Speaker Johnson Holds Press Briefing Over Continuing Resolution Transcript

Good morning. Earlier this morning, I joined many of our House colleagues to watch video footage of truly unfathomable brutality committed by the hands of Hamas terrorists against Israelis. This gut-wrenching footage of pure evil is a stark reminder that Israel is currently fighting not only for their right to exist, but for the rights of Jewish people everywhere. These horrific images of atrocities are etched into my memory forever. We mourn for the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, and children, including babies, who were tortured, killed, and some kidnapped by these abhorrent monsters. (00:50) Today, many tens of thousands of people will line up on the National Mall in support of Israel. House Republicans have stood up and rejected this evil time and time again of Hamas terrorists. We passed a bipartisan $14-billion aid package that ensures our precious ally, Israel, has the resources it needs to defend itself and eradicate Hamas once and for all. (01:14) In addition, there has been a nearly 400% increase in antisemitic attacks across this country, with many occurring on college campuses. Jewish students in my home state of New York were forced to barricade themselves as pro-terrorist protestors pounded on the doors of a school library. Posters of innocent Israeli hostages were ripped down across the country. Fellow students and professors accosted and assaulted Jewish students with deplorable antisemitic slurs and used physical violence. (01:46) Instead of clearly condemning this hate, the so-called, quote, elite colleges, including my alma mater, Harvard, have cowered to the woke leftist mob that has embraced terrorists and forced their Jewish students to live in fear. Antisemitism has no place in America, no place in this Congress, no place on our college campuses, and no place around the world. Following today's press conference, I will be joining my education and workforce colleagues to address this very issue in a hearing. I would like to now pass it over to our Chairman of Foreign Affairs, Michael McCaul, who just returned from leading a congressional delegation to Israel over the weekend. Chairman McCaul.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and good morning, everybody. This morning, I worked with the Israeli ambassador to screen a private screening of the Hamas invasion and barbaric killing of Jewish people, 1,400 of them, 250 hostages, horrific scenes that I can't get into detail about because they were so disgusting. And the thing is, the worst part of it wasn't even in the video, ripping a baby out of a mother's womb before her eyes and killing her child before they killed her, the raping of old women, young women, the torture, the violence. (03:09) They are a messianic cult. They're a terror organization. I think, if anything, and they wanted members to see this, to never forget, to remember what happened on October 7th as we see the narrative shifting that somehow the Palestinians are the victims. Well, I can assure you, everybody who saw that video today knows who the real victims are. The victims are the Jewish people. (03:38) I went to the Kfar Aza Kibbutz on the border of Gaza just a year ago with then Speaker McCarthy, and to think that all of them are dead, that the daycare center was violated and children were burned alive and beheaded in front of their parents, and then they killed their parents after that. I'm a son of a World War II veteran. My dad bombed the Nazis. They'd bombed the Nazis who were killing the Jews. I thought this was over after that war, but this was the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust. (04:17) As Madam Chair mentioned, antisemitism is now on the rise in this country. It's not acceptable. Israel is fighting for its own existence. I just got back from there, met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and he is stronger than ever and he's determined to eradicate Hamas, deradicalize Gaza, and turn it back over to the Palestinian people after they are freed from their oppressor, their terror oppressor, Hamas. (04:49) It reminded me of Churchill and his fight. This is a fight not only for survival, but a fight for their own very existence right now. And it's critically important that the Senate pass the Israeli funding bill that we passed here in the House, should've been done yesterday as the Prime Minister told me, but it needs to be done as soon as possible. They need the weapons to win. The Prime Minister said, "We need ammo, ammo, ammo. That is what we need in this fight against terror to defend the Jewish homeland." And so I thank everybody here for participating in this video. And now, I turn it over to our whip, Tom Emmer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. Many of you have headlined this week as being the House Republicans', quote, first big test under our new speaker, but I say this week is another opportunity for our conference to govern where Democrats have failed. Let's recall the Democrats' days of you have to pass a bill to see what's in it. House members were forced to vote on thousand-page omnibus spending packages released at the 11th hour on the eve of holidays before members ever even had a chance to read them, but this House Republican majority under speaker Mike Johnson's leadership is saying no more. (06:26) We're bringing common sense back to the nation's capital with the speaker's two-step stop gap funding plan. By passing this bill, we will avoid a government shutdown, fully pay our troops, and protect Americans hard-earned taxpayer dollars by preventing another omnibus monstrosity, all while putting House Republicans in the best position to continue fighting for conservative victories. That includes our continued commitment to fight wasteful spending and to secure our southern border. (06:56) It's not lost on us that we're facing an uphill battle here. Democrats control the White House and the Senate, but now is the time for House Republicans to stay united as a team and remember the goal. Americans elected our House Republican majority to counteract Democrats' failed agenda and change the way things work here in Washington. We have an opportunity to live up to that mandate today. So we're going to get to work and we're going to get it done. And with that, I'll turn it over to our majority leader, Steve Scalise.

