WASHINGTON, D.C. — House Speaker Mike Johnson has raised significant concerns about President Joe Biden’s awareness and control over his administration, recounting an Oval Office meeting in which Johnson claims Biden appeared unaware of the content of an executive order he had signed.
Speaking in an interview, Johnson described a January 2024 meeting at the White House, initially requested by the Speaker to discuss pressing national security matters. Johnson said the meeting was delayed for weeks by Biden’s staff and, when it finally occurred, it became clear the focus was an attempt to secure congressional support for Ukraine funding.
According to Johnson, during a private moment with the president, he questioned Biden about an executive order pausing liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe. Johnson alleged that Biden appeared confused, initially denying the order’s existence before acknowledging it but misunderstanding its impact. “It occurred to me he was not lying to me. He genuinely did not know what he had signed,” Johnson said, adding, “I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, ‘Who is running the country?’”
Here’s the full transcript of the interview:
I do stand by it, and I say this without any personal animus at all. In some ways, I actually feel sorry for Joe Biden. He’s in the twilight years of his life. He obviously has not been in charge for some time. And I know this by personal observation, and now the whole world knows it, and it’s been very concerning to me over the last year and a half since I’ve had this position.
Can you tell us a story when you say personal observation? What thing did you see?
It’s public now because the Wall Street Journal got it and put it on the front page. But January a year ago, almost exactly a year ago. I became a speaker in October 2023, and there were all sorts of big national security concerns and everything going on. And I started to request in a meeting with the President because I’m old school. I’m a constitutional law guy. Speaker of the House should be able to talk to the President, especially in times of great national interest and calamity, but they wouldn’t let me meet with him, and his staff kept getting excuses. This went on for eight or nine weeks.
I’m sorry, Mr. Speaker, he doesn’t have time. What are you talking about? I’m second in line of the presidency. He has time. I need to talk to him. We I can’t say the classified parts, but we had some big national concerns at the time that I was losing sleep over. Finally, I just went to the Hill Press Corp and said, The President is not being allowed to meet with the speaker. There’s a problem. So they started putting pressure on him. Long story short, they finally relented. They invited me to the White House.
I show up and I realized it’s actually an ambush because it’s not just me and the President. It’s also Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem, the CIA director, everybody. And then I walked in the oval and, I know what this is. This is They’re going to hot box the speaker on Ukraine funding. That’s what it was. This is probably third week of January. We sit down, we’re in the midst of it, and the whole conversation, and I’m going, We don’t need to have this conversation. The President reaches over just like this. We’re sitting right next to the fireplace in the oval, and he gets my arm and he says, The speaker and I just need a couple of minutes together.
Would you all just leave us alone? And I looked up on the faces of some of the staff sitting around the wall, and they’re like, No, he did it. So he called it. He’s the Commander-in-Chief, so everybody leaves. And he and I are standing awkwardly in the middle of the oval office, right over the rug by coffee table. I said, Mr. President, thanks for the moments.
This is very important. I got some big national security things I need to talk to you about that I’ve heard, and I think you know, and what do we do? But first, real quickly, Mr. President, can I ask you a question? I cannot answer this from my constituents in Louisiana. Sir, why did you pause LNG exports to Europe? Like, I don’t understand. Liquified natural gas is in great demand by our allies. Why would you do that? Because you understand, we just talked about Ukraine. You understand you’re fueling Vladimir Putin’s war machine because they got to get their gas from him. And he looks at me stunned with this, and he said, I didn’t do that. I said, Mr. President, yes, you did. It was an executive order three weeks ago.
He goes, No, I didn’t do that. He’s arguing with me. I said, Mr. President, respectfully, could I go out here and ask your secretary to print it out? We’ll read it together. You definitely did that. He goes, Oh, you talk about natural gas? Yes, sir. He said, No, you misunderstand. He said, What I did is I signed this thing to… We’re going to conduct a study on the effects of LNG. I said, No, you’re not, sir.
You paused it. I know. I have the terminal, the export terminal in my state. I talked to those people this morning. This is doing massive damage to our economy, national security. It occurred to me, Barry, he was not lying to me. He genuinely did not know what he had signed. And I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, We’re in serious trouble. Who is running the country? I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.