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For Immediate Release April 14, 2024 Contact: Taylor Haulsee
WASHINGTON — Today, Speaker Johnson joined Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures to discuss Iran’s attack on Israel, supplemental national security legislation, securing the border, preventing non-citizens from voting, and FISA. Below are key excerpts from the interview.
Click here to watch the full interview
On support for Israel:
Well, we’ve understood the urgency of this from the very beginning. I mean, a few days after I became speaker way back in October, we passed our Israel support package. It’s been sitting on Chuck Schumer’s desk ever since because we included a pay for as you remember. What a concept, we took from the IRS expansion slush fund to pay for the Israel priority. We tried it again, just about a month and a half ago, a clean Israel, that many Democrats 166, as I remember in the House, voted against.Why? Because President Joe Biden said that he would veto that. So, the House Republicans and the Republican Party understand the necessity of standing with Israel. We’re going to try again this week, and the details of that package are being put together. Right now, we’re looking at the options and all these supplemental issues.
… I do think that we showed resolve last night thankfully, many of us were concerned about that to stand with our ally Israel. It’s critically important to do that. We took down most of those drones and missiles, as you noted, and our other allies stepped up as well. What’s important right now is that we stand with Israel. We should not be dictating to them what their policy is; we certainly shouldn’t be doing what Chuck Schumer did, trying to suggest they should have new elections at this critical time. They’re fighting for their very existence, and it’s never been more important for us to be there with them. And we’re resolved to do that. I hope that continues.
On supplemental legislation:
I had a great visit with [Trump] at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, and he and I are 100% united on these big agenda items. And when you talk about aid to Ukraine, he’s introduced the loan lease concept, which is a really important one, I think has a lot of consensus as well as these other ideas – the REPO Act, which we’ve discussed, which is seizing the the assets of corrupt Russian oligarchs to help pay for this resistance. I think these are ideas that I think can get consensus, and that’s what we’ve been working through. We’ll send our package, we’ll put something together and send it to the Senate and get these obligations completed.
On securing the border:
What Marjorie fails to notice is that we have been fighting on the border. We fight on it every day. We passed our comprehensive border security package HR 2, at the very beginning of this Congress. It has been sitting on Chuck Schumer’s desk. We pass these acts out of the House, and they get stopped in the Senate. See this the open-border Democrats control the Senate and the White House, obviously. So we’ve not been able to have a lawmaking exercise to meet that critical objective, but we’re fighting every day. That’s why we’ve been demanding that President Biden use his executive authority to seal that border. President Trump reiterated that demand at our press conference together on Friday. We need the White House to step up.
On preventing non-citizens from voting:
Well, listen, some [democrats] have admitted to us even on record in Judiciary Committee hearings that they want illegals to vote, they’ve allowed it in some municipal elections. What Congress has control over is federal elections. We have to do every single thing we can to secure their elections are free and fair. And one thing we need to do and this is what we’re about to the House Republicans are about to enter legislation in the record that will ensure that no illegal can vote in a federal election. You have to prove you’re a citizen, instead of as the law currently states, just checking a box to say it.
On FISA:
Yeah, President [Trump] and I agree on the necessity of the uses of FISA. Remember that’s how we killed terrorists. That’s how we stopped her as plots and on US soil. That’s why we haven’t had had another 911 since that terrible tragedy. President Trump used it and he reauthorized it in 2018 for six years. And that’s why it’s up again. What we did was we changed the bill to fit his requirements and ours and that is that it would expire now, two years from now in the middle of his next administration. So he’s the one that gets to determine what’s working well, it’s a critical tool to stop terrorism. That the whole point of the law is that we surveil foreign persons foreign terrorist, but the reason the warrant requirement is not helpful. And the reason that people that we love and respect like Mike Pompeo and John Ratcliffe and, and Robert O’Brien and Devin Nunez, who’ve been in the intelligence community and are our guys, are conservatives who came off Judiciary Committee, a couple of them. They said you can’t put the warrant on this. Here’s what happens quick scenarios. This is important for people to understand, Maria.
If we’re surveilling a terrorist in the Middle East, and the terrorist sends an email to a guy named John Smith in any town USA, and the email says the components will be delivered to your house this afternoon for further assembly and delivery to the high school stadium during the game. I think every American would want the analyst who saw that email from that foreign terrorist to do a query of the other communications between those two persons. That is not unlawful and that must continue. If that analysts had to get a warrant before that, it would add a huge time delay; the courts are not set up to be able to to handle all that volume. And Americans may die. We want to look at those emails and find out my goodness, which high school stadium? What time? And is this a bomb? And what are the components? We have to continue that to save American lives. That’s what’s at stake. This is not this is not searches on American citizens. If they were going to search John Smith, they would have to go get a warrant to do anything else. But this is lawfully collected data under Section 702. And it must continue.
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