WASHINGTON — On Day 19 of the Democrat Shutdown, Speaker Johnson joined Jon Karl on ABC News’ This Week and Peter Doocy on Fox News’ The Sunday Briefing to discuss the stark contrast between Republicans and Democrats and the ongoing “split screen” between the two parties.
“Think of the split screen. What’s happening right now? President Trump and Republicans reduced taxes, reduced regulations to get the economy going again, ended the crime crisis, ended the border crisis. He’s resolving wars and conflicts around the globe,” Speaker Johnson said. “What have Democrats done? They shut the government down.”
Watch Speaker Johnson on ABC News here, on Fox News here.
On Congressional Democrats dragging the government shutdown into a fourth week:
I will tell you that the President takes no pleasure in this. I know this, Peter, because when we were in the Oval Office before the shutdown began in mid-September, he pleaded with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries not to go down this road because he knew that that good, faithful, hardworking American citizens would suffer great harm because of this. And you see that. You know, the paychecks for troops, while we got it done middle of this month because of the President’s heroic efforts, that is not guaranteed going forward. He found a temporary pot of money to pay the troops, but it’s going to run out. And you have border patrol and TSA agents and air traffic controllers and all the rest, veteran services, health services, nutrition services to mothers and infants. The Democrats have now voted 11 times to block all of that, to shut down the government, and they have no good reason for doing so. Chuck Schumer’s doing it for political cover. President Trump is governing, and they’ve been dealt this situation, dealt this hand by Chuck Schumer, and they have to make the most of it. They have to triage federal spending because Schumer and the Democrats turned off the revenue streams. That’s just a reality of where we are.
I sent them a totally clean CR. It had zero Republican policy priorities attached to it. It’s merely maintaining the status quo, keeping the lights on so that we can continue all our work and get government appropriations finished up. They denied that and they’ve now voted 11 times to block paychecks for troops. And what they filed as the counter proposal, let’s never forget, is absolute madness. They want to spend instead $1.5 trillion. They want to give healthcare back to illegal aliens, paid for by taxpayer dollars to at tune of about $200 billion. They want to claw back the money that we set aside for rural hospitals, and they want to spend on all sorts of wasteful nonsense around the globe. They want all that to come back. We can’t do it. They know we’re not going to do that. And it’s not a good faith effort on their part.
On the irony of Democrats embracing the “No Kings” protest:
We congratulate them on an apparently violent-free, free speech exercise. I was a first amendment lawyer for 20 years. We defend that right. But the irony of the message is pretty clear for everyone. If President Trump was a king, the government would be open right now. If President Trump was a king, they would not have been able to engage in that free speech exercise out on the mall, by the way, which was open because President Trump hasn’t closed it. In the 2013 shutdown, President Obama closed the National Mall. He closed all the national parks, didn’t allow people to engage in all this. They needed a stunt. They needed a show. Chuck Schumer needs cover right now. He’s closed the government down because he needs political cover. And this was a part of it.
On the relationship between Congress and the White House:
We have unified government. The American people put Republicans in charge of the White House, the Senate, and the House, and we are delivering for the people. You can make an argument, the first nine months of this Congress and this administration were the most successful, most productive in history. Think of the split screen. What’s happening right now? President Trump and Republicans reduced taxes, reduced regulations to get the economy going again. Ended the crime crisis, ending the border crisis. He’s resolving wars and conflicts around the globe. What have Democrats done? They shut the government down.
Congress is more than a check on the executive branch. We’re the Article I body in the Constitution. We have a preeminent responsibility, and I take that seriously. I’m a lifelong constitutional attorney and somebody who’s been a jealous advocate of it. The President and I talk all the time about policies and decisions and all of that. We do that behind closed doors, because that’s what party leaders do when you’re in the same party. It’s called unified government. The reason we’ve been so productive is because we do that so well and we’re delivering for the American people.
On the Democrat Shutdown blocking further work on bipartisan appropriations:
The House has already passed the 12 appropriations bills through committee. They don’t need a committee hearing to do that. We need to get them off the floor. But it’s been stopped by the Democrats in the Senate. And why? Because Chuck Schumer is afraid that one of these Marxists is going to run against him in his next reelection, and he has to get political cover. When he did the right thing in March, and he voted for the nearly identical CR, he took massive heat from the far left. Many of the groups that were out there protesting yesterday, he can’t face them again.
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