Transcription
I'm going to get some lunch meat, some bread, some beans and rice. You know, some potatoes, some ground beef.
You know, we have to really make a stretch right now, people. The feeling of the snap to take care of the families and things like that. It is. Terrifying. I'm scared that he's not going to be able to get what he needs, the nutrients he needs. He's a growing. Baby.
One of the issues at stake in the shutdown is food stamps or Snap benefits. Right now, 42 million Americans rely on that support. That is 1 in 8 Americans. Back with us is Republican Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana. Senator, I cannot stand thinking about these families not having food to put on the table. How did we get to this situation in the first place as tragic?
I mean, in Montana, the Blackfeet Nation is now authorizing extended culling for the bison herd in the elk. They're saying literally live off the land and eat meat. They're going to kill and feed themselves with because tribal assistance is, of course, shut down with the government shutdown. So, this is not a necessary shutdown. This does not need to be happening. And as you know, we've now voted 14 times to open the government because we should be feeding our people. We should be running our national security apparatus. The air traffic control should be up and running. Thank goodness we have so many dedicated employees who are in fact, coming to work without getting pay. But this does not need to happen.
Let's not forget. Let's not forget this is a Biden CR. This budget that we're voting to extend is from the Biden administration. This is the Democrats budget that Biden signed that was enacted by the Democrat Senate from 2024. So we're not extending Trump funding. It's a clean CR, an extension of the Biden administration's budget is what we are trying to extend. So it's kind of weird the way the tables have turned. The Republicans are voting to keep the government open with the Biden administration budget that Chuck Schumer stewarded through the Senate when he was a leader, and now they have voted against it 14 times against their own budget. It's nonsense.
So President Trump today floated the idea of the nuclear option, getting rid of the filibuster, in which you need 60 votes in the Senate. Do you support that? Yes. Now, I think obviously with the president voicing, as you heard in your previous segments, great frustration from the working class saying, why isn't my government working for me? And I think President Trump has been the grandest champion of the working class in at least a generation, if not more. And he is voicing that frustration, saying we should be doing whatever it takes to open this government up to reopen Snap benefits, to make sure our military is getting paid, to make sure our highways and our air traffic control is operating uninterrupted. So I think what he's doing is what he always does. As you know, he explores every option on the table, whether it's negotiating with the leader of China, negotiating with Putin, or trying to get a government reopened. He's an all tools in the toolbox guy. And I think, you know, right now he's offering one to us. I don't think it's going to happen in the Senate, but, you know, we are using every piece of leverage we have to say, guys, open the government. This is a common sense vote for the American people with your own budget. Democrats work with us, and we'll negotiate health care subsidies later. We'll negotiate changes a snap later. That's part of the appropriations process, which I might add, the appropriations process, as you well know, has been circumvented for far too long now, the appropriations process with 12 appropriations bills coming out of committee. We're inside committee. Republicans and Democrats collaborate and horse trade and come up with appropriations bills that have that compromise that that, your previous guest talked about, that it's about time for Republicans and Democrats to negotiate on these issues. Well, they have negotiated on them. That's what the budget from last year was. That's what the appropriations process is. This is a negotiation. This is hostage taking. This is holding working class Americans, our military and our national federal government operating apparatus hostage for a $1.5 trillion, program that, quite frankly, expired with Covid.
So if I could just ask again, though, would you support getting rid of the filibuster? Now I'm not on board with that. I think, as much as I respect the president, I think, you know, I support him, exploring every option. The reality is, our framers s are pretty wise in building this body as a body that requires, the kind of collaboration we just spoke about, which is we need to come together. The Senate forces that with that 60 vote threshold is where we're forced to collaborate on matters where we can, of course, come up with solutions that cross the aisle.
So you're a young senator, very much representative of the new blood in the GOP. What would you say it means to be a Republican in 2025? The president won with such a coalition that did not represent where the Republican Party was before. So how would you answer that question? Common sense Americans voted for common sense in 2024, and you've heard from our previous few guests. As I was listening in, Americans wanted common sense back. They wanted secure borders, safe streets, cheap gas. Cops are good. Criminals are bad boys or boys. Girls or girls. They're tired of being told that we have to send. It's a moral obligation to send billions of dollars to other countries while our infrastructure is crumbling. They're tired of being told that they're bad people for thinking that illegal immigrants shouldn't be allowed to come to America unfettered, with millions at a time. They're tired of being told that they're racist for saying, you know what, I think drug dealers should be put in jail. I think we should be blowing up drug boats before those drugs hit our shores and murdered tens of thousands of Americans. And I think they're tired of being told that putting America first is somehow bad. Every other country puts their interests first. Why wouldn't we be putting our interests first? The interests of our working class? We've talked earlier in the segment about, about our factory workers, about those 9 to 5 jobs. You could support an entire family over the past 30 years, we've shipped those jobs to other countries. That's been bad for the American working class. So bringing those back some of it's tariffs for incentivizing companies to bring those here, some of it's tax code policies, which we also discussed. And the one big beautiful bill to say, you know what? Let's make it more tax advantageous for someone to start a business here in America than in China or Mexico or Canada. So those policies that are going to rebuild our middle class economy are exactly what the president's focused on. And I think Americans understood that. And that's why they delivered him a victory across all of government House, Senate and the white House last year.
Montana Senator Tim Sheehy, may God bless and protect you. Thank you so much for joining us.