From PBS NewsHour.
Vice President JD Vance blamed what he called the “Chuck Schumer/AOC wing” of the Democratic Party for the government shutdown.
“It’s one thing to say that we should solve the health care crisis for Americans,” Vance told reporters at a White House briefing Wednesday afternoon. “It’s another thing to say that we’re going to shut down the government unless we give the Democrats every single thing that they want, which as Karoline says, includes giving billions of dollars of taxpayer funding for health care for illegal migrants. That’s ridiculous.”
While a Democratic proposal seeks to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies and end Medicaid cuts that were part of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy legislation, it does not include health care coverage of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.
Unauthorized immigrants are generally prohibited from federally funded health care programs. Groups of “lawfully present” immigrants will be barred from ACA subsidies under the Trump domestic policy law Trump signed earlier this year. Democrats sought to reverse that in their proposal.
Vance noted that military pay, food assistance programs and federal flood insurance will all be affected by the government shutdown. He blamed electoral politics as a reason for the shutdown.
“The reality here, and let’s be honest about the politics, is that Chuck Schumer is terrified he’s going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” Vance said. “The reason why the American people’s government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far left radicals in his own party because he’s terrified of a primary challenge.”
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