Johnson emphasizes agreement with Trump on plan to tie government funding to election security bill

Washington (CNN) — House Speaker Mike Johnson emphasized his agreement with Donald Trump on government funding after the former president posted that if congressional Republicans “don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security,” they should vote against a continuing resolution to fund the government.

“I think President Trump is saying exactly what I have been saying, and that is we need assurances on election security and to fund the government,” Johnson told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead” Tuesday.

Trump’s comments come after a six-month House GOP government funding plan cleared a key hurdle Tuesday but remains at risk of failing ahead of a final passage vote that is expected to take place Wednesday. The proposal includes the SAVE Act, a GOP-led bill that passed the House on a standalone basis in July and would require documentary proof of US citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, despite the fact that is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.

Johnson said that during Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Trump should stick to the issues and policies, rather than slinging personal attacks, as he has had to remind members of his raucous conference.

“I talked with the president a lot, President Trump, and that has always been my advice that we run this race on policy, on record, not rhetoric, on policy, not personality,” he said.

On Vice President Kamala Harris, Johnson said, “She has a big, a big task ahead of her tonight. … I don’t think she’s going to perform well because that record is hard to run from.”

Johnson said the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony Tuesday that honored the 13 American service members killed in the Kabul airport bombing during the Afghanistan withdrawal was a “day of high emotion for all of us.”

“I’ll point out today we read the names of those 13 service members who lost their lives. Their families said that was such a relief to them. We apologize to them. To this day, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have not said the names of those service members. In fact, Joe Biden said on the debate stage in June that we hadn’t lost any service members on his watch. I guess he forgot about them,” Johnson said.

A 2022 interim report released by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, on the Afghanistan withdrawal only mentioned Harris twice, and this latest report, released Monday, mentions her more than 280 times. When pressed by Tapper on this, Johnson deflected.

“I think what the report reflects is Kamala Harris’s own admission,” Johnson said. “She bragged until recently that she was the last person in the room with Joe Biden before he made all these faithful decisions. She tied herself to all those decisions, and she is the co-sponsor and co-owner of the results. That’s her own testimony.”

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