SCHUMER'S SHUTDOWN: JD Vance slams NY Senator for allowing government shut down

Speaking in the Senate on Wednesday morning after the US government went into a partial shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed that President Donald Trump and Republicans "barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect Americans’ healthcare." Vice President JD Vance told reporters that the country went into a shutdown because Schumer "is listening to the far left radicals in his own party because he's terrified of a primary challenge," and because Democrats are trying to give illegal immigrants healthcare benefits. 

"Donald Trump and Republicans have barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect Americans’ healthcare. It’s clear that the way out of this shutdown is to sit down and negotiate with Democrats to address the looming healthcare crisis that faces tens of millions of American families," Schumer said. "Democrats want to avert this crisis, but Republicans tried to bully us, and it’s clear they can’t. They don’t have the votes. The way out of this is for Republicans to finally roll up their sleeves and get to work."

He claimed that the continuing resolution that would fund the government is "partisan" and "fails to protect Americans’ healthcare and does nothing, nothing, to fix the healthcare mess that they created."

Vance took aim at Schumer during Wednesday’s White House press conference, saying, "I think a lot of Americans are asking themselves, why did this happen? Why did the Democrats shut down the government despite, as Karoline said, voting on the exact same piece of legislation six months ago? And there are a lot of different spins that we can put on it, a lot of different answers that we could give, all of them true. One answer I already gave is that they want to give health care benefits to illegal aliens. That is true."

"They gave us legislative text that would have undone us cutting off health care benefits for illegal aliens. That's one of the things that they asked for. But the reality here, and let's be honest about the politics, is that Chuck Schumer is terrified she's going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The reason why the American people's government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far left radicals in his own party because he's terrified of a primary challenge."

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about the possibility that Schumer was worried about a primary challenge ahead of the shutdown. "And so, because of that, worry about a primary challenge, he’s gonna shut down the government. Ergo, it is AOC’s fault that the government is shutting down, or that you’re somehow the fulcrum of this. And I wanna just ask you straight up, like, are you planning to primary challenge him? Do you think that’s why he’s doing this?"

"This is so not about me in this moment," she said. "This is about people being able to insure their children. And I will say, because I saw some senators speculating about this, and I saw some Republican members of Congress saying, 'Oh, well, if we have this shutdown, it’s because of AOC.’ Well, if that’s the case, my office is open and you are free to walk in and negotiate with me directly, because what I’m not going to do is tolerate  four million uninsured Americans because Donald Trump decided one day that he wants to just make sure that kids are dying because they don’t have access to insurance."

That’s what’s not gonna happen. And so if those senators think that we’re having a shutdown because of me, they’re free to enter my office and negotiate, because what we’re not going to do is allow all of millions of people in this country to not be able to afford their insulin and their chemotherapy. So, come strike a deal with me, if that’s what you really think is going on.

During an appearance on CNN Wednesday morning, the outlet played numerous clips of Schumer’s past statements opposing government shutdowns. Referring to his March statements, Schumer said, "That was in March before they had done these horrible things to healthcare, before they had introduced these rescissions which would allow them to ignore the budget process. And the bottom line is, when I was the majority leader, we had 13 times to vote on a budget. Do you know why there was no shutdown? We sat and negotiated with the Republicans every time."