Securing the U.S. southern border with Mexico is the top priority for House Speaker Mike Johnson, as he told Newsmax this week.
In making those comments, Johnson pushed back on some people’s claims that he was planning to push House Republicans to pass a foreign aid bill that doesn’t have some sort of border security bill attached to it.
During an appearance on the “Eric Bolling The Balance” program on Monday, Johnson also attempted to pour water on the fire that seems to be brewing among some in the conservative wing of the House.
On the program, he assured conservatives that House Republicans are focused on border security, but are up against a challenge since they only have a majority of one vote in the lower chamber right now.
As Johnson said:
“We’ve been working very methodically with our conference and all the House Republicans, remembering that we have a one-vote margin. We have said consistently from the very beginning, I mean literally from the day that I got the gavel back in October, that our national security — this is a national security supplemental package, that’s how the president presented it — begins with our own border.
“The No. 1 issue in America, morally, constitutionally, legally, we have to get the border secured. That’s what House Republicans have committed to, and that’s always been the top priority.”
Johnson has had a rather tenuous reign as the Speaker of the House. He wasn’t the first person the GOP put forward to replace ousted former Representative Kevin McCarthy.
Now, in his short time in the leadership position, he could be facing a similar fate as his predecessor. That’s because Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia filed a motion to vacate a few weeks ago.
Greene, like some other Republican members of the House, was unhappy that Johnson helped to pass spending bills that allowed Congress to avert a government shutdown.
Still, Johnson took a positive tone with the situation, saying on the Newsmax program:
“Marjorie’s a friend. She’s frustrated and so am I. We have the smallest majority in U.S. history, one-vote margin, and we have to grow the House majority. And to her point, we’ve got to win the Senate, and we’ve got to get President [Donald] Trump back in the White House.
“The way that we do that is very simple: We have to show the American people what we’re for, not just what we’re against, but what we’re for.”
Johnson emphasized how important it was for Republicans to unite in the House “so we have better negotiating positions against the Democrat-controlled Senate.”
He continued:
“We have got to advance our conservative agenda and do so incrementally. If we can’t throw a Hail Mary pass right now, because we don’t have a larger majority, we can move that ball up the field, and we are and we will.”
