Moment new House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed abortion was 'truly an American Holocaust' as he agreed with Justice Clarence Thomas in overturning Roe v Wade - before suggesting SCOTUS look at gay rights

New Speaker of the House Mike Johnson once called abortion 'truly an American Holocaust' and suggested the Supreme Court follow the overturning of Roe v Wade with a further look at gay rights.

Johnson, a Louisiana conservative who has endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2024, made the comments on abortion on a radio show in May 2022 after a heated hearing on the subject.

Then just a Congressman, Johnson demanded a gynecologist give her stance on performing the procedure when an infant is 'halfway out of the birth canal.'

Speaking on The Vince Coglianese Show, the host spoke to Johnson about what he saw as the moral bankruptcy of abortion and asked him to react to its effects on the black community.

'It is truly an American Holocaust... their response is to try and ignore it. The reality is that Planned Parenthood and Big Abortion, they set up their clinics in inner cities and they regard these people as easy prey.'

Johnson prefaced his question at the hearing to Dr. Yashica Robinson, a board-certified OB-GYN and a board member with Physicians for Reproductive Health and only medical doctor on the panel, by saying she would 'clearly support the right to abort a 20 week old unborn child.'

'So I would love for you to explain to us, in your medical opinion, at what point in pregnancy should having an abortion no longer be an option?' the conservative asked.

Robinson explained that 'every pregnancy is unique and different' and that 'patients need to have access to care' on a case-by-case basis.

Johnson cut her off, 'Let me let me ask you - do you support the right of a woman who's just seconds away from birthing a healthy child to have an abortion?'

'I think that the question that you're asking does not realistically reflect abortion care,' Robinson answered.

They went back and forth from here, with neither seemingly willing to entertain the other's argument. 

Johnson also holds conservative views on LGBTQ+ rights, according to CNN, who tracked down an interview the Speaker did on the day Roe v Wade was overturned, where he defended Justice Clarence Thomas' that they should reconsider gay marriage. 

'There's been some really bad law made,' he said. 'They've made a mess of our jurisprudence in this country for the last several decades. And maybe some of that needs to be cleaned up.' 

However, a spokesperson for Johnson told CNN after the comments were unearthed that he views Supreme Court decisions that struck down restrictions on the use of contraception, barred bans on gay sex and legalized same sex marriages 'as settled law.'

In his career as a lawmaker and an attorney, he's been a staunch social conservative, citing attempts to imprison doctors who perform abortions after six weeks, Bible study in public schools and an end to anti-hate crime laws.

He once criticized the American Civil Liberties Union for having 'convinced an entire generation of Americans that there's this so-called separation of church and state.' 

Johnson has also written for laws criminalizing sodomy and not including protections for LGBTQ people under hate crime laws. 

He also supported a law in Arkansas that banned same sex couples from adopting children. 

Johnson last week gave a full throated endorsement to Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, while at the same time defending the former president's claims that his 2020 election loss was fraudulent. 

'I'm all in for President Trump,' Johnson said on CNBC's 'Squawk Box.' 

'I expect he'll be our nominee, and we have to make Biden a one-term president.'

Quite how much it helps Trump remains to be seen. Johnson was little known before being elevated to the post of speaker last month and still has scant name recognition beyond Washington's political circles.

And he delivered his endorsement on the day it emerged that he once condemned Trump on Facebook. 

'The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House,' Johnson wrote in 2015 in posts found by the New York Times.

His words were challenged in the comments and he responded: 'I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a commander in chief.' 

At the time, Johnson was a lawmaker in Louisiana.

He went on to wonder whether Trump might bomb a head-of-state simply for showing him disrespect. 

'I am only halfway kidding about this,' he wrote. 'I just don't think he has the demeanor to be president.'

Johnson is not alone in changing tack when it suited him.

Trump's administration was filled with officials who backed other candidates in 2016 or were openly hostile to him. 

And Johnson went on serve on Trump's defense team during the president's first impeachment trial.

'During his 2016 campaign, President Trump quickly won me and millions of my fellow Republicans over,' Johnson told the New York Times in response. 

'When I got to know him personally shortly after we both arrived in Washington in 2017, I grew to appreciate the person that he is and the qualities about him that made him the extraordinary president that he was.'

In his CNBC interview, he also defended Trump's stance on the 2020 election.

Trump 'just felt like he was cheated in the last election,' he said. 

Democrats were quick to highlight 'MAGA Mike's' hardline positions.

Democratic National Committee spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said: 'MAGA Mike Johnson sees in Trump another anti-abortion, election-denying extremist who will do everything in his power to pursue a radical, anti-freedom agenda if he's reelected president. 

'Even though MAGA Mike once confessed that he thought Trump was 'dangerous' and 'unfit' to serve, he's so hellbent on legislating away Americans' freedoms and gutting Social Security and Medicare that he's willing to endorse Trump anyway.'