CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins briefly stunned Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) this week when she asked him about the Trump administration cancelling a billion-dollar energy project impacting his state. Sheehy initially blamed the shutdown, only to learn from Collins that the cut was a Trump administration initiative “months in the making.”
Collins asked Sheehy on Tuesday night, “The Department of Energy just canceled a billion dollars to the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub. Part of that covers your state of Montana, and your governor actually praised it when it was happening, saying it was going to create good-paying Montana jobs and boost American-made energy. They just yanked a billion from that. So is that taking away good-paying jobs in Montana?”
Sheehy replied, “Of course it is. As I said, we want the government to be open. You should be saying this to Chuck Schumer, who’s closing the government down. I’m agreeing we should have the government open right now. This is an unnecessary shutdown.”
Collins followed up, “But you’re acknowledging that what the Trump administration just pulled in funding is hurting your state.”
Sheehy responded, “Having troops not being able to fulfill their functions, having law enforcement officers, having air traffic controllers not be able to direct flights into our airports in Montana hurts our state. Not having federal employees attending, showing up to Farm Service Agency offices during cattle shipping season—that hurts our state.” He added:
Not having
Department of Transportation employees overseeing our highways, our bridges, our airways, our road construction efforts—all those things are hurting every state. So this shutdown is not a good thing, and that’s why we don’t want it to continue. That’s why we’ve voted—we’ve voted eight times to reopen the government, and we’ve not been supported.
Collins pressed again, “Yeah, we’ve pushed Democrats on their stance. We’ve had many of your colleagues on the show, but on this hub specifically, I mean, the Trump administration didn’t have to make that decision. They decided to pull that billion dollars from your state. Do you disagree with that?”
Sheehy replied, “Well, I think the reality is we wouldn’t be here if the government was still open. And now we’re going on to week three of a pretty unnecessary shutdown.”
Collins then added, “Well, actually, Chris Wright, the Energy Secretary—I asked him about that project specifically, and he said they would have done that even if the government wasn’t shut down, that that was months in the making, even before the government shut down.”
“Well, it’s unfortunate we’re still shut down. We shouldn’t be,” replied Sheehy after a lengthy pause.
Watch the clip above via CNN.