Mike Johnson

I thank the gentleman for that wise counsel. It is about responsibility, and the gentleman said it so well. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Kustoff).

I thank the gentlewoman for highlighting that really important issue. The WOTUS rule has gotten completely out of control. Mr. Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from New York (Mr. D'Esposito), one of our new Members to Congress.

We want answers. We won't take no for an answer. We want the answer to be yes, and we want the information.

Under the First Amendment, Americans have a right to speak freely regardless of whether their speech upsets the preferred narrative.

The Twitter files should be a matter of bipartisan concern for every Member of Congress and every American citizen.

Twitter was basically an FBI subsidiary before Elon Musk took it over.

The Federal Government from Democratic Members of Congress, to intelligence agencies, including the FBI, used Twitter and other social media companies to censor American's speech.

I share the grave concerns of my colleagues about the Chinese government's theft of the intellectual property of our Nation's innovators.

We support the idea that people should be able to leave a job and go to another job.

If we don't have a secure border, we don't have sovereignty; we don't have a nation.

We have a catastrophe at the border, from our perspective, and I think the evidence speaks for itself.

Ronald Reagan used to remind us we should paint with bold colors and not pale pastels because weakness invites aggression.

What are some of the things that we are currently doing to respond to those attempts from China to exert influence in our own Hemisphere?

I'm very concerned about China's influence in our own Hemisphere in South America.

How do you defend solar panels? How do you secure them?

It would be insanity to have our greatest adversary supplying us with the materials needed for us to defend ourselves.

I would argue, no other country is capable of doing that, only this Nation, the greatest country ever.

The reason we use the term 'weaponization' is because it is appropriate.

More dangerous than any baseless smear, our own government institutions, which exist to serve the people, they are being weaponized against us.

This is not and cannot be reduced to partisan fight. The stakes are too high.

They tell us we must blindly trust them or face the consequences, even though our government has a long history of lying to us, the American people.

The idea that we must just blindly accept whatever the government or those in power tell us is true goes against the very essence of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

They say they are doing this for us, that they are doing this for our own good, to protect the people. In reality, the truth is, they think that we are too stupid to think for ourselves.

We have individuals in our government, often working through their arms in the mainstream media and Big Tech, doing exactly what our Founders rejected--trying to control what we, the people, are allowed to see and say, under the guise of…

It is an absolute dereliction of duty. It is inexcusable.