Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said Monday that Democrats bear the blame for the pain of a government shutdown, as President Donald Trump and his budget chief moved forward with identifying federal programs to cut.
“Day 27 means it’s almost been a full month since the Democrats shut down the government. And as we near the end of this month, the pain being felt by so many hard-working people around this country is very real and it gets worse with each passing day. Here’s some of the stats. Last week, 1.4 million federal workers missed a full paycheck. Now, you know, many of them are furloughed and many more are deemed essential workers,” Johnson said.
“Those who are essential, for example, to keep the country safe — TSA agents we’ve discussed and air traffic controllers and Border Patrol and of course our troops. But so many of them now are going without pay. The families of military service members and air traffic controllers and so many of these others are now at very real risk of missing the paycheck at the end of this month,” Johnson added.
The Speaker added, “Now, every Republican in Congress wants to stop this Madness desperately. And we have voted many times, over a dozen times, collectively 13 times to reopen the government, to keep it open and reopen it once the Democrats closed it. But here’s the very simple and important fact that no one should forget. We have no ability. Republicans do not have the ability to do this on our own. It’s a simple math problem. We need Democrats to help. You need 60 votes in the Senate. We only have 53 Republicans.”
“The Democrats are the ones voting repeatedly to shut down the government. But they’re not they’re not opening it back up,” Johnson declared.
“They spent most of their time trying to distract the American people from the very simple truth. So I brought you a little visual aid here to just remind everybody what the simple facts are. Four simple facts here. The Democrats are required to open the government. They keep saying Republicans are in charge of government,” Johnson argued.
“We aren’t, not in the Senate. Sixty votes control the Senate, not a bare majority. And so point number one, Democrat votes are required to open the government. Point number two, they refuse to do it. They have now voted 12 times to keep the government closed, and they’ll have another chance today or tomorrow, maybe multiple times this week, and we’ll see what they do. Now, the third point is very important because they’ve been trying to confuse the American people,” the Speaker continued.
“They’ve tried to say this is a fight about health care or this or that or any other thing. And it’s — it’s very simple. They put this on paper. They made this their demand in writing in the record of the Senate. And it has not changed,” he said.
“These are just four sub points there under — under a fact number three. But there’s many more. But among the things they’re demanding — this is what the Democrats in the Senate are demanding to reopen the government. They want to give $200 billion in health benefits to illegal aliens and noncitizens paid for by U.S. taxpayers. That is in their proposal. They want billions in wasteful programs to be returned to foreign countries. So we stop these things,” he added.
The Speaker concluded, “They want to turn it all back on. They’re demanding that we do all that to get the government open for hardworking Americans again. They want to give a half a billion to left leaning news news organizations and — and they want to cut $50 billion from rural hospitals. We cannot, we will not do those things. And they know that very well.”
The U.S. Supreme Court provided another victory for President Donald Trump on Tuesday, facilitating his executive order aimed at reducing the oversized federal government through extensive layoffs across various agencies.
In an unsigned ruling, the justices overturned a lower court’s decision that had prevented the president’s February 13 directive, which called for “large-scale reductions in force.” This injunction originated from Judge Susan Illston, who was appointed by Clinton in Northern California. However, the Supreme Court stated that her ruling was based on her personal interpretation of the order’s legality, rather than on the actual reorganization plans, which were not even presented to the court, as reported by The New York Post.
“Given that the Government is likely to prevail on its assertion that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful — and considering that the other factors relevant to granting a stay are met — we approve the application,” the court stated.
Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, known for her liberal stance, concurred with the majority in granting the stay, although she clarified that she was not supporting the downsizing initiative itself—merely that it was premature to obstruct it.
“I concur with the Court’s stay because it allows the District Court to address those issues initially,” she noted. “The plans themselves are not currently before this Court at this time.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, criticizing the ruling and asserting that it could result in “mass employee terminations, widespread cancellation of federal programs and services, and the dismantling of much of the Federal Government as established by Congress.”
She contended that Trump required congressional consent before proceeding with such measures, stating, “According to our Constitution, Congress possesses the authority to create administrative agencies and define their functions.”
However, the majority of the court disagreed. They concluded that the administration was acting within its rights to commence the implementation of the president’s strategy.
The action is part of a larger initiative by the Trump administration aimed at reducing the size of government and enhancing efficiency. The Department of Government Efficiency—previously headed by Elon Musk—has been managing the transition.
Labor unions and progressive organizations had filed lawsuits to halt the initiative, which would impact personnel at essential agencies such as Agriculture, Energy, Labor, the Interior, the Treasury, State, Veterans Affairs, the EPA, among others.
Attorney General Pam Bondi commended the ruling, stating on X: “Today, the Supreme Court prevented lawless lower courts from limiting President Trump’s power over federal personnel — yet another Supreme Court triumph thanks to [Justice Department] lawyers.”
“Now, federal agencies can achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency,” she continued.
This ruling contributes to the remarkable two months the president has experienced at the Supreme Court.
His most recent success in June involved the court agreeing to hear a Republican-led challenge to U.S. campaign finance laws that restrict the amount of money political parties can expend on behalf of particular candidates.
The case, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, was initially presented to the court by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and two Senate Republican candidates who were campaigning at that time, including the current Vice President JD Vance.
The case addresses whether federal restrictions on campaign spending by political parties infringe upon free speech protections under the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Petitioners urged the Supreme Court to examine the matter, asserting that the spending restrictions “significantly hinder political party committees from exercising their First Amendment rights: to fully associate with and advocate for their candidates for federal office.”