🔰Angry protesters have been seen at GOP town halls. Here's who the House speaker says is responsible

Speaker Johnson, you had quite a night last night and ended up meeting with President Trump and the majority leader over in the Senate, John Thune, today. Do you think that the Senate is going to make big changes to what you passed last night? No, I don't think they will. I think they understand the necessity of letting the House lead on this. We've got a smaller margin than they do for the first time in the modern era. The Senate Republicans have a larger margin than we do in the House, and I've got a much smaller needle to thread here. I think they recognize that. I've got 165 more personalities to deal with than they do in a much more diverse caucus. Senator Kennedy is one of my closest friends. I love his one-liners, but I think what he was referring to there in that soundbite, Caitlin, is that he doesn't want to cut Medicaid benefits for anybody, and we don't either. I don't either. We're not going to do that. That's not part of this plan, and the Democrats have been lying about it, so it's important for us to clarify that. That's what I think he was referring to. We're going to take care of those who are rightful beneficiaries of the programs. We're going to cut the fraud, waste, and abuse out of Medicaid, and that's where we're going to get part of the savings to accomplish this mission. But are people who are covered by Medicaid now going to potentially lose Medicaid coverage as a result of this? No, look, the White House has made a commitment. The President said over and over and over, we're not going to touch Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. We've made the same commitment. That said, what we are going to do is go into those programs and carve out the fraud, waste, and abuse and find efficiencies. A couple of examples. There's about $50 billion estimated that are lost every year in Medicaid just in fraud alone. No one's for that. We've got to make sure we eliminate it. We have the algorithms now to do that. We have advanced technology to find it. We need to ID, provide identification for people who are Medicaid recipients to make sure they are not illegal aliens. That's another big carve out that we will make to save a lot of money. There are a lot of places to find efficiencies in these programs and ensure they're going to the people they're intended to help. If we don't do that, these programs aren't going to remain solvent, and so that's a big part of the equation here. Well, I'm glad you brought that up because you talk about waste, fraud, and abuse that you're going to look at instead of making cuts otherwhere. But last year, between Medicaid and Medicare combined, there was about $100 billion in improper payments. Now, no one is excusing that, or fraud, or any waste and abuse, but you're looking for much larger than that. So where is the other $780 billion going to come from? Well, look, we're talking about cuts that are in the range of $2 trillion, but you're also talking about the whole of the federal government. We're going to involve 11 different committees of jurisdiction in this process. So all this attention is being paid to Medicaid because that's the Democrats' talking point. We're talking about a massive piece of legislation that looks at all of the fraud, waste, and abuse across the government and looks at programs that we do need to eliminate that isn't talking about healthcare for people that are relying upon that. Look, everybody needs to watch the process play out. We passed the budget resolution last night. It is merely a framework to set up what will come the reconciliation process. It's going to take us five or six weeks probably to dig through all those details and come up with the final proposal. So everybody just reserve judgment, watch us work, and you'll like the final product. I'm very excited about the moment that we're at. You say Democrats are lying when they say you're going to cut Medicaid. The plan that you passed does instruct the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in cuts, right? That's right. That's one of the committees. So how did they get $880 billion in cuts from that committee without touching Medicaid? Because E&C actually has the broadest jurisdiction of any committee in Congress. It covers everything, energy and commerce. The name indicates how broad the jurisdiction is. I challenge you or anybody on your staff, do a word search for Medicaid on the resolution that we passed last night. You will not find it. That is not part of this equation, okay? We're talking about finding efficiencies in every program, but not cutting benefits for people who rightly deserve that. Working requirements, work requirements for Medicaid, that is something that is public opinion polls almost 90%. You don't want able-bodied workers on a program that is intended, for example, for single mothers with two small children who's just trying to make it. That's what Medicaid is for. Not for 29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games. We're going to find those guys, and we're going to send them back to work. That's what everybody supports. That's what the Republicans are for. And by the way, we find dignity in our work. That's going to be good for everybody. And I want to follow up on that, but on that Energy and Commerce Committee, the vast majority of funds that they have are Medicare and Medicaid. So when you talk about $880 billion- That's simply not true. So where are you cutting from within that committee? Energy and Commerce's jurisdiction would take us 20 pages to go through, Caitlin. They've got almost everything in the U.S. economy. They're large pools in the healthcare components, but we're not going to cut benefits for people who rightfully deserve it. And watch this play out. Just reserve your judgment. The White House has said that we're not going to do that. The House Republicans have said we're not going to do that. And Senator Kennedy said, hell no. So you heard it from the Senate, the House, and the White House. So let's let this play out. We have a long football game to play. Last night was the kickoff of the game. So just watch it play out and you'll see. I think the American people are going to benefit greatly by the package that we're going to produce for them. We are going to deliver the America First agenda, and it's going to be good for everybody. We're going to spur economic growth. We're going to cut regulations. We're going to cut the deep state and the bureaucracy to make government more efficient. We're going to secure the border. We're going to get energy dominance back again for our country that is long overdue. And we're going to spur on the U.S. economy. And by the way, Caitlin, the big drive of all this is to ensure we don't have the largest tax increase in U.S. history at the end of this year, which is what will happen if we don't get this bill passed. I mean, the average U.S. taxpayer is going to have a 22 percent tax hike. