U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA-09) said the ongoing government shutdown is a politically motivated “bullying tactic” by Democrats, designed to appease the progressive wing of their party and attack President Donald Trump rather than engage in good-faith negotiations.
On Wednesday’s edition of The John Fredericks Show, Griffith stressed that House Republicans had already passed a “clean CR” — a short-term funding bill intended to keep the government running for six and a half weeks without adding controversial provisions.
This resolution, he said, maintained existing spending levels and bipartisan programs, and included no new policy demands, which makes the ongoing shutdown unjustified.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what their end game is for a long time on this thing. I don’t see it,” Griffith said.
Griffith argued that Senate Democrats, particularly Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), are prolonging the shutdown to score political points with their progressive base and appear combative against Republicans and Trump.
He suggested the Democrats were under pressure from within their party for previously agreeing to funding deals and now want to appear tougher, even if it means hurting bipartisan programs.
“I think that Schumer felt the heat for agreeing to a CR from March to September and accordingly, he was feeling the heat from the progressive wing of his party and from his New York Democrats…and I think he was feeling the heat because he didn’t fight the president. So now he’s fighting the president. I don’t know how long it’ll go on,” Griffith said.
According to Griffith, the shutdown has derailed meaningful policy negotiations on issues like healthcare subsidies and the future of Obamacare. He pointed out that Republicans are open to compromise and have proposed a “glide path” — a gradual transition away from emergency-level Obamacare subsidies.
However, he emphasized how Democrats have refused to engage unless they get “100 percent of what they want,” making negotiations impossible.
“They want $1.5 trillion in additional spending…I don’t know what their end game is because what they want is just massive. It’s not like they’re asking for one or two small things. On some of it, there may be a way to work out a glide path to figure out some kind of a compromise,” Griffith said.
He accused Democrats of conflating issues, like immigration and healthcare, with the need to fund the government.
“They’re conflating the issues. This is about keeping the government open so we can discuss issues like that. They decided to shut it down for, I think, political motivation to satisfy their extreme wing of their party…If we were open right now, we could be discussing things that I’ve talked about before, that the presidents indicated that we could talk about, but we’re shut down so we can’t do it,” Griffith said.
In response to Democrats’ claims that Republicans are using “bullying tactics,” Griffith said that shutting down the entire government unless Democrats get their way on unrelated policy matters is the real definition of bullying.
“I can’t think of a stronger definition of bullying than to say, ‘We’re going to shut the entire government down unless you give us 100 percent of what we want in a particular issue or area.’ That’s what the Democrats have said,” Griffith stressed.
“The definition of bullying tactics is when you shut the government down, when you hurt people all over the country, particularly in rural areas, because you don’t have a majority in Washington,” he added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Editor’s Note: John Fredericks is the Publisher of The Virginia Star.
