Speaker 1 (00:00):
… and their families and strengthens our national security capabilities. Those two aspects are what drove the negotiations and the effort for this entire bill, the quality of life of our service members and our national security capabilities. The NDAA supports the deployment of the National Guard to our southern border, deters China, combats anti-Semitism, supports Israel, cuts inefficient programs and bureaucracy, and guts woke policies at the DOD. It also cares for our service members and seeks to improve their quality of life by providing critical housing upgrades, pay raises, lower healthcare wait times, better access to childcare, employment support for spouses, and much more.
(00:36)
House Republicans take our responsibility to provide for our service members and their families and the mission seriously, and we look forward to working with President Trump and his administration to secure our border, bolster our national security, and support our military. This comprehensive bill ensures that America can remain the most powerful in the world, and I thank the House and Senate Armed Services Committees for their work on this. I thank for all those that are involved in getting it to this point, to be able to complete that this week. And with that, I will hand it over to our whip, Mr. Tom Emmer.
Tom Emmer (01:09):
America is back. That was the message heard around the world following President-elect Donald Trump's successful trip to Paris over the weekend. Watching America reassert its leadership on the global stage was both refreshing and reassuring. It's clear that the world has been anticipating the return of a US president who can, at the very least, stay fully engaged during important discussions. Already, the impact of President Trump's leadership is being felt. 41 days before he is set to be inaugurated, he has restored respect for our country on the world stage.
(01:46)
This comes in stark contrast to the weak-kneed leadership Americans have been forced to endure under the Harris-Biden administration over the last four years. From their disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to Iran and its proxies attacks against Israel, we've seen what happens when we have leaders in the White House whose foreign policy strategy is to appease our adversaries and undermine our allies. Thankfully, on November 5th, the voters said enough is enough. The path forward under President Trump is quite clear. He will usher in a new era of peace through strength and I'm eager to hit the ground running on day one to enact his America first agenda. I congratulate President Trump on a successful trip to Paris and I look forward to watching him restore our country's dominance on the world stage. Steve Scalise.
Steve Scalise (02:44):
Thank you, whip. This week, our members have been working for months on bringing to the floor, Wednesday, the National Defense Authorization Act. And as Blake pointed out, this is a bill that's really focused on improving the quality of life for our service men and women. We've seen under the last three and a half years of the Biden-Harris administration, it's been hard to recruit and keep good service members in part because of the bad woke policies, the loss of focus by this administration on what the mission is, and we start addressing that by rooting out more of the woke policies over at the DOD, and of course that ultimately is going to get fixed when President Trump takes office next month. And he talked about those things during the campaign, what he would do to re-strengthen, reinvigorate our military, but at least we give President Trump some really good tools and important tools to recruit and retain a strong military by improving their quality of life in this bill.
(03:47)
Something else we've been continuing to work on as we take care of the legislative business is to focus on what we will do day one to hit the ground running, to go to work delivering the promises that were made during the campaign to help those families who are struggling under the weight of the failed Biden-Harris policies. We talked a lot during the campaign about securing America's border, strengthening our energy security, lowering costs at the grocery store, at the pump for families who have been paying way too much under the failed Biden-Harris policies. But we also talked about what we'd do to stabilize tax policy to prevent a massive $4.5 trillion tax increase, which Kamala Harris wanted to impose. She actually campaigned bragging that she would allow tax cuts to expire, putting a massive tax increase on families. And so, we're already working on what we will do in those first few months to deliver on those promises and get our economy back on track to help provide real relief for families who are struggling.
(04:53)
And those talks are going really well, not only amongst House Republicans, Senate Republicans, but also the Trump administration, and Trump officials in the transition team have been part of those conversations because we want to make sure the day we start in January, President Trump's policies are going to be front and center, the things that we all campaigned on. It wasn't just President Trump who talked about those things as he did, we talked about those two and the good news is we got elected and we got a mandate from the American people who want to see a secure border, who want to see lower costs, who want to see us to finally confront those problems that Biden and Harris created. And we're going to do just that and the work is already started. We cannot wait until January to not only take office, but as we're preparing, we're doing that work already today here. Leading that effort for us is our speaker, Mike Johnson.
