Press Releases

WASHINGTON — This morning, Speaker Johnson joined Cheryl Casone on Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria to discuss the harmful effects of the Democrat Shutdown as federal workers, TSA agents, and U.S. troops have to prepare for the possibility of missed paychecks due to the continued Democrat Shutdown.

Watch Speaker Johnson’s full interview here. 

On the Democrat Shutdown continuing to inflict pain on the American people:

Real Americans are hurting. And it is so frustrating to us, Cheryl, because the contrast here is so clear. Remember, it was over a month ago that the House did our job and we passed a clean continuing resolution, a totally nonpartisan 24 page, very simple piece of legislation to just keep the lights on so that Congress could continue to do the work of appropriating the funds for the annual budget, and also for navigating all the rest of the issues we have on the table throughout the end of the year. The Democrats voted it down. They've done it now almost a dozen times, as you said, because they're playing partisan games. They filed a counterproposal. Let's not let anybody forget what they filed as their counteroffer.

Their CR is not a clean one. It's a dirty one, because they want to spend $1.5 trillion on all sorts of wasteful programs, including $200 billion to fund health care benefits on the backs of American taxpayers for illegal aliens. They want to give a half a billion dollars back to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to prop up leftist news organizations. And they want to spend billions of dollars overseas on all sorts of extraneous, crazy kinds of programs. They know we're not going to do that. It's not a serious proposal. This is the first time in history that any party has chosen to shut the government down over a clean CR. They're playing a game. And it's very simple, here's the reason why Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the two leaders in both chambers for the Democrat side, are afraid of their Far-Left flank. They're afraid they're going to get a challenge in New York because Marxism is all the rage and they're going to lose their seats. They're putting up a fight. It makes no sense, and real people are getting hurt.

On Republicans having nothing to remove from the clean, nonpartisan CR:                                                                           

Here's the thing. The mainstream media has asked me in all these interviews, why aren't you negotiating? Cheryl, I literally don't have anything to negotiate. In the past, when there's been a CR standoff like this, a continuing resolution to keep the government open, the majority party has loaded up the CR proposal with a lot of partisan priorities, you know, gimmicks and tricks. We haven't done any of that. I mean, we're operating in good faith. Republicans are trying to keep the government moving forward. So, we sent over a totally clean CR. In other words, there's nothing I can pull off of that to make it more palatable for Democrats. It's exactly what they already voted for.

In fact, Chuck Schumer voted for the identical measure in March of this year and gave an impassioned speech on the floor about how it had to be done, because it would be totally irresponsible to harm the American people by shutting the government down. The only thing that's changed between March seven months ago and now, is that Chuck Schumer is now afraid of the rise of Marxism in New York. That's his home state, and he's afraid he's going to lose the seat that he's held for so many years. The man has been in Congress for 44 years, Cheryl, he doesn't want to go home. He doesn't know how to live a normal life. And that is 100% what is motivating all the chaos right now.

On Democrats like Senator Ruben Gallego pulling gimmicks instead of opening the government:

That's Exhibit A of why the House Republicans are doing much more productive work in their districts right now than being here because Democrats are walking around the halls trying to create publicity stunts. I mean, you just saw that, that's two Senators from the state of Arizona staging a publicity stunt outside of my office. They should be on the floor voting to reopen the government if they would do it. You just need three more. We could get the government open, and we could get Rep. Grijalva from their state administered the oath to. This is absurdity. They are engaging in political theater. That's what all the marches were about on Saturday, funded by Soros and co-sponsored by the Communist Party of the USA. By the way, this is the problem that we have with the modern Democrat Party and with the people who are serving here, they are afraid of their Far-Left flank, and they are not doing their jobs, okay. And real Americans are being hurt because of it.