WASHINGTON — This morning, Speaker Johnson joined Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss Congressional Democrat leaders admitting they are intentionally inflicting “suffering” on American families and using that pain as “leverage” in this shutdown.
Watch Speaker Johnson’s full interview here.
On Democrats using the “suffering” of American families as leverage to extract $1.5 trillion in new partisan spending:
When they say they’re using the shutdown as leverage, what is it they’re trying to obtain out of that? What’s the point? It’s not the health care subsidy extension; that’s a red herring. That’s their talking point, a distraction that they’ve glommed onto. They actually put on paper, Joe, what they want. They want $1.5 trillion of wasteful spending. They want to prop up leftist news organizations with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with a half a billion dollars. They want to send billions of dollars back overseas for social programs in foreign countries. We’re not doing that. And importantly, they want to extend those Obamacare subsidies permanently without any reforms. Oh, by the way, restoring health care to illegal aliens, again, that’s 200 billion of their demand. That’s what they’re leveraging. They’re using the American people as pawns in this game and as leverage to get all of that.
On Democrats now arguing they want to pay federal workers and troops:
Well, Ro is my friend, I have great respect for him. But he did vote against those very things on September 19. That’s what the CR was. The continuing resolution was to keep all those people paid. And every Democrat in the House voted against that. They voted to close the government down and stop those services. Now, if we were here today and we had another vote on the floor, it would not change that outcome because the Senate Democrats just batted that down last week. They voted down pay for troops and the defense appropriations bill. They’re going to do it again, I think today, because Leader Thune is going to put on the floor a bill to pay essential workers. All those categories of folks that I just named that are putting on a uniform every day, protecting the country, and protecting our borders and making sure the skies are safe.
And the Democrats have already told us they’re going to vote against that. So, it would be a pointless exercise in the House. And that is why I keep emphasizing the House has done its job. We voted to fund the government. We voted to do all these things 33 days ago, and that bill has been sitting on Chuck Schumer’s desk. They will not pass it over there, again, because he promised the radical Left that he would show a fight against Trump, no matter the pain that it causes on the American people. And now the Democrat leaders in the House are admitting that’s exactly what they’re doing.
On Democrats pining for a backroom deal to reopen the government:
He [Schumer] said it publicly and breathlessly, he’s complained that four leaders won’t go in a back room, a smoke-filled room, and make a deal. That’s not how this works. I don’t operate that way. When I became Speaker, I vowed to my colleagues that we would return to regular order. I would decentralize the Speaker’s Office, and it would not be a top down hoisted upon the membership kind of program anymore. This is a member driven, consensus driven operation. That’s how the Founders intended it to work. They did not want four people to go in a back room and make a deal. By the way, I couldn’t do that on something as complicated as extension of Obamacare COVID subsidies because we have to find the consensus. There are a hundred different ideas on how to improve that.
And we needed the time in October and November to work through that with all the members. I refuse to go in a back room with Chuck Schumer and make a deal. I don’t operate that way. It’s not good for the people. It’s not good for financial stewardship. And it’s part of the reason we’re $37 trillion in debt as a nation because you have two or three or four people in a back room doing that. We’re not operating that way. That’s Chuck Schumer’s old way. We need this to work for the people again. And that’s what I’m insisting upon. And I’ll keep telling him that publicly and privately.
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