Speaking during a wonderful interview on Fox Business Channel, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson exposed how Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer had made a massive mistake in causing a government shutdown over ridiculous spending items, as the shutdown has given the Trump Administration an excellent opportunity to start further clearing out the federal workforce.
As background, the shutdown began on the night of Tuesday, September 30, as Democrats in the Senate, led by Schumer, refused to go along with the Republican-backed continuing resolution to fund the government, instead demanding spending on things like government healthcare for illegal aliens.
Now, as Speaker Johnson explained during his Wednesday, October 1, appearance on Fox Business Channel’s “Mornings with Maria” with host Maria Bartiromo, the shutdown move looks like a big mistake for Schumer because it handed President Donald Trump the “keys to the kingdom.”
Explaining what he means by that, Johnson told Bartiromo, “While a shutdown is very damaging for real American people who depend upon government services, it can provide an opportunity to downsize the scope and the scale of government, which is something that we’ve all always wanted to do.”
Continuing, he explained that Trump can now do what he otherwise likely wouldn’t have been able to, saying, “So, in a way, Chuck Schumer has now handed the keys to the kingdom to the executive branch under President Trump to do some things that we would not otherwise be able to do because we would never get Democrat votes for them.”
Building on that, Speaker Johnson went on to note that, as a result of the shutdown problem, now Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought is now responsible for and engaging in deciding which services to prioritize or suspend because of the shutdown, and so can fire a host of bureaucrats the Trump Administration otherwise couldn’t fire so easily, and can freeze projects that otherwise would be funded and help Democrats.
Returning to the matter of Sen. Schumer and what this shows about his plans falling into chaos, Speaker Johnson then noted, “And Chuck Schumer has allowed that, so from his political perspective, it’s a pretty massive backfire, and there’s a real opportunity for government to work more efficiently and effectively for the people [once] those decisions are made.”
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Watch him here:
Posting on X about what Vought is up to since the shutdown began, Eric Daugherty, a conservative X commentator, wrote, “🚨 BREAKING: OMB Director Russ Vought FREEZES $2.1 BILLION in funds to the blue city of Chicago for infrastructure projects during the government shutdown, “to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting” Russ Vought is having a FIELD DAY right now 😂 This is on Chuck Schumer.”
Similarly, in another post, he said, “BREAKING: OMB Director Russ Vought just FROZE $18 BILLION for NYC “infrastructure” projects – directly impacting Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ home turf, following the shutdown “To ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.” LMAO 🤣 UNLEASH RUSS VOUGHT!”
Featured image credit: By I, DavidShankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2301835