On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) stated that he doesn’t believe Democrats will engage in any compromise on including border security provisions in a continuing resolution.
Co-host Sara Sidner asked, “I want to talk to you about the funding of the government. The members of the Republican Freedom Caucus are making three very big demands that they say they’re going to block any more monies, any more funding of the government if these three things aren’t acted upon: One of them is to include the House-passed Secure the Border Act, they say to stop illegal immigration, human trafficking, and the influx of fentanyl. The second is they want the DEI language and programs out of the military, and they want to address what they say is the unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI. I am curious if there is anything on that list that Democrats might compromise on.”
Smith answered, “I don’t think so. I mean, look, those are fairly narrow items that I’m sure are important to the Freedom Caucus, but we live in a democracy. The House, the Senate, and the White House have to agree in order to keep the government funded. We’ve got a lot of items on our wish list. The president’s Build Back Better agenda, most of which did not get passed, to provide better child care to Americans, to give more support for families on health care. We have a lot of issues that we would like to see passed that the Republicans don’t support either, which are tangential to the issue of funding the government. We’re not going to insist upon those to fund the government going forward, because we know we don’t have the votes. The Freedom Caucus doesn’t have the votes for those issues either.”
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