Wednesday on FNC’s “The Ingraham Angle,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) rejected the claim he was strong-armed during a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on a border deal.
According to the Louisiana Republican, he told Biden he had the authority to quell the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“So, then you show up at the White House and they’re, like, trying to strong-arm you to agree to something that has been written by Schumer’s staff for months,” FNC host Laura Ingraham said.
“Yes, Laura, no one is strong-arming me,” Johnson replied. “I told the president, I looked right across the table from him 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. In fact, Mr. President,’ I told him in the meeting today, ‘We have documented 64 instances of you taking executive actions in your agencies that created this catastrophe. Mr. President, it’s on you to unwind it. We don’t need new laws. You could do it right now.'”
“I have cited him, read him the legal authority on the phone on Thursday of last week that he could take,” he continued. “And you know what he said in the meeting, Laura? He said: ‘We’re ready to do big things on the border.’ Well, hallelujah, Mr. President. President Biden, do your job. Fix the catastrophe that you have created. It’s an unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe, a national security catastrophe; 302,000 people came over the border in December alone.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
