BONUS POD: Democrats Hold the Government Hostage

• Main Themes

  • Blame Assignment: the government shutdown is caused by Democrats, specifically Chuck Schumer, to avoid pressure from progressive figures like AOC.

  • Media Criticism: Mainstream media portrays shutdowns emotionally (e.g., TSA officers, families struggling) to support Democrats’ narrative.

  • Lawmakers & Paychecks: Criticizes Democratic lawmakers who refuse to withhold their pay during the shutdown while ordinary federal workers face delays.

  • Healthcare for Illegal Immigrants: Argues Democrats shut down the government over demands to fund healthcare for undocumented immigrants, citing state-level programs (Rhode Island, New York).

  • Public Opinion: References polls showing most Americans (including Democrats and independents) oppose a shutdown over such demands.

  • Contradictions Among Democrats: Notes conflicting statements from different Democratic representatives and senators—some denying responsibility, others admitting to supporting a shutdown.

  • Republican Framing: Republicans upport a “clean” continuing resolution to keep government open, while Democrats are inserting expensive demands ($1.5 trillion, healthcare for illegals, social programs).

• Polls & Data Used

  • New York Times poll cited: 65% of Americans against shutdowns tied to Democrats’ demands.

  • Breakdown by party: Republicans (92% opposed), Independents (59% opposed), Democrats (43% opposed).

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Democrats say that they care a lot about lowering healthcare costs.
They talk about doing something, they don't actually do the
hard work of making it happen. What they have done
instead is to shut down the government because we won't
give billions of dollars to health care funding for legal aliens.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
That is what is actually happening. You're listening to the
forty seven Morning Update with Ben ferguson.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Good Thursday morning. Nice to have you with us on
the forty seven Morning Update. And there's one big story.
It's the government shutdown, but the politics behind it, well,
Democrats are really lying now talking about how this is
somehow the Trump shut down. They're also now lying about
their demands for that one point five trillion and government waste.

(00:41):
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it starts.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Right now story number one.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
With a federal government partial shutdown, there is an opportunity
for Donald Trump to do exactly what he promised during
the campaign to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse
of your tax hours. Trump is now signaling layoffs and
spending cuts that could become permanent. So yes, this shutdown

(03:31):
could be a massive blessing in disguise for every American taxpayer.
The federal government entering a partial shutdown early Wednesday because
of Democrats on purpose failed to reach an agreement on
a funding package, a clean cr and President Trump suggests
that the standoff could open the door, he says for

(03:52):
big changes in the federal workforce. Senate lawmakers miss the
deadline at midnight to approve a very simple budget for
the fiscal year twenty twenty five. According now to Fox News,
the short term funding extension that passed the House earlier
in September, keeping the government running through November the twenty firth,

(04:13):
but bipartison talks collapse when the Democrats said, no, we
want to hold you hostage and we demand that you
spend on things like healthcare for illegal immigrants. Now, in
the hours leading up to the shutdown, President Trump made
it very clear that while he did not want the
government to close, he saw opportunities quote unquote in the crisis, saying, quote,

(04:36):
we don't want it to shut down because we have
the greatest period of time ever. I tell you, we
have seventeen trillion being invested. So the last person that
wanted to shut down is us. He then added, Now,
with that being said, we can do things during the
shutdown that are irreversible that are bad for them referring

(04:57):
to Democrats, and irreversible by them by cutting vast numbers
of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs
that they like, referring to the Democrats. Now, Trump has
repeatedly warned and pushed to reduce the size of government
and slash federal programs. He says that waste your tax dollars.

(05:19):
A shutdown does not grant new powers to the White House,
but it does give the executive branch wide discretion over
what services continue to operate. The standoff has turned into
a battle of blame, Democrats going to TV saying this
is all Trump's fault. But the problem is some Democrats

(05:41):
didn't get the memo to lie. They told the truth
that they are in fact shutting down the government. Democrats
can accuse Republicans all they want of hijacking the process
and falsely lying claiming that they want to provide taxpayer
funded health benefits only for Americans, when it's in black
and white, they wanted taxpayer funded health benefits for all

(06:03):
illegal immigrants. Chuck Schumer said Tuesday, quote, they say that
undocumented people are going to get these credits. That is
absolutely false. This is one of the big lies that
they're telling you. Well, you look at the Office of
Budget Management and they made it very clear. The Democrats
are spending massive amounts of money if they got their

(06:26):
way on illegal immigrant healthcare. Which brings me to Speaker
Johnson on the government shut down, going back and reminding
the American people of what really happened and said the
lies the Democrats and many in the media are telling.
Take a list of the speaker on Fox News.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Members, then it's going to be hard to get this resolved.
All along Republicans wanted to shut the government down.

