WASHINGTON — This morning, Speaker Johnson joined Shannon Bream on Fox News’ Fox News Sunday and Major Garrett on CBS News’ Face the Nation to discuss Charlie Kirk’s impact on America, as well as the responsibility of all leaders to turn down the temperature of political rhetoric in America. Speaker Johnson also addressed Republican efforts to responsibly keep the government funded and operating
Watch Speaker Johnson on Fox News and CBS.
On Charlie Kirk’s impact:
It was a difficult week for the country, certainly it was felt on Capitol Hill. There is a mixture of anger and sadness and fear, frankly, on the part of a lot of people. It cast a large shadow across the country and in the nation’s capital. But what I do know Major is that my good friend Charlie would not want any of us to be consumed by despair. He would want us to go forward boldly. That was his message and to do it in love. And I think that, I hope, is the message that continues in the days ahead.
And I think this is a real moment for America, affirmatively. And I think one of the ways to do that Major is to adopt the manner of Charlie Kirk, because while he loved vigorous debate and he believed in the free marketplace of ideas and advancing truth boldly, he also was motivated by love for his fellow man, because he’d never hated the person on the other side of the table. And I think everyone would do well to be reminded of that model.
On the rise of political violence and the need to turn down the temperature:
I’ve spoken to a lot of members on both sides of the aisle, and there’s this recognition that people have got to stop framing simple policy disagreements in terms of existential threats to our democracy. All these phrases you hear all the time; you can’t call the other side fascists and enemies of the state and not understand that there are some deranged people in our society who will take that as cues to act and do crazy and dangerous things. And that’s what we’ve seen in increasing frequency.
Members of Congress and all public officials have an obligation to speak clearly to this and calm the waters. We can have vigorous disputes. I mean, Charlie Kirk was an expert at that. He loved debate, but Charlie also advanced another really important idea, and that is that he loved the people on the other side of that table. He was never motivated by hate. He was motivated by truth and love. And that’s what we have to do. That’s who we are as Americans, that follows the best of our Judeo-Christian traditions and heritage and our civil society. And we have got to get back to that.
On government funding:
Democrats currently are playing games with government funding; they’re trying to bring in extraneous issues. We’ve been working towards getting the government funding appropriations bills done in the House. Our Appropriations Committee worked, by the way, in bipartisan fashion, to get all 12 appropriations bills through the committee. We’ve gotten three of them passed off the House floor and now we’ve voted just last week to go into a conference committee with the Senate to begin grinding this out. That’s how the process is supposed to work.
So, if there’s anyone, any Democrats who are trying to suggest that they want to shut the government down, we’re going to do everything possible to prevent that from happening. It does not behoove the country. And we may need a short gap funding measure, a CR for a short period of time, to allow the negotiations to continue. But it will be clean in its scope. And I surely hope the Democrats will not try to make this a big partisan fight.
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