Speaker 1 (00:08):
USA. USA. USA. USA. USA. USA. USA.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm glad Lisa [inaudible 00:00:10].
Lisa McClain (00:10):
Yeah. You all can see over me?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yes.
Steve Scalise (00:12):
It's just making sure of that.
Lisa McClain (00:17):
Well, good afternoon, everybody. It is noon, right? Listen, six months ago to the day I spoke on the House floor about my optimism for America's future. I was optimistic because the American people gave Republicans a historic opportunity, an opportunity to enact the largest taxed cut in American history, to finally secure our borders and unleash American energy. An opportunity to put America first again.
(00:56)
Well, I am proud to say, House Republicans, we delivered. And thanks to the work of the House Republican Conference and our president, President Donald J. Trump, Americans have certainty, they will keep more money in their pockets and have the safety and security that they deserve. House Republicans remained unified. No one thought we could do it. Everybody doubted us, didn't they, Mr. Speaker, right? They doubted us. But here we are again. Mr. Whip, what are we, six 0?
Tom Emmer (01:40):
Yeah. Nobody in this room doubted us.
Lisa McClain (01:42):
No, nobody here doubted us, uh-uh. But we are unified. We delivered on our promises to the American people. No taxes on tip, no taxes on overtime, tax relief to seniors, enhanced child care tax credits, elimination of the death tax, more ICE agents. We're finishing the border wall and funding the Golden Dome.
(02:10)
And for all the fear-mongering that goes out there from the Democrats, we actually secured Medicaid for those who need it most, vulnerable Americans, pregnant women, and the disabled. Compared to the Democrats who would rather give Medicaid to illegal aliens and MS-13 members. Democrats are fear-mongering because they have no vision, no plan, and no leader. But guess what? We have a leader and our leader is President Donald Trump.
(02:45)
And lastly, let's not forget that actual fiscal sanity is being restored, because of our work the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is headed to the president's desk for signature. And today marks the end of the waste, the fraud, and the abuse of American taxpayers' dollars. It marks the end of higher gas prices, the end of higher energy costs, and higher grocery bills. And because of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Joe Biden's border crisis is over. Listen, I applaud my colleagues who worked tirelessly. I don't think the speaker and the whip and the leader have slept in days, but they've worked tirelessly to ensure that we actually delivered on our promises. And I thank President Trump for his leadership in getting this bill across the finish line. Without his leadership, none of this would've been possible. His vision, none of this would've been possible. But today, we passed actual transformational legislation. Legislation that will impact every family.
(04:10)
Tomorrow, we celebrate our nation's independence and we set out to spread the message of this historic achievement. But today, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to celebrate. President Trump and the American people's agenda has been delivered. And the man who probably had one of the most difficult jobs was Mr. Emmer, who actually had to whip and count all the votes and get everybody into line. So, without further ado, our whip, Tom Emmer.
Tom Emmer (04:52):
Thank you, Lisa.
(04:53)
You know, Mr. Speaker, they always complain about such a small majority, but for us old hockey players, it's just fewer numbers to count. It works out much better. On November 5th, Americans elected a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican president with a mandate, a mandate for change, a mandate to undo the failed policies of the last four years, and to deliver on President Donald J. Trump's America-first agenda.
(05:19)
Today, we're all proud to report that by passing our One Big Beautiful Bill and sending it to President Trump's desk to be signed into law, we are fulfilling that mandate. This is a once-in-a-generation piece of legislation that secures our border, unleashes American energy, allows families to keep more of their hard-earned taxpayer dollars in their pockets, cuts waste, fraud, and abuse in government programs like SNAP and Medicaid, modernizes our air traffic control system, strengthens our national defense, and so much more, all while implementing the largest cut in mandatory spending in our history.
(06:03)
To put it simply, this bill is President Trump's Make America Great Again agenda being codified into law. From Minnesota to Texas and Maine to California, there are wins in this legislation for every single American, and I couldn't be more proud to be part of the Republican team that got this thing across the finish line.
(06:25)
I want to say thank you to our speaker, Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike. Mike.
