House Speaker Mike Johnson defended a House stopgap bill against criticism from several of his fellow Republicans Wednesday, telling Newsmax that it is "about the only thing we can do" until his party takes majority control of Congress and the White House in January.
"I don't disagree with anything my friends there just said, because I'm a fiscal conservative as well," the Louisiana Republican told "Wake Up America," while arguing that extra spending added to the measure for emergency relief and other aid is necessary.
Still, until President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in and Republicans take control of both the House and Senate in January, "we only have control of one-half of one-third of the federal government," Johnson said.
Lawmakers unveiled the stopgap measure Tuesday to keep federal agencies funded through March 14. If passed, it will keep the $6.2 trillion budget at its current level, while including $100.4 billion in new emergency funding.
"We don't normally like what's called a continuing resolution, a CR, but in this case it makes sense," said Johnson. "If we push it into the first quarter of next year, then we have a Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald J. Trump back in the White House. We'll be able to have more say over the funding decisions for 2025. That would have been an easier thing to do."
But as matters stand now, "we had circumstances out of our control," including the need for additional emergency response funding.
"We've had farmers who are in jeopardy of permanently going under," the speaker said. "They've had three lost years in a row because of Bidenomics and inflation and other circumstances outside of their control. And so when you cobble those two things together, there's a desperate need for that aid."
Republicans can start to work to shrink the scope of government in January, he added, but "we've got to bridge the gap to get there and we cannot leave our small farms and ranchers and our people who are devastated by the hurricanes out in the meantime."
But despite the complaints from Republicans on the legislation, Johnson said he thinks the bill will pass with GOP support because there are "a lot of wins in this" for the party's priorities.
"it turned out to be a large bill because of these disaster provisions and the health care extenders and that's what's got people nervous," said Johnson.
Meanwhile, Congress has a 72-hour rule, leaving 1500 pages in the bill to review by Friday, but Johnson said that will be enough time.
"We need legislators to read the bills before they vote on them," he said. "We can't help that. The Senate slow walk, the negotiation. They did that intentionally. They're trying to jam us."
Johnson also said he's not concerned that the outcry over the stopgap bill will hinder his ability to keep the speaker's gavel.
"We have a series of difficult choices and it doesn't matter who the speaker is; we'll be facing the same dilemma," he said. "We've tried to navigate this as best as possible and chose the least of the bad options in front of us. No one wants to spend $110 billion, but when you have emergencies that are actually, you know, as they're legally called acts of God, these are not man-made disasters. They're outside of our control."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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