Mike Johnson House GOP leaders deliver remarks

But what I find very interesting is how the radical left feels they need to hide what their policies are. They soften the language. They invent nicer labels. They call themselves democratic socialists, almost as though they're ashamed to tell the American people what they actually believe. I mean, they should say it loud. They should say it proud. So let's call it what it is. It's communism. And I'm glad y'all are reporting on it. That is exactly what we need, because that is exactly who the left is. They don't need little nicknames like the democratic socialists of America and these acronyms. Just tell the American people what you believe in, communism. And of course, communism arrives wearing a face. It never arrives wearing a face of who it really is, right? At first, it sounds compassionate. It promises fairness, security, a government powerful enough to solve every single problem and provide for every need. Then little by little, the promises kind of go away. And what happens? Those promises go away and it gives government more control. A shopkeeper is told that his business no longer belongs to him. A farmer is ordered to surrender the land that his family has farmed for decades. A father actually stops talking freely at his own dinner table because he's afraid of what his children might say in school the next day. And eventually, slowly, the country that promised everyone everything can no longer provide the basic needs. And just look at the images behind me. These people are not waiting in line for a luxury item. They're standing in the bread line in the Soviet Union. Men and women bundled against the cold, parents waiting for hours, a line stretching down the street towards a store whose shelves may be eventually empty when they actually get there. Think about that for a second and just look at those images. Images reaching, imagine for one second, reaching the front of that line, finding nothing and returning home empty handed to your family. Because you've depended, you've now become dependent on the government, right? The radical left wants you to believe that communism has never really been tried. Well, it has. It's been tried again and again and again. And you know what? It's failed every single time. Communism tries to make you dependent on the government. Let me share with you one adage that I teach my children. I don't want my children to be dependent. I don't want my children to be dependent on anybody. I don't want my children to be dependent on their spouse. I don't want my children to be dependent on me. And I sure don't want my children to be dependent on the government. And that's what communism does. It makes you dependent. And think about it, not because the wrong people are in charge, not because communism just needed just a little more time. It failed because communism itself doesn't work. It wants you to be dependent. It takes ownership away from the people who produce and puts government officials in charge of deciding what will be made, how it will be made, and who will make it. You have no freedom. You have no choice. You are now dependent solely on the government. And the government will tell you what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. And scarcity is not some accidental side effect of the system. Scarcity is actually the result. The Soviet Union promised equality, then delivered breadlines. It promised security, then built a society of surveillance and fear. It promised liberation, then trapped millions of people behind an iron curtain. That's where that road to communism leads. Yet the radical left is selling the same lie in America today. They've polished their branding, right? They've prettied it up. They've packaged it for social media and marketed it to young Americans in college campuses all over the world. They've packaged it as compassion. And they've made promises that they can't keep. But a friendlier name does not change the ideology. And it certainly does not change the endgame. This is no longer confined to the margins. Communism has taken root in our universities, our largest cities, and it has taken root in the Democratic Party. Every attack on private property, every demand for greater government control, and every lesson teaching young Americans to despise capitalism drives those roots deeper. That's why every single Democrat voted to raise your taxes. They want to take your hard-earned money away from you and make sure that that hard-earned money goes to help somebody else. Because somebody has to pay for everything that's free. Cuz last I checked, the farmers don't farm for free, the teachers don't teach for free, and grocery stores don't give away free food. Somebody actually has to pay for that. Just ask them, who's paying? I'm gonna tell you, it's the producers. Americans will never become a communist country. We can never let that happen. And who's standing in the way? House Republicans are ready to stand in the way. We will expose communism's record. It's not an abstract political debate. But a warning written across the faces of the people in this photograph. We need to remember history because we do not want to repeat it. People who were promised everything by their government left waiting in the cold, waiting for a loaf of bread. America must never become that country. But stopping communists requires more than trimming back its most radical proposals. We have to dig it out at its roots. And that's what we as Republicans will continue to do. Just look at the Democratic Party, they are divided right now. We are united. We believe in freedom. We believe in traditional American values. We believe in capitalism. And we believe in people. We believe people could, should, and will continue to control their own destiny, not the government. And we will dig it out by our roots. And the person who I want to introduce you to next is Nicole Melia Takis, who has quite an interesting story about communism. