Re: Today in "so much winning"!
Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 4:19 pm
'Are you ruining my life?': Republican senators in disbelief over Trump shutdown threat
Republican Sen. Susan Collins almost dropped her handbag Thursday as she gestured disbelief at word, delivered to her by reporters in the Capitol, that President Donald Trump would not sign the budget extension to keep government funded until February unless border wall money was added.
"Did he just say that?" she asked as she left a Republican lunch. "Ugh, are you ruining my life?"
Collins was already headed to the airport to return home to Maine and wait for the drama to play out, when word came, via House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had met with Trump, that a government shutdown now seemed more likely.
"Boy, we can't have government shut down. It's never good," she said. "How many times do we have to learn that?"
Collins and other GOP senators were told they would be given 24 hours' notice before a vote was called so they could fly back to DC.
The White House had signaled earlier this week that Trump would sign the bill.
Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, was leaving the Capitol to join Trump at the White House for the signing of the farm bill that Roberts had ushered through the Congress.
"We're down to almost single digits here," Roberts said about the large number of senators from both parties who left town after the Senate passed the stopgap bill late Wednesday night. "This is not a good situation."
Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, said he and other senators at the sparsely attended GOP lunch found out Trump wouldn't sign the bill when someone read aloud a tweet with the news. He said that after the tweet, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell went to speak to Ryan about it.
[...]
Republican Sen. Susan Collins almost dropped her handbag Thursday as she gestured disbelief at word, delivered to her by reporters in the Capitol, that President Donald Trump would not sign the budget extension to keep government funded until February unless border wall money was added.
"Did he just say that?" she asked as she left a Republican lunch. "Ugh, are you ruining my life?"
Collins was already headed to the airport to return home to Maine and wait for the drama to play out, when word came, via House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had met with Trump, that a government shutdown now seemed more likely.
"Boy, we can't have government shut down. It's never good," she said. "How many times do we have to learn that?"
Collins and other GOP senators were told they would be given 24 hours' notice before a vote was called so they could fly back to DC.
The White House had signaled earlier this week that Trump would sign the bill.
Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, was leaving the Capitol to join Trump at the White House for the signing of the farm bill that Roberts had ushered through the Congress.
"We're down to almost single digits here," Roberts said about the large number of senators from both parties who left town after the Senate passed the stopgap bill late Wednesday night. "This is not a good situation."
Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, said he and other senators at the sparsely attended GOP lunch found out Trump wouldn't sign the bill when someone read aloud a tweet with the news. He said that after the tweet, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell went to speak to Ryan about it.
[...]