The House did just that on Wednesday as ultraconservatives temporarily stalled the House from debating a foreign intelligence measure in a humiliating defeat for Johnson. The speaker successfully revived the bill, which passed on Friday.

Trump said he was still “not a big fan” of the measure.

Election Integrity

The centerpiece of Friday’s event was a Republican bill Johnson said he would introduce to require proof of citizenship before voting in US elections.

Johnson said the bill would make anyone who seeks to register to vote in a federal election first prove U.S. citizenship, a measure he tied to the crisis on the U.S. southwest border, where Republicans have seized on historic levels of migrants to pressure Biden to crack down on immigration.

“The border is the number one issue in our country,” Johnson said, adding that “election integrity” was tied to border security.

The proposed legislation is entirely a messaging exercise intended to portray Republicans as tough-on-immigration ahead of the election. Noncitizens already cannot vote in American elections by law.

What the legislation does is elevate Trump’s incorrect allegations of interference in the 2020 election, including the idea that noncitizens somehow swayed the outcome of Biden’s victory. Ever since he lost, Trump has continued to traffic in conspiracy theories about the election to the chagrin of top aides who would prefer he focused on the economy or immigration.

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