I would not concede that they are uninterested in that," Johnson replied. "The problem is that you need the right vehicle to do that. I thought it was very interesting what Alito and Thomas said. They were acknowledging that perhaps some of this should have gotten at the merits."

Later in the interview, Chotiner pointed to statements made by the president in which he declared there was a "Deep State" conspiracy to deny him the election.

"Do you have any concern that people within his own Administration, or the Justices he appointed, are part of some conspiracy?" Chotiner asked him.

"I don’t see a grand conspiracy," Johnson replied. "What I see is a lot of chaos and confusion across the land, and the result is that this election will have this giant question mark hanging over it."

Chotiner then asked the Republican congressman if he considered that there may be fewer doubts about the election if he would "stop saying it was stolen before knowing if it actually was."

"In an ideal world, of course," he replied. "And I am a lawyer. I don’t engage in conspiracy theory. I want to deal in fact and truth."

Read the whole interview here.