Shortly after being reelected as House Speaker, Mike Johnson read a prayer that he claimed was from Thomas Jefferson, despite there being no evidence the third president ever said it. In fact, the quotation has been falsely attributed to Jefferson so often over the years that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has debunked it.

According to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, there’s no evidence that the third president of the United States ever recited a prayer for the nation, as Mike Johnson suggested.

The problem is not just that Republican officials keep peddling fake quotes from the Founding Fathers. The problem is also why they keep doing this.

After being re-elected, Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson falsely attributed a prayer he recited to Thomas Jefferson, even incorrectly claiming that the lower house of Congress recited the prayer daily during Jefferson's presidency.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of La., watches after a joint session of Congress confirmed the Electoral College votes, affirming President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

On Jan. 3, 2025, Mike Johnson (R-LA) was reelected as speaker of the House. After his reelection, Johnson recited a prayer that he suggested was written by Thomas Jefferson and recited every day ...

So it's entirely plausible that the fake "Jefferson prayer" was searched for on Google before copy-pasted into the teleprompter. When one searches for the prayer, however, at the top of the results is the debunking offered by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation,

House Speaker Mike Johnson sparked an unusual religion controversy last week when he recited a prayer in front of Congress after being reelected as speaker of the House. The problem, at least according to some scholars, wasn’t that he prayed in the U.S. Capitol. It was that he claimed to be quoting former President Thomas Jefferson.