“No poison pill riders… no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security… no cuts to veterans’ benefits. It’s all a lie.”
WASHINGTON — This morning, at the weekly House Republican Leadership press conference, Speaker Johnson discussed House Republicans’ clean 6-month continuing resolution (CR) and Congressional Democrats’ attempt to force a government shutdown.
“Here’s the bottom line. If Congressional Democrats refuse to support this clean CR, they will be responsible for every troop who misses a paycheck, for every flight delay from reduced staffing at TSA, and for every negative consequence that comes from shutting down the government,” Speaker Johnson said.
On Congressional Democrats spreading misinformation about the CR:
[Democrats] either have an issue with reading comprehension or they are attempting to run one of the most shameful misinformation campaigns that we’ve ever seen in our lives. We filed the continued resolution on Saturday, and as was noted, they had already come out panning the bill that literally had not yet been seen. This is the house Democrat leadership team’s statement on Friday. They said, “Republicans have decided to introduce a partisan continuing resolution that threatens to cut funding for healthcare, nutritional assistance, and veterans benefits through the end of the year.” Every single word of that is a lie. Every single word, they just made it up. They didn’t read the bill. It’s nonsense. People are not buying this.
They said, “It’s so harmful to the American people. You know, cutting Medicaid, cutting Medicare, threatening social security, cutting veteran benefits.” It’s all a lie. You can all read the bills. 99 pages. This clean CR contains no poison pill riders. No policy riders there at all. No cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. Zero. No cuts to veterans benefit benefits. Zero. In fact, as was noted, we plus up the accounts for veterans. And respectfully, I’m just going to say this to every reporter in the room. If you’re allowing Democrats to make these intentionally false, scurrilous claims without pushback, then you’re aiding and abetting the spreading this misinformation. I would just ask you to call ’em on it. The American people deserve that. They deserve that clarity from our press corps. Make them point it out to you. They can’t, of course.
On House Republicans’ efforts to keep the government open:
You will see one team that is working to fund the government and make sure we do the responsible thing. And you’re going to see another opposing a CR because they’ve now exposed the truth. They’re not for federal workers; they’re not for anyone. All the people they’ve said in the past that are going to be harmed, would be by their votes. They’re using federal employees as props. They’re using Medicaid benefits and social security checks as cudgels. The threat of government shutdown, they’re using as some sort of attempt to wrestle power away from the president of the United States who overwhelmingly won the popular vote, the electoral college in every single swing state.
On Democrats changing their tune on government shutdowns:
And now, after weeks of trotting federal workers up to Capitol Hill and onto cable news shows to protest President Trump’s efforts to make the government more efficient, now they’re planning to vote down this simple bill. They are going to try to shut the government down. Every house Democrat will participate in this it looks like. That would be a shame if it’s true, I hope some of them will have a moment of clarity themselves and do the right thing. But it looks like they’re going to try to shut down the government. It’s a striking new posture for Democrats who have always been apoplectic about the prospect of government shutdowns. This is their own words. You don’t need to trust us on this.
Katherine Clark: “Not only is it irresponsible and purposefully misleading, but it’s also a dangerous precedent to be threatening a shutdown.”
Pramila Jayapal: “The tragedy here is all the civilian employees. It’s the employees who are going to suffer.”
AOC: “It is not normal to hold a hundred thousand workers’ paychecks hostage. It is not normal to shut down the government when we don’t get what we want.” I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with her before. She’s exactly correct.”
Jerry Nadler: “Shut down is really an extremist policy designed to appeal to an extremist base and hold the whole country hostage.”