Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) thinks the solution to ending the government shutdown is elementary.
During an interview Thursday with The Hill’s TV stream, “Rising,” Durbin urged the White House to listen to his colleague Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in order to bring the government shutdown to an end and claimed President Trump is obstructing McConnell’s leadership.
“It’s up to the president; it’s really in his hands,” Durbin said. “There’s a way to end this, the President can do it immediately. We offered to him yesterday to take the Republican-passed spending bills for eight different federal agencies and departments and to enact them today so that would be the end of the shutdown — he said no. I mean, listen to Mitch McConnell for goodness sakes. He’s waiting for a permission slip from Donald Trump to be a leader in the Senate.”
Trump surprised fellow Republicans and Democrats when he reversed his support of a bipartisan temporary spending bill in order to make an aggressive push for border wall funding, prompting a government shutdown that’s lasted nearly two weeks.
