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Speaker Johnson: Democrat Party ‘Utterly Rudderless’
WASHINGTON DC, UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 13: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks during a preNathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty
Hannah Knudsen
13 Oct 2025
The Democrat Party is “utterly rudderless,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a press conference Monday — Day 13 of the Democrat shutdown with no immediate end in sight.
Johnson, again, called out Democrats for playing what he described as “costly political games.”
“We’re now on day 13 of the Democrats’ Schumer shutdown. This marks the third week that Democrats have blocked paychecks to our troops. They blocked pay for 2.2 million federal workers, and they held critical services that the American people rely upon in limbo — at least they’ve tried to block those checks,” Johnson continued. “We are so very grateful that President Trump, again showing strong leadership, has stepped up to ensure that our troops are going to be paid on October 15, while we wait for Democrats to stop holding the country hostage.”
Johnson said both he and Trump are extremely frustrated that the Democrats are willing to inflict damage on the American people, all for their own political stunts and the false narrative they are sticking to. He reminded the American people that Republicans have voted to open the government time and time again with their clean continuing resolution, but Democrats continue to refuse, as they hope to appease their far-left base.
“We passed a clean, nonpartisan CR that would pay the troops and the TSA agents and border patrol and the rest of our federal workforce. We did our job. We had that vote three weeks ago now, and the bill is still sitting in the Senate, where Democrats have now voted seven times to keep the government closed,” Johnson said, providing a chart showing clearly that it is Democrats who have rejected the clean CR repeatedly.
“This is a clean, nonpartisan CR. It does not include new spending. It does not include partisan strings attached at all. And this is something, as we have pointed out over and over, the Democrats have supported repeatedly, in fact, 13 different times during the Biden administration,” he said, noting that even the New York Times has admitted this.
Johnson said the shutdown never had to happen but added that “every American needs to understand why it did.”
“It happened because while Republicans are working to ensure the American people are taken care of Democrats are playing a political game. … The Democrat Party is utterly rudderless,” he said. “There have been times in the past where there were shutdowns. Democrats today have no no leader, no vision, no direction.”
“The party is at their lowest point in decades in terms of public opinion polls,” he said, describing this shutdown as their Hail Mary — something Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is keenly aware of:
He reads the polls religiously. He knows his party is furious with him for doing the right thing back in March when he helped to pass a clean CR and averted government shutdown. It was the right thing to do. He said so himself emphatically on the Senate floor, and that bill he supported is nearly identical to what we’re offering today. The only thing that’s changed is his personal political calculation, his consultants and his pollsters have told him he needs to show a fight to President Trump, even if it means hurting millions of American families. So that is exactly what Chuck Schumer is doing. He’s determined that his own political survival is worth the irreversible harm he’s inflicting on the American people. He’s gambling with people’s lives and livelihoods to appease the far-left Marxist base of his party so that he can keep his job. And make no mistake, this is bigger than Chuck Schumer.
“Democrats are terrified of their radical Marxist base,” he continued, explaining that this has made Democrats afraid to “show any willingness to work with Republicans or to work with President Trump, even when that would clearly benefit the American people.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are governing with “common sense,” Johnson said, pointing to tax cuts; ending the border crisis; stopping waste, fraud, and abuse; and ending conflicts around the world.
“And what have Democrats done?” he asked. “Nothing but distract.”
WATCH the full presser below:
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From Breitbart
Link:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...ly-rudderless/
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