• 3 days ago
During the House Republican Leadership's press briefing on Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called upon Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to put an end to ‘threats of violence and intimidation’ towards the GOP.

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Transcript
00:00Thank You leader Scalise and these other members it's a great day but I've got
00:05to address a couple of things with you and I need to start with something
00:08that's pretty serious. Chuck Schumer engaged in a lot of unusual activity
00:14last week but among the most concerning was his invitation to activists
00:19nationwide. I want to I want to quote to you what he said on on PBS and I think
00:23in other venues but this is what he said on that particular program quote we are
00:27mobilizing in New York we have people going to the Republican districts and
00:31going after these Republicans who are voting for this and forcing them to
00:36either change their vote or face the consequences unquote. It was reminiscent
00:41of the threats he made to Supreme Court justices a year and a half ago or so on
00:45the steps of the Supreme Court. It's it's dangerous rhetoric and and that message
00:50was received. So we had far-left activists go into into some of these
00:54events they engage in a physical altercation at at least one of them
00:57representative Lawler in New York just hours after he made that call to action.
01:02This isn't just a problem in that state it's a problem across the country and we
01:07had members who are rightfully concerned about threats of physical violence at
01:11their events and in their districts some in some cases they even went to events
01:16for their children at school. It's gotten out of hand that behavior cannot be
01:20tolerated. It's an enhanced threat environment for a lot of reasons and we
01:25see Tesla dealerships being firebombed and all these things happening it cannot
01:29be encouraged by leaders in Congress. So I am calling on leader Schumer and and
01:35leader Jeffries in the house to put an end to this to explain that threats of
01:40violence and and intimidation like that is not an acceptable form of political
01:45protest. We all believe in free speech I used to defend it in courts but this is
01:50something very different and it's very serious situation and they need to get
01:54control of that. Chuck Schumer and congressional Democrats are feeling the
01:57heat and they're lashing out because of it and we saw all sorts of unusual
02:02activity over the last week. It's well chronicled the Democrats have no vision
02:05no message no leader you heard about it here today. The American people have
02:09taken note. CNN found that just 29% of the people view the Democratic Party
02:14favorably now. NBC found that the number at 27%. Quinnipiac poll over the
02:20weekend was an interesting one. Since they've been taking the poll which goes
02:24back many years, decades, congressional Democrats are at their lowest approval
02:30rating with their own base ever. They're nine points underwater. What's really
02:34interesting about that Politico did a piece on this and they contrasted where
02:38the Democrats stand and where we stand. While they're at their lowest number of
02:41all time and they're nine points underwater with their own base,
02:45congressional Republicans are at our highest mark ever and we're at plus 69
02:50points with their own base. That's a pretty stark contrast and I think we all
02:54know why. Axios reported yesterday that Democrats are quote in their deepest
02:58hole in nearly 50 years. This is not a mystery. Everyone understands what's
03:03happening and why. In their haste to oppose President Trump in our efforts to
03:07make government more efficient, Democrats are cutting off their noses
03:11despite their own face. Look, I've made a list of this. They're cheering the
03:14decline of an American company which employs over 100,000 workers. They
03:19refuse to celebrate the return of stranded American astronauts because
03:22SpaceX facilitated their return. Without a hint of irony, they're trading in their
03:27electric vehicles for SUVs, as was noted earlier, all right? They publicly
03:32refuse to stand for a childhood cancer survivor, victims of violent crimes
03:37during President Trump's joint address. Their message has gone from, it's more
03:42than just anti-Trump now, it's anti-American and everyone sees that
03:46and the polling reflects it. The American people are not stupid. They understand
03:51what's happening here. We have a word of advice to our Democrat colleagues. If you
03:54want to pull yourselves out of the wilderness and the doldrums that you're
03:57in, get on board with the American people who support our common-sense agenda. It
04:03is common sense to keep men out of women's sports. It is common sense to
04:07secure the border and deport dangerous illegal aliens, as you talked about
04:10earlier. It is common sense to make government more efficient and cut fraud,
04:16waste, and abuse and do right by the taxpayer. We are not doing these things
04:20because they're Republican priorities. They are. They are priorities
04:25because it's the right thing to do and the American people want the right thing
04:28to be done and the Democrats are opposing it and they see it very
04:32clearly. Republicans in Congress enjoy record high levels of approval because
04:36we're engaging in what we understand to be simple truths and we're
04:41delivering on it. We got a small majority, that's true, but this House GOP
04:45conference has stayed together and stayed laser-focused on passing
04:49common-sense legislation and executing the Trump agenda as quickly as possible.
04:54When we stay united, we do right by the people. I look forward to working with
04:59Leader Thune and our Senate counterparts to move that budget reconciliation bill.
05:02It will be the largest, most consequential piece of legislation in
05:06decades, maybe one of the most in all of the history of Congress. We're excited to
05:11deliver that for the people and we have no time to waste. We've got almost 80
05:15million people that supported President Trump and House Republicans. We all had
05:18our largest totals ever. We're going to do what they asked us to do and we are
05:22not going to keep them waiting. So you're going to see us moving
05:25aggressively here and across the country to make sure that happens.

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