House Republicans Called Emergency Meeting On Cheese As Shutdown Approached
As the federal government was heading for a shutdown Friday night, House Republicans called an emergency meeting.
Plot twist: it was about cheese.
During her broadcast that evening, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow appeared astonished while reporting on the gathering, which was arranged so that lawmakers could discuss the Curd Act, a proposal to allow some cheeses to be advertised as “natural” despite having artificial ingredients.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) was clearly irked, feeling the timing was pretty inconvenient.
“This is an emergency meeting that we’re having here and I’ve seen some surreal things around this place, but this is really something,” McGovern said. “Vital parts of our government are about to shut down in just a few hours, and the Republicans have called an emergency meeting on cheese.”
Venting his frustration with Republicans in the room, McGovern wondered whether his colleagues had thought about how the meeting would look to the public, which would soon be faced with the third shutdown of the year.
“I mean, has anybody considered how ridiculous this is or how bad the optics are as the American people are watching what’s going on here?” he asked. “By all means, if you think the most important thing we have to discuss right now is cheese, I’ll let you have at it.”
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) eventually jumped in to defend the meeting, calling the cheese bill “important to small business,” then eventually segueing into the issue of funding for the southern border wall, the key matter that prompted the shutdown.
“We are being overrun on our southern border,” Sessions declared.
That’s when McGovern piped up, appearing confused, asking, “There’s no wall in this bill, right?”
“It is important,” Sessions argued back, clarifying that he was “not talking about the wall of cheese.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
It's not looking as if the standoff between President Donald Trump and Congressional Democrats over having American taxpayers fund his border wall will end any time soon. Correspondent Ed O'Keefe has the latest.
By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's budget director and chief of staff on Sunday said the partial U.S. government shutdown could continue to Jan. 3, when the new Congress convenes and Democrats take over the House of Representatives.
"It's very possible this shutdown will go beyond (December) the 28th and into the new Congress," Mick Mulvaney said on Fox News Sunday.
"I don't think things are going to move very quickly here for the next few days" because of the Christmas holiday, added Mulvaney, who serves as director of the Office of Management and Budget and was named acting White House chief of staff 10 days ago.
The U.S. Senate adjourned on Saturday, unable to break an impasse over Trump's demand for more funds for a wall on the border with Mexico that Democrats are unwilling to accept.
Mulvaney said the White House made a "counter-offer" to Democrats on funding for border security that fell between the Democratic offer of $1.3 billion and Trump's demand for $5 billion.
As part of those talks on Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence offered to drop the demand for $5 billion for a border wall, substituting instead $2.1 billion, ABC News reported, citing unnamed sources.
A Democratic source familiar with the negotiations said real discussions have been happening between Democratic lawmakers and Republican Senator Richard Shelby, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who has been talking to the White House. It was unclear what Democrats had offered.
Mulvaney sought to shift blame for the partial shutdown to Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic nominee for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, saying she might hold up negotiations to ensure she secures the position.
"I think she's in that unfortunate position of being beholden to her left wing to where she cannot be seen as agreeing with the president on anything until after she is speaker," Mulvaney said. "If that's the case, again, there's a chance we go into the next Congress."
Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill disputed that account, saying in a statement: "As Mr. Mulvaney well knows, House Democrats are united in their opposition to the President's immoral, expensive and ineffective wall."
The White House should "stop the posturing and start serious bipartisan talks," Hammill said.
Financing for about a quarter of federal government programs - including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Agriculture - expired at midnight on Friday. More than 400,000 "essential" employees in those agencies will work without pay until the dispute is resolved. Another 380,000 will be "furloughed," meaning they are put on temporary leave.
Law enforcement efforts, border patrols, mail delivery and airport operations will keep running.
Building a wall to try to prevent migrants from entering the United States illegally was a central plank of Trump's presidential campaign, but Democrats are vehemently opposed and have rejected his funding request.
Trump reiterated his push for border security on Sunday, saying on Twitter that "the only way" to stop drugs, gangs, and human trafficking at the border was with a wall or barrier.
"Drones and all of the rest are wonderful and lots of fun, but it is only a good old fashioned Wall that works!," the president said in the tweet.
Earlier in the week, leaders in both the Senate and House thought they had reached a deal that Trump would sign that contained less money for border security, only to watch the president, under pressure from conservatives, re-assert his demand for $5 billion at the last minute.
Senator David Perdue, a Republican from Georgia on the Senate Banking Committee, said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that he thought a deal this week was possible.
"I spoke to the president last night, he wants that," Purdue said, adding: "I'm hopeful that cooler heads will prevail and we'll get to some number between $1.6 (billion) and $5 billion on that."
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Mary Milliken, Daniel Wallis and Rosalba O'Brien)
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dude it's 2018 going on 2019...
no one cares...
ya'll got the reigns, which way do you sleigh : )
dilly dilly ; )
ok i gotta go...
i got many meatballs to roll...
i'm proud are you ?
no shame, be proud and loud...
like me : )
O.......
Your anthem
You go girl!
nope....
sad is not having nobody to do something to share with tomorrow...
i'm rolling meatballs, what's on your plate???
O.....