During an interview with House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Wednesday, “PBS NewsHour” co-host Geoff Bennett said that Vice President JD Vance is correct to assert that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have argued that the government shouldn’t be shut down over policy disagreements.
Bennett said, “The Vice President also said today that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, for years, have made the point that you don’t shut down the government over policy disagreements. I have covered enough government shutdowns to know that he’s not wrong about that. Why do Democrats see this moment differently?”
Jeffries responded, “Well, we haven’t shut down the government. Republicans have shut down the government. But, for months, we’ve indicated that there’s a growing Republican healthcare crisis, which includes the largest cut to Medicaid in American history, the fact that hospitals, nursing homes, and community-based health centers are closing all across the country, including in rural America, because of what Republicans did in their one big ugly bill. They refused to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, even though, starting today, notices are going out to tens of millions of Americans indicating that their healthcare costs, their health insurance costs are about to dramatically increase. I think the difference of opinion that we have with the White House and the vice president — and we made this clear in the Oval Office meeting on Monday — is that the time is now to address the Republican healthcare crisis and to act in a way that is commensurate with the crisis that they’ve created with respect to the health care of everyday Americans.”
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