GOP Cheers Hakeem Jeffries For Saying Trump Won — Until He Notes Which Party Is Home To Election Deniers

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Friday gave a standing ovation to the top Democrat in the chamber, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), when he mentioned that Republican Donald Trump had won the presidential election in November.

But they all promptly sat down and went silent when Jeffries said why he appreciated their applause: because his party isn’t the one that’s home to election deniers.

“Two months ago, the American people elected Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States of America,” Jeffries said, speaking at the dais in the House chamber.

Loud cheers and whistles filled the room, as GOP lawmakers jumped to their feet and celebrated Trump’s victory.

“Thank you for that very generous applause,” Jeffries said with a smile. “It’s OK. There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle.”

GOP lawmakers weren’t celebrating anymore. Now Democrats stood up and cheered even louder as Jeffries continued.

“One should love America when you win and when you lose,” said the minority leader. “That’s the patriotic thing to do, and that’s the America that House Democrats will fight hard to preserve because we love this country.”

Here’s a C-SPAN clip from the awkward moment:

There are dozens of election deniers in Congress. Four years ago, 147 Republicans voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, fueling a lie that it was stolen from Trump. They lied to the public in plain sight, and just hours after an insurrection at the Capitol that was driven by the same lie they were spreading.

It’s easy to normalize some of these people now. But none of it is normal. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), who was just reelected to his House speaker post Friday, was the architect of the legal strategy to throw out the results of the 2020 vote.

And Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who made news Friday for being one of the few Republicans to waver before backing Johnson for speaker, in 2021 urged Trump’s White House to impose martial law to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

Norman was later asked if he had any regrets about doing that. He said he had one: that he misspelled “martial law” in his text message to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

“Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!” Norman had texted Meadows at the time.

It’s not clear how many election deniers there will be in the new Congress. As of January 2023, there were more than 170 newly elected and returning Republicans who had denied or cast doubts on Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential win in 2020.