“CBS Mornings” invited Vice President JD Vance to explain his point of view on the government shutdown on Wednesday, so on Thursday morning they brought Sen. Elizabeth Warren to the show from Capitol Hill to share her take on it.
“The Speaker of the House just said last night that he didn’t plan to negotiate and didn’t want to negotiate. But here’s the thing to remember: Americans have had a broken health care system for a very long time, but in July, the Republicans, all by themselves, with no Democratic votes, voted to cut health care for 15 million Americans,” the senator told host Tony Dokoupil. “When we get ready to do the budget for the year, we’re going to ask that that be rolled back. And the Republicans didn’t want to talk about it, wouldn’t negotiate. So now that’s where we are. Democrats are fighting to try to keep those health care costs down and to roll back the Republican cuts.”
“We have had now three months. We’ve been begging the Republicans to come to the table and negotiate. You know how many negotiations there been? Zero,” she continued. “The Republicans are saying they won’t negotiate when there’s not a shutdown. They won’t negotiate when there is a shutdown. So far, they won’t negotiate at all.”
Indeed, Congress is currently deadlocked over its funding deal, meaning for the first time in nearly seven years government workers have been asked to miss work this week — with the possibility of furloughs and layoffs impending. While essential workers like air traffic controllers and military personnel still have jobs, they won’t immediately get paid.
Warren then referenced Project 2025 directly, while calling the Republican talking points that link the government shutdown to health care for “illegal aliens” flat-out lies.
“Let’s understand that Donald Trump is going to do whatever he wants to do, and Russ Vought, the author of Project 2025, is in there trying to make as many painful cuts as he can,” she said. “That could be stopped if the Republicans in the House and the Senate would just say no more of this. Donald Trump has already illegally fired tens of thousands of federal employees, and now we have a president of the United States who is saying that what he wants to do is impose as much pain as possible on some of his fellow Americans, just so that he can win a political battle.”
“He’s cutting infrastructure spending in places where the money’s already been approved because it’s important to build those tunnels and build those bridges. But Donald Trump says he doesn’t care, he just wants to impose pain on Americans because he thinks that Democrats actually care and that Democrats will be forced to back down,” Warren added. “Look, we’re fighting for people’s health care. That’s what this is all about.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump also name-dropped Vought and Project 2025 on Truth Social on Thursday morning.
“I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” he wrote. “I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
