Reporter To Mike Johnson: 'What Closed The Deal' With Republicans Planning To Vote No On Budget?

4 days ago

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Speaker Johnson (R-LA) was asked about how Republicans originally planning to vote against the budget proposal changed their minds this morning.

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Transcript

00:00step in getting that done. Mr. Speaker, what changed between last night and this morning?

00:06What closed the deal? Look, we're in a deliberative body, and we did a lot of work leading up to this

00:13moment, of course, for many months. But sometimes there are pressure release valves you have to

00:17allow people to do. You know, everybody's human around here. There's lots of different interests.

00:21We have 220 people in the Republican conference, and they have a lot of different ideas. They

00:26represent a lot of different districts. And sometimes when the pressure gets turned up,

00:30people need to release that. So that's what I do. I allow them to do that. We take thoughtful

00:35discussion and deliberation. Sometimes we do it out in open. Sometimes we do it in closed meetings.

00:40But we had that until late last night. I did more of it this morning. I want to compliment our

00:45president, President Trump, who is always engaged with us and available and accessible. He didn't

00:51have to call a single member to wrangle anybody on this thing. He allowed me the space to do what I

00:57need to do. And we got the votes together. And we reaffirmed our commitments. It's real. We want

01:02to find real savings. We have an obligation to do that. But we also have to protect these essential

01:07programs. We can and we'll do both. And you're going to see that.

01:11Mr. Speaker, how do you ensure that this kind of war with hardliners doesn't derail the process in

01:16the coming months?

01:17Look, everyone that you would describe as a hardliner, I mean, people who were in the room last

01:20night are they're in good faith. I mean, these are my closest friends, colleagues. I mean, all of us.

01:26We're one big team. And their intention is good. They're in good faith. They want to make sure

01:32because they believe we have a responsibility, as I do, to make sure that the national debt and

01:37our deficits that we've been running around here for too long are turned back on a different

01:42trajectory. And I use the analogy all the time. We have a it's effectively like a giant aircraft carrier

01:47and you don't turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. It takes miles of open ocean. But we

01:51have a responsibility and we have a once in a lifetime opportunity with this reconciliation

01:56measure before us to take make a real turn in an aircraft carrier. And we're very serious about

02:02it. And so the colleagues that were in the conversations up to past midnight last night

02:06just wanted assurances that we're really, really going to do that. And we are. But we're going to do it

02:11in a way that doesn't unduly affect or harm any beneficiary of a public program that's available

02:16to them. So you'll see that.

Reporter To Mike Johnson: 'What Closed The Deal' With Republicans Planning To Vote No On Budget?

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