Newly elected House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) claims he does not remember “some of” the many, many anti-LGBTQ+ comments he’s made over the course of his career.
Johnson’s history of opposing LGBTQ+ rights has been well documented and stretches back to the early 2000s, when he worked as a senior attorney and national media spokesman for anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (then called the Alliance Defense Fund). Between 2003 and 2005, Johnson also wrote several editorials for Shreveport, Louisiana, paper The Times, criticizing the Supreme Court for striking down anti-sodomy laws, opposing same-sex marriage, and arguing against non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people.
He just needs to offer a thin layer of plausible deniability to the people who want to support him (or more importantly, his “team”).
These kind of folks never need to go beyond a single layer of questioning, so “oh he says he never said that” covers for those who don’t want to be considered bigot-by-association.
They could do that, but that does not work well if one’s history is full of gold for any one looking for attack ads. Swing voters would be looking at his history instead. Trump voters were never going to change their mind.