US Shutdown Ends: Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, accused Democrats of a “selfish political stunt” after Congress voted to end the longest government shutdown in American history. The House passed the funding bill 222–209 following a 60–40 Senate vote earlier this week. Johnson blamed Democrats for using “the American people as leverage in a political game,” saying the shutdown left millions without paychecks and disrupted key services.
The new funding bill will keep the government running until January 30, while both sides prepare for renewed clashes over healthcare and spending priorities.
Stay tuned for complete coverage from Washington D.C. as political leaders react to the end of the 43-day shutdown and what comes next.
#USPolitics #MikeJohnson #GovernmentShutdown #Congress #HouseVote #Senate #Democrats #Republicans #WashingtonDC
The new funding bill will keep the government running until January 30, while both sides prepare for renewed clashes over healthcare and spending priorities.
Stay tuned for complete coverage from Washington D.C. as political leaders react to the end of the 43-day shutdown and what comes next.
#USPolitics #MikeJohnson #GovernmentShutdown #Congress #HouseVote #Senate #Democrats #Republicans #WashingtonDC
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NewsTranscript
00:00We stood together to get the job done.
00:02Absolutely no question in anybody's mind now that the Democrats were responsible for this.
00:07What happened?
00:08Millions of American families went without food on their table.
00:12You had millions of Americans stranded in airports with their flights canceled and delayed.
00:16You had troops and federal employees wondering where their next paycheck would come from.
00:21The Democrats openly admitted, they openly admitted, many of them said it in their own words,
00:26that they used the American people as leverage in this political game.
00:30They knew that it would cause that pain to the people, and they did it anyway.
00:34They did it for their own selfish purposes, their political purposes,
00:39and it was a game they played with real people's lives.
00:42It's something that is very difficult to forgive.
00:45I want to say that all this was utterly pointless and foolish.
00:50This outcome was totally foreseeable.
00:52I said that this would be the outcome when all this began back in mid-September.
00:57They did it anyway.
00:58Democrats admitted that they used the people as leverage,
01:01and they got nothing for their selfish political stunt here.
01:04They didn't achieve anything with this at all.
01:07And anyone who studied history would know that shutdowns never yield any positive result.
01:12It just hurts people.
01:13I said on the House floor a little while ago that we did all this in good faith.
01:17From the very beginning, I was insistent about this.
01:20Our leadership team was.
01:22The Republicans did the right thing.
01:24We had a nonpartisan continuing resolution.
01:26We didn't have any Republican priorities on it at all.
01:30We just said in good faith, let's keep the lights on.
01:33Let's keep this going for another seven weeks so that the Congress can do its work
01:37so they can get back to the regular appropriations process,
01:41the way that it is supposed to be done for the people,
01:43so that we're good stewards with their money.
01:45That hasn't been done here in a long time.
01:47And we said we want to get back to that.
01:49Now, I'm pleased that tonight on the CR we had three appropriations bills
01:53that we now will send over to the President's desk in just a short amount of time tonight
01:57to get signed into law.
01:59That's an innovation too.
02:00As you all know, it's been years since Congress actually did separate appropriations bills.
02:05I'm proud of that achievement, but I'm really sad that it took us so long to get here.
02:09It was so much pain that had to be endured to get to this point.
02:12Voters are going to remember which political party played games with their lives.
02:18They're going to remember that they did this for their own selfish purposes
02:23so that they could look tough to the radical elements of their base,
02:27and real people suffered because of that game.
02:29So now that we've got the lights back on, we've got the government reopened,
02:33the President will sign that triumphantly tonight,
02:35and Republicans will get right back to the work that we promised the American people that we will do.
02:40We're going to deliver for the American people, as we have been doing.
02:43And I'll leave you with this thought.
02:45There's a split screen in America right now.
02:47There's a split screen.
02:48On one side of the screen, you have President Trump
02:50and the Republican majorities in the Congress and the Senate and the House
02:53doing the work for the American people.
02:55Look what we've achieved in the first ten months of this year.
02:57You can make an argument that it's the most productive season for a new Congress
03:01and a new presidency, a new administration, at least in the modern era, maybe of all time.
03:07Just in this short amount of months, we got the border secured.
03:12We fulfilled that promise.
03:13We are working on the crime crisis around the country.
03:16We have new trade agreements.
03:18We have a return to American energy dominance.
03:20We have cut taxes, the largest tax cut in U.S. history, in a literal sense.
03:26We're cutting regulations.
03:27We're ending fraud, waste, and abuse out of government.
03:29We're shoring up the safety net programs, like Medicaid,
03:32so that it's there for the people that desperately need it
03:34and it is not being abused by illegal aliens
03:37and by young, able-bodied men who are not eligible to receive that.
03:41We are doing all this good work.
03:43The President, meanwhile, is using his authority to change the world, literally.
03:48He has ended eight wars around the globe.
03:52All of this is happening on the Republican side and so much more.
03:55That's on one side of the screen, and on the other is the Democrat Party.
03:58And what have they done?
03:59What do they have to show for the last ten months of government here?
04:02They shut the government down.
