Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Angus King (I-ME) said the Democrats “standing up” to President Donald Trump with a government shutdown “didn’t work.”
Host Joe Scarborough said, “Why did you decide to vote with Republicans to open the government?”
King said, “Well, Joe, you have to go back to what the strategy was at the beginning of the shutdown. There were two goals, both of which I support. One was standing up to Donald Trump. The other was getting some resolution on the ACA premium tax credit issue. The problem was, the shutdown wasn’t accomplishing either goal. And there was practically, well, it was zero likelihood that it was going to.”
He added, “In terms of standing up to Donald Trump, the shutdown actually gave him more power. Exhibit A being what he’s done with SNAP and SNAP benefits across the country. Oh, by the way, Joe, you’re gonna love this: Guess who’s getting paid during the shutdown? Not the park rangers or air traffic controllers. The ICE agents. Under special law, under that big awful bill that they passed last summer, the ICE agents are being paid. Nobody else is. So standing up to Donald Trump didn’t work. It actually gave him more power.”
Scarborough said, “But even Donald Trump admitted that the government shutdown is what caused Democrats to win the election in historic fashion last week.”
King said, “At some point, there’s diminishing returns. And as I say, the strategy was ‘let’s bring the Republicans to the table.’ It didn’t happen. It wasn’t going to happen. And in the meantime, if this was just a dispute between politicians in the Senate and whether we had to hang around for the weekend, that would be one thing. But Joe, there is tremendous collateral damage from this. Forty-two million Americans’ SNAP benefits are at risk, and are being lost. People aren’t being paid for the work that they’re doing. I don’t want to land at an airport in the United States with a sleepy air traffic controller because they’re working double shifts. If the strategy isn’t working, you change tactics. And particularly, you change tactics if your own troops are at risk, and that’s really what’s happening here. There was collateral damage to the American people at the same time the goal wasn’t being achieved.”
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