Speaker Mike Johnson talks Iran, public safety with Tom Barrett in Michigan 7th campaign stop

MASON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson called in air support for Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett on Wednesday as the congressman winds down his reelection campaign to Michigan’s 7th Congressional District seat — a boost he’ll need as he faces a tight race against the progressive Democratic nominee Will Lawrence.

The event, held outside the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department in Mason, featured Johnson (R-Louisiana), Barrett (R-Charlotte) and U.S. Reps. Lisa McClain (R-Bruce Township), Carlos Gimenez (R-Florida) and Dale Strong (R-Alabama).

Johnson, Barrett and McClain each addressed the high stakes for Republicans in the 2026 election, including the continuation of President Donald Trump’s agenda in the final two years of his second term.

It also served as an endorsement announcement for Barrett from the Police Officers Association of Michigan and the Fraternal Order of Police. Also giving remarks were POAM President Jim Tignanelli, FOP President Michael Sauger, Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy, Clinton County Prosecutor Tony Spagnuolo and Shiawassee County Prosecutor Scott Koerner. Former Eaton County Sheriff Rick Jones was in attendance, as well.

The organizations said they were supporting Barrett because of his support for law enforcement, and his work to secure $2 million in federal funds for public safety initiatives, which have included funding for the Lansing and East Lansing police departments.

It was against that backdrop that Barrett framed the 7th Congressional District race as one of support for public safety officials versus calls to defund them, with Barrett calling Lawrence’s past statements about police funding into question.

“The voters in this district have a choice. Do you want somebody with a record of service like I have in our military, supporting our law enforcement and doing the right thing to keep our communities safe?” Barrett asked. “Or do you want to turn our backs on our police officers, and seek to have them defunded, to take away their dignity, and abolish them altogether?”

To further hammer that point home, Barrett had campaign staff stand — quite literally — in the backdrop of the press conference holding up large posterboards with images of Lawrence’s old social media posts, one of which, posted in May 2020, directly called to defund the police.

Johnson claimed that Lawrence was an avowed socialist and part of a left-wing insurgency taking over the Democratic Party. Johnson further claimed that enacting “communist” policies across the federal government was the ultimate for those who call themselves progressive Democratic socialists.

He urged Michiganders to reject Lawrence and to retain Barrett.

“Tom Barrett stands for common sense. He stands for his community. He stands for public safety, and it’s not just words with him; it’s deeds,” Johnson said. “You have to look at the record and not the rhetoric in a campaign. And in this campaign, in Michigan’s 7th District, you have a clear contrast between two competing visions, two completely different worldviews for who we are.”

Lawrence, in a statement released just prior to Wednesday’s event, criticized Barrett for appearing alongside Johnson and other Republican officials, and sought to tie the event to Barrett’s voting record and positions on Trump’s agenda.

“Tom Barrett’s entire campaign strategy is to stand at the side of extreme Trump administration officials, just like he voted for the Trump agenda 99% of the time,” Lawrence said. “Barrett’s latest guest, Trump’s Speaker Mike Johnson, is against same-sex marriage, stalled the release of the Epstein files, tried to overturn an election, and thinks our communities’ concerns about data centers are a ‘Chinese psyop.’ While voters demand answers for Barrett’s disastrous record in Congress, he is parading around the district with MAGA extremists.”

Johnson and Barrett took questions from reporters following the joint campaign stop and endorsement announcement.

Michigan Advance Fact Check: Tom Barrett’s voting record and Will Lawrence’s goals for healthcare

Michigan Advance asked the U.S. House Speaker if congressional leadership would act to move two important pieces of Barrett-introduced legislation — one that would prohibit local communities from using federal funding to purchase Flock surveillance cameras, and another giving Trump congressional authorization to wage the war in Iran, but with guardrails and an exit plan.

Barrett participated in a debate hosted by WKAR-TV on Tuesday with Lawrence. Both bills came up as key flashpoints in the debate. On the Iran war front, Barrett was one of only a few Republicans to vote against Trump’s ability to continue fighting Iran under the War Powers Act. 

He is also the only House Republican to have introduced a formal Authorization for Use of Military Force. The legislation would have carried the force of law as opposed to the resolutions passed throughout the year. It would have defined, set limits on and detailed a plan to end the war in Iran. His legislation would have ended the war by July 30, if passed. 

The war authorization remains stalled in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and has not moved since it was introduced in May.

Johnson was asked when either measure would move and whether Barrett could secure action on them before the election, which could have bipartisan support. He praised Barrett’s work in Congress thus far, and said he deserves a lot of credit for that, and gave a rough timeline for Barrett’s legislation.

“Both of those bills will be processed in the lame duck right after the election, when everybody returns to town,” Johnson said. “We have an agenda that stacks so high.” 

The speaker praised his chamber’s ability to pass what he said was nearly 900 pieces of important legislation. He also blamed Senate Democrats from holding up a large majority of the bills his chamber was able to pass.

When asked again if ending the Iran war was a priority for his majority in the House, or at least taking back its constitutional authority over how Trump wages it, Johnson said the war was going well and that it was winding down, without addressing Trump’s current lack of congressional authorization.

“The effort has worked. Operation Epic Fury was an epic success. We had no choice in the matter,” he said. “I’m on the Gang of Eight. I get the highest level briefing in the federal government. We got the briefing, in a bipartisan briefing, that Iran was dangerously close to having a nuclear weapon. Now, it had been the objective of every administration for 50 years in this country to ensure that the largest state sponsor of terrorism did not have a nuclear weapon. That would be an immediate threat to the security of Americans everywhere and our allies and everybody else. So they had to take care of that. … Now it is winding down.”

Johnson, however, did not speak of that wind-down in terms of an exit strategy, but rather of the United States punishing Iran economically due to its military actions.

“The Iranian currency has a value of almost zero at this point. They have no more assets to sell to anyone around the world. Their economy is in collapse, and they are in a desperate state,” Johnson said. “We have to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened, that is the objective, and it is. We have commerce going through that. We have oil moving through there again, but it is an international waterway that should be open for commerce.”

Johnson added that he believed Iran was “going to be brought to their knees in their economy.”

“They will be forced out of desperation to make an agreement with us and to finish this up,” he said.