Exposé: Mike Johnson & Pro-Life Hypocrisy

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House Bill 813 was the Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act that would give pre -born children in the state of Louisiana equal protection under law.

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Mike Johnson. Really, he's had this meteoric rise. He's the darling of the Republican Party.

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Therefore, the Honorable Mike Johnson of the state of Louisiana, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected

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Speaker of the House of Representatives for the 118th Congress. He is second in line to be

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President of the United States. He says that he's pro -life. He says that he believes, publicly, he says that he believes that life begins at fertilization, that all human life should be protected.

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He says that's what he believes when he's speaking to the television cameras, when he's speaking to pro -life voters, when he's speaking to donors.

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Obviously, I don't need to cite volumes of medical journals to prove the fact that an unborn child is a human being.

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From the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. They are nonetheless equal because they share a common human nature.

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Humans have value simply because they are human. And if you deny this, it's difficult to say why objective human rights should apply to anyone.

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But the truth is, he fought to kill a bill that would do just that. When I told

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Mike that we were going to move forward with HB 813, despite his urging us not to, things began to get ugly.

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All right, Pastor Brian, so we've been talking about doing this for some time, and we're waiting for the right moment to reveal what we knew needed to be revealed with regard to Mike Johnson and what he did to thwart the abolition of abortion in the state of Louisiana.

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I want to say how grateful we are that Mike Johnson is a professing Christian, that he says he follows Christ, and this is in no way an attempt to harm the man as a brother.

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But to shed light on the fact that Mike Johnson is in a very large measure responsible for keeping abortion legal in the state of Louisiana.

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And so you and I worked together on a bill, HB 813. Tell everyone about that briefly so people can understand what that was.

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House Bill 813 was the Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act. It was brought in the year 2022 by State Representative Danny McCormick, who we worked with to bring a bill that would give pre -born children in the state of Louisiana equal protection under law.

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That bill said what the pro -life movement has said for decades that they believe, which is that life begins at the moment of conception, which is fertilization, the moment at which the sperm and the egg meet and the child begins to grow, and that from that moment until natural death, all persons, both born and pre -born, should have equal protection under the law.

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This was a bill that did not create new law. It just gave pre -born children the same right to life that you and I have as born persons.

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And when we try to put equal protection for pre -born children into law, it's the pro -life movement that has killed those bills.

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Every time. The pro -life establishment does not want equal protection for all humans from fertilization.

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They don't believe that they should be afforded equal protection under law, and the proof of it is that it was the pro -life establishment, including

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Mike Johnson, that killed our bill, House Bill 813, in the state of Louisiana.

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They are responsible for killing it, and I'll say this point, and let's get right into the discussion on Mike.

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They did a letter that actually appeared in the hands of our legislators that day in Louisiana.

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Over 70 pro -life organizations from across the country, national and state level, all came together to be on a letter to say that they wanted no legislator in the

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United States to pass any bill of equal protection that would lead to the prosecution of a mother who murders her child in the womb.

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And proof of that is what Mike Johnson was up to when he helped to keep abortion alive and to kill

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House Bill 813. Can you bring everyone into that story because people need to hear it now. Yeah, well, we've been sitting on this.

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Honestly, I've considered Mike Johnson a close friend for some years now, from back in 2015 when

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I started working with him on pro -life issues, and I honestly thought that Mike would be one of the few elected officials who would support a bill of equal protection.

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I anticipated that he would be on our side, so I was really shocked when he was not.

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In fact, the reason that Alan Seaborg had such a dramatic change in his position inside of a week when he's shouting absolutely voting in favor of HB 813.

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Representative Seaborg? Absolutely. Yes. And then a week later on the House floor, leading the charge to kill the bill and apologizing to all the legislators for helping advance this bill.

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House Bill 813 has a number of problems. And guess what? We already have laws which are going to go into effect when

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Roe v. Wade is overturned. So we don't need this bill. I had had a private conversation with Alan Seaborg, and he told me that the reason that he had changed his position and was now going to kill the bill was because Mike Johnson called him and told him to kill the bill.

