Transcription
Joining us now, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, good to see you. Let's start with the shutdown talks. A few days ago, President Trump rejected even meeting with Democratic leaders, reportedly at the urging of you and the Senate Majority Leader John Thune. What, what changed?
Well, I had a long talk with the president yesterday, Jake, and, um, you know, he feels the same way that I do about this. He's always open to discussion, but, um, he wants to operate in good faith. So he decided to to bring us all in. He wants to talk with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and and and just try to convince them to follow common sense and do what's right by the American people.
Jake, it's important to point out the only thing we are trying to do is buy a little time. You know, the the appropriators in both parties have been working very diligently over the last many weeks to work through the appropriations process. As you know, the law requires us to pass 12 separate appropriations bills and to be good stewards of American taxpayers' dollars. But that hasn't happened. It usually doesn't happen in Washington. Everything gets pushed to the end of the year, right before Christmas, and there's a giant omnibus spending bill. Since I became speaker, I've been trying to force back the muscle memory to to force Congress to do its work. And we're doing it.
Jake, I'm delighted to tell you in a bipartisan fashion, the appropriators have worked through 12 separate appropriations bills in the House committee. Three are passed off the floor in the House. Three passed off the Senate floor. Those bills don't match up exactly. So, there's a conference committee between two chambers working as they're supposed to for the first time since 2019. But here's the problem. We run out of clock because the end of this September 30th is the end of the fiscal year. So, what we did was a simple, clean, continuing resolution. It's 24 pages in length. All it does is keep the government open so appropriators can continue to do this work together, bipartisan. Chuck Schumer came back with a long laundry list of partisan demands that don't fit into this process, and he's going to try to shut the government down. The president wants to talk with him about that and say, "Please don't do that."
So, at this meeting tomorrow, is President Trump looking to make a deal, or is it going to be like when Michael Corleone met Senator Giri? My offer is this: nothing.
Well, uh, well, look, we'll have to see, but I can tell you where where his head and his heart are. He wants to do right by the people. He does not want the Democrats to hold up troops' pay. You know, the people who serve in in the military, they don't get paid during a shutdown. He he doesn't want, uh, WIC funding, you know, Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program being held up. He doesn't want telehealth and mental health and FEMA services to be stopped. That's what Chuck Schumer is holding hostage. Why? So that he can add $1.5 trillion in new spending at a time when we're simply just trying to keep the government going for seven weeks so we can have those debates. It's it's wrong. He also wants to, by the way, what Chuck, Chuck Schumer is demanding in exchange for all those good things I just listed, he wants to reinstate free healthcare for illegal aliens paid by American taxpayers. We are not doing that. We can't do that. That's just one of the crazy things he's requesting.
Well, I I think he would take issue with that. Here is what House, uh, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said on CNN Friday night about what he says Democrats are asking for, which is the continuity, the continuing of the Obamacare subsidies being extended to American citizens only to prevent more than a million of those Americans joining the ranks of the uninsured. I'd like to get your response. This is what Jeffries said: "And all we're saying is let's find a path forward to actually fix the healthcare system that Republicans have broken for the good of everyone. They dropped this reckless partisan bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people, and it went down in flames, and so their bill is dead on arrival." Is that demand for the continuing the Obamacare subsidies, is that even on the table tomorrow?
Look, that statement by my friend Hakeem is absolutely absurd. That there is nothing partisan about this continuing resolution. Nothing. We we didn't add a single partisan priority or or policy rider at all. We're we're operating completely in good faith to give more time. The only thing that would gut healthcare, using his own, uh, phraseology there, is if we took Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer's demand here, because they want to cut $50 billion from rural hospitals. That's the new fund that we added in in the big beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cuts that we passed, uh, just a couple months ago. They they want to gut that. They also want to hold up all this funding that I listed. I mean, the WIC program is something that we all, uh, champion for women, infants, and children nutrition, that would be held up. So, it's exactly the opposite of what Hakeem is talking about. The Obamacare subsidies is a policy debate that has to be determined by the end of the year, December 31st. December 30th, not not right now, while we're simply trying to keep the government open so we can have all these debates.
