“FOX & Friends Weekend” hosts Charlie Hurt, Rachel Campos-Duffy, and Kevin Corke interview Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and discuss the Big, Beautiful Bill.

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  Oh, you’ve got a live look right there of Capitol Hill, where the Senate’s hoping to vote on The One, Big, Beautiful Bill ahead of the July 4th deadline. The White House, of course, predicting that the legislation will cut the deficit by more than $ 2 trillion over the next deficit. But Trump’s massive legislation is still coming up against some resistance, even from his own party.   Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson just met with the president but remains opposed to the bill. And he joins us now. All right.   I rarely disagree with you on anything, Senator Johnson. You and I are compadres on so many things, all the way back to the vaccine stuff. So tell me, what is — what is holding you up on this, even despite talking to the president?   SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI):  Well, good morning, everybody. Well, let’s just, a little history lesson, use little numbers in a budget process. In the seven years prior to COVID, average deficits were $ 660 billion.   And we had the spending blowout in COVID, deficit of $ 3.1 trillion. And then any sane, responsible president and Congress would have, after the economy healed and unemployment was back to normal levels, we would have come back to those pre-pandemic spending and deficit levels. That’s how President Biden and the Democrats did.   On average, for four years, they averaged $ 1.9 trillion in deficit. So almost three times the $ 660 billion pre-COVID deficit. The problem we have right now is we’re pretty locked, pretty well locked into that spending.   We went from $ 4.4 trillion in spending to over seven this year, about $ 7.3 trillion next year. And the CBO baseline would show about $ 2.1 trillion deficits, as far as the eye can see. The score from CBO on The One, Big, Beautiful would put that at $ 2.4 trillion. So my bottom line is, and you know this, so both your husband and I ran as Tea Party candidates.   CAMPOS-DUFFY:  Yes.   JOHNSON:  But we were $ 14 trillion in debt back then. Now we’re $ 37 trillion in debt. And Rachel, I just can’t accept this is the new normal.   So President Trump, his goal in the Senate was to make the Big, Beautiful Bill even better. I’d like it much better. Right now, I’m not going to vote for a motion to proceed today.   We just got the bill. I got my first copy about 1:23 in the morning this morning. About 300 provisions by my count.   We have scores, just temporary scores, preliminary scores on less than half of that. We don’t even have the scores. The last thing I want Republicans doing, I’m not accusing anybody doing this right now.   The last thing you shouldn’t take the Nancy Pelosi approach and pass this bill to find out what’s in it. We need to know exactly what’s in it. By the way, we need to have a debate.   Five of my colleagues wrote to our conference said let’s — once we get the bill, once you have the scores, let’s have a meeting or meetings where we go through provision by provision, score by score and determine what we ought to leave in. Again, do we really need that additional tax credit when we’re $ 37 trillion in debt? Yes, let’s have that discussion.   We’ve had some discussions on some of the elements but 300 provision — 300 provisions. No. So again, we need to be thoughtful. This is a big bill.   This is an important bill. There’s no need to rush it.   CHARLIE HURT, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  So, OK. And you’ve just spoken to President Trump. What is the realistic option?   What is the realistic timeline for for how you see this going where you can get to a yes?   JOHNSON:  First of all, I have no problem with people putting deadlines. We’re all humans. We all procrastinate.   So this is really focusing our efforts. You know, leadership, committee chairs, Chairman Crapo, his staff. They are working overtime. I don’t think they’re even sleeping.   So again, it’s concentrate our efforts. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing.   And so we’re going to work hard. I’m going to, you know, we’re here in D.C. We’ll stay in D.C. until, you know, we get a result on this thing one way or the other. So again, we’re all dedicated to it.   We all share the same goal. The problem is, guys, we’re cleaning up the messes of buying the Democrats or the wars, a $ 1.9 trillion average deficit. This is not easy. It is hard.   KEVIN CORKE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  Got to get it done either way. You don’t want taxes to go up for millions of Americans. So the hard work continues.   From the great badger State of Wisconsin, Senator Johnson, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate you.   HURT:  Great to see you.

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