Speaker of the House Mike Johnson still won’t admit that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, even as he called suggestions that he was an election denier “nonsense.”

The comments came in an interview with CBS’ Margaret Brennan that aired Sunday morning, in which she asked the Speaker, who is second in line to the presidency, whether he’d affirm that Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020.

“President Biden was certified as the winner of the election, he took the oath of office, he’s been the president for three years,” Johnson told Brennan, while repeatedly maintaining that the Constitution was “clearly violated” during the election.

“The Constitution was violated in the run-up to the 2020 election, not always in bad faith, but in the aftermath of Covid, many states changed their election laws in ways that violated that plain language,” Johnson argued. “That’s just a fact.”

After weeks of GOP infighting led to Johnson’s surprise election to the top House job in October, the newly minted Speaker’s leading behind-the-scenes role in the sprawling legal attempts to halt Biden’s victory became an object of intense public scrutiny in the media. Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, had helped collect signatures from more than 60% of House Republicans for an amicus brief supporting a Texas lawsuit claiming widespread election irregularities without evidence. The suit sought to have results voided in four crucial states.

In his Sunday interview, Brennan presented Johnson with comments from Liz Cheney’s new book, in which the former South Dakota representative argued Johnson had “played a destructive role” in the aftermath of the election. “It became clear that Mike was being less than honest with our colleagues,” Cheney wrote. “He was playing bait and switch, assuring members that the brief made no claims about specific allegations of fraud when, in fact, it was full of such claims.”

“I don’t spend much time responding to Liz Cheney’s criticism these days,” Johnson replied. “[She] worked with the Democrats on the January 6 select committee to make all of this even more politicized than it was.” The Louisiana Republican went on to claim that he and Cheney “were in constant dialogue” about the amicus brief and that “at one point, she even considered signing” it. (Cheney’s book offers a different version of events.)

Brennan pressed the Speaker on how he could possibly work with the president if he didn’t believe the 2020 election passed constitutional muster. “This is water under the bridge,” Johnson replied. “I work with President Biden as the president of the United States. I’m trying very hard to ensure that he is only a one-termer, because I believe he has been an abject failure as the commander-in-chief of our country.”