Speaker Johnson: ‘It Is Bidenomics That Got Us Into This Mess’
House Speaker Mike Johnson said that “Bidenomics,” which is marked by high government spending, caused inflation and the current economic problems. Johnson pointed to several successful Republican policies that he says lowered inflation and grew the economy, particularly lower gas prices and strong growth.
During an interview on Fox News, Johnson spoke with co-hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino about the success of Republican economic policies, Democrats’ calls to defund and abolish ICE, and false claims from Democrats about the Stop Insider Trading Act.
“What the President is referring to when he calls [affordability] a ‘hoax’ is the Democrats’ spin; it is Bidenomics that got us into this mess. It is Bidenomics, the outrageous spending levels that drove inflation to 40-year highs, that’s why prices are up now,” Johnson said when asked about Republican efforts to reverse the Democrats’ cost of living crisis.
“We got to work on it immediately in January when Republicans took over the Congress, the House, the Senate, and the White House, and we did exactly what we said we were going to do: bring down inflation, cut taxes and grow the economy. And that’s what all the indicators are saying. Now, inflation is going down, gas prices at a five-year low, the growth rate is over 5%. That would’ve been unimaginable, even conservative economists didn’t think that was possible,” he added.
Johnson continued, “But it is evidence that when our policies are implemented, they work. Trump policies, Republican policies, are doing right by the American people and they’re going to reward that at the ballot box in this upcoming midterm election in November.”
Johnson went on to slam Democrats’ calls to defund and abolish ICE.
“They can’t because Republicans control Congress. This is no time to be playing games with national security and public safety. And that’s what Democrats are doing, beating the drums up here. Remember what ICE stands for? It’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are enforcing the law. They are apprehending the dangerous criminals who were allowed into our country because Joe Biden kept the border wide open for four years,” Johnson said.
“It is estimated more than 20 million people came in, many of them were a great danger to our community. A lot of them have collected in cities like Minneapolis, you know, these sanctuary cities. They’re all there. And so, ICE has to go and do its job. There’s a lot of spin on the Democrat side. They’re assaulting our law enforcement officers and they’re breaking the law. They need to get out of the way and allow federal law enforcement to do its duty that serves all the American people,” he added.
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Johnson rounded out his interview by speaking about the New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others pushing “false claims” about the Stop Insider Trading Act.
“AOC is wrong as usual; she clearly hasn’t read the legislation. It bans trading stocks for anyone in Congress. And this is an important step to go forward because there have been a handful of people who have abused that over the years, and they’ve enriched themselves and they’ve engaged in insider trading,” Johnson began.
“It’s against the law, but we have to police it here because it’s people’s belief in, faith and trust in Congress that’s at stake. So, this is a very important step forward. AOC as usual has no idea what she’s talking about. It wasn’t drafted by wealthy lawmakers; it’s by rank-and-file members who are here serving our constituents, and we want to send that signal to the American people that they can trust Congress. This is a big step forward,” he concluded.
Top DHS Special Agent And His Wife Found Dead
A Department of Homeland Security special agent and his wife were found dead in their New Jersey home in what appears to be a murder-suicide, prosecutors said.
Police in Sayreville responded to the couple’s home on Glynn Court around 8 p.m. July 3 and found Kelly Latauro, 46, dead inside the residence, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Her husband, 52-year-old Christopher Latauro, was discovered dead in the backyard.
Both appear to have been shot.
Authorities said Christopher is believed to be the shooter and the case is being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Police told residents to keep away from Glynn Court, from Deerfield Road to Scarlet Drive, briefly because of police activity.
The area was reopened about 40 minutes later, but police remained on scene.
According to NJ101.5, citing DHS records from 2019 and 2020, Christopher was a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security.
Authorities have not said what may have sparked the violence.
Kelly’s sister-in-law Robyn Perlman-Spencer confirmed her death in a Facebook post on July 7, remembering her in a heartbreaking tribute.
“As many of you may now know, my beautiful sister in law Kelly Iatauro was senselessly and suddenly taken from us on Friday. Kelly was a bright light- kind, thoughtful, hysterical, inappropriate, and just one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. She left a lasting impression on anyone that was lucky enough to know her,” Robyn wrote in part.
Sayreville police confirmed officers responded to the Glynn Court residence on July 3 and found both people dead of gunshot wounds.
The incident is being treated as a murder-suicide, and Christopher is suspected to be the shooter, the spokesperson said.
