Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson has argued that Democrats and the Biden administration engaged in a “power-play” by failing to secure the southern border during his term.
Johnson spoke with NewsMax host Rob Finnerty on the main stage of the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday afternoon at National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.
Finnerty quoted a statement from Elon Musk claiming that Democrats considered undocumented immigrants to be “future voters” for their party. He asked Johnson his opinion of this claim.
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Johnson agreed with this assessment, adding that “they opened the borders wide; they did not care about the calamity and the heartache and the death, frankly, that it caused of American citizens.”
“It was a power-play,” he continued. “They wanted to turn these people into voters. And they want to change the outcome of the census in five years. This is very serious, and we’re going to be dealing with the effects of this, the catastrophe, for years to come.”
“It’s a terrible tragedy, and don’t ever forget that that was their motive. It was for their own political gain that they put the American people in such jeopardy.”
Johnson cited the fentanyl crisis, human trafficking and the disappearance of thousands of unaccompanied children as examples of problems made worse by the previous administration’s border policies.
“They turned the other way,” Johnson added. “They could have sealed that border any moment. The president had the authority. And I asked him personally, on multiple occasions.”
“I pleaded with him. I begged Joe Biden, ‘use your authority.’ And he’d look down at the floor and shuffle his shoes and say, ‘I can’t do that.’ Well, the American people let him know how they felt about that.”
During Biden’s term in office (January 2021 to January 2025), multiple reports found that the number of individuals entering the United States illegally, especially from the southern border, increased considerably.
For example, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported around 2.38 million encounters between illegal immigrants and law enforcement at the U.S. border with Mexico in fiscal year 2022, a record number.
According to a Gallup poll conducted in February 2024, 55% of Americans viewed illegal immigration as a “critical threat” to the United States, while another 31% labeled it “important but not critical.”
Johnson and Finnerty also discussed other topics, such as the progress being made on a reconciliation process on the federal budget, President Donald Trump’s efforts to put a “blowtorch to the regulatory state,” and his belief that Democrats lack a clear vision and are “very divided.”
Johnson’s appearance came on the first day of CPAC, the large annual gathering of conservative politicians and activists that normally takes place in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
Earlier on Thursday, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke on the main stage about various topics, including his belief that mainstream American society was creating large numbers of “androgynous idiots.”
“We actually think God made male and female for a purpose,” Vance said. “We want you guys to thrive as young men and as young women, and we’re going to help with our public policy to make it possible to do that.”
