House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday did 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 requested about Biden’s letter to congressional leaders on Friday requesting more cash for federal catastrophe restoration efforts and after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that the division doesn’t manage to pay for to get by way of the remainder of hurricane season.
In his letter, the president urged Congress to restore funding to the Small Business Administration’s catastrophe mortgage program, which was dealing with potential funding shortfalls even before Hurricane Helene devastated components of the Southeast. The president famous that the White House requested extra funding for the program as Congress ready a short-term funding invoice that handed final month to avert a authorities shutdown.
Pressed on whether or not he would name 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 mentioned, including that figuring out “specific needs and requests based upon the actual damages” from pure disasters takes time.
Johnson famous that before Congress went on recess, the day before Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, Congress appropriated $20 billion additional {dollars} to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deal with quick wants.
“Then after that, Congress always takes its the due approach of providing what is necessary,” he mentioned. “Congress will provide. We will help people in these disaster-prone areas. It’s an appropriate role for the federal government, and you’ll have bipartisan support for that, and it’ll all happen in due time, and we’ll get that job done. There shouldn’t be any concern about that.”
Johnson’s feedback come after Biden mentioned in remarks at the White House final week he expects to ask Congress for a supplemental funding request for areas affected by Hurricane Helene.
Asked at the time whether or not he would ask Congress to return from recess for a particular session for a supplemental request, the president left the risk open, saying, “That is something I may have to request, but no decision’s been made yet.”
Congress has taken swift motion on funding pure catastrophe relief efforts in the previous even when it was on recess, a Biden administration official famous when reached for remark.
Johnson’s workplace did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
Johnson was additionally pressed about false claims by some Republicans that FEMA was utilizing funds on migrants who've illegally entered the nation as an alternative of on the catastrophe response, which White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre referred to as “categorically false” on Friday.
The speaker acknowledged that the streams of funding for the border and hurricane response are completely different at FEMA before occurring to insist that FEMA’s mission is to assist individuals affected by pure disasters, and not interact in funding that helps migrants who crossed the southern border.
Johnson claimed, with out proof, that the Biden administration, Vice President Kamala Harris and Mayorkas “have been engaged in this program,” saying they used taxpayer {dollars} to help migrants with resettlement by reimbursing nongovernmental organizations transporting migrants into the nation.
“The American people are disgusted by this, up with it, and so are Republicans in Congress,” he mentioned. “And it will stop after Nov. 5, because we’re going to have unified government with Republicans in charge and we will bring sanity back to this situation.”
Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong, Sarah Dean and Syedah Asghar contributed.