04:04They voted 15 times to close the government and exact that pain on everyone.
04:09We can never forget that.
04:11They haven't achieved anything beyond that,
04:12except pushing ICE officers around and really spurring on political violence.
04:18So I want to say that there's a reason the Democrats are in disarray right now.
04:21There's a reason they don't have an identified leader of their party.
04:23There's a reason that their favorability, even amongst those in their own party, is the lowest of all time.
04:28They don't have a platform, a principle they can defend.
04:31They don't have a leader, except for Mondami, who's the new mayor of New York City
04:35and leading the party into Marxism and socialism.
04:39I think everybody should consider that split screen.
04:41I think you should look at it truthfully and honestly and objectively.
04:45And I think you can evaluate for yourself which party is working for the people.
04:48We're anxious to get that done, to work on health care and affordability and all the issues,
04:53to continue doing what we've done.
04:55And we look forward to rolling that out for you in the next several days.
04:57A few questions. Yes.
04:57You said earlier that you would repeal that FBI provision that's in the bill right now.
05:03Do you have assurances from Leader Thune that he will bring it up in the Senate?
05:08Well, I did call Leader Thune this morning.
05:11I want to say that he is a principled leader.
05:14I've enjoyed working with him.
05:15We've got a great working relationship and a good friendship.
05:18He's a trustworthy, honest broker.
05:20And that's why I was so surprised when we found out about that provision.
05:23It was put in our clean CR at the last moment.
05:26I'll just be honest.
05:27I'm very transparent with you all.
05:28I was very angry about it.
05:29I was.
05:30And a lot of my members called me and said, did you know about it?
05:32We had no idea.
05:33That was dropped in at the last minute.
05:35And I did not appreciate that, nor did most of the House members.
05:38Many of them are very angry about that.
05:40So we will be bringing that up.
05:43We'll probably pass it on suspension early next week, and we'll send it over to the Senate.
05:47I had a conversation with Leader Thune early this morning about it.
05:51I think he regretted the way it was done, and we had an honest conversation about that.
05:54I didn't ask him for any commitment at that time because I had a lot on my plate today,
05:57and I've been busy ever since that conversation we had early this morning.
06:01But I'm going to speak as truthfully to him as I am to all of you
06:04and tell you that I think that was way out of line.
06:06I don't think that was a smart thing to do.
06:09I don't think it was the right thing to do, and the House is going to reverse it.
06:11We're going to repeal that, and I'm going to expect our colleagues in the Senate to do the same thing.
06:14Mr. Speaker, you said you're for full transparency.
06:17So why not just urge all the Republicans to vote for this Massey-Kahna bill on the Epstein files next week?
06:24Put out all the files.
06:25Let the American public judge for themselves what it's all about.
06:29Thank you for asking the question.
06:30We have been for maximum transparency of the Epstein files from the very beginning.
06:33What I was opposed to is the reckless disregard that was used in drafting the discharge petition.
06:39And we've been over this many times, but it was not drafted in such a way that it would adequately protect innocent victims.
06:46We have a responsibility to do that.
06:48There's as many as 1,000 women, by some estimates, of people who have been victimized
06:53because of the sex trafficking and Epstein and all these horrendous, heinous crimes,
06:57and we can't have them subjected to any further harm.
07:00So we wanted to make sure that they were properly, whose names were properly redacted out of the files.
07:04But the discharge petition is not only reckless, it is also a totally moot point.
07:10The Oversight Committee has been working, as you all know, around the clock, working on this.
07:14And you have some of the toughest members of Congress on the Republican and Democrat side
07:18who are working in bipartisan fashion to go through and release those files.
07:22As we stand here tonight, I think we're up to over 50,000 pages of records that are out in the open.
07:27You can go online tonight if you're at home and go through it yourself.
07:30And the Epstein estate files thus far has been the biggest tranche of important information.
07:37We found that outside of the scope of the discharge petition
07:40because it was never even anticipated or included in the discharge.
07:44The Oversight Committee... Well, let me finish. Let me finish.
07:46The Oversight Committee has been digging into that.
07:48And some of the most valuable information was in the estate files.
07:52It includes Jeffrey Epstein's own personal logs, his travel logs, his financial ledgers, his daily calendar.
07:59All this is now out in the public and more is to come.
08:01Chairman Comer of the Oversight Committee has done an extraordinary job.
08:05You have, again, some of the most notable members in Congress working on that around the clock
08:09and they will continue to have full disclosure.
08:11I want to say this tonight, and I think this is a shame to a lot of the Hill Press Corps.
08:14I'm not going to name any of you by name, but I haven't seen many stories written yet
08:18about the fact that we put the discharge up for unanimous consent on the floor tonight.
08:24The Republicans, I, the Speaker, and the Republicans,
08:27asked for unanimous consent to just go ahead and pass the discharge because I think it's a moot point.
08:33The Democrats objected to the unanimous consent.
08:37Nobody's written a story about that.
08:38But that's stunning to me.
08:39How can you miss that?
