WASHINGTON – This morning, Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL) joined The National News Desk on Sinclair to discuss Senator Chuck Schumer's government shutdown.
Listen the full interview here.
"The fact is that what the Democrats are arguing for, and asking for, are a return to Joe Biden level spending and Joe Biden policies":
"This is all going to be about what Chuck Schumer decides to do with the Democrat senators in Congress. The fact is, is that what the Democrats are arguing for and asking for are a return to Joe Biden level spending and Joe Biden policies. But Donald Trump is president, the United States soundly rejected the Joe Biden era, and what the Congress was doing at that time under his presidency. And so we’re not going to go back to that. It was crazy policies, didn’t make sense. It put illegal aliens ahead of the American people, and that’s not what the American people voted for last November, and we are going to follow through with Donald Trump’s agenda in Washington. So this all depends on what Chuck Schumer decides to do. Does he want to stand up to the radical left and actually keep the government open, or reopen it now so that the American people can get the services that they need? Or is he going to listen to the radical left and side with illegal aliens over the American people?"
"They’re [Senate Democrats] just not budging because they feel they have to look tough for their radical left base":
"First is you keep lines of communication open and it’s clear that President Trump, Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson have continued to have dialog with Democrats on this. But at this point, they’re just not budging because they feel they have to look tough for their radical left base. A radical left base that is really out of lockstep with the mainstream of where the American people are - that’s just a fact. And so the way you do it is you keep going back to the negotiating table, you figure out where they are today. The other thing is there’s going to be pressures within the Democratic Caucus in the Senate. John Fetterman and two other Democrat senators actually voted with Republicans to keep the government open. So what you’re looking for is another 4 to 5 Democrat senators to say, all right, this is going nowhere. This doesn’t make any sense. Let’s get the government back open and then continue these negotiations and these conversations, I will add, when you talk about the ObamaCare, uh, premium tax credits that were from the Covid era that Joe Biden put into place, one of the big problems we’re seeing is that the Affordable Care Act is not affordable. Premiums have skyrocketed since it was passed 15 years ago. The things that conservatives warned about with the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare have now come true. The premiums are out of control, the deductibles are out of control. It’s not affordable. So what Democrats should do is they should work with Republicans to modernize and reform that system so it actually works for the American people."
"He chose health care for illegal aliens":
"The first thing I would say is just be patient. You know, we’ve been through these things before, and I know it’s tough, but you got to be patient here. Number two, what President Trump is going to do is he’s going to make sure he’s prioritizing the critical services that the American people do need and they’re going to need access to. But there are parts of the government which, yeah, they’re not going to be in operation. But again, that’s cause Chuck Schumer decided he didn’t want them in operation. He did not care about those critical services for the American people. He chose health care for illegal aliens."
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