'STAY TUNED': Speaker Johnson updates on GOP's rumored top tax hike

This weekend marks 100 days in office for the 119th Congress, during which time the Republican majority passed several bills, including the Lake and Riley Act, which the president signed into law, along with the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, Protecting American Energy Act to prevent a ban on fracking, the Halt Fentanyl Act, and the Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, among others. But the biggest victory hit this week when the House passed the Senate's budget blueprint to advance President Trump's agenda, which includes tax cuts, spending cuts, money for border security, defense, and energy, and puts lawmakers on a path to move forward with President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill. And joining me right now is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson. Mr. Speaker, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, Maria, great to be with you, as always. And congratulations to you on this, the 100th day in office for the 119th Congress. You have gotten so much done in this first 100 days. We are thrilled that you are with us on this day, Day 100. Mr. Speaker, walk us through the passing of that budget on Friday before you all left for the Easter recess. Where does that put you now? What is the work to happen once you come back? Well, thanks so much. It was a big milestone. We've had a number of those. As you noted, this is our 100th day of the 119th Congress, and we've been very busy delivering on the promises we made to the American people that helped President Trump make America stronger and safer and more prosperous again. Passing that budget resolution was a big milestone. It really was, Maria, because what that does is it allows us to move one step closer to the one Big Beautiful Bill that the President and all of us keep talking about. In this bill, we are going to cement so many of the promises we made on the campaign trail and check so many of the boxes of the America First agenda. It will be everything, as you know, from securing the border and making sure we have the resources necessary to do that in permanent fashion. We're going to revive the economy again by bringing about American energy dominance once more. Of course, we'll have lots of regulatory reform and the cutting of the red tape, not the least of which the big priority is to ensure the American people don't experience the biggest tax increase in their lives at the end of this year, which is what would happen by default if we didn't accomplish this mission. Now, two Republicans voted against the legislation, and they voted with Democrats because they felt that there weren't enough spending cuts in this legislation. Yeah, there's been a lot of deliberate negotiation, a lot of hard work done for more than a year, Maria, to get to this point. We started this process in March of last year. We expected and believed that we would have unified government. We would come to this moment of really incredible opportunity, and that is that we would have alignment. We would win the White House, the Senate, and the House, and we would be able to engage in this process. The beauty of the reconciliation process is because it's the one mechanism that allows you to get around the necessity of 60 votes in the Senate, and that's what's so important because we only have 53 Republicans there. But we have to get the Senate Republicans and the House Republicans, virtually every single one of them aligned, to make sure that while we extend the tax cuts, to your point, we also pay for them, because we all know that the national debt is probably the greatest single threat to our national security right now. So knowing that 76% of the spending goes toward mandatory spending, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, where are the offsets? Well, here's the key to all of it. The President has made absolutely clear many times, as we have as well, that we're going to protect Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid for people who are legally beneficiaries of those programs. There are a lot of Americans who rely upon those programs, and we've got to ensure that they're safeguarded. That's a big priority of the White House and the Republicans in Congress. At the same time, we have to root out fraud, waste, and abuse. We have to eliminate people on, for example, on Medicaid who are not actually eligible to be there. Able-bodied workers, for example, young men who should never be on the program at all. When you have people on the program that are draining the resources, it takes it away from the people that are actually needing it the most and are intended to receive it. You're talking about young single mothers down on their fortunes at a moment, the people with real disabilities, the elderly. And we've got to protect and preserve that program, so we're going to preserve the integrity of it in this process. We have lots of categories of areas where the government is too large, it does too many things, and the DOJ efforts and others have highlighted that for the American people. So in this process, you're going to see in 11 different committees of jurisdiction across the House, members working hand-in-hand with their sleeves rolled up, working to carve out those inefficiencies. We're going to make government work better for the people in this legislation, in addition to checking all those