Jim Acosta Tried Blaming GOP For Shutdown, Then Mick Mulvaney Reminded Him How Math Works
With the failure to pass a spending bill Friday night, America has seen its first government shut down since 2013.
The process — which complicates the lives of federal workers, deployed military and millions of Americans throughout the nation — has been named the “Shumer Shutdown” due to a lack of votes from Senate Democrats, who demanded a resolution for DACA.
Yet, during a media briefing on Friday, CNN reporter Jim Acosta took it a step further by inquiring why the shutdown was aptly named the “Schumer Shutdown” when Republicans were the ones controlling the Senate.
“Come on, you know the answer to that as well as anybody,” White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney answered, adding that he has to “laugh” when others try to bring up this topic.
“You know as well as anybody that it takes 60 votes in the Senate to pass an appropriations bill, right, you know that?” Mulvaney asked.
“I know that,” Acosta replied.
“Okay, so when you only have 51 votes in the Senate, then you have to have Democrat support in order to fund the government,” Mulvaney said. “So that’s the answer to your question.”
“This is purely an attempt by the Senate Democrats, led by Mr. Schumer, that’s why we call it the ‘Schumer shutdown,’ in order to try and get a shutdown that they think this president gets blamed for,” he added.
Mulvaney went on to further explain that Democrats in the Senate demanded a solution for DREAMers, though the issue was “non-fiscal.”
The budget director added that there was no reason the White House had to deal with DACA until even mid-February, as it doesn’t expire until March 5.
“This is purely an attempt by Senate Democrats, led by Mr. Schumer … in order to try and get a shutdown that they think this president gets blamed for,” Mulvaney added.
And it seems the ones that will be affected the most by the shutdown, may not be the ones who voted — or didn’t vote — at all.
The last shutdown in 2013, according to ABC News, lasted 16 days, where nearly 800,000 federal employees were out of work without pay.
Additionally, the paychecks were delayed for nearly a million other working employees, with them seeing the retroactive pay by day five of the shutdown.
However, according to reports, some members of Congress continued to collect their paychecks, though some volunteered to give theirs up, as salaries for members of the House and Senate are written into permanent law.
The last shutdown was estimated to cost America $1.5 billion per day, with a total of $24 billion spent.
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