Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) called Tuesday's border talks “negotiations with the arsonist.”
“I don’t like government shutdowns,” Johnson said Tuesday in an interview on “The Hill on NewsNation.” “I would say the main problem we have is [these] The negotiations are basically about us negotiating with the arsonist and trying to negotiate how we can put out the fire that he started.”
“It’s a big problem,” Johnson continued. “I mean, we have a government, we have a president of the United States that wants this[s] an open border that caused this problem.”
On Monday, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the lead Republican negotiator for a border agreement, said the legislative text would likely not be available this week.
“We have made great progress. As we go through each area, go through [and] Trying to write and make sure everyone follows along takes a long time… that's what I was hoping. “That’s not going to happen,” Lankford said in response to a question about whether the text could be made public at a special Senate Republican conference on border talks on Wednesday. “There are still too many unanswered problems. There are too many unresolved pieces.”
Lankford said the text would “more likely” come next week.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) recently said the House GOP would not shut down the government over border spending after his colleague Chip Roy (R-Texas) threatened to do so.
Johnson appeared to try to allay fears over Roy's recent threat to withhold federal funding legislation until Democrats and President Biden agree on border security and asylum reforms in HR 2.
When asked about Roy's threat, Johnson replied that Roy did not threaten to shut down the government.
“Chip is one of my closest friends and colleagues. “I talked to him last night, that wasn't what he wanted to say,” Johnson said Friday in a clip from CBS' “Face the Nation” posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter .
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