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I represent New York's 11th District. I'm the daughter of a Cuban refugee. My mother fled communist Cuba when Fidel Castro came in 1959. So I'm very familiar with what communism does. My mother fled the country, leaving her father behind. She came with her mother here. And the regime ended up stealing my family's home, their small business, which was a gas station that my grandfather had. And my mother never saw her father again. So communism destroys. It steals from the people. And as you've seen our Secretary of State point out, people end up living in squalor and lack the basic needs that human beings need. And the people that run the regime live as kings. That's the reality. It's about power. It's about consolidating power for a select few. And that is exactly what some of the people that are running for office here in the United States, sadly, are trying to do. We just saw a radical group of individuals win the Democrat primary in New York City. Some of these candidates support no jails, no cops, no borders. They even want to defund the military. You have across the river in New Jersey, Adam Hamaway, who was a character witness for the of conspiracy in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. And then in my city of New York, as I mentioned, not just those who just won those primaries, we have Mayor Mondani, who pushed and is pushing an agenda of government-run supermarkets abolishing private property rights and seizing the means of production. That was his campaign platform. He has said those words. And that is exactly what they did in communist Cuba. Socialism, communism, I mean, my view, and I think in reality, socialism is just communism light. It is a step, as my mother says, it is a step to full communism. If socialism succeeds, then you get communism. And what happens in that process? The government is stealing wealth from people, stealing property from people, and they are using that money to offer things, to redistribute things in a quest to consolidate that power. And as you see with some of the socialist policies that we've seen implemented in New York, costs rise, right? The mayor running on affordability is ludicrous when you think about what socialism actually does, because they steal your money, and they spend it, and it leads to inflation. And we know what happened in Venezuela. Packing the Supreme Court. How many times have we heard the Democrats here talk about packing the Supreme Court? Well, that's exactly what they did in Venezuela in 2004. They packed the Supreme Court from 20 to 32 justices, and then 40,000 cases were decided in the favor of Chavez and Maduro. Think about that. So I don't care what they call themselves, but when you're taking pages out of the playbook of Karl Marx, pushing for abolishing private property rights and seizing the means of production, or Hugo Chavez in packing the Supreme Court, that's what you're gonna get. So they can call themselves Democrat socialists, but the reality is is that the communist caucus, the commie caucus is coming to Congress, and it's gonna be a rude awakening if we don't all pay attention, and that includes the press. Think about what's happened in those countries where they've had socialism and communism. The press is the first one to go. When they finally consolidate that power, the media is the first one to go, and it is a state-run media. So it's incumbent upon all of us to get the truth out there about the threats that we are facing as a country with these radical people that wanna bring this horrific ideology here. Very powerful words by Nicole. The Bolshevik takeover of the Democrat Party is in full swing, and communism is on the ballot this November against freedom. Make no mistake about that. The lines have never been more clear in an election. Just look right now at the fight, fight between Akeem Jeffries and Bernie Sanders. They're in public war with each other right now, and Bernie Sanders is winning. Bernie's candidates are beating Akeem's candidates in Democrat primaries. Now in far-left Democrat districts, those communist candidates are gonna likely be elected. But in swing districts, it draws an incredibly sharp contrast between our incumbent Republicans who are working to make life more affordable for work and families against these communists who want to literally defund the police. Some are running on platforms, as Lisa Nicole said, of defunding prisons, defunding the Department of War, taking away private property rights. This isn't a joke. This is something they actually believe in, and you're seeing it play out in cities like New York, but it's coming to a town near you, and it will absolutely be on the ballot this November. Because the American people do not want America to become a communist nation, but that means Americans have to participate this November to stop it from happening. And we're gonna see more votes on the House floor. What do they wanna do? They want chaos. They want power is ultimately what they want. They can't articulate a real clear agenda for the American people because they've been fighting us on all the things that would actually work to lower costs, keeping taxes low, keeping regulations low, getting government off the backs of working families, producing more energy in America, which lowers costs. Every Democrat voted against that bill, so their votes have been very clear on what they wanna do. But look at some of their other votes. Last week, we had a vote on the House floor that was brought forward not by leadership, but a vote that would have defunded America's support of Israel. And the Democrats were literally divided right down the middle. A majority of Democrats voted to defund Israel. All but one Republican voted to support Israel. But if you look at the