Speaker Johnson on Middle East deal, shutdown

Mr. Speaker, do you envision a scenario where the president might ask Congress for funds to rebuild Gaza? If so, would you be supportive of that? And what about perhaps using US military forces as part of an international security force to guarantee security there? Well, I'm going to reserve judgment on any of those things because they're hypotheticals right now. I do know that all of our allies around the world have an equal interest in this, and I suspect this will be a project for many nations, or all nations, even the Arab states, of course, that are the closest neighbors, but also our European allies. And everyone has an interest in this. So this should be truly a world community coming together to help make this happen. And I hope that the US would not be expected to shoulder the large share of the burden for that.

In another part of the world, Mr. Speaker, the president says he is close to sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, saying he has sort of made the decision and merely wants to know, quote, "what they're going to do with them." Do you support that move, and would it place administration policy squarely behind the objective of Ukraine winning the war and regaining all of its lost territory? Well, I'm going to let the commander in chief specify what the intent, what the objective would be there. But I will tell you that on behalf of Congress, there is a big appetite to get that conflict resolved, just as apparently we now have in Gaza. We need that conflict to come to an end as well. We've invested a lot there, of course. We have stood for the right side of this. Russia was the aggressor, and they have proven once again, as they have over and over, they simply cannot be trusted. Vladimir Putin cannot be trusted. And so the president has lost his patience with that, and so have we. Congress has an appetite, as well, to do serious sanctions as is necessary against Russia. And I communicate regularly with our allies around the world, and they feel the same way. So I think, again, once again, you have the international community united, I think, in purpose here. And I hope that has the desired effect.

Do you think Tomahawks could be a game changer? I'm certain they would be. And for a long time Ukraine has requested weapons that were not provided to them to stretch further and do more in a defensive and then offensive posture to bring that war to an end. So we'll see. I suspect that would change the calculus there pretty substantially.

Mr. Speaker, is there any scenario that you can imagine where you would bring the House back into session without the Senate passing the House-passed continuing resolution? Not at this moment. And I'll tell you why. Because the House has done its job. It was September 19, now almost three weeks ago, that we passed the clean continuing resolution. And we've spoken about this before, Major. But this was a totally good-faith effort on the part of the Republicans to just keep the lights on, keep government operating, keep everyone in legislative session so we could do all the necessary policy disputes and debates that we had ahead of us. This was a bipartisan agreement, by the way. The Democrats and Republicans in the House, the appropriators who are working on the government funding bills, said, we need seven more weeks. We need to go to November 21, and let's just do a simple stopgap measure, totally clean. We didn't put any Republican priorities on it, no poison pills, no gimmicks. It's the exact same product that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate voted on back in March. They voted for it, and now they've changed their tune. I think we all know why. They wanted to put up a fight, show a fight. But they're engaging in a charade here, and real Americans are being harmed.

Why not, Mr. Speaker, call the House back into session to consider the unpassed appropriations bill? Three have cleared the House. Nine remain pending. You could bring the House back to do that work. Why not do that? Well, I will tell you, a lot of that work is being done, short of passage on the House floor. There's a lot of negotiation, deliberation going on even as we speak, the appropriators working together, not just Republicans and Democrats in the House, but across chambers. You've got Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and the House talking about that, preparing these products for floor passage. But we have to get first things first. We have to get the government in operation again, get military troops paid, Border Patrol, TSA, air traffic controllers, food and nutrition programs, and veterans health services, and all the rest. We've got to get that done first. It's the most basic obligation of the federal government, to provide for the citizens, provide for their security, and to keep the lights on, keep the doors open. And Chuck Schumer's playing political games right now for his own political future. He's afraid he's going to get a challenge from the Marxist left in his party. And so he's dramatically changed course from everything he said for over 40 years here in the Congress. Roll the tape. He himself has given impassioned pleas to keep the government open. This is the first time in history, Major, that a clean CR has ever been the subject of a government shutdown. They are playing a political stunt. And it's dangerous for real Americans. Mr. Speaker, I want to play for you some sound from a member of your conference in good standing, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Let's listen. I'm not putting the blame on the president. I'm actually putting the blame on the speaker and Leader Thune in the Senate. This should not be happening.

So you're putting the blame on the leadership of your party? Absolutely. We control the House. We control the Senate. We have the White House. I've been vocal saying you ca n use the nuclear option in the Senate. This doesn't have to be a shutdown. But what we have to do is we have to work for the American people. Quick translation from my audience, Mr. Speaker, what she's referring to there is ending the Senate filibuster rule, passing an end to the shutdown with a simple 50-vote Republican majority. It is theoretically possible. Do you in any way support that fundamental alteration of Senate rules to end this impasse? Well, as Speaker of the House, I control this chamber on this side.

