Peter Robinson interviews Speaker of the House Mike Johnson about the contentious passage of the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” a sweeping budget reconciliation measure crafted to implement core elements of the Trump agenda. Johnson defends the bill against criticism from Elon Musk and others, arguing it delivers historic tax cuts, $1.6 trillion in savings, and crucial investments in border security and national defense. The conversation delves into the arcane rules of Congress, the realities of leading a narrow majority, and the significance of the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) effort—driven in part by Musk—to root out waste and fraud. Johnson positions the legislation not only as fiscally responsible but also as a turning point in restoring constitutional governance and federal oversight.
Recorded on June 5, 2025.
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>> Peter Robinson (00:00):
Axios. He has few enemies.
Commentary Magazine.
Perhaps, his most importantstrength is his likability.
New York Magazine.
The nice guy who finished first.
But all that was before Elon Muskput up a certain post on X.
The 56th speaker of the UnitedStates House of Representatives,
(00:23):
Mike Johnson, on Uncommon Knowledge, now.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge,I'm Peter Robinson.
A native of Shreveport, Louisiana,James Michael Johnson earned both his
undergraduate and law degreesfrom Louisiana State University.
(00:47):
Then worked for the Alliance Defense Fund,
an organization devoted to defendingreligious freedom, free speech,
and the sanctity of life,marriage, and the family.
In 2017, Mr. Johnson was elected tothe Louisiana House of Representatives.
Two years later,Louisiana's 4th congressional district,
located in the northwestpart of the state, sent Mr.
(01:08):
Johnson to the US Houseof Representatives.
And in late 2023, Mr.
Johnson's fellow Republicanselected him speaker of the House.
He has held the gavel ever since.
Mr. Speaker, thank you for permittingus to join you here in your chambers.
By the way,I should note that I was here once before,
(01:31):
half a century ago,when I met Carl Albert.
>> Mike Johnson (01:35):
Wow. >> Peter Robinson
I was in the high school program.
Carl Albert of Bug Tussle, Oklahoma,I believe that was his hometown.
All right, thank you for making the time.
The 119th Congress Republicans hold 220seats in the House to the Democrats,
212, I think that's the current count,the Democrats couple have died.
(01:57):
Yes. >> Peter Robinson
you preside over the narrowestRepublican majority in the House of
Representatives since 1931, andthat makes your job impossible.
Nobody can move legislation througha chamber when he can only afford to
lose three votes.
But you've done it.
(02:17):
And on May 22nd, you found the votesto pass President Trump's one big,
beautiful bill act.
The bill is passed.
>> [APPLAUSE]>> Peter Robinson: Which you have now sent
to the Senate.
It passed by one vote.
Everything looked done, andthen earlier this week,
(02:38):
Elon Musk put up this post on X.
Quote, I'm sorry, butI just can't stand it anymore.
This massive, outrageous,
pork-filled Congressional spendingbill is a disgusting abomination.
Shame on those who voted for it.
And since then, Elon Musk has issueda number of calls to kill the bill.
(03:00):
Here's a second quotation, this is you.
We worked on this bill for 14 months,
you can't go back to the drawing board,and we shouldn't.
We have a great product to deliver here.
All right, that part of the country thatpays any attention at all to politics is
watching this go back andforth, scratching its head.
(03:20):
A great product?
Yes, indeed.
Peter, welcome to the ceremonialoffice of the Speaker's Chamber here,
I'm glad to have you, big fan and gladto be with you, thanks for the opening.
It's been very confusing for me,Elon, I count him as a good friend,
I've gotten to know him wellover the last many months
(03:43):
since he's jumped on the Trump train andwas part of the team.
And I mean, we traveled together, I'vevisited with him a lot and had talked him
through what we were doing with the onebig, beautiful bill, the necessity of it.
Remembering as I reminded him and remindedhim even in the last couple of days,
this is not a spending bill.
He keeps calling it a spending bill, it'snot, it's a budget reconciliation bill and
(04:07):
it's a critically important one.
A couple of things foreverybody back home to understand.
Why do we talk aboutbudget reconciliation?
Well, this is the only exception to thenormal rule that you would need 60 votes
in the Senate to passsubstantive legislation.
It's a critically important distinctionright now because the margins are small in
the House and the Senate.
Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are inno mood whatsoever to help deliver
(04:28):
the Trump agenda, right, the America firstagenda, which we all promised everyone.
And this is the vehicle to do that.
Because when you are reconciling a budget,you only need 51 votes in the Senate.
So, we're trying to put everything intothis that we can under the rules of
the Senate.
And the Byrd rule is somethingpeople will hear a lot about.
You can't do big policy changes, you canonly do things that reduce the deficit,
(04:49):
reduce the budget.
So, in that effort I foresaw,
many of us believed that we would havethis moment of unified government.
I forecast this early last year on thecampaign trail, and I told my colleagues
that we gathered all the committeechairs in the House together.
Steve Scalise, the leader here,majority leader, and I as the speaker,
(05:10):
we gathered all of our Republican chairstogether and we said, our dear friends,
we are gonna win the House,the Senate, and the White House.
President Trump is coming back and
we cannot be caught flatfooted as we were in 2017.
If you remember, no one thoughtPresident Trump would win the first term.
Everybody assumed Hillary Clintonwas gonna be the president.
So, my predecessor at that time, PaulRyan, who's a brilliant guy, great guy.
(05:30):
He and the others, the leaders inthe Senate, they were not prepared for
the moment that was delivered whenwe had unified government and
we had this opportunityto change everything.
I was a freshman back then, andwas frustrated that it took so
long to get going.
>> Peter Robinson (05:44):
You saw it all happen.
>> Mike Johnson (05:46):
So I determined on myself back then,
I was kicking rocks as a freshman,mumbling to myself, man,
if I'm ever in charge,we'd never be in this position.
Of course,I had no idea that this would come, but.
So in March of last year, 2024,we gathered all the chairs together and
we said, guys, we're gonna havean opportunity to do an historic piece of
legislation through the budgetreconciliation process.
We believe we'll have unified government,we'll have majorities in both chambers and
(06:07):
President Trump in the White House, but webelieve those majorities might be small.
So let's think now, strategically, aboutwhat would be our top priorities in each
of your areas of jurisdiction,come up with your top five to ten,
the best things you coulddeliver on all of our promises.
That's where this began.
So the genesis of this big,beautiful bill began 14 months ago.
>> Peter Robinson (06:25):
In this chamber?
>> Mike Johnson (06:26):
In this chamber.
And we worked slowly, methodically,just as the framers intended for
the process to work, and
the consensus building operation that wehave with the smallest margin in history.
We had a one vote margin for much of thefirst hundred days of this Congress, but
we delivered that product.
And what's in it is incredible,it is truly historic.
Historic level of tax cuts anda historic level of savings,
(06:49):
which I keep reminding my friend,Elon and others, we're gonna deliver,
by our estimates,$1.6 trillion in savings.
There has never been a legislative body inthe history of mankind that's delivered
$1.6 trillion in savings.
>> Peter Robinson (07:03):
Now, when you say if, excuse me,
let me just play the layman here.
>> Mike Johnson (07:07):
Sure. >> Peter Robinson
when you say savings, that's not cuts?
It's a combination, combination.
So, here's what's in the bill, I'lltell you that and then how we get there.
So we have, if we don't deliver,
if we don't make the taxcuts permanent from 2017.
>> Peter Robinson (07:22):
There's a tax hike, effectively.
>> Mike Johnson (07:23):
Largest in history,
it'll happen by default at the end ofDecember when the tax cuts expire,
so we must do that, butwe want to deliver savings as well.
We also have to have border security,we have an historic level of investment in
border security because that wasthe number one issue in the election.
The last administration opened it wide,so we have to repair all that.
We have a big investment in ourmilitary industrial base, why?
(07:45):
Because we're in a very dangerous time andChina and others are our competitors.
Then we also do no tax on tips, no tax onovertime, we have tax relief for seniors.
All the things the presidentpromised in the campaign trail,
we've got all that woven in,American energy dominance will return.
Cuz we have regulatory reform.
We're gonna restorepeace through strength.
And we're gonna strengthen and preservethe programs that people rely upon so
(08:08):
much, things like Medicaid andSNAP that our vulnerable populations need.
We're gonna secure and strengthenthose programs by eliminating fraud,
waste and abuse.
So many other things.
All of that, the reason the presidentnamed it the One Big Beautiful Bill
is because there's so much in it.
And we have to deliver that and
we have to do it ASAP becausethe people need that relief.
(08:29):
It's gonna be jet fuel to the US Economy,so we got to do it now.
>> Peter Robinson (08:32):
Okay, so if I may ask a few more questions here.
By the way, in the old days Iinterviewed Milton Friedman.
And Milton Friedman not only sat there andlistened to the questions, but
he would rewrite.
He would say, no, no, no, you should beasking this, and then he would answer.
So correct me if I'm missing->> Mike Johnson: I'm
not Milton Friedman, but I'll.
>> [CROSSTALK].>> Peter Robinson: No,
but if I'm missing something.
So, can you explain to me as a layman,you mentioned
(08:54):
Reconciliation Bill isthe only Bill [COUGH] in which
the Senate does not require 60 votes forcloture.
You mentioned the.
And an ordinary American is saying,
why do these guys operate underall of these strange arcane rules?
And I guess the answer is Article one ofthe Constitution of the United States
(09:18):
establishes President comes second,he's Article two.
Article one is the Congressof the United States.
What goes on here matters.
>> Mike Johnson (09:26):
Right.
>> Peter Robinson (09:27):
And because it is a large body, it has to have rules.
If it didn't have this set of rules,it would have another set of rules.
And what this set of rules has to be saidfor it is that people understand them.
They've been in place for a long time now.
Is that correct?
Is this the way?
>> Mike Johnson (09:43):
That's a good summary.
Look, we live in the greatestcountry in the history of the world.
It's not even close,it's objectively provable.
We're the most free,most successful, most powerful,
most benevolent nation that's ever been.
Part of the reason for that is cuz Ibelieve the founders were divinely
inspired to set upthe system that we have.
We separated the powers.
We did something no nation had ever donebefore, we created a government, truly and
(10:03):
literally of, by and for the people.
We were moved, we don't have a monarch, noking, we have a constitutional republic.
But we're still an experimenton the world stage.
You're only 250 years into this, almost,and we don't know how long it'll last.
But the structures they put inplace are critically important.
And this institution, while not perfect,is the best one in the world.
It's the greatest deliberativebody on the planet.
The House and Senate operating as they dowith the separation of powers, as we have,
(10:28):
and with the checks andbalances and with all these,
these safeguards that were built in.
Now, they're frustrating sometimesbecause they seem archaic.
And it takes a long timeto move legislation,
it takes a long time to build consensus,especially when you have small majorities.
But you have to appreciatethe genius of what this is.
And it's created the greatest economy,the greatest nation, the strongest nation.
(10:50):
So we respect it, even thoughwe're frustrated by it sometimes.
>> Peter Robinson (10:53):
So you got,
I'm wondering if you can take us througha little of the practical politics.
You got this thing, the One BigBeautiful Bill Act by one vote.
So now, [COUGH] Elon, others in the press,I don't wanna put words in Elon's mouth.
(11:14):
There's a lot out there on my X feed.
I can only imagine what's on your X feed.