Well, thank you, Whip. And as I stand before you for the 10th week in a row, I know you're all going to miss us and hopefully have a great Thanksgiving with your families because we will take care of our business this week, and then finally, after 10 straight weeks here, be able to go back home, and hopefully everybody can have a wonderful Thanksgiving before we come back and continue the people's business, but this is a busy week. And as the whip talked about, we have a number of items to take care of. (07:57) And today, front and center is passing the government funding bill that I want to commend our speaker for negotiating and, frankly, for breaking a paradigm here in Washington. One of our biggest frustrations that we've talked about for months since we took this majority is that we would not have an end-of-year Christmas Eve omnibus bill come to the House floor. When Speaker Johnson got elected, he made it very clear we were not going to end this year with an omnibus where you get these 3,000-page bills that nobody's read, that get dumped right before Christmas Eve, and then nobody has a chance to read the bill. It's got all kind of Christmas list items, hundreds of billions of dollars that nobody even saw before. (08:41) We finally are breaking that cycle by bringing this two-step CR to the floor today that's going to ultimately bring government funding into January and February, breaking the bills apart so you don't have everything expiring at the same time, but also setting up a real fight over securing our nation's border, a fight that's been needed to have for a long time since Joe Biden opened the border, since we started seeing millions of people coming into our country illegally, with all of the devastation that it's brought, with all of the concerns that you see around the world, there's no more important time that we have a secure border. (09:19) You saw Chairman McCaul talking about the devastation in Israel, and the war, and the need for us to support Israel in their fight, which we are supporting, against Hamas and this terrorist organization, but there are dangerous countries all around the world. It's not just Hamas. Iran is the largest sponsor of state terrorism, including Hamas and other terrorist organizations. We're bringing a bill to the floor this Thursday that will freeze the $6 billion that Joe Biden wants to give to Iran. And the Ayatollah recently said, bragged, that if he gets that $6 billion, he will use it for whatever purpose he chooses, including continuing to fund terrorism like Hamas. Why would the Biden Administration want Iran to get that $6 billion? (10:10) Well, we're going to have a vote on the House floor to block that money, and hopefully, you see a broad, overwhelming bipartisan vote. I know it was split in committee. All Republicans voted for it, the Democrats were split, but this should be a larger vote. I think the whole country's going to be watching and saying, "Why would you dare allow Iran to get another $6 billion when we know they use that money to fund terrorists like Hamas, who are killing Jews, who are beheading babies?" You see the atrocities in Gaza still to this day. (10:41) So hopefully, we can be united in that and get that bill to the Senate and get that bill to the President's desk so that he ultimately signs the bill and freezes that money so that Iran can no longer have that additional money to fund terrorism. So we're going to continue to do our work this week, but it's an important week, and then hopefully, everybody has a great Thanksgiving. With that, want to yield it to our speaker, Mike Johnson.

