Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) joined Fox News on Friday to discuss a range of issues and was asked to sound off on the Trump-backed “Big Beautiful” budget bill, which he opposes.

On Thursday, Johnson made clear his opposition to the House’s bill. “I couldn’t care less if he’s upset,” Johnson told reporters about President Donald Trump, also noting he just recently got reelected and can’t be threatened with a primary until 2028.

“Okay, so Senator Ron Johnson, I want to ask you about the ‘one big, beautiful bill’ as we continue to hear Democrats speak out against it, although it was able to pass in the House. Barack Obama takes it on in a new post on X, saying this, ‘Right now, Republicans in Congress are trying to push through a bill that would put millions of Americans at risk of losing their health care. They want to cut federal funding for Medicaid, take away tax credits that help more people afford coverage, and raise costs for working-class families.’ Senator, where do you stand on this, as now the Senate is next?” asked anchor Sandra Smith.

“Well, first of all, understand that President Trump is trying to clean up the mess left behind by Democrats and President Biden. President Biden, who went on a spending spree after COVID, you know, listen, during COVID 2020, we had to do something. We had to call in the markets, we had to do something faster, something massive so that markets wouldn’t collapse,” Johnson began, adding:

But by 2021, we already flooded the economy with trillions of dollars, we didn’t need to add fuel to the flame. And I always use the analogy, there’s not an American family if they had an illness, like we had a pandemic in 2020. And they had to borrow $50,000 to pay for medical bills. If that family member got well, or if the pandemic ended, would keep borrowing $50,000 and keep spending at that level.

But that’s exactly what President Biden and Democrats did for four years. So now our debt and deficits have exploded when it shouldn’t have. We should have already returned to a reasonable pre-pandemic level. And now that we’re spending more than $7 trillion, it’s hard to get back down to that level.

“So, but you have said, Senator, that the current bill that’s passed by the House is unacceptable because of what it does to the debt. So what is this bill going to look like by the time it gets through the Senate?” pressed John Roberts.

“Well, that I can’t predict. Again, I think the House – I sympathize with how difficult this process is. But what I’ve been suggesting is you have to go line by line through the federal budget, that is going to take time. We’re not giving ourselves enough time. We have to focus on the real numbers. All you heard in the House was 1.5 trillion, which sounds like a lot. But it’s meager compared to the $89 trillion we’re going to be spending over the next 10 years and the $22 trillion we’re going to add to the debt. Their bill, I believe, actually adds to that $22 trillion. Again, that’s averaging $2.2 trillion a year deficit. That’s completely unacceptable. That’s why I’m saying it’s inadequate,” Johnson fumed.

“Okay, so safe to say that you would not support it in its current form that it passed through the House?” followed up Smith.

“I think we really have to take a two-step process here to give ourselves the time to go line by line. They’re doing it the old-fashioned way – accept most spending, look at a couple of programs, tweak them, have the savings in the out years, have some fake savings. There’s some good work, and there’s no doubt about it. It’s tough. But we need the time, and we need presidential leadership to get on board with returning to a reasonable pre-pandemic level of spending. That’s probably for next year, no more than $6.5 trillion. Right now, we’re on track to be over $7 trillion. That’s completely unacceptable,” Johnson insisted.

“All right. We’ll see how it goes,” concluded Roberts.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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