Mike Johnson: 'Fantastic' if workers take Trump buyout because they should be fired anyway

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) praised President Donald Trump's so-called buyout of federal workers and said it would be "fantastic" if they quit.

During a Wednesday GOP retreat at Trump's Doral resort, Johnson was asked about the buyout plan, which would provide eight months pay for workers who quit.

"Do you think the American taxpayer is comfortable with roughly 2 million federal employees, up to 2 million, sitting at home doing nothing for eight months while on a payout?" one reporter wondered.

"Drastic times call for drastic measures, and they've been doing this for four years under the Biden administration," Johnson claimed. "They had full license, apparently, to not come to work."

"And because of civil service laws, is what people have to understand, this is not like a private company," he continued. "It should be that way, but it's not. The new president can't come in and just walk into an agency and say, you're all fired, you know, which that'd probably be appropriate in some of these places, but he's not allowed to do that under the law."

Johnson argued Trump was "thinking outside the box."

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"So they estimate that maybe 5 to 10 percent of the federal workforce will take their golden parachute," he remarked. "They'll be paid through September, I think, is the proposal. And maybe they leave the workforce. Fantastic. I hope they do."

"I wish we didn't have civil service laws that require that kind of action, you know, that they need to be reformed," the speaker added.

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