Mike Johnson: The Big Beautiful Bill is 'good for everyone'

All right, joining us now for more is House Speaker Mike Johnson, Mr. Speaker, great to see you. Hey, Rob, great to see you as always. This was a big day in the history of our country. Yeah, it absolutely was. I call you the silent assassin of the Republican Party. Somehow you have been able to do what John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, and many others could not. So congratulations. You lost just two votes, two Republicans. Was there ever a moment over the last several days where you thought this might not happen? You know, it was dicey, honestly, along the way. But I never did take my eye off that prize. And I believed that this group could deliver this big agenda, the one big, beautiful bill. I mean, really, this is about 90 percent of the America First agenda all lobbed into one giant piece of legislation. We wanted to go big. We wanted to go early. We did it, I think, in probably record time, certainly, for a piece of legislation this large and comprehensive and complex. But we got it delivered. You know why? Because, Rob, I believe in my colleagues. The American people have sent some courageous, patriotic Republicans to Congress. They all believe deeply in their heart in that America First agenda, and they want to put America first again. This legislation is arguably the most conservative legislation of our lifetime, and we got it done. Were you surprised, honestly, that not a single Democrat crossed the aisle to vote for either version of this bill in the Senate or in the House? Not one Democrat? I can't believe that they didn't, but I'm not surprised. Look, this is not your father's Democratic Party. I mean, look, they've gone far, woke, progressive left, and they don't seem to be able to recognize they've got to turn and come back to the center. They're going further and further left. You see that with candidates that are emerging around the country and some of the actions and antics that they've done on the House floor, as they did today. They don't seem to recognize that they're committing political suicide for their party. Meanwhile, Republicans are not into pageantry or performance. We are delivering results, and that's what we did today, and I tell you what, this bill is going to help every single American. It is geared for the working, hardworking middle American, middle class people, and it's going to give them great economic relief, and we had the largest tax cuts in U.S. history that we adopted today. The Democrats voted against those tax cuts, right? We had the largest savings, largest spending reductions ever enacted by Congress. We did that today in the bill, as well as border security, national security, American energy dominance. All the priorities the president talked about on the campaign trail, and we did too, we delivered. Now, it's been Cajun rule on Capitol Hill. You and your fellow Louisianan, Steve Scalise, have done a remarkable job, and I don't think you get the credit that you deserve. How much did Hakeem Jeffries help your case by delivering that speech, which started on the House floor at what? I think just before 5 o'clock this morning. Yeah, right at 5 a.m. He went over eight hours. It was a snoozefest. I mean, you know, he put his own colleagues to sleep sitting behind him. He was trying to break a record and make a point. All he did was make a mockery of their position, and he had outrageous lies about the bill. We were able to dispel that, because the facts are stubborn things, as John Adams used to say. Look, this bill is going to be good for everyone. It delivers on the agenda. We couldn't get it done fast enough, because the American people need relief. You remember after the first two years of the first Trump administration, we brought about the greatest economy in the history of the world, because we cut taxes and we cut regulations. This is that again, but on steroids, with everything else in it. And the Democrats are panicking right now, because they know what we just did. I want to play everyone at home one moment from your speech this afternoon. Take a listen. You know, Ronald Reagan said one time that no speech should be longer than 20 minutes, and unlike the Democrat leader, I'm going to honor my colleague's time and be a little more brief than that. But you spoke for, I think, 24 minutes, so you broke your own rule. Did it? Was it 24 minutes? Yes, it was. I don't know. That's because of the applause lines. I had to break for the standing ovations. My colleagues were so excited about what we were doing. Ah, Mr. Speaker, it's always something. I guess I didn't time that right. Yeah, the applause lines. Do you expect the president to make good on his promise to primary people like Thomas Massey and perhaps Brian Fitzpatrick, who voted no today? Well, I don't know. I'll tell you what. I talked to the president most recently, an hour ago, before he was getting on the flight to go to Iowa. He's in a great mood. He knows we've got a great win. It's a great thing for the party and for his administration and his agenda. He's on quite a winning streak. I don't think he's thinking a lot about retribution right now. I think he's thinking about what we're going to deliver for the people. I'll tell you what. I was involved in a conversation late last night between Thomas Massey and the president of the United States, and it was very thoughtful. Thomas Massey, in fact, flipped his vote from no to yes on the rule vote that allowed us to proceed to get that thing done. That was a big thing, and I think it might be, maybe it's the beginnings of a truce between the two. I'm trying to be a peacemaker. I think it's good for the party for all of us to be moving in the same direction. That's interesting. How big a role did the president play working the phones last night, calling members who may have been on the fence, members of the Freedom Caucus? He's not only the most powerful president of our lifetimes, and arguably maybe in all of U.S. history, he's also the most engaged, and he was fully involved in this and was willing to talk to any member that I needed him to speak to. He's got a lot going on, so I tried to keep him insulated from that as much as possible, but he brought subgroups of members on his own to the White House just to visit with him and talk to him about the importance of the agenda. That was very effective in this process. He deserves a lot of credit. This president is on his A game, and the long list of wins is really phenomenal. I think it's unmatched in the modern era, and we're going to keep this momentum going. Rob, this is just the first of a series of steps, of things that we are going to deliver for the American people, and we are excited. The Republican Party is here to stay. I want to ask you about that. You mentioned this to me at CPAC when we spoke. You said that after this bill, we're going to have reconciliation part two. I believe that's what you called it. What would be in that? I'm working on what I call the five steps to fiscal stability. Reconciliation one, the big beautiful bill, was the first big step in that. We will do another reconciliation package, probably sometime mid-fall, and that one will be attached to the FY26 budget. We'll get another shot at the apple, potentially reconciliation part three for FY27. We can do all that in this congressional two-year term. Meanwhile, we'll be passing rescissions packages from the White House to cut and claw back spending that was being wasted with fraud, waste, and abuse, and we'll also appropriate at lower levels. We're going to get the ship of state back in the right direction on a fiscal trajectory that is sound, and I want that message to be heard loud and clear by the bond markets and the stock market, investors, job creators, risk-takers, and entrepreneurs everywhere. Come to America, and if you're in America, build more, because we are going to create the economy that allows for you to flourish. We have Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen standing by, so I want to take, if I could, just 30 seconds more of your time. I know you're a student of history. John Adams, and again, tomorrow's the 4th of July, which is why I bring this up. Our second president's founding father said, you will never know how much it costs the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make a good use of it. That was John Adams. How do you think the founding fathers would feel about America today and what we've done with this grand experiment in self-government? I genuinely believe that the founders would know that we're on the right trajectory right now. I think they'd be surprised by a lot of things happening, but they said, it's a republic if you can keep it. That's what Franklin famously said after the convention. We have to keep it. We're the stewards of it now. Doing that, keeping it, means understanding the core principles and preserving them, and that's what our party's doing every single day. All right. Mr. Speaker, congratulations. Enjoy this. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, my friend. Mike Johnson with us. Information. Truth. Is freedom. Is Newsmax. It's real news for real people. Transcription by CastingWords .