Tom Emmer (06:44):
We should also thank our leader, Steve Scalise. And while she won't tell you what she's doing, we got to give a big thank you to our conference chair, Lisa McClain. I want to thank the chairman of all our committees that worked on the reconciliation instructions, for doing all the hard work behind the scenes of putting this bill together. And most importantly, most importantly, and people who know me know that it's about the team, I want to thank the members of our House Republican Conference for uniting as a team and getting this thing done. As we've said a million times before, do not underestimate the Republican majority in the House, the mighty majority in the House. This legislative process may not always look pretty, and there will always be many tough fights, but one thing is certain, we will always deliver on our promises to the American people. And with that, I turn it over to our great leader, Mr. Scalise.
Steve Scalise (08:08):
Well, thank you, Whip, and what a beautiful day here in America. It is the golden age of America again. America's coming back. And I tell you, a lot of people wrote this bill off for dead. Nobody said it would be easy, but you know what? We didn't come here to do easy things. We came here to do big things. We came here to make history. We came here to deliver on the promises we made to the American people to fight for them and to take power out of Washington and give it back to those families who have been struggling for way too long.
Steve Scalise (09:00):
Now, we had a little bit of debate on the floor today. You got to see a difference between the two parties in Washington, maybe more crystallized than we've ever seen before, and I think that's a good thing. I hope America watched all of it, watch Democrats falling asleep behind their leader as he went on and on trying to scare the American people with lies, with scare tactics, with depressing stories about things that will never happen unless Democrats keep running this country. But the American people said, "We will not live in fear. We are not a country of fear. We're a country of hope. We're a country of optimism. We're a country that believes our brightest days are ahead." And they elected Republicans to deliver on those brighter days.
(09:56)
And I think maybe their leader wanted to speak for hours and hours and break records because they wanted to stand in the way of history. But history is not going to be denied. We were elected with a purpose. Donald Trump ran all around this country. He went to swing states that they said Republicans could never win. He didn't give different messages to different places. A lot of us traveled with the President. The one thing you can say about Donald Trump is it doesn't matter where he went. When you listened to his speech, it was probably going to be a little bit longer than the paper that was written, might have been about a 15-minute-long speech because President Trump speaks from the heart. President Trump expanded our base. Wasn't just the typical Republican voters, it was people of all walks of life, people who had given up on Washington because Washington gave up on them. And they finally saw a leader who was willing to fight for the hard-working people of this country. That's who Donald Trump has always been.
(11:02)
And all the people at Knock Donald Trump ignore one important fact. There is no better, more passionate fighter for America and its hope and promise than Donald J. Trump. And President Trump said at every stop, "If you elect me, if you give me a Republican House and a Republican Senate, these are the things I will do." It was kind of historic in a lot of ways. It should be commonplace that a presidential candidate runs on specific things and then delivers on every single thing he ran on. He said, "I'm going to secure America's border." His opponent said they were going to keep the border open. He said, "I'm going to actually make our country energy independent again." And end the war, the attack on American energy that we've seen for four years crushed jobs, crushed the economy, forced families to pay too much for gasoline and emboldened the enemies of our nation like Russia, Iran, and others. And those days are over with this One Big Beautiful Bill.
(12:09)
And President Trump said a lot of other things. But what American people knew about not only electing Donald Trump, but about keeping this House majority and about electing a Republican Senate, is that they said, we're going to entrust this group of people to go and be different and to deliver on those promises. And when you look through all the historic things in this One Big Beautiful Bill, the wins for hard-working families, win after win after win, it's delivering on those promises. We are going to see economic growth. When Donald Trump signs this bill tomorrow on America's birthday, the independence of our nation, you will start seeing historic growth like we've never seen before. I've been proud to work on a lot of important pieces of legislation. There is not one group of people and there is not one bigger piece of legislation that will deliver more great benefits for the hard-working families who have been struggling in this country than this One Big Beautiful Bill.
