House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pressured him to cut a backroom deal to end the government shutdown.
Schumer publicly opposed the shutdown deal and played a key role in Democrats’ failure to secure their top demand, the extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of December. Appearing on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” Johnson said the Senate leader pressured him to cut a private deal, calling the request “never appropriate” for a short-term funding measure.
“The problem that I had with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries is that Leader Schumer was insisting that I go into a back room, Leader Thune and I, go into a back room with he and Jeffries and do a four corners agreement to fix this. It’s not possible. It was never appropriate to do that on a short-term funding measure,” Johnson told host Jake Tapper.
Johnson said Schumer’s actions wasted valuable time that could have been used to negotiate reforms and long-term fiscal solutions.
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“We needed the month of October, November, December to work through this. And, ironically, because of his shenanigans, they’ve now taken all that time off the clock. So we have a lot more important work to do,” Johnson said.
Tapper asked whether he would allow vulnerable frontline Republicans to take a vote to reopen the government. Johnson said the House must follow a “deliberative process” driven by its members.
“The very people that you were citing in the letter believe we have to have real reforms. So what I’m committed to, and I have all along, this has never changed, is a deliberative process that we do in the House,” Johnson said. “We have a very small margin. Majorities, whoever has the majority now in this era, is going to have a small margin. And so it requires the involvement of a lot of members.”
Democratic lawmakers and activist groups turned their fire on Schumer after eight Democrats backed a bipartisan deal to end the 41-day shutdown. Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna of California and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, with Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, have gone as far as calling for Schumer’s removal, accusing him of losing control of his caucus.
Eight Democratic senators joined Republicans on Sunday to move the House-approved short-term funding bill forward, giving it just enough support to clear the Senate’s 60-vote hurdle. Though Schumer opposed the motion, he has drawn criticism from fellow Democrats and progressive activists frustrated by the outcome.
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