The top Democrat in the House said Thursday that public pressure will force President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans back to the bargaining table to reopen the government, The Hill reported.
Meanwhile, the White House posted another sombrero meme on social media in the hours after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., made his remarks.
"Public sentiment," Jeffries told reporters. "The American people are paying close attention, and they know that it was Donald Trump and Republicans who have shut the government down."
It was the latest salvo in the blame game of the shutdown, which entered its second full day on Thursday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has dismissed Jeffries' argument.
He and other Republican leaders believe they hold the advantage in public opinion because the continuing resolution — which would fund the government through Nov. 21 — preserves the spending levels Senate Democrats backed earlier this year.
Johnson pointed to an analysis that he said validates the Republican position.
"The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, on Aug. 25 published a letter, and they said this is going to do exactly what Republicans said. They estimate that 2.3 million illegal recipients for Medicaid will be pushed off the rolls because of our reforms," Johnson said in an interview Wednesday.
"It's going to save $185 billion of taxpayer funds. So they want to return all those ineligible people back to the rolls, and many of them are illegal aliens. That is a fact. Anybody who looks at it objectively has to say it's true."
On Thursday, he said, "Now, why are we saying that they want to return and restore taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens? Because that's exactly what they did."
As for pressure to return to shutdown talks with Jeffries, Johnson said Republicans have nothing to concede in talks with Jeffries and Democrats.
"People say, 'Why aren't you negotiating with [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer [D-N.Y.] and Jeffries?' Because I quite literally have nothing to negotiate," Johnson said.
"There's nothing I can pull out of the bill that was a Republican priority to say, 'Oh, we won't do that. Why don't you guys vote for it now?' I don't have anything," he said.
On Tuesday, Johnson told Newsmax that Democrats are "trying to make this Obamacare subsidy issue the issue of today — it's not."
"That doesn't even expire until Dec. 31. That's an eternity in politics for us to roll up our sleeves and argue and debate. But they're looking in the cameras and lying about it."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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