Speaker 1 (00:00):
...Colorado recently. The Jewish people should absolutely not have to face this violence anywhere, let alone in the United States of America. Recently, two young people were shot and killed in our nation's capitol in an anti-Semitic attack, and if that wasn't enough, Holocaust survivors are now actually being burned alive. This is the outcome of everyone not condemning anti-Semitism everywhere, especially on our college campuses, which have become a breeding ground for vile hatred. And failing to condemn these acts are the same as enabling these acts. And the lack of consequences for those failing to condemn these acts has resulted in Jewish people dying. Let me be clear on that. Things have got to change, otherwise, I hate to say it, buckle up because that's not the last attack that we've seen. And we haven't seen the last attack on college campuses, synagogues, or communities coming to a place in your community.
(01:18)
This type of anti-Semitic behavior needs to be dealt with and it needs to be dealt with swiftly. And everyone, I'm going to repeat, needs to condemn this. And what makes the attack in Boulder even worse is that it was committed by an illegal alien. Wow, that's a shocker. Who could have predicted that? And I hate to say it, he might not be the only one plotting an attack. Why? Because under Biden, he let in tens of millions of illegal aliens, so the risk is even greater.
(01:55)
Folks, this is a serious situation that we need to begin to deal with and deal with it swiftly, and that's why the Senate must pass the One Big Beautiful Bill. Congress must give our law enforcement officers the resource they need to detain and deport violent, illegal criminals. Given this shocking news, Democrats spent Memorial Day in El Salvador honoring and remembering MS-13 instead of here in our country honoring Americans who actually paid the ultimate sacrifice.
(02:40)
I mean, honestly, what's next? Is a Democrat going to fly to Boulder to visit the illegal who burned Jews alive? Is that what's next for the Democratic Party? The contrast between Republicans and Democrats couldn't be more clear. Democrats stand with illegals. House Republicans stand with the American people. Democrats voted to raise taxes on hardworking Americans when not one Democrat voted for the big beautiful bill. House Republicans on the other hand, voted to avoid the largest tax increase in history. Democrats want your small businesses to close and for you to lose your jobs. House Republicans want Main Street to thrive and survive and flourish.
(03:36)
When we passed the One Big Beautiful Act, we kept our promises despite constant doubt. Now we urge our colleagues in the Senate to pass this transformational legislation. The American people can't wait any longer. This is a critical piece of history that we must get done. Now I want to turn it over to Mark Messmer of Indiana, a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Armed Services and Agriculture Committee. Thank you.
Mark Messmer (04:15):
Thank you to House Leadership for inviting me here to speak on the incredible success of the One Big Beautiful Bill. House Republicans are committed to delivering the golden age President Trump promised the American people when he ran for office. The reality is because of the great investigatory work of DOGE and the Trump administration have made public and our Agriculture Committee work in the House, there's actually far more fraud, waste, and abuse present in federal spending than anyone imagined. What has been uncovered is appalling. The One Big Beautiful Bill controls the growth of federal spending on SNAP and restores integrity to the bipartisan work requirements passed decades ago, protecting the SNAP program for those who truly need it. For the first time ever, the bill holds states accountable for inaccurate benefit payments. I believe our work marks a new era of efficiency and fairness by encouraging modest state contributions.
(05:12)
I'm proud to say that the language passed on the House floor also includes historic investments in conservation to support the best stewards of our land, the American farmer. The bill refuses to neglect rural America with incredible improvements to the farm safety net. Our farmers will be supported as they bring healthy, safe, and affordable food to the kitchen tables of Americans. What we passed in the House is both a lifeline to those who need it most, and a promise to the American farmer that we cannot and will not take lightly the importance of their hard-earned contributions to our nation. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Thanks, Mark. On Sunday afternoon, we witnessed yet another horrific anti-Semitic terrorist attack on U.S. soil. While a peaceful group marched to call for the release of innocent hostages held by Hamas, an evil man launched a well-thought-out deliberate attack, intending to kill "all Zionist people." As he threw Molotov cocktails into the crowd he shouted free Palestine. As you've already heard, we need to be clear about this. The violence we are seeing against the Jewish community here in America is a direct result of the Left's refusal to condemn and combat anti-Semitism. Sadly, this evil ideology has not only been tolerated by the Left, it has been encouraged and enabled.
