House Speaker Mike Johnson offered Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries some unsolicited advice on Thursday morning for how to deal with the slew of seemingly AI-generated videos President Donald Trump has been posting of Jeffries in a giant sombrero and mustache: “Just ignore it.”
Republican and Democratic lawmakers are entering the third day of the government shutdown, and they’ve largely started to agree on one thing: The social media trolling is getting distracting.
Members of both parties are participating in the meme wars, though they both claim they’d rather be finding ways out of the government shutdown instead. Johnson addressed videos that Jeffries has decried as “racist” on Thursday morning.
“Many of you asked me this morning about sombreros and memes and why Hakeem Jeffries is all alarmed by that,” Johnson said at a House Republican leadership press conference outside his office. “These are games. These are sideshows. People are getting caught up in battles over social media memes.”
“This is not a game,” he continued, a bit exasperated. “We’ve got to keep the government open for the people. I don’t know why this is so complicated.”
“To my friend, Hakeem,” Johnson said, “Man, just ignore it.”
On Wednesday, House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer she wasn’t surprised by the memes but spun to talk about Democrats’ role in the shutdown instead.
“Listen, the president sure can get a laugh and get a rise out of the Democrats with his social media,” McClain said. “I don’t think that’s anything new to anybody. What is sad in this situation is what the Democrats are doing, though, and where the Democrats need to apologize, quite frankly, is that they’re holding the American people hostage.”
Johnson mentioned his own trolling efforts earlier in the press conference — a “greatest hits loop,” he called it — of Democrats talking about government shutdowns in the past, which had been playing outside his office all day Wednesday on a flatscreen television. Similar content was also being blasted at the White House.
Democrats have also made their own trolling attempts: California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office posted videos of Johnson and Vice President JD Vance — who has brushed off the sombrero memes — altered to look like minions from the “Despicable Me” movie franchise.
“Gavin Newsom was trolling me last night. He painted me like a minion. He painted me yellow, with big glasses and overalls, and I thought it was hilarious,” Johnson said at the presser. “For all my friends, R’s and D’s, don’t respond to it. Get to work.”
And Jeffries posted on Wednesday a video on X of popular Vance meme, where he appears to have a large, round face and long curly hair. (Newsom posted something similar.)
Jeffries has responded to the sombrero memes by calling them “racist.”
“Mr. President, the next time you have something to say about me, don’t cop out with a racist and fake AI video. The next time I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face,” Jeffries said on Tuesday.