On Wednesday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) said that Republicans saying Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is afraid of getting primaried are “talking about a process question rather than talking about our shared interest in lowering health insurance costs.”
Co-host Joe Mathieu asked, “Talk to me about what’s going on with your leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer. Republicans call this the Schumer shutdown. We hear a lot about what happened in March, that he’s trying to make up for what took place then, that he’s going to be primaried by AOC. Is he in touch with you? What’s his demeanor right now? And do you believe that he’d be primaried if he doesn’t handle this right?”
Smith responded, “I’m just, like, very focused right now on how do we get this problem solved. I would say that Chuck is in close touch with all of us. And when I hear my Republican colleagues throw out stuff like this, I think they’re kind of talking about a process question rather than talking about our shared interest in lowering health insurance costs. And so, I don’t think that’s really that helpful to building the trust that we need to build in order to actually have an open and honest negotiation about how to protect Americans from this big cost spike.”
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