House Speaker Paul Ryan visited Fox & Friends this morning to politicize the government shutdown instead of trying to end it.
Ryan didn't waste any time in blaming Democrats.
RYAN: The Democrats will have a chance to open the government that they shut down at noon today. If they open the government at noon, the House will pass this bill. … This is totally pointless and needless. Senate Democrats did this, Senate Democrats are the ones who can stop this. … We had bipartisan negotiations between the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats already taking place, and they still shut the government down.
Cohost Ainsley Earhardt, who claims to ask Trump “hard-hitting questions,” was all about amplifying Ryan’s pro-Republican messaging.
EARHARDT: They [Democrats] are making it about politics instead of thinking about what's best for the citizens in this country. If you flip over to other networks, I’m seeing them saying things like, ‘Oh, this is the president's fault, this is Republicans’ fault. Republicans have the House, the Republicans have the Senate.” They're not saying that they need the 60 votes. What's your reaction to that?"
Ryan giggled. Then, predictably, he used the opening to build on his own partisan, anti-Democratic talking points.
RYAN: I think they're counting on confusion. … They're using the filibuster to shut down the government. … The bill that we passed in the House, they support it.
Earhardt’s next “hard-hitting” question was an endorsement of Trump’s border wall.
EARHARDT: If you look back at 2013, I think it was, all these Democrats said they want to put up the fence, they want to put up the wall, what’s the big deal? Put up the wall. It’s keeping drugs out of our country, keeping criminals out, letting just the people who are the good ones come in. What’s wrong with that, and then that way they get DACA.
One thing that’s wrong with it is that people who actually live on the border do not want it. But Ryan, from the non-border state of Wisconsin, acted as though New York-based Earhardt was right on the money.
RYAN: That's exactly what we're saying Ainsley. … We want to do [DACA]. We don’t want to kick kids out, we don't want to deport kids to countries they don't know. … We need to make sure that we control immigration … so that we don’t have another 700,000 kids in five years when we have another DACA mess on our hands.
Off camera, Earhardt and cohost Steve Doocy could be heard agreeing.
Watch “hard-hitting” journalist Earhardt devote all her time to promoting and/or eliciting GOP talking points below, from the January 22, 2018 Fox & Friends.
UPDATE: Later in the day, Senate Democrats came to an agreement to end the shutdown.
http://www.newshounds.us/fox_jesse_watters_blames_obama_government_shutdown_012318
Either we missed the Hillary blaming or they’re still working on it.
Trump and his allies are correct to take a victory lap because they now know that Schumer is completely spineless and the Democrats in Congress are about to get completely steamrolled. They have absolutely no leverage. If they threaten another shutdown in 3 weeks the Republicans will rightly laugh in their faces. Absent of that sort of leverage Trump (who could give a s—t about the dreamers) will just let the clock run out in March. His base will love it. House Republicans will love it. And Schumer once again will fold like a tent in a windstorm and give The Donald anything and everything in exchange for a weak DOCA ‘fix’ with no path to citizenship.