WASHINGTON — This morning, at the weekly House Republican Leadership press conference, Speaker Johnson discussed the impact and legacy of Charlie Kirk, explained how House Republicans are working with the Trump Administration to make the nation’s capital safe again, and laid out the plan to responsibly keep the government open.
Watch Speaker Johnson’s remarks here.
On political violence:
The tragedy has also initiated a number of uncomfortable but necessary conversations about important issues like the safety and security of our members, the responsibility of public servants, and the need for political leaders to turn down the temperature and the violent rhetoric in America. It’s not helpful. Government leaders, in this body in particular, have an increasing tendency to frame simple policy disputes as some sort of existential threat to our country, or as causes to, as some of them have said in their own words, take into the streets.
That’s not helpful, that is not productive. And it leads to bad consequences. Leaders cannot call their political opponent opponents nazis and fascists and enemies of the state because they disagree with their policy priorities. I mean, this, this is something we should have learned in in grade school. This type of language spurs on depraved people, deranged people who take that as a cue. And this tragic phenomenon played out this week in Utah. Whether it’s in politics, government, media, or business, people look to leaders for guidance. We have to walk in the dignity of our offices, as I say all the time. And when ostensibly serious representatives compare their ideological opponents to murderous dictators and evil people, some see that as a cue to act. And we have to stop that. The political violence has been decried and it should be across the board, and we have to continue calling it out. And we will until it does.
On House Republicans’ D.C. crime crackdown:
The DC crime bills have been referenced because we understand that solving this nationwide violent crime problem is critically important. It’s a priority for President Trump as it is for Congressional Republicans. Crime is something that touches everybody. And we all know somebody who’s been carjacked or had a wallet stolen at gunpoint or was mugged; it’s happened to members of Congress in our nation’s capitol, and we have to stop it. Stopping violent crime is something that virtually every American agrees on. It’s an 80/20 or 90/10 issue in this country. So, this week, house Republicans are going to build on President Trump’s wildly successful crackdown on crime here in the Capital with four DC specific bills that we believe can serve as a model for other municipalities around the country.
On keeping the government open:
We’re going to release text here shortly, I think around noon, for a short term, clean continuing resolution that will keep the government funded and operating at current levels while we continue all this work and doing our jobs and getting the remaining bills done. Predictably and unfortunately, there are some Democrats who are openly pining for a government shutdown. In spite of this obvious and necessary step, they’re grasping for straws as a party. And so, some of them apparently believe that shutting down the government will be some sort of life raft for them so they can regain the support of the American people. I just think that is a fool’s gambit.
To make it a part as an exercise is making a big mistake. In exchange for their vote to fund the government, some Democrats said they wanted Republicans to repeal our very popular and very effective, reforms to the Medicaid program where we cut fraud, waste, and abuse. And we ensured that illegal aliens don’t receive taxpayer benefits, and we put able bodied men back to work. They want us to wind that back, zero chance that we will do that because it’s the right thing to do. And they’re also demanding that we include unrelated health insurance tax credit provisions. That is a December policy issue, not a September funding issue.
This will not be a partisan CR, it’ll be a clean, short-term continuing resolution, end of story. And it’s interesting to me that some of the same Democrats who decried government shutdowns under President Biden appear to have no heartache whatsoever at walking our nation off that cliff right now. I hope they don’t. I hope that they’ll work with us so we can all do our jobs here. We get a short-term CR done, complete the appropriations bill, and get back to the regular order that we have all seen as necessary so we can be good stewards of taxpayers’ funds.
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