Neil Cavuto Grills GOP Senator: ‘What Happened? You Lost An Election, It Seems Like You Lost Your Backbone’

On Tuesday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) joined Fox News Channel host Neil Cavuto to discuss Johnson’s proposal to cut federal agencies budgets in order to streamline their operations. Cavuto appeared to deviate from the original topic of the interview when the conversation moved on to how the GOP worked with Democrats and the president in order to avoid going over the fiscal cliff. Cavuto, unimpressed with Senate Republicans, asked Johnson pointedly if the Republicans in Congress had “lost their backbone.”

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Johnson began the interview by detailing his proposal to cut federal agencies across the board by 10 to 20 percent in order to make those agencies “far more efficient.”

“What about making you guys, Republicans, more efficient,” Cavuto asked. “What happened? You lost an election, it seems like you lost your backbone.”

“I don’t believe so,” Johnson replied. “I certainly haven’t.” Johnson defended his and his colleague’s actions which protected most Americans from an income tax rate hike.

“President [Barack

] Obama demanded that taxes were going to go up for some Americans, it was just a matter of who and how much,” Johnson protested.

“You knew he was going to do that,” Cavuto replied. “So, this whole kabuki theater of taking it to the last minute was silly.”

Johnson answered Cavuto’s charge by blaming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for failing to lead the Senate to passing a budget in the last four years.

Watch the interview via Fox News Channel:

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