Transcript
Steve Bannon (0:00)
I mean, is this. Is this what. What your takeaway is?
Tim (0:03)
Well, not exactly, but I don't know. I guess I'll be the contrary on this. I think that the Democratic senators handled this basically pretty well. Like you're playing chicken with the other. The other. It's like you're playing chicken and the other party wants to crash. Like, you're never going to win a game of chicken against Donald Trump.
Steve Bannon (0:22)
So why did he get into this?
Charlie Kirk (0:24)
I mean, they spent 40.
Michael Pack (0:25)
Hold on.
Steve Bannon (0:25)
They spent 40 days doing this. And I was talking to Senator Kaine a moment ago, and he basically laid out everything that they could have gotten if they never went into a shutdown. He was worried about snap benefits running out. Well, if they never went into a shutdown, snap benefits would not have run out. He was worried about federal workers getting. Getting laid off. Well, if they didn't go into a shutdown, they weren't going to get laid off. And so they spent 40 days saying, this is all about health care, all about the ACA and these subsidies. This is the only point we're going to have any leverage on this. And then now they're like, well, we're going to have a separate vote and the American public will get to see where Republicans stand. And by the way, it sounds like the House isn't even going to take it up.
Tim (1:05)
I hear all that, Katie, but that was the best case scenario from the start, and they had no choice but to do nothing. And here's the reality. If they wanted to get the health care subsidies extended, they needed to win the election last November. The Republicans control all of Washington. Like this expectation that the Republicans are going to wake up one morning and say, you know what we're going to do? The emergency, emergency Obamacare extension. You know, we're gonna make sure that the subsidies for people that are early retirees are gonna continue. It's crazy to think that the Republicans were never going to do that. And the purpose of the shutdown, to my mind, was to demonstrate to the voters as Democrats what their side was on this issue and what the Republican side was. There was not gonna be a tangible policy. The Republicans never even came to the table. The House hasn't been in session for a month. Donald Trump never tried to negotiate. So I hear you, everybody, when they're saying that they wanted more, they wanted to hold out longer, but this is the longest shutdown in history. I remember back when I was a Republican, the Democrats and people like me and the establishment of the Republican Party said the Tea Party's Crazy. Like these guys at the Tea Party are extremists with the way that they are pushing these shutdowns. This Democratic Senate just held a longer shutdown than the Tea Party ever did. So, I mean, I just think that's like, that is about as much as could have been expected given the real harm that was happening to people with the loss of, loss of benefits, loss of jobs, loss of salaries.