>> Mike Johnson (11:19):
I don't read it. >> Peter Robinson
that you have the power to tell these guyshow to vote, and that of course isn't so.
No.
>> Peter Robinson (11:26):
These are independent human beings.
What was it Sam Rayburn said that beingspeaker of the House is like trying to
keep 435 frogs in a wheelbarrow?
Okay, so generally as an over,
I just wanna see if I understandthe practical politics in brief.
On the one hand, you've got plenty ofconservative Republicans who want cut,
cut, cut.
(11:47):
On the other hand,you've got more moderate Republicans.
I'm thinking of two or three whocome from upstate New York who have
older populations thatthey're representing,
who would be more frightenedabout cuts in Medicaid, Medicare.
Who are saying, fellas, if we cut any moredeeply, I'm gonna lose my next election.
And you can't get anything done ifwe lose this majority, correct?
(12:11):
Those are the two poles betweenwhich you have to maneuver.
>> Mike Johnson (12:14):
Yes- >> Peter Robinson
Yes, and even more dynamics.
When the great speaker Sam Rayburn saidthat in the early 1950s, that was before
the 24-hour news cycle when everyindividual member had their own brand,
their own comm shop, their communicationsoperation, their own production companies.
And everybody is on social media and
they're trying to feedthe beast every five minutes.
(12:36):
And they can go on every 30 seconds,literally, and
explain what they're disgruntled aboutin a particular piece of legislation.
None of those dynamics were present inprevious generations of Congress, so
it makes it very difficultto keep all that together.
Yes, we have a very diverseRepublican majority.
There are members who are elected, forexample, in districts that are rated
R plus 26, means they lean far tothe Republican side, deep red districts.
(13:00):
And I have members in our conferencewho are elected in districts that weigh
heavily Democrat.
They defy gravity anddefy the odds to be elected.
So they look at the same set ofproblems with very different lenses.
They represent very differentconstituencies in many cases.
And there's a wide range of opinion.
People say all the time, how comethe Democrats all stick together and
Republicans don't seem to?
(13:22):
The answer is pretty simple, Democratsreally do think and act like an union.
They are kind of socialist in theirphilosophy and their ideology, and
they clump together and they takeorders and they're pretty monolithic.
We, on the other hand,are very rugged individualists and
deeply rooted in our philosophy andour principles.
And I'm one of those guys,and I appreciate that,
until you have a one vote majority, right?
(13:43):
So the delicate balance is,as you say, on a Bill like this.
You have the fiscal hawks,and I'm one of them.
I lose sleep over the national debt.
And I know that we've gotto turn that trajectory.
This Bill is a historicstep forward in doing that.
But then you also have persons,as you said,
who are in very tough reelectsituations every two years.
They feel like they can't cut anythingfrom government because it'll be
(14:06):
a political backlash.
And when the margin is so small,
if we lose the majority,it will be a disaster for the country.
Because if the Democrats tookover in 2026, in the midterm,
they would impeach President Trumpon the first week of Congress.
We've already seen the movie, right?
So everything would be->> Peter Robinson: Two years of
wasted time.
Totally wasted time.
The economy would be destroyed.
(14:26):
It would be a disastrous situation.
So we have to not only deliveron the legislative agenda,
we have to keep the politicsin central focus as well.
And I've got to make sure thatwe win that midterm election and
grow the majority so that we can givePresident Trump four years, not just two,
and we can deliver on this step-by-stepprocess that we've designed.
>> Peter Robinson (14:44):
So, [COUGH] you said several times now that this Bill is
actually gonna reduce the deficit,not add to it.
A lot of people don't think so,so let me set up the figures and
give you a chance to answer.
The figures run as follows,you have all this stuff memorized,
you live it every day.
The federal deficit during the currentfiscal year is going to come in at $1.9
(15:07):
trillion.
Total federal debt,$36 trillion, about a 100%.
This is on the most conservativeestimate I could find.
About 100% of GDP, by far the highestsince the Second World War.
>> Mike Johnson (15:20):
Mm-hm.
>> Peter Robinson (15:21):
By the way, nobody can blame you for that.
>> Mike Johnson (15:25):
Took a long time to get in this issue.
>> Peter Robinson (15:26):
Exactly, then we come to the question of scoring.
Let me set this up because it's so easyto get lost in quite complicated matters.
But this is one where we do have to spenda little time on it because it's become
an issue in the last 48 hours.
>> Mike Johnson (15:41):
Right.
>> Peter Robinson (15:42):
The Congressional Budget Office says the BBB,
the Big Beautiful Bill,will add 2.4 trillion in debt.
I beg your pardon,to the debt over the next decade.
The Office of Management and the Budget,the White House is scoring up or
Operation has just come out with a newscore that says no, it, it will do just
(16:05):
what you said a moment ago,cut 1.6 trillion over the same period.
As best I can make it out,I'll set this up and then give it to you.
One component of the new OMB scoringinvolves these Trump tax cuts of
the first term, and it says those shouldbe treated as base, as settled policy.
(16:25):
Not a new, fair enough, not anything new.
But one component is that the tariffswill bring in federal revenues.
And I have to say that got my attentionbecause here we have Russ Vogt,
the director of OMB, andby all press accounts,
(16:47):
a fiercely, if not deranged conservative.
And yet on tariffs, every economist willsay, all right, so foreign governments or
foreign entities may pay some portion,maybe even most of the tariffs,
but the American people will pay some.
And Russ Vote of all people is comingforward and saying, no, no, no, no, no,
we're going to be gettingthe deficit under control.
(17:09):
And one way we're going to be doingit is by taking even more money from
the American people forthe federal government.
So even on this argument that you're goingto be cutting debt over the next decade,
there's something very dishearteningright in the middle of that, isn't there?
>> Mike Johnson (17:26):
So. >> Peter Robinson
Yeah, there's, this is pretty easily explained.
>> Peter Robinson (17:30):
Okay, go slowly for me, who you're talking to here.
>> Mike Johnson (17:33):
The, the cbo,
the Congressional Budget Office issupposed to be a neutral arbiter.
They're supposed to be nonpartisan andall that, right?
There was a study that cameout about a month ago,
a Government Accountability Group, and
they went to check into the backgroundsof the actual number crunchers at CBO.
And 84% of them are died in the bull itsdonors to Elizabeth Sanders and Bernie.
(17:54):
Bernie Sanders,Elizabeth Warren and the others.
So set that aside,their assumptions are incorrect and
the CBO is historically inaccurate when itcomes to projecting growth in the economy.
They do some things, okay but anytimethey're doing an analysis on tax cuts,
they always and
every single time underestimate the effectthat that will have in the economy.
(18:16):
They did it during the TCJA when wepassed the Tax Cuts and Jobs act,
the signature piece of legislation.
The Trump administration,the two years, Mr. Speaker.
>> Peter Robinson (18:24):
They did it in the 1980s during the Reagan period,
I remember that, all right?
>> Mike Johnson (18:27):
I was talking to Newt Gingrich the other night.
He said they did it to us in the 90s.
They dramatically.
>> Peter Robinson (18:31):
There's a history here.
>> Mike Johnson (18:32):
They missed the analysis on the TCJA,
the Trump tax cuts by $1.5trillion with a T, okay?
Because they underestimated the growththat would be brought about by tax
reduction and regulatory reform.
We're gonna do that same thingthis time on steroids, right?
Cuz President Trump had four yearsto think through this and plan it.
We did as well and the big beautifulbill takes the same principles and
(18:56):
policies of the tax cuts and jobs actof 2017, but expands it dramatically.
So we have a massive collection of progrowth policies in the one big beautiful
bill we believe, I know that theyare dramatically underestimating
the growth that will bebrought about in the economy.
To get our fiscal house in order,we have to do two things.
We have to reduce spending, which weare and we have to foster true growth in
(19:19):
the economy again at rapid levelsquickly and so that it's sustained.
This is what that will do.
They are assuming and that number,
the CBO put forth an anemic1.8% growth rate over 10 years.
Never in US history have wesustained less than 2% for 10 years.
It's just not even real.
They're discounting the growth and theyare not making any account whatsoever for
(19:42):
tariff revenue or the new tradeagreements, the fixing the imbalances,
none of that, that's all off the table.
So, it's a very myopic and
I think very close minded viewof what will accomplished here.
Russ Vogt, to your point,runs the Office of Management and Budget.
He's probably one of the greatestknown fiscal hawks in America and
rigid about these things.
(20:04):
And he's done the math and carefullycalculated that what we're saying is true.
We are basing this not onhopeless groundless optimism but
what we experienced inthe first Trump administration.
Everybody will remember before COVID Imean it seems like 20 years ago now but
the first two years of Trumpadministration because of those pro growth
policies, reducing taxes,reducing took off like a rocket.
(20:24):
We had the greatest economyin the history of the world.
Everybody was doing better,every demographic.
More jobs, more opportunity,higher wages, more job participation.
We're gonna do that again, butwe're gonna do it on steroids.
>> Peter Robinson (20:35):
The tariff revenues don't bother you?
>> Mike Johnson (20:37):
Look, I'm a Reagan Republican and you know that.
Always fashion myself that way andone of our core principles is free trade.
But every time I would talk to PresidentTrump about it over the last nine years he
would say free and fair trade.
Fair point, right?
Look, there was a blind spotthat many of us Had Peter.
Like, we were still living inthe relic of the World War II era.
If you think about it, after World War II,America emerges as a superpower.
(21:00):
Europe has to be rebuilt.
Everybody does all the tradearrangements and agreements.
And they said, well,Americans can afford it, we can't.
Let's charge them a massive tariff andthey won't do it to us.
And so there's this huge disparitythat was out there, and in some.
Some places,over 100% difference between the tariffs.
The president's 100% correct on that,and what he's done to shake it,
(21:21):
while it made people nervous initially,it's gonna pay off now, and we didn't have
this massive increase in inflation andconsumer prices that everybody projected.
And I think it's settling out in time tohave done, to have met the objectives and
to get us in a better position.
It's gonna be good for the country.
>> Peter Robinson (21:37):
All right, here you are on X.
I'm quoting you again.
And here you are replyingto the charge that the BBB,
Big Beautiful Bill didnot codify the Doge.
The cuts, the waste,the fraud and so forth.
The Doge identified.
You're rolling your eyes.
>> Mike Johnson (21:52):
Yeah because.
>> Peter Robinson (21:53):
You've only answered this one 300 times but let's take it.
The House is eager toact on Doge's findings.
We will do that in two ways.
One, when the White House sends itsrecision package to the House, and
a first rescission came up here yesterday,I believe.
>> Mike Johnson (22:08):
Yes.
>> Peter Robinson (22:09):
Two, the House will use the appropriations process to implement
President Trump's 2026 budget.
So let's take those in turn.
You're arguing, folks, I'm a conservative.
I promise you, this is the bestbill we could have gotten, and
it's actually pretty good.
But it's just the beginning, correct?
That's the form of your argument.
>> Mike Johnson (22:29):
That is it.
>> Peter Robinson (22:29):
All right. >> Mike Johnson
So rescissions and then the appropriations.
>> Mike Johnson (22:33):
Very important to understand why that is,
because we were talking aboutthe archaic rules, okay?
So, when you're doing a budgetreconciliation bill, which is what the one
big, beautiful bill is, you cannot makechanges to discretionary spending.
So, what the Doge cuts havebeen focused on is those areas.
There's two categories of spendingin the federal government.
