Speaking in a powerful interview on Fox News Channel that came in the wake of news that the government had shut down because Republicans and Democrats in the Senate were unable to strike a deal regarding spending, Vice President JD Vance set the record straight and explained how Democratic demands of free healthcare for illegal aliens, paid for by taxpayers, created the shutdown.
As background, JD Vance had called out that aspect of the situation when speaking about it previously. He said, commenting outside the White House on what happened, “But if you look at the original thing they did with this negotiation, it was a $1.5 trillion spending package . . . [providing] massive amounts of money, hundreds of billions of dollars, to illegal aliens for their health care while Americans are struggling to pay their health care bills. That was their initial foray into this negotiation.”
Slamming that as “absurd,” the Vice President added, “We thought it was absurd. We told them it was absurd. And now they come in here, it’s saying that if you don’t give us everything that we that we want, we’re going to shut down the government. We think that’s preposterous. We think it’s totally unacceptable, and we think the American people are going to suffer because these guys will do the right thing.”
That position proved unbending, as Democrats refused to back off the demands of free healthcare for illegals and Republicans stood behind the Trump Administration’s position that such a spending item would be utterly absurd and unconscionable, and thus no deal could be struck. So, the government shut down after the two sides proved unable to strike a deal on Tuesday, September 30.
VP Vance, commenting on the matter when speaking to Fox News Channel early in the morning on Wednesday, October 1, explained, “What do Senate Democrats ask for? Well, initially they said that they wanted to shut down the government because Donald Trump was a dictator.” He said, commenting on that, that it is “absurd.”
Continuing, he got to the bit about healthcare for illegal aliens, explaining that it was an utterly absurd position. He said, “Then they said they wanted to shut down the government because they wanted hundreds of billions of dollars for healthcare benefits for illegal aliens. That, of course, is also absurd.”
Building on that, the vice president noted that the idea that Democrats are trying to shut down the government to pay for free healthcare for illegal aliens is real, not a figment of the Trump Administration’s imagination, saying, “It’s not something we made up. It’s not a talking point. It is in the text of the bill that they initially gave to us to reopen the government. It’s preposterous for them to run away from it now.”
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Adding that such a stance is utterly ridiculous and not something that the Trump Administration will support, he explained, “Obviously, we’re not going to support healthcare benefits for illegal aliens, but we will work with them to lower health care costs for American citizens if they’re willing to do so.”
Watch him here:
Senate Majority Leader John Thune backed up that point in a press conference of his own, explaining that the free healthcare matter was the critical issue. He said, “We are not going to be held hostage for over $1 trillion in new spending on a continuing resolution. Nor are we going to be held hostage to allow illegals to get free health care.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video