Allie Pecorin, ABC News correspondent Interview

Allie Pecorin speaks with Mendte in the Morning about Congress returning from recess and the looming Government shutdown.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's talk to Ali picorin ABC News correspondent on Capitol
Hill about this. Ali, I can't believe this just keeps happening.
It seems like it's happening several times a year that
we're facing the barrel of a gun that the government's
going to be shut down, and that sucks up all
the attention. How did it happen so quickly?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah, you're right, this is a constant issue on Capitol Hill,
and especially in the last couple of years, we've been
seeing government funding kind of percolating as an issue every
couple of months. That's largely because of the way that
Congress has been choosing to deal with sort of these
increased tensions on Capitol Hill about funding the government. So
rather than passing a full year government funding package at

(00:43):
the end of this month, as lawmakers typically do, lately,
we've been seeing Congress governed through these things called the
continuing resolutions, which means they only usually last a few
months at the time. Now, the last time we sawt
Congress pass to continuing resolution was in March that funded
the government until the end of this coming month. But
here we are again back at this issue, and there's
a lot of debate going on about Capitol Hill about

(01:04):
how they want to precede any solution that they come
up with. It's going to require at least some democratic
buying in the Senate. So there's a lot of back
and forth going on right now about how to get
to a solution that both parties can agree on.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, is there any end to this cycle? It seems
like these continuing resolutions just keep happening, and it's a
roller coaster of fights over these budgets, and yet then
we have it in just a couple of months after that.
What has to happen to stop this continuing cycle?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, I mean, lawmakers need to get it through their
head that there needs to be a little bit more
prioritization on funding the government for full year CRS if
that's what they want to do. So normally, what Congress
is supposed to do is past this big package of
government funding bills at the end of the month of September.
That's the end of the fiscal year that funds everything
for the entire year. Typically, though there's been more and

(02:00):
more partisan bickering going on, it's harder and harder to
get to a solution on all twelve of those bills
and pass them. And that's why Congress passes these continuing resolutions,
because they have to kick the deadline down for themselves
to continue having these discussions Every year. There's sort of
this renewed push to pass government funding bills. This year
of the Congress, or at least the Senate side, has
taken up a few of those bills and pass them.

(02:21):
That won't be enough to stop the government from at
least a partial shutdown, but there's still just this very
contentious environment on Capitol Hill right now how to deal
with these things, especially as this administration has made cutting
fundings from the government a very big part of President
Trump's priority list.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Right there's a very slim majority, as you know, in
both the House and the Senate, so sometimes it's difficult
to get anything through. They were pretty good the last
time they had a budget. All the Republicans got in
line and they were able to get something through. Do
they think it's going to be seamless again this time
or is it going to be a problem.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Right now, there's a lot of finger pointing going on
across the island, across the chambers on Capitol Hill. So
Democrats blaming Republicans for alluming shutdown Republicans blaming Democrats. I
should also say that while Democrats are trying to sort
of stake out exactly how they want to navigate this
debate in the Senate, there's also a bit of a
divide right now between how House Republicans and Senate Republicans

(03:22):
want to deal with government funding. Senate Republicans have higher
budget levels in a number of areas, whereas House Republicans
are trying to create a budget that's more in line
with this sort of slim vision of government funding that
President Trump's us that he wants. The Senate's version is
a little bit more amenable to getting some Democrats on board,
which they'll need in the Senate. How this all works out,

(03:43):
I do not yet know. It is typical in the
month of September that we would see all this sort
of finger pointing going on. As we get to the
end of the month, when the pressure is really on,
that's when we'll start to these in real, really ned dealing.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, I understand what you're saying. There are some Republicans
that are going to be a problem, and they were
a problem last time, and that's the people that feel
like enough isn't being cut.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
While the Democrats are saying, you can't cut this, you
can't cut this, you can't cut this, there are some
Republicans that you can't cut enough. And they were the
holdouts last time. They came around at the very last minute,
but they were the holdouts last time. Is that going
to play out again? Is that what's expected again?

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, certainly you'll see a number of Republicans, especially in
the House, arguing that they are just not seeing enough
cut in whatever is being proposed to make them satisfied.
They look at the sort of balloting federal deficit, they
look at President Trump's promises to bring that down. They
say that pretty much universally, whatever solution gets brought up
will likely not be enough for them. That's because they

(04:46):
want really dressed cuts that oftentimes can't be achieved and passed. Typically,
for something like this to be resolved, President Trump has
to weigh in himself. He has to kind of get
in there and really negotiate with those members. They usually
follow line behind whatever it is that he wants, but
it takes a little bit of time and usually a
little bit of brand standing on the House floor before

(05:06):
we really see a breakthrough on that stuff.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
And he has to make some promises to them as well.
There's a little bit of horse trading that goes on
in this entire thing, and that's why sometimes those who
hold out make out the best because they get some promises.
Just really quick. I know you got to go, but
let's just really quick. The Epstein files. Today is going
to be a big day.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, that's straight through. Late last night we saw the
House Oversight Committee release a tranch of documents related to
the Epstein files, about thirty thousand pages of documents, so
not very much new information that we were able to
find in it. I will say, however, that today's going
to be a very big day on Capitol Hill because
we will see a number of Jeffrey Epstein's victims speaking

(05:50):
out publicly in this very public press conference. And so
when they begin speaking, it's a little bit I'm clear
right now whether that's going to be enough to force
this issue to the House floor and really get moving
in terms of releasing more of those documents.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Thank you so much, Allie picorin, ABC News correspondent on
Capitol Hill. Thanks so much for your time, Allie.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Thank you