Mandatory spending is on the program.
(22:54):
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
>> Peter Robinson (22:56):
Two thirds of the federal budget.
>> Mike Johnson (22:58):
Exactly, it's 73, 74% of spending, which is on autopilot,
which is frightening, okay?
That's something we have to address andwe have a plan to do it.
But right now when you're doing,when you're reconciling the budget,
you can only deal with those categories.
We don't have any ability to handlediscretion spending changes in
reconciliation.
So it was never possible.
>> Peter Robinson (23:16):
So it's impossible under the rules.
>> Mike Johnson (23:18):
So, the way we're gonna codify the Doge Savings,
which I am a big fan of,I mean I've celebrated Elon's efforts.
It's heroic and patriotic.
He and I worked on this together.
I went and met with him in early Februarywhen he was just getting started.
And I said, Elon,there's a three step process for
us to be able to make this permanent,not be a flash in the pan, right?
We have to codify this.
(23:38):
But to codify it, we have to firstqualify and then quantify and
then codify what you're finding.
To Elon's credit,I mean he did something unprecedented and
there was no playbook for how to takethat and turn it into legislative text.
So we developed thatover the last few months.
And that first rescissions packageis coming from OMB Russell.
(23:59):
They've done the.
Qualify and quantify part,now we're ready to codify.
>> Peter Robinson (24:02):
By the way, where does the qualify and quantify exist?
Is that at OMB?
OMB and Treasury?
>> Mike Johnson (24:07):
Well, Doge says, hey.
>> Peter Robinson (24:09):
Do you have people working on it up here?
>> Mike Johnson (24:11):
Yes, it's a combination, it's a lot of moving parts to this.
But, in short summary,in layman's terms, Doge says, hey,
we found these atrocities,overspending, fraud, waste and abuse.
We're gonna send it over to you,make sure our math is right and
we got the right accounts and they do allthat and it's all verified in that way.
And then it's set up, and then Office ofManagement Budget does another calculation
(24:32):
to say, okay, well that's right,
we shouldn't have been funding transgenderoperas in Peru under USAID, right.
We obviously did not intend that.
It was not the intention ofthe Article one branch of Congress.
We gotta call that back.
So, a rescission packagehas been sent to us.
It's foreign aid spending that was.
>> Peter Robinson (24:50):
Largely USAID.
>> Mike Johnson (24:51):
Yes, largely that and then Corporation for
Public Broadcasting because NPR andPBS have been abusing the system for
quite some time with theirnon-objective coverage, etc.
So, that comes over to us for Congressto then evaluate and vote upon and, and
we're going to pass that andwe'll be able to claw back those savings.
That's the first of a series ofrescissions package that are being planned
(25:12):
because they're doing the qualifyquantify on other Doge savings and
other things that Russ Vote andOMB were already planning.
We're gonna do that.
Then we have the regular, the actualspending bills, the actual appropriations
process, right, where we're going to spendless because now we have new analysis.
See, what I told Elon is what's reallygreat about the Doge effort is that it's
a new paradigm.
(25:32):
It's a paradigm shift because the framersof this grand system we have,
they wanted a small federal government.
They wanted most of the powerreserved to the states.
As we know, that's our system,right in federalism, and for
the federal government to do itslimited number of responsibilities,
they expected Congress to havecareful oversight over what was done.
The problem is for lots of reasons overthe decades Congress got less and less
(25:55):
oversight ability because the bureaucracygrew and they began to hide the data.
So, look, we've tried,I've been in Congress nine years.
We try to do oversight inour areas of jurisdiction.
We ask the agencies to come in andtestify.
We look at documents, we look for the.
We've subpoenaed information before.
>> Peter Robinson (26:11):
And they just stiff you, essentially.
>> Mike Johnson (26:12):
Well, they just don't show us all the detail that Elon was
able to find why?
Because he got insidethe belly of the beast.
He had access to the real accounts and
he has magic algorithms crawling throughthe data to find irregularities.
Never had that capability.
The technology didn't exist before,and we never had a person with that
kind of stature with the impromptu of thePresident who was bold enough to do it,
(26:33):
to actually crack the code and they did.
So, it's changed the way accountabilityin government works, and
we're gonna continue thatas a theme going forward.
>> Peter Robinson (26:40):
So, could this question of continuing Doge's work.
Could we pause on that for just a moment?
So, the big news is that Elon has goneback to Austin to run Tesla and SpaceX,
which everybody knew he wasgoing to sooner or later.
And then there's this.
I feel, I live in California, but
I could almost feel Washingtonheave this sigh of relief.
(27:01):
And yet, on the other hand, I know, forexample, because he's a friend of mine,
there's a young brilliant techguy called Sam Corcos who's
now been made Chief Information Officerdown at treasury.
And the Secretary of the treasurythinks very highly of this effort and
the notion that the IRS needsupdated systems, that there's.
(27:22):
In other words, as best I can tell,there are Sam Corcoses or
versions of him who came to this town withDoge and are either still with Doge or
have already been broughtinto the departments.
So it really is.
Well, you use the term paradigm shift.
That's not just fancy talk.
There are people in place who are gonnacontinue this effort, correct?
>> Mike Johnson (27:41):
Yes, and I told Elon, and we've had delightful conversations about
this, I said, Elon, you think of thisas a data analyst and a scientist.
I look at it as a constitutional lawattorney and a historian, a legislator.
This is about more than saving money.
We're gonna restore the framers' originalvision for how this was supposed to work.
You're gonna you all are gonna leavebehind this new paradigm that will allow
Congress to have actual oversight againat a real granular level where we can
(28:04):
actually do line-by-line auditingof the government, right.
That hasn't been a thing here for quitesome time, as amazing as that sounds.
So it's true and it will continue.
And it's larger than any individual,it's larger than Elon,
it's a new system that is put in, andit's an efficiency, streamlined system.
So, the exciting thing about it is nowalso there's at the state legislative
(28:27):
level around the country,
state legislatures, like in my home state,Louisiana, are creating DOGE committees.
They're doing it at city councillevels in my state and others.
So it's brought about a new awareness and
a new sort of expectationof accountability.
And now that we have the technology,we have the algorithms and the things that
can go through the data, we don't have oldbooks and paperwork in warehouses anymore.
(28:50):
Now it's digital.
We can actually do this again.
And I think it's an incredible innovation.
It happened at the perfect time.
And we give credit where credit's due.
Elon deserves credit forbeing bold enough to set that up.
>> Peter Robinson (29:02):
All right, the BBB is now over in the Senate.
The GOP holds a majority ofthree seats in that chamber.
I count, you're better at counting thesepeople than I am out in California.
I count four Republican senators who havealready expressed serious reservations.
Rand Paul, Ron Johnson,Mike Lee, and Rick Scott.
(29:25):
Lose all four of those,and that bill goes down.
So, you're looking at me as though,how could you ask such silly go ahead.
>> Mike Johnson (29:33):
No, it's not so.
>> Peter Robinson (29:34):
What's so.
>> Mike Johnson (29:35):
There are others, too.
I mean,there are others that have considerations.
>> Peter Robinson (29:37):
Here's the question.
So, Elon puts up that tweet.
You've explained why he'smissing certain things.
He should know better.
On the other hand, he's riled up a lotof people in the conservative direction.
Have the politics now shifted suchthat the GOP on the other side of this
building can get deeper cuts thanyou were able to get, is it, no.
>> Mike Johnson (29:58):
Well.
>> Peter Robinson (29:59):
And if they send something back to you,
are you gonna be able toget through the House?
>> Mike Johnson (30:02):
So, you were alluding to this when we began about in a deliberative
body like this, we don't get ourpersonal preferences very rarely.
I mean, I never get 100% I wanton a piece of legislation.
I am a deficit hawk.
I came to Washington to changethe trajectory of debt because I'm worried
about my children's future.
We all should be, right.
We have a plan to do this,but I can't do it tonight.
(30:23):
My friend Ron Johnson over there,for example,
he'd like to cut $8 trillionfrom the federal budget tonight.
So would I, butI'm about 170 votes short of that, right?
So, the reality of a deliberative body.
Where you have to be in the consensusbuilding business is what we do here every
day is you've got to see what is possibleand not what is preferable to everyone.
(30:45):
And so look, I know all those folksyou just listed very well and
many of them are close friends andunderstand exactly where they are.
They feel as I do.
But, butremember the House worked on this for
about 14 months before the final product.
They're gonna all go through fivestages of grief, each of them.
I mean you have Susan Collins andMurkowski on the other side, right?
They're all,can I tell them how this is gonna go.?
(31:07):
But.>> Peter Robinson: Is John in touch
with you?
Is the leader in this?
We're one team approach here.
>> Peter Robinson (31:12):
Because his job is almost as miserable as yours.
>> Mike Johnson (31:14):
We empathize daily.
And I was over, I had lunch withthe Senate Republicans two weeks ago,
on Tuesday, two days before we passedthe bill in the House on that Thursday.
And I told him, I said I'm gonna deliverthis product at the end of this week.
I don't even think half of them believe methat they didn't think it was possible.
But I said just on the outside chance I'mright, okay, I'm gonna send you a product
(31:34):
that is very delicately,very deliberately negotiate associated.
There's a very careful equilibrium here,understanding I have more than 170
additional personalities thanyou do to deal with over there.
And it took us a long time to get there.
And I said I'm crossing the Grand Canyonon a piece of dental floss here, okay.
I know you have lots of preferences andyou'd like to improve the legislation, and
I would welcome you to do that.
But you have to recognize you cannotmodify it much because if you load me up
(31:58):
on one side or the other,
I'm going We're not gonna crossthe canyon and all of us fall together,
you understand, because the entireagenda is wrapped in this legislation.
The entire Trump agenda,the entire America first agenda,
all the promises we've made.
And if we fail in this endeavor,it means, remember,
the importance of reconciliation,51 vote threshold in the Senate.
If we don't succeed in this, we're gonnarun out of time, the tax cuts will expire,
(32:22):
largest tax increase in US history,
debt cliff comes upon usabout mid to late July.
We will have no foreseeableway out of that dilemma.
The Democrats are not gonna help onany of these substantive matters.
And all the beautiful policies,things that are entwined in this,
we're in serious trouble.
And so, I think they recognizethe reality of that.
(32:43):
And at the end of the day,I will never ask any of my colleagues,
I tell them this all the time.
I will never ask you to compromise anycore principle, but you are going to have
to compromise your preferencesbecause that's the way this works.
>> Peter Robinson (32:54):
All right, Mr. Speaker, one, give me a moment, if I may,
to set up one last question about thisoverall question of spending, if I may,
let me begin with the clip.
Let me show you a brief video clip,on the classic.
>> Milton Friedman (33:09):
As I said before, keep your eye on one thing and one thing only,
how much government is spending,because that's the true tax.
Every budget is balanced.
There is no such thing asan unbalanced federal budget.
You're paying for it.
If you're not paying for it through it inthe form of explicit taxes, you're paying
(33:29):
for it indirectly in the form ofinflation or in the form of borrowing.
The thing you should keep youreye on is what government spends.
And the real problem is to hold downgovernment spending as a fraction of our
income.
And if you do that,you can stop worrying about the debt.
>> Peter Robinson (33:47):
All right, you know this well, but
I just have to lay it out one more time.
Economists such as Milton Friedman,from whom we just heard, have been
telling us for half a century that inthe end all that matters is spending.