(13:12)
There's a reason it was hard. There's a reason that it wasn't two committees like Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It was 11 committees involved, historic. We made great historic reforms in education policy. First ever repeal of a Second Amendment tax in the history of our country. A Constitutional right being taxed, gone in this bill. You've heard about a lot of the other provisions. One of the things you didn't hear about is school choice. Federal school choice for the first time ever. So low-income families will have an opportunity to get their kids out of failing schools. Every Democrat voted against all of those things. And they're going to have to explain that. Once the lies and the hot air and the long-winded speeches are over, people are going to go, "I'm better off today now that this bill signed into law. And all the things you said didn't happen, but the great things that Donald Trump and this Republican majority promised did."
(14:06)
And that's the testament to the non-ending hard work of this group of people. And I will tell you, I've worked alongside a lot of leaders and I've been blessed to be a part of leadership and majorities mostly, minorities too. It's a lot more fun to be in the majority. But you get in the majority to do the big things, to do the hard work. And believe me, this was hard work. You all know it. You all know how many times this bill could have died if we just said, "You know what? It's probably not going to get there." There's a lot of reasons why you could say it's just going to fail. But this group always said from the beginning, and we told you this and we meant it, failure is not an option because the American people are counting on us. There's too much at stake.
(14:52)
There was too much at stake from the very beginning. And we knew the power of what this bill will do for those families who are counting on us. And so every time it would have been easy to give up, we just thought about those families who entrusted us with their vote and we had to deliver for them. We figured out a way to come together. People you never would have thought, showing up voting yes.
(15:13)
And I will tell you all the leaders I've served with, I don't think there's one that held this group together, complicated majority, narrow majority, narrowest we've ever had. We were down to a two vote majority at the beginning of this process. And Speaker Mike Johnson, never one day wavered on his commitment. Donald Trump absolutely was our closer, and Donald Trump never stopped, every day was there in the fight. Who do I need to call? What do I need to do? No president more directly engaged. And believe me, tomorrow at the White House, you're going to see a proud president who's ready to deliver on his promise to the American people. But this bill wouldn't be heading over to the White House tonight without the incredible yeoman's, unwavering support of Speaker of the House, my dear friend, Mike Johnson, our leader.
Mike Johnson (16:28):
Thank you. This is the vote tally card. We're going to frame this one, okay? 218-214. Listen, I'm not going to give you a long speech. A lot has been said today, and these people are exhausted. A couple of us quite literally haven't slept in two days. So I'm a danger to myself and others right now. I'm not going to speak off the cuff. I'll just say this. I mean, many of you have asked me this question in the hall over the last couple of days, but when it looked like that we might actually deliver this thing, particularly this morning, how did you know? I mean, what kept you going? Why did you think this was possible? You guys made an audacious plan. You brought the most comprehensive, complicated piece of legislation, probably arguably in the top two or three in the history of the Congress with the smallest margin in U.S. history, which we had for a big chunk of the first 100 days.
(17:24)
And you put this audacious timeline. You said you were going to pass it out of the House by Memorial Day. I mean, some of you openly laughed at me when I said that back in early February. And then we said we would get it done by July 4th. We beat Memorial Day by four days, and we got this one done a day early, I just want to point out, okay?
Steve Scalise (17:42):
[inaudible 00:17:43] schedule to make a budget.
Mike Johnson (17:47):
So the question was, I mean, why? Why did you do that? Why did you think that was possible? Because I'm going to sum it up with one word. It's belief. We had a vision for what we wanted to do as a group. We believed
Mike Johnson (18:00):
… believed in the election cycle last fall that we were going to be given this great blessing of unified government; that we would have the White House and the Senate and the House aligned, in alignment, unified government. And we did not want to waste that opportunity because we understand the history that comes along with it, the opportunity that we can do for the country, and we believe that we would have that chance.
(18:19)
And then, I believe in the people that are standing here behind me. I believe in this group, every single one of them individually. Some of them are more fun to deal with than others, yeah. I mean that with the greatest level of respect. I love every single one of my colleagues, even the ones I've got to spend the more time with. Because everybody's here. Their motive is right, their heart is right. They're trying to do right for their constituents. They're trying to serve the greatest nation in the history of the world that we're going to celebrate tomorrow.
