book tv.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? it is way more than that. comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers to create wi-fi enabled listings so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. house speaker mike johnson was joined by house freedom caucus chair amy harris and republican dusty johnson to discuss the roles in the republican caucus

that would unify the group. he was other -- he was joined by other house republican leaders for a news conference. their election. thank for you your coverage on c-span. speaker johnson: we leave united as a conference and had a extraordinary leadership team elected. i'm delighted and honored by my colleagues to be reselected as speaker nominee and we'll head into january 3 to make that happen. and in the meantime there was a lot of discussion about the rules package, our conference rules that govern our internal affairs effectively and had two of the leaders -- two of the

chairs of our most important and most active caucuses in the republican congress, the main street caucus with chairman dusty johnson and of course the house freedom caucus compared by dr. andy harris and worked together collaboratively to work with members across the conference with very different ideas and perspectives and come to an agreement about what all that would entail and wanted to give you an opportunity to hear from them and i'm grateful for their time and expertise and investments in making all this work very well today for everybody. i want to give it to dr. harris, go ahead. dr. harris: thank you very much, mr. speaker. the president came down and started asking for unity and asked we deliver to the american public what they asked for last week. obviously we now know what the leadership will be like in the senate and know who our speaker designate is here now and we've been able to work across the conference to eliminate the controversial issues that could have divided us and moved forward together to deliver on the president's agenda.

that's it. that's what the american people expect us to do and the first steps were taken today. very concrete steps. and look, we're behind the president and i want to thank dusty johnson for working to make us unified, to go together to deliver for the american people with mr. trump as the president. and with that, dusty? dusty: i want to thank speaker johnson to make sure to connect people to move the ball down the road. and dr. harris said we have to cut a deal and come together. unity is important. we sat down and began to negotiate and spent an hour together and made good progress and understood, we had an opportunity to set in motion to vacate at a higher than number one and that motion to vacate will be set at number nine and in turn getting rid of

amendments that probably would have divided this conference. andy did a good job of explaining to main street leadership why those amendments would have divided the republican conference. so where are we at today? we're just as dr. harris said. because of this agreement, we're in a better position to move forward the republican agenda, to make sure that speaker johnson, south dakota senate leader jonathan and our president donald trump go forward and do good things for america. this is exactly how we're supposed to come together. speaker johnson: i want to thank these gentlemen again. we'll have a press conference in a moment with the new elected leadership and have a conference but i wanted you to hear from both these chairman and thanks for your hard work and we'll be right back with you, ok? the stl

where leader are speaking. >> elise is leaving and is a loss to our conference. she's done incredible work and i will build upon her success and wish her well. as a leadership team, we are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with president trump to legislate our america first agenda. our winning message resonated with the american people which

delivered republicans a trifecta in government. house republicans have been laying the groundwork for months and we are ready to govern. i look forward to all that we will achieve together. and with that, i will bring up our new conference secretary, erin houchin. ms. houchin: thank you. i'm delighted to serve as the secretary for the 119th congress. i'm ready to get to work to start implementing president trump's agenda to work alongside him every day to get this country back on track. i'm now proud to introduce our conference vice chair, blakemore. mr. moore: hello, everyone. exciting times. good to be back in session off a really strong message from the american people that we need conservative leadership to govern our country, move things in the right direction. kid tell you that the conference is excited about the

opportunities that lie ahead, primarily legislatively. we've been battling building good, strong legislation to address energy, to address border, all the issues we know americans are focused on. it just goes to die in the senate. we're looking forward for an opportunity to move the legislation we built last term and move it on to the next. i'm excited and thank you to everyone on the leadership team and look forward to a full term as i came in mid cycle and excited to introduce our policy director, policy chair, mr. kevin hern. mr. hern: it's an honor to serve as policy chair going forward. as we look at the policy that's been put forth on the campaign trail of president trump, the mandate has been set, 312 electoral votes, over five million popular votes. it's pretty clear what the american people want. we'll work hard together. we have a great team. we'll work hard with the leadership team to put the policy forward and take the

relationships built on the r.n.c. and work together to make sure we get america back on track and put america first, the make america great agenda back in play and look forward to doing it. i'm so excited with the great opportunity. with that i want to introduce our current r.c.c. chair, and returning, the great richard hudson. mr. hudson: thank you. i want to welcome the new members of this leadership team. i'm proud to serve alongside each one of you. they bring unique talents and backgrounds and will strengthen our team going forward. we ran our last campaigns based on issues that mattered to the american people. the democrats on the extreme leadership of joe biden and kamala harris and hakeem jeffries in the house made every american less prosperous and less safe. our candidates went out and talked about those issues. we talked about energy, we talked about inflation, we talked about the border and the crime of fentanyl that comes from that. and we told the american people our ideas to fix it and they gave us a mandate.

