Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News for.
Speaker 2: Fresh reaction amid these reports this evening on a potential
Speaker 2: workaround to end the government shutdown. We're joined now by
Speaker 2: Republican Senator of Wisconsin Ron Johnson. He's with us Lie
Speaker 2: from Capitol Hill and Senator, it's great to have you
Speaker 2: back on Bloomberg TV and radio. I'm looking forward to
Speaker 2: your thoughts on the shutdown here, but I'd love to
Speaker 2: ask you about this news that's coming from the White
Speaker 2: House now and whether the moment has arrived for secondary
Speaker 2: sanctions to hit the floor. I know that John Thune
Speaker 2: has said they're on pause right now out of deference
Speaker 2: to the White House, but is it time to.
Speaker 3: Vote well again, I really will that up to the
Speaker 3: President when he wants that is a backstop to put
Speaker 3: pressure on Putin.
Speaker 4: I think that's room Wilacked understood.
Speaker 2: Is that something that you feel like we're moving closer
Speaker 2: to as he prepares to sit down with the Secretary
Speaker 2: General at NATO. We're just trying to get a sense
Speaker 2: of which direction the president's leaning in here and how
Speaker 2: to deal with Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 3: Well, my guess he's getting pretty disgusted with the dealer
Speaker 3: of Vladimir Putin. He's giving him every opportunity to end
Speaker 3: up with a peaceful solution. Here dangled economic benefits in
Speaker 3: front of him, obviously threatened sanctions.
Speaker 4: Again, this president wants peace.
Speaker 3: I think if there's a hallmark to his administration, even
Speaker 3: his previous administration, he's not a wartime president.
Speaker 4: He wants peace. Now.
Speaker 3: He used an a cheap piece through strength, but in
Speaker 3: the end, he wants peace, and he's doggedly pursuing it.
Speaker 5: And you may have heard Joe just go to the
Speaker 5: go to truth social posts from the president. He just
Speaker 5: shot down a Wall Street Journal report that the US
Speaker 5: is allowing Ukraine to use long range missiles in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: How will that play into what is supposed to be
Speaker 5: a meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin, which is
Speaker 5: now looking much less likely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that meeting is canceled because Vladimir Putin
Speaker 3: keeps lobbing missiles more than lobbying launching missiles into Ukraine.
Speaker 3: I get apparently hit Kindergarten earlier today. Again, the lenmricpoons
Speaker 3: a war criminal.
Speaker 4: There's no reason for him to invade Ukraine.
Speaker 3: The fact matter is he's not going to lose this war, though,
Speaker 3: you've got to recognize that reality. The only way this
Speaker 3: war ends us through a negotiated settlement. We're not going
Speaker 3: to like the terms of that, but even like even worse,
Speaker 3: the bloody stalemate that we're in right now, where we're
Speaker 3: losing thousands of people on both sides of a week,
Speaker 3: it's just untenable.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about what's happening with the
Speaker 2: shutdown here, Senator. I spoke earlier with the chairman of
Speaker 2: the House Ways and Means Committee, who kind of stopped
Speaker 2: us in our tracks when he suggested that he might
Speaker 2: be behind a full year cr in fact one that
Speaker 2: would get us through December of twenty twenty six whant
Speaker 2: I need to hear what he said earlier on Bloomberg.
Speaker 4: Let's listen.
Speaker 1: December twenty first, twenty twenty sixth is what I've been
Speaker 1: hearing up here as a suggestion as an opportunity of
Speaker 1: a continued resolutions. As we know we're operating under a
Speaker 1: year long resolution.
Speaker 4: From last year.
Speaker 1: We're looking at what was appropriated when Biden was president.
Speaker 2: That was a Congressman Jason Smith earlier on Bloomberg, Senator,
Speaker 2: is this what it's come to and would you support
Speaker 2: a full year continuing resolution.
Speaker 3: What would be a much better idea would be just
Speaker 3: passed my eliminate shutdowns at But that doesn't sets up
Speaker 3: automatic rolling fourteen day continuing appropriations for whatever department of
Speaker 3: all government that hasn't been appropriated for. That would give
Speaker 3: the appropriators time to find areas of agreement, pass the
Speaker 3: bills that can pass the ones that don't. You just
Speaker 3: continue to fund at last year's levels. That'd be a
Speaker 3: far more common sense approach than a one year continuing
Speaker 3: resolution for all of government.
Speaker 4: Give the appropriate appropriators time.
Speaker 3: The appropriators some of the Republicans even vote against the
Speaker 3: limit a shutdown Act they said would undermine the appropriations process. Well,
Speaker 3: here's the alternative, a CI that goes into December twenty
Speaker 3: twenty six. So hopefully people will come to their senses
Speaker 3: and realize Eliminate Shutdowns Act is the solution to our
Speaker 3: current fix CENTAER.
