‘Turn the Lights Back On’: Johnson Blames Schumer for Prolonged Government Shutdown

A “red herring is a distraction,” and that’s exactly what the Democrats are doing right now with their arguments for keeping the government shut down, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday morning.  

The “simple” continuing resolution the House passed over two weeks ago covers the bipartisan issues House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is talking about when it comes to “the health care provision” and “some of these Obamacare subsidies that expire Dec. 31,” said Johnson, R-La., on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”  

“He is looking over entirely the fact that we have to keep the government open in order to have those bipartisan debates and discussions that he just referenced,” he said. 

Johnson blamed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., “and 43 of his Democrat colleagues in the Senate” for the government shutdown because they have now voted “multiple times to keep the government closed.”  

“We need them to turn the lights back on so that everyone can do their work,” Johnson said. “The House did our work. We passed a bipartisan, clean continuing resolution to keep the government open.”  

All Schumer did in response was offer a counter proposal that “would add $1.5 trillion in new spending for a simple seven-week stopgap funding measure to keep the government open,” Johnson explained.  

“This is not a serious negotiation. They’re doing this to get political cover because Chuck Schumer is afraid that he won’t win his next reelection bid to the Senate because he’s gonna be challenged by a Marxist in New York—because that’s the new popular thing out there,” Johnson said.  

Johnson said he wants Schumer “to do the right thing” and vote to reopen the government, something he’s always “done throughout his 30-plus year career in Congress.”