Mike Johnson rebukes Trump’s use of ‘R-word’ slur against Gov. Tim Walz

House Speaker Mike Johnson finally found a point of contention with Donald Trump — unable to defend the president for hurling at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz a slur used to denigrate people with disabilities when The Independent asked him about it Tuesday.

During the Thanksgiving holiday, Trump lambasted Walz for a welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota, calling him “seriously r*****ed” on Truth Social. Trump later doubled down on the insult used against people with disabilities, telling reporters, “Absolutely. Sure. You have a problem with it?”

The Independent asked Johnson during his weekly press conference about the slur, which caused Lisa McClain, the chairwoman of the House Republican conference, to laugh.

“Look, that's not the word I would choose,” Johnson said. “I think his reaction was probably a spontaneous one to the enormous amount of fraud that was announced there.”

Trump has faced little backlash from other Republicans for his use of the word.

open image in gallery

But Mike Bohacek, a Republican state legislator from Indiana, said that he would oppose efforts to redraw Indiana’s congressional map after Trump used the slur. Bohacek has a daughter with Down Syndrome.

Still, Johnson defended the sentiment of Trump’s remarks, which he made on Thanksgiving as part of his presidential wish for the nation.

“And, you know, that's not the word I would choose, but I think everybody understands how absurd and crazy that is, and how Congress has an immediate obligation to look into it, and the administration is as well,” Johnson told The Independent.

Walz criticized Trump’s use of the word on Meet the Press on Sunday but few Republicans have been asked about it since then.

open image in gallery

“He's normalized this type of hateful behavior and this type of language,” Walz said. “And mainly, look, at first, I think it's just because he's not a good human being, but secondly to distract from using competency.”

But Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a doctor from Johnson’s home state, also said he had not seen it.

“I didn't hear that, so I'd rather not comment on things that I'm not aware of,” he told The Independent.

The word has long been considered a slur after initially being considered a medical term and presidents of both parties have sought to end the use of the word, NBC News reported earlier this year.

In 2003, President George W. Bush changed the name of the President's Committee on Mental Retardation to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. In 2010, President Barack Obama signed Rosa’s Law that replaced the word with the term “intellectual disabilities” in federal statutes.

But the word has made a recent resurgence on the right.

It is not the first time that Trump has come under fire for denigrating people with disabilities either.

Trump famously mocked Serge Kovaleski, a former New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter with a disability, in 2015. Trump has also called autism a “horror show” when speaking with Robert F. Kennedy, his secretary of Health and Human Services.

Trump has also repeatedly parroted the lie that childhood vaccination causes autism, which has made some parents worried about getting their children screened.

Johnson for his part has repeatedly defending most of Trump’s rhetoric and social media posts. In October, Johnson defended Trump posting an AI video of himself wearing a crown while flying a fighter jet that dumped feces on protesters at the nationwide “No Kings” protests.