WASHINGTON — This afternoon, Speaker Johnson appeared on CNN’s Inside Politics with Dana Bash and Fox News’ The Story with Martha MacCallum to discuss how Congressional Democrats have had 14 opportunities to fully fund SNAP and WIC benefits for American families but have refused each opportunity and instead voted to keep the government closed.
“There’s a very important point that everyone needs to understand. Republicans have voted 14 times to provide SNAP benefits, military pay, veterans’ health services, nutrition assistance for young women, the disabled, and the elderly. We’ve done it 14 times. The Democrats have voted 14 times to block all of that,” Speaker Johnson said.
Watch Speaker Johnson on CNN here, on Fox News here.
On public opinion turning against Congressional Democrats:
The reason that our numbers are rising is because we are articulating the simple truth. What [Rep. Stansbury] said is absurd and even CNN had to say wait a minute, that’s not right. They are the ones that have voted now, between the House and the Senate, 14 times to close the government and impose all this pain on the American people. It’s the Republicans voting over and over to keep the government open. I think there is a break coming, I think the dynamic will change. I certainly hope so; we pray that’s true. That the Democrats will continue to feel the pressure from the American people, from all these voices, even in the moderate and center-Left, like the unions who are saying please do the right thing, stop playing games, you are hurting real Americans and break that impasse. We are appealing to whatever moderate and centrist Democrats are left in the Senate to do the right thing, put the politics aside, do the right thing for the people so we can get about our work here again and get the government open.
On Congressional Republicans repeatedly voting to fully fund SNAP and WIC benefits:
There’s a very important point that everyone needs to understand. Republicans have voted 14 times to provide SNAP benefits, military pay, veterans’ health services, nutrition assistance for young women, the disabled, the elderly. We’ve done it 14 times. The Democrats have voted 14 times to block all of that. We need to do all of those things simultaneously. You have to pay the troops, you have to pay Border Patrol, TSA agents and air traffic controllers and everybody else. All of these things need to be done, not just part of them. The White House has bent over backwards to try to mitigate and reduce the pain as much as possible. We’ve gotten troops paid for part of October, but those funds are running out. We got WIC funding, women, infants,and children nutrition programs, funded thanks to the President. But that money’s running out as well. This is very real. The pain is very serious, and Democrats are playing games with this.
On Democrats calling for “negotiations” while the government remains closed:
There’s no deal to be made. Remember, the CR does not have Trump or Republican priorities on it at all. There’s nothing we can pull off of that to make it more palatable for the Democrats. I would’ve done that a long time ago. But we operated in good faith from day one. Back in September, on September 19, we voted for a clean, nonpartisan CR. It’s only 24 pages in length. It just says keep everything at status quo so we can all finish our jobs here. The Democrats rejected it for the first time in their lives. They did the same type of CR, voted for it 13 times during the Biden Administration. The only reason they did it right now is because they’re afraid of the rise of the Far-Left Marxists in their party. And they have to show them that they’re going to fight even while real people are hurting during this political game, this showmanship. Chuck Schumer’s trying to save his own political hide in New York. And he’s willing to put the American people through this great hardship for that reason alone. And it is shocking to us.
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