Press Releases

WASHINGTON — This morning, at the House Republican Leadership press conference, Speaker Johnson joined Leader Scalise, Chairwoman McClain, and Rep. Carlos Gimenez – whose family fled communism in Cuba – in highlighting the horrors of socialism and communism. Speaker Johnson also addressed the rise of anti-American, communist candidates currently taking over the Democrat Party.

“This philosophy has led to the murder of tens of millions of innocent people in the 20th century alone. It is a nightmare and is a trail to certain death. And that's why we're speaking in such stark terms, because we need America to wake up,” Speaker Johnson said. “35 years ago, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Reagan years, they were fighting communism on a distant shore. Now it's here.”

Watch Speaker Johnson’s full remarks here.

On the rise of socialist, communist Democrat candidates:

We’re fighting right now in Congress over whether we're going to maintain our status as a constitutional republic or we're going to trade that in, dismantle the foundations and go down this dark road of death to communism. That is the question on the ballot this fall. Now, the DSA published their platform – I hope you're all covering it. I hope you're writing in depth about their platform. I read it out loud at event a few weeks ago, and they've made an ad mocking me reading their platform. Now, they didn't put the clips with the worst parts of it. Well, of course they want to pack the Supreme Court, and they want a unicameral legislature. They want the House to run everything; abolish the Senate, because they believe the House would be run by Marxists communists. They want to remove the President. What they also want to do is abolish all borders. They don't want any borders. They want mass amnesty granted to anyone who can come onto our shores without exception, even for terrorists and hardened, dangerous criminals. They don't want prisons. It's in their platform. They want to remove the carceral state. They said no prisons. They don't want to fund the police. This is not a game. Everybody needs to understand. These crazy little mini-Mamdani’s who are popping up all around the country; they are a danger to you and your family. This is not a game. If they promise you free stuff, there is far more beneath those promises that even some of these people do not understand themselves.

On the failures of communism historically:

Our rights come from our Creator, God; they do not come from the government. The communist believes the opposite. They believe that the government of the state is God and that the state is the one that gives you all your rights. And you know what? The state can also take those rights away. And that's exactly what happens. It's inevitable in communism. And this philosophy has led to the murder of tens of millions of innocent people in the 20th century alone. It is a nightmare. It is a trail to certain death and that's why we're speaking in such stark terms, because we need America to wake up. 35 years ago, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the Reagan years, they were fighting communism on a distant shore. Now it's here.

But in Congress, they all agreed on that. They obviously knew that we had to fight communism. And so, what they were doing here for domestic policy, that was foreign policy, domestic policy, they were arguing over marginal tax rates and the shades of regulation and how large the government should be. There wasn't a huge difference. The chasm between the two parties, those days are gone right now. Domestically, we are arguing, we are debating, we are fighting. The election will be over whether we're going to maintain our freedom in a constitutional republic, the greatest experiment in self-governance in the history of the world, the longest surviving constitution on the planet, the nation that everybody wants to emulate and everybody wants to come here. We have to seal our borders, so they won't flood over them. We're the only nation in the world that has that distinction. We're the last great superpower. We are the greatest nation in the history of the world.

On the high stakes of the midterm elections:

There has been a small number of times in the history of America where the actual experiment in self-governance was on the ballot. The idea that we would preserve a constitutional republic, one nation under God, a government of, by, and for the people. All that is in question right now. For the first time, really in my lifetime, this is a real question. The American people have to decide in November, in a midterm election for Congress and Senate. It’s not something that we would've projected. I hoped and prayed it would never come to this, but here we are. The barbarians are in the gate.