House Speaker Mike Johnson says Biden has cognitive decline: ‘It’s just reality’
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Thursday evening that President Biden is showing obvious signs of cognitive decline — hours after meeting the commander-in-chief for the first time as leader of the lower chamber of Congress.
“Do you see in Joe Biden a cognitive decline, and if so, is that a danger to the country?” Fox News host Sean Hannity asked the newly installed House speaker.
“I do. I think most of us do,” Johnson said. “This is not a personal slight to him. It has to do with age and acumen, and everyone’s different. Everyone ages differently.”
“Clearly, if you look at a tape of Joe Biden making an argument in the Senate Judiciary Committee a few years ago and you see a speech that he delivers now, there’s a difference,” he added. “Again, it’s not a personal insult to him. It’s just reality.”
Johnson, 51, met with the president and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Thursday to discuss Biden’s supplemental national security requests for $106 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel, and other projects.
The Louisiana Republican won the speaker’s gavel Wednesday with the unanimous backing of his fellow House GOPers, concluding a three-week leadership fight that followed the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
On Oct. 3, a band of eight GOP lawmakers led by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz joined with 208 Democrats to remove McCarthy, with the hardline conservatives claiming the speaker had broken his promise to their caucus by passing a bipartisan government spending bill.
The bill, known as a continuing resolution, will fund the government at current levels until Nov. 17, which Johnson has since said may need to be extended to January or April 2024.
In an “ambitious schedule” he laid out before his election, Johnson planned to pass separate appropriations bills before federal funding expires but left open the option of extending the continuing resolution into next year.
Gaetz alleged McCarthy had also entertained “a secret side deal” with Biden on further Ukraine funding for Kyiv’s war against Russia, which the deposed speaker denied.
Johnson, who voted last year against sending $40 billion in aid to the war-torn nation, told Hannity on Thursday night that his caucus did not approve of the president’s request to package foreign aid together.
“I told the staff of the White House today that our consensus among House Republicans is that we need to bifurcate those issues,” Johnson said, before pivoting to affirm his commitment to halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offensive in Eastern Europe.
“We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don’t believe it would stop there, and it would probably encourage and empower China to perhaps make a move on Taiwan,” he went on. “We have these concerns.”
“We’re not going to abandon them, but we have a responsibility, a stewardship responsibility, over the precious treasure of the American people,” Johnson told Hannity.
“We have to make sure that the White House is providing the people with some accountability for the dollars.”
Biden’s national security package would group $61.4 billion in Ukraine funding with just $14.3 billion for Israel as it battles Hamas terrorists who invaded the Jewish state on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 people — including at least 33 Americans.
The White House also asked for another $9.15 billion in humanitarian aid, $100 million of which will be sent to Palestinian civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
“They use the Palestinians as shields; they don’t even provide the people with clean drinking water,” Johnson said of the terror group.
“We’re supposed to believe they’re going to use US aid for humanitarian purposes. Count me as a skeptic.”
Follow along with The Post’s live blog for the latest on Hamas’ attack on Israel
“We have to be very careful that we’re not further funding terrorist organizations that are trying to wipe Israel off the map,” Johnson added.
The Israel Defense Forces have reportedly been delaying their ground invasion to allow time to secure the release of more than 200 hostages held in Gaza but have conducted targeted airstrikes in the Palestinian territory to kill senior Hamas commanders.
A devout Southern Baptist, Johnson recounted his meeting with the president as “cordial” but admitted that he agreed with Biden “on almost no policy.”
“I have no problem with President Biden as an individual. You respect the office: It’s a Biblical admonition that you give honor where honor is due,” he told Hannity.
“But he and I agree on almost no policy, so we didn’t get into that too much today, Sean, but there’ll be time for that in the days ahead.”
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