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It was a bad bill. It was Mike Johnson's idea to gut the bill with the Seaborg Amendment.

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It was Alan who helped us get the bill to the House floor vote, and then at Mike Johnson's urging,

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Alan killed the very bill that he had fought with us. One by one, supporters of our bill were telling me that they couldn't support it any longer because Mike Johnson had contacted them and told them not to support

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HB 813 any longer. Mike Johnson? Oh, yeah. Many different people. Church leaders, legislators who would be voting on that bill in the coming days when it went to the

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House floor. I remember the first phone call I got was from Dr.

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Will Hall, who leads the Office of Public Policy for the Louisiana Baptist Convention, of which my church is a part of.

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Dr. Hall had testified in committee in favor of HB 813. I remember that. Mr. Chairman and members,

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I'm Dr. Will Hall. I'm the director for the Office of Public Policy with the Louisiana Baptist Convention. I would say this, that indeed,

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Louisiana Baptists are pro -life from the womb through eternity, and so we would urge you to protect the innocent in the womb and pass

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HB 813. Thank you very much. He said, this is what we believe as Louisiana Baptists.

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This is what Scripture requires, equal protection for children in the womb. Will called me, and he said,

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I can't support the bill any longer. He told me that Mike told him not to support the bill.

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With that, the support of the Louisiana Baptist Convention and its 1 ,600 churches evaporated.

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I found out, not directly from Gene Mills, who is the president of Louisiana Family Forum, but I found out that Louisiana Family Forum, who originally endorsed

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HB 813, put out an official endorsement on their website that they were now opposing our bill, and a story ran in the

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Baton Rouge Advocate. Mike Johnson has a very close connection with them, and it's obvious to me that he had also contacted this major pro -life organization and gotten them to oppose our bill.

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And then I began getting text messages and phone calls from members of the

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Louisiana House of Representatives who would be voting on this bill, and they told me I can't support the bill anymore. Why?

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Some of them had personally sponsored the bill. I remember the

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Louisiana Conservative Caucus in the House of Representatives, it was over 40 members who personally signed their names saying that they were going to support

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HB 813. And now they're contacting me saying I can't vote for the bill.

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Mike Johnson told me not to. And one after one, I watched an overwhelming majority of members of the

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Louisiana legislature who were going to pass HB 813 and make it law tell me they couldn't do it because Congressman Mike Johnson told them not to.

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So Mike Johnson killed the Bill of Equal Protection in the state of Louisiana. I mean, there were many forces at play, certainly national right to life,

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Louisiana right to life. The letter that went out with all the different organizations across the country, including the ERLC.

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There were many people involved, but the main person that I was told by legislators who voted to gut the bill with the

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CBAW amendment, the majority of them told me that they were doing it not because of what national right to life said, not because of what

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Louisiana right to life said, not because of the ERLC, who also tried to kill the bill, but because Congressman Mike Johnson told them not to.

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Which is such a strange thing, because Mike Johnson professes faith in Christ.

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He says he believes in the word of God. He says that he's pro -life. He says that he believes, publicly, he says that he believes that life begins at fertilization, that all human life should be protected.

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That's what he says. But, Brian, he killed the bill that said that.

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Yeah, he has said very publicly that he believes life begins at the moment of fertilization, when the sperm and the egg meet, and the child begins to grow in the womb, and that that life should be equally protected from that moment forward.

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He says that's what he believes when he's speaking to the television cameras, when he's speaking to pro -life voters, when he's speaking to donors.

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But the truth is, he fought to kill a bill that would do just that. And Mike Johnson, you have to understand, in the state of Louisiana, he is really, he's had this meteoric rise.

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He's the darling of the Republican Party in Louisiana. He is second in line to be

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President of the United States. He entered into political life in 2015, and that's when

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I first met Mike. I got to know Mike Johnson when he came and spoke at a pancake breakfast to raise funds to start a pregnancy center.

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And he spoke at this pancake breakfast at the church I was pastoring at that time. And that's when

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I got to know him. And I thought, man, here's a guy who's on our side. He really believes in this.

