Speaker Johnson: This is a SERIOUS threat

[0:00] Joining us now, House Speaker Mike Johnson. [0:02] Speaker, great to have you back with us. [0:03] Glad to be with you. [0:04] All right, your thoughts on 250 into this experiment? [0:07] It's amazing. [0:08] We are celebrating the greatest nation the world has ever seen, [0:11] and it was full of activities and events here in Capitol Hill this weekend. [0:14] We were up until after 2 a.m., two nights in a row, and could have kept going. [0:19] The president was excited to deliver that speech in spite of the elements last night, [0:22] and he told me backstage before we went out there, [0:24] Mike, there's no way we could have postponed this. [0:25] I said, you're right, sir. [0:26] It was really well done. [0:27] Yeah, there were thousands of people who were willing to come back [0:30] despite multiple evacuations to be there for all of the festivities last night. [0:34] The president touched on something. [0:35] He touched on this idea of the return of communism, [0:38] and I know that you've talked about this, too. [0:40] Democrats are having to grapple with who's calling the shots in their party [0:43] as these Democratic Socialist members are having great success. [0:47] But Steve Bannon said some interesting things to Politico this week [0:49] that neither Republicans nor Democrats really fully grasp what they're dealing with here. [0:55] He says this. [0:56] If you're playing the old politics of tax cuts and wars everywhere [0:59] and doing the bidding of Israel, his words, [1:01] let me be blunt, you're finished. [1:03] I just keep telling people it's a flashing red light, [1:06] and the Senate Majority Leader John Thunes of the world and House Speaker Mike Johnson [1:09] better understand that the old politics are gone. [1:12] Your response? [1:13] Well, Steve needs to see what we've been saying. [1:15] I've been saying this for years and on the campaign trail for over a year and a half, [1:19] and since Mamdani got elected in New York, I've been out on the campaign trail countrywide across coast-to-coast, [1:26] every swing district, the blue states, red states, saying the same thing. [1:29] There are many Mamdani's popping up, running for Congress around the country, [1:32] and you better be very serious about this. [1:34] This is a serious threat to our whole system of government. [1:38] These are Marxists. [1:39] It's communism, socialism. [1:40] Those are deviations of Marxism. [1:42] It begins with the opposite premise of America, and it is a serious threat to us. [1:46] These people want to say, they're saying it out loud, [1:49] they want to abolish all borders, they want to abolish all prisons, [1:52] they want to defund the police, they want to abolish the U.S. Senate, [1:55] they want to pack the Supreme Court, [1:56] they want the government to take over control of all production. [2:00] This is communism, and it has led to the murder of innocent people, [2:04] tens of millions of them in the 20th century alone. [2:06] We have to fight this. [2:07] We're no longer just in an election cycle. [2:09] We were saying it was common sense versus crazy. [2:11] Now it's common sense versus communism, and everybody needs to wake up. [2:15] Well, you talk about all the things that they're for, [2:17] and the Democrats are having to have this internal fight [2:20] over how much of this they're going to allow. [2:22] They keep saying that they have a big tent, [2:24] but do you think they internally understand what their party is facing? [2:27] I think quietly. [2:29] The Democrat establishment on Capitol Hill understands that, [2:32] but they feel powerless to stop it, [2:34] because if they stand up and say this is wrong, [2:37] the problem they have is the energy, the excitement, the money, [2:39] the grassroots is on the side of the insurgent left. [2:43] And this is a threat that we have never seen before [2:45] in the elected system of our government. [2:48] Ronald Reagan used to warn about communism. [2:50] He talked about it, but it was a distant threat across the world, [2:54] and now the barbarians are inside the gate. [2:56] So this election cycle is for all the marbles, Shannon. [2:59] This is not your father's Democrat party. [3:03] That party's long gone. [3:04] Well, you've got your own GOP stuff to deal with. [3:07] Politico puts it this way. [3:08] Intra-party fights, tight margins, election year pressures [3:11] with an indifferent president have grounded the pre-midterm legislative plans [3:15] of GOP leaders on the Hill. [3:17] Just a handful of days, they say, to get anything done. [3:19] House leaders in particular, they say, [3:21] appear to have lost control of their chamber. [3:24] You had to send folks home. [3:25] I mean, the House floor was brought to a stop, [3:27] not by Democrats, but by some Republicans. [3:29] How are you dealing with their concerns? [3:31] Well, the Hill Press Corps has been writing this [3:34] for the last two and a half years, okay? [3:36] We have the smallest margin in U.S. history. [3:38] I functionally have a one-vote margin on most days. [3:41] And so we work through everybody's preferences on legislation. [3:45] And this week, a handful of Republicans took down the rule, [3:48] the procedure rule to advance legislation. [3:50] I just decided it was best to send everybody home [3:52] to go celebrate July 4th in their districts. [3:54] We'll come back, gather everybody together. [3:56] The big urgency is to get Save America passed. [3:59] The president has that as a top priority, and so do I. [4:01] We passed it three times in the House. [4:03] We're going to try one more time on a budget reconciliation bill, [4:06] and I think that will be the way to get it through the Senate [4:08] and finally to the president's desk. [4:10] So that's forthcoming. [4:11] Okay, I want to talk about reconciliation. [4:12] But before that, you talk about what the House has passed. [4:15] So the Save America Act on your side is about voter ID [4:18] and proof of citizenship. [4:19] What's come together in the Senate is different. [4:22] The president wants some additional things about mail-in ballots, [4:24] trans treatment for minors and trans athletes. [4:28] Will he accept the House version? [4:30] You've had conversations with him. [4:31] Is he willing to accept that version, [4:33] or does he want everything else what's packed into the Senate version? [4:36] I think our