(06:48)
When rampant anti-Semitic behavior exploded on college campuses in the wake of October 7th, Joe Biden and the Democrats refused to hold these universities accountable. Even sitting Democrat members of Congress regurgitated talking points from Hamas terrorists and normalized riots that do the same. It's unacceptable. To add insult to injury, the Colorado terrorist was again an illegal alien who was allowed in the United States by the Biden administration. For four years, Joe Biden and the Democrats failed open border policies, welcomed unknown members of potential terrorists into our nation, setting the stage for scenarios like the one that we saw this week. By letting millions of unvetted illegal aliens into our communities, the Biden administration left a national security mess, and the Trump administration is racing to clean it up. Border security and deportation efforts are urgent. Lives are at stake. Our One Big Beautiful Bill strengthens these efforts by providing additional
Speaker 2 (08:00):
... Funding for more deportations, more border patrol agents and more border wall. We're going to continue to work with the Senate to get this done for the American people. And as we've said every week since we started this march, failure is not an option. The safety of our communities depends on it. With that, I turn it over to our leader.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Thank you, Whip. We all mourn those who were the victims of these attacks here in Washington, DC, as well as in Boulder, Colorado. And it just unfortunately highlights this continued anti-Semitism we've seen around the country. Last week I met with Jewish leaders and they're understandably concerned about this trend that keeps going on. It's been going on for years. You go back to October 7th and ever since then it's been a growing equivocation between almost trying to equivocate what the people who attacked and murdered Jews in Israel and Americans, and kept hostages, with those in Gaza, who we've seen what Gaza has become, and all of those who want to clean up Gaza. President Trump's made it clear. Prime Minister Netanyahu's made it clear. They want to turn Gaza back into a place where you don't have to fear for your life, that it's going to be a terrorist hotbed.
(09:31)
And yet, there are people that want to sympathize with the very terrorists who want to continue to not only carry out evil against Israelis, but against people here in America and all across the globe. It's got to stop. We're going to continue to bring legislation on the house floor to address it. Now, do want to talk about the one big beautiful bill. This house came together in a way that maybe surprised some people here in Washington. We've defied the odds every step of the way from the first vote on the budget to the second vote on the budget, to final passage. But there's a reason for that. And as the Whip just said, we've said all along, failure's not an option. I've been asked by some in the press, "What's plan B?"
(10:17)
When there were reports that the bill was going to fail, and we were very clear, and it wasn't just a talking point, we said, "There is no plan B."
(10:25)
The American economy, the voters of this country demanded that Congress deliver on the promises that President Trump made to get this country turned around. And what we do in this bill delivers on so many different fronts to help grow America's economy, to create jobs, to put more money in the pockets of hard-working families. That's been the focus of this bill from the very beginning. And I think there's some people that start reading too many Congressional budget office reports and ignore the lessons of history. And there's an old saying that if you ignore the lessons of history, you're doomed to repeat it. But I think it's important to go down that road of history and go back to 2017. You don't need to go back that far to see how wrong the CBO has been when it comes time to make prognostications on economic growth. They've always been wrong and they've always ignored what tax cuts will do to grow the American economy.
(11:23)
In 2017, when we started this process, when President Trump came in and said, "We're going to make America competitive again."
(11:29)
We were at a 35% corporate rate and we were losing jobs all across the globe. Every month you'd see a great American company move to a foreign country and they would take the jobs along with them. Millions of jobs were leaving America. They were called inversions. You don't maybe know that term as well anymore, because we haven't had an inversion since we passed TCJA in 2017. But if you go back, look at what CBO said about that bill. They said it would cost a decrease in revenue to the tune of one and a half trillion dollars, one and a half trillion. Now you go look at the numbers. They were off by more than one and a half trillion dollars, because what they left out of that report, just like they're leaving it out again, CBO is making the same mistakes.
