House Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed not to “surrender” and negotiate with the Senate on a short-term spending bill in the face of an expected government shutdown.
Pressed by CNN’s Manu Raju on why he wouldn’t work on a bipartisan funding solution with the Democratic-run Senate, McCarthy replied, “If you want to surrender, yeah. If you want to fight for the American public, to secure our borders and keep government open, how is that a problem?”
Later, as he defended the inclusion of border security provisions in the House’s version of the spending bill, he compared deaths caused by fentanyl crossing the border to an airliner crashing every day and reiterated that he would not “surrender and just go with the Senate.”
“Would you sit here and ask the question, ‘Why don’t I surrender and just go with the Senate and ignore the problem?’ Is that the question you would ask?” he said to reporters.
McCarthy did note that he would not accept his salary if the government shuts down.
“Of course, I would not take my salary, but the number one thing I want here is the government not to shut down,” he said.