House Speaker Mike Johnson

They all said in their own words, you can't shut the government down.

It's too painful.

Something changed.

What changed was the political calculation.

Chuck Schumer is worried about, as was just said, an attack or a challenge from his left flank.

He's afraid that the Marxist wave in New York is going to take him over as well because he represents that state.

and so he's got to pick a fight with Trump and show that he's fighting.

Well, they picked a fight that has nothing to do with stopgap funding.

They're talking about the Obamacare subsidies, for example.

That's a December 31 policy issue.

We were always going to negotiate that and debate it and deliberate over it in October, November.

That always has been on the schedule, and they know that, but they're trying to pretend that's the issue of the day.

It's not.

It's a red herring.

It's a distraction.

They're not doing their jobs, and real Americans are getting hurt.

The Speaker of the House is in no position to project forward what the outcome of a big policy debate is going to be.

That would be unprecedented for anyone to do that, and I won't.

What we have told them is the obvious fact that there are ongoing negotiations and discussions going on today.

between Republicans and Democrats, and certainly within our own caucuses, about how some of that would need to be reformed.