Mike Johnson (05:52):
Thank you, Steve, leader. Good morning to all of you. I was here until late last night. About 13 hours ago, all these seats were filled with midshipmen, about 40 midshipmen from the US Naval Academy were here on a visit and we came into the room, the end of the Capitol tour, my son brought a bus of his classmates. First time many of them have been to the Capitol and they sat here and I thanked them all for their willingness to serve the country and they thanked me and then they said, "Sir, how do you take all these hostile questions from the press every week?" I said, "Oh, they're a bunch of teddy bears. It's no big deal." So they had a good time. I'm really encouraged by all these young people and their willingness to step up and serve their country, and I know we all are, and this weekend is the Army-Navy game. We're all looking forward to that. I guess I got to say go Navy because my son's there, but President Trump is coming to the game and others and we'll all be there together. It'll be a lot of fun.
(06:40)
Speaking of President Trump, we have just 41 days until his oath of office is taken and as Whip Emmer said, there's a palpable sense out there that this is a new day in America. It's not just a catchphrase. We feel that. We sense it everywhere we go and American families are ready to see an America first agenda and we're excited about that. You hear a lot of talk about the agenda and how it'll be formulated and come together right out of the gates in early January, and we're working on that right now. In fact, House Republicans are already working to enact that agenda.
(07:13)
We met, as you know, last week, we brought Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy here to discuss how we cut waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government, and it was a very productive series of meetings. We had a smaller group discussion and then the larger one in the Congressional Auditorium. Thank you all for being here for that. We're continuing to lay the groundwork for our very aggressive first 100 days agenda in the Congress that we've all been planning for for a long time and talking about for a while.
(07:40)
But in the waning days of this Congress and until President Trump is sworn in, we're still actively advancing conservative priorities. You heard about the NDAA, we're proud of this product. It was released over the weekend and it includes critical wins for our troops and for our country at a very important time. I want to thank Chairman Mike Rogers of the House of Armed Services Committee and all the committee members and all the staff for their really hard work on the bill. We spent a lot of time and effort working on it because our service members and their families deserve our best efforts.
(08:10)
That's why we made the landmark investments in their quality of life, as you heard, with a 14.5% pay raise for junior service members. It's really important right now and improved housing for our military families and other benefits, and it's also why we stopped funds from going to CRT and our military academies. We banned TRICARE from prescribing treatments that would ultimately sterilize our kids, and we gutted the DEI bureaucracy. And because we believe in peace through strength, we blocked the Biden administration's plan to reduce the number of US special forces. We supported the deployment of the National Guard at the border. We expanded US joint military exercises with Israel and we increased funding for US defense initiatives in the Indo-Pacific, and that includes Taiwan.
(08:55)
At the same time, while we plussed-up those other accounts, we cut $31 billion in bloated Pentagon bureaucracy, obsolete weapons, and inefficient programs. A lot of that will continue into the new year, and those are some very important innovations. The safety and security of the American people is our top priority, and this year's NDAA ensures our military has the resources and the capabilities needed to remain the most powerful fighting force on the planet. I look forward to voting for it later this week, and I think you'll have a large vote on the house floor in affirmation of all this. Also, this week, we'll be voting on the judges act to ensure there's sufficient number of federal judgeships for our growing population. Look, Republicans believe in the rule of law and we've got to uphold that principle. We can't overburden the courts and our judges with these excessive caseloads, and that's what's been happening.
(09:46)
It's been 35 years since Congress has authorized a package like this, and our population and caseloads have grown, and we just have to address this for the judicial branch to keep peace. More judges means more Americans can access equal and impartial justice without waiting years to get it. I'm excited to see this bill pass. I used to be a federal court litigator and I can tell you, it's desperately needed. Again, it's a fun time of year, lots of holiday celebrations, Christmas parties and all in and around Capitol Hill. I've seen some of you at all these events. This is a good time to be thankful and to remember what an extraordinary country we live in and what great promise we have in the new year ahead of us and celebrate together. So with that, I'll take a few questions. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
I wanted to ask about the generalized system of preferences. January 1st, it'll have been gone for four years. Is this something that leadership still wants to bring back, and if so, will it go on the suspension calendar early next year or will it need to wait for all the big bills to move the immigration and the tax cuts?
