WASHINGTON — In the closing weeks of last year’s presidential campaign, House Speaker Mike Johnson quickly walked back remarks he made while standing alongside a vulnerable Republican member in New York.
Johnson had pledged to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act if Donald Trump became president — a position he quickly realized was not popular in battleground districts and could hurt his members’ re-election bids.
“The CHIPS Act is not on the agenda for repeal,” Johnson, R-La., said in a statement that soon followed his October comments.
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Fast-forward to Tuesday, and Trump, now president, made a request of Johnson on camera during a nationally televised speech before a joint session of Congress: Repeal the CHIPS Act.
“Your CHIPS Act is a horrible, horrible thing,” Trump said, weaving at Democrats after noting a Taiwanese semiconductor company’s recently announced an investment in the U.S. “We give hundreds of billions of dollars, and it doesn’t mean a thing.”
“All that was important to them was they didn’t want to pay the tariffs,” Trump continued, before addressing Johnson directly. “You should get rid of the CHIPS Act. And whatever is left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt. Or any other reason you want to.”
While Johnson proceeded to stand and clap following Trump’s suggestion, the reception on Wednesday from other Republicans was far icier. Though Republicans were aware of Trump’s opposition to the legislation, senior lawmakers weren’t given a heads up that Trump would make those demands during his joint address, and they have no plans to take up a repeal of the law anytime soon.
“We have too many other items to deal with that are higher on the list,” one top Republican leadership aide said. “I highly doubt this will be addressed in any upcoming package.”
“I don’t see a huge appetite for that,” echoed a senior Senate Republican aide.
The legislation passed Congress with bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It allocated $280 billion in new funding to boost the domestic production of semiconductors and chips, and to bolster research and development. Funding has been awarded to projects in roughly two dozen states, according to the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.
“I’m not sure exactly what he was getting at there,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said. “There are some questions around what that statement meant, but there certainly are ways we ought to be able to take all these restrictions off how the money is being spent. He’s right about that, there’s no question about that.”
Trump, as well as some conservatives, have criticized the legislation as offering subsidies for wealthy companies, with the president suggesting that tariffs would be far more effective in getting semiconductor companies to open up shop in the U.S.
Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Johnson said there is “work we need to do to address the CHIPS Act,” voicing concerns with the Biden administration’s implementation of the law.
He added that Republicans will “wait on” Trump’s upcoming budget proposal to “see how he handles” the CHIPS Act before making any decisions.
“There’s a lot of talk and discussion about it,” Johnson said.
Yet Republican senators who supported the legislation were caught by surprise by Trump’s remarks during his Tuesday address.
Sen Todd Young, R-Ind., said Wednesday that they conflicted with assurances he was given by Trump’s Cabinet nominees in an effort to secure his vote for their confirmation.
“I have to admit, I was surprised,” Young, the lead Republican on the legislation, told reporters. “His comments seemed in tension with the reassurances I had received privately and publicly from his now-Cabinet [members], reassurances which I sought in order to be supportive of certain nominees.”
Young said he’s reached out to the White House after the address.
“We’re working with them, seeking clarity,” he added. “I remain hopeful and frankly my expectation remains that we will be actively working on them to improve the program, and that’s how I’m looking to the future.”
Seventeen Senate Republicans voted to support the legislation in 2022, though some of those members are no longer senators. In the House, just one GOP congressman voted in support — the now-deceased former Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska.
The legislation has been largely considered a successful effort to jump-start chip manufacturing in the country.
“I don’t think that’s likely to happen,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Wednesday when asked if he would support a repeal of the legislation, which he backed in 2022. “The origins of that program started back in his administration, and I think what they produced is huge investments made in the United States at TSMC, Samsung, and Micron and other companies, and it’s made it possible now for the president to announce this additional huge investment by TSMC for advanced semiconductor manufacturing.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a fellow supporter of the legislation, said he would be curious to see what Trump has in mind.
“I’d like to see what he’s going to replace it with,” he said. “Generally speaking, I want to bring chip manufacturing here, but if he’s got a different way to do it, I’m open-minded.”
A second senior GOP Senate aide said Republicans were unlikely to even be able to repeal the CHIPS Act in the coming weeks, given pressing needs around spending and reconciliation bills.
“I just don’t think there’s going to be time with what we need to do on the floor,” this person said. “CHIPS will be complicated to actually unpack too because it has financial hooks already in the states.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a lead author of the legislation, said in a statement Wednesday that the legislation was supported by members of both parties “because we need it to strengthen our national security, stay ahead of China, bolster our supply chains, and bring manufacturing back home from overseas.”
“People are already feeling the positive impacts and new economic energy in their towns in every corner of America, from Ohio to Arizona,” Schumer said. “I do not think the president will find much support in Congress for undermining these CHIPS investments and the massive amount of jobs they are creating.”
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said the CHIPS Act was predicated on lessons learned during the first Trump administration “that when we didn’t have our supply chains here, there were enormous disruptions in things for which there was a global demand and that we didn’t make here, and it jeopardized our national security as well as our health.”
“This is something that was sound policy, that helped us economically, and we should stand behind it,” Baldwin said.
The law was passed under the 60-vote threshold, meaning it’ll require 60 Senate votes to repeal. Republicans hold 53 seats.
“We are seeing this administration with great regularity flout the Congress. … We could see some of that in this dimension, too,” Baldwin said. “I’m not suggesting we will. I’m just saying, we’ve already seen that in other arenas.”
Johnson’s backtracking last fall came as he was in the district of a member who was seeing benefits from the legislation, then-Rep. Brandon Williams, R-N.Y., highlighting the potential political backlash for seeking to undo the legislation.
After Johnson said Republicans were likely to repeal the CHIPS Act, Williams stood next to him and vowed to “remind” Johnson “night and day” about the importance of the law.
“If that’s an important thing for your district, you need this guy there to make that case,” Johnson replied.
Soon after their public comments wrapped, Johnson released a statement saying the legislation may not be on the chopping block but that “there could be legislation to further streamline and improve the primary purpose of the bill — to eliminate its costly regulations and Green New Deal requirements.”
Williams said in a statement that he spoke privately with Johnson after the event and that the speaker “apologized profusely, saying he misheard the question.”
Williams ultimately lost his House race. In January, Trump nominated him to be the Energy Department’s undersecretary for nuclear security.
Allan Smith reported from New York; Frank Thorp V, Sahil Kapur and Julie Tsirkin reported from Washington, D.C.
