WASHINGTON — As the Democrat Government Shutdown crosses one week, Speaker Johnson held another press conference in the Rayburn Room of the U.S. Capitol to remind the American people – and the mainstream media – that Chuck Schumer has spent nearly half a century in Congress and has always advocated to keep the government open over partisan policy disputes. The only difference now is that he is running scared of his Far-Left base.
“Chuck Schumer has been in Congress for 44 years. He was first elected to the House in 1981, just for reference. I was nine years old. I was in the third grade when Chuck Schumer came here to Congress,” Speaker Johnson said. “Throughout his entire career, he has been very consistent about the necessity of keeping the government open, until just now.”
Watch Speaker Johnson’s full remarks here.
On Chuck Schumer deliberately lying to the American people:
Chuck Schumer has been in Congress for 44 years. He was first elected to the House in 1981, just for reference. I was nine years old. I was in the third grade when Chuck Schumer came here to Congress. Throughout his entire career, he has been very consistent about the necessity of keeping the government open, until just now. In fact, I want to read to you an excerpt from seven months ago, his floor speech on March 13th, 2025. This is Senator Chuck Schumer in March of this year on the Senate floor. “While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse. I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country to minimize the harms of the American people. Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.”
Now, what was Chuck Schumer talking about? The exact same bill that is on the floor today. That’s what he himself said, and he did vote to keep the government open. And then during an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN following that vote on March 14 of this year, he said, “I’m proud I did it. I know I did the right thing.” That is Chuck Schumer himself. Today’s the exact same scenario. It is the exact same vote. It is the exact same spending levels, and he has no reason whatsoever to do anything different except for the politics.
On Democrats refusing to support a clean CR despite doing it during the Biden Administration:
The Democrats record on the CRs; you know about Chuck Schumer’s record, but they’ve all done it. Democrats and Republicans have worked together to pass 13 CRs to keep the government open under the Biden administration in the previous four-year term. Democrats supported every CR close to unanimously in the House and the Senate. In fact, their average is 99%. 99% of the Democrats who are voting no right now, voted yes 13 times on the almost exact same word for word, very simple CRs to keep the government open, but they won’t do it now.
On the real-life consequences of the Democrat government shutdown:
This is resulting in crippling economic losses right now […] each week the shutdown continues, it will wipe out an estimated $15 billion in our GDP in our country. A month-long shutdown would mean not just 750,000 federal civilian employees furloughed right now, but an additional 43,000 more unemployed Americans across the economy because that is the ripple effect that it has in the private sector. You could go state by state and we could have charts and graphs this morning and show you what it’s going to mean to every state. But what the shutdown means in the state of New York, for example, that’s Chuck Schumer’s state. The impact there is the decline of $1.2 billion per month in GDP.
That is the pain that is being wrought. And I again, have to mention that when you shut down as they have, women, infants, and children nutrition programs, veterans’ health services, the disabled, the elderly who receive healthcare at home, all these programs are now being shuttered because the funding streams have stopped. We have troops, we have border patrol agents, TSA agents that are all serving, protecting all of us, protecting the country without pay right now. Real hardships for real families, and it cannot drag on any longer. We are pleading with the Democrats in the Senate to do the right thing.
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