SCOOP: House GOP leadership and RSC jointly counterprogram the Schumer Shutdown
“Instead of complaining about a new White House ballroom,” how about Democrats do their job? Rep. Tom Emmer suggested.
House Republican leadership partnered with the Republican Study Committee (RSC) in the latest display of GOP unity amidst unprecedented obstruction from Senate Democrats, as the Schumer Shutdown careens into its second month.
The Republicans’ leadership — Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.), Whip Tom Emmer (R., Minn.), and Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R., Mich.) — joined with Reps. August Pfluger (R., Texas), Stephanie Bice (R., Okla.), Burgess Owens (R., Utah), Harriet Hageman (R., Wyo.), and Craig Goldman (R., Texas) to push back on what Johnson categorized as the “really crazy things” that Democrats want Republicans to fork over in order to reopen the government.
In contrast with Democrats, Republicans are not demanding anything, literally nothing, to reopen the government,” Johnson explained — he repeatedly gestured to a poster with the Democrats’ radical demands, which include “$200 billion in health benefits to illegal aliens,” “billions in wasteful programs to foreign countries,” “half a billion to left-leaning news organizations,” and “cut $50 billion from rural hospitals.”
While Democrats are afraid of Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Johnson explained that Republicans did their job.
Some Democrats and their allies made repeated cameos as GOP leaders laid out their messaging: Rep. Katherine Clark (D., Mass.), who recently admitted that Democrats are using the shutdown as “leverage” against Republicans, was a repeated punching bag. Republicans also eagerly highlighted how government unions recently went public with their demands that Democrats reopen the government.
“This isn’t about leverage, it’s about people, and we are here to serve,” McClain said. “Republicans voted to keep the government open, Democrats voted to shut it down. Period. It is that simple.”
Scalise was particularly fiery in his remarks, which Johnson noted. Rather than open the government, Democrats are making “stupid TikTok videos,” he said. His remarks focused heavily on the uptick in flight delays that are happening across the country. “A Democrat aide said they won’t concede unless they see ‘planes falling out of the sky,’” he said.
As multiple deadlines for payroll hit, Emmer remarked that “millions of federal workers are evaluating how to make ends meet.
“Enough is enough,” the Minnesota lawmaker said, lamenting that the “pro-terrorist” wing of the Democratic Party seems to be in charge.
“Instead of complaining about a new White House ballroom,” how about Democrats do their job? he suggested.
Pfluger was one of the many lawmakers who seized on Mamdani’s likely win in next week’s elections to argue that he is the face of the Democratic Party. Perhaps, he suggested, the shutdown was orchestrated so that the “party of Schumer and Mamdani” could descend on New York City en masse to campaign for the anti-Semitic communist.
As Pfluger looked abroad, he noted that America’s enemies have “not shut down; our enemies around the world want us to be divided.” Pfluger called on elected Democrats who served in the military as he did to do the right thing. “Where are my Democrat colleagues who served in uniform” to put aside politics and do the right thing? Well, “they’re in New York City campaigning for Mamdani,” he said.