Bob Woodward: GOP Using ‘Extortion, Blackmail’ to…

Recalling the 2011 showdown over the debt ceiling on Meet the Press Sunday morning, Bob Woodward warned that a group of House Republicans was again using “extortion and blackmail methods” to hold a vote hostage, this time over Obamacare funding.

“This is really serious,” Woodward said. “Back in 2011, when the crisis visited them, the Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner was running around saying, ‘If we don’t fix this we could trigger a depression worse than the 1930s.’ When I talked to Obama about this, he said it was the most intense three weeks of his presidency.”

“The Republicans are out here, a group of them in the House, essentially using extortion and blackmail methods to say, ‘If we don’t defund Obamacare, we’re not going to do the routine things of government,'” Woodward said.

“We’re in a game of chicken at this point,” conservative pundit Kathleen Parker said. “No one thinks we’re going to defund Obamacare, not even the people who are pushing for it. At some point the Republicans are going to have to blink, and they’re going to fund it. If they pass a bill that doesn’t include funding for Obamacare, then the Senate won’t pass the bill. Someobody’s going to blink. We’re not going to shut down the government.”

Watch the full clip below, via NBC News:

[Image via screengrab]

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