Thank you, Steve. I want to thank this extraordinary leadership team. They're doing a great job and there's a lot on our plates, as has been discussed. I do want to address Israel briefly and then we'll take some questions, but it was two weeks ago, of course, that a bipartisan group of House members passed our substantive and immediate aid to Israel. We thought that was important. It was the first big thing that I did when I became speaker. The aid package meets every specific asked of the Biden Administration supplemental funding request because those are the requests came straight from our ally, Israel. It should've already soared through Congress. It should be signed into law, but it's not. (11:40) And so we're calling on the Senate to get serious about this and get serious about supporting Israel. Last week, we heard directly, as you know, from families of Israeli hostages that were taken and being held in Gaza, and their stories are heartbreaking and tragic. And you've heard about the film that we watched this morning. We had a large group of Republican and Democrat members of the House in the auditorium this morning and you could've heard a pin drop, except for the sighs and cries in the room because the video would make anyone with a soul cry. What we saw is just harrowing firsthand videos, GoPro helmet cams and shoulder cams from the Hamas attackers themselves on October 7th. And if you have a family, if you have loved ones, you cannot watch this without being ripped apart. (12:26) I agree with our friend, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who said this is a battle between good versus evil, between light versus darkness, between civilization and barbarism, and we want to make absolutely clear where America stands in that fight, and we'll continue to do that. The only goal of these barbaric savages, as you can see in these videos, and you've seen the still shots and all the rest, as was said, they wanted to kill, and rape, and maim Israeli citizens, innocent citizens, families, small children, pregnant women, the elderly. They want the annihilation of Israel, and it's their intent, and it is demonic, is the only way to describe it. (13:05) The Middle East is a tinderbox right now. We know that. And we have to do all we can to avoid a broader regional conflict and prevent further escalation. And so it is absolutely imperative that we send this aid to Israel immediately and show the rest of the world that these acts of terror against our allies will not just be met with unflinching condemnation, but with steadfast support. It is in our national interest to do so. And I think everyone who looks at this objectively has to agree that that's true. (13:32) In my acceptance speech three weeks ago, I said, "A strong America is good for the entire world," and I believe that. We believe that to our core. We are the beacon of freedom, and right now, we need to act like it. So we call in our Senate colleagues, we call on the White House to get that measure completed. We have the CR today, and I know you'll have questions about that, so we'll go to a few.

Mr. Speaker.

Go ahead, Fox.

Thank you. Good morning. My question is, how hard a sell has this been to your members? Because they said this is essentially the same thing that bounced Kevin McCarthy, and if you get fewer votes from the Democrats than he got or fewer votes from Republicans than in the previous CR, doesn't that undercut the essence of what you're doing?

No, Chad, this is an important innovation. And as was explained earlier, as long as I've been in Congress for seven years, we have governed by omnibus bills right before Christmas. It is a terrible way to run a railroad. And the reason that we're in such trouble with our federal debt is because Congress is addicted, obsessed with this deficit spending. (14:34) What happens, as you know, there's a CR that goes right up to Christmas break and then they jam upon us, as was been said, thousands of pages in legislation that no one really has a chance to adequately read through and digest or amend or anything else. Last year, it was $1.7 trillion with a few hours notice, and they added $100 or $200 billion extra sprinkled on top of spending that no one had ever actually vetted or gone through. We cannot do that anymore. We have a $33.6-trillion federal debt. Moody's downgraded our credit rating. Just this week, two weeks ago, the Treasury Department announced we have to borrow, borrow, $1.5 trillion over the next two quarters to keep the government going. We cannot do that anymore. (15:13) And so the latter CR, the two-step CR, everybody calls it something different, it's a new innovation, but it's going to change the way we've done this. We have broken the fever. We are not going to have a massive omnibus spending bill right before Christmas. That is a gift to the American people because that is no way to legislate. It is not good stewardship. It's the reason we're in so much debt, that and the effects of Bidenomics, but we have to change it. And so we've gotten together, I believe there's going to be bipartisan agreement on that, to break it up and put it into January, January 19th for the first tranche of the bills, and February 2nd for the rest, and that will allow us to go through the deliberative process in good faith, I'm going to take everybody at their word that we're doing this in good faith, to do the appropriations process as it should be done. Should've been done before.

But that didn't seem to satisfy some of the arch conservatives, your confidence. That's why the Freedom Caucus put out a statement that said [inaudible 00:16:01].

Chad, I'm one of the arch conservatives, and I want to cut spending right now, and I would like to put policy writers on this, but when you have a three-vote majority, as we do right now, we don't have the votes to be able to advance that right now. So what we need to do is avoid the government shutdown. Why? Because that would unduly harm the American people. Troops wouldn't be paid. We know all the effects of that. And so we have to avoid that and we have a responsibility to do it, but this allows, as was said, as the majority leader said, this allows us as conservatives to go into the fight on the next stages of this to talk about real border changes, policies at the border, to close the southern border, to get it under control, to talk about the oversight that's necessary on additional Ukraine aid, to get Israel done, if they don't do it, as we begged them to do. All these other matters in the supplemental, that puts us in the policy discussion and we'll have stringent fights on principle and philosophy and cuts, as well. We'll go over here.

