Speaker Johnson speaks at a House Republican Leadership Press Conference. 6/24/2026

Glad French Hill is here. Chairman Hill did an extraordinary job in the housing bill. We'll talk about that in a moment, but I've got to address a very sobering reality that is facing the country this morning. I did it with the House Republicans, and I was pretty animated this morning. I was up late last night, as I'm sure many of you were, and you saw the result of this latest, these primary elections for the Democrat Party. The headlines this morning say it all. I've got a collection of them here. Socialist earthquake, one of them said. Mamdani candidate sweep New York House races. These are socialists. These are Marxist in their ideology. Next, Mamdani hails new chapter for Democrats, one of the chyron said this morning on the news. Hakeem Jeffries, my counterpart, you know, the Democrat leader here in the House, was booed at some of these return parties last night. You saw that on social media and some of the clips when he was being interviewed on the screen. The crowds in New York in his own backyard in the Bronx in one of these districts were booing him, and they shouted, You're next. Hakeem Jeffries has a tall task ahead of him right now. He's got to go out and somehow make a credible pitch to Democrat establishment donors that that's a good national investment right now. That's a tough one to make. He has just proven that he cannot even hold the line in his own backyard. How can he possibly defend against the Marxist march around the country in these other districts? This is not your father's Democrat party, as we say all the time. Last night, among the incumbents who lost Adriano Espio, who's chair of the Democrats' Hispanic caucus, Dan Goldman, who was mocked for his Jewish heritage in a coffee shop in New York and maligned online because of it. The Democrat party, the socialists, the Marxists have nominated some of the most radical candidates to ever run for office, and they're running for Congress. The insurgent left is on the rise. I was reminded all last night and this morning about the warning, the admonition from the gipper, President Ronald Reagan. He reminded us constantly freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. He said it's got to be fought for, it's got to be protected, it's got to be passed along the next generation so that they too will know the same liberty, opportunity, and security that we've known and frankly too often take it for granted. He said freedom is not passed along in the bloodstream. It's got to be fought for. These are the times that Reagan was warning about. He was warning about communism overseas. Now it is on our own shores, and it is a very serious time and every American needs to wake up and understand the threat. I want to share with you some of the lowlights, some of these candidates who are emerging through the processes. Last night made crystal clear, as Leader Scalise said, that Zoran Mondami and AOC and Bernie Sanders have just taken full control of the Democrat party of what was left of it. Across the country, Democrats have candidates winning primaries and rising through the ranks. Here's a few of them. Vang in California, one of the Democrats, she won't say the Pledge of Allegiance. Hamilway in New Jersey, Democrat candidate, socialist candidate, has ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorists. Chevalier won last night in New York over Hakeem's counter endorsement. She says she wants to abolish the border. She doesn't want a border for the country. Mendoza in Arizona wants to decriminalize trans prostitution. James in Iowa wants to apologize for being white. Garriott in Iowa performed a Satanist wedding. Bennett in New Jersey stopped going to church because Trump voters were there. This is just a sampling. These kind of people have been popping up, you've been hearing me say for weeks, there are many Mamdanis popping up all around the country. It is a dangerous thing. This is not a joke. We are in a fight right now to save the Republic. Every American needs to take this seriously. You need to wake up. This upcoming midterm election is not the midterm elections of years ago. It's gonna decide the direction of the country. Are we gonna maintain our status as a constitutional republic on our 250th anniversary? Are we gonna make a new choice and go down some road towards a communist utopia? That's the choice right now. We've been saying for months, it's a contrast election. We've been saying it's a contrast between common sense and crazy. That's exactly what's going on. They give us new illustrations every day. And these radical candidates are self-describing, they're self-identifying as Marxist. They want to fundamentally transform this country. And sadly, many of these Democrat candidates and their voters just don't have the same zeal and affection for America. They don't appreciate the freedom that we have in this country. They're not even gonna celebrate on July 4th. There's a new Gallup NBC poll that came out. Did you see that? Only 29% of Democrat voters that they polled said they're proud to be an American. What happened to the Democrat Party? They compared the poll from just 20 years ago, where it was 90%. Because that's where Republicans are above 90%. 