By Leah Barkoukis

[ Leah Barkoukis is the online features editor at Townhall.com. Follow her on Twitter @LeahBarkoukis]

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pushed back on claims from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Sunday, insisting the Republican- passed continuing resolution is nonpartisan.

During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the Louisiana Republican was asked about Jeffries’ criticism of the legislation as a “reckless partisan bill that continues to gut the health care of the American people.” Johnson argued nothing could be further from the truth.

“That statement by my friend Hakeem is absolutely absurd,” he said. “That there is nothing partisan about this continuing resolution, nothing. We didn’t add a single partisan priority or policy rider at all. We’re operating completely in good faith to give more time.

“The only thing that would gut health care, using his own phraseology there, is if we took Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer’s demand here, because they want to cut $50 billion from rural hospitals,” the speaker continued. “That’s the new fund that we added in the Big Beautiful Bill, the working families tax cuts that we passed just a couple months ago. They want to gut that. They also want to hold up all this funding that I listed. I mean, the WIC program is something that we all champion for women, infants and children, nutrition. That would be held up.

“So, it’s exactly the opposite of what Hakeem is talking about,” Johnson added. “The Obamacare subsidies is a policy debate that has to be determined by the end of the year, December 31 -- December 30, not, not right now, while we’re simply trying to keep the government open so we can have all these debates.”