Republican Senator Asked If He Was ‘On Acid’ After He Heard White House Opposes New Funds for Testing: CNN
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There’s been some reporting on Republicans clashing over a new proposed round of stimulus to address the coronavirus crisis.
As the New York Times reported, Senate Republicans and the White House have still been “fighting among themselves over how much money to devote to testing and the federal health agencies on the front lines of the virus response, whether to include a payroll tax cut that Mr. Trump has demanded, and how to address the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits at the end of the month.”
During a private lunch, some Republicans reportedly “balked at the prospect of doling out another trillion dollars in taxpayer fund” and at one point Ted Cruz apparently asked, “What in the hell are we doing?”
Cruz reportedly argued that they should “prioritize reporting the economy” because if it failed to recover, Joe Biden would win in November.
Rand Paul was more public about his issues with colleagues, saying of the arguments over spending, “I find it extraordinary that I came from a GOP caucus meeting that could be the Bernie Bros, or progressive caucus.”
The Times report also detailed how White House officials started to “warm to the idea of allocating billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing and top health agencies” after administration officials over the weekend “reject[ed] those proposals.”
The Washington Post too reported that ‘Over the weekend, the White House had opposed new money for testing, but Senate Republicans pushed back.” Afterwards, the Post notes, “the White House appeared to be shifting its position.”
CNN’s report on the lunch includes a striking detail on how stunned one Republican was by that:
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, recounted for colleagues how he asked himself if he was “on acid” when he heard the White House wanted to zero out new funds for testing in the middle of a pandemic.
As one GOP senator told CNN Tuesday night: “A lot of people had a lot to get off their chest.”
