Mike Johnson Asked Point Blank: Is The Senate ‘Dragging Their Feet’ On Reconciliation?

3 days ago

During the House Republican Leadership's press briefing on Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) discussed the budget reconciliation process.

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Transcript

00:00that happened. So I'll yield some of your questions.

00:03You just mentioned the Senate.

00:06Yesterday about this. Do you think that the Senate is driving their feet on

00:09reconciliation? Do you think they need to kind of speed things up and hurry

00:11up? Well, look, I'm gonna say this, and I've been saying this consistently,

00:15and I believe it. There's no daylight between House and Senate Republicans.

00:18We are one team. I speak with Leader Thune about this constantly and with

00:23individual members of the Senate over there. We're all united on the mission,

00:27and there's been different ideas about how to complete the mission, but I

00:30think it's all coming together now. This week will be pivotal. We have a

00:33big meeting at the White House later today with the leaders in both chambers,

00:36Republican leaders, to unite and get this thing done. I don't fault the

00:41Senate. They've had a lot on their plates. They had to get all the

00:44confirmations done for the administration. It takes a lot of floor

00:47time. Leader Thune's kept them in five days a week, just working around the

00:50clock, getting their job done. But we began in the House. We have a bit of

00:54an advantage over the Senate because we began this a long time ago. In fact,

00:58it was a year ago in March that we first got the committee chairs together

01:03and said, Start working on your reconciliation bill priorities. We knew

01:06that we would come to unified government. We were convinced that

01:08President Trump would win and that we would have the Senate and the House,

01:11and we wanted to be prepared to lead. We put together the playbook,

01:14as you've all heard me talk about so many times, and we did all that

01:17work. It took a lot of time, many, many months to get us to

01:21where we are. The Senate is a little bit behind pace, not because they

01:24weren't working hard, but because they were just engaging in other things.

01:27And so what we're trying to do now is fast forward their process so

01:31they can get the cliff notes of basically what we did for the last

01:34year and skip through some of those steps because we'll all get to

01:37the same point, and I think that's very important. I have been pressing

01:41very hard, very aggressively to get the reconciliation bill done by late

01:45spring. You've all heard me say that. I'm trying to get this to

01:47the President's desk for signature, at least by Memorial Day. I think

01:51it's very important. I think the timing is very important because we have

01:54to bring stability to the markets. We've got to make sure everybody's tax

01:57rates are locked in, and they know that, so people can make decisions

02:01about expanding their businesses and jobs and other things.

02:05It'll settle the bond markets. It will secure the border. It will help

02:08us to restore and maintain peace through strength. And of course,

02:12it'll prevent the largest tax increase in US history. All those things

02:14are very important to get done quickly so that the American people can

02:17feel the results of it. This is gonna be a great,

02:20great piece of legislation, historic, and we're anxious to get it done.

Mike Johnson Asked Point Blank: Is The Senate ‘Dragging Their Feet’ On Reconciliation?

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