House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday would not commit to calling Congress back into session before the election
-- after President Joe Biden pressed congressional leaders about potential funding shortfalls in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Johnson was asked about Biden’s letter to congressional leaders on Friday requesting more money for federal disaster recovery efforts -- and after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that the department doesn’t have enough money to get through the rest of hurricane season.
In his letter, the president urged Congress to restore funding to the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program,
which was facing potential funding shortfalls even before Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the Southeast.
The president noted that the White House requested more funding for the program as Congress prepared a short-term funding bill that passed last month to avert a government shutdown.
Pressed on whether he would call Congress back into session before the election, Johnson replied,
“We’ll be back in session immediately after the election.”
“That’s 30 days from now.
The thing about these hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude is it takes a while to calculate the actual damages, and the states are going to need some time to do that,” Johnson said
@cdarwin The problem is, Johnson has to act on behalf of the entire House. He can't command their votes. So everything he does as Speaker of the House has to be done with awareness of what the members want to do and how they will vote.
If we want different direction out of the House then we need to stop reelecting the same idiots. But until we do, Johnson has to work with the people that we empower to be our representatives there.
