Mike Johnson Offers Bizarre Justification For ICE Masks. Backlash Follows.

26 comments

1. **From reporter Lee Moran:**

   House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) faced criticism after he defended the wearing of masks by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during immigration raids.

   Johnson was asked on Fox News to respond to concerns from Democrats who say ICE agents shouldn’t conceal their identities while conducting arrests as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

   “From the people who mandated mask-wearing for years in America, it’s absurd,” Johnson fired back, referencing the face-covering measures that were initially adopted with bipartisan support during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, though Democrats continued to encourage them for a longer period.

   “They need to back off of ICE and respect our agents and stop protesting against them,” he added, arguing that agents would be doxed if they were able to be identified.

   Critics pointed out the irony of Johnson’s acceptance of agents wearing masks, given his history of opposing mask mandates for medical reasons, and suggested he had conjured up an extreme example of false equivalence.

   Agents should be able to be held accountable, they argued.

   Here’s a link to the full article: [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-johnson-ice-agents_n_6846960ee4b07d5e027bfd44?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=us_main](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-johnson-ice-agents_n_6846960ee4b07d5e027bfd44?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=us_main)

2. Save a click: He says they *need* masks so they can’t be doxxed. 

3. >MIKE JOHNSON: From the people who mandated mask wearing for years in America, it’s absurd. They need to back off ICE and respect our agents.

   The false equivalence of this is what is absurd, Mike.

   >Q: So you’re okay with these agents not identifying themselves when they’re arresting migrants?

   >JOHNSON: Why, so they can target them? So they can put their names and faces online and dox them?

   They are federal servants. We have the right to know who is arresting people in our streets you fucking donut. That is not doxxing. Republicans are desperate to be victims in every situation.

4. Let’s see why would you think that the police officer / ICE would be doxxed. It’s not like their shooting point blank at Australian news reporters, or trampling a helpless protester in the middle of the street with police horses. /s

5. There’s nothing sacred about ICE. Created in 2003 following Republican George W. Bush’s failure to protect the US from foreign terrorism. The methods and operational tactics are of an era 2 decades ago, one of failure and fear, exploited by a widely-reviled president and a [Speaker of the House sex criminal. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert)

6. Flanders says what his orange dad tells him to say, not complicated.

7. The Bad Guys in “Star Wars” had their faces concealed. If ICE are obeying the Law, then they have nothing to hide.

8. Mike Johnson doesn’t think ICE needs an “accountability buddy” like he and his son are for each other when it comes to their porn habits?

   He’s a skeevy little perv wrapping himself in the Bible and the Flag when the only place he actually worships is at the sick shrine of authoritarian power.

9. Everything that’s happened over the past six months has been a response to an imaginary crisis. There is no immigrant invasion. No trade crisis. No scientific or governance crisis. Just people completely high off their own supply trying to fundamentally reorder society. None of this had to happen.

10. Mike Johnson along with most other Republicans in Congress are hypocritical pieces of shit, what else is new?

11. Just out of curiosity I wonder how the rates of ICE officers being shot at work compares to teachers being shot at work?

12. >“From the people who mandated mask-wearing for years in America, it’s absurd,” 

    I guess he thought this was a gotcha take, but it’s just blatant gas lighting bullshit. People wanted masks during a pandemic to help protect from the spread of the disease. ICE agents are using it to hide their identities. What a twerp.

13. At what point do we become clowns for expecting any of these people — and the media reporting on them — to have anything legitimate to say?

    These are unserious, dangerous and corrupt people. The point, for them, is to distract and control us. They don’t give a fuck about you or me, but we go to them — vis-à-vis the media — for responses and comments? Please.

14. I dont think Ive ever heard Mike Johnson say anything true or sane.

15. These people are such fucking idiots. Our country needs to truly take our country back from these motherfucking lying christofascists. It’s enough already.

16. Such a good Christian man…. I guess Republicans think the commandment against lying is just sort of a guideline not really a commandment

17. This administration really has sold its soul to the devil.

18. They don’t want you to identify them because they’re either proud boys. People from Jan 6 or loyalist who were fast tracked through the process because they needed people

19. If they aren’t doing something illegal why do you need to hide your face. Maybe just maybe if they actually followed the law correctly and without treating people as subhuman people wouldn’t be so damn upset. Bunch of animals given the power to exercise their bigotry and hatred and call it a “job”.

20. what is so hard to understand about the u.s. constitution, maga?

    you cant ask for papers just because they aren’t white. you cant arrest without evidence. you can’t deport without due process.

    either you love freedom and the u.s. constitution or you are a russian who wants to destroy america and american freedoms.

21. Masked face, no badge, **no authority**. I’m not complying with any random thug trying to manhandle me, are you literally **insane**?

22. There’s another group of people who wear hoods so they can’t be identified as they perform their racist and bigoted activities. Can’t remember who that was though.

23. What’s even more terrifying that I haven’t seen brought up, Is just regular psychopaths throwing on a mask and pulling random women and children into cars calling themselves ice. And with the way this shit is being handled, there wouldn’t be a clear way to know in a fast enough time frame to know what happened and if it was ICE or just a predator.

    Republicans are so worried about guys dressing up as women to attack them in bathrooms, meanwhile they just gave sick fucks a free ticket to abduct anyone they want and nobody would know.

24. What stops arbitrary people from wearing ice gear and turning up and doing things?

25. So DOGE can collect personal information on federal employees AND citizens so that the GOP can use it for whatever they’re up to, but the public can’t know who the federal employees are that are grabbing people off the streets INCLUDING US CITIZENS? Yeah, I don’t think so.

26. Having armed masked agents that won’t identify themselves harass a population that’s armed to the teeth is surely a great idea.

Comments are closed.