version is the main, sort of the backbone of that. [4:40] The House version. [4:40] Yes. [4:41] He would like to add the prohibition of mail-in balloting, [4:44] except for exceptions like if somebody's deployed overseas [4:46] or they're ill or can't get to the polling place. [4:49] But he understands that one is a bigger reach. [4:51] If we can get proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote, [4:55] that eliminates so much of the problem, [4:57] all the fraud and everything that everybody's concerned about [5:00] in our elections, particularly, frankly, in these blue states. [5:03] Look at California. [5:03] They're still counting ballots from an election that happened a month ago. [5:07] It's crazy, and everybody understands that. [5:09] So one of the folks who's leading this conversation [5:11] is Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. [5:13] And when the House rule got shut down, [5:16] you sent everybody home because you couldn't move forward. [5:18] She tweeted, I don't care who hates me in the chamber for it. [5:21] She clearly has a point to make about Save America. [5:24] She says this on X. [5:25] We should be doing everything to pass Save America. [5:27] Add it to reconciliation, which you've talked about. [5:29] Add it to the NDAA. [5:31] Add it to FISA. [5:31] Add it to every must-pass bill. [5:34] Our frontline members promised this to their voters. [5:36] Let's deliver. [5:37] Now, she apparently felt the conversation about adding it to the defense bill was not adequate, [5:42] that it would be done in a way that would allow potentially the Senate to strip it back out. [5:46] So have you had that conversation with her? [5:48] I've had the conversation with her many times and with our Senate colleagues as well. [5:52] What she was saying just frankly isn't true. [5:54] What we did was a MERV, and that's a technical term to say we merged the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, [6:00] with the Save America Act that we passed back in February, unanimously with all Republican votes. [6:05] That puts it in the base tax. [6:07] It merges the two bills into one, and it's transmitted to the Senate that way. [6:11] So what she was saying just simply isn't accurate. [6:13] I tried to explain that to her on the floor. [6:15] Nobody's mad at Anna. [6:16] We all want the same thing. [6:18] She's a team player. [6:19] She's a dear friend of mine. [6:20] We're going to get this done. [6:21] And I reminded her, and she said herself, you know, we have done this in the House now three times already. [6:25] We're going to do it again. [6:26] And I'm going to put it in a reconciliation bill so that we can get it through the Senate. [6:30] The problem is there's only 53 Republicans in the Senate, and to do substantive legislation, you need 60 votes. [6:36] There is zero chance, Shannon, that seven Democrats are going to help us on election integrity [6:41] because, as the president rightfully says all the time, they count on this. [6:44] I think some of them allow for some cheating in elections because they can't win on their policies. [6:49] Well, and you can't always count on all the Republicans in the Senate to stick together on critical issues either. [6:54] So, talking about reconciliation, just a few weeks ago, it came up in a Senate appropriations hearing. [6:59] Senator Mitch McConnell said, then, I think it's safe to conclude, there will not be another reconciliation bill, [7:04] so it's really not an option. [7:06] Senator Susan Collins was sitting right next to him, and she followed that up, saying, I agree with that assessment. [7:10] So, what do you say to your House members who say, we can't count on reconciliation because the Senate may not do it? [7:15] Well, I've spoken to Leader Thune about this quite a bit, individual senators. [7:19] I think some of that lack of belief there is based upon what they think may be in it, [7:24] what we're planning to do is send over a bill that will be irresistible for any Republican. [7:28] Really incredible piece of legislation that will get the job done, meaning that we will continue to increase affordability, [7:36] we will reduce fraud, waste, and abuse in government, and we'll secure elections. [7:40] Every Republican would vote for that, if packaged correctly, and that's what we're planning to do right now. [7:44] All right, so that's where Save America Act is going to move to the Senate, is probably through that plan. [7:48] Okay, I want to talk to you about the Supreme Court's decision this week on birthright citizenship. [7:51] The president tweeting afterwards, excuse me, True Social, he said, [7:55] we can easily make it up in Congress through legislation. [7:57] No long and unwieldy constitutional amendment is necessary. [8:00] A lot of conservative voices did not read the opinion that way, including Governor Ron DeSantis, Harvard Law grad, not exactly a slouch. [8:07] In this department, he says, [8:08] It's a substantive decision that says the 14th Amendment requires citizenship for those born to, among others, birth tourists, [8:15] or those unlawfully present in the country will need either a constitutional amendment or a future court to overrule this. [8:21] Mike Lee joining in with that as well. [8:23] The senator saying it's going to be a long fight to a constitutional amendment. [8:26] You, I knew before Congress as a constitutional attorney and scholar, [8:30] what say you about how this gets done, if there's a change to be made? [8:33] Well, I used to litigate constitutional law cases, so I really enjoyed Justice Clarence Thomas' dissent. [8:39] It's, everybody should read that, must read. [8:41] And he explained that the 14th Amendment, the original intent, was to enhance and really value citizenship, [8:47] and it's been devalued because of birthright tourism, which is what we have now. [8:51] It's a threat to the rule of law and national security. [8:53] We do need to address it. [8:54] We're looking at all angles. [8:55] If there's some legislative fix, we'll advance that immediately. [8:58] If it's a constitutional amendment, as you know, it takes a little more time. [9:02] But we've got to address this. [9:03] It really is a serious, serious issue. [9:05] Time for folks to brush up on Schoolhouse Rock. [9:07] It is quite a process, and it isn't often done. [9:10] All right, Speaker, good to see you. [9:11] Thank you so much. [9:12] Great to see you.