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Speaker Johnson Speaks To CNN's Jake Tapper As 'Big Beautiful Bill' Heads To Senate
Forbes Breaking News
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5/27/2025
On Sunday, Speaker Johnson (R-LA) spoke to CNN's Jake Tapper as the House's budget heads to the Senate.
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00:00
And joining me now is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson of Louisiana.
00:04
Speaker Johnson, thanks so much for joining us. Republican senators have made it clear that they
00:09
want to make some changes to the House bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN
00:13
the Senate's going to write its own bill. Even though they have a larger majority than you do,
00:20
what is your message to your colleagues in the Senate?
00:24
Thanks, Jake. Great to be with you. Look, I've been very consistent with our colleagues in the
00:28
Senate. We worked hand-in-glove with them all through this process, remembering that the
00:32
House began this more than a year ago. It was March of last year when we got our committee chairs
00:37
together and told them to begin to prepare for this massive reconciliation package. We believed at
00:42
that time, more than a year ago, that we would win the White House, the Senate, and the House and have
00:46
unified government and have this really once-in-a-generation opportunity to do so much in one piece of
00:51
legislation. So I met with the Senate Republicans, all my colleagues over there last week on Tuesday
00:56
at their weekly luncheon, and I encourage them, you know, to do their work, of course, as we all
01:01
anticipate, but to make as few modifications to this package as possible, because remembering that
01:07
we've got to pass it one more time to ratify their changes in the House. And I have a very delicate
01:12
balance here, a very delicate equilibrium that we've reached over a long period of time,
01:16
and it's best not to meddle with it too much.
01:19
Let's talk about what the legislation actually does. I want to play something that you said back
01:23
in January about the national debt. The number one threat to our nation right
01:30
now is our debt. We take that very seriously. Congress has kicked the can down the road for
01:34
decades, and we're out of road. And so we understand that it's our responsibility to fix this.
01:41
So there are five different independent scores of this legislation. Every one of them says that it
01:46
will increase the deficit somewhere between $3.3 and $4 trillion over the next 10 years. Now,
01:53
I get you take issue with the Congressional Budget Office and that they don't have dynamic scoring,
01:58
all this, but this is the emergency, emerging consensus among everyone analyzing. They say you're
02:04
kicking, not only are you kicking the can down the road, but you're making the problem worse.
02:08
You're adding to the debt. Well, I think that is dramatically overstated,
02:14
and here's why. Everyone can, those same groups can objectively see and acknowledge that this is the
02:20
largest cut in spending in at least 30 years and arguably of all time. We're cutting over $1.5 trillion
02:27
in federal spending while we check all the boxes and bring about a pro-growth economy. And the CBO has
02:33
been panned because, as you said, they don't do dynamic scoring. What that means is they don't
02:38
account for the growth that will be fostered by all the policies that are in this big piece of
02:44
legislation. This is not theoretical, Jake. Just remember the last Trump administration. After
02:50
the first two years, we brought about the greatest economy in the history of the world, not just the
02:54
U.S. The growth was off the charts. It was an average of about 3% of growth in GDP. Why? Because we cut
03:00
taxes and we cut regulations. We're doing the same thing this time around, but on steroids. This is a
03:06
much larger package, a much more robust package with all these features that will really get the
03:11
economy going because wages will rise. Job creators, entrepreneurs, risk-takers will have more ability to
03:17
expand their businesses. U.S. manufacturing onshore is being incentivized. All these things will work
03:23
together to make the economy grow faster than many of these projections are putting forth. So we're not
03:30
buying it. We'll see what happens, and we have the evidence to prove it from the past.
03:34
So the CBO doesn't get a vote, but my next guest, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin does,
03:39
and he wrote in The Wall Street Journal, quote, the one big, beautiful bill will almost certainly
03:43
add to our deficits and debt, and he even called the bill the Titanic. What do you say to him?
03:50
Look, I love Ron Johnson. He's a dear friend, and he and I agree on our philosophy. We're limited
03:55
government conservatives. We want to limit the size and scope of the government and make
03:59
it work more efficiently and effectively. My response to him, and we've spoken about this
04:04
over recent months, is that we're doing the best we can with the vote numbers that we have. In other
04:09
words, we've got to turn this aircraft carrier. You don't turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. It
04:14
takes a mile of open ocean to do it, and it took us decades to get in this financial situation.
04:19
We can't just flip a switch and get out of it overnight. One of the people that my friend Ron
04:24
Johnson really respects is Russ Vogt, who directs the Office of Management and Budget, and Russ is a
04:29
big champion for this piece of legislation. He calls it historic, and he's a fiscal hawk, and so am I.
