For Immediate Release
March 5, 2025
Contact: Taylor Haulsee
WASHINGTON — Speaker Johnson joined Good Morning America with George Stephanopoulos to offer additional reaction to President Trump’s historic joint address to Congress last night.
Watch Speaker Johnson’s full interview here
On the reaction to President Trump’s joint address:
Let me say George, the speech last night went overwhelmingly well. It was not a speech for the mainstream media, it was a speech for the American people. I saw a poll this morning from CBS that said that 76% of viewers viewed it favorably. It was very well received in the House, except by the Democrats, of course, who resorted to this sort of pettiness, and I even had to eject a member from the chamber. I think that was the first time in history, a pretty sad reflection, I think on the members who did that. But overall, it was a good night.
On Congressional Democrats response:
If the Democrats want a 77-year-old congressman to be the face of their resistance heckling the President, then bring it on. But we couldn’t allow that on the House floor and so I had to eject them. I didn’t want to do that. I hate that it resorted to that, but we’ve got to keep decorum in the chamber. This used to be a celebrated event, you know, pomp and circumstance, and both sides would applaud for the President. You know, we did that for President Biden on the lines that were there.
But last night, the Democrats couldn’t even stand for the Americans that President Trump was recognizing in the gallery. I mean, you had the families of Jocelyn Nungaray and Laken Riley and Corey Comperatore — Americans who had lost their lives. They couldn’t stand and applaud for the capture of the terrorist mastermind of Abbey Gate. It was really a sad affair.
On FY25 Government Funding:
We’ll have a continuing resolution, it’ll go through the end of the fiscal year, and we will pass that out of the House and send it over to the Senate. And I certainly hope that reasonably minded members of both sides of the aisle will do the right thing. It doesn’t help anyone to have a government shut down. We’ve been negotiating in good faith for many weeks to try to get to a top line that everyone could agree with. But the Democrats put in some very unreasonable and unprecedented demands at the end. So that’s what’s forced us into the continuing resolution situation.
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