Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Johnson (LA-04)
WASHINGTON — This morning, Speaker Johnson joined Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday to discuss Republican efforts to drive down health care costs and restore regular order to the appropriations process. Speaker Johnson also addressed Democrats’ newfound interest in the Epstein Files and the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
Watch Speaker Johnson’s full interview here.
On Republican efforts to drive down health care costs for working families:
We’ve done it just this year, July 4 in the Working Families Tax Cut, the Big Beautiful Bill. The President signed into law some real innovations. We saved the American taxpayers $185 billion according to CBO, by some of the changes there, we brought premiums down. But this is what’s interesting. We had another provision in the House version of the Working Families Tax Cut that went to the Senate that would have brought premiums down on average 12.7% across the country. Senate Democrats fought to take that out of the bill, so it didn’t make it to the President’s desk. We have more ideas like that. There’s a lot of ideas that can bring down the cost of health care, increase quality, increase access to care, and you’ll be seeing that rolled out the next couple of weeks. Remember, we were always planning to do this in October, November, December. Ironically, it’s the Democrats who took all that time off the clock by engaging in their shenanigans for political purposes.
On House Republicans restoring regular order to the appropriations process:
The good news is our appropriators in the House and the Senate, in bipartisan fashion, have been working on appropriations bills the whole year. So, they’re virtually done. There’s a little disagreement between the Senate and House versions of some of the bills. The top line numbers are a little bit different. We got to resolve that, but we can certainly get that done in the amount of time that’s still on the calendar. Just because we don’t have legislative voting days, it doesn’t mean Congress isn’t working. There’s this idea out there that Congress goes on vacation, Shannon, we haven’t. I haven’t had a day off in two years. I mean, we work around the clock on these things. Our appropriators, in particular, have been working very hard and they’re ready to go. So, I’m very optimistic we can get the rest of the appropriations bills done. And this is the key point. We are returning to regular order, the way this is supposed to work. You know, Congress hasn’t done this for many years, and I’m really proud of this achievement, having gotten three bills signed into law on Wednesday night. Three appropriations bills are a big achievement. I know that seems like a low bar, but we’re getting Congress back to the way it’s supposed to work, so that we can be better stewards of the taxpayer dollars.
On Democrats’ newfound interest in the Epstein files:
Remember, the Biden DOJ had every one of these files in their possession for four years, and neither Hakeem Jeffries or Ro Khanna or Thomas Massie or any of them ever said a word about it. They’re doing this to go after President Trump on this theory that he has something to do with it. He does not. The people have already said that. Virginia Giuffre, whose name was redacted by the little leaked email that the Democrats put out – they cherry picked three emails out of 20,000 documents and try to imply that the President was guilty – but they took her name out. Why? She’s the one who came out and said he had nothing to do with it. President Trump has clean hands. He’s not worried about. I talk to him all the time; he has nothing to do with this. He’s frustrated that they’re turning it into a political issue, and it’s not surprising, because the Democrats have nothing else to talk about. What have they accomplished in 10 months? Epstein is their entire game plan.
So, we’re going to take that weapon out of their hand. This week, they hit the 218 signature threshold. And you know what I did? Offered it on the floor to pass by unanimous consent, the discharge petition. Guess who objected? The Democrats. If they were really for transparency, if this is really about helping victims and all that, they would not have stopped the passage of the discharge petition. So, it will be on the floor again next week. I suspect there’ll be lots of votes and we’ll just get this done and move it on. There’s nothing to hide, and the Oversight Committee is releasing far more information than the discharge petition, their little gambit, ever even anticipated. They never been mentioned in the discharge the Epstein estate files, and that is the treasure trove of documents that’s given us Epstein’s flight logs, his personal records, his financial ventures, his daily calendar. None of that was anticipated. So, the discharge is totally moot. It is a political exercise, and we’re going to dispense with that this week.
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