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And he had just entered into politics. He was serving at that time in the House of Representatives in our state legislature in Louisiana.

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And from the year, in the two years that he served there in 2015 and 16, I helped lobby the state legislature to get support and pass his bills that he was bringing in the state legislature.

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I saw Mike as an ally. I saw him as a dear friend. You were friends. A brother in the Lord. Yeah. This is someone that when

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I had questions on legislation and pro -life issues, I could call or text, and he would give me advice and pray for me.

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I really saw Mike as a friend. And this is why when we brought HB 813, I anticipated that Mike would be for the bill.

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But he was serving in U .S. Congress, and this was a matter in our state legislature. So I didn't reach out to Mike because he's not in the state legislature any longer.

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He's in U .S. Congress. He has other things to deal with. And so that's why I was so shocked when I found out that it was

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Mike Johnson who was working to kill HB 813. So let's make sure that people understand, there's no controversy here in terms of the bill and what was stated in the bill.

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Human from fertilization, all humans in the state of Louisiana deserve to be equally protected. That's the simplicity of the bill.

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And Mike Johnson told me he agrees with equal protection. He said, of course, pre -born children need equal protection.

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But we can't do it. Because if we pass a bill that totally bans abortion by giving children equal rights in the womb, then

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Republicans would lose elections, we would lose seats in U .S. Congress, we would lose seats in the state legislature.

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And he said it's just too costly politically. We can't totally ban abortion. We can't abolish abortion because it'll cost us political power.

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So Mike Johnson was operating at that point on pragmatism rather than principle.

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He wasn't willing to take the courageous, just, and righteous stand for the sake of these children in Louisiana.

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So he chose pragmatism over principle. And because of that, because of his specific work and influence in killing the bill, people are still dying in Louisiana without protection, in the womb, because of Mike Johnson.

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Now we have to say this, of course, we are grateful to God that he's a professing believer. We don't want to injure the man, but we need to do our duty as ministers of the gospel who try to establish justice in the state of Louisiana to expose the primary issue, is that there are people who say that they're pro -life, there are people at the top that actually work to oppose the end of abortion.

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So as ministers of the gospel, we are doing our duty right now to expose evil.

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And what Mike did in the state of Louisiana was evil. He stopped the justice that was going to be established for pre -born children.

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You spoke to him over that week. Oh yeah. A lot, over the phone, through text messages.

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That's right. And tell us what that was like when you were interacting with Mike that week after it passed the hearing.

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What was Mike saying? Why was he trying to have you pull the bill? I mean, he asked you to pull the bill, and you and I had conversations, and we of course prayed, and we told him, you told him, we're not killing the bill, we're not going to pull it.

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What was that conversation like? How did it get to the point where he's literally working behind the scenes to kill this bill?

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So after HB 813 passed in committee, it was within a day or two,

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I got a phone call from Congressman Mike Johnson. And like I said, he and I had been friends since 2015, and he would call me from time to time, and we would text from time to time.

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Usually I was asking his advice on different pro -life legislation and issues. And so when he called me,

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I thought, that's strange, you know, Mike's calling me. Well, maybe he's checking in or something like that.

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So I say, hey, Mike, how are you doing? And he tells me he needs to talk to me about HB 813, that he had some serious concerns.

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And I remember I was actually closing on the cell of my house. I was moving churches and moving to First Baptist Church in Livingston.

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And so I was leaving the closing of the house, and I said, well, Mike, when I get in the car, I've got a long drive. Can I call you right back?

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And he said, sure. And I call him back, and he said that he had asked Danny McCormick to pull

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HB 813 since Danny was the author of the bill in the state legislature. But Danny told

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Mike that I had asked him originally to bring the bill. Danny had given me his word that he would not pull

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HB 813 unless I agreed to do that with Danny. And so Danny told

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Mike Johnson, I'm not going to pull the bill unless Pastor Brian says he's okay with that.

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I've given him my word, and I'm going to keep my word to Brian. And so that's why Mike was calling me. And I said, well,

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Mike, I really think that this is a conversation where you and Danny and I need to discuss this. So we had a three -way call.