(12:18)
They ignore economic growth. What we saw in 2017 when we cut taxes is that businesses started growing. They started giving pay raises to their workers. They hired millions more people. Unemployment went virtually to zero. Inflation dropped dramatically. People had more money in their pockets, because wages were up and all of those things produced more money for the American Treasury. It all happened, and yet CBO failed to recognize that and they're making the same mistake again. And anybody who repeats CBO's analysis is also making those same mistakes. If you ignore the growth that will come with keeping tax rates low, with helping businesses invest more in their workers, giving pay raises, putting more money in the pockets of waiters and waitresses, overtime workers not having to pay taxes on overtime, bonus depreciation, immediate expensing, all the things that will generate economic growth and ultimately put more money in the pockets of workers, and send more money up to the Federal Treasury here in Washington.
(13:26)
CBO missed all of that in 2017, and they're missing it again this time. That's the only way they come to a conclusion that it would increase the deficit. This bill will actually reduce the deficit, if you recognize the historical economic growth that has always been there. To say you're going to get 1.8% growth. At a minimum, we think you can get two and a half to 4% growth. Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, says over 4% economic growth. So I get that we've got to play by the rules of the referee, but the referee's been wrong. We got a referee that tries to sack our quarterback a lot, and yet we still manage to play by those rules and deliver for the American people, because when this bill is passed and signed into law, hopefully by July 4th when the Senate does their work, you're going to see economic growth in this country like we haven't seen in generations. Meaning more pay in the pockets of workers, and you're going to see more treasury money coming in, because of the growth in the American economy.
(14:29)
It's happened before and it will happen again. We just need to keep moving forward. And the Senate's got the bill now and I'm confident they're going to move it on, and ultimately back to us to the President's desk. And finally, you saw yesterday the White House sent the Rescissions package. This is the first maybe of many. We are now putting that in bill format. We'll file that bill hopefully by tomorrow, and then bring it up to the floor quickly and get rid of more waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. This will deal with obviously the abuses we all saw at USAID, NPR, and public broadcasting. So those are the things that are going to be in this Rescissions package. We're going to continue working with President Trump to root out waste, fraud and abuse and get the American economy turning around again. And the person who's leading that charge is our speaker, Mike Johnson.
Mike Johnson (15:20):
Thank you. Rarely do I get to raise the podium, so let me do this for a second. Great to see you all this morning. Look, our leadership team had very much look forward to this press conference, our weekly press conference with you today, because we wanted to celebrate this historic passage of our big beautiful bill four days before Memorial Day, our self-imposed deadline. And that's a big achievement and I'll address it, but obviously our attention has been diverted and our mood very much dampened by these atrocities that continue against our Jewish friends and neighbors. It's really something that's been discussed already this morning, but this attack over the weekend was actually the second time in three weeks that our country's
Mike Johnson (16:00):
... countries witnessed these horrific acts of anti-Semitic terror here on American soil. And it was just, of course, a few miles down the road. Two Israeli embassy staffers, a young couple who had planned to wed soon were senselessly gunned down on the street. And the killer said when they asked him what his motivation was, he said, "He did it for Palestine." This weekend, an Egyptian terrorist in Boulder, Colorado, Mohammed Soliman lit at least 12 Jewish people on fire. They were at a parade, an event there. He told police he wanted to kill every single one of them. And you know what he said, what he yelled out during the attack? He said, "Free Palestine." We also can't forget that in April, a terrorist burned the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania attempting to kill Jewish governor Josh Shapiro and his sleeping family inside. Search warrants found that the terrorist targeted Shapiro because of "perceived injustices against Palestine."
(16:57)
There's a theme here. Why would terrorists target a young innocent couple or peaceful protesters or the governor of an American state with no jurisdiction over a war that's happening 5,000 miles away? Because it isn't about Palestine, it isn't about Gaza, it isn't about any particular conflict. It's because these people want a complete and total extermination of the Jewish people. And there is a targeted left-wing anti-Semitic terror movement on the rise in America. And we have to address this first and foremost. Members of this institution and the media have a moral obligation to call this out. We do not equivocate, as the leader said. We do not both-sides this issue at all. This is very clear. It's light versus darkness. It is an evil that we are confronting and we'll continue to call it out in the Trump administration and Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel will continue to pursue these anti-Semitic threats and actions against the Jewish people in our soil and to bring these violent criminals to justice.
