White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the looming threat of the government shutdown is a mess that Speaker Mike Johnson created and he needs to fix this, nor President Joe Biden. “The President is the president of the United States and he is leading. And to be very clear, as it relates to this, I have said this many times, we have done the strategy before. This is nothing new where we have said Congress needs to deal with this. Their No 1 job is to keep the government open and there was an agreement on the table. Not just an agreement, a bipartisan agreement. Speaker Johnson created this mess and he needs to fix this. Period,” she said adding that the Republicans blew this up to do their bidding for their millionaire friends.
On whether Americans should be preparing for a shutdown, Jean-Pierre said, “I think there’s still time. We believe there’s still time for that to not happen, for Republicans to do the right thing, to hold up their part of the deal and move forward with the bipartisan agreement,”
“There’s still time and our focus is keeping the government open. That’s what we want to see. And we hope Republicans want to do that.”
Asked if President Joe Biden would remain in Washington should a shutdown occur, Jean-Pierre rejected getting into hypotheticals.
“We believe, as I just said moments ago, there’s still time to get to a bypass, to get to a deal here or move forward,” she said.
Jean-Pierre said agencies began notifying employees at noon on Friday of their potential furlough in preparation for a possible shutdown.
Biden spoke with Democratic leaders of the House, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Jean-Pierre said adding that the president does get regular updates and his team has been in touch with the members.
Asked why the president hadn’t spoken to the American people or been more involved in negotiations, Jean-Pierre said Biden has “had this approach before.” “He understands how Congress works,” she said. “He’s been around for some time. He understands what strategy works here to get this done. So, this is not, this is not the first time.”