The government will either have toraise taxes, or borrow the money,
(34:08):
or inflate the currency tocover the the spending.
And yet spending has grown andgrown and grown,
I sit here as an eyewitnessto the Reagan administration.
And even Ronald Reagan was onlyable to contain the growth in
discretionary spending byabout a percent a year.
And the non-discretionary, the entitlementspending just continued to grow.
(34:31):
And it's not just conservativeswho are calling for cuts now.
Here's the Wall Street Journal,just a couple days ago,
quote, JPMorgan Chase Chief ExecutiveJamie Dimon delivered a dire warning for
the markets, predicting a crisis unlessthe US takes step to address its spiraling
national debt.
Quote, you're going to seea crack in the bond market,
(34:52):
Dimon said it's going to happen,close quote.
Okay, all that.
Now listen, if you will,to a piece of a press release that
Chip Roy of Texas released aftervoting for your big beautiful bill.
This is Chip Roy of Texas,Republican Chip Roy of Texas.
(35:13):
After much deliberation, I voted yes,my fellow budget hawk colleagues and
I forced reforms,we accelerated Medicare work requirements,
we helped stave off furtherObamacare expansion.
We began to claw back the Green New Deal.
And you know, Chip Roy,as far as I know, is a very good man,
and a thorough conservative, I read thatand my heart sank because I thought, no.
(35:38):
Even Chip Roy is forced to say justthe kind of thing Republicans have been
saying for decades now.
The bus is headed toward a cliff, but
don't worry, with us in charge,it's driving more slowly.
So it's one thing for you to say toyour colleagues, it's not a small thing,
but it's one thing foryou to say to your colleagues, trust me,
(36:01):
I'm an honest broker here.
I'm going to help us achievewhat we can achieve as a group.
It's another and really much more solemn,even more solemn thing for
you to find yourself inthe position you're in right now,
which is saying to the American people,trust me.
>> Mike Johnson (36:18):
Yeah.
>> Peter Robinson (36:20):
Make me believe that we can.
>> Mike Johnson (36:22):
I'm so glad you gave me the opportunity to do that.
And I'll cite Friedman, andDimon, and Roy in my answer.
Okay, I'm gonna modify your metaphora little bit, we're not in a bus.
I use the metaphor of an aircraft carrier.
Okay, that my son just finished hisfreshman year at the Naval Academy.
>> Peter Robinson (36:36):
Congratulations.
>> Mike Johnson (36:37):
Thanks.
We were studying for his,
they have to study all the detailsof the big naval vessels, right?
And it's fascinating, get into that.
An aircraft carrier does not turnon a dime, it's a massive vessel.
It takes a mile of open ocean toturn it when it's at high speed.
And so,that's what the US economy is in my mind.
We did not get in thissituation overnight,
(36:57):
it took us quite a bitof time to get here.
You mentioned in the Reagan years he wastrying to work on discretionary spending.
Since that time, the discretionaryspending pie has shrunk and
more of it has become mandatory spending,which is on autopilot to your point.
The mandatory spending iswhat is the real problem, but
it's the third rail of politicsthat no one wants to touch.
We have a plan for that as well,but I would just say,
(37:19):
I'm a devotee to Milton Friedman,as we all are.
And he was right, he's exactly right,it is that simple,
government spending is the problem.
I had dinner with Jamie Dimonon Tuesday night,
Jamie Dimon is a supporter of our bigbeautiful bill, a vocal supporter.
He's been out saying that, because heunderstands it's a generational shift.
We haven't turned the wheel onthat aircraft carrier in decades,
(37:39):
not in any meaningful way.
This bill truly is the first big turnon that wheel to begin the aircraft
carrier going like this.
Chip Roy is a dear friend of mine,we agree 100% on the principle and
the policy.
His tactics are sometimesdifferent than mine.
He has a little more luxury to do and
say things that I don't cuz I got to geteverybody there at the end of the day.
But Chip and I have talkedabout this late into the night,
(38:01):
many nights since we'vebeen here together.
In fact, he was assigned to be a menteeof mine when he came in as a freshman.
We have lots of history together andI love him, but Chip and I agree.
We have a multiple stepprocess to do this.
We are the party of fiscal responsibility.
We are the party, the only ones, theDemocrats do not seem to about the debt.
(38:22):
They will spend us into oblivion,which is how we got into this situation.
The last four years, and Biden Harris wasa, spent like drunken sailors, right?
So, we have to get this thing corrected,we have a plan to do it.
The big beautiful bill is a very importantfirst step in that saving $1.6 trillion
is a big thing.
But scaling down the size andscope of government at the same time,
(38:43):
that's how you reduce spending.
The DOGE effort is part of this,the President's effort of scaling down
the bureaucracy and cutting backthe departments and the agencies.
We're gonna do everything wecan in the discretionary space.
And you're gonna see that ascontinuing theme through rescissions,
through the appropriations process,through how this Congress operates so
far as long as I'm at the helm.
And then we have a plan to addressthe larger mandatory spending and
(39:05):
we have to do it, it has to be bipartisanbecause it's gonna require that.
But you need reasonable, honest people whowill look at the situation and say, we can
make minor modifications to the programs[COUGH] that don't disenfranchise or
leave anybody out, but we have to do it.
If we don't,they're going to be insolvent.
We're within about an eight year wind forMedicare and
(39:26):
Social Security and Medicaid, forthat matter, to be insolvent so
that the people that rely upon itdon't have those resources anymore.
Congress has an obligation to fix it.
Congress has had that obligation fordecades, but it hasn't been done.
And so, we're gonna have to build intothe membership the understanding and
the resolve to do the right thing.
(39:47):
And I am committing that, we will do that,we will be fiscally responsible.
This big beautiful bill is a veryimportant first start in that.
And I hope everybody will dig in andunderstand enough to recognize and
appreciate what we're trying to do here.
>> Peter Robinson (40:01):
All right, I have a couple of last questions, but
I'd like to extract onemore promise from you.
Save the country, that's fine, but whenyou get to dealing with the mandatory,
with the non discretionary spending,will you sit down with me again?
>> Mike Johnson (40:15):
Sure, we're going to need lots of discussion.
>> Peter Robinson (40:17):
I would imagine.
I would imagine.
All right, soyou've said several times, time, time,
time you can't move the aircraftcarrier all at once.
It's a big vessel.
It requires persistent effort.
Politics.
As you well know, one of the mostpersistent patterns in politics
is that in off your elections,the President's party gets, loses.
>> Mike Johnson (40:41):
In fact, only twice in 90 years has a sitting president's party
picked up seats in that first two years.
>> Peter Robinson (40:46):
Okay, and in President Trump's first term,
Republicans lost over 40seats in this chamber.
You can't afford to lose 40 seats.
>> Mike Johnson (40:54):
I still have PTSD from that experience.
>> Peter Robinson (40:55):
Okay, on the other hand, the Democratic Party,
all the polling shows thatthe Democratic Party is in it.
Speaking of history, we are there forsure if you just look at poll numbers,
if you look at charts,this moment is anomalous.
>> Mike Johnson (41:10):
It is.
>> Peter Robinson (41:11):
So do you believe you can succeed?
You're going to survive the midterms?
>> Mike Johnson (41:16):
We're going to thrive in the midterms.
Let me tell you why.
Two quick.
>> Peter Robinson (41:19):
You really believe it.
I'm looking at your eyes,that is not a man spinning me.
>> Mike Johnson (41:22):
I absolutely believe that's going to happen.
And they underestimate meevery day around here.
And I'm telling you.
>> Peter Robinson (41:28):
I'm listening.
You've got my attention.
>> Mike Johnson (41:30):
There's a couple of very simple, logical reasons why we
will defy history and we will growthe majority in the house in 2026.
Two quick reasons in summary, and
I can give you a 90-minute slidepresentation on this if we have time.
But we experienced a true demographicshift in the 2024 election.
We are in unprecedented times.
We had a record number of Hispanic andLatino voters, black and
(41:51):
African American voters, Jewish voters.
Union workers who came tothe Republican Party not reluctant,
came with hopeful anticipation becausethe Democrat Party left them behind.
The woke progressive left went too far.
They pushed that pendulum too far andthey lost a lot of their folks.
They came to us.
I was talking to Newt Gingrich the othernight on the phone and he said.
Mike, I know you're mired in the dailymanagement of all this, but he said you
(42:11):
should zoom out for a moment and considerthe historic significance of where we are.
This is not unlike Reagan in 81.
We have these new groups that came,if we deliver and demonstrate for
them the they made the right choice, thatit really is our conservative common sense
policies that lead to human flourishing.
It's better for individuals, families,states and the nation as a whole,
their communities.
(42:31):
They will stay with us andwe can have a durable, governing,
common sense majority for10 years or longer.
This is how you change a country.
Okay, so we had a demographic shift andI believe we're going to hold the big
beautiful bill is geared forlower and working class Americans.
They are going to receivethe greatest amount of tax relief and
experience in that economy, that growtheconomy, more jobs and opportunity and
(42:51):
stepping up on the nextrung in the ladder.
This is going to be a good thing for us,that mood going into that midterm cycle.
And the other thing is, providentially,
we have the most favorable electionmap that we faced in decades.
And what I mean by that is, as you andI are sitting here talking this morning,
there were 13 House Democrats sittingin districts that President Trump won.
There were 21 House Democrats in districtshe came within five points of winning.
(43:15):
Conversely, there's onlythree House Republicans
sitting in districtsthat Kamala Harris won.
So it's a totally lopsided map.
Gives us an offensive opportunityto go and flip those seats.
And one of the other things I'm doingin addition to the legislating and
the politics and the fundraising, we'redoing candidate recruitment right now.
We're in that phase andwe are recruiting workhorses and
nacho ponies around the countryin these districts to flip them.
(43:37):
Extraordinary people whoare bringing extraordinary talent.
I'm convinced we're going to growthe majority by winning those seats.
>> Peter Robinson (43:43):
Mr Speaker, your staff is just off camera.
Apparently you have a largeinstitution to run.
So I have just one last question, and youmay limit it to one word if you'd like to.
To my astonishment, the man who hasthe worst job in the United States of
America appears to be enjoying himself.
Is that true?
>> Mike Johnson (44:01):
It's about perspective it's not an easy job.
I'm a wartime speaker.
I have been in fifth gearsince October 25th of 2023.
I know there's no break.
There isn't.
You can't, I can't take my hand offthat wheel on the aircraft carrier for
one second.
But I understand that it's a duty anda calling that's how I see it.
And I'll leave you with this.
My great solace is whatJohn Quincy Adams said.
(44:23):
He was the hellhound of slavery.
He was president, but
then he came to serve in the Housebecause he wanted to eradicate slavery.
And he kept bringing the resolution overand over to end it, and he kept failing.
And as the story goes,I know where he was sitting, allegedly or
by legend in Stat hall,the old House chamber.
When a younger member ofCongress went up to him and
(44:44):
said they still called him Mr President.
Why are you doing it?
The resolution is going to fail again.
Why?
And he said, young man, duty is ours.
Results are God's right.
It's a great liberating way to live andthat's my perspective.
And so I'm trying to be a happywarrior like Reagan taught us to do.
And I'm convinced America is the greatestnation in the history of the world.
I'm convinced that God has givenus another chance to save it.
And that's why I keep doing this job andkeep smiling.
