Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah says Democrats 'blinked' on budget negotiations
White House Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah said the Democrats "blinked" Monday by agreeing to join Republicans to reopen the government. Democrats supported a bipartisan bill to fund the government until Feb. 8 in exchange for a promise from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that the Senate would address immigration issues, including the protections enshrined by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy.
"I think that the fact that [Democrats are] voting in favor for this proposal that they rejected a few days ago is sort of evidence that they blinked," Shah told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
The Democrats' decision passed the 60-vote threshold in the Senate and is expected to glide to approval in the House, but it is already controversial among many in the party. "Immigration advocates spent the morning rallying Democrats against the compromise deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)," Talking Points Memo writes. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) slammed her party's compromise, claiming that McConnell's comments "fell far short of the ironclad guarantee I needed to support a stopgap spending bill. I refuse to put the lives of nearly 700,000 young people in the hands of someone who has repeatedly gone back on his word."
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Last week, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, a former Republican member of the House of Representatives, told Democrats to not give the GOP "a single vote in keeping the government running … unless they give you a clean bill on DREAMers." Scarborough claimed: "If you do, you are too weak and too spineless and too stupid when it comes to politics and too cowardly to be given control of Congress in 2018."
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