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And over the next more than an hour, it was a very long phone call. I remember

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I'm driving down the road, and I'm having this discussion. And it's primarily Mike Johnson and I going back and forth.

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And Danny, he and I couldn't believe what we were hearing. Mike told us that he agreed with the bill.

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Children in the womb deserve equal protection from the moment of fertilization. That it wasn't that the bill was wrong.

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It was just the wrong time to pass a bill that bans abortion and gives equal protection to children in the womb.

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He explained to us, we have a razor -thin majority in Congress.

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And he talked to us about how we are barely winning politically.

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And if we go too far too soon and we pass this bill to ban abortion, then

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Republicans, we could lose our majorities in the U .S. Congress. We could lose the state legislature.

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We could lose the governorship. And so, we just can't go too far too quickly. And I remember as he said this,

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I just stopped him and I said, but Mike, you're saying we shouldn't protect the lives of these children in the womb.

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And he said, just not now. Not now. And I said, well, when, Mike? Well, I don't know.

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Maybe next year. And I felt like it was a gut punch from a friend.

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I thought he and I for years had been laboring to give equal protection to these children. And now we had a bill that had passed committee and looked like it could very well pass the

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House and the Senate and become Louisiana law. And he's telling me that we need to pull the bill? And so,

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I began trying to convince Mike. And Mike began to get frustrated with me on this phone call.

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And we went back and forth, back and forth for a long time. And he kept telling me, it's not the right time.

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We're going to lose seats in Congress and in the legislature. And we can't do that. And I said,

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Mike, when you look at the Word of God, does it ever tell you there's a wrong time to do the right thing?

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Right. And I remember he quoted Scripture and he said, well, you know, the Bible says there's a time under heaven for everything.

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And that's really a twisting. Very much a twisting. A twisting. A time for unfaithfulness. A time for injustice.

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That's not what that means. Yeah. And I said, Mike, that's not what that Scripture in Ecclesiastes means. Mike. Yeah.

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We are talking about, I brought it to the issue of slavery. I said, Mike, you remember

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Dred Scott? I said, Dred Scott, the U .S. Supreme Court said that a black man is not a person. He's like a farm animal.

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He's a piece of property. And that slave owners have the right to have their property, these black men and women, returned to them.

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And that was evil, right? Because at the time, Roe v. Wade had not been overturned yet. And he was saying, we can't defy

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Roe v. Wade. It's the law of the land. And I said, should they have defied the Dred Scott decision like many of the northern states did?

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Like they did? Well, yeah, they were right. But this is different. How is it different? Mike, this is an unjust law.

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The Bible says that when man's law conflicts with God's law, we must obey God rather than men, Acts 5, verse 29.

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And I told him this because this was a man I thought was going to be on my side.

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Right. Confusing. I knew him personally. I knew his faith. We had worked together on pro -life issues for years at this point.

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And I was so grieved. I felt like all the people that I thought were laboring to end abortion with me for all these years in the pro -life movement,

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I felt like now that we were on the precipice of overturning Roe and passing a bill in Louisiana to finally end it, to finally give equal protection to pre -born children from the moment of conception, that now they were fighting me to stop the very thing that we had told everyone for years that we were fighting for.

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I couldn't believe it. I remember. I remember being on the phone with you after that. So yeah,

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I called you, Jeff, after that, and I said, Jeff, I don't know what to do. Even Mike Johnson, who

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I thought was on our side, even Mike is opposing me. And so I asked for you to pray for me.

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And I remember our mutual brother, really a father in the faith to both of us, Rusty Thomas, we got him on the phone.

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This is something that we've not shared with others, but I'll just tell you now. I mean,

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I say it to my own shame, but it's the truth. And I told you as much on the phone. I was ready to give up.

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I remember when Mike called me and for over an hour just really ridiculed me and told me that I was wrong to try to bring a bill to abolish abortion in Louisiana, that it just wasn't the right time.

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I remember I started thinking, well, am I wrong here? I mean, I know what the

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Bible says, but how is it that all the people that I trust, seemingly all those people except for a few brothers, how is it that all these people that I have trusted are against this bill that just tries to establish justice according to what

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Scripture requires? And they even admit they agree with it. And that they agree with, but politically it's just too costly.

