Transcription
Joining us now, House Speaker Mike Johnson. Mr. Speaker, thank you. Good to have you on this morning.
>> Always good to be with you. Thanks.
>> We're feeling pessimistic. I don't know, maybe you can talk us out of it, but does it look like at this point this will not be averted? The shutdown.
>> You know me. I'm an optimist, but I'm a little skeptical this morning. Whether or not the government shuts down at midnight is entirely up to two people. It's Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Primarily Chuck Schumer. I want to tell you that I spent time with him yesterday. Of course, we were in the Oval Office. They are pursuing a very reckless strategy right now, and for the life of me, I cannot understand what they hope to accomplish other than giving themselves temporary political cover from the far left portion of their base who are demanding that they fight Trump. There is no no basis whatsoever for them to oppose this continuing resolution. And I know that you all have been through this and already on the program. You've had you know, you had Whip Emmer talking about this, but what we put on the on the floor and what we passed through the House, what is sitting on the desk at the Senate right now for Chuck Schumer to pass is a clean, continuing resolution. There's no partisan riders or policy riders added to it at all. It's 24 pages in length. It is a simple measure to keep the government open so that we can continue the appropriations process. It's done in good faith. And now I will say this, Joe, it's exactly what Democrats all voted for 13 times during the Biden administration. Now, they don't want to do it because they want to fight Trump. And a lot of good people are going to be hurt because of this.
>> Mr. Speaker, at that meeting yesterday, did they present and I don't know how much you can but did they give an entire the Democrats an entire wish list of things that they did? They say they want healthcare for for illegal immigrants and, I don't know, funding some TVs. They said, we want all these all these things.
>> Yes. And they put it in writing because remember, they filed a counter proposal, continuing resolution. We've we've filed a 24-page clean CR. They filed a dirty CR as a kind of proposal included in it. And they brought this up in the meeting yesterday. They want to restore taxpayer-funded benefits, American taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens. Okay. We're not doing that. We got rid of that in our one big beautiful bill. We're not going back to that policy. This was a big issue in the election last fall. We don't American taxpayers are not supposed to fund people who break the law coming into the country illegally. They're demanding that as a condition of their votes. They also want to gut the $50 billion that we included in our in our legislation have already passed, signed into law to protect rural hospitals. They want to claw that money back. Inexplicably, they want to give the Corporation for Public Broadcasting $500 million, a half $1 billion to prop up these these left-leaning media organizations that we defunded. I don't think, and the American people don't think that taxpayers should be funding that in the age of, you know, ubiquitous media coverage and so many options. So all these things that they're trying to cram into a very simple, remember the terms of this seven weeks, we're only buying until November 21st again to allow the appropriations process to continue. And I think this is very important. We've talked about this on the program before. I've been trying very hard since I became speaker two years ago to force the Congress back into the regular appropriations process. And why is that so important? Because that's how you act as a good steward of the precious resources of American taxpayers. And we've done it. I mean, this is a it's a great report, right? The the House Appropriations Committee, in a bipartisan fashion, worked in passed 12 separate appropriations bills through Committee three off the House floor. The Senate passed three bills off the floor there. They don't match up. Exactly. And so remember the Saturday morning cartoon? I'm just a bill on Capitol Hill. You know how it's supposed to work now, right? When the two chambers members don't agree, they get together, they work it out. All that is in process. But we run out of clock because this is the end of the fiscal.
>> Year negotiations.
>> We just need more time. And that's what this is negotiation.
>> It's always great to ask for all these things, you know, and I don't I can't really believe it's it's that they really expect to get those things. But I think they they are trying to get something. Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering what how does this get reconciled? And is it have to do with the ACA and these and these subsidies, and is there what is a final deal look like? Where what do you say? We'll do it before we'll do it through the appropriations process. We'll do it the right way. You just got to trust us. Or what are they going to ask for? For them to say, okay, we'll do it. I just don't see that path to, you.
>> Know, and that's a red herring, okay? They're grasping at straws. They're trying to make a political issue out of something that doesn't exist. What they're talking about with the ACA subsidies and these other issues, these are these are end-of-year decisions. We have until the end of December. December 31st is when that expires, not today. So they're trying to make December policy issues. They're trying to make that the issue of today, when today's issue is whether or not we're going to keep the government open on a temporary basis so that the lawmakers here can do their work. We'll have plenty of time for all the policy debates. That's part of the process. That's what we do here. But you have to keep the government open to do it. I would credit President Trump for calling us into the Oval Office yesterday. He's operating in good faith. There is no daylight at all between the President of the United States and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate. We're all united. We want to keep the government open. We have done our work. The House passed the bill bipartisan, by the way. We had one Democrat join us. Okay. But they have to have 60 votes in the Senate. Chuck Schumer has got to release a handful of people to come along to do the right thing and keep the doors open for the for the country.
>> What happens if they don't? This is really important. I mean, the markets will be rattled, I'm sure, because of the uncertainty that we don't need to be adding into this. You'll have a delay of an important. The BLS jobs report is due October 3rd. That will be delayed, but importantly, real services, real benefits that the American people depend upon. Troops won't be paid, TSA agents won't be paid. The WIC program, the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program, and other food services will be delayed. FEMA services won't be provided. We have two hurricanes off the coast of the United States right now. I mean, we're in the middle of hurricane season. This is serious stuff. And Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are playing politics with all these people and the American people services, and they're willing to do it for political cover. That's the game. They can't face their far-left base when they come on the program today, I think you're having them both ask Chuck Schumer what his motivation is. He'll try to tell you it's about, you know, these these issues that in the end of the calendar year, December 31st. But what it's really about, he's running from AOC and the socialist base of their party who are going to challenge him in his next election. He they said he didn't fight Trump when he did the