Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Why Did This Congressman Give A Holocaust Denier A State Of The Union Ticket?

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A Republican congressman says he gave Chuck Johnson, a notorious right-wing troll who once denied the Holocaust, a ticket to the State of the Union because he seemed polite.

Johnson has been banned from numerous platforms for his online “trolling,” or harassing those with whom he disagrees. He has said he believes in racial differences, and on at least one occasion denied the Holocaust.

Politico reported that Johnson heard that a ticket reserved for the father of Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was available because Gaetz’s father, a Florida state legislator, had fallen ill. Johnson went to Gaetz’s office and introduced himself, and talked his way into getting the ticket.

Gaetz said a staffer googled Johnson after he had the ticket and discovered his notoriety. The congressman also said that Capitol Police asked to speak to Johnson when Gaetz’s office was clearing Johnson’s information through security. (He said he did not ask Capitol Police why they wanted to speak with Johnson.)

Neither incident led Gaetz to consider whether he should pull Johnson’s ticket to the State of the Union, the rare event that brings the U.S. government under a single roof.

“Unquestionably I don’t agree with everything Chuck Johnson has said and done,” Gaetz said. “That needs to be said on the record. But he was a perfectly polite guest.”

Gaetz, speaking on the Fox Business Network, also denied that Johnson had denied the Holocaust.

“Some of the claims against Mr. Johnson are not accurate,” he said in an interview captured by Mediaite. “He’s not a Holocaust denier, he’s not a white supremacist. Those are unfortunate characterizations of him, but I did not know he was as perhaps as infamous and controversial as he was when he came by to my office. … He was a polite and just entirely appropriate guest I thought.”

Johnson denied the Holocaust in an “Ask Reddit” session from January 2017. (The sub-Reddit that hosted the session, “altright,” has since been banned by Reddit because its members practiced “doxxing,” publishing personal information about enemies — a practice that Johnson has indulged and which contributed to his notoriety.) The exchange has been captured elsewhere, including here at the Little Green Footballs blog.) He also praised Holocaust deniers like David Irving and David Cole.

Asked about the “Jewish Question” and the Holocaust, Johnson replied, “I do not and never have believed the 6 million figure. I think the Red Cross numbers of 250,000 dead in the camps from typhus are more realistic. I think the Allied bombing of Germany was a war crime. I agree with David Cole about Auschwitz and the gas chambers not being real. I read the German War (highly recommend), Bloodlands, Mein Kampf, and all of David Irving.” He added: “But I support Israel as a Jewish state and Zionism as a concept. I’m pro-ethno state, generally.”

The Anti-Defamation League is not accepting the excuse that Gaetz was caught unaware.

“Any measure of due diligence by you or your staff would have revealed that Johnson is an extremist and a Holocaust denier,” the ADL’s national director, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a letter sent Thursday to Gaetz. “Your inattention — or uncaring attitude — about Johnson’s record of bigotry and harassment is shocking.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.