Right Wing Watch, a self-proclaimed watchdog “that monitors and exposes the activities of Radical Right political organizations,” took to X to share a clip of Speaker Mike Johnson giving a speech to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL). During the clip, Johnson can be heard speaking of his surprise election as speaker and compared it to Moses being chosen to lead the Israelites to freedom out of Egypt. “The Lord impressed upon my heart a few weeks before this happened that something was going to occur. And the Lord very specifically told me in my prayers to prepare, but to wait… I had this sense that we were going to come to a Red Sea moment in our Republican conference and in the county at large,” he said, referencing the miraculous crossing of the Israelites through the Red Sea as they escaped Egyptian soldiers.

A Southern Baptist, Johnson said he didn’t want to get “spooky” but that the Lord had told him to “prepare.” “When the speaker’s race happened and Kevin McCarthy, who’s a dear friend of mine, was deposed and vacated from the chair. Oh, wow! Well, this is what the Lord may have been preparing us for,” he added. He said he woke up with ideas for the conference to elect a new speaker and assumed that God was preparing him to be Aaron to whoever would be the new “Moses” of the GOP. When he ended up being elected to the speakership, he was shocked. “Me? I’m supposed to be Aaron,” he said. “’No,’ The Lord said, ‘Step forward.’”

Right Wing Watch criticized the Speaker’s comments, calling the conference a “gathering of Christian nationalists.” The NACL responded to the criticism saying that Right Wing Watch often targets them. “Christians look to the Bible. We all draw guidance and inspiration from the story of Moses, from King David, from Jesus, from St. Paul,” said NACL president Jason Rapert. “It’s a very common thing when a Christian is speaking about something that’s important to them to draw off of the wisdom of the Holy Scriptures and make those references.” He also accused Right Wing Watch of stealing content from the NACL and using it without permission. The media had not been permitted at the event, something Johnson noted during his speech, claiming reporters would take his words out of context. “They did not have permission, they did not talk with us,” Rapert said of the video being posted by Right Wing Watch. “And so, when we took the video down [from Facebook], it’s because our general counsel will be following up with them for all of the instances over the last year or maybe more that we have seen they’ve continued to steal copyrighted content.” He went on to defend his organization and Johnson. “When people look at us, or they speak of Mike Johnson, and say they’re far right, we’re not far right. We’re in the center of God’s word, where this country has been for most of our history.” Not the Bee (NTB) came to Johnson’s defense as well. “This isn’t Johnson bragging, or him seeing crazy visions,” NTB claimed. “This is the kind of rhetoric Christians in public life have used throughout modern history until about 30 years ago when we were convinced that secularism should be the new state religion.”