House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) responded on Sunday to a report by The Daily Beast that highlighted his apparent lack of a bank account on his financial disclosure.

The response, however, did not actually answer whether he had one.

Fox News Sunday moderator Shannon Bream pressed Johnson on whether he had a bank account, citing a Vanity Fair write-up of The Daily Beast’s report and noting that “there’s been so much made about it.”

“Can you clear that up for us?” Bream asked.

Johnson did not.

“Look, I’m a man of modest means,” Johnson said. “I was a lawyer, but I did constitutional law, and most of my career has been in the nonprofit sector. We have four kids, five now, that are very active. And I have kids in graduate school, law school, undergraduate. We have a lot of expenses, but I can relate to everybody else. My father was a firefighter, right? I didn’t grow up with great means. But I think that helps us to be a better leader because we can relate to every hard-working American family. That’s who we are. And I think it governs and helps govern my decisions and how I lead.”

  • Telorand
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    8 months ago

    Yep. It’s required for accounts totalling more than $5000, because a poor politician is easier to buy off than a rich one.

    So unless he’s flat broke (unlikely for a Republican), he’s hiding assets.

    • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      a poor politician is easier to buy off than a rich one.

      Nice thought but probably not true. See literally any US politician. Or Supreme Court judge.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        “A man with a lot of Ivory is less likely to be an Ivory hunter than a man with no Ivory!”

        • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          But a man with a lot of money is much more likely to be greedy than a man with no money.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Yeah I don’t understand this logic either. You have to follow a higher ethical standard the lower you are in practice. Our political system should reflect what the real world is.