McConnell Struck Fear Into Hearts of Liberals With Epic Threat in Midst of Gov't Shutdown
The federal government ran out of appropriated money and entered a partial shutdown early Saturday morning after Senate Democrats refused to vote in favor of a short-term funding bill.
Instead, Democrats held government funding and all that relies upon it hostage in order to force action on an as-yet non-existent legislative fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for illegal immigrants, which is set to expire in March.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was none too pleased by the actions of his liberal colleagues, and took to the Senate floor on Sunday to issue a not-so-subtle threat and warning to them about what could happen next if they persisted in keeping the government shut down.
“This shutdown is going to get a lot worse tomorrow. A lot worse. Today would be a good day to end it,” McConnell stated bluntly.
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/955142553673887744
“All we have to do is pass the commonsense legislation the Senate is currently considering, ending the shutdown and ensuring health care continues for vulnerable children,” he continued. “There is nothing in this measure that my Democratic friends cannot support.”
The Republican leader then laid out the current “situation” and noted how it could all end right then and there if Democrats would only play ball.
“Our constituents want us to end this,” stated McConnell. “*(Defense) Secretary (James) Mattis, our military leaders and our governors want us to end this … and we can. Today is the right day to do it.”
Though McConnell didn’t elaborate in that clip as to how the shutdown would get “a lot worse” come Monday, USA Today reported that there has been some discussion of the leader borrowing a page out of former Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid’s playbook and “going nuclear” with a rules change on how many votes are needed to end debate and pass legislation.
The “nuclear option” would do away with the long-standing requirement of needing 60 votes in the Senate to invoke “cloture,” or end debate and take up a bill for an up or down vote. Instead, a simple majority of 51 votes would be all that is needed to advance a measure.
Our readers no doubt recall that Reid first “went nuclear” on the Senate rules in 2013 when he abandoned the 60-vote cloture threshold in order to push through controversial judiciary appointments by former President Barack Obama with a simple majority, though the 60-vote requirement was left in place for legislative measures.
However, McConnell has been reticent to make further changes to the rules in that regard, no doubt aware that Democrats could obtain control of the Senate in the future and take full advantage of the rules change to push through their progressive agenda.
But whether it was McConnell’s threat that things would get “a lot worse,” or the thoughts of the nuclear option being deployed, or simply a sobering look at polls showing Democrats were receiving the blame for the shutdown, Democrats finally agreed to end the shutdown on Monday afternoon, according to Politico.
In a vote of 81-18, which obviously included a significant number of Democrats, the Senate agreed to end the shutdown and move forward with a bill that would fund the government until Feb. 8 — with a promise from McConnell to take up an immigration reform bill that fixed DACA in the interim.
The actual funding bill will be voted on later, then sent to the House for its concurrence before it is shipped off to President Donald Trump for his signature.
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