House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy visited Fox & Friends to shore up Republican support for the Trump Shutdown by blaming Democrats, despite the fact that we all saw video of Donald Trump saying he would be “proud” to shut down the government and would take the responsibility for it.
Besides that Trump statement caught on video (below), we also know the Senate voted without opposition last month to keep the government open and that Trump torpedoed the bill after his right-wing media pals threw a fit. And yesterday, the House passed (with eight Republicans voting with the Democrats) the first of four appropriations bills to reopen parts of the government that have nothing to do with the border wall whose funding Trump insists is worth shutting the government down over - despite promising Mexico would pay for the wall. But Trump has promised to veto those bills as part of his temper tantrum that also included storming out of a meeting with Democratic leaders yesterday.
Despite all that, McCarthy told Fox Friend and cohost Brian Kilmeade that Trump is “bringing everybody together, trying to get to an agreement. He brought candy in the process, start the meeting out.”
When Kilmeade failed to challenge that baloney, McCarthy continued with his dishonest finger pointing: “The president walked through and said, ‘You know what, this is where we’re at, this is - we’ve worked through the weekend, here’s a piece of paper of all the things we worked on through the weekend with your staff, now let me turn over the entire meeting to you, Chuck, and to Speaker Pelosi.” McCarthy said the Democrats “stonewalled” and that Trump “simply walked out while we continued to talk.”
“It has been the president bringing offers to the Democrats. The Democrats have not one time made any counteroffer back.” McCarthy continued, without challenge.
Kilmeade continued to let McCarthy dissemble, even as he claimed, “Senator Schumer decided to have a shutdown.”
McCarthy continued to BS, going on to claim that Trump “actually compromised” because he offered a wall of “steel slates instead of concrete” and, “The president has found common ground.”
McCarthy wrapped it all up with a demand for Democrats to “change their leadership,” adding, “I think we could solve this in 15 minutes,” (if only the Democrats would cave).
Then, after that slew of falsehoods, McCCarthy said self-righteously “And then to misrepresent what happened in the meeting yesterday.”
Kilmeade said nothing.
Watch the lies and propaganda below, from the January 10, 2019 Fox & Friends.
And then there’s the 10% of the country that sees Trump as an opportunity to take every last dollar that the 38% has.
The reality is that Right Wing media figures scared Trump into reneging on his commitment to sign a budget that included over a billion dollars in funding for Border Security. Trump himself doesn’t know how can get out of his public statements and is now flailing around trying to find any way he can somehow act like he didn’t “cave”.
My thinking is that we’ll have to wait for enough GOP Senators to feel the heat for the Congress to pass an actual budget past the Pence White House’s veto. The unfortunate part is that I have a feeling there will be several more of these tantrums before voters get a chance to make a change in 2020.