04:35
So we're doing as much as we can, and I just encourage Ron to remember, you know, in our, in the House,
04:40
we have 220 Republicans, a wide range of perspectives and a wide range of districts represented,
04:46
and I've got to get to 217 votes to get this thing over the line. So as much as we can in as big
04:52
increment as we can, I think we've achieved that here, and I just want them to remember that we've
04:57
got to deal within the realm of what's possible. So in addition to people like Senator Johnson,
05:02
who think this bill doesn't do enough to, to cut spending, you're going to have to convince people
05:07
like Susan Collins of Maine and Josh Hawley of Missouri, who are worried about cuts that this bill
05:13
proposes. President Trump repeatedly insisted he would not touch Medicaid, and that Americans
05:18
would not lose their insurance. Here's what he said just five days ago.
05:23
We're not changing Medicaid, and we're not changing Medicare, and we're not changing Social Security.
05:29
Can you guarantee that your voters, your support of the new election, your working-class voters,
05:34
will not lose health insurance under this bill?
05:37
Oh, there will lose health insurance?
05:38
The CBO found that nearly 8 million Americans will, in fact, lose their insurance coverage
05:43
because of the changes this bill makes to Medicaid. So how do you reconcile that with what President
05:48
Trump said?
05:51
It's directly in line with what the president said. I've said the same. We are not cutting Medicaid
05:57
in this package. There's a lot of misinformation out there about this, Jake. The numbers of Americans
06:03
who are affected are those that are entwined in our work to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse.
06:08
And what do I mean by that? You've got more than 1.4 million illegal aliens on Medicaid.
06:14
Medicaid is not intended for non-U.S. citizens. It's intended for the most vulnerable populations
06:18
of Americans, which is pregnant women and young single mothers, the disabled, the elderly.
06:23
They are protected in what we're doing because we're preserving the resources for those who need it
06:28
most. You're talking about 4.8 million able-bodied workers, young men, for example,
06:33
who are on Medicaid and not working. They are choosing not to work when they can.
06:37
That is called fraud. They are cheating the system. When you root out those kinds of abuses,
06:42
you save the resources that are so desperately needed by the people who deserve it and need it most.
06:48
That's what we're doing. And that's why this is a... The morality of what we're doing here is
06:52
precisely right. And it comports with all the public opinion polls. When people ask whether young
06:58
men, for example, who are able-bodied and have no dependents should be working,
07:01
everybody says yes. And that's what our package does. So these estimates that you're hearing
07:06
are accurate, but it's dealing with those numbers of people in the population. And that's going to
07:12
preserve the program and strengthen it for those who need it most.
07:15
So 1.4 million people in your home state of Louisiana are on Medicaid. More than 800,000
07:22
receive SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. Is it your contention that if any of those
07:29
Louisianans lose their benefits, it's because they shouldn't have been receiving them because
07:33
they were committing waste fraud or abuse?
07:38
Yeah. Look, my district, as every district in America, has people who are on the program who
07:42
shouldn't. And when you're talking about... I keep using this example, a young, able-bodied
07:47
man with no dependents, there's no reason he should not be working. We are the party about...
07:52
that supports human dignity. And we find purpose and dignity in our work. It's good for the
07:56
individuals involved. It's good for their community. It's good for society at large.
08:00
When you're talking about work requirements, by the way, it's very flexible. It just means that
08:04
you either work or you volunteer, do something meaningful in your community, or you're in a
08:09
job or work training program. 20 hours a week. I mean, this is not some huge demand. If you're
08:15
going to be on the public wagon, you have to do something to help pull it, if you're able.
08:19
And again, Jake, the purpose of this is to preserve these very necessary, very important safety net
08:25
programs for the people who actually need and deserve them, and not those who are gaming the system.
08:30
And I think I'll go into any town hall anywhere in America, my district or otherwise, and explain
08:34
this, and everyone nods in agreement and understands it. So the Democrats are trying to twist the facts.
08:39
They're trying to put out misinformation because they're going to vote against this, and there's
08:44
no way to defend it. What it means is they're going to be voting for more fraud, waste, and abuse
08:49
instead of the elimination of it, which is what our package does. It's not just Democrats, though,
08:53
right? I mean, there are voices in MAGA world sounding the alarm that cuts to Medicaid could really
08:58
impact Trump's own supporters. Take a listen.
09:03
Medicaid, you've got to be careful because a lot of MAGA is on Medicaid. I'm telling you,
09:06
if you don't think so, you are dead wrong. Just can't take a Medex to it, although I would love to.
09:13
This is real Medicaid benefit cuts. I can't support that. No Republican should support that.
09:17
We're the party of the working class, Mono. We need to act like it.
09:20
That was Steve Bannon and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri. What is your response to them?
