Summary
- A military mom begged Mike Johnson on C-SPAN: “My kids could die.”
- Shutdown halts military pay, risking families’ medical needs.
- Johnson blamed Senate Democrats for the shutdown deadlock.
In a particularly dramatic interaction, a woman identifying herself as a military wife begged the speaker to pass funds or reopen the government so that military families would not be deprived of their salary on October 15.
If Congress does nothing, around 1.3 million military personnel will not be paid. The woman informed Johnson she was "begging." She stated her name was Samantha and her family lived in northern Virginia, close to Fort Belvoir.
Her two children, who suffer from serious illnesses, "may die," she claimed. She clarified that the family is living paycheck to paycheck and that without the money, they might not be able to pay for her children's medical bills and medication.
Johnson has not backed a stand-alone bill to keep paying service personnel during the shutdown, despite President Donald Trump's indications to the contrary. Rather, he has maintained that when the House of Representatives passed a short-term government budget extension, it attempted to vote to pay the troops, something it hasn't done since late September. Since then, the Senate has rejected the bill more than five times.
“The Democrats are the ones that are preventing you from getting a check,”
he said.
At a press conference later that morning, he doubled down.
"We have already voted to pay the troops,"
Johnson said.
"We did it three weeks ago."
Johnson claimed that circumstances similar to hers keep him awake at night. Nevertheless, he held Democrats accountable for her current state of uncertainty.
When the enhanced Obamacare subsidies expire at the end of the year, millions of Americans' health insurance rates will increase. Another caller from Colorado asked Johnson if he would be in favor of extending the subsidies for another year.
As he took calls, the speaker pointed at House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, who this week rejected a one-year extension of Obamacare subsidies as a "laughable proposition."
"You have to ask him why he said that. I'm not sure,"
Johnson said.
"But he and I both know that we have a lot of work to do within our respective caucuses to build consensus around that."
How media outlets summarized the most impactful calls?
Calls made by military spouses were featured in the media, including one mother who said she was scared because the shutdown would negatively impact her care for her medically fragile children. These calls brought a human element to the consequences of the shutdown.
The calls displayed anger and anxiety about federal workers being furloughed without pay, as well as how long the government might remain shut down. News outlets indicated that these hardships are testing public patience.
Coverage portrayed the phone calls as an unusual chance for everyday people to go directly to congressional leadership and to push publicly on Speaker Johnson to end the shutdown.