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 asked about Biden’s letter to congressional leaders on Friday requesting more money for federal disaster recovery efforts and after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that the department doesn’t have enough money to get through the rest of hurricane season.
In his letter, the president urged Congress to restore funding to the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program, which was facing potential funding shortfalls even before Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the Southeast. The president noted that the White House requested more funding for the program as Congress prepared a short-term funding bill that passed last month to avert a government shutdown.
Pressed on whether he would call 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 said, adding that determining “specific needs and requests based upon the actual damages” from natural disasters takes time.
Johnson noted 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 address immediate needs.
“Then after that, Congress always takes its the due approach of providing what is necessary,” he said. “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 comments come after Biden said in remarks at the White House last week he expects to ask Congress for a supplemental funding request for areas affected by Hurricane Helene.
Asked at the time whether he would ask Congress to return from recess for a special session for a supplemental request, the president left the possibility open, saying, “That is something I may have to request, but no decision’s been made yet.”
Congress has taken swift action on funding natural disaster relief efforts in the past even when it was on recess, a Biden administration official noted when reached for comment.
Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Johnson was also pressed about false claims by some Republicans that FEMA was using funds on migrants that have illegally entered the country instead of on the disaster response, which White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called “categorically false” on Friday.
The speaker acknowledged that the streams of funding for the border and hurricane response are different at FEMA before going on to insist that FEMA’s mission is to help people affected by natural disasters, and not engage in funding that helps migrants who crossed the southern border.
Johnson claimed, without evidence, that the Biden administration, Vice President Kamala Harris and Mayorkas “have been engaged in this program,” saying they used taxpayer dollars to assist migrants with resettlement by reimbursing nongovernmental organizations transporting migrants into the country.
“The American people are disgusted by this, up with it, and so are Republicans in Congress,” he said. “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.
