‘Instigator’: GOP senator has ‘no sympathy’ for federal worker who lost job to ​DOGE cuts

Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) doubled down on his insults of a terminated government employee who went viral after the lawmaker reacted to his termination by telling him he “probably deserved it…because you seem like a clown.”

The confrontation unfolded on Capitol Hill Tuesday as Mack Schroeder, a former Department of Health and Human Services worker, approached Banks as the Indiana Republican made his way toward a congressional elevator. The war of words escalated Wednesday when Schroeder – and then Banks – made dueling appearances on CNN, where they traded barbs.

“I’m not going to shy away or back down or apologize for what I had to say yesterday,” Banks told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “This was a calculated instigator activist in the hallways of the Senate, and I don’t have a lot of tolerance for it.”

“I know he’s an instigator,” Banks added when Tapper pressed him on how he reached that conclusion. “He’s in the Senate hallways every day, chasing down Republicans, like me, and cheering for Democrats. It doesn’t take a whole lot here to deduce from that he is a left-wing activist.”

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The Indiana Republican added: “What I have no tolerance for is anyone who believes they’re entitled to taxpayer-funded jobs, in this case we know that he made between $85,000 to $100,000 a year for a job he can’t even explain. I have no sympathy for that.”

When Tapper questioned how he knew what kind of work Schroeder was doing at HHS, Banks appeared to come up short.

“He can’t explain it,” Banks said. “I’ve read online what he had to say about his job, it doesn’t make sense, he couldn’t even explain it on CNN earlier on the day when you had him on your station exactly what he did do.”

Banks concluded that Schroeder was a “probationary, short-term employee” who had a “woke job that wasted taxpayer dollars.”

“And I’m thankful that President Trump eliminated that job,” he said.

Watch the clip below or at this link.