Speaker Mike Johnson calls out Chuck Schumer

Joining us now on the road, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Mr. Speaker, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, my friend. Great to hear your voice. Well, I'm in New York. You're smart enough to have left New York, I hope.

How would you describe... I just salute you for having the courage to go down there and speak your mind with Congressman Desposito as well as Mike Lawler. To go down there and Virginia Fox and speak your mind. Were you surprised about the backlash you got? I guess I wasn't surprised, but I was certainly disappointed. We confronted that mob, and that's what it is. It's a mob. Mob rule is being allowed there on the campus, and they're terrorizing Jewish students. It's the same mob, by the way, Brian, that Hamas officially endorsed. I mean, literally, two hours before we had our press conference, Hamas issued an endorsement statement of these kids and heralded them as the next generation of leaders in America.

God help us. I mean, what we're seeing on these college campuses across America is disgusting. It is unacceptable.

It is not who we are as a country. No student of any race or religion should have to leave campus because it's become too dangerous. It's just outrageous, and the rampant anti-Semitism is something that these administrators have to be immediately accountable for. Well, one of your colleagues, not your peer, but one of your colleagues in Congress, Democrat Congresswoman Omar, whose daughter was kicked out of campus and suspended, and I believe detained briefly, said this yesterday. And it is not surprising that he would go out to Columbia University and stir up really more anger and hate and endanger the lives of young people who are at the encampment at Columbia University.

So you stirred things up in her mind? It's absurd. It's absolutely absurd for her to say that. It's incredible that us going there to meet with and speak out on behalf of Jewish students' safety could be seen as divisive in any way. This is exactly the problem. It's actually an issue that ought to be uniting every elected official. But some of these folks are afraid to speak out, and others, like my colleague Omar, are saying exactly the wrong thing. Look, if these universities would be held accountable and protect their students on campus, we wouldn't need to be there.

We wouldn't need to speak out. And the House has taken action to do everything that's within our power, and we're going to do more. But we need everybody who has a platform, every elected official, to be on the right side of this.

And sadly, some of them are doing exactly the wrong thing. Well, some Democrats like Moskowitz got it, and he gets it on this. He's out there fighting for it. Josh Gottheimer's fighting for it. Senator Schumer is not. You've dealt with him a lot of late. Where is the highest, most powerful Jewish American in political history, the majority leader in New York?

Where is he? It's a very important question, you know. He is the highest-ranking Jewish official in the history of our country. He has a huge megaphone, and he ought to be using it to protect Jewish students. Look, we went to a Passover meal before we began our press conference, and these students are afraid for their safety. They can't go to class. They can't walk around on campus wearing a Star of David, or they are targeted.

They're being harassed, intimidated. You know, it's turning to violence on some of these campuses, and it's completely out of hand. You know, we've sent legislation to Chuck Schumer's desk. The House Education and Workforce Committee, of course, has been having these high-profile oversight hearings of these colleges and their leadership, holding them accountable, and you've seen that. But we've also passed legislation. We passed the Deterrent Act, which shines a light on foreign money influencing American universities. We passed the No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorist Act. That just says simply, remove illegals who have supported Hamas's terrorist attack on October 7.

But Chuck Schumer is allowing those measures to sit on his desk and collect dust. He is strangely silent here, and we need him and the president to speak out. Why?

You know why, but go ahead and say it. Well, because they have a political problem, right? They have a pro-Hamas wing that is rising in their party, and they're terrified to step in the middle of that. But this is the time for decisive moral leadership. This is not a gray area. This is good versus evil.

You have to protect the physical safety of students. That's what's at stake here. It's chaos and mayhem and anarchy, and that's not who we are in this country.

So Speaker Johnson, our guest, and he's on the road in between appointments, just had an important conversation. But Mr. Speaker, Ukraine, you know I've been firmly for Ukraine aid. I absolutely think Ronald Reagan would have done it. We're back in the Cold War mindset. America should never have left it. So you get $65 billion over to Ukraine. You get more money to Israel. I understand the first billion is going over. Can you give me an idea of what we're sending and what we're replenishing? That's such an important point, Brian, and I think this is lost on most people, but of the $60 billion that's dedicated for Ukraine, $48 billion of that, 80%, is going to be used for the replenishment of American weapons and stocks and facilities, our operations. This is us.