(45:07):
They can't bring me down.
>> Peter Robinson (45:08):
Mike Johnson,
56th Speaker of the United States Houseof Representatives.
Thank you.
>> Mike Johnson (45:13):
Thank you.
>> Peter Robinson (45:14):
For Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover Institution and Fox Nation.
I'm Peter Robinson.
[MUSIC]
Axios. He has few enemies.
Commentary Magazine.
Perhaps, his most importantstrength is his likability.
New York Magazine.
The nice guy who finished first.
But all that was before Elon Muskput up a certain post on X.
The 56th speaker of the UnitedStates House of Representatives,
(00:23):
Mike Johnson, on Uncommon Knowledge, now.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge,I'm Peter Robinson.
A native of Shreveport, Louisiana,James Michael Johnson earned both his
undergraduate and law degreesfrom Louisiana State University.
(00:47):
Then worked for the Alliance Defense Fund,
an organization devoted to defendingreligious freedom, free speech,
and the sanctity of life,marriage, and the family.
In 2017, Mr. Johnson was elected tothe Louisiana House of Representatives.
Two years later,Louisiana's 4th congressional district,
located in the northwestpart of the state, sent Mr.
(01:08):
Johnson to the US Houseof Representatives.
And in late 2023, Mr.
Johnson's fellow Republicanselected him speaker of the House.
He has held the gavel ever since.
Mr. Speaker, thank you for permittingus to join you here in your chambers.
By the way,I should note that I was here once before,
(01:31):
half a century ago,when I met Carl Albert.
>> Mike Johnson (01:35):
Wow. >> Peter Robinson
I was in the high school program.
Carl Albert of Bug Tussle, Oklahoma,I believe that was his hometown.
All right, thank you for making the time.
The 119th Congress Republicans hold 220seats in the House to the Democrats,
212, I think that's the current count,the Democrats couple have died.
(01:57):
Yes. >> Peter Robinson
you preside over the narrowestRepublican majority in the House of
Representatives since 1931, andthat makes your job impossible.
Nobody can move legislation througha chamber when he can only afford to
lose three votes.
But you've done it.
(02:17):
And on May 22nd, you found the votesto pass President Trump's one big,
beautiful bill act.
The bill is passed.
>> [APPLAUSE]>> Peter Robinson: Which you have now sent
to the Senate.
It passed by one vote.
Everything looked done, andthen earlier this week,
(02:38):
Elon Musk put up this post on X.
Quote, I'm sorry, butI just can't stand it anymore.
This massive, outrageous,
pork-filled Congressional spendingbill is a disgusting abomination.
Shame on those who voted for it.
And since then, Elon Musk has issueda number of calls to kill the bill.
(03:00):
Here's a second quotation, this is you.
We worked on this bill for 14 months,
you can't go back to the drawing board,and we shouldn't.
We have a great product to deliver here.
All right, that part of the country thatpays any attention at all to politics is
watching this go back andforth, scratching its head.
(03:20):
A great product?
Yes, indeed.
Peter, welcome to the ceremonialoffice of the Speaker's Chamber here,
I'm glad to have you, big fan and gladto be with you, thanks for the opening.
It's been very confusing for me,Elon, I count him as a good friend,
I've gotten to know him wellover the last many months
(03:43):
since he's jumped on the Trump train andwas part of the team.
And I mean, we traveled together, I'vevisited with him a lot and had talked him
through what we were doing with the onebig, beautiful bill, the necessity of it.
Remembering as I reminded him and remindedhim even in the last couple of days,
this is not a spending bill.
He keeps calling it a spending bill, it'snot, it's a budget reconciliation bill and
(04:07):
it's a critically important one.
A couple of things foreverybody back home to understand.
Why do we talk aboutbudget reconciliation?
Well, this is the only exception to thenormal rule that you would need 60 votes
in the Senate to passsubstantive legislation.
It's a critically important distinctionright now because the margins are small in
the House and the Senate.
Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are inno mood whatsoever to help deliver
(04:28):
the Trump agenda, right, the America firstagenda, which we all promised everyone.
And this is the vehicle to do that.
Because when you are reconciling a budget,you only need 51 votes in the Senate.
So, we're trying to put everything intothis that we can under the rules of
the Senate.
And the Byrd rule is somethingpeople will hear a lot about.
You can't do big policy changes, you canonly do things that reduce the deficit,
(04:49):
reduce the budget.
So, in that effort I foresaw,
many of us believed that we would havethis moment of unified government.
I forecast this early last year on thecampaign trail, and I told my colleagues
that we gathered all the committeechairs in the House together.
Steve Scalise, the leader here,majority leader, and I as the speaker,
(05:10):
we gathered all of our Republican chairstogether and we said, our dear friends,
we are gonna win the House,the Senate, and the White House.
President Trump is coming back and
we cannot be caught flatfooted as we were in 2017.
If you remember, no one thoughtPresident Trump would win the first term.
Everybody assumed Hillary Clintonwas gonna be the president.
So, my predecessor at that time, PaulRyan, who's a brilliant guy, great guy.
(05:30):
He and the others, the leaders inthe Senate, they were not prepared for
the moment that was delivered whenwe had unified government and
we had this opportunityto change everything.
I was a freshman back then, andwas frustrated that it took so
long to get going.
>> Peter Robinson (05:44):
You saw it all happen.
>> Mike Johnson (05:46):
So I determined on myself back then,
I was kicking rocks as a freshman,mumbling to myself, man,
if I'm ever in charge,we'd never be in this position.
Of course,I had no idea that this would come, but.
So in March of last year, 2024,we gathered all the chairs together and
we said, guys, we're gonna havean opportunity to do an historic piece of
legislation through the budgetreconciliation process.
We believe we'll have unified government,we'll have majorities in both chambers and
(06:07):
President Trump in the White House, but webelieve those majorities might be small.
So let's think now, strategically, aboutwhat would be our top priorities in each
of your areas of jurisdiction,come up with your top five to ten,
the best things you coulddeliver on all of our promises.
That's where this began.
So the genesis of this big,beautiful bill began 14 months ago.
>> Peter Robinson (06:25):
In this chamber?
>> Mike Johnson (06:26):
In this chamber.
And we worked slowly, methodically,just as the framers intended for
the process to work, and
the consensus building operation that wehave with the smallest margin in history.
We had a one vote margin for much of thefirst hundred days of this Congress, but
we delivered that product.
And what's in it is incredible,it is truly historic.
Historic level of tax cuts anda historic level of savings,
(06:49):
which I keep reminding my friend,Elon and others, we're gonna deliver,
by our estimates,$1.6 trillion in savings.
There has never been a legislative body inthe history of mankind that's delivered
$1.6 trillion in savings.
>> Peter Robinson (07:03):
Now, when you say if, excuse me,
let me just play the layman here.
>> Mike Johnson (07:07):
Sure. >> Peter Robinson
when you say savings, that's not cuts?
It's a combination, combination.
So, here's what's in the bill, I'lltell you that and then how we get there.
So we have, if we don't deliver,
if we don't make the taxcuts permanent from 2017.
>> Peter Robinson (07:22):
There's a tax hike, effectively.
>> Mike Johnson (07:23):
Largest in history,
it'll happen by default at the end ofDecember when the tax cuts expire,
so we must do that, butwe want to deliver savings as well.
We also have to have border security,we have an historic level of investment in
border security because that wasthe number one issue in the election.
The last administration opened it wide,so we have to repair all that.
We have a big investment in ourmilitary industrial base, why?
(07:45):
Because we're in a very dangerous time andChina and others are our competitors.
Then we also do no tax on tips, no tax onovertime, we have tax relief for seniors.
All the things the presidentpromised in the campaign trail,
we've got all that woven in,American energy dominance will return.
Cuz we have regulatory reform.
We're gonna restorepeace through strength.
And we're gonna strengthen and preservethe programs that people rely upon so
(08:08):
much, things like Medicaid andSNAP that our vulnerable populations need.
We're gonna secure and strengthenthose programs by eliminating fraud,
waste and abuse.
So many other things.
All of that, the reason the presidentnamed it the One Big Beautiful Bill
is because there's so much in it.
And we have to deliver that and
we have to do it ASAP becausethe people need that relief.
(08:29):
It's gonna be jet fuel to the US Economy,so we got to do it now.
>> Peter Robinson (08:32):
Okay, so if I may ask a few more questions here.
By the way, in the old days Iinterviewed Milton Friedman.
And Milton Friedman not only sat there andlistened to the questions, but
he would rewrite.
He would say, no, no, no, you should beasking this, and then he would answer.
So correct me if I'm missing->> Mike Johnson: I'm
not Milton Friedman, but I'll.
>> [CROSSTALK].>> Peter Robinson: No,
but if I'm missing something.
So, can you explain to me as a layman,you mentioned
(08:54):
Reconciliation Bill isthe only Bill [COUGH] in which
the Senate does not require 60 votes forcloture.
You mentioned the.
And an ordinary American is saying,
why do these guys operate underall of these strange arcane rules?
And I guess the answer is Article one ofthe Constitution of the United States
(09:18):
establishes President comes second,he's Article two.
Article one is the Congressof the United States.
What goes on here matters.
>> Mike Johnson (09:26):
Right.
>> Peter Robinson (09:27):
And because it is a large body, it has to have rules.
If it didn't have this set of rules,it would have another set of rules.
And what this set of rules has to be saidfor it is that people understand them.
They've been in place for a long time now.
Is that correct?
Is this the way?
>> Mike Johnson (09:43):
That's a good summary.
Look, we live in the greatestcountry in the history of the world.
It's not even close,it's objectively provable.
We're the most free,most successful, most powerful,
most benevolent nation that's ever been.
Part of the reason for that is cuz Ibelieve the founders were divinely
inspired to set upthe system that we have.
We separated the powers.
We did something no nation had ever donebefore, we created a government, truly and
(10:03):
literally of, by and for the people.
We were moved, we don't have a monarch, noking, we have a constitutional republic.
But we're still an experimenton the world stage.
You're only 250 years into this, almost,and we don't know how long it'll last.
But the structures they put inplace are critically important.
And this institution, while not perfect,is the best one in the world.
It's the greatest deliberativebody on the planet.
The House and Senate operating as they dowith the separation of powers, as we have,
(10:28):
and with the checks andbalances and with all these,
these safeguards that were built in.
Now, they're frustrating sometimesbecause they seem archaic.
And it takes a long timeto move legislation,
it takes a long time to build consensus,especially when you have small majorities.
But you have to appreciatethe genius of what this is.
And it's created the greatest economy,the greatest nation, the strongest nation.
(10:50):
So we respect it, even thoughwe're frustrated by it sometimes.
>> Peter Robinson (10:53):
So you got,
I'm wondering if you can take us througha little of the practical politics.
You got this thing, the One BigBeautiful Bill Act by one vote.
So now, [COUGH] Elon, others in the press,I don't wanna put words in Elon's mouth.
(11:14):
There's a lot out there on my X feed.
I can only imagine what's on your X feed.
>> Mike Johnson (11:19):
I don't read it. >> Peter Robinson
that you have the power to tell these guyshow to vote, and that of course isn't so.
No.
>> Peter Robinson (11:26):
These are independent human beings.
What was it Sam Rayburn said that beingspeaker of the House is like trying to
keep 435 frogs in a wheelbarrow?
