Sen. Ron Johnson says Trump can’t bully him off his deficit-reducing demands

The Oshkosh Republican said he will block the president’s debt-increasing “One Big Beautiful Bill” if it doesn’t cut federal spending.

By Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT

With a small group of protestors shaking signs outside and speaking before a group of reporters and others inside, Sen. Ron Johnson said Wednesday that President Donald Trump could not force him off his blockade of Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” without significant reductions in spending and a process to maintain fiscal responsibility. The megabill projects to add more than $3 trillion to the national debt.

“There’s no amount of pressure that President Trump can apply to me that exceeds the pressure I feel, the promises I made to stop mortgaging our children’s future,” he said. “My loyalty is to the future of this country. My loyalty is (to) our kids and grandkids, whose future is being diminished because of what we’ve done to them already.”

Speaking at a podium to the Milwaukee Press Club at the Newsroom Pub in downtown Milwaukee, Johnson bemoaned the continued rise of federal government spending, as well as the national debt, which sits at nearly $37 trillion. He said he would oppose the megabill unless it cuts federal spending and reduces the deficit.

“I’m not looking forward to it,” Johnson said of a potential collision with the president. “I support President Trump. I want him to succeed. I want America to succeed. But we won’t succeed if we hit a debt crisis.”

The GOP megabill would enact a lot of things in Trump’s agenda, including extending his tax cuts from his first term, cutting funding to things the party doesn’t like, such as Planned Parenthood, and work requirements for Medicaid and food assistance.

The political left’s solution to reducing the debt and deficit is to raise taxes on the wealthy. But regarding Trump’s tax cuts, Johnson said he wants to extend “current tax law.”

“I don’t want an automatic tax increase,” he said. “I want to bring certainty to the economy.”

At another point, Johnson said about tax increases, “If you punish success, you get less of it. But you can focus on spending. That’s the more controllable figure.”

Without more spending cuts, the GOP megabill will add trillions to the national debt, Johnson said, noting the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had also made that estimate. The bill passed the U.S. House with the narrowest of margins: by one vote. With a 53-seat majority in the U.S. Senate, Johnson needs three other Republican senators to block the megabill and get the changes he wants. He told the Milwaukee Press Club he has those votes.

Trump is well-known for threatening members of his own party with a primary challenge if they push back too much on his demands. Sen. Tom Tillis of North Carolina initially was stridently opposed to approving Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Fox News host Pete Hegseth. But the president openly asked other North Carolina Republicans who wanted his endorsement to challenge Tillis, according to news reports, and the senator ultimately voted to approve Hegseth.

Johnson is not up for reelection until 2028, when Trump will be ending his second and final term in the White House.

Asked if he will run for a fourth term, Johnson, who originally pledged to only run twice, said never say never.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “I’d like to dig my heels in now, set this nation on a sustainable course and then go home. Maybe I’m somewhat unique in Congress in that I’m willing to do these things, I’m willing to speak out, I’m willing to say what these truths are, even though they’re very unpopular, because I’d rather go home. I don’t covet the position. I’m just a guy from Oshkosh really trying to save this country.”

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.