So, just as a point of fact, it's against the law for non-citizens to get those subsidies. Um, and if they expire, Americans' premiums could jump as much as 75%, some experts say, and consumers could start viewing those higher premiums as soon as October. Are you not worried at all that those people might blame Republicans for those healthcare costs, for the insurance costs going up?
No, they're not being truthful about that, Jake. The program doesn't expire until the end of December, so we have time to, uh, have all those discussions and debates. But, um, yes, it is illegal, uh, for, uh, for illegal aliens to receive healthcare paid for by hardworking American taxpayers, but they're making the demand to change that. They want to add that back in. That's one of Chuck Schumer's primary demands to keep the government open, and we're not going to do that. The American people didn't vote for us to do that. We're trying to clean up the system. So, uh, what they're, what they're demanding, they know is outrageous. They know it's far beyond the pale. And look, I challenge anybody listening to us, Jake. Go pull this up. You will see there is nothing partisan in what we have passed and presented to the Senate. Chuck Schumer is doing this for one reason. He is trying to get cover from the far-left base of his party because they've been hammering him, uh, for for not fighting Trump. So, he's going to try to show that he's fighting Trump, but he has absolutely no logical basis for doing so here.
So, just to be clear, there's not going to be any negotiation at this meeting. This is just going to be you and Thune and Trump telling Jeffries and Schumer, we're not giving you anything.
Look, I I'm not going to get in front of the president and tell you what what he will do, but I I've talked with him, you know, a couple of times, even yesterday, and and I'm telling you where his head is. He wants to bring in the leaders to come in and act like leaders and do the right thing for the American people. It's fine to have partisan debates and squabbles, but you don't hold the people hostage for their services to allow yourself political cover. And that's what Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are doing right now.
Let's turn to the other, uh, big, uh, subject in the news, um, here having to do with the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. Just looking at the principle at stake here, if you can remove Comey and Trump out of the equation, as a constitutional attorney and the speaker of the House of Representatives, do you believe it's acceptable for any president to publicly or privately instruct their attorney general to prosecute a political opponent and go as far as firing a U.S. attorney if they don't bring charges because they don't think the case is strong enough?
I'm glad you brought up the principle. That is exactly what's at issue here. Uh, James Comey lied to Congress. Okay. He he took an oath. He said things to Congress that were simply not true. It's called perjury. A grand jury that is not, you know, a nonpartisan, non-biased grand jury that was assembled looked at the charges and they agreed, they voted, uh, to bring an indictment of James Comey. Not President Trump, not the DOJ, but a grand jury. That's how our system works. It's a very important principle for us to apply that everybody has to subscribe to the law, even a former FBI director, and he has lots to answer for. There are many things that he could have been indicted for, but the statute of limitations ran out on so many of those those matters. Not here. Perjury is important. You can't, especially if you're a high, uh, uh, official, appointed or elected official, you cannot raise your hand, take an oath, and lie to Congress. And that's an important principle of principle, Jake, for us to advance.
I I mean, I I hear what you're saying, but you didn't answer the part about President Trump putting it all out there for everyone to see on Truth Social after pushing out the U.S. attorney, this conservative Eric Sebert. He wrote to Pam Bondi, the attorney general, "Nothing's being done about Comey, Schiff, and Leticia James, even though they're all quote guilty as hell." The president demanded, "Justice must be served." Now, he mentioned Lindsey Halligan, uh, who is now the acting U.S. attorney, and Bondi clearly got the message. She appointed Halligan U.S. attorney despite the fact she has no prosecutorial experience. Few days later, Halligan indicted Comey. I mean, this looks like it was directed by the president. As you know, indictments are not convictions. Indictments have to do with a grand jury saying whether or not a case can be brought. It's not a finding of guilt. The defense isn't even allowed to present a case there. Don't you have any qualms about a any president telling an attorney general, go after these three political opponents?