together with president trump and a republican senate, we're going to start delivering on that from day one. thank you. i'll now bring up our great whip, mr. tom emmer. mr. emmer: thanks, richard. i first want to say thank you to my house republican colleagues for electing me to serve as their majority whip once again. it's a privilege and a responsibility i do not take lightly. we treat the whip office like a customer service office. we are here to serve our members and the people they represent. we don't take anyone or any vote for granted. and we will continue building a culture of teamwork, communication, and respect to deliver more wins on behalf of the american people. now that we have our leadership team in place, it's time to suit up and get to work. president trump delivered the greatest political comeback in american history based on his proven record and promise to make this country great again. voters also gave him a republican senate and a

republican house to help him do it. now it's our turn, our turn to make good on the priorities we've been campaigning on the last two years by passing legislation to make life more affordable for all americans, secure our borders, unleash american energy, restore our dominance on the world stage and lower taxes for hard-working families. we've got the team, the work ethic, and the plan to do it. now with the trifecta in hand, we stand ready and united behind president trump to deliver on his american first agenda once and for all. as the 118th congress proved, it may not always be smooth sailing and we may have some disagreements along the way, but i've always been a firm believer there's more that unites us than divides us. so long as we work together as a team, i have no doubt we will seize the opportunity in front of us and put our country on a better path for generations to come. with that, i'll turn it over to our great majority leader, steve

scalise. mr. scalise: thank you, whip. i, too, want to thank our new members of this really strong unified leadership team in kevin hern and erin houchin and our conference chair lisa mcclain and i'm real excited about the selections our conference made today. we'll miss elise stefanic and she served our country so well for so many years as our conference chair but there are bigger things ahead for her. and we know that president trump will benefit tremendously from elise being the u.n. ambassador. the world is going to see what we've all known, she's a strong leader and will do a great job representing american values and views and trump's foreign policy at the united nations where it's so desperately needed. when you think how we started this morning, we had president trump come talk to us about what

is ahead in this unified government. we went around the country and you could see the energy around the country when president trump talked about what he'd do to make america great again, it's not just a tag line on a hat. it's what we're going to do to secure america's border and how we'll lower food costs and energy costs for those families struggling across this country who have been scrambling for someone to hear their plight and president trump did, he won every swing state because he had a message that was focused on those hard-working families struggling and they responded by giving us this overwhelming mandate. we're already working to deliver on this promise. we're excited for the opportunity for the american people to fight and get those policies put in place now that will lower their food costs and

closer their energy costs and secure the border working with president trump to deliver a better america. i'm proud to say the leader of that effort in the new republican majority who was elected today unanimously by our members to be the speaker of the house again marshaling through this effort is our speaker today and our speaker tomorrow, mike johnson. speaker johnson: thank you. thank you. thank for you being here again. it's a new day in america. yesterday morning we began on the steps of the house as everyone was flying in to begin work again as we complete the 118th congress and we celebrated what is a new beginning, really, a new morning in america, a new day in america. so today we began this morning, as steve scalise just told you, our majority leader, we began with president trump and he came to visit us. it was a bit of a pep rally. everyone feels very confident and encouraged about the days ahead and gave us a very inspirational message and talked

about the importance of maintaining unity and standing with this leadership team to go forward. it was very well received and set the tone for our day and we had a very productive day together at the republican conference and the theme you'll hear over and over from all our members across the conference is that we are unified and energized and ready to go. we have to deliver for the american people beginning on day one in the new congress and we will be ready for that. i want to congratulate these new leaders that have been duly elected to help serve the conference as an extraordinary leadership team and those that have been re-elected who have earned those positions well. this was a group and a body today that worked together and did some really extraordinary things, putting together a leadership team and decided upon our conference rules. i want to again tip my hat to the chairs of two of our most important and active caucuses within the republican conference, the house freedom caucus, dr. congressman harris and congressman dusty johnson of the main street caucus who

worked together with a subgroup of members to work through a very delivered process to come up with the rules. we come out of this excited to deliver the america first agenda for the american people like the majority leader said, we traveled all around the country, all of us did. we all campaigned for our colleagues throughout the year and felt the energy on the grown, as steve said. and we took the temperature of the american people and heard their concerns. we heard no matter where you are in the country, north, south, east, west, the number one concerns were the cost of living, the wide open border, the instability on the world stage, the weakness that's gotten us into the most dangerous situations since world war ii. they were worried about instability and insecurity, the radical progressive woke agenda. people have had enough of that. we'll present solutions to the great challenges facing the country and we're excited to do it. i know you're tired of hearing my football metaphors but we have a well designed playbook and will begin to execute those

plays with precision on day one. our new and incoming members, we're here for new member orientation, they were a part of it today and we're preparing the players now to take that field beginning early in january when all this begins again on january 3. we'll wrap up the work of the 118th and get that work done and move into the new congress with excitement and delivering on the promises that we have made to the american people. we're grateful to be working hand in hand with president trump and to take this energy into the new year. we'll take a few questions. i know you have several. yes, sir? reporter: thank you very much. president trump announced the nominee of the next attorney general of the united states. what do you make of the nomination and how do you feel about his impending departure from the house? speaker johnson: i talked to matt after that nomination was made. in fact, president trump told me when he walked in and we were behind the curtain and tipped me off that would be happening. me and matt were teammates and came to the 115th congress and