Okay, so generally as an over,
I just wanna see if I understandthe practical politics in brief.
On the one hand, you've got plenty ofconservative Republicans who want cut,
cut, cut.
(11:47):
On the other hand,you've got more moderate Republicans.
I'm thinking of two or three whocome from upstate New York who have
older populations thatthey're representing,
who would be more frightenedabout cuts in Medicaid, Medicare.
Who are saying, fellas, if we cut any moredeeply, I'm gonna lose my next election.
And you can't get anything done ifwe lose this majority, correct?
(12:11):
Those are the two poles betweenwhich you have to maneuver.
>> Mike Johnson (12:14):
Yes- >> Peter Robinson
Yes, and even more dynamics.
When the great speaker Sam Rayburn saidthat in the early 1950s, that was before
the 24-hour news cycle when everyindividual member had their own brand,
their own comm shop, their communicationsoperation, their own production companies.
And everybody is on social media and
they're trying to feedthe beast every five minutes.
(12:36):
And they can go on every 30 seconds,literally, and
explain what they're disgruntled aboutin a particular piece of legislation.
None of those dynamics were present inprevious generations of Congress, so
it makes it very difficultto keep all that together.
Yes, we have a very diverseRepublican majority.
There are members who are elected, forexample, in districts that are rated
R plus 26, means they lean far tothe Republican side, deep red districts.
(13:00):
And I have members in our conferencewho are elected in districts that weigh
heavily Democrat.
They defy gravity anddefy the odds to be elected.
So they look at the same set ofproblems with very different lenses.
They represent very differentconstituencies in many cases.
And there's a wide range of opinion.
People say all the time, how comethe Democrats all stick together and
Republicans don't seem to?
(13:22):
The answer is pretty simple, Democratsreally do think and act like an union.
They are kind of socialist in theirphilosophy and their ideology, and
they clump together and they takeorders and they're pretty monolithic.
We, on the other hand,are very rugged individualists and
deeply rooted in our philosophy andour principles.
And I'm one of those guys,and I appreciate that,
until you have a one vote majority, right?
(13:43):
So the delicate balance is,as you say, on a Bill like this.
You have the fiscal hawks,and I'm one of them.
I lose sleep over the national debt.
And I know that we've gotto turn that trajectory.
This Bill is a historicstep forward in doing that.
But then you also have persons,as you said,
who are in very tough reelectsituations every two years.
They feel like they can't cut anythingfrom government because it'll be
(14:06):
a political backlash.
And when the margin is so small,
if we lose the majority,it will be a disaster for the country.
Because if the Democrats tookover in 2026, in the midterm,
they would impeach President Trumpon the first week of Congress.
We've already seen the movie, right?
So everything would be->> Peter Robinson: Two years of
wasted time.
Totally wasted time.
The economy would be destroyed.
(14:26):
It would be a disastrous situation.
So we have to not only deliveron the legislative agenda,
we have to keep the politicsin central focus as well.
And I've got to make sure thatwe win that midterm election and
grow the majority so that we can givePresident Trump four years, not just two,
and we can deliver on this step-by-stepprocess that we've designed.
>> Peter Robinson (14:44):
So, [COUGH] you said several times now that this Bill is
actually gonna reduce the deficit,not add to it.
A lot of people don't think so,so let me set up the figures and
give you a chance to answer.
The figures run as follows,you have all this stuff memorized,
you live it every day.
The federal deficit during the currentfiscal year is going to come in at $1.9
(15:07):
trillion.
Total federal debt,$36 trillion, about a 100%.
This is on the most conservativeestimate I could find.
About 100% of GDP, by far the highestsince the Second World War.
>> Mike Johnson (15:20):
Mm-hm.
>> Peter Robinson (15:21):
By the way, nobody can blame you for that.
>> Mike Johnson (15:25):
Took a long time to get in this issue.
>> Peter Robinson (15:26):
Exactly, then we come to the question of scoring.
Let me set this up because it's so easyto get lost in quite complicated matters.
But this is one where we do have to spenda little time on it because it's become
an issue in the last 48 hours.
>> Mike Johnson (15:41):
Right.
>> Peter Robinson (15:42):
The Congressional Budget Office says the BBB,
the Big Beautiful Bill,will add 2.4 trillion in debt.
I beg your pardon,to the debt over the next decade.
The Office of Management and the Budget,the White House is scoring up or
Operation has just come out with a newscore that says no, it, it will do just
(16:05):
what you said a moment ago,cut 1.6 trillion over the same period.
As best I can make it out,I'll set this up and then give it to you.
One component of the new OMB scoringinvolves these Trump tax cuts of
the first term, and it says those shouldbe treated as base, as settled policy.
(16:25):
Not a new, fair enough, not anything new.
But one component is that the tariffswill bring in federal revenues.
And I have to say that got my attentionbecause here we have Russ Vogt,
the director of OMB, andby all press accounts,
(16:47):
a fiercely, if not deranged conservative.
And yet on tariffs, every economist willsay, all right, so foreign governments or
foreign entities may pay some portion,maybe even most of the tariffs,
but the American people will pay some.
And Russ Vote of all people is comingforward and saying, no, no, no, no, no,
we're going to be gettingthe deficit under control.
(17:09):
And one way we're going to be doingit is by taking even more money from
the American people forthe federal government.
So even on this argument that you're goingto be cutting debt over the next decade,
there's something very dishearteningright in the middle of that, isn't there?
>> Mike Johnson (17:26):
So. >> Peter Robinson
Yeah, there's, this is pretty easily explained.
>> Peter Robinson (17:30):
Okay, go slowly for me, who you're talking to here.
>> Mike Johnson (17:33):
The, the cbo,
the Congressional Budget Office issupposed to be a neutral arbiter.
They're supposed to be nonpartisan andall that, right?
There was a study that cameout about a month ago,
a Government Accountability Group, and
they went to check into the backgroundsof the actual number crunchers at CBO.
And 84% of them are died in the bull itsdonors to Elizabeth Sanders and Bernie.
(17:54):
Bernie Sanders,Elizabeth Warren and the others.
So set that aside,their assumptions are incorrect and
the CBO is historically inaccurate when itcomes to projecting growth in the economy.
They do some things, okay but anytimethey're doing an analysis on tax cuts,
they always and
every single time underestimate the effectthat that will have in the economy.
(18:16):
They did it during the TCJA when wepassed the Tax Cuts and Jobs act,
the signature piece of legislation.
The Trump administration,the two years, Mr. Speaker.
>> Peter Robinson (18:24):
They did it in the 1980s during the Reagan period,
I remember that, all right?
>> Mike Johnson (18:27):
I was talking to Newt Gingrich the other night.
He said they did it to us in the 90s.
They dramatically.
>> Peter Robinson (18:31):
There's a history here.
>> Mike Johnson (18:32):
They missed the analysis on the TCJA,
the Trump tax cuts by $1.5trillion with a T, okay?
Because they underestimated the growththat would be brought about by tax
reduction and regulatory reform.
We're gonna do that same thingthis time on steroids, right?
Cuz President Trump had four yearsto think through this and plan it.
We did as well and the big beautifulbill takes the same principles and
(18:56):
policies of the tax cuts and jobs actof 2017, but expands it dramatically.
So we have a massive collection of progrowth policies in the one big beautiful
bill we believe, I know that theyare dramatically underestimating
the growth that will bebrought about in the economy.
To get our fiscal house in order,we have to do two things.
We have to reduce spending, which weare and we have to foster true growth in
(19:19):
the economy again at rapid levelsquickly and so that it's sustained.
This is what that will do.
They are assuming and that number,
the CBO put forth an anemic1.8% growth rate over 10 years.
Never in US history have wesustained less than 2% for 10 years.
It's just not even real.
They're discounting the growth and theyare not making any account whatsoever for
(19:42):
tariff revenue or the new tradeagreements, the fixing the imbalances,
none of that, that's all off the table.
So, it's a very myopic and
I think very close minded viewof what will accomplished here.
Russ Vogt, to your point,runs the Office of Management and Budget.
He's probably one of the greatestknown fiscal hawks in America and
rigid about these things.
(20:04):
And he's done the math and carefullycalculated that what we're saying is true.
We are basing this not onhopeless groundless optimism but
what we experienced inthe first Trump administration.
Everybody will remember before COVID Imean it seems like 20 years ago now but
the first two years of Trumpadministration because of those pro growth
policies, reducing taxes,reducing took off like a rocket.
(20:24):
We had the greatest economyin the history of the world.
Everybody was doing better,every demographic.
More jobs, more opportunity,higher wages, more job participation.
We're gonna do that again, butwe're gonna do it on steroids.
>> Peter Robinson (20:35):
The tariff revenues don't bother you?
>> Mike Johnson (20:37):
Look, I'm a Reagan Republican and you know that.
Always fashion myself that way andone of our core principles is free trade.
But every time I would talk to PresidentTrump about it over the last nine years he
would say free and fair trade.
Fair point, right?
Look, there was a blind spotthat many of us Had Peter.
Like, we were still living inthe relic of the World War II era.
If you think about it, after World War II,America emerges as a superpower.
(21:00):
Europe has to be rebuilt.
Everybody does all the tradearrangements and agreements.
And they said, well,Americans can afford it, we can't.
Let's charge them a massive tariff andthey won't do it to us.
And so there's this huge disparitythat was out there, and in some.
Some places,over 100% difference between the tariffs.
The president's 100% correct on that,and what he's done to shake it,
(21:21):
while it made people nervous initially,it's gonna pay off now, and we didn't have
this massive increase in inflation andconsumer prices that everybody projected.
And I think it's settling out in time tohave done, to have met the objectives and
to get us in a better position.
It's gonna be good for the country.
>> Peter Robinson (21:37):
All right, here you are on X.
I'm quoting you again.
And here you are replyingto the charge that the BBB,
Big Beautiful Bill didnot codify the Doge.
The cuts, the waste,the fraud and so forth.
The Doge identified.
You're rolling your eyes.
>> Mike Johnson (21:52):
Yeah because.
>> Peter Robinson (21:53):
You've only answered this one 300 times but let's take it.
The House is eager toact on Doge's findings.
We will do that in two ways.
One, when the White House sends itsrecision package to the House, and
a first rescission came up here yesterday,I believe.
>> Mike Johnson (22:08):
Yes.
>> Peter Robinson (22:09):
Two, the House will use the appropriations process to implement
President Trump's 2026 budget.
So let's take those in turn.
You're arguing, folks, I'm a conservative.
I promise you, this is the bestbill we could have gotten, and
it's actually pretty good.
But it's just the beginning, correct?
That's the form of your argument.
>> Mike Johnson (22:29):
That is it.
>> Peter Robinson (22:29):
All right. >> Mike Johnson
So rescissions and then the appropriations.
>> Mike Johnson (22:33):
Very important to understand why that is,
because we were talking aboutthe archaic rules, okay?
So, when you're doing a budgetreconciliation bill, which is what the one
big, beautiful bill is, you cannot makechanges to discretionary spending.
So, what the Doge cuts havebeen focused on is those areas.
There's two categories of spendingin the federal government.
Mandatory spending is on the program.
(22:54):
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
>> Peter Robinson (22:56):
Two thirds of the federal budget.
>> Mike Johnson (22:58):
Exactly, it's 73, 74% of spending, which is on autopilot,
which is frightening, okay?
That's something we have to address andwe have a plan to do it.