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Danny and I agreed. We're moving forward. And I texted him and I said, Mike, we've prayed about it, but this is what

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Scripture requires. And we have to obey God rather than men. We have to do the right thing here. We're moving forward with the bill.

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And it was at that moment when I told Mike that we were going to move forward with HB 813 despite his urging us not to that things began to get ugly.

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Mike tested me back, warning me that, and Danny, he texted both of us that if we move forward with this bill that it was going to personally impact our careers.

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He said that this is going to do permanent damage to your ministry platform, Brian. And it's going to do permanent damage to Danny's political career.

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Those are probably threats that work in his world. You know, I think he said it in such a way where maybe there was plausible deniability that he was saying that he would do this.

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He was just saying this will be the consequences if you move forward. It's going to hurt your career. You're going to lose opportunities.

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You know, I have a wife and four children to provide for. And when you have a powerful rising star in the Republican Party, a

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U .S. Congressman warning you that if you move forward with this bill to give equal protection to children in the womb, it's going to seriously hurt your career.

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I couldn't believe it. I never thought Mike would say something like that to me. And he then went on to really talk down to Danny and I.

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Essentially that we weren't as smart as him. We were playing in an arena that we didn't understand.

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This fight had been going on since before I was born and that I didn't understand what

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I was doing. And I couldn't believe the way the man that I thought my friend was now talking to me.

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To answer something real fast, it's very important. Scripture would condemn the practice of delaying justice.

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When you have it with you to give now, you give it. You don't delay. And we're being told, the bill is right.

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The bill is true. I can't even tell you how many legislators came to me and said that. The bill is right. I agree with the bill.

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It needs to be done. But they said, not now. Every time it was not now. So let's answer that.

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When guys like Mike Johnson tell us when we have a bill like HB 813 that could have made it into Louisiana law and could have abolished abortion by law in the state of Louisiana, when they tell us not now, the problem is,

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Jeff, the real answer is not ever. Because then you ask them, so when are we going to do this? Is it ever going to be politically convenient to protect these children from murder in the womb?

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It's always going to be politically costly. Look, it was politically costly. It was more than politically costly.

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It was costly to this entire nation when we ended slavery in this country. Was it wrong to end slavery in the

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United States of America? Is there not a point at which you have to say this is an injustice against tens of millions of human beings and we have to end it no matter what people say about politics and who may or may not have a majority in Congress or in the state legislature?

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I mean, is there a point at which we say babies are being murdered and we have to stand to put an end to this?

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That we have to fight to give them justice no matter the political consequences? I believe that we should leave that in the hands of the

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Lord. I believe God is sovereign and if we would just obey Him and do what we know is right, what

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His word requires, Amos 5 .15, we are called to establish justice in the gates.

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And what we are called to do is give justice to these children. And I'll just say this,

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Jeff. I have no malice toward Mike Johnson, but the truth is he was the single most influential person who killed

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HB 813 in Louisiana. And he more than anyone else is responsible for the fact that abortion was not abolished in Louisiana and therefore babies are dying more now in Louisiana than they were before Roe v.

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Wade. And Mike could have helped us put a stop to that and instead he fought to prevent the abolition of abortion in Louisiana.

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That's the truth. And I love Mike. I for years considered him a friend and worked with him, but he's wrong on this.

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And despite whatever he might say about consequences to my career or other people if we continue to support equal protection for pre -born children, there is a

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God in heaven who requires justice for these children. And no man should be able to tell us that we should disobey what

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Scripture so plainly requires because it'll help more Republicans stay in power.

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What good are Republicans if they're in power? If once they get there they're not going to do the very thing that they told their donors, their voters, the pro -life supporters that they were going to do, which is fight to end abortion and give justice to these pre -born children.

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If they're not actually going to do what they say they're going to do when they run for office, then why should they remain in office?

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No, I want them to do the right thing. Give justice to these children. Let's abolish abortion in Louisiana and in states across America and let's leave the results in the hands of God.