Speaker Johnson Makes a Trio of Television Appearances

WASHINGTON - This afternoon, Speaker Johnson made a trio of television appearances on Fox Business' Kudlow, Newsmax's The Record, and CNN's The Lead to discuss Senate Democrats finally finding the courage to end the government shutdown. Speaker Johnson also addressed Republican efforts to drive down the cost of living following four failed years of Bidenomics.

Watch Speaker Johnson on Fox Business, on Newsmax, and on CNN.

On Senate Democrats finally finding the courage to reopen the government (CNN):

The long national nightmare is almost coming to an end now, the beginning of the end. As I said this morning in my press conference, it was long overdue. And the irony is it really was a shutdown about nothing. I mean, what we're voting on is effectively exactly what we offered them several weeks back. We've added some appropriations bills now, which we're in favor of because it's getting us back to the regular order. We'll take care of some other details, but I don't think Chuck Schumer got anything out of this other than a political show. And sadly, I think that's what he was after the whole time.

I'd like to vote tonight after the Senate is done, but it takes everybody a while to get back. We have people come from the west coast. We have a Member flying in from Guam, so he has 20 hours just to get to the west coast and then get here. So, yeah, we've got to get everybody back. We're praying that they can make it through the chaos that all the other American people have been made to suffer through because of this needless political show that the Democrats have been engaging in.

On the Republican affordability agenda (Fox Business):

Remember, we have the headwinds of the mainstream media that are always parroting the talking points of the other side. And it's not always based on fact; in fact, it usually is not. But we are the party that is delivering on affordability. And the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Working Families Tax Cut, was geared and written for lower- and middle-class earners in this country. And they're going to feel the positive effects because as you know, Larry, that bill is full of pro-growth policies that are going to make all boats rise. All the aspects of that bill have not yet been implemented, but they will be. And as we go into the new year and we glide into the election cycle, people are going to be feeling that. And I think they'll reward the people who put that in place. Remember, the Democrats solution to everything is more government, and that is not the answer. That will only make it worse. They grow government, they spend more money, they would spend us into oblivion. So you need common sense back and that's what the Republican Party and President Trump are delivering.

Bidenomics was a disaster for the country. They spent far too much. And that's the reason inflation was up. The cost of living is up so high because of the policies of the previous administration. Now, we're working to root those policies out and implement our own. But as you know, it takes a little time. You don't just flip a switch right after the election, and everything transfers over. So, the more time that goes by, the more they'll feel the positive effects of what we've done. We are restoring common sense and fiscal responsibility to government. And that's long overdue. And thank goodness we won that election in November because the country would've crashed into bankruptcy by now.

On Democrats refusing actual solutions to drive down health care costs (Newsmax):

There's a lot of misinformation out there about [health care]. And some of that's intentional by our Democrat colleagues because they're trying to make this into something that it isn't. This is what's really important. We're not just talking about it on the Republican side. We're actually doing it. In the Working Families Tax Cut, in the Big Beautiful Bill, the version that passed the House, we had a provision in the bill called the cost sharing reduction provisions. And that would've driven down premiums on average by 12.7% for every person who has insurance. But the Democrats fought to take it out of the bill. So, if they cared so much about health care costs, they shouldn't be fighting provisions like that. We're putting together some ideas that will drive the premiums down because health care is too expensive in this country. It's too expensive because the Democrats built a system that doesn't work. So, we need to look at the root causes of the costs that have skyrocketed and address that for the people. Merely subsidizing something is not the answer. When the government subsidizes something, it almost always means it's not working, and that's the problem.

There are a lot of ideas on how to drive the cost down, and we have November and December to work on that. We're going to have to get a bipartisan consensus on some of this. And so, we'll be presenting our ideas and putting them on the table. The Democrats, this is very important to point out, they don't have any reform ideas at all. Their argument is they want a completely unreformed continuation. They would do it permanently, most of them in government, just subsidizing the insurance companies. And that is not the solution. And we're going to be educating the population along the way as we do this and come up with reforms that will actually solve the problem and not make it worse.