But right now when you're doing,when you're reconciling the budget,
you can only deal with those categories.
We don't have any ability to handlediscretion spending changes in
reconciliation.
So it was never possible.
>> Peter Robinson (23:16):
So it's impossible under the rules.
>> Mike Johnson (23:18):
So, the way we're gonna codify the Doge Savings,
which I am a big fan of,I mean I've celebrated Elon's efforts.
It's heroic and patriotic.
He and I worked on this together.
I went and met with him in early Februarywhen he was just getting started.
And I said, Elon,there's a three step process for
us to be able to make this permanent,not be a flash in the pan, right?
We have to codify this.
(23:38):
But to codify it, we have to firstqualify and then quantify and
then codify what you're finding.
To Elon's credit,I mean he did something unprecedented and
there was no playbook for how to takethat and turn it into legislative text.
So we developed thatover the last few months.
And that first rescissions packageis coming from OMB Russell.
(23:59):
They've done the.
Qualify and quantify part,now we're ready to codify.
>> Peter Robinson (24:02):
By the way, where does the qualify and quantify exist?
Is that at OMB?
OMB and Treasury?
>> Mike Johnson (24:07):
Well, Doge says, hey.
>> Peter Robinson (24:09):
Do you have people working on it up here?
>> Mike Johnson (24:11):
Yes, it's a combination, it's a lot of moving parts to this.
But, in short summary,in layman's terms, Doge says, hey,
we found these atrocities,overspending, fraud, waste and abuse.
We're gonna send it over to you,make sure our math is right and
we got the right accounts and they do allthat and it's all verified in that way.
And then it's set up, and then Office ofManagement Budget does another calculation
(24:32):
to say, okay, well that's right,
we shouldn't have been funding transgenderoperas in Peru under USAID, right.
We obviously did not intend that.
It was not the intention ofthe Article one branch of Congress.
We gotta call that back.
So, a rescission packagehas been sent to us.
It's foreign aid spending that was.
>> Peter Robinson (24:50):
Largely USAID.
>> Mike Johnson (24:51):
Yes, largely that and then Corporation for
Public Broadcasting because NPR andPBS have been abusing the system for
quite some time with theirnon-objective coverage, etc.
So, that comes over to us for Congressto then evaluate and vote upon and, and
we're going to pass that andwe'll be able to claw back those savings.
That's the first of a series ofrescissions package that are being planned
(25:12):
because they're doing the qualifyquantify on other Doge savings and
other things that Russ Vote andOMB were already planning.
We're gonna do that.
Then we have the regular, the actualspending bills, the actual appropriations
process, right, where we're going to spendless because now we have new analysis.
See, what I told Elon is what's reallygreat about the Doge effort is that it's
a new paradigm.
(25:32):
It's a paradigm shift because the framersof this grand system we have,
they wanted a small federal government.
They wanted most of the powerreserved to the states.
As we know, that's our system,right in federalism, and for
the federal government to do itslimited number of responsibilities,
they expected Congress to havecareful oversight over what was done.
The problem is for lots of reasons overthe decades Congress got less and less
(25:55):
oversight ability because the bureaucracygrew and they began to hide the data.
So, look, we've tried,I've been in Congress nine years.
We try to do oversight inour areas of jurisdiction.
We ask the agencies to come in andtestify.
We look at documents, we look for the.
We've subpoenaed information before.
>> Peter Robinson (26:11):
And they just stiff you, essentially.
>> Mike Johnson (26:12):
Well, they just don't show us all the detail that Elon was
able to find why?
Because he got insidethe belly of the beast.
He had access to the real accounts and
he has magic algorithms crawling throughthe data to find irregularities.
Never had that capability.
The technology didn't exist before,and we never had a person with that
kind of stature with the impromptu of thePresident who was bold enough to do it,
(26:33):
to actually crack the code and they did.
So, it's changed the way accountabilityin government works, and
we're gonna continue thatas a theme going forward.
>> Peter Robinson (26:40):
So, could this question of continuing Doge's work.
Could we pause on that for just a moment?
So, the big news is that Elon has goneback to Austin to run Tesla and SpaceX,
which everybody knew he wasgoing to sooner or later.
And then there's this.
I feel, I live in California, but
I could almost feel Washingtonheave this sigh of relief.
(27:01):
And yet, on the other hand, I know, forexample, because he's a friend of mine,
there's a young brilliant techguy called Sam Corcos who's
now been made Chief Information Officerdown at treasury.
And the Secretary of the treasurythinks very highly of this effort and
the notion that the IRS needsupdated systems, that there's.
(27:22):
In other words, as best I can tell,there are Sam Corcoses or
versions of him who came to this town withDoge and are either still with Doge or
have already been broughtinto the departments.
So it really is.
Well, you use the term paradigm shift.
That's not just fancy talk.
There are people in place who are gonnacontinue this effort, correct?
>> Mike Johnson (27:41):
Yes, and I told Elon, and we've had delightful conversations about
this, I said, Elon, you think of thisas a data analyst and a scientist.
I look at it as a constitutional lawattorney and a historian, a legislator.
This is about more than saving money.
We're gonna restore the framers' originalvision for how this was supposed to work.
You're gonna you all are gonna leavebehind this new paradigm that will allow
Congress to have actual oversight againat a real granular level where we can
(28:04):
actually do line-by-line auditingof the government, right.
That hasn't been a thing here for quitesome time, as amazing as that sounds.
So it's true and it will continue.
And it's larger than any individual,it's larger than Elon,
it's a new system that is put in, andit's an efficiency, streamlined system.
So, the exciting thing about it is nowalso there's at the state legislative
(28:27):
level around the country,
state legislatures, like in my home state,Louisiana, are creating DOGE committees.
They're doing it at city councillevels in my state and others.
So it's brought about a new awareness and
a new sort of expectationof accountability.
And now that we have the technology,we have the algorithms and the things that
can go through the data, we don't have oldbooks and paperwork in warehouses anymore.
(28:50):
Now it's digital.
We can actually do this again.
And I think it's an incredible innovation.
It happened at the perfect time.
And we give credit where credit's due.
Elon deserves credit forbeing bold enough to set that up.
>> Peter Robinson (29:02):
All right, the BBB is now over in the Senate.
The GOP holds a majority ofthree seats in that chamber.
I count, you're better at counting thesepeople than I am out in California.
I count four Republican senators who havealready expressed serious reservations.
Rand Paul, Ron Johnson,Mike Lee, and Rick Scott.
(29:25):
Lose all four of those,and that bill goes down.
So, you're looking at me as though,how could you ask such silly go ahead.
>> Mike Johnson (29:33):
No, it's not so.
>> Peter Robinson (29:34):
What's so.
>> Mike Johnson (29:35):
There are others, too.
I mean,there are others that have considerations.
>> Peter Robinson (29:37):
Here's the question.
So, Elon puts up that tweet.
You've explained why he'smissing certain things.
He should know better.
On the other hand, he's riled up a lotof people in the conservative direction.
Have the politics now shifted suchthat the GOP on the other side of this
building can get deeper cuts thanyou were able to get, is it, no.
>> Mike Johnson (29:58):
Well.
>> Peter Robinson (29:59):
And if they send something back to you,
are you gonna be able toget through the House?
>> Mike Johnson (30:02):
So, you were alluding to this when we began about in a deliberative
body like this, we don't get ourpersonal preferences very rarely.
I mean, I never get 100% I wanton a piece of legislation.
I am a deficit hawk.
I came to Washington to changethe trajectory of debt because I'm worried
about my children's future.
We all should be, right.
We have a plan to do this,but I can't do it tonight.
(30:23):
My friend Ron Johnson over there,for example,
he'd like to cut $8 trillionfrom the federal budget tonight.
So would I, butI'm about 170 votes short of that, right?
So, the reality of a deliberative body.
Where you have to be in the consensusbuilding business is what we do here every
day is you've got to see what is possibleand not what is preferable to everyone.
(30:45):
And so look, I know all those folksyou just listed very well and
many of them are close friends andunderstand exactly where they are.
They feel as I do.
But, butremember the House worked on this for
about 14 months before the final product.
They're gonna all go through fivestages of grief, each of them.
I mean you have Susan Collins andMurkowski on the other side, right?
They're all,can I tell them how this is gonna go.?
(31:07):
But.>> Peter Robinson: Is John in touch
with you?
Is the leader in this?
We're one team approach here.
>> Peter Robinson (31:12):
Because his job is almost as miserable as yours.
>> Mike Johnson (31:14):
We empathize daily.
And I was over, I had lunch withthe Senate Republicans two weeks ago,
on Tuesday, two days before we passedthe bill in the House on that Thursday.
And I told him, I said I'm gonna deliverthis product at the end of this week.
I don't even think half of them believe methat they didn't think it was possible.
But I said just on the outside chance I'mright, okay, I'm gonna send you a product
(31:34):
that is very delicately,very deliberately negotiate associated.
There's a very careful equilibrium here,understanding I have more than 170
additional personalities thanyou do to deal with over there.
And it took us a long time to get there.
And I said I'm crossing the Grand Canyonon a piece of dental floss here, okay.
I know you have lots of preferences andyou'd like to improve the legislation, and
I would welcome you to do that.
But you have to recognize you cannotmodify it much because if you load me up
(31:58):
on one side or the other,
I'm going We're not gonna crossthe canyon and all of us fall together,
you understand, because the entireagenda is wrapped in this legislation.
The entire Trump agenda,the entire America first agenda,
all the promises we've made.
And if we fail in this endeavor,it means, remember,
the importance of reconciliation,51 vote threshold in the Senate.
If we don't succeed in this, we're gonnarun out of time, the tax cuts will expire,
(32:22):
largest tax increase in US history,
debt cliff comes upon usabout mid to late July.
We will have no foreseeableway out of that dilemma.
The Democrats are not gonna help onany of these substantive matters.
And all the beautiful policies,things that are entwined in this,
we're in serious trouble.
And so, I think they recognizethe reality of that.
(32:43):
And at the end of the day,I will never ask any of my colleagues,
I tell them this all the time.
I will never ask you to compromise anycore principle, but you are going to have
to compromise your preferencesbecause that's the way this works.
>> Peter Robinson (32:54):
All right, Mr. Speaker, one, give me a moment, if I may,
to set up one last question about thisoverall question of spending, if I may,
let me begin with the clip.
Let me show you a brief video clip,on the classic.
>> Milton Friedman (33:09):
As I said before, keep your eye on one thing and one thing only,
how much government is spending,because that's the true tax.
Every budget is balanced.
There is no such thing asan unbalanced federal budget.
You're paying for it.
If you're not paying for it through it inthe form of explicit taxes, you're paying
(33:29):
for it indirectly in the form ofinflation or in the form of borrowing.
The thing you should keep youreye on is what government spends.
And the real problem is to hold downgovernment spending as a fraction of our
income.
And if you do that,you can stop worrying about the debt.
>> Peter Robinson (33:47):
All right, you know this well, but
I just have to lay it out one more time.
Economists such as Milton Friedman,from whom we just heard, have been
telling us for half a century that inthe end all that matters is spending.
The government will either have toraise taxes, or borrow the money,
(34:08):
or inflate the currency tocover the the spending.
And yet spending has grown andgrown and grown,
I sit here as an eyewitnessto the Reagan administration.
And even Ronald Reagan was onlyable to contain the growth in
discretionary spending byabout a percent a year.
