On Wednesday, Planned Parenthood named its new acting president and CEO, Alexis McGill Johnson, to temporarily fill the shoes of Dr. Leana Wen, who was relieved of duty on Tuesday. But many Democrats will be upset to hear that Johnson seems to have a favorite in the Democratic Primary.
Johnson issued a personal statement accepting the position, touting her long record of service to Planned Parenthood and using flowery language to unite the pro-choice movement. “Our work and our mission isn’t about one person or even one organization — our work is about the millions of people who need access to affordable and comprehensive health care,” she said.
But Johnson is all about one person in the Democratic primary — Sen. Kamala Harris. The new president’s Twitter feed has many tweets and retweets supporting Kamala.
Johnson retweeted a message praising Kamala for her attacks on Joe Biden during the first debate, as well as a tweet that read, “Damn, Kamala Harris has a lot of gravitas. She is the only person on that stage who silences everyone by speaking in a normal tone.” Both these tweets not only praised Kamala, but did so at the expense of the other candidates.
Johnson also quote tweeted Kamala Harris herself in March, and has retweeted pro-Harris tweets from Politico’s Christopher Cadelago and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. Notably, Johnson has not tweeted or retweeted a single message supporting a different Democratic candidate all year.
I know the old saw about retweets not constituting endorsements, but come on. She supports Harris. Former president Leana Wen did much better maintaining public neutrality in the primary. Sure, she retweeted Cory Booker the day of his Democratic debate and shared a Planned Parenthood video clip of Bernie the day of his debate, but that was it. Any other tweets about the debate were messages of broad support for all the candidates.