(18:46)
We don't take that lightly. I know their hearts and I know what their skill sets are, and I know what they bring to the table. And I get up every day excited because I know that each of them are going to bring that to the table and they're going to serve their constituents. You could not have a greater group of public servants than the people standing in this room right here. They will give their all for this country. And man, that's what the framers intended when they put this thing together 249 years ago. This is what it was about. So I believed in this vision. I believed in the group. I believe in America. I believe we have the greatest nation.
(19:20)
I'm going to say this very simply, and everybody here would articulate it in their own way. We had a tough four years before this last election cycle. America was in, we were in deep trouble. And we knew that if we won, and we believed we would, we knew that if we got unified government, we'd have to quite literally fix every area of public policy. Everything was an absolute disaster under the Biden/Harris radical, woke, progressive Democrat regime. And we took the best effort that we could in One Big Beautiful Bill to fix as much of it as we could. And I am so grateful to God that we got that done as we did, because of the dedication, yes.
(20:11)
Lastly, it's no secret, I do believe in God. I believe in that motto that's up that I referenced in the floor speech a little while ago. I believe that that is what has made our nation the greatest in the history of the world. And some people shake their heads and they think that's old fashioned or something. That is a fact. When the framers put this together, they stepped out in faith. They did something that no nation had ever done before. The great statesman philosopher, GK Chesterton of Great Britain said, "America is the only nation in the world that was founded upon a creed." And he said, "It's listed with almost theological lucidity or clarity in the nation's birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, 'We owe these truths to be self-evident.'" That we recognize, we boldly proclaim the self-evident truth that our rights do not come from the government. They come from God Himself.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
That's right.
Mike Johnson (20:56):
He's the one that gave us our rights. That's right. Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, "We are dedicated to this proposition: to one nation under God, a government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." This is an experiment. It's only 249 years, y'all. That's not a long span of time in human history. It's just a blip on the whole scale of human history. It is up to us to save it. It's up to the duly elected representatives of the people to come here and represent. And it's up to every single one of us, of the people, by the people, for the people, all of us. So you've got to be engaged, and we got to pass this along to the next generation.
(21:38)
Reagan reminded us, freedom's not inherited in the bloodstream. It's got to be protected. It's got to be fought for. It's got to be taught to the next generation so that they will have the same liberty, opportunity, and security that we have all known and too often take it for granted.
(21:52)
So I just want to say, we're going to get to the main event here. We're about to sign this bill and get it over to the White House. Okay?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Yeah.
Mike Johnson (22:06):
Some of these men and women have got to go catch flights and stuff, so we're going to sign this real quick and I'll take a few questions, but I just want to say this. Do not take for granted what we have been given, this grand experiment in self-governance. We can preserve it, but we've got to do it all together. God bless you. Thanks for being there.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
All right.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
If we can have all the members behind the desk. We've got to get everyone behind the desk.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Run it, run it. I want to be the runner. That's the coach.
Mike Johnson (22:24):
Is this the bill? The Big, Beautiful Bill.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
We're going to head, Tim.
Tim (22:25):
Yeah, y'all go ahead and run.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Yeah, yeah, back to Iowa.
Tim (23:04):
Wear that fighter pen.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
No, that's right.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
And then you have to initial everything.
Mike Johnson (23:24):
Great job.
Speaker 6 (23:24):
Let's wrap it up. Hey, I like this.
Speaker 7 (23:24):
[inaudible 00:28:35].
Mike Johnson (28:41):
Yeah, so the question you didn't hear, it's kind of loud in here. The question was, "How did we get the holdouts to yes?" So my leadership style is I try to be a servant leader and as I mentioned earlier, I know what every member of this body, every member of this conference brings to the table. The leader's job is to bring out everybody's best and get them to their highest and best use, and that takes some time.
(29:04)
So what happened procedurally, not to get too deep in the weeds, but we got the Senate modifications to the house bill. Now we're really proud because the big beautiful Bill, 85 to 90% of it is the original house product that we ourselves drafted over the course of more than a year. But when we went to the Senate, of course, as the other chambers apt to do, they made some changes.
