Kaitlan Collins Confronts Speaker Johnson With Scathing Comment About Him From Marjorie Taylor Greene
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins read some unflattering comments to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) about the ongoing government shutdown.
The government shut down on Oct. 1 after the Senate failed to pass a Republican bill to keep the government funded short-term. Although Republicans control the Senate 53-47, seven Democratic votes are needed to invoke the 60-vote cloture threshold and advance the legislation. Senate Democrats have said those seven votes are contingent on Republicans agreeing to extend healthcare premium subsidies for Obamacare enrollees, but the GOP is refusing.
Johnson appeared on Wednesday’s edition of The Source, where Collins read him some of Greene’s remarks on social media from earlier in the day.
“Speaker Johnson said he has ideas and pages of policy, but did not say a single policy plan,” Greene wrote. “I find it unacceptable that Republicans are sitting on the sidelines doing nothing to fix this healthcare disaster that is leading many Americans into financial ruin.”
“That’s her words,” Collins told Johnson. “She says, ‘You’re sitting on the sidelines.’ What’s your response to Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene?”
“Well, bless her heart,” he replied. “That’s an absurd statement. Obviously, these conference calls are monitored by the media, so we’re not gonna have actual strategy discussions on a line where you have hundreds of people listening in because it would be reported on the front page. We have been working on this for a long time. We worked on it today. We’ve been working on it every day. Marjorie is not here in Washington.”
Johnson went on to blame Democrats for the shutdown. Collins responded by shifting the discussion back to healthcare.
“Speaker, she’s saying that the Republicans aren’t doing anything to address the healthcare issue here that Democrats are arguing about,” the host said. “Are you saying that there is a Republican plan and you’re just not talking about it?”
“No, I’m saying there’s lots of discussion about it, but we don’t really lay it on a conference call with hundreds of people listening in,” Johnson said. “We have many ideas on how to bring down the cost of healthcare to continue to do that, and we’ve already demonstrated it in the working families tax cut. We had real reforms to Medicaid that you and I have discussed that have brought down the cost and saved about $185 billion for taxpayers…”
Johnson’s Medicaid remark was a reference to the introduction of more restrictive work requirements for Medicaid recipients, which could lead to a loss of medical coverage for millions of people. Those requirements were included in the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” that President Donald Trump signed into law in July.
Watch above via CNN.
