House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared irked when asked whether he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power, dismissing concerns that Republicans might contest Democratic midterm election victories as “absurd.”

Johnson, who supported claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent and defended January 6 rioters, made the comments on Tuesday during a campaign stop in Orangeburg, New York.

“I want to ask you: do you commit to having a peaceful transfer of power come January, regardless of what the results are?” a reporter asked Johnson.

“It’s a little silly you have to ask the question,” the Louisiana Republican responded. “Of course we’ll have a peaceful transfer of power, but it will not be transferring, because we are going to keep the majority, and I’m going to be the Speaker of the House, and I will keep steady hands at the wheel.”

Multiple polls indicate Republicans could sustain heavy losses on November 3, potentially costing them their majorities in the House and the Senate, as voters express frustration over the cost of living and the Iran war.

“Look, you know my background: I’m a constitutional attorney,” Johnson said. “We’re going to follow the Constitution. The Constitution says when a state certifies the election of Members of Congress, they’re administered the oath, that’s what I’ll be doing on January 3 to everybody who’s there.

“I may not like some of those outcomes, but that’s our system, and for anybody to suggest otherwise is absurd,” he added.

Johnson, who became House speaker in 2023, played a key role in GOP attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which President Donald Trump has baselessly characterized as fraudulent.

Two weeks after the election, Johnson echoed a conspiracy that U.S. voting machines were compromised.

“In every election in American history, there’s some small element of fraud, irregularity,” Johnson told a radio station. “But when you have it on a broad scale, when you have a software system that is used all around the country that is suspect because it came from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, when you have testimonials of people like this, it demands to be litigated.”

In December 2020, he spearheaded an amicus brief, signed by over 100 House Republicans, in support of a lawsuit attempting to invalidate the election results in four states that Joe Biden won. The Supreme Court threw out the case.

On January 6, 2021, as rioters were overtaking the U.S. Capitol Building, Johnson said in an interview that there was “nothing unusual” about GOP objections to the Electoral College certification of the election results. Later that day, Johnson voted to reject the Electoral College votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania. Both states had voted for Biden.

In 2024, he said he would blur footage of some of those inside the Capitol “to protect the innocent, you know, people who were there and just happened to be walking through the building.” The same year, he rejected the label of “election denier,” telling CBS News that Biden was the “certified” victor of the 2020 election.

Johnson also defended Trump’s 2025 decision to pardon January 6 rioters. “It’s kind of my ethos, my worldview: We believe in redemption. We believe in second chances,” he said last year.

Trump himself was asked about respecting the results of the midterm elections on Tuesday. He said he would abide by the results on the condition that “they’re honest elections.”’

A majority of Americans do not believe the president will accept the election results if Republicans suffer losses, according to an Ipsos survey released this month.