Democratic congresswoman confronts Johnson over Trump AI video: ‘It’s racist. You should call it out’

By Manu Raju, Alison Main, Nicky Robertson, Morgan Rimmer, CNN

(CNN) — Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean confronted Speaker Mike Johnson right off the House floor on Tuesday over their parties’ funding standoff hours before the government shut down.

Dean could be heard criticizing Johnson multiple times over health care and calling him out for not pushing back on President Donald Trump’s sharing of a racist, AI-generated video of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The Pennsylvania Democrat pressed Johnson about the video, which Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, and the speaker responded, “It wasn’t my style.”

“Not your style? It’s disgraceful. It’s racist. You should call it out,” Dean said.

The video depicted Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache and Schumer speaking in a fake voice, arguing for undocumented immigrants to get “free healthcare.” As mariachi music plays in the background, the fake Schumer voice says, “There’s no way to sugar coat it: Nobody likes Democrats anymore.”

In his response, Johnson appeared to press Dean on the details of the video, when she interrupted him and reiterated her stance.

“Is it racist? You put a sombrero on a Black man who’s the leader of the House. You don’t see that as racist? We need you desperately to lead,” an animated Dean told the speaker, raising both of her hands in emphasis.

Johnson then walked back to his office, telling Dean: “I’m working on it. And personally, it’s not my style. I love you and I respect you, OK?”

“That’s why I’m talking to you,” Dean said in response.

Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” about the interaction, Johnson said, “I’m the speaker of the House, so I represent Republicans and Democrats in that capacity and I always hear complaints and concerns from members and I always stop and hear that, and I did that for Madeleine Dean. I respect her as an individual, we disagree on every policy matter.”

Johnson said he told Dean that he “disagreed with her perspective on it.”

“I tried to bring her back to the real issue,” Johnson said. “The fight tonight is not about social media posts. The fight is about whether they’re going to keep the government open for the American people.”

It’s not the first time Dean has confronted Johnson, who she knows well from their time serving together on the House Judiciary Committee. Dean publicly confronted Johnson in June after California Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly removed from a Trump administration official’s news conference, causing an uproar in the Capitol.

Dean told CNN that she confronted Johnson about his decision to cancel House votes as a government funding deadline loomed, as well as his lack of response to Trump’s AI-generated video of the House and Senate Democratic leaders.

“I said I was disappointed that he sent his members home, and in effect, he is one of the leaders in shutting the government down. And he said that was not the case. He really believed this is going to go through,” recounted Dean.

She added that she had told Johnson, “‘I know you know better. I know you are a man that wants to do the right thing, but by sending your members home and putting forward dishonest information to the American public, like this is a clean CR, I think you’re doing a disservice,’” and that Johnson vehemently disagreed with her.

The Pennsylvania Democrat also said that when she pressed Johnson on why he had not criticized Trump’s posting of the video, Johnson asked her if it was racist.

“He asked me, like, rhetorically, ‘Is that really racist?’ It’s really racist, it’s despicable, and he should have called it out,” she said.

“That’s a problem, that the speaker of the House didn’t see the racism,” added Dean. She also told the speaker that she thought the president was “unwell” after he spoke before top US military brass earlier Tuesday, but noted that Johnson didn’t acknowledge her comment.

“He assured me he is only telling the truth. Everything he says to the American people is the truth. He thinks we’re going to get through this,” Dean told reporters.

Dean reiterated that Democrats are not going to provide enough votes to pass the GOP-backed stop gap funding bill.

“If you want Democratic votes, you have to put something in the bills that we actually believe in. We’re not going to give votes – I’m mainly speaking for myself. I’m not going to give a vote over and be complicit on further cuts to Medicaid, to SNAP, to cancer research, pediatric cancer research, Alzheimer’s, nutrition for seniors, for children, for families,” she said.

“It’s on the Republicans, if that’s your – what you believe in, that’s popular back home, and represents the will of your constituents. Get it done on your own, without it, we’re not going to be complicit.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Ellis Kim, Kaanita Iyer, Dalia Abdelwahab and Kit Maher contributed to this report.