Speaker 5: It doesn't seem that that bill has gone very far yet.
Speaker 5: Are you sensing you will get some more support for this?
Speaker 3: Well, the good news is a leader of thutent switches
Speaker 3: vote to no swinging brand for reconsideration. Again, I was
Speaker 3: very disappointed Republican appropriates voting no.
Speaker 4: They said it would.
Speaker 3: Undercut the appropriation process. But let me describe that appropriation
Speaker 3: process it supposedly underminds. I've been here fifteen years. That
Speaker 3: means we should have passed one hundred and eighty appropriation
Speaker 3: bills before the start of the fiscal year you're funding.
Speaker 4: We've passed six.
Speaker 3: So this vaunted appropriation process, which is clearly broken, fails
Speaker 3: ninety six point subset of the time. The Eliminated Shutdown
Speaker 3: Act does not undermine that process.
Speaker 4: It just gives us all the time.
Speaker 3: We wouldn't be sitting here the fourth week, going to
Speaker 3: the fourth week of a shutdown doing nothing. We could
Speaker 3: have been on appropriation bills. We could have been working
Speaker 3: with each other, we could have been negotiating. But instead
Speaker 3: we've got this shutdown show in showdown with literally no
Speaker 3: end in sight. Hopefully tomorrow, but hopefully today the Democrats
Speaker 3: are actually vote for the continued resolution.
Speaker 4: Doesn't sound that they will.
Speaker 3: The next best step is, let's at least pay the
Speaker 3: federal workers were forcing to work. That's the Shutdown Fairness
Speaker 3: Act that I've offered that will be voting on tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about that. I know you're
Speaker 2: reintroducing this. To your point, there's a vote tomorrow. Do
Speaker 2: you worry that this makes shutdowns easier, that it removes
Speaker 2: a pain point that might actually compel lawmakers to end
Speaker 2: this saga?
Speaker 3: Clearly, the current system is utterly broken. Right now, we
Speaker 3: just cross thirty eight trillion dollars in debt and the
Speaker 3: definition in Sandy's doing the same thing over and over
Speaker 3: again expecting different results.
Speaker 4: So again we're in this this function.
Speaker 3: Let's not make federal workers who are being forced to
Speaker 3: pay pay for our dysfunction.
Speaker 4: So again, this makes perfect sense.
Speaker 3: Even the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Associations generally
Speaker 3: not an association of that agree with the Republican bill.
Speaker 3: Completely supports this peace of legislation. So at a minimum,
Speaker 3: we ought to pass the Shutdown Fairness Act and pay
Speaker 3: the people we are forcing to work, military, federal law enforcement,
Speaker 3: air traffic control, people who write our Social Security checks.
Speaker 4: These people deserve their paycheck. They're working. By the way,
Speaker 4: they're gonna get paid anyway.
Speaker 3: We have a lot that can to provide back pay,
Speaker 3: So pay them, you know, in time, so they don't
Speaker 3: have to go to food banks. They don't have to
Speaker 3: drive door dash to pay for their daughter's tuition. We're
Speaker 3: hearing stories that's what federal employees are being forced to do.
Speaker 3: That's unconscionable.
Speaker 5: You know you mentioned you mentioned Argentina. Are you concerned
Speaker 5: the attention to that is is making problems with Wisconsin
Speaker 5: farmers when you're dealing with a shutdown.
Speaker 3: I don't remember mentioning Argentina. Maybe I wasn't articulating something. Listen,
Speaker 3: we've got a problem right now. From a standpoint, the
Speaker 3: government is shut down, things aren't moving forward. There's a
Speaker 3: common sense solution here. Either just pass the Continuing Your
Speaker 3: Appropriation or the Eliminate Shutdown Act. Simple solutions, common sense.
Speaker 3: I think the vast majority of Americans would agree with that.
Speaker 3: Right now, we're being held hostage by quite hostly the
Speaker 3: UNI party appropriators. This seems dysfunctional. It is dysfunctional, this
Speaker 3: very well honed process. I've seen a time time again.
Speaker 3: I've been here fifteen years. You use these shutdowns to
Speaker 3: back us up against a deadline like Thanksgiving, you Christmas,
Speaker 3: drop a multi thousand page appropriation bill in or desk,
Speaker 3: say take it, to leave it, or you're not going
Speaker 3: to see Christmas that has to end here.
Speaker 2: We appreciate it, Senator, and we appreciate your time, Senator
Speaker 2: Ron Johnson.