“So it’s like, okay, so serve them red meat, lie to these people, and then you can save face and you can say, ‘I had his back.'”īecker went on to write a column about his phone call with Johnson and continued to press the senator to publicly stand up for the integrity of the 2020 election results. I’m not going to piss those people off,'” Becker said. “I said, ‘Ron, Joe Biden won the election.’ He said, ‘Yes, but 1.5 million people voted for Donald Trump. “I’m like, ‘He’s not going to call me back, but I’ll leave him a message and we’ll leave it at that.’ Well, then he called back, and I was like, ‘Holy sh*t,'” Becker said.īecker said he expressed his concerns about the doubt Republicans were sowing around the 2020 election results. But Becker was so frustrated to see Republicans, including Johnson, casting doubt on the 2020 election results that he reached out to Johnson anyway. When the 2020 election rolled around, Becker was persona non grata in Johnson’s world. While Becker supported Johnson’s first Senate run in 2010, he was actively campaigning against Johnson and Trump by 2016.
And he, it seemed, had a pretty good grasp on reality, and then Trump happened.” He came to our events, and he was so well-liked. “He was hyper-focused on the national debt, and he was the budget guy. “He was our guy,” Becker said of Johnson in an interview. Mark Becker, the former head of the Brown County Republican Party, is one of a handful of Republicans in the state who have not only turned against former President Donald Trump but also against Johnson. He had a good grasp on reality ‘and then Trump happened’ “The senator continues to call on the FBI and DOJ to be transparent. And when it comes to the FBI’s knowledge of January 6, “The senator is simply asking questions that many don’t want to hear or answer,” Henning said, a common explanation from the senator when he is wading into views that run counter to expert consensus. Johnson has insisted he’s not a climate change denier, although he has a long track record of questioning humans’ role in climate change, which runs counter to the scientific consensus. In response to questions from CNN, his spokeswoman Alexa Henning said the senator is pro-vaccine, but believes researchers should also look at therapeutics like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, even though they have not proven effective in treating Covid-19 and can have dangerous side effects. Johnson declined an interview for this story. His evolution from a conservative businessman to two-term senator apparently willing to deny facts and spread conspiracies has left some in the state wondering: What happened to Ron Johnson? Johnson’s outspoken takes have run the gamut from vaccine skepticism to climate change denialism to downplaying the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. “So you think that the FBI had fully infiltrated the militias in Michigan and they didn’t know squat about what’s was happening on January 6 and what’s was happening with these groups?” “I don’t say this publicly,” Johnson told constituents in late July. “By the way, it is.”Īnd the senator recently suggested - without any evidence - that the FBI had more inside knowledge than it let on about Capitol insurrection. “I don’t know about you guys, but I think climate change is - as Lord Monckton said - bullsh*t,” Johnson said, mouthing the expletive and referencing British conservative climate change denier Lord Christopher Monckton. “So why is this big push to make sure everybody gets a vaccine?”Īt a GOP gathering in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, in early June, Johnson dismissed climate change. So if you have a vaccine, quite honestly, what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?” Johnson told conservative radio host Vicki McKenna in April. “The science tells us that vaccines are 95 percent effective.
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