09:25
Yeah, look, I don't disagree with that. Of course, there's lots of people on Medicaid and in our
09:32
party and in others. But again, if they look at the final package and the details of what has come
09:38
through the House, I think we reached the right point. And, Jake, it also brings out the very
09:42
important point that we're trying to do this on a very aggressive timetable. The reason I tried to get
09:47
this done, and we did get it done, before Memorial Day and send it to the Senate,
09:51
and so the president could be signing this into law by Independence Day on July 4th.
09:55
Why is that so important? Because we've got to get relief to the American people,
09:58
and then we also need to, for political purposes, show, give a lot of time,
10:02
enough time for everyone to see that this package actually is what we say. It's going to help the
10:07
country. It's going to help the economy. It's going to help all boats to rise, just as we did
10:12
after the first two years of the first Trump administration. And so we're anxious to get
10:16
this signed into law so people feel it and see it before that midterm election. And they understand
10:20
it is the Republicans who are doing the best for hardworking Americans, low-income families,
10:25
and everyone who deserves a better shot. I want to ask you about something else.
10:29
President Trump held a closed-door event Thursday night for top investors in his private cryptocurrency.
10:35
We do not know who was there. The list has not been released. We do not know how much of the
10:40
money came from outside the country. The president has, of course, a huge role
10:45
to play when it comes to regulation, regulating crypto. I really have a difficult time imagining
10:50
that if this was a Democratic president doing the exact same thing, you wouldn't be outraged.
10:57
Well, look, I don't know anything about the dinner. I was a little busy this past week,
11:00
as you know, getting the reconciliation package over the line. And so I'm not going to comment on
11:05
something I haven't even heard about. I'm not sure who was there or what the purpose was. But I'll say this,
11:09
President Trump is very active. He's very engaged. He's the greatest dealmaker,
11:15
one of the greatest dealmakers of all time. He is working on these trade imbalances that we've had
11:20
and having tremendous success. We've got over 75 countries now renegotiating their trade agreements
11:25
with America. It's going to make it better for all of us, everybody in the country. And he is encouraging
11:30
new technologies, crypto and the advancement of AI. He's appointed a czar for the first time.
11:36
We have an AI czar in David Sachs, who's an expert in the industry from Silicon Valley.
11:41
There's a lot of exciting things happening. The president is trying to encourage that along
11:46
as much as he can. And I think the vast majority of the country is applauding those efforts. So
11:50
I'm one of them. I think that the result of all this is going to be extraordinary for
11:54
everybody in the country.
11:55
You oversaw, as Speaker, a congressional investigation into President Biden's
12:00
ties to his son Hunter's questionable business dealings to enrich him.
12:06
You seem to think it was your responsibility to look into this sort of thing then.
12:10
Yeah, Jake, important distinction. The Biden crime family, as they were named, earned that title.
12:20
Why? Because they used shell companies, fake LLCs, series of what appeared to be money-laundering
12:26
operations. And Hunter Biden, of course, with his difficult past and the corruption in his past,
12:33
the family on the public dole or on the president's dole. You know, the president lied about his
12:39
involvement in the business dealings, all of that. The evidence just piled up. And by the way,
12:43
at the same time, the evidence of his diminished mental capacity, subject of your book, of course,
12:49
I wish it had been published a year earlier, because everybody saw it. Everybody saw what was
12:53
happening. He used the auto pin. And by the way, there's investigations right now going on in the
12:57
House. Jamie Comer and the Oversight Committee will be investigating the use of the auto pin when
13:03
the president's mental capacity declined and whether all those things are even legally valid
13:08
now, given the obvious fact that he was not the one making the decisions. It's huge implications
13:14
from all this. And so I think the American people had reason to doubt. And we had great reason and I
13:20
think a responsibility to investigate those things. The difference, of course, is that President Trump
13:24
does everything out in the open. He's not trying to hide anything. There's no shell companies or
13:28
fake LLCs or fake family businesses. He's putting it out there so everybody can evaluate for themselves.
13:35
On the book, I wish the more than 200 people that talked to me and Alex Thompson, my co-author,
13:40
after Election Day, I sure wish that they had talked to us a year ago. I agree with you on that.
13:45
But on this matter with the crypto, shouldn't we at least just know who was at the dinner? Wouldn't you
13:49
want to know that list of people? I guess. I mean, again, I don't know
13:55
anything about that dinner. I do know that President Trump is the most transparent president
13:59
in the most transparent administration probably in history. He has nothing to hide. And he's out
14:05
there trying to advance America's interests. That's what America first policies are all about.
14:08
And that's what our big reconciliation bill will deliver for the people. We're really proud of the product.
14:12
Mr. Speaker, I know you have a lot of military veterans and Gold Star families in your congressional
14:19
district. I know your son is at Annapolis. I wish you a meaningful and peaceful Memorial Day
14:25
weekend. Thank you so much for being with us today. Same to you, my friend. God bless.
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