boxes I mentioned earlier. So it could be the most consequential piece of legislation that Congress has dealt with in many decades, and arguably one of the most in all of its history. So when you come back, the committees will get to work in terms of a surgical way to identify what to cut so that you can actually get that bill to the President's desk. Are you still counting on getting that bill by the end of May? Yeah, the timing's critical, Maria, because for all the reasons you know and you've discussed on your show all the time and that we know, we have to show that stability to the markets. We have to send a message to the bond market, the stock market, investors, to our allies around the world and our enemies as well, that America is on sound fiscal ground. And so we can bend the debt trajectory curve, get us back on a path to fiscal sanity, and do all this. But the timing is important. The reason I put Memorial Day as our deadline is because the sooner we get it done, the better. It will really calm, I think, a lot of the things in the economy and start us back on that path to real recovery. That's why it's so important. And I think getting it done by the end of May is important as well because the debt limit cliff is approaching. Now some projected it could happen in August or September, but depending upon tax receipts in this tax cycle, it could be pushed back on us further, maybe to early June. So we really have no margin for error. Now, Mr. Speaker, one of the movements within the Congress is to, I guess, raise taxes on the rich in order to pay for these tax extensions for the lower earners, like the no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security. The idea that you can have a new tax bracket of 40% for the highest earners, are you seriously considering that? Well, I'm not a big fan of doing that. I mean, we're the Republican Party and we're for tax reduction for everyone. So I mean, that's a general principle that we always try to abide by. There's lots of discussion, lots of ideas on the Hill. People have different thoughts and theories on how we can find this perfect, solve this perfect equation to get all of this done. But I wouldn't put any money on any of that yet. I guess everybody, I would say just stay tuned. The next five to six weeks are going to be critical as all these negotiations happen in the committees of jurisdiction. You'll hear lots of rumors and lots of talk, but we'll see where it all lands. We've got to build consensus. Remember, I've got to get 218 votes in the House and we got to get 51 votes in the Senate. So you can be assured that there'll be a comfort level of everyone before we move that bill to the floor. Mr. Speaker, that wasn't the only victory that you had this past week. You also passed the voter ID law for federal elections, the SAVE Act. Now, Hakeem Jeffries said it's dead on arrival. Yeah, those are big landmark achievements as well over the past week. It's been a busy time in Congress. Hakeem Jeffries is reflecting the sentiment of all the Democrats in the Congress and it's quite sad. 208 House Democrats voted to allow illegal aliens to decide American elections. That's what they did when they voted against the SAVE Act this past week. It's shameful. I mean, it is an existing provision of federal law that only U.S. citizens get to decide U.S. elections, obviously, but there's no mechanism in the states right now to ensure that's happening. So the SAVE Act requires proof of identification, requires proof of citizenship to vote. Democrats are opposed to it. So we really hope that at least seven or eight or more Democrats in the Senate will come to their senses. How are they going to go home, Maria, to their states and explain that they want people from foreign countries deciding our elections? Good luck with that. On the judges, the no rogue rulings act, a great bill by Representative Darrell Issa out of California. We passed that. That is going to bring these activist liberal federal judges to check. You know, we've had real abuse of this system where these judges, individual judges, will issue nationwide injunctions to stop President Trump's agenda. It's been abused. The statistics show it. Remember, 67 percent of all national injunctions over the last hundred years have been issued against one president. His name is Donald J. Trump. And 92 percent of those were issued by Democrat appointed judges to the bench. We've got to stop that. And real quick, Mr. Speaker, before you go, there was also a movement to put boundaries in place for President Trump, issuing tariffs. Do you want Congress to have a say in stopping President Trump's authority in instituting tariffs? Listen, my background is in constitutional law, Maria, and I believe very firmly in separation of powers. I also believe that the executive branch has the runway to do what President Trump is doing. Clearly, the president, the commander in chief, has the right to deal with countries that are engaging in unfair trade practices with our nation. Mr. Speaker, great to have you. Thanks very much for joining us to recap the first 100 days in Congress. We will be watching your work once you come back after speaking with constituents this Easter break. Have a wonderful Easter, sir. You too. God bless. I'm Steve Ducey. I'm Brian Kilmeade. And I'm Ainsley Earhart. And click here to subscribe to the Fox News YouTube page to catch our hottest interviews and most compelling analysis.