Um, I won't take issue with that. I don't think that's what he did. But what I have qualms with, Jake, is the total and utter weaponization of the Department of Justice. And Comey was a primary person responsible for that. They quite literally for four years under the Biden administration turned the entire apparatus of our judicial system against one person. His name's Donald Trump. There's never been a political figure in the history of the world who was so maligned and attacked, certainly not using the legal system of his country to go after him in the way that they did. Every way possible. You and I would need three hours of a program to go through all the ways that they that they did that. They weaponized the DOJ. And so that's what Comey ultimately was the leader of and responsible for. He was one of the primary persons who did that. And and I think if he lied to Congress about what he knew and when he knew it, then that is a matter that transcends politics. I think it he has to be tried for that. And I expect that the, uh, the jury in that case, uh, will will determine that that's exactly what he did.
Well, this case is specifically about whether or not Comey lied about leaking, uh, information, uh, that and what seems to have taken place during, uh, 2016, 2017, having nothing to do with Joe Biden. But let me ask you a question because you talked about the weaponization of the Justice Department during Biden. Can you, because this is something conservatives bring up a lot, and I understand there was a special counsel investigating Trump, and there were cases in New York and all that, but can you explain how the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden during the Biden presidency, which resulted in a criminal conviction, and the special counsel investigating into President Biden himself during the Biden presidency, which resulted in this incredibly damaging report? How do those investigations fit into the theory that the Biden era was one of Democrats weaponizing the Justice Department? Because they were also going after the the Democratic president and his Democratic son.
They were not going after the president and his family. They did the bare minimum, uh, that they had to do to maintain the label on the door, Department of Justice. Okay, look, everyone knows this. This is not even a matter of dispute. Hunter was going to go to jail. President Trump, even when he was not president. Well, they they went after President Trump criminally, civilly. They they tried to, uh, to to just ruin him, destroy him because they didn't want him to run for president again. I mean, there are volumes written about this, Jake, and you and I both know that that's true. And there'll be a lot of accountability, I I hope, in the future to ensure that this kind of thing doesn't happen again. Comey has been on a tirade against Trump since way back then, since 2016, 2017. Remember he famously walked on the beach and put 8647, you know, implying that President Trump should be, uh, should be exterminated effectively, okay? It was a big controversy several months back, right? He he has shown his bias, and they have used the Department of Justice against him. Remember all the former intel officials who signed the letter saying that the phony Russian dossier was real? I mean, everybody knows this. We don't have to relitigate it this morning. The point is, the Department of Justice currently is doing what the Department of Justice should do, and they have to hold people accountable. We have to ensure that the rule of law applies to everyone, and that's exactly what's happening here.
Does the rule of law have to apply to people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th?
Well, I'm glad you brought that up. There's new information over the last couple of days about that as well. Apparently, there were 274 FBI agents in the crowd on January 6th. No, I think Cash Patel, Cash Patel just just brought some enhanced understanding to that. They were sent there to do crowd control, uh, because of everything that was going on. They weren't, it wasn't a a false flag operation as President Trump suggested.
Well, well, Jake, wait a minute. Hold on, Jake. How do you know that? Right. There's a lot going about.
Well, and and I'm telling you that there's videos and there's it's always been disputed what involvement some of those persons, uh, you know, engaged in. What involvement they had. Did they spur on the crowd? Did they open the gates to allow them in? I I don't know. These are questions, but they should be answered. And and yes, there's a lot of investigation and discovery to go forward. We have a a select subcommittee, bipartisan, uh, a a committee that is is reviewing the investigation of the original J6 committee. I mean, a committee investigating the previous committee. Why? Because there was so much bias in the system. And, uh, that that committee was rigged, I think. And I think they, they, my theory is, I've always believed that they got rid of evidence and they hid some of this. So all of it's going to come out. The American people deserve full transparency. Full transparency. Congress is working on it, and that's what the administration is working on.
I'm always in favor of full transparency, including including for the Epstein files, which, uh, that will probably come on the floor of the House, uh, uh, soon, and we'll have lots of discussions about that. Speaker Johnson, always good to have you here. Thank you so much, sir.
Thanks, Jake. Appreciate it. You pray.