Sen. Van Hollen: Trump Is Negotiating in the Middle East, He’s Not Negotiating to Reopen the Government

JANSING: “And then you have Senator Thune saying there should be a new CR, we mentioned this at the top of the show, that would fund the government into December, maybe even into next year, in order to give you guys more time to negotiate. Does that make sense to you? Would you support that?”
VAN HOLLEN: “Well, I don’t think that we should be reopening the government and not dealing with these fundamental questions, not giving Donald Trump — we don’t want to give Donald Trump a blank check again to continue his lawless activities, and we want to address these health care issues. So if Senator Thune was serious about this, he wouldn’t be down at the White House, whining and dining and patting themselves on the back during the middle of a government shutdown, he’d be actually working with us to resolve this. And as you reported earlier, the president is totally AWOL. I mean, the president is negotiating the Middle East. He’s given his pal in Argentina $20 billion of taxpayer dollars, but he’s not negotiating to make sure that we can reopen the United States government.”