DORAL, Florida — Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday he has discussed “our tone and our message” with the two House Republicans who have made anti-Muslim remarks in recent days but defended the right of the lawmakers to oppose “the imposition of Sharia law.”

“Look, there’s a lot of energy in the country, and a lot of popular sentiment, that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem,” Johnson said at a news conference during the House GOP policy retreat at the Trump Doral resort. “That’s what animates me.”

Sharia law refers to a set of religious principles that guide devout Muslims, and Republicans often refer to it in the context of Islamic fundamentalism. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) posted on social media Monday that “Muslims don’t belong in American society.”

“Pluralism is a lie,” he added, later following up with a graphic showing “what Islam offers” — some examples of which included “rape,” “beheadings” and “burning people alive.”

Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) wrote in a post on X last month that “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

Neither Ogles nor Fine differentiated between the Muslim faith and Sharia law.

Johnson has been under pressure to condemn the rhetoric, particularly from Ogles, but the Louisiana Republican suggested Tuesday only that he regretted the choice of words, not the sentiment.

“Our Constitution is the greatest in the world. … And one of the principles that we believe in, stated first in the nation’s birth certificate, is that all of us are created equal by God,” said Johnson Tuesday. “We respect everyone’s beliefs and their right to live out their beliefs and to speak freely about their beliefs, and have that conviction.

“But when you seek to come to a country and not assimilate but to impose Sharia law … that is the conflict that people are talking about,” he added. “It’s not about people as Muslims, it is about people who seek to impose a different belief system that is in direct conflict with the constitution.”

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole doesn’t think Congress should find spending cuts to offset the total cost of the Middle East war and the military spending request lawmakers expect from the administration in the coming days.

“I think war is never paid for when you fight it, it’s paid for over time,” the Oklahoma Republican said in an interview Tuesday. “We didn’t pay for World War II or Korea or World War I for that matter. I mean, so I don’t think it should be offset.”

“I have no doubt that some people will want to raise those questions,” Cole added. “I personally don’t see how you can do that.”

DORAL, Florida — “Fraud prevention” in federal and state safety-net programs should be the main target of a new Republican reconciliation bill, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington said in an interview Tuesday where he also called for reviving Medicaid spending cuts provisions that fell out of last year’s GOP megabill.

“The whole kit and caboodle of welfare is $1.6 trillion in our budget,” Arrington said on the sidelines of the House Republican policy retreat. “But it’s also not just welfare — it’s programs across the federal government that states need to be responsible [for].”

Arrington said Republicans needed to act after federal officials identified potentially billions of dollars of potential benefits fraud in Minnesota. But the suggestion of additional cuts to safety-net programs comes as House Republicans vulnerable in the upcoming midterms deal with the political fallout of the Medicaid and food-aid cuts enacted last year.

“I’m going to listen to everything,” said Rep. Rob Wittman, a Virginia Republican battling to keep a district that could be redrawn in Democrats’ favor. “I think we need to be very thoughtful about what we do and how we go about doing that.”

Arrington said he wanted to revisit several proposals to reduce Medicaid spending that did not end up complying with strict Senate rules for a filibuster-skirting budget package. He suggested Senate Republicans didn’t spend “a lot of time” last year reworking them to pass muster.

Arrington also said he wants to identify Pentagon spending cuts that would offset new investments President Donald Trump wants for the military — something that will likely trigger pushback from GOP defense hawks.

“I think there’s certainly waste at the Pentagon,” he said. “I think the president and his team want to retool it, modernize it, but there’s also going to be a capital investment associated with it. I just want to make sure that whatever we’re spending, we’re offsetting.”

While Speaker Mike Johnson has repeatedly promised GOP hard-liners he will push for a new reconciliation bill, he continues to face serious internal doubts — especially after Trump failed to mention it once in a nearly hourlong address to Republican lawmakers Monday.

A senior House Republican, granted anonymity to candidly discuss internal conversations, said lawmakers shouldn’t “kill themselves” to do one given Trump’s lack of interest. And a key committee chair remains publicly skeptical of the push, noting Tuesday the House GOP majority is even thinner than it was in July, when the megabill passed.

“I’d love to do a second reconciliation bill, but I’d also love to be Brad Pitt,” Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said. “It’s never going to happen.”