(17:57)
And we will speak with moral clarity and we will demand the same of all of our colleagues and both parties to do that, and I hope they will. According to DHS, Soliman, this criminal, this violent, sick individual that did this stuff over the weekend applied for a tourist visa in 2022. He applied for asylum. He's been living in the US on an expired visa since March of 2023. If you apply Democrat logic to this case, Soliman was one of their constituents, as they say. And under their framing, he was just a Colorado man, right? But when you see Democrats ramping up attacks on ICE agents and storming ICE detention facilities and calling for the dismantlement of ICE, just know that this is who they're defending. This is the result. Fortunately, President Trump has quickly slammed the border shut by simply enforcing existing law. But this administration needs the resources to detain and process and deport the millions of dangerous illegals who President Biden welcomed into the country.
(18:57)
And this is why we need the one big beautiful bill, one of the many reasons for President Trump's desk as quickly as possible to sign it in a law because among the other features in the bill, it includes $45 billion to expand ICE detention capacity, a billion dollars to hire 200 immigration judges, and to expand immigration courtroom space. There's a billion dollars in there to hire 2,700 new ICE Office of Principal Legal Advisor Attorneys to expedite removal proceedings and $14 billion for air and ground transportation to support at least 1 million removals per year. We need to go find the other Solimans and get them out of America. And that's what this bill will do. We got to get a sign into law as soon as possible. Yesterday, the House... Changing subjects here, the House did receive the rescissions package from the White House, and we were happy to receive it.
(19:44)
It's going to claw back $9.4 billion wasteful spending. 8.3 of that is in the foreign aid, the USAID abuses area, and $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. These are common sense cuts, and the American people are behind them. I'll tell you why. Just in the Corporation of Public Broadcasting space, don't forget, the NPR refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story. They repeatedly insisted that COVID-19 did not originate in a lab and they ran stories defending looting during the summer of love, if you remember all that. Its CEO admitted that she regards "truth as a harmful distraction from NPR's objectives." PBS produced a movie titled Real Boy, which celebrates a transgender teen's transition. This is all on taxpayer dollars. PBS has featured drag queens in programming for little kids. There is no reason for any media organization to be singled out to receive federal funds. We're in a different era now, especially those that appear to have so little regard for the truth.
(20:43)
On the foreign aid front, we're cutting things like $6 million for net-zero cities in Mexico, $4 million for sedentary migrants in Colombia, whatever that means. $3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street, $2 million for teaching young children how to make environmentally-friendly reproductive health decisions. We're not making this stuff up. A million dollars for voter ID in Haiti. Haiti! While they oppose voter ID here. This rescissions package is the manifestation of the DOGE effort, which has transformed the way American people view government, and it's going to ultimately ensure greater accountability in government going forward. In addition to codifying the work of Elon Musk and DOGE this week, the House will continue to codify the President's executive orders. We've got three of those on the floor this week. The list real quick, Representative Beth Van Duyne's American Entrepreneurs Act ensures taxpayer-funded loans go only to Americans, codifying President Trump's executive order to end taxpayer-subsidized open borders.
(21:41)
Representative Brad Finstad's Save SBA from Sanctuary Cities Act moves SBA offices out of sanctuary cities and into non-sanctuary municipalities, and it will codify President Trump's executive order to protect American communities from criminal aliens. And the last one this week is Representative Rob Bresnahan's CEASE Act, which aligns with recent action taken by the Small Business Administration to restore oversight capabilities to the SBA by limiting the number of for-profit small business lending companies. These are common sense provisions. They deserve to be signed into law. And this is a continuing series of things that we've signed into law executive orders. There are many more to come and you'll see the House continue that effort in earnest this week. Let me take a few questions. I can guess what they'll be. Chad.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
How can you explain the fact that Republicans voted for this interim spending bill back in March, greenlighting this money, and two, three months later, then you want to take back that money? That seems inconsistent.
