House Speaker Mike Johnson

And we need the Democrats to come to their senses and do the right thing.

Well, look, there's different legal analyses that are floating around right now, and I've been so busy with this, I haven't had a chance to dig into it.

I am a lawyer, I'm looking forward to reading through that, because I kind of get into all the scholarship side of this.

It has always been my understanding that the law requires furloughed workers to receive back pay, and of course that's been the tradition.

And I'm not sure exactly what the president is referring to there.

I haven't had a chance to talk to him about that specific issue yet.

But we will.

I can tell you this, though.

The view of the White House, the view of the president himself, is that he doesn't want federal workers to be used as pawns here.

We've got some great patriotic Americans who work for our agencies and provide essential services to the people.

They should not suffer the harms of people who want to play political games.

And I think that's a really important principle for us to advance.

Well, look, I'm worried about all sorts of adverse effects because of how it affects the American people.

We had some analysis today that every week that the Democrat shutdown continues, we could lose $15 billion in gross domestic product.

I mean, it's a real hit for real people, and it has a reverberating effect.

And if you keep it closed for a month...

then one of the estimates I saw today is you lose 43,000 civilian employees, you know, because it has a ripple effect throughout the economy.

We can't afford to do that right now.

Things were going in the right direction, and this is a terrible setback for the country.

It also has implications for national security.