Speaker Johnson Joins Fox News Saturday in America with Kayleigh McEnany
Aug 16, 2026 #mikejohnson #politicians
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Video Summary
AI GeneratedHouse Speaker Mike Johnson discusses the \"Contrast for America\" initiative, framing the upcoming midterm elections as a choice between \"common sense\" and \"crazy.\" He warns that Marxist and socialist ideologies are infiltrating the Democratic Party and argues that Republican policies of limited government and election integrity are essential to preserving the American Constitutional Republic.
35 years ago, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, they were fighting communism on
a distant shore.
Now it's here.
This is a contrast election between common sense and crazy, and increasingly that's what
the other side represents.
House Speaker Mike Johnson joins me now.
Welcome Speaker Johnson.
Thanks for being here.
You have a website.
Hey, Kayla.
Yeah.
Thanks for being here.
You have a website.
It's a play on the contract for America in 1994.
That of course was Newt Gingrich.
Very successful.
But this is a contrast for America.
So tell me about the contrast you are drawing in the next 80 days.
Yeah.
Thanks so much, Kayla.
Great to be with you on a Saturday.
Look, I made a pit stop here in my hometown.
I'm in the middle of a 30-day nonstop campaign tour going to 18 states and across 34 districts
in August.
And everywhere I'm going, Kayla, from coast to coast, north to south, east to west, we're
seeing the energy of people because they understand the stakes are so high in this midterm.
It's less than 80 days away now.
And it's going to be a fateful one for the country.
And this is a contrast election.
I was on the phone with Newt Gingrich six months ago.
We talk all the time.
But he has a way of crystallizing things, as you know.
And he said, you know, Mike, this isn't a contract with America here.
This is a contrast for America.
And in short summary, it's a contrast between common sense and crazy.
So we've just launched a new website.
I'm going to debut it on your program this morning.
But if you go to contrastforamerica.com, we lay all this out.
We really have an education component to what we're doing on the campaign trail right now
because sadly, young people have not been taught the truth about socialism and communism.
It's a dangerous road.
And this is one of our efforts to make sure people know that.
And people can see this website scrolling here.
We're actually going to zoom into part of it in just a moment.
But before that, there's a lot of talk about socialism and communism.
Some people say, you know, oh, President Trump, why are you using the word communism?
He's right to do that.
And he has an unlikely person who agrees with him, former Democrat mega donor John Morgan.
I spoke with him.
Listen to what he says about socialism being the gateway to communism.
The Democratic Party is in a crisis and it has been for a long, long time.
Who are we?
Are we Democrats?
Are we socialist?
What I don't understand is why can't anybody, anyone find a socialist government that ever
worked?
He goes on to say socialism is the gateway to communism.
We are talking about communism here.
That's not hyperbole.
Am I correct?
Well, that's right.
And of course, it's it's Marxism, right?
So Karl Marx believed and he taught and said socialism is a step towards communism.
It's a process.
They thought communism would be the utopia, the perfect society.
But it begins with the wrong premise.
Communism is anti-American.
It's the opposite of our ideals.
We're one nation under God.
Communism begins with the premise that there is no God.
The state is the God, effectively.
And so on the website, what we do is we show a summary of the history of this going back
to beginning 1918 to Soviet Russia and going through history of the 20th century to communist
China, you know, ending in Venezuela with the Eastern Bloc in over in Europe.
It never works and it ends in poverty, destruction, political violence, human suffering.
That is the story of communism.
So when you go out on the campaign trail and you promise free stuff to people, young people,
that's a siren song to them.
That sounds great to them.
No one is telling them they have to give up their freedom in exchange.
So this election really does draw a contrast in a sharp way for the American people.
If somebody had told us 10 years ago, Kayleigh, that on the 250th anniversary, the greatest
nation in the history of the world, we will be debating whether or not we would maintain
the Constitutional Republic or go down this dark, dangerous, deadly road to communism.
You and I would have argued with them and said, that's not possible.
But that's where we are right now.
And these insurgent left candidates are winning the Democrat primaries all across the country.
The barbarians are inside the gate.
It's very, very serious stuff.
And we actually have that part of the website.
I want to pull this up because does communism work as an empirical question?
This is not a thought experiment.
It's empirical.
And you say that we need to educate voters.
I totally agree.
And here it is right on this website.
Contrast for America, Soviet Russia, China, Albania, Cambodia, Romania.
As you can see here, communism has failed everywhere it's been tried.
But you're looking at some pretty radical peers that might be joining you in the House.
Folks like Chevalier, who wants to use the American flag as a napkin, who admitted to
doing that once.
Claire Valdez says, Solidarity forever, abolish ICE, free Palestine, organize your union,
join the DSA.
Do you think there will be any effort among Democrats to stand up to these folks?
