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He went further, blasting the Democrats’ spending priorities: “They want to give a half a billion dollars back to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to prop up leftist news organizations, and they want to spend billions of dollars overseas on all sorts of extraneous, crazy kinds of programs. They know we’re not going for that.”
Johnson said this showdown is unlike any before. “It is not a serious proposal. This is the first time in history that any party has chosen to shut the government down over a clean CR,” he declared. “Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries… are afraid of their far-left flank, they’re afraid they’re going to get a challenge in New York because Marxism is all the rage, and they’re going to lose their seats, so they’re putting up a fight. It makes no sense, and real people are getting hurt.”
The Louisiana Republican dismissed claims that he refuses to negotiate. “The mainstream media has asked me in all these interviews, ‘Why aren’t you negotiating?’ Cheryl, I literally don’t have anything to negotiate,” he said. “In the past, when there has been a CR standoff like this… the majority party has loaded up the CR proposal with a lot of partisan priorities. We haven’t done any of that.”
Johnson insisted that the GOP’s proposal is entirely fair and identical to what Democrats themselves once supported. “We are operating in good faith. The Republicans are trying to keep the government moving forward, so we sent over a totally clean CR. So, in other words, there’s nothing I can pull off of that to make it more palatable for Democrats. It’s exactly what they already voted for,” he said.
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And to drive the point home, Johnson reminded viewers of Schumer’s own words earlier this year. “Chuck Schumer voted for the identical measure in March of this year,” Johnson said. “He gave an impassioned speech on the floor about how it had to be done because it’d be totally irresponsible to harm the American people by shutting the government down.”
Now, Johnson argues, something has clearly changed — and it’s not the policy. “The only thing that’s changed between March, seven months ago, and now is that Chuck Schumer is now afraid of the rise of Marxism in New York,” Johnson said. “That’s his home state, and he’s afraid he’s going to lose the seat that he’s held for so many years.”
As the shutdown drags on, Johnson says House Republicans are ready to return “within 48 hours” if Democrats agree to pass the clean, GOP-approved bill and stop “playing games.” Until then, he warned, it’s the American people — not politicians — who will continue to pay the price for the Democrats’ political theater.
