McCarthy Bristles at Reporter Asking His Response to Democrats’ Complaints the Stopgap Bill is ‘Rushed’
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) bristled at a reporter’s question about complaints from House Democrats that the stopgap spending bill was “rushed.”
With hours to go before a government shutdown and his last bill crashing with a thud on Friday after 21 House Republicans voted against it, the Speaker offered a new bill on Saturday, a stopgap bill that would maintain government spending levels for the next 45 days, with the addition of $16 billion in disaster relief funding to respond to the fires in Hawaii, the latest hurricane in Florida, and other recent natural disasters.
The disaster relief was something specifically requested by President Joe Biden’s administration, and has some key Democratic supporters, including Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who previously served as the Director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.
Two major sticking points for Democrats are the omission of Ukraine funding — a Senate version of the stopgap bill included several billions to support Ukraine’s military against the Russian invasion — and the short amount of time to read and analyze the 71-page bill before voting on it.
“Speaker McCarthy, what do you say to Democrats who say that this is rushed, that they need more time to read this bill?” a reporter asked McCarthy in the Capitol hallways. “Are you willing to give them a couple of hours to look through this?”
“How is it rushed, when it’s just a basic CR?” McCarthy retorted. “They’re making lies by saying something about — no, this only goes 45 days. It has nothing to do with anything else.”
According to McCarthy, “the only thing” that was added into the bill were the FAA provisions and the disaster money “that the White House asked for.”
Watch above via CNN.
