Ex-Democrat Angling For Cabinet Post Was Part Of Anti-Trump Resistance, Defended ‘Trans Youth’

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced last September that he was leaving the Democratic Party, saying it had lost its way. Now he’s under consideration for a prominent position in President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet, The Daily Wire has learned, and he may be forced to defend a surprisingly woke record.

Johnson is being pitched to lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, multiple Trump world sources told The Daily Wire. Earlier this month, he published a Fox News opinion piece titled “I’m the mayor of Dallas. My switch to the GOP last year should have been a wake-up call for Democrats.” In the piece, he says “voters are sick of a Democrat Party that prioritizes pandering over policy, political correctness over political action, and concern with personal identity over individuals’ real needs.”

On Fox & Friends @Johnson4Dallas discussed how @GOP mayors across the country are excited to work with @realDonaldTrump to deliver on the promise of making our cities great again. pic.twitter.com/BsMaQuJbNg

— Republican Mayors Association (@GOPMayorsAssn) November 20, 2024

But the piece does not address where Johnson stands on some of the key issues that drove Americans to vote for Trump, including gender ideology. And Johnson’s social media is littered with his criticisms of Trump’s policies, as well as promotion of gender ideology and the “Black Lives Matter” movement — including a proclamation proclaiming June 5 as a George Perry Floyd Remembrance Day in Dallas.

In January 2017, Johnson sent a letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott asking him to denounce Trump’s so-called “Muslim Ban.” In June 2017, he argued that former FBI Director James Comey was far more credible than Trump. In September 2017, he mocked the notion of “reverse racism” and critiqued Republicans’ focus on affirmative action. In October 2017, he claimed that a Trump presidency is “everything we feared,” arguing, “stay woke,” and “resist.” In March 2018, he praised Adam Schiff for condemning the Austin bombings, claiming that Schiff was “saying and doing what our president [Trump] simply will not,” and tacking on the hashtag, #BLM.

He’s called Trump’s policies “reckless” and “embarrassing,” repeatedly argued Trump is “unfit for command,” and repeatedly accused Trump of seeking to dismantle Barack Obama’s legacy.

Re @realDonaldTrump Exec Order: “If you stick a knife in my back 9 in & pull it out 6 in, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound…they haven’t even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound.” Malcolm X #txlege

— Mayor Eric L. Johnson (@Johnson4Dallas) June 20, 2018

Since joining the Republican Party, Johnson, who did not respond to a request for comment, has become a vocal Trump supporter. He congratulated Trump on his “decisive victory” and said he was “looking forward to working with [Trump] to make Dallas and our nation safer, stronger, and more prosperous.” The Dallas Morning News reported on November 6 that Johnson was seen at Trump’s victory party on election night, questioning whether Johnson was angling for a position within the Trump administration.  Mike Demkiw, executive director of the Republican Mayors Association, said at the time that Johnson was focused on continuing to serve Dallas.

Johnson also appears to be a staunch proponent of gender ideology, repeatedly arguing in defense of so-called “transgender youth,” meaning minor children who believe they are transgender, and he has positively used the word “woke” on a number of occasions as he describes his colleagues and friends.

“The [Texas legislature’s] bathroom bill forces vulnerable transgender Texans to be singled out and subject to further discrimination,” he tweeted in July 2017 with a transgender flag graphic that read “PROTECT TRANSGENDER YOUTH,” adding with a hashtag, “Y’all Means All.”

In another post made the same month, Johnson posted a graphic from the radical Southern Poverty Law Center and tagged a number of prominent LGBTQ groups that support transgender procedures for children, including Equality Texas, the Human Rights Campaign, and the ACLU of Texas.

When protestors filled the Texas Capitol in March 2017 to protest the legislation, which protected women’s spaces from men who identify as women, he tweeted, “I am proud of those standing up for Texas in opposition to the bathroom bill. This is what democracy looks like.”

In May 2018, he boasted in a social media post about his bill to “prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” saying that the bill “made it further than it ever had in the legislature.”

“Next year,” he said, “I hope it will finally pass. LGBTQ Texans have waited long enough.”

As mayor, Johnson created an “anti-hate” advisory council in Dallas, arguing that “nobody should feel uncomfortable or unsafe in Dallas because of who they are, because of their race or ethnicity, their sexual and gender identity, their religion or their national origin.” He even issued a proclamation in 2021 proclaiming an “International Transgender Day of Visibility” in the city.

Johnson’s office confirmed receipt of The Daily Wire’s press inquiry but did not address The Daily Wire’s questions.