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate a good football reference, but you just mentioned work requirements and maybe changing that. Will you reduce the federal match or try to establish a cap on federal funding as you sort through this for Medicaid? No. I just explained per capita caps is off the table. The F maps, we're not we're not going to cut into those programs that way. What we are going to do is present this large tax increase. You realize if we don't pass this bill, small businesses, 26 million businesses in this country, their tax rates are going to go up to 43 percent overnight if we don't get this bill passed. So we have no margin for error. We have to get this done and we will. We're going to deliver on this mission for the American people. Yeah, I was just asking, because as you know, your home state of Louisiana, about 80 percent of the Medicaid spending there is covered by the federal government. We've seen it in a lot of red states, of course, across the United States. It's not just a blue state issue. As you have seen through this and we've seen the blowback that some Republicans in your caucus are getting when they go back home to their districts worried about these cuts or worried about what DOJ is doing. Do you have concerns that that's anything that Democrats will be able to use to run against those Republicans? No, because of it. No, I don't. Because the videos you saw of the town halls were for paid protesters in many of those places. These are Democrats who went to the events early and filled up the seats. If you had if the videos had panned. You can't argue they were all paid protesters, though, Mr. Speaker. Many of them were. A Republican acknowledged they were his constituents. One Republican acknowledged they were his constituents. That's fantastic. OK, but they had Democrats come and fill the seats early. All right. This is an old playbook that they they pulled out and and ran. And it made it look like that what is happening in Washington is unpopular. But I'm going to tell you, Caitlin, that the American people are behind what's happening. The DOJ efforts is pulling over 80 percent right now. They want us to find efficiencies in the federal government. They want the government to be smaller and leaner and more accountable to the taxpayers. And that's what these efforts are all about. That's what the Republican Party is about. That's what our commitment is to do, to make government work better for the people. This is a restoration of common sense above everything else. And I think the American people are going remain in favor of what's happening here. OK, I was just those lawmakers do also represent Democrats. That doesn't mean they were paid to show up if they're upset about this. But I want to move on because just to get on what you were trying to do overall here, I know you're used to difficult tasks. You've had a small majority. You survived a threat to your speakership. But a question that a lot of people have is how you are going to balance the budget without touching Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, while also increasing defense spending, which is what the White House laid out today. Yeah, well, look, part of the equation is all the new revenue that President Trump and the administration are delivering for the American people. Look, the tariffs are estimated just the tariff on China, the 10 percent import tax on China. And of course, they've been fleecing us for a long time as an unfair trade partner. That alone is going to yield 600 billion dollars over 10 years in new revenue to the government. The Doge savings. Elon Musk has said that he can find close to a trillion dollars in fraud, waste and abuse. I was with him late last night in his office going through what he's doing. This is very real. We're going to have new revenue and savings that we have never had before. The gold card that President Trump announced yesterday, I mean, that could bring in that could bring in hundreds of billions of dollars. So we'll see how all this plays out over the months ahead as as the the budget and the spending habits of Washington change and the efficiency of Washington changes. I think the American people are going to like what they see. Yeah. And you've got to see how this balances out. And we will. None of that's guaranteed. We'll see what those numbers look like. Did Elon Musk approve of the blueprint that you passed last night? Did he think there were enough spending cuts in there? Well, we haven't gotten to that yet. These are these are numbers a floor, at least one point five trillion in savings that we're going to find and trying to get higher, maybe two trillion or higher. It's a start. Look, you don't turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. It takes miles of open ocean to turn an aircraft carrier. That's what the U.S. economy is. It took decades to get into this situation. But we are going to begin to bend that curve. Yeah, it's a great thing for the country. I was just curious, since you met with him after after this happened. Speaking of, you know, deadlines are a lot sooner than what you're talking about. There's a shutdown deadline that is looming on March 14th, which you well know. Do you think Congress is going to end up passing another continuing resolution then? Well, I wish we didn't have to, but it looks like the Democrats are trying to push us into that. They've added these really crazy conditions on the negotiation over the last week or so. They've added a condition that says we have to tie the hands of President Trump, that the legislative branch would they want us to dictate to the executive branch, for example, a base number of employees for each agency in the executive branch. I don't even think it's constitutional what they're requiring, but it's certainly an absurd notion. But how long would that CR go, do you believe? Well, we haven't negotiated that yet, but if it's a CR, it may be an entire year long CR with some anomalies on it. You know how this works, but it's not what we prefer. We would like to do individual appropriations bills, but it takes both parties to negotiate that. And right now, the Democrats are trying to, it looks like, trying to set up a government shutdown. We can't allow that to happen.