There's an 85% Chance of Government Shutdown, Says Rep. Johnson

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00:00Our viewers and listeners should know that you are pivotal in the background and getting the

00:04president's big, beautiful bill across the finish line. You've been through a lot of these shutdown

00:09scenarios before, and I'm wondering what your gut tells you now. Does this meeting lead to

00:14something today? Is there an 11th hour save or should we prepare for the lights to go out?

00:20It would be wonderful if the, you know, the big boys and the big girls in Washington,

00:24if we could get our act together and avoid the shutdown. But it really doesn't look like that's

00:29going to happen. It feels to me like we've got an 85 percent chance of going into shutdown.

00:34We just I mean, we have passed a bipartisan short term funding deal out of the House on a bipartisan

00:40basis. Chuck Schumer does not seem interest in interested in accepting that deal. And

00:46I think he seems pretty committed to a shutdown. I think that's where we're headed.

00:51Congressman, do you see any sort of compromise that could emerge in particular when it comes

00:56to extending the Obamacare premium subsidies that are set to expire? It seems like there might be

01:02some wiggle room on that provision, at least whether that happens now or down the road if this

01:08short term stopgap measure gets through. Part of I mean, what has sometimes been said is that

01:15nothing is as eternal as a government program. This is a little bit of proof of that. I mean,

01:20here we've got some special assistance on health care, some subsidies that were put into place during

01:26the pandemic. And here we are having a hard time getting rid of them. Listen, let's say that

01:32reasonable people can disagree about whether or not working class Americans should have these

01:36additional enhanced tax credits. Most of the benefits go to insurance companies. But let's just

01:42set that aside and say reasonable people can disagree about that. What we shouldn't be debating is

01:47whether or not we're going to spend $1.5 trillion of new spending as a part of a six week short term

01:55stopgap funding deal. I mean, this is really unprecedented that the Democrats are saying

02:00that no, no, rather than negotiate on the health care stuff while the government is open,

02:05we prefer to negotiate while the government is shuttered. It seems like they're taking the

02:10American people hostage. And I just don't see how Republicans can go along with that.