"He’s really convinced me to returning to a reasonable pre-pandemic spending…"
Johnson told Posobiec that federal deficits had grown out of contro under Democratic control and that Trump is determined to roll them back.
“I spent two hours with the president on Saturday. That was time well spent,” Johnson said. “He’s really convinced me to returning to a reasonable pre-pandemic spending…”
Johnson described their meetings over the past several weeks as productive, saying Trump understands the scale of the fiscal crisis. “We both realize—the Democrats left these enormous messes. It's easy to be a Democrat — spend money, mortgage your kids' future, never be held accountable by the media. But when Republicans want to dial that back, we get accused of stealing money from women and children.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he added.
The Wisconsin senator also explained that the primary driver of the deficit in the current bill is Republicans’ refusal to raise taxes. “The main deficit driver in this bill is the fact we don’t want to increase anybody’s taxes. That’s about four trillion dollars,” Johnson said. “That was the mistake we made in 2017 where we didn’t reduce spending to make the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent. We’re paying the price for that now. No Republican wants to increase taxes, particularly not President Trump.”
He pointed to Republican efforts in the House to cut spending, despite non stop increases forced by Democrats. “The House, they cut spending by about $1.4 trillion net—increased spending for the poor because the Democrats opened it up and made that mess, increased spending on defense because of all the wars. We’ve got to clean up that mess.”
“Seven years prior to the pandemic, we averaged deficits of about $660 billion — way too high. Then we had the pandemic, but Democrats, rather than being responsible and returning to even those levels, averaged deficits of $1.9 trillion over the last four years,” he said. “So that’s the deficit mess we’re trying to fix here.”
Posobiec pressed Johnson on the path forward in the Senate and whether other amendments could shift the bill’s momentum.
“You have to understand most of this is a charade,” Johnson said. “None of these amendments really have a chance to pass.”
One amendment, however, stands out to Johnson: “Rick Scott’s is a crucial amendment. I think it has to pass. I think it’ll make it a lot easier to pass through the Senate. It’ll make it a whole lot easier to pass through the House.”
Johnson said President Trump’s backing will be essential in securing Republican votes. “We need the president to get behind this, we need Senate leadership. The couple or few Republicans who are going to be reluctant to vote for Rick’s amendment, they gotta be brought on board by the president.”
He said Republicans must not back down on this opportunity. “The Big Beautiful Bill is something we can all celebrate because we’d be repeating the most damaging part of Obamacare—the way it’s destroying and really threatening Medicaid for those disabled children and other vulnerable individuals. That’d be a big win. Nobody would lose coverage.”
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