Speaker 5 (06:53):
Well, we do have the House Speaker with us here
in the studio tonight. Let's welcome in Mike Johsed Luisiana.
Good to see you, so thank you for the time.
I know that you have been very busy.

Speaker 6 (07:02):
Today, busy day. Those clips are hilarious to me. The
House did its job. The House Republicans did our job.
It's spent over two weeks. We passed that continued resolution.
It's clean, it's simple, it's twenty four pages in length.
We were simply trying to buy time, and this is
really important for everybody to remember. John the reason we're
doing this is that the appropriators are trying to rebuild

(07:22):
the muscle memory to do appropriations, to spend taxpayer dollars responsibly.
And that takes twelve separate approach bills. We were doing that,
working through the process. We ran out of time. We
need seven more weeks, so we put a clean CR
on the table, assuming that everybody, all the Democrats, would
do the right thing. They've rejected it now three times
as of today, the Senate Democrats, forty four of them

(07:42):
have voted that CR, the clean CR down and they
proposed Chuck Schumer's version, which is a dirty CR. Why
do we say that because he wants to add one
point five trillion dollars in new spending to a seven
week stopgap measure, and they want to give healthcare to
illegal aliens, claw back the funds that we put in
for rural hospitals, and all sorts of other mayhem that
we can't do that. We're just not going to do it.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
You listen to Speaker Johnson. The House Republicans did our
job passing the CR over two weeks ago, simply trying
to buy time. The appropriators are trying to rebuild the
muscle memory to do appropriations to spend taxpayers dollars responsively
instead of irrationally and radical, which is what the Democrats wanted.

(08:24):
And here is what the Speaker had to say about
some of the money, including healthcare for illegals.

Speaker 6 (08:29):
That we're just not going to do it.

Speaker 5 (08:30):
So this is the real point of contention here. I mean,
obviously they want to restore some of the cuts that
were enacted in the Big Beautiful Bill when it comes
to Medicaid funding, et cetera. But Democrats insist our bill
does not provide federal dollars for health care for illegal immigrants.

Speaker 6 (08:45):
And you say, what I say, they obviously have not
read their bill. This counterproposal that he filed. Everybody can
google it, go pull it up. It's on the Senate's website,
and in the legislative text. Go to page fifty seven
of Chuck Schimmer's bill and look at section twenty one
forty one. It says right there, in plain language, they
want to repeal the health provisions of the one, Big
Beautiful Bill.

Speaker 5 (09:06):
I do part ways with you here on this idea
of plain language. Oh, I read that whole section. It
might as well be written in Mandarin.

Speaker 6 (09:14):
And that's probably why the Democrats don't understand what they filed.
But if you interpret that and you get through all
the subsections, what you realize is they're trying to take
out in its entirety the reforms that we put into
the big beautiful bill pretending to health. And why is
that so important, Because what we did was we strengthened
the Medicaid program by making sure that ineligible recipients are

(09:35):
not on the rolls. The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office,
on August twenty fifth, published a letter and they said,
this is going to do exactly what Republicans said. They
estimate the two point three million illegal recipients for Medicaid
will be pushed off the roles because of our reforms,
and then it's going to say one hundred and eighty
five billion dollars of taxpayer funds. So they want to
return all those ineligible people back to the roles. And

(09:58):
many of them are illegal aliens. Is a fact, and
anybody who looks at it objectively has to say it's true.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
I love how calm the speaker is on this. He's
trying to make it clear that this is all about
the Democrats trying to slander and attack the Republicans doing
the responsible thing. Just to put it in perspective, there
were seventeen different times the Republicans did not shut down

(10:26):
the government when they had an opportunity to do it,
and instead went for a continuing resolution to make sure
the government was open when the guy by the name
of Joe Biden was President of the United States of America.
Because Republicans understood that shutdowns are bad for the economy.

(10:47):
Republicans understood that it was their job to protect the
American people and also make sure that our government was
functioning the right way.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
The Democrats shut down the government because President Trump and
the Republicans will not force American taxpayers to pay for
free healthcare for illegal aliens. America is thirty seven trillion
dollars in debt. We cannot afford to provide taxpayer funded
free healthcare to illegals who broke the law to enter
our country.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
That is exactly why so many Americans decided to vote
for Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Thank you for listening to the forty seven Morning Update
with Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever
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and we will see you back here tomorrow.