This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 21 episode of “Morning Joe.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson has continued to defend his decision not to swear in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. On Monday, the Republican told reporters on Capitol Hill that he was “willing and anxious” to swear in Grijalva, but said he was unable to do so due to the ongoing government shutdown.
“In the meantime,” Johnson continued, “instead of doing TikTok videos, she should be serving her constituents. She could be taking their calls, she could be directing them, trying to help them through the crisis that the Democrats have created by shutting down the government.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but the speaker’s statements are getting more ridiculous by the day. Whatever his reasoning is for delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in, it’s the people of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District who are paying the price.
She can’t answer calls. She doesn’t even have a congressional office. She isn’t able to help her constituents because they aren’t officially her constituents yet — and they aren’t her constituents yet because Johnson keeps refusing to swear her in.
This is just one of the reasons why Republicans are losing the political battle right now. It’s not like I haven’t been saying that from the beginning; we all knew Donald Trump and his party were going to pay a price for this ridiculous shutdown.
The truth is, Republicans almost always get blamed for government shutdowns. I was a Republican lawmaker during a government shutdown. That time around, we did the right thing but we still got blamed. We ended up balancing the budget, but it didn’t matter.
However, in this case, Republicans aren’t doing the right thing. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers and members of the U.S. military are working every day without pay, all while members of Congress sit at home. During my time in the House, we would have been back on the Hill, holding press conferences to force our speaker to bring us back into session and fix this.
The American people know Republicans are the ones who have the power to stop this shutdown. They know Johnson could pass a bill today that would allow our men and women in uniform to be paid, to make sure our country’s air traffic controllers are paid, and give the hundreds of thousands of other essential federal workers the paychecks they deserve. According to an Ipsos/Reuters poll, 72% of Americans are in favor of extending Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies. That means that 72% of Americans are on the side of the Democrats and disagree with Republicans on the central issue that is shaping this government shutdown. Another poll from AP-NORC found that only 30% of Americans believe the country is going in the right direction, while 69% believe it’s going in the wrong direction. That’s bad news for Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House. It’s been a long time since Democrats have been on the right side of any political fight when you look at the polls, but this is one of those times.
Former Rep. Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., is co-host of MS NOW's "Morning Joe" alongside Mika Brzezinski — a show that Time magazine calls "revolutionary." In addition to his career in television, Joe is a two-time New York Times best-selling author. His most recent book is "The Right Path: From Ike to Reagan, How Republicans Once Mastered Politics — and Can Again."
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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