Speaker Johnson Asked Multiple Questions About Qatar Plane Gift, Trump Crypto Business

At today's House Republican leadership press briefing, Speaker Johnson was pressed on a series of controversies involving President Trump.

Transcript

00:00To accept an airplane from the Qatari government, should Congress have approval over that kind of gift?

00:08Look, I've been a little busy on reconciliations. I'm not following all the twists and turns of the Qatari Jets I haven't heard about.

00:16My understanding is it's not a personal gift that the President would give to the United States and other nations give us gifts all the time.

00:23But I'm going to leave to the administration to know much more about the details of that. It's not my lane.

00:27Mr. Speaker, you are very critical of President Biden and his family's foreign business dealings.

00:33You supported an impeachment inquiry as a result of it.

00:36Are you equally concerned about President Trump's family's business dealings,

00:39especially given the fact that he is in a region now where his family has billions of dollars of investments in Doha and Saudi Arabia,

00:46and the fact that he has a crypto business now where he's auctioned off access to the White House for the highest bidder in his mean point?

00:53Look, there are authorities that police executive branch ethics rules.

00:58I'm not an expert in that. My expertise is here in the House, okay?

01:01I'll say that the reason that many people refer to the Bidens as the Biden crime family

01:06is because they were doing all this stuff behind curtains, but in the back rooms.

01:10They were trying to conceal it, and they repeatedly lied about it, and they set up shell companies,

01:14and the family was all engaged in getting all on the dole.

01:17But whatever that President Trump is doing is out in the open.

01:21They're not trying to conceal it.

01:22Well, can I – but, Mr. Speaker, the investment in the mean point, those folks are not transparent.

01:27We do not know who those people are that have invested in the mean point.

01:31I don't know. I can just tell you that, I mean, President Trump has had nothing to hide.

01:35He's very upfront about it, and there are people who watch all the ethics of that.

01:40But, I mean, I've got to be concerned with running the House of Representatives.

01:42Is it Congressional's oversight, though? That's the Congressional responsibility, is it not?

01:46Well, Congress has oversight responsibility, but I think, so far as I know, the ethics –