Speaker Mike Johnson Takes Victory Lap After Budget Reconciliation Barely Passes House

2 days ago

Speaker Johnson speaks to reporters after the Republican budget reconciliation bill passes the House.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Hey, everybody. Good to see you all. It's a good day in the House. I told you not to doubt us. The

00:16media always does. The Democrats always do. But we get the job done, and we're really grateful

00:20to have had the big victory on the floor just now. It was a big one, a very important one.

00:25Quick recap, just on a busy week in Washington, we got a lot of important things done for the

00:29American people this week. We passed the SAVE Act today, as you know, and that ensures that you've

00:34got to have identification. You have to prove your identity because only U.S. citizens should

00:39vote and decide U.S. elections. It's already in federal law, but there's no mechanism currently

00:43to ensure that that law is always followed, and this measure, the SAVE Act, will help make sure

00:48that it's true. We passed the No Rogue Rulings Act, which, as you know, will limit the ability of

00:53activists, liberal, in this case federal judges, to issue injunctions that will stop a president's

01:00policies nationwide. That has been wildly abused against President Trump, and the Congress had an

01:07obligation and responsibility, I think, to step in and make sure that we bring that under control.

01:11We also repealed some very damaging Biden-era regulations again this week, and we'll continue

01:17that work. But the big news today, of course, is that we passed the budget resolution. We adopted

01:23the Senate's amendments to the resolution, holding in place all of the commitments and the instructions,

01:29the guidelines that the House originally enacted, and that was a big step because that will allow us

01:34now to move forward to have our committees actually drafting the one big beautiful bill. There's a lot of

01:39work ahead of us, and we're really excited about that. In November, the American people delivered unified

01:44government to the Republican Party. They returned President Donald J. Trump to the White House.

01:48They gave us control of the House and the Senate, and we are going to make good by that. We have a

01:53big responsibility. In the budget reconciliation bill, the reason we call it the one big beautiful

01:58bill, everybody in this crowd of journalists knows that all the components that will be in that.

02:02We're talking about ensuring that the border is secure, having the resources that are necessary

02:06to do that. We're talking about getting the American economy going again by reducing regulations.

02:12We're talking about restoring peace through strength and making sure we have the measures

02:16in place to properly fund those priorities. We have a lot of things, American energy dominance,

02:22all the components that will make things better for Americans, drive down the cost of living,

02:28and get our economy really going again. And, of course, not the least of which,

02:32the big components of the one big beautiful bill is to ensure that we don't have the largest tax

02:36increase in U.S. history all at once, which is what would happen at the end of this year if we

02:41didn't accomplish this mission, because the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the tax cuts from the first Trump

02:45administration, as we know, would expire. So a big day for us. We will now get the committees

02:51operating on all cylinders. They'll be working over the two-week district work period that encompasses

02:56Passover and Easter. They'll take a couple days off for those holy celebrations and then

03:02keep their sleeves rolled up and get right back to work. The committees in the Senate and the House

03:06will be working in a collaborative fashion. We've explained this, that this really is a one-team

03:11approach by Republicans in both chambers. I'm so grateful to Leader Thune and his steady hand of

03:17leadership. We had a joint press conference this morning making our commitments known of what we're

03:22going to try to do, and that is ensure real savings for the American people because we have to do that.

03:27We have a responsibility to get our country back on a sound fiscal trajectory, and also

03:31make sure that we ensure and protect those essential programs. The Democrats, as I noted this

03:36morning, have said that we are going to gut Medicaid. It is not true. We're going to protect

03:42the benefits that everyone is legally entitled to. The beneficiaries who have a legal right to that,

03:49it will be preserved. Those are essential safety net programs that Republicans support.

03:53The President has made clear Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid will not take a hit. So you can count on

03:59that and you can watch it develop as we go. Hold on, our other priorities as well. I just want to tell

04:05you what will happen when we return after the two-week district work period. Our committees will begin

04:10to the markup process. We have our 11 committees that will get instructions for reconciliation in the

04:15House. They are ready to go. We've been working on this for many months, almost a year now really,

04:20when we first started the effort. And so we have the work product already prepared. We have bills

04:24drafted. Most of them have been scored already. And now we go through the process of marking it up

04:30and finding the equilibrium points with everybody so that all those interests are met. We're looking

04:34forward to that happening. And I just want to say this. The American people are counting on us.

04:40Time is of the essence. We know what's going on around the world. We know that the debt limit

04:45cliff is approaching us pretty quickly here. We know that markets have been a little unstable. They want to

04:50know that Congress is on the job. And I'm here to tell you that we are the Article I branch of this

04:55government, that the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate are going to do our job. And

04:59we're going to provide stability. And we're going to send our this message to all of our allies and

05:03friends around the world and to our adversaries as well that America is back and the America First

05:08agenda will be enacted. President Trump's promises will be fulfilled. And we're really excited that

05:13today we took a big step in getting that done. Mr. Speaker, what changed between last night and this

05:19morning? What closed the deal? Look, we're in a deliberative body. And we did a lot of work

05:26leading up to this moment, of course, for many months. But sometimes there are pressure release

05:31valves you have to allow people to do. You know, everybody's human around here. There's lots of

05:35different interests. We have 220 people in the Republican conference. And they have a lot of different

05:40ideas. They represent a lot of different districts. And sometimes when the pressure gets turned up,

05:44people need to release that. So that's what I do. I allow them to do that. We take thoughtful

05:49discussion and deliberation. Sometimes we do it out in open. Sometimes we do it in

05:54closed meetings. But we had that until late last night. I did more of it this morning.

