Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer believes every day of the shutdown “gets better” for Democrats.
But it’s not getting better for Americans, Andrew Clyde, a U.S. House rep from Georgia, contends.
And it’s not getting better for U.S. troops who are on the verge of going without paychecks, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday.
The Senate is not currently in session when means the shutdown is guaranteed to last until at least Tuesday when it reconvenes.
"Every day gets better for us. It’s because we’ve thought about this long in advance, and we knew that health care would be the focal point on Sept. 30, and we prepared for it… Their whole theory was — threaten us, bamboozle us, and we would submit in a day or two,” Schumer told Washington-based news outlet Punchbowl News according to Fox News.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Thune said service men and women now face a disruption of pay.
“Our troops, people who protect and defend this country, will start missing their paychecks,” he said.
“Each day our case to fix healthcare and end this shutdown gets better and better, stronger and stronger because families are opening their letters showing how high their premiums will climb if Republicans get their way. They’re seeing why this fight matters — it’s about protecting their healthcare, their bank accounts and their futures," Schumer said.
Democrats’ healthcare fight is for the millions of illegal immigrants who entered the country during Joe Biden’s administration, Clyde said on Washington Watch.
“They’re putting healthcare for illegal aliens above pay for our troops. That’s simply despicable,” he told show host Jody Hice.
The House earlier passed a “clean” continuing resolution which would fund the government at current levels into November while debate continues.
Democrats are trying to gain leverage from the shutdown with hopes of undoing the “Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law by President Donald Trump on the Fourth of July, Clyde said.
Extension of 2017 tax cuts, increased border security funding and increased immigration enforcement are among the bill’s signature GOP achievements.
It also includes $50 billion rural healthcare which right now is clearly pitting one party’s base against the other, Clyde said.
“In the Big Beautiful Bill, you have a $50 billion rural hospital fund. A lot of Republicans are rural. They’re literally trying to take away the healthcare of those in rural districts as opposed to those who live in urban districts.”
“It’s illegal aliens and their healthcare over American citizens and over the Armed Forces and their pay. It’s absolutely shameful that the Democrats would do this,” he said.
Democrats are insisting on Affordable Care Act subsidies, a product of the Obama Administration, which could fund abortion as well as gender transition surgeries and so forth.
Can Dems revive NPR, PBS?
They are also pushing funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, long considered by Republicans as a taxpayer-funded media playground for Democrat talking points.
Trump on May 1 signed an executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR as he pointed to “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.
The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which operates both NPR and PBS, and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and further requires that that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. The White House, in a social media posting announcing the signing, said the outlets “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”
The CPB ceased operations in August after the White House was successful in rescinding roughly $1.1 billion in funding over a two-year span. It marked the first time in five decades CPB had been defunded, Politico reported.
“As members of the House, we have done our job, we have funded the government. It’s up to the Senate right now to do their job,” Clyde said.
