Things got very entertaining during an otherwise tiresome town hall event on Wednesday, October 15, with far-left Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) being pressed by a Republican student about what the Schumer shutdown shows about Schumer’s leadership and, as a result, ended up sputtering and looking quite foolish in a humiliating moment for the longtime leftist senator.
For reference, the town hall in which the incident occurred was hosted by CNN, and Sen. Sanders appeared alongside “Squad” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for it. The town hall was meant to cover the ongoing government shutdown, which in going on for sixteen days is already one of America’s longest.
During it, a Republican student from American University named Rohan Naval asked Sanders how the long-lasting, seemingly pointless shutdown reflects on the leadership of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who has been widely blamed by Republicans for creating the shutdown situation.
Freaking out in a frustrated manner and rambling nearly incoherently about the supposed evils of tax cuts, Schumer said, “Well, I think it reflects more on Mike Johnson‘s leadership and President Trump‘s leadership. This is a leadership that said it‘s okay to give a…well, how do you feel? You tell me. You think it‘s a good idea to give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the richest people in the country and then make massive cuts to healthcare for working class people?”
Responding, Naval noted that Sen. Schumer has repeatedly voted for continuing resolutions, and only decided with this one to cause a scene and hold things up. He said, “I think Chuck Schumer has voted for continuing resolutions 13 times in the last four years, and he has the opportunity to vote for one again, but he‘s refusing to come to the table.”
That frustrated Sanders immensely, and the angry senator started sputtering as he declared, falsely, that Republicans aren’t talking. In reality, Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune revealed recently that he is in ongoing negotiations with Democrats to end the shutdown.
In any case, Sen. Sanders angrily declared, “I think…look, as I have said, there are 53 Republicans in the Senate, correct? They need 60. What does that mean? It means you have to talk to the other side. Mike Johnson is not talking. John Thune is not talking. President Trump is not talking. That is the problem.” Watch Sanders here:
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Sen. Schumer, for his part, tried to explain his reason for the shutdown when he told Punchbowl News, “Every day gets better for us. It’s because we’ve thought about this long in advance, and we knew that healthcare 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.”
In contrast, White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson declared that Sen. Schumer and his colleagues are just pushing pain on the American people. She said, in a statement to Fox News, “Chuck Schumer just said the quiet part out loud: Democrats are gleefully inflicting pain on the American people over their push to give illegal aliens free healthcare.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video