08:41If it was about transparency, if it was about full disclosure,
08:44there's two questions you should ask every Democrat in the House and Senate.
08:47Why didn't you bring this up during the four years of the Biden administration
08:50when the Biden DOJ had all these records the entire time?
08:54Nobody ever said a word about it.
08:55They didn't care.
08:56Now it's the biggest thing in the world.
08:57Didn't matter at all when Joe Biden had the files.
09:01And secondly, if they're for transparency and they really want all this to be out
09:05and there's such this urgency, then why did they vote down the unanimous consent
09:09to pass the discharge petition tonight?
09:11I can't answer that question, but they should.
09:13And every one of you should ask them about it.
09:14Yes.
09:16There are several members of your own conference that support at least a one-year extension of ACA subsidies.
09:22Others have alternative plans.
09:23Now that you're beyond this and its January 30th deadline looms,
09:27are you willing to put any one of those measures potentially on the floor?
09:31I've been asked a hundred times whether I'll commit to putting any ACA extension on the floor.
09:37What I have said from the very beginning, and we were consistent about this, and you all know from day one,
09:41the first order of business was to get the government open and working for the people again.
09:45It's the most basic responsibility, and we finally got that done tonight.
09:48And I said, as soon as the government was open, we would turn our attention to health care
09:52and all the other issues that are out there.
09:54We are willing to work and have always been willing to work in good faith with anybody in this building
09:58who wants to bring down the cost of health care.
10:02The Unaffordable Care Act, the ACA, did exactly the opposite of what they promised.
10:07When the Democrats passed their health care law back in 2010, you all remember,
10:12the average American would have their premiums reduced by $2,500.
10:15They swore to you, and that was not true.
10:19And I think the people that drew it up knew it was not true in the very beginning.
10:21It was a lie.
10:23The people that were the architects of Obamacare, of the ACA, wanted single payer.
10:27They designed a system that they knew they had to know, because they're really intelligent folks,
10:32was going to implode on itself.
10:33They knew that it was not sustainable.
10:35And what has happened since that time, and we're going to be going through this in great detail next week.
10:38Get ready.
10:39We're going to take you through a timeline of who destroyed American health care.
10:43And I'll give you a hint.
10:44It didn't have anything to do with the Republican Party.
10:46It was the Democrats.
10:47They're the ones that gave you the Unaffordable Care Act.
10:49They're the ones that have been trying to subsidize it and prop it up and add to it ever since.
10:55We're the ones that have been trying to fix it.
10:56The Republican Party has.
10:58What has happened since the Democrats wrecked American health care is that your premiums have gone up,
11:03by some cases, 60 percent and some cases more.
11:06And it's going to go up further.
11:07So their solution is right now they want to subsidize it further.
11:09They want to subsidize insurance companies.
11:12They want the COVID-era extension that was created by the Democrats themselves.
11:17They created the subsidy.
11:19They are the ones that put the expiration date of December 31 of 2025 on that.
11:23They knew it wasn't going to be permanent because it was a boondoggle.
11:26And now they're trying to claim it's Republicans' fault?
11:29The Democrats created it.
11:31The Democrats broke it.
11:32The Democrats are driving your cost up.
11:34Who are you going to trust to fix health care?
11:35It's the Republican Party because we have volumes of ideas on how to do this, on how to fix it,
11:40on how to drive costs down and how to increase access to care and quality of care.
11:44And you're going to see all that vigorous debate.
11:47So the answer to your question is, am I going to guarantee a vote on ACA unreformed COVID-era subsidies
11:53that is just a boondoggle to insurance companies and robs the taxpayer?
11:57We've got a lot of work to do on that.
11:59The Republicans would demand a lot of reforms before anything like that was ever possible.
12:03And we have to go through that deliberative process.
12:06We have 435, well, currently 433 members of the House of Representatives.
12:11There's a lot of opinions in this building and on our side,
12:14certainly a lot of opinions on how to fix health care and make it more affordable.
12:17I have to allow that process to play out.
12:20I'll leave you with this.
12:21The biggest objection that I had to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries,
12:25who were playing political games with people's lives when they shut the government down,
12:29was Chuck Schumer came out and said the quiet part out loud.
12:32I don't even think he realized, he has no self-awareness.
12:35But he came and cried to all of you that I would not agree to go into a back room
12:39and make a four-corners agreement on these issues.
12:42That just he and I and Hakeem Jeffries and Leader Thun would go in a room
12:46and make this decision for the entire population of America
12:49and block out all of our colleagues as if they had no voice in it.
12:53That is why Washington is broken.
12:55That's why Congress hasn't worked well for people.
12:56That's why they don't have a lot of faith in what goes on here.
12:59And I'm committed to trying to restore that faith.
13:01And one way we do that is we get back to regular order
13:04and we allow all the duly elected members of this body to have their voices heard.
13:07I'm not playing games.
13:09And Chuck Schumer, I'm not going in a back room with you
13:10and making a four-corners deal on anything.
13:12And I hope you understand that.
13:14Thank you all.
13:14We've got the government open.
13:15Let's celebrate tonight.
13:16We've got the government open.
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