Speaker Johnson: This Was Not a Speech For the Mainstream Media, This Was a Speech For the American People
WASHINGTON — Immediately following President Trump’s historic Joint Address to Congress, Speaker Johnson joined Fox News to offer reaction.
“If [Democrats] are going to use a 77-year-old heckling Congressman as the face of their resistance, then bring it on,” Speaker Johnson said. “But we’re not going to tolerate that on the House floor. And I don’t think the American people are going to tolerate that either.”
On President Trump’s Joint Address:
It was not a speech for the mainstream media, it was a speech for the American people. And I’m sure it was received as well at home as it was there by the Republicans and the audience up in the gallery. It was really shameful what the Democrats did. I mean, that really was quite a spectacle. They brought shame on themselves and their party. But the American people are following what the President is delivering, and they are appreciating it, and we certainly did tonight in the chamber.
On Democrats shameful, embarrassing behavior:
If they’re going to use a 77-year-old heckling Congressman as the face of their resistance, then bring it on. But we’re not going to tolerate that on the House floor. And I don’t think the American people are going to tolerate that either. We escorted him off the floor. He couldn’t behave himself, it’s quite shameful. I’m sure his constituents are not proud of that tonight, but I suspect that there’ll be a censure resolution brought on the floor to discipline him. We have to do that inside the house. We have to maintain decorum.
The Democrats don’t have a leader, they don’t have a vision, they don’t have a platform they can run on. So, all they can do is this make it a spectacle on the House floor, but we’re going to govern Sean, and we’re going to move the ball forward to the American people, and it is going to be a new golden age for America. President Trump is leading it. We are so excited to be a part of it.
Speaker Johnson Joins Good Morning America Following President Trump’s Historic Address
WASHINGTON — Speaker Johnson joined Good Morning America with George Stephanopoulos to offer additional reaction to President Trump’s historic joint address to Congress last night.
On the reaction to President Trump’s joint address:
Let me say George, the speech last night went overwhelmingly well. It was not a speech for the mainstream media, it was a speech for the American people. I saw a poll this morning from CBS that said that 76% of viewers viewed it favorably. It was very well received in the House, except by the Democrats, of course, who resorted to this sort of pettiness, and I even had to eject a member from the chamber. I think that was the first time in history, a pretty sad reflection, I think on the members who did that. But overall, it was a good night.
On Congressional Democrats response:
If the Democrats want a 77-year-old congressman to be the face of their resistance heckling the President, then bring it on. But we couldn’t allow that on the House floor and so I had to eject them. I didn’t want to do that. I hate that it resorted to that, but we’ve got to keep decorum in the chamber. This used to be a celebrated event, you know, pomp and circumstance, and both sides would applaud for the President. You know, we did that for President Biden on the lines that were there.
But last night, the Democrats couldn’t even stand for the Americans that President Trump was recognizing in the gallery. I mean, you had the families of Jocelyn Nungaray and Laken Riley and Corey Comperatore — Americans who had lost their lives. They couldn’t stand and applaud for the capture of the terrorist mastermind of Abbey Gate. It was really a sad affair.
On FY25 Government Funding:
We’ll have a continuing resolution, it’ll go through the end of the fiscal year, and we will pass that out of the House and send it over to the Senate. And I certainly hope that reasonably minded members of both sides of the aisle will do the right thing. It doesn’t help anyone to have a government shut down. We’ve been negotiating in good faith for many weeks to try to get to a top line that everyone could agree with. But the Democrats put in some very unreasonable and unprecedented demands at the end. So that’s what’s forced us into the continuing resolution situation.