vote, even their own leadership was split right down the middle. Half of their leadership voted to defund Israel, and half of their leadership didn't. They're a divided party right now, again, where the Communist wing of the party is starting to win out on all of these votes. Look at some of these votes. Again, a majority of Democrats voted to block military aid to Israel. A majority of Democrats voted no on denouncing the anti-Semitic terrorist attacks in Boulder, Colorado. A majority of them voted against denouncing those attacks. A majority of Democrats voted no on expressing support for law enforcement. A majority. That is who the Democrat Party is today. That's what communism is. They can call themselves whatever they want. Look at their votes. Look at their platform. Look at their actions. And then we're gonna bring more bills. Again, we got a bill this week to just fund government, continuing resolution that Chairman Cole is bringing forward today to say, look, we don't want a government shutdown. We don't want the chaos that comes with it. Republicans are united, by the way, behind that. And what is Hakeem saying? He's voting to shut the government down today. Let's watch how all Democrats vote. But the American people are gonna be watching that too, because they remember the long lines just a few months ago at every airport. Democrats will be voting today to have four-hour lines at every airport when you're going and taking your summer vacation this month for a hardworking family. Democrats will be voting today to take away paychecks from our men and women in uniform. That's what they'll be voting on today. Tomorrow we're bringing up a bill to ban stock trading by members of Congress, something people have been calling for for years. We're bringing that bill to the floor. Chairman Stiles' committee worked really hard to get a bill brought forward. Now Democrats are talking about voting against that. Bring in the NDAA. Let's see how that vote goes to just provide the basic layout for how our national defense should be prioritized. These are basic functions of government, basic responsibilities of reforming government. Bring in the Save America Act. Again, what is the Save America Act? Show in picture ID to vote. Not a complicated subject. Again, anybody that gets on an airplane has to show a picture ID to vote. Nowadays, if you want to go to Olive Garden and get unlimited pasta, you got to show a picture ID. This isn't complicated stuff, yet every Democrat is against these basic things. Why? The only reason you can be against that is if you want voter fraud. It's the only explanation, and they know that. American people get it. We've all seen polling. It crosses every spectrum, black, white, Republican, Democrat. Everybody says, of course, ensure the integrity of the vote. One person, one vote. By the way, in states, and you saw this yesterday in rules committee, Chairman Stiles did a really good job of explaining it. In the states where they put stronger voter integrity in place, you actually have higher voter participation because voters actually trust the process better. We're going to have these votes this week. Before we leave for everybody to go back to their districts and work, we're going to have a lot to talk about during this break because we're going to be talking about the contrast, the contrast on the ballot this November between communism and freedom. The American people will absolutely choose freedom and keep this Republican House majority and keep our speaker, Mike Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Leader, and good morning, everybody. We have a lot on our plate this week. It's going to be a very important week for the country and for House Republicans. I spend a lot of time on the road when we're not in session. I'm out campaigning in the swing districts and with our candidates and our incumbents all across the country. Last two weeks, I've been from California to New York, Iowa, Nebraska, many points in between. Everywhere we go, the American people are seeing and understanding, they're articulated in their own way, the stark contrast between the two sides. As we say all the time, this is not your father's Democratic Party. The chasm between the two sides and their visions for America and what we believe, our principles, our priorities, our platforms, has never been more divergent than it is right now. As I've said here many times and I say across the country, a few decades ago, Republicans and Democrats in Congress are arguing over marginal tax rates and shades of regulation. Now we are quite literally in a contest to determine whether we're going to maintain our status as the world's great superpower, the greatest nation in the history of the world as a constitutional republic, or we're going to tear that down to the foundation like the communist Democrats want to do and go down this dark road of Marxism. Not on our watch. We're not going to do that. I am very confident. In fact, I'm very enthusiastic about the upcoming midterm election because I believe that people are beginning to see this, and it is going to motivate voter turnout for true Americans who love their country and want to keep it. We're in the process of making it better every single day, and you're going to see that on display this week on the floor. We've said this is a contrast. We had been saying for months, you've heard me say, a contrast between common sense and crazy in the midterm, and now it's common sense versus communism. This is real. So this week on the floor, let me talk to you about a few things that we're going to have. It's been mentioned by the leader. This week, House Republicans are going to take an important step to restore Americans' faith and trust in Congress and in American elections with the Stop Insider Trading Act. As Leader Scalise noted, this is something the American people have been very interested