In a Fox News interview Friday, President Donald Trump dismissed congressional Democrats’ demands ahead of a looming shutdown deadline, casting doubt on the possibility of a deal to keep the government open.
“There is something wrong with them,” Trump said about Democrats in a rare in-studio “Fox and Friends” interview. “If you gave them every dream right now, they’d give it all away and destroy the country. If you gave them every dream, they wouldn’t vote for it.
“Don’t even bother dealing with them,” she said. “We will get it through because the Republicans are sticking together for the first time in a long time.”
Lawmakers have until midnight on September 30 to reach a funding agreement. Republican congressional leaders are considering a “clean” stopgap that would maintain current spending levels, with a few exceptions, until late November.
However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stated this week that Democrats will not vote for such a bill unless there are bipartisan negotiations. Both leaders have stated that health-care concessions, such as extending soon-to-expire insurance subsidies or restoring Medicaid cuts included in the GOP megabill, are required for a deal.
Democrats have a say in the matter because any funding agreement requires 60 votes in the Senate, where the Republicans hold a 52-vote majority. However, Trump suggested on Friday that he was unaware of the mathematics.
“We need to get Republican votes. “That’s all,” Trump stated. When asked about the 60-vote threshold, Trump responded, “No.” We are going to do something, most likely a continuing resolution. So we’re going to do something,” he explained.
“Here is the problem,” Trump quickly added, “that the Democrats have: they are sick. There’s something wrong with them. Schumer is at the end of his rope.”
Trump’s comments came after The Associated Press published an interview with Schumer on Friday, in which he reiterated that Democrats would not support a clean GOP-led stopgap unless health-care gains were secured.
The New York Democrat also stated that he is less hesitant to initiate a shutdown now than he was in March, when he warned that a shutdown would only allow Trump to gain more control over the federal bureaucracy.
He continued: “It will get worse with or without [a shutdown], because Trump is lawless.”
CORRECTION: The title of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was incorrectly stated in an earlier version of this report.
