Speaker Johnson spoke to the press briefly this afternoon after he got blowback from people who didn’t like how he handled an earlier question from a reporter on whether Rep. McBride is a man or a woman.

Here’s his response from this morning:

This question was personally aimed at McBride, who is undoubtedly a man. But I think that’s why Johnson didn’t want to answer it directly.

But people really wanted him to answer it directly and when he didn’t, he got blowback.

So a little while ago he spoke to the press to clarify his beliefs on this and addressed it generally, saying “Let me be unequivocally clear. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. And a man cannot become a woman.”

He said this is what the Bible teaches but also added that he believes in treating people with dignity and that he can do that while believing this fact.

I’m not so hard on Johnson for this because I know he’s trying to keep from creating a media scandal. But I do appreciate that he clarified this because what he said is absolutely true.