‘Modestly Kafka-Esque’: Sen. Kennedy Has CNN Host Laughing Out Loud Over House GOP Budget Fight

Republican Sen. John Kennedy had CNN host Kasie Hunt cracking up on Friday as he spoke about the “modestly Kafka-esque” situation in the House, where Republicans tanked the “big, beautiful bill” on the budget that President Donald Trump had posted about just hours earlier.

Kennedy joined Hunt for CNN’s The Arena on Friday to discuss the budget breakdown and the upcoming negotiations to try and resolve it, and the Senator, who is known for his colorful descriptions, got several good laughs from the anchor.

“In 300,000 years of human history, nobody’s ever calmed down when they’re told to calm down, so I’m not going to tell my House friends to calm down,” he said.

But he would “gently” remind them, he said, to “take their meds” and to “keep their eye on the ultimate objective.”

“The ultimate objective here is, yes, to reduce spending. And I can come back to that,” Kennedy said. “But number one is to extend the tax cuts. If we do not extend the tax cuts, on December 31st of this year, there will be a $4.3 trillion increase on the American people. Hundreds of thousands of people will be thrown out of work, a lot of those will end up living, I don’t know, living in a refrigerator box behind Outback.”

He also reminded his fellow Republicans not to make the perfect the enemy of the good in trying to resolve the budget dispute.

As they wrapped up, Hunt thanked the Senator for his “parenting and marital advice about telling people to calm down.”

HUNT: I spoke to Kevin Hassett earlier this hour, and he actually couldn’t contain his own laughter, when I asked him about what was going on in the House Budget Committee with these hardliners. What exactly are they accomplishing by doing this?

KENNEDY: Well, look, I see what… You see what the American people see. Um, I would describe it as… I don’t know, modestly Kafka-esque. You have to remember that when you’re dealing with really important issues like the House is dealing with, members of Congress tend to not be like most teenagers. They’re all over 40.

In over 300,000 years of human history, nobody’s ever calmed down when they’re told to calm down, so I’m not going to tell my House friends to calm down. But I would tell them to, uh… Gently, number one, take their meds, and number two, keep their eye on the ultimate objective. The ultimate objective here is, yes, to reduce spending. And I can come back to that.

But number one is to extend the tax cuts. If we do not extend the tax cuts, on December 31st of this year, there will be a $4.3 trillion increase on the American people. Hundreds of thousands of people will be thrown out of work, a lot of those will end up living, I don’t know, living in a refrigerator box behind Outback.

We can avoid that by extending the tax cuts. And that’s the main objective.

The second objective. Is reducing spending. That will lower prices. It will. It’ll lower interest rates. I’m asked all the time, Kasie, see how much spending do you want to reduce? I want to reduce as much spending as we can until we run out of votes. But everybody’s not going to walk away from this happy, you can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and we’ll never get it resolved until Trump weighs in.

HUNT: Well, it certainly sounds like Mr. Hassett believes that President Trump will be weighing in and that the budget hardliners may have a different song to sing. On Sunday and I do appreciate your parenting and marital advice about telling people to calm down.

Watch the clip above via CNN.