This Republican's 'Detestable' Comments And Nods To Nazis Aren't A Dealbreaker For Mike Johnson

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) stood by House candidate Brandon Herrera, calling him a “serious candidate” and “very thoughtful guy” just moments after watching the appallingly vulgar way he once spoke about women and children.

After Johnson claimed the Democratic Party was being taken over by “insurgent Marxist socialist left” earlier in his Sunday morning interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Jake Tapper asked the speaker to address the extreme parts of the Republican sect, like Herrera, a candidate for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District with a well-documented record of saying “offensive, sexually explicit, crude things.”

(Warning: The following quote contains several expletives.)

Tapper warned viewers what they were about to hear was “pretty gross” before cuing up a 2023 clip of Herrera saying, “Just because you let somebody cream-pie you doesn’t mean I have to give a shit about your political opinions. The fact that you kept your cum trophy doesn’t make you any less wrong about the dumb shit that you say.”

HOLY SHIT — Tapper plays Mike Johnson footage of Republican candidate Brandon Herrera describing moms as “cum trophies,” mentions he called Nazi machine guns “the original ghetto blasters,” and asks Johnson how he can support him. Johnson says “Herrera has run a very effective… pic.twitter.com/xfz2n8ZzmJ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2026

To anyone trying to claim Herrera’s comments were just a crass one-off, Tapper cited videos of the candidate testing a Nazi-era submachine gun he called the “original ghetto blaster,” a clip of him goose-stepping to a Nazi marching song, and another instance where he joked, “We should abolish old people.”

“I know you’re not a voter in that district,” the CNN host told Johnson. “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?”

Though the speaker said he objected Herrera’s “detestable language,” he quickly turned to defending the candidate and his campaign.

“He was a podcaster and a provocateur and tried to get attention,” Johnson said, noting Herrera has since apologized for his reprehensible social media presence. “That’s not the way I speak or think, and that’s not the way most do. But that was his persona online, right?”

“Right now, he’s running as a very serious candidate for Congress and a very thoughtful guy,” he went on, telling Tapper he had spoken with Herrera at the GOP’s MAGA-centric midterm convention last week.

“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 to preserve freedom and bring down costs for the American people,’” Johnson shared. “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.”