Mr. Speaker, just to follow up on that, a number of Republicans are supporting your plan to avoid a government shutdown, but you've obviously heard the concerns from the sum that are not. What did you tell those members who call your plan a mistake, who say it's a surrender?

We are not surrendering, we're fighting, but you have to be wise about choosing the fights. You got to fight fights that you can win, and we're going to, and you're going to see this House majority stand together on our principle and we're going to do that, but the shutdown would occur on November 17th. Look, it took decades to get into this mess. I've been at the job less than three weeks. I can't change, I can't turn an aircraft carrier overnight, but this was a very important first step to get us to the next stage so that we can change how Washington works. And I think the latter CR, the two-step CR, however you describe it, is a big, important part of that. And I think every member in that room agrees that that's an important innovation and it changes the way things are done.

Mr. Speaker, because you've been [inaudible 00:17:43].

Let me go to [inaudible 00:17:44] real quick.

[inaudible 00:17:44] you're doing what Kevin McCarthy did. You're extending government funding you're not including spending cuts. Democrats are going to need that to carry this. He lost his job, in large part over this. Are you concerned at all that this could make your speakership any less secure?

I'm not concerned about it at all. And Kevin should take no blame for that. Kevin was in a very difficult situation when that happened. This is a different situation. The innovation that we've created, this new vehicle that the Democrats initially said was so frightening, actually turns out to be something that will change the way we do this. And so this is a very different situation. We're taking this into the new year to finish the process and get back to the original way that this is supposed to work. (18:21) And by the way, the House Republican Conference is committed to never being in this situation again. I'm done with short-term CRs. We are. We're resolved. So what that means is you're going to see, in the beginning of this next year, we'll be walking and chewing gum at the same time. We're going to get the appropriations process running on time, as it's supposed to be under law. The Budget Control Act of 1974 has very specific provisions in there on how this is to be done. Congress hasn't done that for as long as we can remember, but we're going to get back to that because that's good stewardship, the American people deserve it, and the debt situation we find ourselves in necessitates that.

Mr. Speaker, [inaudible 00:18:53].

Let me go over here and I'll go back and forth.

Mr. Speaker, just on a personal level, how are you feeling about the reality, like you just mentioned, that you do have a slim majority, you are having to work with the Democrat-controlled Senate, Democrats in the White House, so you have to pass something that's against your conscience? How are you feeling about that?

Well, look, getting us beyond the shutdown and making sure the government stays in operation is a matter of conscience for all of us. We owe that to the American people. I believe that we can fight on principle and do these things simultaneously. When you have a small majority, it requires ... some things are going to have to be bipartisan, but I think these are issues that every member of Congress should agree on. We are on an unsustainable track with our debt. There's no two ways about it. And I think everybody recognizes that we've got to get down to the matter of the heart of this to change the way we do business. We have an important role to play in the world, but we have to take care of our own house first. And these things must be done simultaneously and it needed to start a generation ago. It hasn't and we're on the job now. We're going to make it happen.

Mr. Speaker.

[inaudible 00:19:48] last question.

On the CR, this whole Congress has been a struggle to pass conservative-led appropriation bills, what gives you confidence that you can pass appropriations bills in this timeframe that are going to be conference? Obviously, Democrats will come over and help out, but are you confident that you can even pass these appropriations bills on the proper deadline?

Yeah. Part of the reason I'm confident about this is I've been drinking from Niagara Falls for the last three weeks, this will allow everybody to go home for a couple of days for Thanksgiving, everybody cool off. Members have been here, as Leader Scalise said, for 10 weeks. This place is a pressure cooker. And so I think everybody can go home, we can come back, reset. We're going to get our group together, we're going to map out that plan to fight for those principles, and we have some great plans in the playbook already, and I look forward to rolling that out and you'll see much more of that.

What are some of those plans?

We got to go after ...

What are [inaudible 00:20:36]?

I thank you [inaudible 00:20:37].

Quick Israel question. Are you committed to having a supplemental pass before the next CR passes?

Good job, everyone.

Hi. How are you?

[inaudible 00:20:54].