Republicans Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Mitch McConnell, caught on a hot microphone, boiled the entire shutdown battle to talking points and suggested that if they just stay on message, they’d “win.”
Republicans Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Mitch McConnell, caught on a hot microphone, boiled the entire shutdown battle to talking points and suggested that if they just stay on message, they’d “win.”
Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, told McConnell during a whispered meeting on the Senate floor that he believes Republicans can appear to be more compromising when they agree to not defund the three-year-old healthcare law.
“I think if we keep saying, ‘We wanted to defund it. We fought for that and now we’re willing to compromise on this’, I think they can’t, we’re gonna, I think, well I know we don’t want to be here, but we’re gonna win this, I think,” Paul said.
The fight to defund Obamacare appeared to have been doomed from the start—both the Senate and president had promised to kill any such bill—but a stalemate over the bill has lead to a government shutdown, furloughing 800,000 federal employees, shutting down the parks, and halting a number of services including cancer treatments.
“I just did CNN and I just go over and over again, ‘We’re willing to compromise. ‘We’re willing to negotiate.’ I think, I don’t think [Democrats] poll tested ‘we won’t negotiate.’ I think it’s awful for them to say that over and over again,” Paul told McConnell.
The president has repeatedly said he won’t negotiate with Congress on whether or not to pay its debts or keep its government open.
“The president made clear to the leaders that he is not going to negotiate over the need for Congress to act to reopen the government or to raise the debt limit to pay the bills Congress has already incurred,” the White House said in a statement on Wednesday. McConnell chided Democrats for sticking to this message.
“Yeah, I do too and I, and I just came back from that two-hour meeting with them and that was, and that was basically the same view privately as it was publicly,” McConnell responded.
