U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is pushing back against the legacy media narrative blaming the Trump administration for the current government shutdown, putting the responsibility on Democratic leaders in Congress.

Johnson told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) decision to refuse to pass a short-term stopgap measure to fund the U.S. government for the next 7 weeks is a “very reckless decision.”

The Speaker emphasized that the House had done its job by send a clean continuing resolution (CR) to the Senate so that appropriators in Congress from both parties could continue to do their work on reconciling 12 separate appropriations bills.

Johnson told CNN that the committees needed extra time to iron out differences and that Sen. Schumer is allowing the shutdown to take place because Republicans refuse to agree to restore taxpayer-funded health benefits to illegal aliens.

The Speaker also listed Democratic leaders’ demands for half a billion dollars to prop up National Public Radio and their insistence on an additional $1.5 trillion in spending.

In response to questions regarding healthcare benefits for illegals, Johnson explained that the Big Beautiful Bill passed earlier this year and signed into law by President Trump, included Medicaid reform that removed ineligible people from the program, including non-citizens and able-bodied workers like young men who are U.S. citizens.

Johnson told CNN that according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the legislation has had its intended effect by removing 2.3 million ineligible enrollees from Medicaid rolls, saving $185 billion dollars and propping up the program for those who genuinely need the assistance.

The Speaker reiterated that Schumer’s decision to allow the government shutdown to take place was a source of “real pain for real Americans” and specified how women, infants and children as well as veterans and suicide prevention programs would not be getting their benefits while the shutdown is in place.

He also pointed to times when the Republicans were in the minority, yet they “delivered the votes to keep the government open” because they “don’t want to hurt the American people.”