(29:22)
They sent it over to us. We didn't have it for a lot of time, and so some members wanted to go really deep in the weeds on the changes and they wanted to fully understand what those amendments were and how they would interact with the rest of the bill and how the administration would administer the new laws. And so there was a process there for a couple of days where we allowed that time for them to explore all that, to talk with leaders in the administration.
(29:45)
President Trump was so generous with his time answering questions himself. Vice President JD Vance was directly engaged. We had cabinet secretaries at a number of different federal agencies answering questions from members. Some of them even brought their agency attorneys in to get really deep in the weeds on the details. I knew as the leader that we would have to take the time to do that. And so some of that went into late into the night and I was not going to demand anybody's vote or their position on the bill until they felt that they had exhausted that opportunity. So we did it and that's how we got everybody to yes.
Speaker 8 (30:20):
[inaudible 00:30:18] Obviously you talked about the legislative process. You made a joke on the floor about how the White House legislative team practically lived here in the council. Talk to me a little bit about how you got these members to yes. What concessions were made, [inaudible 00:30:35] the Senate bill, but it was perhaps maybe a promise to resect the quarters or future legislation. What are we looking at?
Mike Johnson (30:43):
No, I mean, look, as I said, a lot of these members wanted to talk with the administration about how the new law would be administered by the Trump administration and the team. And I think the answer to those questions, I don't think they exacted a lot of specific commitments or concessions or anything like that. It was just more an understanding how that would interact.
(31:01)
As you know, this president has been a bold leader. By last count, he's issued over maybe close to 160 executive orders so far. We're trying to codify as many of those as possible. So a lot of the discussions were about what executive orders will be forthcoming as it relates to the new legislation and how can we be involved as a house to codify that and do all that in a coordinated fashion.
(31:24)
The beauty of unified government is this is exactly how it can work and how it's supposed to work is that you have an interaction between the executive and legislative branches because that's what's best for the people, and that coordination is going to yield great results for the folks. So that was part of the discussion yesterday.
Speaker 9 (31:38):
Last question.
Speaker 8 (31:39):
Mr. Speaker. Thank you. To follow up on that, some of the holdout members have told us that they understand the president will consider for tariffs [inaudible 00:31:46] as part of the deal and also [inaudible 00:31:49] issue for your conference undocumented immigrants and benefits. Can you help us understand what that might look like, how it would limit those benefits?
Mike Johnson (31:58):
I literally don't know anything about that. I mean, I wasn't privy to the conversation. So I would tell you there's lots of rumor and conjecture and innuendo that floats around, especially when you've got so many people wandering around the building and deliberating over their vote. So I don't know how much stock I'd put into much of that, but all right, last question. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 10 (32:16):
[inaudible 00:32:15] Louisiana and [inaudible 00:32:17] Rolling Stone or Human Communities in St. John Baptist, St. James, whose funding has now been entirely cut off from the IRAs climate environmental justice funding. How do you say those from the communities facing more pollution more [inaudible 00:32:32] exposure from facility?
Mike Johnson (32:33):
Look, I think a lot of the estimations about what this legislation would do in a negative manner to communities in my state or any other are far overblown. I can tell you that this bill is going to be a great thing for everybody around the country, my constituents especially. What's good for Louisiana is good for America. We've got great tax policy here. I think they're going to feel this pretty quickly.
(32:55)
Wages will rise. I think household income will go up. I think the job participation rate will increase dramatically. I think unemployment will be low. We're going to duplicate what we did in the first Trump administration. Remember at the first two years, y'all have heard me say a thousand times, it's objectively true. We had one of the greatest economies in the history of the world, and we're going to do that again except this time much more comprehensively.
(33:15)
We did tax cuts and regulatory reform and that brought about a resurgence of the US economy. That's what's going to happen here. It's about to happen on steroids and we can't wait for that to happen. This is jet fuel for the economy and all boats are going to rise. Thank you all for being here. We got to get a little rest. God bless.
Speaker 11 (33:31):
Enjoy your [inaudible 00:33:31].