U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, visited the Magnolia State on Thursday to give a speech at Jackson Preparatory School at an event hosted by the National Apostolic Christian Leadership Conference.
Ahead of his scheduled venture at the private school in Flowood, Johnson joined MidDays with Gerard Gibert to give an update on what he has been tackling as one of the highest-ranking government officials in Washington D.C.
The speaker opined on issues ranging from the pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the country, his vote to send additional money to Ukraine amid its war with Russia, efforts to secure the border between the U.S. and Mexico, and the nation’s budget.
Antisemitism on college campuses
As the war between Israel and terrorist group Hamas ensues in the Middle East, students at colleges across the U.S., most notably Columbia University, have held pro-Palestinian protests. Johnson on Wednesday called for the resignation of Columbia University president Minouche Shafik due to the protest which morphed into an encampment with students calling on the higher education institution to divest from companies that have ties to Israel and promise amnesty for students that have been suspended.
The house speaker asserts that the ongoing protest has been endorsed by Hamas, which is responsible for the October 7 attack on Israel that claimed roughly 1,200 lives — the worst loss of life in a single day since the Middle Eastern country’s founding in 1948.
“These kids are waving around Palestinian flags and they’re siding with the terrorists who engaged in the most unspeakable acts on October 7 when they attacked and killed innocent Israelis,” Johnson said. “They raped and murdered women and children. They put Jewish infants in ovens and cooked them alive. This stuff sounds as bad as it is, and yet we have these students who are on the side of that darkness.”
Johnson is calling for these protests to end immediately and says university officials nationwide are obligated to protect their students. He believes that Jewish students, in particular, are being mistreated by protestors and sympathizers with the Palestinian cause.
“This is not free speech. What they’re doing is they’re harassing, intimidating, and threatening these poor Jewish students who are merely trying to go to class and get an education,” the speaker continued. “If you wear a Star of David, you’re targeted on the campus.”
Sending additional aid to Ukraine
The House on Saturday passed a $95 billion package for aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan with Johnson’s support. Similar legislation was floated in February and even passed the Senate, but was stalled by the House due to GOP members’ unwillingness to send more money to Ukraine.
In a last-ditch effort to get the legislation passed, Johnson and company made modifications that split the package into three different parts — roughly $61 billion for Ukrainian war efforts, around $26 billion for Israel, nearly $8 billion for Taiwan — with the caveat that a majority of the funds for the eastern European country would first serve American interests.
“80% of the money that was allocated for the Ukraine efforts is going to be used to replenish American weapons, stockpiles, and facilities. That’s all spent here. Those are American jobs on our defense industrial base,” Johnson said. “The other 20%, we converted the financial assistance into a loan concept. That’s something that President Trump championed and it makes a lot of sense.”
Johnson, who once stood in opposition to sending additional assistance to Ukraine, had a change of heart out of fear that if more aid was not granted, Vladimir Putin would storm Ukraine and claim Kyiv for the Russians — putting U.S. NATO allies at risk.
“We’ve got to show the terrorists and tyrants of the world that America is still the superpower,” he added. “We don’t need boots on the ground. This is the opposite of that, but we have to project strength.”
Securing the U.S./Mexico border
An issue that Johnson believes ought to be at the forefront of every voter’s mind come November 5 is the continuous crossing of undocumented immigrants into the United States through the Mexico border. The house speaker contends that 16 million individuals have crossed the border illegally since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021 and adds that there has been a large violent criminal element among that figure.
“It’s the number one issue no matter where anybody lives in the country. That open border is killing us, I mean in a literal sense,” Johnson said. “We have violent criminals in the country. We have terrorists who have set up cells around the country.”
While Democratic leaders in Congress accused the speaker of hypocrisy after he spoke out against bipartisan immigration legislation proposed by the Senate in February, Johnson argues that he and his colleagues in the House have done more than enough to show their dedication to securing the border.
The House in 2023 passed H.R. 2, which imposes strict, Trump-era policies at the border. That measure was not picked up by the Senate. Most recently, House Republicans, under Johnson’s leadership, voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on allegations that he refuses to enforce immigration laws. The Senate rejected the proposal. Johnson noted that he believes efforts by the House to prevent illegal crossings at the border would likely be futile, though he’ll continue to hold the president accountable.
“[Biden] can shut the border down immediately, but he won’t. So it doesn’t matter what laws we pass out of the House or even if we could get them signed into law, he wouldn’t enforce them,” the speaker continued. “We’re going to fight for it every day. We’re going to put every ounce of pressure that we can on the president to do the right thing, but I’m under no illusion that he will.”
Johnson maintains that the best bet at securing the border rests on Republican nominee Donald Trump winning the presidential election.
The nation’s budget
Johnson stands in opposition to the recent trend of passing “one size fits all” omnibus spending bills, or legislation that packages many of the smaller ordinary appropriations bills into one larger single bill that can be passed with only one vote in each house of Congress.
“The budgeting and spending process is terribly broken in Washington,” Johnson. “We need to do transformational change to how that system works, but you have to do it gradually, especially when you have such a small majority.”
Going forward, Johnson plans to divvy up budget proposals into multiple bills in order to thoroughly examine how much money is being allocated to fund government operations and how each dollar is being spent.
“What we’ve begun to do gradually is break that up into smaller pieces,” he added. “What we’re going to try to do for this next fiscal year is 12 separate bills. That’s how it should be done.”
Johnson was elected to the top position in the House in October following the ousting of Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the speakership. The Louisiana Republican was given the nod over two other GOP members, Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who tossed their hats in the ring for the opening.
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