in for a long, long time. We have finally cobbled together what we believe is the Vote Coalition to make that happen. I want to commend the good work of the House Administration Committee and Chairman Brian Steyer for their quarterbacking of this collaborative effort, and they've drafted a bill that I think is really, really well done. Too often, Americans struggling to make ends meet have watched as lawmakers have entered office to leave as multimillionaires. There's a handful of glaring examples, a couple of those people are still serving, notably on the Democrat side. The Stop Insider Trading Act does exactly what it says. It bans members of Congress from purchasing individual stocks from publicly traded companies, and it helps prevent public officials from profiting from inside information. It's a very logical thing to do. The bill also includes a very common sense and popular provision to ensure that voters must show a valid ID when they go to the polls to vote. Virtually all Republicans support that common sense measure, and over 70% of Democrats do, as acknowledged most recently by Chuck Schumer himself. And yet, watch, I bet you not a single Democrat in the House or Senate will support these measures. Democrats only talk about corruption. Republicans are actually delivering real solutions to actually restore the public's faith in our institutions because we believe in this country. We believe in our matchless Constitution that is the envy of everybody around the world. And we believe on the 250th anniversary now is a very important time to stand on that. Later today, House Republicans are going to move closer to responsibly funding the government as well. We're going to pass a totally clean, very simple, continuing resolution that will fund the government through November. The CR is as clean as they come. There are no poison pills. There's no hidden maneuvers. There's nothing other than a simple extension of current funding levels. This is going to be one to watch. Unfortunately, given that Democrats have already forced the two longest government shutdowns in American history in this Congress, one of them for 78 days, they've already demonstrated they don't care what kind of pain they inflict on the American people. They do this to try to score political points. I think they're making the wrong calculation here. Republicans are under no illusions about Democrats' intentions ahead of a very consequential midterm election. Today's Democrat Party, I think they have a very false impression. They think that they can score political points by trying to inflict pain. It's not going to work. They've shown there's nothing they love more than a government shutdown as tens of millions of Americans head to the polls in November. But this clean CR is an opportunity for both sides. They have an opportunity to demonstrate they're committed to responsibly funding the government through November. And again, I bet you they don't help us on it. If the Democrats can't support this basic principle, then they alone are going to own the chaos that ensues if the government shuts down after September 30th. On reconciliation this week, of course, we're going to move the ball forward on Reconciliation 3.0. We passed our budget resolution. That's what we'll do. Send it to the Senate. As a reminder, this legislative vehicle is our best shot at accomplishing two key objectives of the people of this country. These are very popular and important and necessary objectives. Number one, secure American elections by passing the Save America Act into law, as much of that as possible. That's the objective. Number two, protect and strengthen our homeland. How do we do that? We'll be providing supplemental funding in line with the administration's request to support our national defense and our farmers. Why is this necessary? Because Democrats have yet again refused to work with Republicans on basic election integrity and strengthening our nation's defense. As always, Republicans support our troops, our farmers, and election integrity, and we will demonstrate that again this week. Another big thing on the floor, as you know, is the NDAA, National Defense. Now, there was a time, all you remember, not too long ago, that funding for our national defense was a bipartisan exercise, because at the end of the day, everybody put the weapons down, metaphorical weapons, political weapons, and said, gee, you know, both parties have to acknowledge the necessity of maintaining our defense and supporting our troops. Surely, that's the last thing we can agree upon, everybody would say. For 65 consecutive years, Congress has done exactly that, enacted the National Defense Authorization Act without fail. I am sad to tell you that is no longer the case, because the Communist Caucus, the Democrats now have decided that they're not into that anymore. Republicans will once again be the only adults in the room as we vote to authorize this critically important funding, just as we have done under previous Democrat administrations for more than a century. Why? Because Republicans understand the priorities of the country, and even when we don't get our greatest preferences, we're still willing to do the right thing and support those who put on the uniform. But Democrats aren't there anymore. One final point, this week will prove beyond dispute, Democrats' reflexive obstruction, that's what they do now. It's obstruction for the sake of obstruction, it is driven by Trump derangement syndrome and other maladies that they have. It's shocking to say, but today's Democrats would rather endanger our national security, they'd rather threaten the livelihoods of hardworking Americans, they'd rather punish their own constituents than work with Republicans to advance any meaningful policy under this administration. But here's the good news, Republicans refuse to allow the Democrats to railroad the legislative