Claim:
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said, “The Democrats are required to open the government. They keep saying Republicans are in charge of the government. We aren’t. Not in the Senate. Sixty votes control the Senate, not a bare majority.”
Rating:
Context
Johnson made the remarks during a news conference on Oct. 27, 2025, as the federal government shutdown entered its 27th day. He was referring to the Senate’s 60-vote threshold needed to advance most legislation.
As the federal government shutdown stretched into its fourth week in late October 2025, social media users shared a video that appeared to show U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., saying Republicans are not “in charge of the government.”
To end the shutdown, the Senate must approve a bill previously passed by the House that would reopen the government.
In the clip circulating online, Johnson is heard saying, “The Democrats are required to open the government. They keep saying Republicans are in charge of the government. We aren’t.” Some versions (archived here and here) included a longer quote in which he added, “Not in the Senate. Sixty votes control the Senate, not a bare majority.”
The Democratic Party also shared an X post (archived) highlighting Johnson’s remarks and contrasting them with an earlier statement in which he purportedly acknowledged that Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House.
Social media users correctly attributed the remarks to Johnson, who made them during a news conference on Oct. 27, 2025, as the shutdown entered its 27th day.
Johnson was referring to the Senate’s 60-vote threshold needed to advance most legislation. Because Republicans hold only a simple majority in the Senate, they cannot get most legislation through without some Democratic support.
In an ABC News livestream (archived) of the news conference, Johnson said Republicans need Democratic support to reopen the government, citing the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and the GOP’s 53 Senate seats. He continued (time code 1:27, emphasis ours):
The Democrats are the ones voting repeatedly to shut down the government. But they’re not opening it back up. They spent most of their time trying to distract the American people from the very simple truth. So I brought you a little visual aid here to just remind everybody what the simple facts are. Four simple facts here.
The Democrats are required to open the government. They keep saying Republicans are in charge of the government. We aren’t. Not in the Senate. 60 votes control the Senate, not a bare majority.
And so point number one, Democrat votes are required to open the government.
Johnson then made multiple claims about Senate Democrats’ alleged demands for reopening the government, including, he said, “$200 billion in health benefits to illegal aliens and noncitizens paid for by U.S. taxpayers.”
Snopes previously debunked a claim that Democrats want to fund free health care for people without legal immigration status. Democrats are trying to extend tax credits that make some health insurance premiums more affordable, but immigrants who are in the country illegally are not eligible for these programs.
Johnson previously acknowledged that Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress at a news conference (archived) on Oct. 22, as the Democratic Party highlighted on X. He said:
On one side, you have the Republican party, the party that controls the White House, the Senate and the House. We call that unified government. It’s the party that won the popular vote in every single swing state and made deep inroads with voters new to the Republican base.
For further reading, we investigated a rumor claiming MSNBC host Rachel Maddow revealed Johnson’s wife’s ties to a hidden LLC suspiciously linked to multimillion-dollar transactions.