29%. Over half of Democrats now say they would rather live in another country. What a split screen we're seeing. Right now we're triumphantly hosting the World Cup games all around the country. And we're seeing people from different countries come and get a little taste of America, a little taste of freedom of our culture and our society. And they appreciate it so much more than these socialists running for Congress. Fans across the country are truly enjoying our world-class facilities and the incredible atmosphere on the field and off the field. Thanks to social media, we're seeing a lot of these. This has been encouraging to see. The visitors appreciate what we have. Dutch travelers are in all buckies. German players took a midnight trip to the Waffle House. It's the greatest thing they've ever seen. English fans are roaming the Everglades. Japanese tourists marveling over free chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant in Texas. Don't forget your blessings. The people from Europe and Latin America, many countries around the world, many of whom, here's the key, they grew up under repressive, state-controlled economies. They've never known freedom. They've never known these kinds of things. And they're seeing them for themselves. The genius of America's system, a system that rewards risk-takers and entrepreneurs and job creators and innovators and people who create jobs for others and expand the economy and opportunity and broaden the pathway out of poverty for more people. That's what the Republicans stand for. That's what French Hill fought for in the housing bill, to give more people a chance to restore the American dream. That's what we promised to the voters, and that's what we are delivering. The irony is, and it is a sad irony, and I'm so disturbed this morning. Y'all know me. I'm a happy warrior. I like to be optimistic and happy. This is a very disturbing trend. Visitors around the world marvel at what our system of free enterprise has built, while rising socialist, Marxist, Democrat candidates are trying to tear the system down. That's what they told you in their campaign speeches. That's what they want to do. They want to tear it down. House Republicans are standing in the gap. We are not going to let that happen. And we had all the Republicans gathered up this morning, and I gave them the best locker room speech I can muster, because now is the time. We know America's not perfect. It's never been. But we've been in a gradual process of making a more perfect union for almost 250 years now. We're going to continue that. America's created more prosperity. It's lifted more people out of poverty. It's expanded more opportunity and innovation than any other country in the world. It's not even close. This is the greatest nation in the history of the world. It's not even close. Look at any objective factor. You hear me say it all the time. We're the most free, most successful, most benevolent, most prosperous nation that's ever been. And it's not by happenstance. It's because we're built on very firm foundational principles that the Marxists and the socialists have disdained for. What are the principles of America? I mean, it's not a rhetorical question. You all should be able to answer it. Things like individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets, human dignity, the sanctity of all life. Why? Because it's articulated in the nation's first certificate in the Declaration. It says right there in the second paragraph. We hold these truths to be self-evident. What is a self-evident truth is something you have to know. It's obvious. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. It does not say just born equal. It says created by someone. And it's our creator, God, who gave us our inalienable rights among those rights of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Such a profound statement. When they did that 250 years ago, they were saying something, the bold proclamation of a self-evident truth. And the implication is that every single person is made in the image of that creator because the guys that wrote that, the men that wrote that, the founders that wrote it, the students of scripture, they understood because everybody's made in the image of God. It means every single person has inestimable dignity and value. And your value is not related in any way to the color of your skin or what zip code you live in or what your talents are. It's all irrelevant. Your value is inherent because it's given to you by God. The Marxists and the Socialists do not believe what I just told you. They don't believe it. Marxism, Karl Marx, his philosophy begins with a premise that there is no God. The state is the God. The state is the one that gives you your rights. And guess what? When the state gives you all your rights, the state can take the rights away. Nobody's telling all these little young self-described socialists, oh, we'll give you free stuff, but you're gonna have to give up your freedom to go along with it. They don't tell them that. This thing's gonna crash and burn. It always has throughout history. And the lesson of the 20th century alone is that tens of millions of innocent people have died because of these crazy, quixotic notions. We have to stand for freedom. We got to stand for America. We got to stand on the 250th birthday with greater conviction, clarity, and consistency than we ever have. I'm glad that millions of visitors here for the World Cup seat had. I'm glad they got a little, a little timely reminder they've given us one. All our faults and disagreements aside, America is filled with the most decent and faithful people. This grand experiment in self-governance has worked because we have, we have adhered to the foundations and we have to defend them. And that's what the Republicans are doing right now. We're defending the foundations of the greatest country in the history of the world, not against your father's but now against the Marxists. And we're ready for the fight. I'm telling you, the House Republicans are fired up for this. We're gonna win this midterm election. We're gonna maintain the beacon of hope and freedom and opportunity that this country has always been. Indeed, as our first Republican President Lincoln said, and as Reagan repeated, America is the last best hope of man on the earth. I'm off to fight. These guys are up for the fight. This chairman's up for the fight. All our colleagues are. I'll take a few questions.