House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he’s “not buying” polls that show voters are blaming more Republicans than Democrats for the government shutdown.
“It’s very clear where the blame lies,” he said during a Friday appearance on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “The Democrats admit themselves that they are the ones shutting the government down, and they’re having a hard time justifying that.”
He added that he believed “public pressure is building” against Democrats.
“You have a real pain that’s been resolved by many Americans, millions of Americans, every day that this goes forward, and if we get past November 1, it’s a very serious situation for a lot of people,” he said.
Multiple public polls have found that voters blame the GOP more than Democrats for the shutdown, including a Washington-ABC survey released Thursday that showed 45 percent of U.S. adults blamed the president and congressional Republicans for the federal government’s shuttering.
Johnson dismissed the Washington-ABC survey when asked about its findings on “Fox & Friends,” repeating past criticism of Democratic leadership, whom he said were motivated by fear of being unseated by their base if they did not oppose the GOP-backed bill.
“At the end of the day, the American people are wise,” he said. “They understand what’s going on. They’re going to see who’s responsible, and there’ll be a price to pay for that politically.”
The government shutdown continues to stretch on as Republicans attempt to pass a “clean” continuing resolution (CR), a bill that would temporarily fund the government while both parties negotiate over a larger full-year funding bill.
But the CR’s passage has hit a wall over its lack of funding for expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits. Democrats have refused to pass it without the funding for ObamaCare subsidiaries, saying their expiration could potentially impact millions of Americans’ access to health care.
Several programs are in danger of temporarily shutting down their services due to the lapse in government funding. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will lapse this weekend, impacting an estimated 42 million Americans across the U.S. The program’s looming funding shortfall has agitated both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom have constituents enrolled in it.
Johnson has canceled five weeks of previously scheduled votes to ramp up pressure on Democrats to pass the continuing resolution. House Democrats have criticized the vote cancellations, as have several GOP representatives. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has publicly slammed Johnson for his recess strategy and confronted him during a House GOP call on Tuesday.
“We are anxious to get the House back to regular legislative session, but we have to get the lights turned back on,” Johnson said on “Fox & Friends.” “Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate have got to reopen the government again.”
“It’s the most fundamental responsibility of Congress is to have the government operate and work for the people, and that’s the number one priority right now, and we cannot deviate from that,” he said.
