Steve Bannon Rips Mike Johnson's 'Photo Op' Border Visit

House Speaker Mike Johnson needs to stop talking and start acting on the influx of migrants crossing the southern border, former President Donald Trump's chief White House strategist Steve Bannon tells Newsweek.

Johnson and 60 other Republican lawmakers are scheduled to tour the border on Wednesday in Eagle Pass, Texas, and speak with local and state officials about how to remedy what has ballooned into a wide-ranging crisis that conservatives have pegged on the administration of President Joe Biden.

The number of migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2023 surpassed the populations of 17 states, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In the first 11 months of 2023, at least 2,953,676 migrants crossed either of the United States' southwestern or northern borders, according to CBP data. A video that went viral around Christmas showed a group of people numbering an estimated 6,000 to 7,000, mostly from countries in South and Central America, heading north across Mexico in an attempt to cross over into the U.S.

"Our point the last couple weeks has been very simple: We don't need any more photo ops, no more letters, we don't need any more guys down there in Eagle Pass," Bannon said, referencing a topic he has discussed consistently on his War Room podcast. "We know what's going on."

Johnson needs to focus on one thing, according to Bannon, which is threatening the Biden administration with a government shutdown at midnight January 19 if laws—notably those related to asylum—are not enforced.

A continuing resolution, which passed in November under Johnson's leadership, extends government funding for the departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Energy, as well as for military construction, until January 19. The rest of the government has funding until February 2.

Otherwise, Bannon said, Johnson is "part of it" and "complicit" to the human trafficking, drugs and other nefarious effects plaguing Americans and correlated with the ongoing tumult down south.

On December 21, Johnson wrote a letter to Biden describing the situation at the border as a "breaking point"—tossing blame at the administration and the Democratic-held Senate for ignoring legislation like H.R. 2. That bill, known as the Secure the Border Act, passed the House in May and requires Senate approval to make revisions in respect to border security, asylum and detention.

"All of this is the direct result of your administration's policies," Johnson told Biden. "You have clearly undermined America's sovereignty and security by ending the Remain in Mexico policy, reinstating catch-and-release, suspending asylum cooperative agreements with other nations, ignoring existing restraints on the abuse of parole, and halting border wall construction.

"You also undermined Immigration and Customs Enforcement's core mission, and even used a smartphone app to facilitate the release of border crossers into the United States."

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has also been outspoken on the southern border as well as funding the government, has called Johnson's approach "hypocritical" and says it echoes the governance of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is soon leaving Congress entirely.

Bannon said Johnson is "a good man" who is risking his current political capital by potentially following in McCarthy's footsteps, "kicking the can down the road" on reducing the national debt, geopolitical uncertainty or hoping that enough Democrats reach across the aisle to support bills like H.R. 2.

"Why are they [Congress] off for over three weeks? Nobody else is off," Bannon said. "They should be back in D.C. and should have never left. [Johnson's] got to start embracing the fact that the country is in a crisis. We're in a crisis and he has leverage. He can shut down the border within 24 hours."

Trump, Republican presidential front-runner, has proposed relocating thousands of U.S. employees stationed overseas, at agencies like the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Drug Enforcement Administration, and deploying them at the southern border.