Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) won’t deny the fact that President Donald Trump knows how to play his cards right when it comes to getting what he wants in Washington, D.C.
The progressive vanguard admitted it was politically savvy for the president to do whatever it takes to blame Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown. But in the end, he said, nothing can mask the reality of the broken health care system Democrats are fighting to fix.
“Trump may be crazy, and Trump may lie all of the time, but he’s a good politician,” Sanders said during a Monday night appearance on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins.”
While Republicans claim they’ll be open to negotiating with Democrats if, and only if, the opposition votes to get the government back up and running, Sanders said it would be foolish for his party to throw away the little bit of leverage it has to work with right now.
“It is clear that this shutdown has got to end as soon as possible,” Sanders said. “But what‘s also clear is that Trump now understands that he has to finally deal with the health care crisis that his legislation, the ’big, beautiful bill,’ has caused.”
Sanders told Collins the shutdown is going to force Trump and his party to do something to fix the fact that Americans “can’t afford health care,” especially after Republicans refused to include an extension to Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies in their spending bill passed earlier this summer.
“You want to throw 15 million people off the health care that they have?” he said. “You‘re going to destroy a broken health care system. We may not be able to recover from that. I think Trump understands that, the Republicans understand that.”
In a Monday post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that he’d be willing to work with Democrats to hammer out a compromise “on their Failed Healthcare Policies” but only if they vote to get the government reopened.
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees and active-duty service members have been left in the lurch since the shutdown commenced last week.
While many jobs are on pause, workers such as air traffic controllers and airport security agents are being asked to come to work without pay. That has led to significant staffing troubles and delays at some of America’s biggest airports, among other problems.