{"id":13983,"date":"2025-10-02T15:46:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T15:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/mike-johnson-republicans-have-nothing-to-negotiate-on-shutdown\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T15:46:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T15:46:46","slug":"mike-johnson-republicans-have-nothing-to-negotiate-on-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/mike-johnson-republicans-have-nothing-to-negotiate-on-shutdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Johnson: Republicans \u2018have nothing to negotiate\u2019 on shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Speaker Mike Johnson moved to shut down any attempts to negotiate a way out of the shutdown Thursday as some senators look for off-ramps<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Johnson said in a news conference outside his Capitol office that Democrats should stop pressing Republicans to come to any agreement to reopen the government, saying Senate Democrats instead need to pass the seven-week stopgap bill that had already cleared the House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI quite literally have nothing to negotiate,\u201d Johnson said, before again warning that the shutdown will \u201cinflict pain\u201d on Americans as it drags on.<\/p>\n

Still, Johnson is balancing concerns from some Republicans wary of President Donald Trump\u2019s plans to slash federal workers and certain program funding amid the shutdown. Two House Republicans raised concerns directly with Vought<\/a> on a private call Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Before Johnson spoke, Trump said would meet Thursday with White House budget director Russ Vought to determine which \u201cDemocrat Agencies\u201d they would cut.<\/p>\n

Other House Republicans, meanwhile, are livid any GOP senators would be willing to talk about off-ramps to the shutdown, including promises of health care negotiations. Rep. Rick Allen of Georgia railed against attempts to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that are at the center of the Democratic shutdown demands during the House GOP call Wednesday. He pressed Republicans to not just allow the subsidies to expire but to rekindle their attempts to repeal and replace the ACA altogether.<\/p>\n

Johnson backed Trump in saying the president has the authority to slash federal workers and funding during the shutdown. He added Trump takes \u201cno pleasure\u201d in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t want to do it,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

The speaker also referenced a flurry of inflammatory AI-generated deepfake videos, including several that Trump posted after<\/a> his Monday White House sitdown with congressional leaders depicting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero and mustache. One has fabricated audio of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying Democrats need to court undocumented immigrants because voters have turned on their \u201ctrans bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson said he\u2019d advise Jeffries to \u201cjust ignore it.”<\/p>\n

The speaker also criticized Senate leaders for entertaining a plan to leave Washington for the weekend after voting a fourth time on the House-passed stopgap Friday. \u201cOf course\u201d the Senate should stay through the weekend and keep voting, Johnson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe House is coming back next week, hoping they will be sending us something to work on, that we can get back to the work of the people,\u201d he said. \u201cThey’re anxious to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaker Mike Johnson moved to shut down any attempts to negotiate a way out of the shutdown Thursday as some senators look for off-ramps. Johnson said in a news conference outside his Capitol office that Democrats should stop pressing Republicans to come to any agreement to reopen the government, saying Senate Democrats instead need to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}