Senator Kennedy Urges Trump to Take Charge of House GOP After Speaker Johnson’s CR Debacle
SENATOR KENNEDY: "I saw what you saw. I mean, it's a multiple vehicle pileup. I knew as soon as I saw the bill, it was going to be trouble. The thing was as big as a Costco. And Speaker Johnson had to add a lot of spending p*rn to get the Democrats on board."
"This can be fixed. Here's what if I were king for a day, I'm not, and I don't aspire to be. Here's what I do."
"First, I would tell everybody to take their meds. Number two, I think President Trump is going to have to consider coming to Washington. I mean, let's face it. He's the president now. It's not President Biden."
"President Trump needs to sit down with Mike Johnson and [Senate GOP leader] John Thune and come up with a new skinny C.R. If the president wants to do something on the debt limit, we need to find out what it is and put it in the bill. And then the president's going to have to help Mike sell it in the House. Democrats are not in the House. I'm not going to go along with it."
"Mike's problem, Speaker Johnson's problem, is that on the Republican side, he's got a bunch of free-range chickens. I'm not criticizing them, but they wander off, and Mike can't catch all of them by himself."
"So can he be Speaker? He's going to need — he's going to need the president's help. Now, after it passes the House, it's going to come to the Senate. The president's going to have to sit down with John Thune and Chuck Schumer. And Chuck is going to come with a laundry list of spending p*rn. And President Trump's going to have to say no. And Schumer's going to say, 'I'm going to blame it on you,'and President Trump is going to say, 'I'm going to fight'."
LAWRENCE JONES: "I talked to the president yesterday. He made it very clear that he likes Mike Johnson and he's in a difficult position, but this is not the right way. I guess the big question is, and you put it out there, that he cannot control the House right now. Can Mike Johnson remain Speaker then?"
KENNEDY: "There's one person that can control the Republican caucus in the United States House of Representatives right now. And that's Donald J. Trump. That's my best assessment at this point."
"Could that change? Sure. But Speaker Johnson cannot. It's clear he hasn't been able to do it. It's not his fault. I mean, I'm not sure anybody could, but he can't get all the Republicans together in the House. And in order to pass the CR, he's got to do that without Democratic support. But I think President Trump could. And I hope he'll consider coming to Washington."
"Like I say, he's the president, it's not Joe Biden."