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Even though the U.S. government may be shut down, there was plenty of activity in the halls of Congress on Wednesday, as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY 8th) and Representative Mike Lawler (R-NY 17th) got into a caught-on-camera shouting match that started over who is responsible for shutting the government down, and quickly escalated into a mud-slinging free-for-all. Lawler even put New York City’s messy politics front-and-center, as he all but dared the Brooklyn-based Jeffries to finally endorse fellow Democrat Zohran Mamdani for mayor in next month’s election. Lawler appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program to offer his perspective on why he ended up daring Jeffries to sign the resolution and reopen the government.
“I was showing two things,” Lawler told host Larry Mendte. “Number one, there’s a clean [continuing resolution] on the table. We already passed it through the House. Leader Jeffries voted no on that measure; he voted to shut the government down, and that could easily be passed by Senator Schumer and Senate Democrats along with Republicans to reopen the government. And number two, since they continue to raise the issue of the Affordable Care act tax subsidies, I’m already signed on to legislation to extend it by a year- join me. Join me on this bill; there’s 14 Republicans and 11 Democrats that are signed on- let’s do it!”
Lawler offered the following theory on why Jeffries chose to attack Lawler’s approach rather than simply state why he wasn’t about to sign the resolution: “He wouldn’t do it because this isn’t about health care. This is about Democrats shutting the government down so they could show their far-left base that they’re standing up to Trump. That’s it; that’s all this is about.”
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