The Republican Occasion has devolved right into a round firing squad as its authorities shutdown enters its second week, with GOP leaders struggling to remain on message to keep away from blame.
As Democrats stay unified and steadfast of their assertion that Republicans want to barter with them on extending well being care subsidies to stop Individuals’ from seeing huge spikes in insurance coverage premiums, congressional Republicans are unable to get on the identical web page about their technique as polling exhibits that voters blame them for the shutdown.
Senate Majority Chief John Thune speaks with reporters in regards to the GOP’s authorities shutdown on Oct. 3.
“I’m certainly open to that,” Johnson stated. “We’ve done it in the past. We want to make sure that our troops are paid.”
However then Thune instantly shot that down.
“You don’t need that,” Thune interjected. “The simplest way to end it is not try to exempt this group or that one or that group. It’s to get the government open.”
There are additionally cracks forming within the GOP’s lies about what Democrats are asking for of their funding negotiations.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who’s often a loyal servant to President Donald Trump, is criticizing her personal social gathering for not negotiating with Democrats to increase Reasonably priced Care Act subsidies. If subsidies aren’t prolonged, hundreds of thousands will see their premiums greater than double.
The truth that Greene is backing Democrats—who’re demanding that Republicans negotiate with them to increase well being care subsidies for low-income Individuals—is clearly attending to GOP management.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
“The story is getting old,” Thune whined on Wednesday to reporters, who for as soon as are literally doing their job by refusing to parrot GOP lies. “You’re trying to find new angles, it’s the same conversation we’re having: Fund the government.”
In the meantime, Republicans are additionally struggling to defend Trump’s threats to hold out mass firings of federal staff as punishment for the shutdown, in addition to withhold again pay to federal workers who’ve been furloughed.
GOP lawmakers are enjoying dumb about whether or not Trump’s withholding of again pay violates a legislation that most of the similar GOP lawmakers helped move again in 2019, throughout certainly one of Trump’s many authorities shutdowns.
“I’m not familiar, exactly, with the statute that they might be citing, but I do know that there are going to be a lot of people starting this week, who are either not going to get fully paid or being partially paid or not paid, and next week, the military gets hit by this,” Thune instructed reporters Tuesday. “So the sooner they vote to open up the government, the sooner this becomes a nonissue.”
GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who often serves as Trump’s assault canine, struggled mightily in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins to defend Pricey Chief on withholding pay.
“So you voted in 2019 that federal workers who are furloughed should get their back pay. So why is your position different now?” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins requested Jordan.
“It’s not different now. It depends on what the president decides to do,” Jordan replied, admitting that he thinks it’s high-quality if Trump decides to interrupt a legislation that Jordan himself voted to move.
A cartoon by Clay Jones.
What’s extra, it appears that evidently even the evil goons in Trump’s administration are getting chilly ft in regards to the job cuts and threats to withhold pay, as they’ve but to really pull the set off on any of it.
“There’s an increasing acknowledgment within the West Wing that the politics of RIFs [reductions in force], at a moment when we know our message on the shutdown is the better one, would be better later,” a White Home official instructed CNN. “And we do not want to appear gleeful about people losing their jobs, of course.”
Positive, the administration that has gleefully gotten rid of a whole bunch of hundreds of federal workers doesn’t wish to appear enthusiastic about reducing much more jobs.
So as to add insult to harm, polling continues to point out that Individuals blame Trump and Republicans for the shutdown greater than they blame Democrats—the most important signal that the GOP’s lies in regards to the shutdown aren’t working.
A Navigator Analysis survey launched Wednesday discovered that 39% of registered voters blame Trump and Republicans, whereas simply 28% blame Democrats.
“A reminder on the 8th day of this Republican shutdown: Speaker Johnson could call Members back to negotiate to re-open the government any time he wants. He’s choosing not to,” Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington wrote on X. “Republicans would rather raise costs and kick millions of Americans off their health care.”
And that’s precisely what they’re doing.
