House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) blasted congressional Democrats on Day 16 of the government shutdown, calling out Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for saying “the quiet parts out loud” and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for “bragging” about his party’s rejection of a clean funding bill.
Joining other House GOP leaders in a Thursday morning press conference in the U.S. Capitol, Johnson said Republican members are “helping the American people navigate the mess that the Democrats have created” while the other side is gloating and performing “stunts.”
… Everywhere across America right now, we’re helping small business owners and farmers and ranchers and service coordinators navigate frozen loans and delayed emergency funds amid growing uncertainty about how to keep serving their communities.
All across the country, Republicans are dealing with the very real and painful consequences facing real Americans. Now that’s happening on the Republican side and what’s happening on the Democrat side, you can see it for yourself. Compare what I just told you with what they’re doing. Look at their own behavior. Look at their actions. Don’t listen to the words that people are saying. Look at what they’re doing. Chuck Schumer and Democrats over the last 10 days, here’s a small sample of their activity, okay? We’ve seen performative stunts and TikToks and photo shoots across every inch of this Capitol. We’ve seen Democrats actually toast themselves on the balcony of the DCCC last night while their colleagues voted in the Senate to keep the government closed for the 10th time. We’ve seen not one, but two failed publicity stunts right outside my own office, the latest of which ended in a congresswoman storming the entrance and berating a capitol police officer, who, by the way, is protecting her without pay.
The speaker then referenced Wednesday night’s CNN town hall, which featured socialists Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez blaming Republicans for the shutdown while refusing to negotiate with them.
Both Democrats rejected an offer from Republicans to allow for a one-year extension of healthcare subsidies to end the government shutdown, which Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) confirmed was a real proposal in a statement to MSNBC.
“At some point, Democrats have to take ‘yes’ for an answer,” Thune said.
“I don’t accept IOUs. I don’t accept pinky promises. That’s not the business that I’m in,” Ocasio-Cortez told the CNN audience.
When asked if a similar pledge from President Donald Trump would be enough, Sanders sarcastically replied, “Oh yeah, no doubt, because the president is a very honest man.”
“Last night… many of you saw it. CNN hosted the first socialist town hall, where Bernie Sanders and AOC said the quiet parts out loud,” Johnson said Thursday. “They don’t know what they want to end the shutdown. They couldn’t provide a single viable solution for the mess that they themselves have gleefully created.”
“And by the way, those are the real leaders of the Democrat party,” he continued. “We all know it. AOC and Bernie. Good luck with that.”
Schumer told Punchbowl News last week, “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,” the Senate Democrat leader said.
Johnson went on to call out Schumer’s statement. “And amid all that, Chuck Schumer is actually bragging that every day gets better for his party. As you know, those are his words, not ours,” he said. “All this would be laughable if it didn’t come at the cost of American families. And it really is deadly serious. If it were up to Republicans alone, we would not be in this mess.”
