Real State of the Union

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, President Biden's address to the Nation last night was a missed opportunity. Our country is mired in a historic number of crises of the President and his party's own making at home, at our border, and abroad.

The rhetoric in the President's speech simply did not match his failing record. No amount of spin can change what every single American can see plainly and feel so personally.

Madam Speaker, in simple summary, our Union is in a state of crisis. Hardworking American families are being threatened by skyrocketing prices and empty store shelves; by alarming increases in crime; by our wide-open borders and illegal immigration; by record overdose deaths; by delayed tax returns and government services; and, of course, not the least of which is the projection of weakness on America's part on the world stage.

Since the magnitude of these problems obviously has not convinced the President and his Democrat allies in Congress to reverse course, I am not sure anything will.

But the State of the Union address is supposed to be an annual opportunity for the American President to take stock, to level with the American people, to acknowledge what has worked and what has not.

Republicans urged President Biden to take advantage of that opportunity last night to chart a new direction, to speak honestly, to accept responsibility for the declining state of our country and pledge to do better.

President Biden certainly would not have been the first American President to seek a reset--far from it. Presidential resets are common, and they are necessary. But this President didn't do that.

What did we get instead? Another typical Biden speech. We got another series of warmed-over Democrat talking points taped together and presented to the American people as if it weren't those same policies that got us into the messes that we are in.

Madam Speaker, this evening, my Republican colleagues and I will provide a further response to the State of the Union that was delivered here just last night.

But first, Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), my friend and colleague, for her remarks and for a prayer that is being shared tonight around the world.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. The words of the psalmist resonate today as much as they did when they were written so many years ago, and our God is faithful. I thank the gentlewoman for putting that in perspective tonight.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield next to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, energy policy is national security policy. Energy security is national security. We know that acutely now.

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield next to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. McClain).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend. Very well said.

Madam Speaker, I am happy now to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller), who announced this week that he will not be seeking reelection, and he will be sorely missed because he is a gentleman and a great legislator.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend. I appreciate him very much.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), who has been a mentor to me and so many others in Congress.

Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Mike Johnson for his leadership and courage to present the truth tonight.

Madam Speaker, last Friday, I was grateful as the ranking member of the U.S. delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to address the Parliamentary Assembly in Vienna, Austria. Our delegation was ably led by co-chair Steve Cohen.

The bipartisan United States delegation of Democrats and Republicans, being transatlantic with our valued European and Indo-Pacific allies have been unintentionally united about Putin's war of mass murder in Ukraine, violating the principles of the Helsinki Final Act.

This emphasizes the devastating human cost of Putin's war against the families of Ukraine, isolating Russia and Belarus from the modern world.

This is Putin's war, as correctly identified by Der Spiegel, the German news magazine. It is not a war in Ukraine. It is not Russia's war. This is clearly to be forever condemned as Putin's war. The responsibility of an insane czar who is trying to build his power based on oil, money, and power, betraying young Russians to death.

OSCE monitors have impartially relayed the tragic reality of this conflict every day under often difficult and dangerous conditions. The Putin government and its proxies must restore the monitors' ability to fulfill their mandate.

I am personally grateful to have visited Russia a number of times where I was so impressed by the talented citizens who today who are being betrayed by Putin in his obsession for oil, money, and power.

Two months ago, I visited Kyiv, and it is horrifying to know of the attacks.

The pictures that we see here--they have been sent worldwide--this is the road to the airport. I was so impressed when I was there in December to see the four, six, eight, now ten lanes of boulevards filled with cars, a very modern society with high rise buildings that could be anywhere in America, could be anywhere in the world, in the modern world.

Now, sadly, we see that the cars are congested there and blocked. You have families. They have their pets with them. They have all the property that they could possibly carry. They have children. They have infants. They have elderly and sick persons and are trying to flee the rocket attacks solely the responsibility of Putin.

Sadly, in Belarus, dictator Lukashenko has become a puppet of Putin to subject Belarusians to autocracy, facilitating Putin's illegal war on the people of Ukraine.

It is inspiring that the legal president of Belarus, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, would have her first loyalty to the people of Belarus, not to the war criminal, Putin.

In conclusion, God bless Ukraine. God save Ukraine. Long live President Volodymyr Zelensky. God bless America.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Wilson, for all you do, and your expertise in foreign affairs is a great blessing to all of us.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rose).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, that was so well said. We are going to stay in the State of Tennessee.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Burchett), who is from that same area.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Thank you, my friend. Well said. Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield next to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), the Republican leader of our House Agriculture Committee.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Thank you, my friend, for your leadership. That was well said. As we say over and over and over, energy security is national security, and it is unconscionable that we are funding Putin's aggression in Ukraine.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield next to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Miller), my dear friend.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Well said. The hypocrisy was on display last night. It is just absurd.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield next to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Good said it so well, and that passion is felt all around this country. I hear it from my constituents. I know Mr. Good does as well. All of us do. People couldn't even tune in last night. Our constituents are writing to us saying they couldn't even watch it because it was nauseating how untrue it was. Here we are.

Madam Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Mann).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Very well said, my friend. Thank you for being here.

Madam Speaker, I yield to another colleague now, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Grothman. That was well said. There is lot. We know you can go all night because there was a lot to complain about.

Madam Speaker, tonight you have heard the response of so many of my Republican colleagues to the lackluster State of the Union address that was held here last evening. Perhaps the most glaring problem with his speech is that the President tried to ignore the fact that it is his lack of leadership that is what has created this dangerous situation that we are all in right now. All the crises you have heard about, the American people know the facts.

I grew up in the seventies and eighties. I was a child of the Reagan era, and we remember in the Cold War he reminded us we maintain the peace through our strength. What he communicated to us so clearly is weakness invites aggression. We have projected weakness on the world stage, and it is inviting Russian aggression. We pray and hope that we do not get a similar aggression from our other adversaries like China, North Korea, Iran, and the rest.

The only thing holding back terrorists and tyrants and dictators and rogue operators around the globe is their perception of a strong America. That is what we stand for. We wish we could have heard that from the President in a more honest tone last night, but we didn't get it.

So we are here. We are going to continue to work on this side of the aisle to fix these problems, and we look forward to the election cycle this fall where we believe the fortunes around here are going to change pretty substantially.

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues for being here tonight, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source