House Speaker Mike Johnson is defending his decision not to immediately seat Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva amid the ongoing government shutdown, calling the controversy a “total absurdity” and a “red herring” meant to distract from Democratic failures.

Speaking with the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel, the Louisiana Republican said Democrats are focusing on the special election for Grijalva’s seat instead of reopening the government.

“There’s been a lot of complaints from Democrats. Adelita Grijalva won a special election in Arizona on September 23rd to finish the rest of the term of her father, Raul Grijalva, who passed away in March. And Democrats want you to seat her in a pro forma session. You guys have those every once in a while, it lasts an afternoon,” Strassel began.

“You’re saying you’ll do it when government reopens and the House is back in real legislative session. There’s been protests. There’s a threat of litigation out of Arizona. Some are even claiming that you are trying to refuse to seat her to stop her signing this discharge petition over the Jeffrey Epstein files. Am I missing something here?” Strassel asked.

Johnson dismissed the uproar as political theater.

“It’s total absurdity. What you’re seeing is the art of distractions. It’s a red herring, right?” Johnson shot back.

“So the Democrats, they don’t have a leader. They don’t have a platform. They have no policies that they can articulate, and they aren’t even able to say what they want to get out of the shutdown short of their initial counter proposal to spend a trillion and a half new dollars and give 200 billion in healthcare to illegal aliens on the back of U.S taxpayers among other nonsense. They know we’re not doing that. It wasn’t serious,” Johnson added.

Johnson said Democrats are losing the messaging battle and are using the Grijalva issue as a diversion.

“Because they have none of that and because they know increasingly, the American people are understanding what’s going on here because we’re so consistent in sharing the truth every day, that they’re being blamed rightfully for the chaos that’s ensued,” Johnson said.

“So they’re looking for distractions. So they’ve lobbed onto this thing about Rep-elect Grijalva. It is total and utter nonsense,” Johnson said. “And I’ve had to explain it in press conferences almost every day. When that is the issue of the day, you know they have nothing to argue about,” the Speaker added.

He explained that Grijalva was elected while Congress was already out of session and said he has promised to swear her in once the House returns to work.

“She was elected September 23rd in a special election to fill her father’s seat. Well, the important thing about that date is, we were already out of session. We’ve not been back to legislative session since then,” Johnson said.

“I’ve told her, and I’ve told all my Democrat colleagues, I’m happy to administer the oath to her as soon as we get back to legislative session, as soon as Chuck Schumer, and by the way, the two Democrat senators from her state in Arizona, Kelly and Gallegos vote to reopen the government. I’m happy. We’ll do it on the first day we’re back,” Johnson added.

Johnson added that he’s following a precedent established under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“I’m following the Pelosi precedent on this. When my dear friend Julia Letlow was elected in a very similar circumstance, tragically she lost her husband, my friend Luke, from COVID, and she ran in a special election to fill his seat. She was elected,” he said.

“Then-Speaker Pelosi took 25 days to administer her the oath. We didn’t have protests and go doing TikTok videos about it because we understood that’s just the way the process works,” Johnson added.