House Speaker Mike Johnson unloaded on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer during a Sunday morning interview, saying that the New York Senator was being intentionally dishonest about which party was driving the ongoing government shutdown.

Johnson joined anchor Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” to discuss the shutdown and whether or not the end was in sight, and he argued that Schumer was allowing the federal government to stay closed in order to protect himself from the backlash he got for moving to keep the government open and avert the last potential shutdown in March.

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.@SpeakerJohnson on the Democrat shutdown: “Chuck Schumer, when he voted for the EXACT SAME measure back in March, took a lot of heat from the left of his party, and he doesn’t want to sustain that any longer. So, he’s doing this and inflicting pain for his own selfish reasons.” pic.twitter.com/ZN8YS74p0C

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 12, 2025

Johnson first responded to Schumer’s repeated claims that Republicans could reopen the government any time they wanted to because they controlled the House, the White House, and the Senate.

“Chuck Schumer is incapable of telling the truth right now,” Johnson began. “I mean, he’s been in Congress for 44 years, Shannon, I mean almost half a century. He knows this is basic civics. Every eighth grade civics student can point out the fallacy in what he just said. It requires 60 votes in the Senate to get this through. We only have 53 Republicans. We’ve got to have a handful of Democrats in the Senate who apply common sense and agree to reopen the government so that we can continue all these discussions.”

Johnson went on to point out that the Continuing Resolution on the table – which would reopen the government temporarily and has already been passed by the House — would keep the current levels of spending as they are and give Congress time to negotiate any changes.

“We just need seven more weeks to finish it, and right now they’re eating up the clock. They’re doing this for political cover,” Johnson explained. “Chuck Schumer, when he voted for the EXACT SAME measure back in March, took a lot of heat from the left of his party, and he doesn’t want to sustain that any longer. So, he’s doing this and inflicting pain for his own selfish reasons.”

Vice President JD Vance argued on Sunday that Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), were more interested in holding the federal government “hostage” than in negotiating an end to the ongoing government shutdown.

Vance, speaking with CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan, said that Democrats did not want to talk about health care — what they wanted was to use the shutdown to make demands until the White House and Republicans in Congress simply capitulated and gave them everything.

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When pressed on why President Trump hasn’t met with congressional leaders at the White House to negotiate a deal to reopen the government, Vice President JD Vance tells @margbrennan: “This isn’t a deal-making. This isn’t a negotiation. This is hostage-taking.”

“If Chuck Schumer… pic.twitter.com/Io73ycakfW

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) October 12, 2025

“When I pressed Leader Schumer on this program just last Sunday about this, about reopening the government, and he said it’s going to take getting everyone in the same room with the President of the United States — only the five people including the president can solve it,” Brennan recalled, asking Vance why President Donald Trump has not demanded that congressional leaders return to Washington in order to get that done.

“Well, as Chuck Schumer said, it’s not all lawmakers, it’s the Senate leadership that really is driving this shutdown,” Vance replied, noting that the Republican-led House had already passed a Continuing Resolution that would reopen the government, at least temporarily.

“But the president says he’s a deal-maker,” Brennan interrupted. “Why doesn’t he force a deal here?”

“Margaret, it’s a totally fair question, and the answer is because this isn’t a deal-making. This isn’t a negotiation. This is hostage-taking,” Vance declared. “Chuck Schumer has not said to us, ‘This is what we need,’ he’s said, ‘Unless you give us what we need, we’re going to shut down the government. That is a totally different thing.”

“If Chuck Schumer wants to come into the Oval Office or come to my house, he is welcome to talk about how to fix health care policy for Americans,” the vice president added. “But you don’t come into the Oval Office and say, unless you, the president of the United States, give us everything that I want, I’m going to shut down the government.”

Vance echoed the sentiments expressed late last week by CNBC anchor Joe Kernen, who challenged House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries directly about the demands Democrats were making.

“There was an election, and the Republicans were put in a position where they were able to pass the Big Beautiful Bill, or as you call it the ‘Big Ugly Bill.’ To then say, ‘We don’t like any of that, so we’re going to shut down the government until you take back all the things that you duly passed through legislation …’” Kernen began, arguing that if the shoe were on the other foot, Democrats would be angry — and rightfully so.

“If Republicans had tried to do that to the Inflation Reduction Act or the — any of the acts that Biden and that administration have passed — if they said we’re going to shut down the government because we don’t like any of those things you did, ‘we’re not going to pay our military, we are going to not allow the government to reopen until you do what we want’ – after an election where the American people put Democrats in power – you’d be going crazy!” he said.