Speaker McCarthy Attempts to Shift Blame for Looming Shutdown on Biden: ‘If He Wants to Lobby’ Against the Bill, ‘Then the Shutdown is on Him’
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) gave a press conference Saturday afternoon, hours before the government will shutdown if Congress cannot find a way to agree on at least a short-term funding bill, and attempted to blame the potential shutdown on President Joe Biden.
McCarthy echoed comments he’s made before on the topic, saying that he did not believe that Border Patrol agents “should be punished” by not getting paid during a shutdown so he supported finding a way “to keep government open while we finish our job to secure the border.” The Speaker said he planned to “a clean funding stop gap on the floor to keep government open for 45 days for the House and Senate to get their work done,” including a “supplemental portion” to cover what Biden wanted regarding ongoing disaster response for the fires in Hawaii, the most recent Florida hurricane, etc.
He then urged the Democrats and holdouts in his own party to “put your partisanship away” and “focus on the American public.”
“How can you in good conscience think of the men and women who volunteer to risk their lives to defend us, [and] say they can’t be paid while we work out our differences? That is unfair. I cannot do that to our men and women in uniform, and so we’re going to keep government open while we work our differences out and secure our border.”
McCarthy was defiant about the looming threat to remove him from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and other conservative hardliners, responding to a reporter asking if he was “worried about them trying to remove you” by issuing a challenge: “You know what, if someone wants to remove because I wanna be the adult in the room, go ahead and try. But I think this country is too important. And I’ll stand with our military, I’ll stand with our border agents. I’ll stand with those that have to get their medicine from government as well…If I have to risk my job for standing up for the American public, I will do that.”
Another reporter asked later if McCarthy had a “plan B” if the bill didn’t pass, noting that he needed both Democrats and Republicans to vote for it.
McCarthy replied that he was putting forward “a stop gap measure with no politics in it, that says we will continue funding government exactly how it is right now for 45 days while we finish our job,” and “if Democrats want to shut the government down, they vote against this bill.”
He continued by insisting that the bills were “the most conservative [appropriations] bills we’ve ever passed” and the House GOP majority was “achieving things.”
“That is the way we’ll be able to secure our border,” he concluded. “If we shut the government down, the border agents don’t get paid, the border is even further wide open. The president wants to ignore this problem; we’re not going to allow him. He wants to ignore governing? He’s the President of the United States. What has he done about keeping government open? Well, I’ll tell you this. We are putting something on the floor that will continue to pay our troops. And if he wants to lobby against it and tell Democrats to vote against it, then the shutdown is on him.”
Watch above via CNN.
