Rep. Byron Donalds: Speaker Johnson Is Not Being Tough Enough

BARTIROMO: “Welcome back. The House releasing the text of three foreign aid bills totaling more than $95 billion. It sends $60 billion to Ukraine, an additional $26 billion to Israel and $8 billion for Taiwan. Speaker Mike Johnson also announcing the Rules Committee will release text on a border security bill, which will include measures such as remain in Mexico, fixing the broken asylum and parole processes, and rebuilding portions of the wall. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene says support is growing for her motion to oust the speaker. She posted this on X, ‘Chuck Schumer bragged on the Senate floor about Speaker Johnson giving Democrats everything they want in the foreign war bill and for Ukraine. Johnson is not our speaker, he is theirs. The question is how much longer will our conference tolerate this?’ But Speaker Johnson is not backing down.”
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Reporter: “Why are you willing to risk losing your job over this Ukraine funding?”
Johnson: “Listen, my philosophy is you do the right thing and you let the chips fall where they may. (...) Look, history judges us or what we do. This is a critical time right now, critical time on the world stage.”
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BARTIROMO: “Joining me now is Florida Congressman Byron Donalds, a member of the House Financial Services and Oversight Committees. He’s also a member of the House Freedom Caucus. Congressman, it’s a pleasure to see you. Thanks very much for being here. Your reaction to all of this?”
DONALDS: “Well, my reaction is simple. Maria, this bill shouldn’t pass the House and for one very important reason. First and foremost, let’s take Israel. We should support Israel, that funding should go through the House. That’s something myself and a lot of other members have been imploring House leadership to do for a month now. We could have done it cleanly for a month, sent that to the Senate. If Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden want to veto that funding that’s on them, but Israel is our ally in the region, one of the longest standing allies in — in our country’s history, we should stand behind them. When it comes to Ukraine, we’ve already sent $114 billion to Ukraine. Joe Biden is the one who has basically frittered that money away with no strategy, with delays on delivering materiel, no clear mission. And so what House leadership has told Republicans for about eight to nine months now is that there will be no more — there will be no more new Ukraine funding until we secure our southern border. We’re being told this week that no, we have to give up that we can’t do it because of what’s happening in Ukraine to this point. And I have told the leadership, that the southern border is just as much of a national security crisis, as is what’s happening in Ukraine, we have to take care of home first and once you do that, the votes would be there to support Ukraine. But the speaker and the leadership made a decision to not follow through on that promise that they’ve made to House Republicans and that puts us at the impasse we’re at right now.”
BARTIROMO: “So is Speaker Johnson being tough enough?”
DONALDS: “Honestly, Maria, I do not believe that he is. I think that this bill is essentially the Senate package just chopped up into three so members can vote for each package, but then they’re going to merge them back together and send it to the Senate. Well, that’s just the Senate deal right there. There has been no consequence for the Democrat Senate or for the White House for leaving our border open, for allowing fentanyl to flow through our streets, to allow now an uprising of measles and mumps and tuberculosis, diseases that we have, essentially eradicated in the United States. Those have come back. Not to mention what’s happened to the inner cities in our country that are overrun, and that are overwhelmed by this Illegal immigrant crisis created by Joe Biden and his administration. And so House Republicans have been very clear for a long time up until this week, secure our border and we can talk about funding. But to do this the way it’s happening isn’t going to work. And Maria, let me also say this, the — the loan portion of this that was promised when you read the text, 50 percent of the proceeds can be forgiven by Joe Biden this November. That’s not a loan, Maria, that is — that’s — that’s — that’s foolishness. You’re basically telling us oh, we’re going to have Ukraine pay us back. But when you read the actual text, you — you see that that’s not going to happen. I was a banker before I was a politician, Maria, we would never write a loan covenant like that in the real world, but that’s happens far too often in Washington.”