At a press briefing on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) fired back at the New York Times over an article about the Epstein files and the House recess.
00:01Hey, everybody. Got a few thoughts for you as we work through today.
00:07Yesterday, some of you may have seen a false headline in the New York Times, and the headline was terribly misleading.
00:13It said House Republicans are, quote, adjourning until September to avoid a vote on releasing Epstein materials.
00:19I just want you to know, and everybody here knows, that's an outright lie. It's not true.
00:23And they were forced to modify their headline and update it today.
00:26The reason is, we all know that the initial lie travels much faster than the truth, and so we're making sure that people know what is actually going on here.
00:36I think every single one of your publications have known that the published schedule of Congress was decided in December of 2024, and it's been published ever since.
00:44We are fulfilling the calendar. We're working. We'll be working tomorrow. There have been votes every day this week.
00:49We have nine or ten committees working through markups this week, many tomorrow.
00:54Congress is doing its work. No one is adjourning early.
00:57We have an August district work period that is very important to the function of Congress that has been recognized for all of memory of this institution,
01:04and that is what everyone will be doing.
01:07The Times was forced to change the headline because it was completely false.
01:10No one in Congress is blocking Epstein documents. No one in Congress is doing that.
01:15What we are doing here, Republicans are preventing Democrats from making a mockery of the Rules Committee process
01:21because we refuse to engage in their political charade.