I know, Mr. Speaker, but you have thoughts. I don't have any say in that matter. Well, I do have thoughts. And I think the filibuster is an important tradition over there because it safeguards what might happen if the tables were turned. I told my friend Marjorie, I don't know how under what universe of possibility this would ever be the speaker's fault. We did our job. We passed the CR, and we sent it to the Senate. The ball's in their court. And I told her that she needs to consider carefully what would happen if you blow that up. What happens when this shoe is on the other foot? If you have socialist Marxist Democrats in charge of the Democrat Party, and they only need 51 votes in the Senate, if they ever achieve that, they could do lots of nefarious things with the federal budget, with government growth, with creating new states in Puerto Rico, for example, or some others that want to do that. It could be mayhem there. There are some safeguards in the system, and you have to talk to our Senate colleagues about all that. But it's an argument they make. And I find it very compelling. I think it's something that bears a lot of thought. She also said, that is to say, Marjorie Taylor Greene, that it is incumbent upon Republicans to negotiate with Democrats to avoid premium increases destined for Americans who currently receive enhanced Obamacare subsidies. You've implied that Congresswoman Greene is not fully read in on all the healthcare specifics. Is that still your position, that she's not really read in enough to have an opinion on that? Well, look, I don't know what Marjorie has reviewed. I know she's not on the committees of jurisdiction who spend every hour of every day around the clock specializing on these issues and doing a lot of work and deliberation on it. Major, I want to tell you, we were always preparing to have those debates in the month of October and November. That's an end-of-the-year policy issue. Those subsidies don't run out. They're not exhausted until December 31. So it's a red herring. It's a distraction to the very simple matter of keeping the lights on before the end of the fiscal year deadline, September 30. Democrats are using that to obscure that issue so that they can show a fight against Trump. It's a complete red herring. It's a complete distraction. It doesn't have anything to do with what we're doing right now. What they're doing, though, is real harm not just to American people who are not receiving the services, but they're also eating up a lot of the clock in the month of October, where everyone would be here, productively debating and determining how to bring down costs in Obamacare, which is failing the people. It's an admission by the Democrats, by the way, that they need subsidies because premiums have risen 60% since Obamacare was created in 2010. It did not do as promised. It did exactly the opposite. Mr. Speaker, I want to review with you some recent CBS News polling. And just for your edification, we were very close in 2024. We were very close in 2020. We were very close in 2016. Our polling unit has a pretty good track record. And it shows this. On immigration, 45% of those polled support the president's policies, 55% disapprove. On the economy, 40% approve, 60% disapprove. Inflation, 35% approve, 65% disapprove. How do you evaluate those numbers? Well, look, I'm not going to criticize CBS's polling, but I can tell you, you and I both know it depends on how you ask the question and to whom you ask it. There's lots of polls on the other side of that as well. When we passed the "big beautiful bill," got it signed into law July 4. We polled tested 17 of the 21 major provisions of that giant piece of legislation, the working families tax cut. And almost all of them were over 70%, some 80% approval. So it depends on who you ask and when and under what circumstances. This is what I will tell you. I believe this country's headed in the right direction. I believe Americas' back. I believe that we had the most productive first start of any Congress in administration, arguably at least in the modern era and maybe in US history with our marquee legislation. You think of what the president, President Trump and Republicans have accomplished. We are cutting taxes for hardworking Americans, focused on the lower and middle class earners in this country, no taxes on tips, overtime, all the rest. We are eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse in the government. We are ending the crime crisis. We're ending the border crisis. And now President Trump is settling disputes around the globe. This is a very productive Congress, a very productive administration. And the American people are doing well by the results. And they'll see that, I'm very confident, before the midterm election next year.

You have no fear that on immigration, economy, and inflation the president is net underwater? I don't because it takes a little while for all of those pro-growth policies that we've signed into law to take the real effect for everybody to see the positive effects of that. I believe they will. I know they will. We did that in the first Trump administration. This is not theory. We cut taxes and cut regulations. And we had the greatest economy in the history of the world prior to COVID. So barring some unforeseen circumstance like that, I'm convinced the American people are going to be doing much better. And we'll see the results. Let the results speak for themselves.

Mr. Speaker, when will Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva be sworn in? As soon as we get back here to regular session. Her two senators from Arizona were in front of my office for a publicity stunt yesterday, and I walked out to greet them and set them straight on the record. She will be sworn in as soon as we all get back here. So they can go over and vote yes to reopen the government and they can get their rep elect in. Somebody asked, well, you did a special oath ceremony for two Floridians a couple of months ago? That was just in a pro forma session that didn't have everyone here. And I pointed out the obvious distinction. It's apples to oranges. Those two members had a predetermined date. They had flown in all their family and friends for the big event. And Congress went out of session unexpectedly early. So they were all here. We did them a courtesy of just making sure that happened in that day. They didn't get all the bells and whistles and all the trappings that everybody else gets because it was just an empty chamber, almost, but just their family and friends. The difference now is that Representative-elect Grijalva has never had a date set. She won her election after the House was out of session. So this is nothing but a scheduling matter. As soon as we get back to regular session, the legislative session, we will bring her in and, of course, administer her the oath as soon as we get back.

Before I let you go, Mr. Speaker, I want to give you an opportunity to address what Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, said. He said she has not been sworn in because you want to avoid the discharge petition on the Epstein files because Adelita Grijalva has said publicly to me and others she would be a signatory, which would be 218. Your response. It's an absurd, absurd allegation. The Epstein files are being released. The investigation is underway. The House Oversight Committee has been working on this vigorously. And by the way, that committee includes some of the biggest bulldogs in Congress on the Republican and Democrat side. Their lawyers were in New York City over the last few days, poring through the Epstein estate files, which, by the way, were never even anticipated in Thomas Massey's discharge gambit. That work is being done, and we're for maximum transparency. And we want every single one of those documents to be out, and they will be, in short order, 34,000 of them already. The subpoenas are flying. They are being complied with by DOJ, and we're going to continue that work. The one thing we have to safeguard, that Thomas Massie seems to not care about, is protecting the innocent victims. By some estimates, as many as 1,000 young women suffered at the hands of these traffickers, and we have to make sure that their identities are protected and redacted from the records so they don't suffer more harm. And his discharge was reckless. It was not drafted in such a way as would do that. And I think that's a very important duty and responsibility we have. Last question, Mr. Speaker. Oversight Committee Chairman James Comey told me he opposes any consideration within the administration of clemency or a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell. Do you agree? I do, of course, yeah. I think she was convicted on sex trafficking charges, and she was at least aware and probably enabled a lot of the harms that befell all these young women. And she deserves to stay in prison for the rest of her life.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time, as always. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Major. Appreciate it.