WASHINGTON – House Republicans gave a standing ovation Friday to the top House Democrat, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), when he mentioned that Republican Donald Trump had won the November presidential election.

But everyone promptly sat down and fell silent when Jeffries said why he appreciated their applause: because his party is not the one where there are election deniers.

“Two months ago, the American people elected Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States of America,” Jeffries said from the podium in the House chamber.

Loud cheers and whistles filled the room as Republican lawmakers jumped to their feet and celebrated Trump’s victory.

“Thank you for this generous applause,” Jeffries said with a smile. “It’s okay. There are no election deniers on our side.”

Republican lawmakers were no longer celebrating. Now the Democrats stood and cheered even louder as Jeffries continued.

“You should love America when you win and when you lose,” the minority leader said. “That’s the patriotic thing, and that’s the America that House Democrats will fight hard to preserve because we love this country.”

Here’s a C-SPAN clip from the awkward moment:

There are dozens of election deniers in Congress. Four years ago, 147 Republicans voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, fueling the lie that they were stolen from Trump. They lied to the public in front of everyone, and they spread it just hours after an insurrection at the Capitol fueled by the same lie.

It’s easy now to normalize some of these people. But none of this is normal. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), who was just re-elected to his post as House speaker on Friday, was the architect of the legal strategy to overturn the results of the 2020 vote.

And Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who made headlines on Friday for being one of the few Republicans to waver before endorsing Johnson as speaker, called on Trump’s White House to declare martial law in 2021 to prevent a peaceful transfer of power.

Norman was later asked if he regretted his actions. He said he had one thing: that he misspelled “martial law” in his text message to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

“Our LAST HOPE is to invoke the Marshall Law!! Please tell the President to do this!!” Norman had texted Meadows at the time.

It is unclear how many election deniers there will be in the new Congress. As of January 2023, there were more than 170 newly elected and returning Republicans who had contested or challenged Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory.