House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., spoke out Wednesday following a White House meeting on border security, telling Fox News he has confronted President Biden, and he's not letting anyone "strong-arm" him into submitting to weak border reforms.
Johnson was asked on "The Ingraham Angle" about Democrats appearing to be loath to actually securing the southern border, and whether he showed up at the White House prepared to be cajoled into going along with the administration and congressional Democrats' wishes.
"No one is strong-arming me. I told the president – I looked right across the table from in the cabinet officials' room and I said, 'Mr. President, you have the authority right now to end this catastrophe. It's your actions that created it,'" Johnson replied.
The speaker added that he told Biden he had documented 64 instances of White House or agency-level actions that created the border crisis.
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He added that no new laws are technically needed because Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas can simply enforce those already on the books to combat the border crisis
"I've cited to [Biden] – I read him the legal authority on the phone on Thursday of last week that he could take," he said.
Johnson went on to recount Biden telling him and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who was also in the meeting, that he is ready to do "big things" on the border:
"Well, Hallelujah. Mr. President – President Biden, do your job. Fix the catastrophe that you've created," Johnson told "The Angle."
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Host Laura Ingraham also asked about a bipartisan bill championed by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., which she characterized as an unwise option, citing a provision from a leaked version of the bill that would increase the amount of green cards provided to migrants and expel individuals only if more than 5,000 people crossed in a week's time, according to the New York Post.
Lankford has, however, blasted the leak and the characterizations of the provisions in it as lies, tweeting a Baptist minister's quotation of "a lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on."
Johnson said observers must reserve judgment on the bill until the official text has been posted.
"I'm hopeful that they'll [in the Senate] come up with something meaningful. But what I have said from the very beginning is that we have to have H.R. 2, or the functional equivalent thereof," he said, referring to the Secure the Border Act authored by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., which passed the House and is proverbially sitting on Schumer's desk.
"[H.R. 2] has very important provisions. We reform asylum and the broken parole process. We restore the Trump-era Remain-in-Mexico policy, which is essential. And you end catch-and-release," Johnson said.
"We need to rebuild the wall. There are other elements as well, but some of those are essential to stop the flow."
Following the White House meeting, Schumer also offered extended remarks to reporters. The New York Democrat stressed that Ukraine and the U.S. southern border must both be addressed, but that "anyone who says we have to do one first, before we do the other means we won't get any of it done."