The Department of Homeland Security and Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment on the case.
What began as a heavy police response to a deadly scene left two people dead and the quiet Middlesex County neighborhood stunned.
Investigators are still trying to piece together what happened inside the home leading up to the gunfire.
Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made headlines last week with an election-related announcement.
Mullin on Friday said officials who don’t cooperate with the administration’s election security efforts may be slapped with fines — and potentially prison time.
“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections — and they chose not to — then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said during a press conference at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Mullin also promised DHS would work to “speed up our security enhancements” for states.
He vowed to hold up federal election security grants until state officials took steps the administration demanded, including running their voter registration lists through a system that checks for non-citizen voters on the rolls.
Mullin made his comments after President Donald Trump’s primetime address on election security Thursday night, when he repeated already known concerns about the security of voting systems, alleged Chinese efforts to get into voter rolls, and aired old gripes about the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In his remarks on Friday, the DHS secretary focused on DHS’s work with states to secure election systems and scrub voter registration rolls for fraud and concerns about noncitizen voting.
The Justice Department also sent letters this month threatening prosecution to election officials across the country if they don’t remove noncitizens from their voter rolls.
On Friday, Mullin seemed to suggest that the agency was able to estimate the numbers using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and said 23 states are already working with DHS to analyze voter rolls.
And he criticized the legal challenges that are hindering the administration’s efforts: Last month, a judge blocked the Trump administration from creating a database of information about Americans, including Social Security numbers and citizenship status.
Trump ‘Briefed With Options’ Amid Stalled Iran Talks
The Trump administration on Wednesday continued to express optimism about negotiations with Iran, even as Iranian officials insist that no direct talks have taken place, according to reports.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister said no face-to-face meeting had occurred in Doha and that no direct negotiations with the United States were currently planned.
Despite Tehran’s position, President Donald Trump described the discussions as “very good,” apparently referring to indirect contacts involving U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner communicating through third-party intermediaries.
Vice President JD Vance struck a firmer tone the same day, warning that the United States could escalate its response if Iran refuses to cooperate or takes actions that further destabilize the Middle East.
His remarks underscored the administration’s message that while it remains open to a diplomatic resolution, additional measures remain on the table if negotiations fail.
“If Iran attempts to rebuild its nuclear program, threaten its neighbors and support terrorism, President Trump has options to deal with it,” Vance noted, without elaborating.
Earlier, a Wall Street Journal report claimed that Trump had been briefed on several military options, including “all-out war,” but Trump said he wanted to give diplomacy more time.
Vance additionally stated that the US “dropped bombs on Iran because it fired on ships, and we used leverage to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”
He went on to suggest that the U.S. could take that course of action again.
Vance also said the current talks are “to discuss the details and flow of maritime traffic.”
The vice president, addressing U.S. military personnel at a naval base in Virginia on Wednesday, also said that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back decades.
“If you look at what our own intelligence says about their nuclear program, they are further away from developing a nuclear bomb than they have ever been since basically the last 20 or 30 years,” Vance said, though he stopped short of Trump’s claim that the program had been “totally obliterated.”
“What the president asks you to accomplish is to destroy the defense industrial base of that country, so that if they ever decided to rebuild their military, or if they ever decided to rebuild that nuclear program, they would be harmless to do it. You did that exactly as well,” Vance added, per the Times of Israel.
The VP went on to say that Trump is now “negotiating from a position of strength because of you.”
“If the Iranians try to rebuild the nuclear program, the President’s got options. If the Iranians try to threaten their neighbors or fund terrorism, we’ve got options,” Vance continued.
“But what we must never do is drop bombs just for the sake of dropping bombs. And that is what the president will never ask you to do,” Vance added.
“He’ll ask you to go to war, yes. But when he asks you to go to war, he’ll tell you exactly what you’re going for,” the veep noted further.
“And I think that is what you should expect out of your political leadership.”
“What I noticed about the people who are attacking the administration for negotiating is that they are the very same people who, for example, encouraged us to just go a little bit further and just drop a few more bombs in places like Afghanistan,” he said.
“If you go back to the mistakes that were made, those very same people refused to say what we were dropping bombs for,” he added.
“We dropped some bombs a couple of days ago… Because the Iranians were shooting at commercial ships… We applied some leverage, and we’ve had free commercial transit for the last three days,” Vance told the naval personnel.