Mike Johnson (10:49):
We haven't even had a chance to really address that in any detail, so stay tuned on that when I get back to you. Yes, ma'am. Over here, second row.
Speaker 6 (10:56):
Thanks. The Kids Online Safety Act, I'm just curious, the updated text [inaudible 00:11:02] concerns, members in your caucus have had about it, and if not, what is your message to parents who say the government needs to do more to protect their kids from the harmful effects of social media?
Mike Johnson (11:11):
Yeah, look, it's a really important issue. As a parent, I'm very passionate about protecting children online. As a professional, as a lawyer, in my career as a legislator, I've made this a big part of my work. My life's commitment is to protect children, and we've been doing that. Look, we have to take some initiative on this. There's been some great work done on KOSA. As you know, there's still some concern about the free speech components of that and whether it might lead to further censorship by the government of valid conservative voices, for example. So we're working through all that.
(11:45)
I'm grateful for the hard work that's been done. I'm grateful for the support behind it. I certainly, I think all of us, 100% of us support the principle behind it, but you got to get this one right. When you're dealing with the regulation of free speech, you can't go too far and have it be over broad, but you want to achieve those objectives. So it's essential that we get this issue right. We are very optimistic that if it's not done this year, that we can do that early next year with our Republican majorities because it's the Republican Party that has been working aggressively to protect children online. We lead on this and we'll continue to lead on it. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 7 (12:18):
Thank you. After yesterday's steering committee meeting, it looks likely that there will be no women as elected committee chairs for the next Congress. I'm just curious if you think that poses any challenges for the party as you have policy?
Mike Johnson (12:30):
Look, chairman of committees are very important positions, but we really do engage all the membership. We have extraordinary women serving in Congress and in the Republican conference. In fact, we elected some really strong women in this upcoming freshman class. We value those voices and they have, everybody has an equal say at the table, and I am really proud. I don't think, we haven't decided all the committee chairs yet, as you know, so we'll see how this shakes out, but these are thoughtful elections. We have an embarrassment of riches, frankly, when you have multiple people running for these gavels, we discussed it yesterday in steering, any of these folks are doing an extraordinary job because they're all great colleagues and have great experience to the table and all that. So stay tuned on the final composition of conference chairs. We'll see how it all shakes out. Scott.
Speaker 8 (13:18):
Last question.
Scott (13:18):
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your first year in Congress was 2017, the last time we saw a GOP trifecta. Republicans spent the large majority of that year focused on repealing Obamacare and it didn't work out for your party.
Mike Johnson (13:31):
You got to remind me of that, don't you?
Scott (13:35):
Looking ahead to 2025, is there any discussion or debate or would it be wiser to start with tax cuts, which is a big priority for a number of folks in your conference rather than something like border security, which could really run into a lot of problems and get bogged down by the process?
Mike Johnson (13:56):
It's a great question, and as you know, we're having lots of thoughtful discussion about the best play calls. Y'all have heard me talking about our proverbial playbook we've been developing for about a year. It's well-designed, and so we have a menu of options. What we're deciding right now is the sequence of how we run those plays, and it's really important. The House and the Senate have different calculations on how that's done, but we all have exactly the same priorities. The incoming administration, the Senate Republicans and the House Republicans, we got to take care of the border as a top priority, and we will. We've got to get the economy going again, and we will. Part of that is ensuring that we don't have the largest tax increase in US history on the American people at the end of this coming year when those Trump tax cuts expire.
(14:36)
So we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The sequence and the use of reconciliation is really important. There are thoughtful discussions going on right now. They will be all day. I have a session late tonight scheduled, I think from 7:30 to 9:00 PM with committee chairs, the committees of jurisdiction and the folks who will be involved in engineering all of this. We've been talking almost, well, I've been talking daily with the incoming White House and the policy staff over there, and President-elect Trump and I'll be talking about this in depth this weekend before the Army-Navy game. So we're going to come up with a play call that we have consensus on and that will work for the American people. We're going to achieve these objectives. We're going to get this done and stay tuned on the sequence, so we'll get back to you on that. Thank y'all so much. Thanks.