Speaker Johnson: How Long Will Democrats Let Chuck Schumer Lead Their Party Off a Cliff

WASHINGTON - After Senate Democrats voted to shut down the government last night, Speaker Johnson joined Good Morning America on ABC News and Mornings with Maria on Fox Business to encourage Senate Democrats to reject their far-left base and vote to reopen the government.

Watch Speaker Johnson on ABC News here, on Fox Business here.

On Democrats voting to shut down the government:

Let me tell you what happened last night, everybody can go and review the facts for themselves. 44 Senate Democrats voted to reject a clean, nonpartisan continuing funding resolution to keep the United States government open. The Democrats instead that they wanted to give healthcare to illegal aliens instead of keeping critical services provided for the American citizens. That's what happened, plain and simple. Every Democrat in the house except one voted against the clean continuing resolution. It was nonpartisan in nature. There are no policy riders on it that Republicans favor. It's exactly what Chuck Schumer and other Democrats voted for in March. But they've changed their tune. They changed their tune because Chuck Schumer is having political problems right now. That's just a simple fact. And everybody knows that he's trying to outrun the far-left portion of his base, so he's decided to inflict pain on the American people.

On Chuck Schumer leading Democrats off a cliff:

What the president did in showing leadership two days ago was, he brought in Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to meet with me and leader Thune in the Senate to try to work this out. He gave them unlimited time in the Oval Office, and they would not come to the table to do exactly, George, what they themselves have said repeatedly, over and over and over. We have a highlight reel playing on my social media that shows Chuck Schumer in his own words for the last decades, saying that a shutdown would be dangerous and disastrous and reckless. And now he's the one leading his party off the cliff.

There's one question that Senate Democrats have to ask today. How long are they going to allow Chuck Schumer to do this to them so that he himself can get political cover from the far-left corner of his base? He believes he's going to get a challenge for the Senate from AOC. That's what changed his mind. That's what's driving this agenda and it's harming real American people. You said at the outset how many people will be unpaid. Many people will lose their jobs over this, TSA agents, you know, the troops won't be paid. They have to go to work. They won't be paid because Chuck Schumer wants to play political games with a nonpartisan continuing resolution to keep government operating.

On Democrat lies about their own proposal to provide free health care to illegal aliens:

I'd like everybody to go read the bill for themselves. They rejected our clean, non-partisan continuing resolution, and they filed their own, what Chuck Schumer presented as the counter proposal. Look at page 57. Section 2141. They would repeal Maria, what we put into the one big, beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cuts. In that provision was the healthcare section. They want to repeal it in its entirety. That section has been wildly successful. The Congressional Budget Office issued a report earlier last month, a few weeks ago, and they said that that bill has already saved taxpayers $185 billion because it's got 2.3 million ineligible recipients kicked off of Medicaid. What does that mean?

There's a lot of illegal aliens that were on that program who are not eligible to be there. It was draining resources from the people that it's intended to help. And that is young pregnant women, the disabled and the elderly. We are strengthening Medicaid, and the Democrats want to unwind that because they have a political talking point. This thing about the subsidies is an issue that is to be debated and decided by the end of the year. It doesn't expire until December 31. They've inserted it into the September funding decision because they're trying to show a fight against Trump. It's ridiculous. They have nothing to argue, and everybody here knows that.