Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer joined me to open the show and provide an update on the Schumer Shutdown and when he expects the Democrats to fold (because the Senate GOP is not moving an inch on this absurd bit of theater from New York’s (very) senior senator:
Audio:
Transcript:
We are going to stay focused on the Schumer shutdown from top to bottom. It’s day two. No better person to check in with than the Leader of the United States Senate, Majority Leader John Thune. Senator Thune, welcome back. Always good to talk to you.
JT: Good afternoon, Hugh. Good to be with you.
HH: Has anything changed overnight? Has the buckling of the Democrats begun? Because I think it’s inevitable.
JT: You know, not yet, but I tend to think you’re right, Hugh. I just don’t know how they sustain this position. It’s, they’ve walked themselves, and Schumer has led them in, down this rat hole, and I don’t know how they get out of it right now. But it’s going to take, you know, we need five of them to flip tomorrow on the vote, and we can open up the government and get back to work. But they seem to be really invested heavily in their far-left special interest group strategy. This is the shutdown of MoveOn.org and Chuck Schumer.
HH: Leader Thune, I write a column twice a week for Fox News. And if I get a thousand comments, that’s a pretty good response. 4,000 comments today, and the whole column is about everybody knows that Chuck Schumer shut down the government because of AOC. It’s not like it’s a secret. They tried a bunch of other narratives. Did any of them work? Anyone fall for this stuff?
JT: (laughing) Well, I don’t, I mean, I don’t know how anybody can fall for it. It’s just such a, the narrative they’ve tried to construct out there that this is somehow, they’re trying to manufacture this huge healthcare crisis. And then, they come up with this crazy bill which loaded up with a trillion and a half dollars of new spending and free healthcare for illegals, and it just, it’s clearly, you know, he has to, I guess, he just has to bow at the altar of the far left. And I don’t know, you know, maybe for political survival, but I don’t know how this washes in the long term with the American public. I think the American people see through it. I think you’re right, and most of them realize what we’re talking about here is a short-term extension to fund the government, and then to get back and do the other work. He’s tried to hijack this short-term funding resolution to do a whole bunch of the liberal, left-wing wish list. And I think the American people are seeing through it.
HH: Now my only guess was that Chuck Schumer hired Gavin Newsom’s political team, because they’ve gone so crazy on X that they would come up with this plan. But it does require truth at the bottom somewhere, and there’s no truth to this. Are you negotiating or willing to negotiate on anything? Because I’ve heard from Senator Cornyn, Senator Sullivan, I’ll talk with Senator Daines today. I don’t think they’re in the mood to negotiate on anything.
JT: I think you’ve got to open up the government. I think that’s the bottom line. When they vote to open up the government, we’re happy to talk to them about some of these other things. I mean, obviously, I’ve made it very clear. We want to do appropriations bills. That’s something they didn’t do under Chuck Schumer. And he liked to write those bills behind closed doors in his office, and so we’ve tried to have an open, transparent process. And we want to get back to that. And I think a lot of this rank and file Democrat senators do, too. But he’s got them right now in a tough spot. But I’m hoping that they’ll see the light and realize that this isn’t, this is a losing strategy, and it hurts the very people that they, you know, profess to represent. You’ve got a lot of government employees, and folks across the country who are going to be harmed by this shutdown. And it’s totally, totally avoidable. But Schumer’s put them in this spot now, and I don’t know how they get out of it, but they’ve got to open up the government first and foremost, and then we’ll talk about whatever they want to talk about later.
HH: Senator Thune, a great Buckeye, Ulysses S. Grant, got the nickname Unconditional Surrender when Fort Donelson, which was held by the Confederates in 1862, they wanted to negotiate. And he knew the general, a guy named Simon Buckner, I can’t remember his last name, and U.S. Grant said unconditional surrender immediately. Is that, are you like John Unconditional Surrender Thune right now?
JT: Look, you know me. I’m a reasonable guy, Hugh, but I just don’t know, I don’t know what that is. I can’t figure out, we’ve given them a very clear path out, and that’s where it starts. You’ve got to open up the government. We can’t be held hostage to these crazy, far-left special interest groups. If they start making this the practice, and we start giving into it, it’s going to be, it’ll become the norm. It’ll normalize. I think we just have to, we need to hold the line and stay unified. House Republicans, Senator Republicans, the President of the United States. President Trump is ready to sign the bill. The House sent it to the Senate. All the Democrats have to do is deliver a handful of votes to pass it, and we’ll be back in business. But I just don’t know where that offramp is at the moment, but I think that they’re, I’m glad there are conversations going on. I think that’s healthy, but I also think that these Democrats who want a way out have got to start by opening up the government. That’s what it all gets back to.
HH: Yeah, it was General Buckner who was the Confederate who eventually had to just unconditionally surrender.
JT: There you go.
HH: Let me ask you this. The comment that Senator Sullivan made to me yesterday was that when a caucus begins to believe their leader has put their own interests ahead of those of the entire caucus, the caucus begins to lose faith in the leader. And it was Senator Sullivan’s belief that a lot of Democrats think Chuck Schumer is playing this to help Chuck Schumer, and not them. Have you heard that as well?
JT: I think that, yes. I mean, I think what you’re seeing is, and it’s hard for them to say that publicly, because now they’ve all walked down the plank and voted three times against either the government shutting down or now opening it back up. So, but it seems to me, at least, Hugh, that they’re starting to realize that this was a really dangerous strategy, and one that has some political benefit, perhaps, to him personally, and maybe to the far-left movement. But they’re out of the mainstream of the American people. And most of these Democrat senators, you know, they represent, most of them, blue states. But they’re not states that are crazy left. And I think they’re starting to recognize what happened. And so we’ll see if that fissure continues, but, something’s going to have to give here, because they’ve gotten themselves into a heck of a bad spot, because they, you know, Chuck Schumer deployed a strategy, and they walked blindly and followed behind it, and now I think they’re figuring out it was a strategy that was heading them into a brick wall.
HH: So a couple of last questions. When do you hold the Friday vote? And are you going to hold votes on the weekend, or wait until Monday?
JT: We’re going to vote tomorrow. You’ve got a fourth chance to vote to open up the government tomorrow, and if it fails, then we’re going to have people, we’ll let them think about it Saturday and Sunday, and we’ll come back and vote again on Monday.
HH: And then how do you think this is playing in Virginia and New Jersey where voting is underway? There are a lot of federal employees in Virginia. I don’t know much about New Jersey at all. But it just seems to me that the Virginia employees, especially those in uniform, are not happy about having to worry about their paycheck in two weeks.
JT: I think that’s right, and I think you’re starting to see evidence of that, that even the public employee unions have got to be saying this makes no sense to us, you know? They’re trying to negotiate over this long, special interest, partisan wish list that’s again, written by very left-wing, special interest groups. And how does that help me, a government employee, when there’s a vehicle, a legislative vehicle sitting at the desk in the Senate that they could pick up and pass today. Well, we’re not here today, but tomorrow, and the government opens up, and my job’s safe. And it’s just, again, I think that’s becoming reality and starting to sink it with a lot of those folks. And hopefully, some of those members, Democrat senators from those states, will start hearing the message from their constituents.
HH: Leader Thune, thank you for the update. I appreciate it. I hope this is over by Monday or Tuesday, because it’s just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen a party do. And much as like the Democrats to inflict damage on themselves, it’s not good for the country, and I hope they wake up. Thank you, John Thune. Keep coming back.
JT: Appreciate it. Thanks, Hugh.
End of interview.
