Press Releases

WASHINGTON — This morning, Speaker Johnson joined Fox and Friends to discuss the New Orleans terror attack and the federal investigation, the Biden Administration’s failure to secure the border and the American homeland, and the upcoming Speaker vote tomorrow.

Click here to watch the full interview

On the New Orleans terror attack and investigation:

Let me just say unequivocally that this act of pure evil, as President Trump said is exactly right, is a vicious attack on innocent Americans celebrating New Year's. Everyone involved in this needs to be brought swiftly to justice, and I have some confidence that our federal and state partners are working on that right now. I spoke late last night with my good friend our governor, Jeff Landry, about his perspective on it, as well as Attorney General Merrick Garland, we spoke about 11pm last night, he gave me the latest report. There are many, many FBI agents on the ground that have been dispatched in New Orleans. They are looking at every possible angle, and we are trusting that that partnership between the federal and state authorities will bring us the answers that we need.

On the Biden Administration’s failure to secure the homeland and the border:

I don't know if enough attention is being paid to this, but we all know that for the last four years, the Biden Administration has been completely derelict in its duty. Congressional Republicans, we here in the House and the Senate, have repeatedly asked the DHS under the Biden administration about the correlation, the obvious concern, about terrorism and the wide-open border, the idea that dangerous people were coming here in droves and setting up potential terrorist cells around the country, we have been ringing the alarms. 

We impeached DHS Secretary Mayorkas in the House over that very issue and others related to it. So, this is a big concern. They told us, Lawrence, for four years that the number one threat was so-called ‘racially motivated extremism.’ It was nonsense. This is the thing that we were all concerned about. This is why we raised the alarms. This is why we passed H.R. 2, the strongest border security act ever passed by Congress, and Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate would not put that through and make it into law. The Biden Administration has a lot to account for here, and we see now, in glaring view of everybody, that this dereliction of duty has real consequences. It's a concern, and it will be an ongoing concern for some time.

On the Speakership vote:

We're going to get this done. I'm humbled and honored to have President Trump's endorsement for the role again, as well as the endorsement of leaders across the conservative spectrum and the Republican Party, all my colleagues that are standing with us and we will get this done. Look, the things that we're talking about this morning are an illustration that we live in very serious times. We cannot afford any palace drama here. We have got to get the Congress started, which begins tomorrow, and we have to get immediately to work. We have to certify the election of President Donald J. Trump on January 6, on Monday. And we have many important things pressing on us right now, so there's no time to waste. We have to stay unified. The American people gave us a mandate. You know, President Trump got 77 million votes, we got almost 75 million for House Republicans, the largest number ever. And they have sent us a message that they want us to begin fixing all of this, and we will.

We have the smallest margin in US history. We’ll have a margin of probably two votes tomorrow during that, so can only afford to lose one or two, but I think we'll get it done. I really do Lawrence. I've talked to every single one of those friends and colleagues over the holidays. We'll be talking about process reforms inside the house, and I've encouraged all of them, and I think the reason they're all going to vote yes is this, we're shifting into a brand-new paradigm. We have unified government that begins tomorrow. We have the White House, the Senate, and the House. A totally different situation than we dealt with over the last 14 months since I've been speaker. So, we're excited to deliver on the America first agenda. It begins on day one, and all that begins right here tomorrow.

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