This is American jobs building updated equipment. And there's a lot of accountability. So we broke the Senate supplemental package up into four pieces, and we added some really important innovations and changes to that. Among that is oversight and strict accountability. By the way, we put in the legislation that Joe Biden just signed into law, a demand, a requirement of his office to present to Congress within 45 days a specific game plan, an in-game strategy for Ukraine.

We haven't had that before. We added all that accountability into it. And remember, the other 20% of the Ukrainian funds we converted into a loan. And that's something that President Trump, among others, have championed, that that just makes sense.

These are not blank checks. It's a very different thing. But to your point, Brian, it's a very important time in the history of our country and of the world. The world is on fire because Joe Biden is such a weak leader on the world stage. All of our adversaries are working together, by the way, and acting so provocatively, China, Russia, Iran, even North Korea.

They are coordinating these efforts. And if America shrinks back right now, we upset the entire world order. Since World War II, the leadership of the free world has been hoisted upon our shoulders. That's what Ronald Reagan said. We have to acknowledge that. It does not mean that we're the world's policemen.

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That's ShipStation.com code POD. Well, here's what's different. And I don't have to tell you that there's a huge contingent in the House and people like J.D. Vance in the Senate. And no one doubts J.D. Vance's service to our country, his remarkable personal story and his intellect. But he wants nothing to do with this aid. What is your message?

And not that you guys all have to agree on everything, but this is a fundamental thing that conservatives used to agree on. It is. J.D. Vance is a friend. I love him.

He's great. And he's very intelligent and all of that. But we see this very differently. There are people in our party now who self-describe as isolationists. I'm not putting words in J.D.

's mouth. He can speak for himself. But there are people who believe that it's not America first, but America only. That is not an acceptable result because what happens is, listen, the only reason that terrorists and tyrants are kept at bay is because there is the perception of a strong America. The perception of us being the great superpower is what keeps peace on the world stage.

It's Reagan. It's peace through strength. We have to send that message to the world and let them know America will not shrink back, because if it does, Brian, everything escalates and we will wind up in another World War conflict. You know, if Vladimir Putin was allowed to march through Ukraine, he would take Kiev in a short period of time and he would be on the border of NATO states, like the Baltic states and Poland would be there.

And our generals, our four-star generals who are in charge of that region anticipate that our costs would go up exponentially because there would be a demand for U.S. troops there. Right now, a small investment to hold Putin at bay and get this thing to a point where Trump can broker a peace is exactly the right strategy and we have no choice in the matter. You know, if you look at the repo act of the Russian assets that have been captured and detained from the yachts around the world, I know most of the money is in Europe.

What have you done on that? Yeah, well, we added that into the legislation and we have a little less than $10 billion in that account that we can use. You know, the seized assets of corrupt Russian oligarchs funding the resistance in Ukraine is just pure poetry, right? So you are going to take that $10 billion and give it to Zelensky? Yes, we're going to use it for the Ukrainian effort. That will be part of the funding.

That's part of the law. That's just been signed that we will convert that because we have, I think, $6, $7 billion, something in that range. It's a start, but there are over $100 billion or more that's out there, some estimates $300 billion, that are held in our European allies' accounts. And what we're trying to do is send a message that they need to assist and use those funds as well.

I think that's the right result here and I think it makes a lot of sense to a lot of people. All right, so are you going to, are you also going to condemn any time a rocket hits Russian, in Russian land? Yes, I mean, listen, what Ukraine is trying to do, what I believe their plan is, is to use the attack arms and the weapons systems that they specifically requested from us, by the way, for a long time, that Joe Biden will not send. They'll have that now and they'll be able to push back their longer range rockets, but their objective is to defend their own land. They are not the aggressor. It's Vladimir Putin and the Russians who are doing that. Their goal is to push them back and hold them at bay, and I think they will, and I hope that's where it ends. We need to get this thing to a point of a peace resolution to stop the bloodshed and stop the madness. But I fear, Brian, that we won't be able to do that until we have a strong leader in the White House again, and I believe that's going to be Donald Trump in January. Speaker Mike Johnson, thanks so much.