House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the Republican party “probably will” try to repeal the US CHIPS Act.

Johnson later reversed his statement, claiming that it was not planned. The comments come after former President Donald Trump criticized the act on the Joe Rogan podcast.

Johnson said the act would be repealed in a campaign stop in Syracuse, New York, where CHIPS could help support a $100 billion fab boom, including from Micron.

He was campaigning with Rep. Brandon Williams, who stepped in to say that he would "remind" Johnson "night and day how important the CHIPS Act is."

Johnson said after the fact: "As I have further explained and clarified, I fully support Micron coming to Central NY, and the CHIPS Act is not on the agenda for repeal. To the contrary, 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.”

The Speaker claimed that he had misheard the question despite being a few feet from the Citrus TV News journalist who asked about the act.

Johnson voted against the CHIPS Act, which is set to lead to up to $200 billion being invested in the semiconductor sector over a five-year period, helping shore up US manufacturing and improve data center supply chains. It has been criticized for being slow to disperse funds.

Last week, former President Trump said on a podcast that "that chip deal is so bad," erroneously claiming that "the good companies" were not coming to build fabs in the country. The world's largest contract chip manufacturer TSMC is set to receive $11.6 billion in CHIPS Act funding - $6.6bn in grants and $5bn in loans - and is building a major fab in Arizona.

Instead, he said that "all you had to do is charge them tariffs," a move which could risk retaliatory tariffs and impact the US chip and data center sector.