And the non-discretionary, the entitlementspending just continued to grow.
(34:31):
And it's not just conservativeswho are calling for cuts now.
Here's the Wall Street Journal,just a couple days ago,
quote, JPMorgan Chase Chief ExecutiveJamie Dimon delivered a dire warning for
the markets, predicting a crisis unlessthe US takes step to address its spiraling
national debt.
Quote, you're going to seea crack in the bond market,
(34:52):
Dimon said it's going to happen,close quote.
Okay, all that.
Now listen, if you will,to a piece of a press release that
Chip Roy of Texas released aftervoting for your big beautiful bill.
This is Chip Roy of Texas,Republican Chip Roy of Texas.
(35:13):
After much deliberation, I voted yes,my fellow budget hawk colleagues and
I forced reforms,we accelerated Medicare work requirements,
we helped stave off furtherObamacare expansion.
We began to claw back the Green New Deal.
And you know, Chip Roy,as far as I know, is a very good man,
and a thorough conservative, I read thatand my heart sank because I thought, no.
(35:38):
Even Chip Roy is forced to say justthe kind of thing Republicans have been
saying for decades now.
The bus is headed toward a cliff, but
don't worry, with us in charge,it's driving more slowly.
So it's one thing for you to say toyour colleagues, it's not a small thing,
but it's one thing foryou to say to your colleagues, trust me,
(36:01):
I'm an honest broker here.
I'm going to help us achievewhat we can achieve as a group.
It's another and really much more solemn,even more solemn thing for
you to find yourself inthe position you're in right now,
which is saying to the American people,trust me.
>> Mike Johnson (36:18):
Yeah.
>> Peter Robinson (36:20):
Make me believe that we can.
>> Mike Johnson (36:22):
I'm so glad you gave me the opportunity to do that.
And I'll cite Friedman, andDimon, and Roy in my answer.
Okay, I'm gonna modify your metaphora little bit, we're not in a bus.
I use the metaphor of an aircraft carrier.
Okay, that my son just finished hisfreshman year at the Naval Academy.
>> Peter Robinson (36:36):
Congratulations.
>> Mike Johnson (36:37):
Thanks.
We were studying for his,
they have to study all the detailsof the big naval vessels, right?
And it's fascinating, get into that.
An aircraft carrier does not turnon a dime, it's a massive vessel.
It takes a mile of open ocean toturn it when it's at high speed.
And so,that's what the US economy is in my mind.
We did not get in thissituation overnight,
(36:57):
it took us quite a bitof time to get here.
You mentioned in the Reagan years he wastrying to work on discretionary spending.
Since that time, the discretionaryspending pie has shrunk and
more of it has become mandatory spending,which is on autopilot to your point.
The mandatory spending iswhat is the real problem, but
it's the third rail of politicsthat no one wants to touch.
We have a plan for that as well,but I would just say,
(37:19):
I'm a devotee to Milton Friedman,as we all are.
And he was right, he's exactly right,it is that simple,
government spending is the problem.
I had dinner with Jamie Dimonon Tuesday night,
Jamie Dimon is a supporter of our bigbeautiful bill, a vocal supporter.
He's been out saying that, because heunderstands it's a generational shift.
We haven't turned the wheel onthat aircraft carrier in decades,
(37:39):
not in any meaningful way.
This bill truly is the first big turnon that wheel to begin the aircraft
carrier going like this.
Chip Roy is a dear friend of mine,we agree 100% on the principle and
the policy.
His tactics are sometimesdifferent than mine.
He has a little more luxury to do and
say things that I don't cuz I got to geteverybody there at the end of the day.
But Chip and I have talkedabout this late into the night,
(38:01):
many nights since we'vebeen here together.
In fact, he was assigned to be a menteeof mine when he came in as a freshman.
We have lots of history together andI love him, but Chip and I agree.
We have a multiple stepprocess to do this.
We are the party of fiscal responsibility.
We are the party, the only ones, theDemocrats do not seem to about the debt.
(38:22):
They will spend us into oblivion,which is how we got into this situation.
The last four years, and Biden Harris wasa, spent like drunken sailors, right?
So, we have to get this thing corrected,we have a plan to do it.
The big beautiful bill is a very importantfirst step in that saving $1.6 trillion
is a big thing.
But scaling down the size andscope of government at the same time,
(38:43):
that's how you reduce spending.
The DOGE effort is part of this,the President's effort of scaling down
the bureaucracy and cutting backthe departments and the agencies.
We're gonna do everything wecan in the discretionary space.
And you're gonna see that ascontinuing theme through rescissions,
through the appropriations process,through how this Congress operates so
far as long as I'm at the helm.
And then we have a plan to addressthe larger mandatory spending and
(39:05):
we have to do it, it has to be bipartisanbecause it's gonna require that.
But you need reasonable, honest people whowill look at the situation and say, we can
make minor modifications to the programs[COUGH] that don't disenfranchise or
leave anybody out, but we have to do it.
If we don't,they're going to be insolvent.
We're within about an eight year wind forMedicare and
(39:26):
Social Security and Medicaid, forthat matter, to be insolvent so
that the people that rely upon itdon't have those resources anymore.
Congress has an obligation to fix it.
Congress has had that obligation fordecades, but it hasn't been done.
And so, we're gonna have to build intothe membership the understanding and
the resolve to do the right thing.
(39:47):
And I am committing that, we will do that,we will be fiscally responsible.
This big beautiful bill is a veryimportant first start in that.
And I hope everybody will dig in andunderstand enough to recognize and
appreciate what we're trying to do here.
>> Peter Robinson (40:01):
All right, I have a couple of last questions, but
I'd like to extract onemore promise from you.
Save the country, that's fine, but whenyou get to dealing with the mandatory,
with the non discretionary spending,will you sit down with me again?
>> Mike Johnson (40:15):
Sure, we're going to need lots of discussion.
>> Peter Robinson (40:17):
I would imagine.
I would imagine.
All right, soyou've said several times, time, time,
time you can't move the aircraftcarrier all at once.
It's a big vessel.
It requires persistent effort.
Politics.
As you well know, one of the mostpersistent patterns in politics
is that in off your elections,the President's party gets, loses.
>> Mike Johnson (40:41):
In fact, only twice in 90 years has a sitting president's party
picked up seats in that first two years.
>> Peter Robinson (40:46):
Okay, and in President Trump's first term,
Republicans lost over 40seats in this chamber.
You can't afford to lose 40 seats.
>> Mike Johnson (40:54):
I still have PTSD from that experience.
>> Peter Robinson (40:55):
Okay, on the other hand, the Democratic Party,
all the polling shows thatthe Democratic Party is in it.
Speaking of history, we are there forsure if you just look at poll numbers,
if you look at charts,this moment is anomalous.
>> Mike Johnson (41:10):
It is.
>> Peter Robinson (41:11):
So do you believe you can succeed?
You're going to survive the midterms?
>> Mike Johnson (41:16):
We're going to thrive in the midterms.
Let me tell you why.
Two quick.
>> Peter Robinson (41:19):
You really believe it.
I'm looking at your eyes,that is not a man spinning me.
>> Mike Johnson (41:22):
I absolutely believe that's going to happen.
And they underestimate meevery day around here.
And I'm telling you.
>> Peter Robinson (41:28):
I'm listening.
You've got my attention.
>> Mike Johnson (41:30):
There's a couple of very simple, logical reasons why we
will defy history and we will growthe majority in the house in 2026.
Two quick reasons in summary, and
I can give you a 90-minute slidepresentation on this if we have time.
But we experienced a true demographicshift in the 2024 election.
We are in unprecedented times.
We had a record number of Hispanic andLatino voters, black and
(41:51):
African American voters, Jewish voters.
Union workers who came tothe Republican Party not reluctant,
came with hopeful anticipation becausethe Democrat Party left them behind.
The woke progressive left went too far.
They pushed that pendulum too far andthey lost a lot of their folks.
They came to us.
I was talking to Newt Gingrich the othernight on the phone and he said.
Mike, I know you're mired in the dailymanagement of all this, but he said you
(42:11):
should zoom out for a moment and considerthe historic significance of where we are.
This is not unlike Reagan in 81.
We have these new groups that came,if we deliver and demonstrate for
them the they made the right choice, thatit really is our conservative common sense
policies that lead to human flourishing.
It's better for individuals, families,states and the nation as a whole,
their communities.
(42:31):
They will stay with us andwe can have a durable, governing,
common sense majority for10 years or longer.
This is how you change a country.
Okay, so we had a demographic shift andI believe we're going to hold the big
beautiful bill is geared forlower and working class Americans.
They are going to receivethe greatest amount of tax relief and
experience in that economy, that growtheconomy, more jobs and opportunity and
(42:51):
stepping up on the nextrung in the ladder.
This is going to be a good thing for us,that mood going into that midterm cycle.
And the other thing is, providentially,
we have the most favorable electionmap that we faced in decades.
And what I mean by that is, as you andI are sitting here talking this morning,
there were 13 House Democrats sittingin districts that President Trump won.
There were 21 House Democrats in districtshe came within five points of winning.
(43:15):
Conversely, there's onlythree House Republicans
sitting in districtsthat Kamala Harris won.
So it's a totally lopsided map.
Gives us an offensive opportunityto go and flip those seats.
And one of the other things I'm doingin addition to the legislating and
the politics and the fundraising, we'redoing candidate recruitment right now.
We're in that phase andwe are recruiting workhorses and
nacho ponies around the countryin these districts to flip them.
(43:37):
Extraordinary people whoare bringing extraordinary talent.
I'm convinced we're going to growthe majority by winning those seats.
>> Peter Robinson (43:43):
Mr Speaker, your staff is just off camera.
Apparently you have a largeinstitution to run.
So I have just one last question, and youmay limit it to one word if you'd like to.
To my astonishment, the man who hasthe worst job in the United States of
America appears to be enjoying himself.
Is that true?
>> Mike Johnson (44:01):
It's about perspective it's not an easy job.
I'm a wartime speaker.
I have been in fifth gearsince October 25th of 2023.
I know there's no break.
There isn't.
You can't, I can't take my hand offthat wheel on the aircraft carrier for
one second.
But I understand that it's a duty anda calling that's how I see it.
And I'll leave you with this.
My great solace is whatJohn Quincy Adams said.
(44:23):
He was the hellhound of slavery.
He was president, but
then he came to serve in the Housebecause he wanted to eradicate slavery.
And he kept bringing the resolution overand over to end it, and he kept failing.
And as the story goes,I know where he was sitting, allegedly or
by legend in Stat hall,the old House chamber.
When a younger member ofCongress went up to him and
(44:44):
said they still called him Mr President.
Why are you doing it?
The resolution is going to fail again.
Why?
And he said, young man, duty is ours.
Results are God's right.
It's a great liberating way to live andthat's my perspective.
And so I'm trying to be a happywarrior like Reagan taught us to do.
And I'm convinced America is the greatestnation in the history of the world.
I'm convinced that God has givenus another chance to save it.
And that's why I keep doing this job andkeep smiling.
(45:07):
They can't bring me down.
>> Peter Robinson (45:08):
Mike Johnson,
56th Speaker of the United States Houseof Representatives.
Thank you.
>> Mike Johnson (45:13):
Thank you.
>> Peter Robinson (45:14):
For Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover Institution and Fox Nation.
I'm Peter Robinson.
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