process with their relentless and childish obstruction tactics. No matter how hard they dig in their heels, we're going to work 10 times harder. We're going to deliver for the American people, we're going to make our country safer and more affordable for millions of working families. We've demonstrated that over and over, we'll continue to do it this week and in the days ahead, and that is why we're going to win decisively in the midterms. This is not a game. We're not going to turn this country into a communist experiment. We're going to maintain the greatest country in the history of the world. Take a few questions. Well, the key word there is allegation. We have a process here, the House Ethics Committee works on those things. If allegations are made, they work through a process, so I'm not in the business of commenting on investigations as they're in process, and we'll see how that shakes out. That's how this always works. And by the way, it's done for R's and D's on both sides of the aisle. Yes, ma'am, second row, yes, sir. The administration is working very hard, the Commander-in-Chief and the whole Department of War, they're working very hard to bring this to a resolution. There's a lot of discussions about how that will be done. We're all closely watching those developments, of course. I don't think an AUMF is in order right now. I think we need to bring this to a resolution. Look, I think it's important for all of our international partners, is my personal view, to have a role in this. I mean, we've got all of our allied nations through NATO. We've got the Arab countries over there, the Gulf states that are in closest proximity to Iran. Iran is now fired on all of its neighbors, and they're turning everybody in the world into an enemy. And I think this is an important moment of history for all of the world community to decide how they want to handle this. It shouldn't just be America's obligation. My view is that everybody needs to play a role. So we'll see how that develops. I think we have to allow the space to do that. And I know that this administration is working around the clock to resolve that in a way so that we don't suffer any more troop losses. This is a great tragedy. It shouldn't happen. But it is a very important, very important objective that I believe we've achieved to ensure that the largest sponsor of terrorism does not have a nuclear weapon. That would be a disaster for everybody, and everybody around the world understands that. Now we've got to wrap it up. Yes, ma'am. Fourth row. Could you raise your hand? Yes, ma'am. No, we had a good discussion in the House Republican conference. It's not the Full Save Act on the stock trading, it's just voter ID, which again, it's more than a 90% public opinion polling issue, as is stock trading ban in the House. So you're talking about two 90-10 public, it's probably in excess of nine out of ten Americans support both of those measures. Everybody's hard pressed to vote against that. I don't think any Republicans will, I think a lot of Democrats will. It'll be a vote that you should closely watch and that everybody's constituents should take heed to. Yes, ma'am. Third row. Yeah. I can't believe it would be acceptable in any situation. Yeah, you have a role where you have members of Congress and their subordinates and staff members. I think it's inappropriate, as it would be in any workplace, and most companies have that. We should at a bare minimum in Congress have rules and traditions that are adhered to in corporate America. So that's an easy one for me. Yeah. Last one. Yeah. Mike. Well, I didn't hear him in that address say he wasn't relitigating the 2020 election. What he did was, I got a couple of notes here, but some of the things that he, he announced 280,000 non-citizens have been found to be on voter rolls in America. I mean, if that doesn't cry for the passage of the Save America Act into law, I don't know what does. He announced that foreign adversaries have compromised American election data and that our election system is vulnerable to threats. I mean, that should concern every American citizen. This isn't about relitigating 2020. This is about making sure that people have faith in our election system. If you do not have a free and fair election, it's very difficult to maintain a constitutional public government of, by, and for the people. I mean, this is basic stuff. The president was highlighting that. Some of the findings are alarming. I mean, a lot of the Democrats ran around breathlessly for years saying that Russia was intervening in our elections. You would think they'd be the first to step up and say, yeah, let's go investigate this and clean up voter rolls. I mean, that is part of our message on the campaign trails. We want to make sure that the states, all the states, including blue states, are doing their dead level best to ensure that federal law is complied with. What is federal law? To vote in a US election, you have to be an American citizen. That's a simple thing. It's not being enforced in some of these states, and that's why Save America Act is so important. And we want to make sure that we don't have deceased persons on the voter roll. We want to make sure that in states where they're doing ballot harvesting, they're not just rounding these things up haphazardly. That the exact number of ballots that are printed go to the exact number of voters who are registered in these districts, and not extra persons. This is what makes people doubt the veracity of our elections. So there's nothing, in my mind, there's almost nothing more important than this. And that's what the president is articulating, and he is showing you the receipts. He's showing you the evidence of things that have been found in these investigations. I think that does alarm a lot of the American people, and we'll continue to hammer that. Thank you all so much. See you soon.