House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) faced backlash on live television after he said that Americans were "smiling" about President Donald Trump's desire to use military troops for policing U.S. cities.
While appearing on C-SPAN on Thursday, Johnson took a question from Sam, a Democrat in Colorado.
"I just want to start by saying, hearing you say that everyone is smiling in the cities where troops, our National Guard, has been rolled into, feels dystopian and insane to hear you say that, watching the response to this."
Johnson appeared unconcerned about the criticism as the caller continued.
"But that's not actually my question," Sam said. "My question is, if Republicans and Democrats can agree to a one-year extension to the ACA subsidies, removing this sort of talking point of illegal immigrants draining our resources as you sit here and lie about this, would you support that bill and bring it to a vote on the House floor?"
"Yeah, well, I'm not lying," Johnson insisted. "We had at least 1.4 million illegal aliens draining the resources from Medicaid, which is why we put the reforms into law and got it signed July 4th."
"I made it easy for you," he added. "Go to speaker.gov, my website. It's right there on the homepage. See for yourself. Don't take my word for it."
The speaker, however, did not say whether he would reopen the House of Representatives to hold a vote on Affordable Care Act subsidies.
"Those subsidies are propping up insurance companies, and it is driving premiums up higher," he insisted. "It is not solving the problem. You think about this. When the government subsidizes something, it means it's not working."
"The subsidy means that Obamacare is not working, so we need to fix the root of the problem and not continue to add the taxpayers' funds on top of that," Johnson added. "That's a real problem."
