House Speaker Mike Johnson spent the sixth day of the government shutdown laying out his case for blaming Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer for a funding impasse that has no end in sight.
“He’s trying to find political cover, and in doing that, he’s hurting real American people,” Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, said.
He said Mr. Schumer, New York Democrat, is afraid of a primary challenge in 2028 as his city and state drift further to the left.
“They’re about to elect an actual Marxist as the mayor of New York City, the once cradle of capitalism, the largest city in America. It’s stunning,” Mr. Johnson said. “And I think it’s stunning to Chuck Schumer too, because while he’s a far left politician, he’s not nearly as far left as these guys, as they want him to be.”
Mr. Schumer has not endorsed New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist who secured a double-digit victory in the June Democratic primary.
His office declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s political attacks, instead pointing to a statement Mr. Schumer put out in response to the speaker’s remarks about health care.
Mr. Schumer has blamed the shutdown on President Trump and congressional Republicans for their refusal to negotiate with Democrats on health care.
Democrats want to extend their COVID-era expansion of Obamacare premium subsidies that are set to expire this year. They’ve proposed adding that and other health care and spending provisions to a stopgap spending bill needed to reopen the government.
“Johnson does not want to do it,” Mr. Schumer said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday. “He’s just not serious about it, as exemplified by him sending the House home for two weeks. You need to be here to negotiate.”
Mr. Johnson said Republicans “want to improve health care” but there’s nothing to negotiate while the government remains shut down.
“We have ideas and plans to do that, to fix the COVID-level madness and adjust Obamacare so that it works for more people, so you have higher access to care and the costs are reduced,” he said.
Mr. Schumer’s statement questioned Mr. Johnson’s commitment to the issue.
“Speaker Johnson has survived by kicking the can down the road and promising everyone the thing they want is just around the corner, they just have to wait a bit longer,” he said. “If he’s serious about lowering costs and protecting the healthcare of the American people, why wait? Democrats are ready to do it now.”
The speaker and other Republicans have argued that Mr. Schumer is picking a shutdown fight now because the far left wing of his party turned on him in March after he and nine other members of his caucus helped Republicans keep the government open.
“Why? Because they want him to show a fight against President Trump. So Schumer doesn’t want to be in this situation again,” Mr. Johnson said. “He got his staff together and he got the far left wing of the party and said, ‘What do you want? What do you want me to fight on?’ So they created a red herring. A red herring is a distraction. They decided that they would pick a fight on health care.”
Mr. Johnson admitted that he did not think Mr. Schumer would shut down the government and instead “would do what he’s always done.”
“He has given impassioned speeches over the years, most recently in March of this year, that you have to fund continuing resolutions; you can’t shut the government down because it’s irresponsible and painful for the American people,” he said. “He was right in March. He is not right today.”
The speaker is keeping the House in recess until the Senate clears the House-passed stopgap reupping the prior fiscal year’s funding levels and policies through Nov. 21.
“We need Chuck Schumer to reopen the government and as soon as he does that, we’ll bring everybody back here,” Mr. Johnson said.
Three senators who caucus with the Democrats, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Angus King of Maine, are supporting the GOP stopgap, but Mr. Schumer and other Democrats are still filibustering.
It would take five more Democrats to reopen the government. Mr. Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, are hoping they’ll come around.
Republicans did not include any partisan priorities in the funding stopgap, “no gimmicks, no tricks,” Mr. Johnson said.
“There’s nothing that Leader Thune and I can go to Chuck Schumer and say, ‘You know what? Okay, we’ll pull this off. Would that make it better?’ No, I don’t have anything to give,” he said.
A Democratic counter proposal, by contrast, includes $1.5 trillion in new spending to extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies and roll back GOP cuts to Medicaid.
Mr. Johnson said Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” cuts fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid, requiring able-bodied adults to work to receive benefits and ending funding for most non-citizens.
“We got to make sure that illegal aliens are not on Medicaid,” he said. “Medicaid is intended for U.S. citizens only, not illegals who break our law and come over the border.”
Mr. Schumer has said that Mr. Johnson and Republicans are lying when they claim Democrats want to provide health care benefits to illegal immigrants.
“Every independent agency that looks at this says Johnson’s claim is false,” he said. “Zero federal dollars can go to undocumented immigrants through Medicare, through Medicaid, through ACA.”
He said Congress should be debating the real issue, which he described as the “healthcare crisis in America caused by the Republicans.”
Mr. Johnson “puts up all these fake lies to try and divert attention,” Mr. Schumer said. “It’s his standard operation. He just is concerned with the politics.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.