Katherine Clark Grilled By Reporter About Senate Dems: ‘Is A Shutdown Worse?’

21 hours ago

During Friday's Democratic Leadership press briefing, Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) answered reporter questions about the Senate Democrats' decision to support the budget.

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Transcript

00:00The American people, Catherine Flaherty and Pete Eisenhower.

00:02But is a shutdown worse?

00:04Is a shutdown worse than the bill?

00:06I think the problem here is that's a false question, that's a false choice.

00:10Schumer said it wasn't.

00:12But this is the House position.

00:14That we need to go back to the negotiating table.

00:18Which they walked away from.

00:20They walked away from it.

00:22And it's why you see both the Senate and the House Chairs of Appropriations saying

00:2830 days, give us 30 days to put the American people's voices back in this process.

00:35And when you're in the minority, you only have a few real points

00:40where you can use the powers that you have, the procedural moves that you have

00:46to do the right thing by people who are terrified of where this country is going

00:53and where it's going to leave them and their families.

00:56So back to the negotiating table?

00:59Why is that some wild-eyed idea?

01:02It's like, let's come back together.

01:05If you're serious about cutting costs, protecting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,

01:10our schools, our veterans, come back to the table and work that out.

01:15The choice of having a shutdown when you're the party that runs everything is preposterous.

01:22It's just outrageous they're even trying to say somehow that's the choice that Democrats are making.

01:28You run everything, but what you're trying to do is scam the American people out of their money

01:34and the services they pay for and they deserve.

01:39So, you know, let's be realistic about what this fight is.

01:43We are simply saying, go back to the negotiating table.

01:48It's not about a shutdown versus a particular spending bill.

01:52It's are we going to center around the American people and do what's right for them or are we not?

02:02In all these fun D.C. words, cloture, continuing resolution,

02:07what the American people need to know is that House Democrats are willing to work

02:12in a bipartisan way to keep government open for 30 days.

02:17That's all we want. That's our solution.

02:20It's not perfect. It doesn't solve all of our problems,

02:23but it centers the debate around the American people.

02:26It pauses what would be a reckless shutdown at the hands of Donald Trump

02:32and it says let's keep negotiating.

02:35Let's work on our funding bills.

02:37Let's give Rosa DeLauro and Tom Cole, Patty Murray and Susan Collins some time

02:43to work on these spending bills and then let's come back and let's see what the next couple weeks hold.

02:48But we have to pass funding bills in a bipartisan process.

02:54It's a three page bill probably.

02:56It's not 99 pages that cuts the veterans care that they deserve.

03:00It's a couple page bill. We could put that on the floor.

03:03We can get that done. We can pass it. We can go home.

03:06We can talk to our constituents about this and we can center this around the American people.

Katherine Clark Grilled By Reporter About Senate Dems: ‘Is A Shutdown Worse?’

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