Debunking House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Halloween press conference

All right, it's Halloween here on Capitol Hill, and I wish I could say this feels spooky

but in Congress, we call this Friday. I just got out of House Speaker Mike Johnson's press conference

He's had one every day during the government shutdown, and he made some claims that just don't hold up

The Democrats are lying about that. Now, I won't accuse Mike Johnson of lying like he accused Democrats of doing

but some of his claims are easily debunked. Here are three of the biggest falsehoods

President Trump has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that if there is any way to fund these programs that are drying up now, that he will do it

The speaker's first comment has to do with SNAP nutrition assistance. If there was any way to fund SNAP during the Democrat shutdown, you can be assured that your commander in chief would do it

There's $5 billion currently sitting in a contingency fund that the Trump administration claims it can't use because a government shutdown isn't the type of emergency the fund was created for

Democrats across the country sue them over this. Here's USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins' explanation

By law, contingency fund can only flow when the underlying fund is flowing

So for example, if today the Democrats say, oh, never mind, sorry, we'll open the government

and snap flows, Hurricane Melissa or one of the hurricanes hits, that's the contingency

fund that we would use to send more money into the vulnerable communities that are harmed by a specific event like a hurricane That brings us to false statement number two They didn file a lawsuit you saw to try to do it Why Because they wanted a talking point

They know that's a frivolous piece of litigation. They know what they're going to lose

but they also know it'll take many weeks or months to have that ultimately determined by a court

Democratic state attorneys general did file a lawsuit on Tuesday. Here we are three days later, and they already won

A judge ruled the Trump administration must use the money in the contingency fund to make SNAP last as long as possible

It's worth noting that based on how much the program costs the federal government, that's only about two weeks worth of funding

Here's false statement number three. And what are the Democrats doing today? Where are the Democrats

Are they in the Senate today? No, they're out campaigning. While critical SNAP benefits run dry, the Democrats have skipped town

They've abandoned their post in the Senate. It's true. The Senate's out of town today, just like the House of Representatives

The thing is, Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, so they're the ones that set the schedule

It was Senate Majority Leader John Thune who decided not to schedule any votes today and send the chamber home for the weekend

Just like it's House Speaker Johnson who decided to keep the House out of session since September 19th

So Republicans can criticize Democrats all they want for voting against the continuing resolution and voting to keep the government closed

That's true. Thank you all for being here this morning. But if Congress isn't in D.C., it's because Republicans made it so

I'm Ray Bogan for Straight Hour News. For more unbiased reporting straight from our nation's capital, download the S.A.N. app