Mike Johnson (22:35):
Well, if you're talking about, for example, this USAID money and this kind of stuff-
Speaker 4 (22:39):
That's approved in the CR back in-
Mike Johnson (22:41):
Yeah. Yeah, it was. And here's the point. It's a critical point. When I met with Elon in his office back in early February, he had just gotten into it. They had just done covering the USAID abuses and they went after USAID first for their review, their audits, because USAID screamed the loudest, opposed the loudest of this accountability measure. And so they effectively put the scrutiny target on their own backs. And Elon and I were in his office late one night, we were talking about this, and I said... He had finished USAID. They were just starting on Social Security, and he was finding all these abuses and we were talking, and he and I were getting increasingly excited together about this new era of accountability.
(23:17)
And it occurred to me, we were excited for different reasons. And I said, "Elon, you're excited because you're looking at this as a data analyst and a scientist. And I'm looking at it as a constitutional law attorney and a legislator and a novice historian." But this is about more than saving money. This is about restoring the framers' original vision for the constitution. The framers of our magnificent form of government, our matchless constitution, what they envisioned and in fact, what they designed was a small, lean federal government. They wanted most of the power reserved for the states, for the people at a local level, closer to the people because there's more accountability and efficiency. And so the DOGE effort overall, what it does is it restores the framers' vision because
Mike Johnson (24:00):
... was what Elon was able to do, what he's been able to do, what DOGE is able to do, its lasting legacy, is they cracked the code. They got inside the belly of the beast. He was inside the bureaucracy, the agencies with his algorithms crawling, finding all the irregularities and the abuses. He did something we had never been able to do before, Chad. Not as long as I've been in Congress in nine years and not for decades.
(24:20)
I told Elon that night, I said, "You're doing something that we were not capable of doing. We've tried to perform our oversight responsibility, but Congress has not been able to get the things, uncovered the abuses that you've found." We didn't know we were funding transgender operas in Peru, obviously, right? We would've stopped that. But our committees did their diligent work, they've done oversight, they've had hearings with the heads of the bureaucratic agencies, the executive agencies. Subpoenas have been issued, but never did they turn over this level of data and this level of detail. It was unknowable to us until now.
(24:52)
And so, yes, we can't act fast enough on these rescissions to claw back these abuses, because it happened without Congress's knowledge. And that's a really important thing to point to. And look, you give credit where credit is due and I credit Elon and the DOGE effort for doing that.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
Doesn't that undercut Congress? I mean is that-
Mike Johnson (25:09):
No, Chad. No, Chad.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
I understand the uniqueness of this situation.
Mike Johnson (25:12):
Yeah. But what it's going to do, the lasting legacy of this and the reason it's so important and the reason they deserve accolades is because they have done a reset in Washington. Now everybody knows what the abuse is, not just Congress, but the American people. And we'll be able to demand and ensure greater accountability going forward and that is a huge innovation. Back row, yeah.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
Elon Musk was sort of alluding to electoral threats against Republicans who voted for the Big Beautiful Bill. He spent $290 million in the 2024 election. How much of a threat is this to keeping the majority in [inaudible 00:25:47]?
Mike Johnson (25:47):
Let me just address the Elon controversy and tell you that I consider Elon a friend. He's obviously brilliant. I just told you we credit him with all the big changes with DOGE and everything else. It's curious to me what happened this week. I mean, full disclosure, Elon and I had a great conversation about a half hour long talk on Monday this week. Monday morning. And we talked about the Big Beautiful Bill because I think he was trying to make a joke a couple of days earlier. It can't be big and beautiful. And I started the conversation, "Oh yes it can my friend. It's very beautiful."
(26:19)
So we talked about all the record level of savings. My friends, no government in the history of mankind has ever cut $1.6 trillion in a piece of legislation. We're doing that here. I mean the extraordinary level of savings and the historic level of tax cuts at the same time and all these great policy prescriptions. And I talked to Elon through all that and explained to him what we're doing and that this is just the beginning of a long process of making government more efficient and effective, of cutting wasteful spending, fraud and abuse. And you can't do it all in one bill. It took Congress decades to get to this situation. It's going to take us a little while to get out of it, but we have a very specific plan to do that.
(26:57)
And Elon was encouraged by that conversation. It was a very friendly, very fruitful conversation together. And he and I talked about the midterm elections and he said, "I'm going to help. We got to make sure that the Republicans keep the House majority." We can't have the president impeached, which is what the Democrats would do on day one as we all well know and we've got to continue this. The Trump administration needs four years to do all this reform. Not two years.
