Press Releases

WASHINGTON — Yesterday, Speaker Johnson delivered remarks to press ahead of the House’s first votes following the midterm elections. Speaker Johnson highlighted House GOP wins in the 119th Congress as well as the extraordinary class of incoming House GOP Members.

Watch the Speaker’s full remarks here.

Below are Speaker Johnson’s remarks as delivered:

It's good to be back here in the Capitol with all our colleagues after a long and demanding campaign cycle to be certain. The results were not what we hoped for, and we worked for, as you all know, but this is our system. I know without any shadow of a doubt that we left it all on the field. I personally raised well over half a billion dollars for this campaign cycle, and I logged enough miles campaigning for my colleagues to circle the globe over nine times. There's not much more that many of us could have done, and the people have spoken. Are we disappointed with the results? Of course we are. But we're never discouraged. That's not in our worldview. And I just want to say we made our case in plain and simple terms. The American people voted, and we're going to have a new crop of Members take their seats at the start of the new year. This is our system.

I was delighted to welcome all the new Members on the House floor last night. Hakeem Jeffries and I met them, and we'll be doing a reception, a dinner, for the new Republican freshman class. And we're very excited about this group. It's an extraordinary, talented group of people, patriots, who are willing to step forward and serve their country. And I cannot be more proud of who they are. You're going to get to know them well and you'll be duly impressed.

The question facing Republicans right now is how do we respond after getting knocked down? And the answer is to get right back up. We stand for enduring. We stand for and defend, every day, the founding principles of the greatest nation in the history of the world. And you all have said, we say over and over, it's objectively true that we are the freest, most successful, most powerful, most benevolent nation that has ever been on the earth. But it is not guaranteed to us. Ronald Reagan used to remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We do not pass it in the bloodstream. It's got to be fought for and protected, and then it has to be taught and preserved and passed along to the next generation so that they too will have the same liberty and opportunity and security that we have known and, sadly too many Americans have taken for granted.

And so, what we fight for is, you all have heard me refer to, what I call seven core principles of American conservatism: individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets, and human dignity. We believe in the principles that have endured, that have made us the longest lasting constitution, the envy of all governments and countries. Everyone wants to be like America and there's a reason for that. And those principles are under assault. They're under great challenge. And I fear that in the days ahead, in the next two years of this Congress, they will be openly challenged here, perhaps even in the halls of Congress. And so, we're entrusting that our team, even though we will be in the minority in the next Congress,  will stand strong and defend those principles. And we look forward to doing it. And we will. This is a moment of sober reflection for us as in part, in terms of how we handle that.

We were so proud to run on our extraordinary record because as you all know, and you catalog here every day, in spite of having one of the smallest margins in the history of this institution and an unprecedented obstruction by Democrats who brought shutdowns and the longest shutdowns in US history – 120 days to be complete, even then we delivered for the people. We brought famously the largest tax cut for working families and middle-class earners in American history. We had the biggest spending cut in US history, $1.6 trillion focusing on rooting out fraud and waste in government, making it work more efficiently and effectively for the people. We secured the border tight. That was the number one issue in 2024, and we took care of that problem. And we restored common sense. We did things like cutting burdensome crushing regulations to allow job creators and entrepreneurs to do more of what they do and add more jobs and more opportunity for more Americans. And because of that, we're experiencing the lowest poverty rate in the history of those data points since they began in 1959 with the lowest poverty rate in America right now. We also have the safest as streets. We have the lowest violent crime rate in 126 years. Because of our policies and what we did, we had the biggest decline in prescription drug costs in over 60 years. We had a million jobs out in the private sector, just in the last 19 months or so. And it goes on and on and on. Trump Accounts for every newborn. You have the first ever nationwide school choice program codified in the law. Nearly 130 Executive Orders codified and signed into law and so much more. And so, we're going to double down on the things that worked when we do this reflection after an election, which both parties do. We're going to fix what doesn't, and we're going to spend the next two years fighting tooth and nail to put ourselves in the best possible position to win back Congress and preserve this grand experiment in self-governance.

I want to say the House Republican Conference is blessed with hardworking, thoughtful, talented Members. They're dedicated. They're ready to stand in the gap and fight for these principles that will preserve this grand experiment on our 250th anniversary. Right now, that starts by setting a good example and finishing the 119th Congress strong and we will do just that. And I believe that America remains the last best hope on Earth. That was Reagan who used to remind us of that. He was quoting the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln. He said in dark days of the country that we are still the last best hope for man on Earth. And we believe that. We're going to continue to fight to ensure that that remains true with every fiber in our being.