05:58I want to I want to compliment our president, President Trump, who is who has always engaged

06:02with us and available and accessible. He didn't have to call a single member to wrangle anybody on

06:08this thing. He allowed me the space to do what I need to do. And we got the votes together. And

06:13we reaffirmed our commitments. It's real. We want to find real savings. We have an

06:18obligation to do that. But we also have to protect these essential programs. We can and

06:23we'll do both. And you're going to see that in the next few weeks.

06:25The Pressure, how do you ensure that this type of war with hardliners doesn't derail

06:29the process in the coming months?

06:31President Trump, President Trump, President Trump, President Trump,

06:31Look, everyone that you would describe as a hardliner, I mean, people who were in the room

06:34last night, they're in good faith. I mean, these are my closest friends, colleagues. I mean,

06:39all of us. We're one big team. And their intention is good. They're in good faith. They want to make

06:46sure, because they believe we have responsibilities, as I do, to make sure that the national debt

06:51and our deficits that we've been running around here for too long are turned back on a different

06:56trajectory. And I use the analogy all the time. We have a it's effectively like a giant aircraft

07:01carrier and you don't turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. It takes miles of open ocean. But we

07:06have a responsibility and we have a once in a lifetime opportunity with this reconciliation

07:11measure before us to take make a real turn in an aircraft carrier. And we're very serious about

07:16it. And so the colleagues that were in the conversations up to past midnight last night

07:21just wanted assurances that we're really, really going to do that. And we are. But we're going to

07:25do it in a way that doesn't unduly affect or harm any beneficiary of a public program that's available

07:31to them. So you'll see that.

07:32Can you give some areas of spending cuts you're looking at? Because you said you've been working

07:36on this for a while. So you must know where you're going to cut.

07:38Yeah, we have big menus of options and items in 11 different committees of jurisdiction. And

07:45one of the big ones is energy and commerce because you have such a broad jurisdiction. And

07:49that's where you'll be looking at, you know, Medicaid, for example, which is the

07:52thing that the Democrats are trying to, frankly, lie to the American people about.

07:57No one has talked about cutting one benefit in Medicaid to anyone who's duly owed. What we've

08:01talked about is returning work requirements. So, for example, you don't have able bodied young men on a

08:07program that's designed for single mothers and the elderly and disabled. They're draining resources

08:12from people who actually do that. So if you clean that up and shore it up, you save a lot of money

08:17and you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing video

08:22games all day. We have a lot of fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid. Just one tiny example. The estimate

08:27is 51 billion dollars a year and Medicaid is lost to fraud. That's unconscionable. We now have with

08:33the doge efforts and with new algorithms and with new oversight responsibilities and opportunities,

08:39we have the ability to carve that out. We have a responsibility to do it. That estimate by some

08:44people, some estimates say that is very low. It's actually much higher than that. So we're going to go

08:48through, carve out, find these savings, low hanging fruit and examples like that. There's a lot of it in the federal

08:54government. I mean, look, we have a 36 trillion dollar federal debt right now. We're running

08:58deficits every year. It's not the way to run our country. We need to return to fiscal sanity

09:04and that's what the Republican Party represents. And you know what? That's good for every American.

09:08But sir, the instructions are 800 billion dollars for these committees. Are you saying there is 800

09:14billion dollars in fraud, waste and abuse? I'm saying that I'm saying that the categories of fraud,

09:21waste and abuse, in addition to the other areas that we've been looking at for almost a year now,

09:26that we can find well more than 800 billion dollars in savings. And we will. And that's what we've

09:30committed to. That's what it takes.

09:31The Pressure on the markets, because the markets are down 1,300 points. And you talked about,

09:36you know, sending them a strong signal that Congress is doing its work. I mean,

09:39obviously we saw the President put the paws on his stairs. Does he need to just end them,

09:44scrap them at this point to give the markets more certainty?

09:47I'm delighted to let the President make the decisions on that. I mean,

09:51he and I spoke yesterday about the spike in the stock market after the pause,

09:54and I think he recognized the moment was right to do it. And that seems to be a great decision.

09:59So we're going to let him do that. I'm going to do my job over here. But I do hope and believe that

10:04the vote today is a very strong signal to the markets, to investors, job creators,

10:08entrepreneurs, the people that make the economy run, that Congress is going to get us on sound

10:13footing. And you can count on that and you can bet on it. And you ought to, I think,

10:18today would be a great day to buy stuff.

10:19Can you still pass this bill by for more?

Speaker Mike Johnson Takes Victory Lap After Budget Reconciliation Barely Passes House

Category

Transcript

Recommended