They've been kind of silent.
They won't do it, Kayleigh.
Here's the problem.
The insurgent left, the radical Marxists are taking over the Democrat Party.
It's happening before our very eyes.
And it's alarming that the establishment Democrats are not putting up a wall to stop this because
they have been defeated on their own turf.
Look at Hakeem Jeffries.
He's the leader of the Democrats in the House.
He had a slate of candidates.
Establishment Democrat candidates that he endorsed even in his own hometown, New York
City, in the Bronx, in his literal neighborhood.
He got beat by the Mamdani slate.
OK, there are many Mamdanis popping up all around America.
And they're winning because the energy, the excitement, the money, the grassroots is on
the side of that insurgent left.
It's serious business.
By our count, almost 40 of these Marxist candidates have already prevailed in a primary at the
federal or local level, all the way across the country.
And many more are on the way.
This is serious.
This midterm will decide the fate of America.
Now, I'm absolutely convinced because of this, we are going to keep the House majority for
the Republican Party.
We're going to grow that majority.
And so from races from Maine to Arizona to California to Michigan, all across the map,
our common sense conservative candidates are going to be met in a general election with
one of these crazy communist candidates.
And I really, really like our chances.
40 candidates across the country.
That really puts the stakes there out for everyone.
If you're a young person watching this and you're disenchanted and you can't afford a
home and you're having trouble with health care and you feel failed by the economy, what
is the Republican alternative to the socialists, which might be alluring to someone who doesn't
have the education about its failure?
Well, the answer is not to turn everything over to the government because that never
works.
That drives prices up.
It leads to famine.
It leads to human suffering and poverty for everyone.
The answer is limited government and individual freedom and the rule of law.
The things that the Republicans have been fighting for.
Now, we put in this Congress, we put into place all the economic conditions to let the
economy take off like a rocket.
And beginning in the first quarter of this year, that's what was happening.
And then we got into the conflict with Iran.
Now, that's going to be settling out soon.
That will help gas prices and grocery prices stay down to planet Earth because the transport
cost and all that related to fuel and the price of oil and gas.
That's the big headwind we have right now.
But we have done what we said.
We fulfilled our promises.
We cut taxes on tips and overtime and Social Security.
We infused our legislation like the big, beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cut with pro
growth policies for those who create jobs and provide the pathway out of poverty for
more people.
That's the American system.
And we are going to get back to that and we'll continue to work on it to make the cost of
living more affordable for everybody.
But it is the Republican Party that presents the policies, not just talk, but the action
to make that happen.
The Democrats and the big government Marxist want exactly the opposite.
It will be this destruction and the ruin of our economy and our country.
We cannot allow that to happen.
On the issue of election integrity, there was a development this week in the state of
Michigan.
There were five non-U.S. citizens who allegedly voted in the 2024 presidential election.
This is a big deal.
We're told it never happens.
It quite clearly did in the state of Michigan, where you have the attorney general there
announcing these charges.
What do you make of that?
Yeah, it's just the latest example in New Jersey a few weeks back.
Remember, they voluntarily told us they found 6,600 non-citizens registered to vote in that
state.
The administration found over 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states, across
four states.
So this is a serious problem.
Election integrity is a top priority and issue for the president, for Republicans.
We can't get a single Democrat in Congress, Kayleigh, to vote for election integrity.
So we passed the Save America Act four times in the House now, for those who are keeping
count.
The last version we sent over on a budget resolution for a reconciliation bill to the
Senate, and I'm very hopeful they'll process that very quickly because we added election
integrity, the Save America Act, with some funding for troops and farmers.
I don't think anybody who has common sense can vote against that, and we're awaiting
the Senate's action so we can move it and get it to the president's desk.
Final question for you.
So you did multiple times pass the Save America Act.
You used budget reconciliation.
You have worked hard to get this across the finish line, and the president has expressed
his appreciation.
And the Senate, he asked them not to go on recess.
They are on recess.
Where does this stand?
Is there any hope?
I realize you're not the Senate, but your thoughts as the House speaker who's gotten
it done on your end.
Well, I think they'll get back to it.
I mean, I do agree that, I think they agree it's a priority to understand how important
it is to the base and to all the American people.
By the way, you know, the proof of citizenship to vote, to register and voter ID, these are
like 9010 public opinion poll issues.
You know, even 72 percent of Democrats think you ought to have a valid ID to vote.
So it's not a controversial proposition, but the Democrats in the Congress are holding
it up.
And you have to ask yourself why.
The president, I think, is right.
Some of them just, they want to have the pathway open for cheating.
I don't know how else you can explain it, Kayleigh.
It defies common sense.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, thank you.
And we encourage everyone to check out The Contrast for America.
This education is needed desperately in our country.
Thank you, House Speaker.