alphabetically are seated next to each other in the judiciary committee and served there together for seven years. some of you who cover judiciary know they are long meetings. i got to know matt very well. everyone who served with him will tell you he's one of the most intelligent members of congress. he's an accomplished attorney. he is very concerned about the law fair that's been occurring in the department of justice under the biden administration and the fact the american people have lost their faith in their institutions of justice because of everything they've seen. he's a reformer in his mind and heart and think he'll bring a lot to the table on that. i think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately of congress. that caught us by surprise a little bit but asked him what the reasoning was and he said, well, you can't have too many absences so under florida state law, there's an eight-week period to select and fill a vacant seat and so by doing so

today, that allows me -- i've already placed a call to governor desantis in florida and said let's start the clock. he's in italy at the moment and we'll talk first thing in the morning about this. if we start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as january 3 when we take the new oath of office for the new congress. matt would have done us a great service by making that decision as he did on the fly and is so we're grateful for that. we move forward. i'll say this, people have asked me all day long. president trump is poaching all your talent, yes. we have an embarrassment of riches here. the republican conference is full of talented people who are extraordinary leaders and have great expertise and everyone in this congress -- in this conference could serve in a leadership position in the administration but i have begged and pleaded with the new president, enough already. but because our numbers are small, we are going to have the majority and we're celebrating that. i think it could be as high as a five-seat margin but we'll have some of these vacancies open as

we begin the year and fill them as quickly as possible. we're excited for these colleagues to have these career opportunities and new opportunities to serve the country as we move forward. yes, ma'am? reporter: how are you -- [inaudible] speaker johnson: the question was about the mandate that the american people have delivered us. it was a historic election. president trump won the popular vote and the electoral college by a very wide decisive margin and house republicans received as many votes, i think it's been many decades since house republicans receiverred as many collective votes over democrats nationwide. we do have the mandate. we take the responsibility seriously. you can make an argument that we're facing collectively as a nation the greatest collection of challenges we've had probably since world war ii and maybe the civil war, some people say. serious times call for serious leadership. it's going to be a policy agenda

driven administration in the congress and you've heard us say many times, and i believe it will be the most consequential congress in the modern era and so what will be required of us is to plan deliberately and execute with precision. we're going to deliver to the american people. we're going to bring down the cost of living. we're going to turn american energy dominance back on. we'll take care of our stature on the world stage to secure peace through strength again. all the things that are concerning people from woke ideologies in the schools and business place, to all the other chaos we've seen with rising crime rates and everything around the country, we have solutions for all that. we had a demographic shift in this election. we had large groups of voters that came into the republican party, who had never been there traditionally in large numbers before. our opportunity now is to embrace all those new folks who

have come in and demonstrate for them that it is our policies that lead to human flourishing. these are the best policies for their individual benefit, for their families, community, states and nations as a whole. we are excited about that. we're excited to begin delivering. you'll see a lot of action early in the congress. reporter: since you breck the news that he resigned immediately, so the committees investigating him have no jurisdiction because he's not a member of congress. is that a concern that that will never see the like of day? mr. johnson: it is true that former member of congress, house ethics committee, would have no further jeurts diction over that person, no authority over them that would not be unprecedented. as far as timing to release a report, i don't know. the speak ore they have house is not involved in that, can't be involved in that. i'm not the one to apps that

question. >> is president-elect trump considering the house majority when making decisions about the cabinet? is he considering that? do you feel comfortable with he majority going low her mr. johnson: i'm not comfortable with that. president trump and i have spoken many time, and with his transition team, everyone involved, he is at mar-a-lago making consequential decision, i'm trying to be involved in as many as i can while also trying to manage this congress and planning for the next. i'll make a trip down there tomorrow evening for to a gaza for the america first and i change my plans to go to mar-a-lago for the weekend so i can be there while more dilingses are being made. he's very aware of the margin, the size of the margin. but he has an administration to fill, a cabinet to fill. and he's keeping all this in mind at the same time. we're both very aware of the margins and the size.

everyone is keenly aware of it as well. and that's why we're emphasizing unity right now. i'm hopeful about that. i think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. i think we'll get these seats filled, these are reliable, republican seats, we'll have strong candidates presented who will win the elections in short order. by early spring we'll have these seats fill and keep moving forward. >> mr. speaker, you mentioned congressman gaetz ve sining early that will allow florida to have a special election sooner. congressman waltz is also from florida have you talk thoimed about doing something similar? because that would apply to his seat as well? mr. johnson: he's got to make his own determination. for the position congressman waltz has been chosen for he doesn't need senate confirmation. i'll talk with him tonight and tomorrow about that to figure out the best timing heemps a team player as well and wants to do what's right for the conference and for the country and i'm confident he will. he's going to do an

extraordinary job in his position as is elise stefanik and i'm sure matt gaetz. there are other here who president trump has interest in serving noar positions, and i said, please, sir, no we have great talent here. excited for that. excited to work with this team. they're a great group of people, excited to serve the country, they're going to work for their constituents and for america. thank you so much for being here today. bless you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] >> senator thune spoke with reporters after winning the election to a vote 29-24. they outlined priorities and the biggest issues to americans in that 2024 election.