Ron Johnson Suggests Codifying Trump's Tariffs To Lower The Debt

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Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) spoke with reporters on Thursday about the Republican Big Beautiful Bill.

Transcript

00:00I'd only like to say that it is so nice, it's so comforting to have a competent national

00:06security team in place.

00:08We heard an excellent briefing down there, I'm not going to give you any details, but

00:11I for one am comforted by having a president who was decisive, took action to protect America,

00:17to protect our ally Israel, and at least for a while take away the threat of a nuclear

00:27Iran.

00:28It's nice to have a competent team in place, thank you.

00:31Senator, on the bill, on the bill, on the bill, you obviously are one of the people who raised

00:38the most concerns about the leadership says this needs to pass by this weekend, get it

00:43on the president's desk by July 4th, is that the right thing to do, even the public has

00:47not seen this bill, there's still being negotiated behind closed doors?

00:51First of all, I haven't seen it, again, there's nothing wrong with leadership setting deadlines

00:56to concentrate our efforts, so we're starting to work hard.

00:59So we'll stick around and we'll work hard.

01:01I'm going to head over to the White House right now.

01:03Our discussions are cordial.

01:05We all want to accomplish the same goal.

01:08I understand the enormous messes the Biden administration left us, an open border, wars raging, four

01:15years of an average deficit of $1.9 trillion.

01:18These things are not easy to deal with.

01:20So it's very difficult to clean up after the Democrats' messes.

01:24It's a hard thing to do.

01:25We're working positively to do it.

01:26If it takes a few more days, a few more weeks, that's not a problem.

01:29This is an arbitrary deadline.

01:31It's been set to make sure that we do all the hard work and we're trying to do it.

01:35Will you vote tomorrow to proceed even if the bill is not done?

01:39Will you vote to proceed?

01:40No, no, because I haven't seen the bill.

01:41I've got to see the bill.

01:42I want the conference to be able to discuss the bill.

01:45I want us to go through every provision, what the scores are, what we should leave in, what

01:48we should leave out.

01:49And that shouldn't take that long once we have the full bill, but we need the full bill.

01:53Again, what the parliamentarian did kind of, it was a little bit of a hand grenade, but

01:57I've been encouraged by what we heard at lunch.

02:00I think we can maybe, I don't want to certainly sour anything with the parliamentarian, but it

02:05sounds like we can overcome some of those objections and land in the right place here.

02:10I'm hoping that can happen.

02:11Are you concerned about the growing cost of the bill though, given so many things have

02:16been ruled out of order by the parliamentarian?

02:18Listen, I think there are other areas where we can, you know, return to a reasonable pre-pandemic

02:24level spending, which is what I've always been looking at.

02:26I realize you can't do it in one single bill.

02:29My biggest concern, I don't want this to be a one and done bill.

02:32It's going to take multiple steps.

02:34So that's my main thing is, you know, what can we do as a forcing mechanism to make sure

02:39that if we do a budget review panel, and we do go line by line and program by program,

02:44and literally identify things if we eliminate programs, hundreds of billions of dollars

02:49of spending, nobody would even notice.

02:51From $4.4 trillion of spending to $7 trillion.

02:54Don't tell me there's plenty of savings left.

02:56We're trying to do something hard, we're trying to do it pretty fast, it'll take time to,

03:02and we'll need another bite of the apple here.

03:04So again, we're working very cooperatively.

03:06I appreciate what the White House administration's doing in terms of helping set up a budget review

03:11panel to do that line by line, program by program review.

03:14Again, I'm looking at what's the forcing mechanism, so if we do the hard work, we actually have another

03:19bite of the apple to enact those.

03:21How much worse would it make the budget justice, this bill, if it were to become law?

03:25How much worse, in your opinion, would this make it?

03:30Kind of all depends.

03:31You know, one thing that is intriguing is, you know, the tariffs are in place,

03:35they haven't sparked inflation.

03:37I was with Secretary Besson in his office a couple days ago, and, you know,

03:41maybe something we should contemplate, because right now those are somewhat uncertain,

03:46a hell out of the court, maybe we should actually codify the tariffs.

03:51You think about, talk about a revenue source, lower the rates around the base,

03:58that is paid for in part by foreign companies and foreign governments.

04:02It's not that bad.

04:03So again, I'm not a big fan of tariffs.

04:05I mean, President Trump was probably right on this.

04:08This might, well again, it's not codified right now.

04:11If we hit a sticking point, that's maybe not a bad place to go in terms of

04:15assuring ourselves we have reduced deficits.

04:18Now, I really don't want to fund the deep state, but I also don't want to have these massive deficits.

04:22So, I'm very open.

04:23I'm very flexible.

04:24I'm focused about, we have to stop mortgage our kids' future.

04:28It's unconscionable.

04:29It's wrong what we're doing.

04:30And again, I know the President shares that same goal.

04:33I think our leaders do as well.

04:34So, again, emphasize.

04:36Democrats, President Biden left us an enormous mess.

04:39Dug the hole far deeper than it should have been dug.

04:43We're trying to dig out of it.

04:45Are you overruling the parliamentarians?

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