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By Aila Slisco
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Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz of Florida slammed Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson as "[former President] Donald Trump's no boy" during an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Wednesday.
Moskowitz, who was interviewed alongside Republican Congressman Mike Lawler of New York, denounced the speaker for blocking a bipartisan border security deal, allegedly at the behest of Trump. Johnson has claimed that suggestions he killed the deal to help Trump in this year's presidential election are "absurd."
The Context
Bipartisan lawmakers in the Senate are hammering out the final details of a deal to beef up security along the U.S.-Mexico border as Republicans continue to criticize the immigration policies of President Joe Biden.
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Although the deal was seemingly headed for passage through Congress earlier this month, Johnson announced that any legislation would be "dead on arrival in the House" after Trump demanded that Republicans kill the deal.
The speaker reiterated his opposition from the House floor on Wednesday, arguing that any deal allowing more than "zero" illegal border crossings—a number that no president's administration has come close to achieving in the history of U.S.-Mexico border security—would be "surrendering our border."
What We Know
"By the way, Jake, the speaker said 'no' because Donald Trump said 'no,'" Moskowitz told Tapper during the broadcast on Wednesday. "The speaker's Donald Trump's no boy."
"The Republicans, controlled by one man, are saying no, no, no, we need this for the next 10 months," he added. "We need more of it, in fact, in the next 10 months. So that we can use it in the election."
Newsweek reached out for comment to Johnson's office via email on Wednesday night.
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Lawler, the Republican lawmaker who was interviewed alongside Moskowitz, suggested that Johnson's position was questionable, since details of the Senate deal have yet to be released.
"Nobody's actually seen the details," Lawler said. "And I think that it is necessary for everyone to actually see the details before making a definitive statement on it."
Trump has described a potential bipartisan border deal as a "betrayal," prompting backlash from some members of his party in the Senate.
The Democratic Party's Senate campaign chief Gary Peters of Michigan has suggested that Republicans giving in to Trump's demands to kill a deal is a "terrible" strategy that could hurt them in the long run.
"You can't talk about border security and then not act on it. That's what the Republicans are doing," Peters told Newsweek earlier on Wednesday. "It's another proof point that Republicans simply don't know how and do not want to govern."
What's Next?
It is unclear whether or not Johnson will reconsider his position after the Senate releases details of the deal, with a solution to the impasse looking increasingly unlikely before the November presidential election.
Johnson insisted that his preemptive dismissal of the deal was not politically motivated in comments to CNN's Manu Raju on Tuesday, calling suggestions that he was acting on behalf of Trump "absurd."
"We have a responsibility here to do our duty," Johnson added. "Our duty is to do right by the American people ... the most important job for the federal government is to protect its citizens, we are not doing that under President Biden."
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