(27:19)
The Biden administration, Biden-Harris made such a disaster of every metric of public policy, it's going to take us more than one bill to fix it all. Elon and I left on a great note. We were texting one another, happy texts Monday. And then yesterday, 24 hours later he does a 180 and he comes out and opposed the bill. And it surprised me frankly and I don't take it personal, we don't take it personal. Policy differences are not personal. I think he's flat wrong. I think he's way off on this and I've told him as much, and I've said it publicly and privately. I'm very consistent in that.
(27:54)
But am I concerned about the of this on the midterms? I'm not. Let me tell you why. Because when the Big Beautiful Bill is done and signed into law, every single American is going to do better. This bill is geared for middle and working class Americans and they are going to feel the effects of it and they're going to feel it before the midterm election. So I have no concern whatsoever. I'm absolutely convinced that we're going to win the midterms and grow the House majority because we're delivering for the American people and fulfilling our campaign promises. And we'll see how that happens. Second row right here. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 7 (28:23):
You voted a second reconciliation package. What would be in that second package once we'll get to it?
Mike Johnson (28:27):
You know I'm not going to tell you that this morning. Great question. No. Yeah, let's get the first one done. Leader has been around Washington a while. Look, I said this is the beginning of a process and what you're going to see is a continuing theme of us identifying waste, fraud and abuse in government, which is our pledge of common sense. Restoring common sense and fiscal sanity. So we have lots of ideas of things that might be in that package.
(28:50)
But as you know, for the first reconciliation package for the Big Beautiful Bill, we worked on this for about 14 months. I mean, this wasn't something we just drew up overnight. So we'll go through that same laborious process and it'll be fruitful in the end and we'll do right by the American people. Front row.
Speaker 8 (29:05):
Mr. Speaker, you mentioned that you talked to Elon on Monday, made this 180. What do you think changed? Why do you think he's coming out against this now and have you spoken to the president and Elon since the infamous...
Mike Johnson (29:18):
Well, I'll tell you, I called Elon last night and he didn't answer, but I hope to talk to him today. I mean, it's very friendly and we've laughed about our differences on policy before. I'm not upset about this and I think he understands and he's acknowledged to me before that this is so serious that we can't fool around with it. I mean, the debt cliff is approaching very quickly. All the things that are in this bill are so important for the US economy, it's going to be jet fuel for US economy. All boats are going to rise. And the sooner we do that, the better. And the risk of not getting it done is enormous. Not just for the Republican Party but for the country.
(29:55)
We got to do this. We're going to have the largest tax increase in US history at the end of the year if we fail and all the other calamities that we've talked about. So we've got to get it done and I think Elon understands the weight of that and I hope he comes around. I'd love to talk to him this week and hope he calls him back today. I talk to President Trump all the time, multiple times a day. Obviously, we've talked about this. As you know, he's not delighted that Elon did a 180 on that.
(30:19)
But look, I don't know what happened in 24 hours. Everybody can draw their own conclusions about that. Okay? But I look forward to talking to my friend about it again and I'm not upset about it. All right? Yeah. Olivia.
Speaker 9 (30:35):
You brought up EV mandates [inaudible 00:30:36]. Is that what you think is his motivation for opposing the bill?
Mike Johnson (30:38):
Manu brought up EV mandates, not me, and I said that everybody can draw their own conclusions about that. Look, I don't subscribe motive to anybody. I try not to do that. It's a good way to live. I just believe that we got to do the right thing by way of policy and I hope everybody understands.
(30:58)
They might not think the bill is perfect in some respect. I mean a bill that's 1100 pages long and covers every area of policy and the budget that ours does, very few people are going to say that's a perfect piece of legislation. But I hope everybody will evaluate that in both parties and everybody and recognize wow, the benefits of this far outweigh anything that I don't like about it. And that's why we're excited about it and I hope our mood is not dampened next time we're together because we're going to celebrate this thing getting it over the line by July 4th. Thank y'all. Appreciate it.
Speaker 9 (31:27):
Thank you.
