A MAGA lawmaker got snippy with a CNN anchor during a live broadcast Friday, complaining, "You interrupted me!"
Assistant Whip Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) joined CNN's Brianna Keilar to discuss the ground stop at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport due to staffing shortages as the government shutdown drags on, and how FAA staffing problems have ended previous stalemates and forced the government to reopen.
Keilar moved the conversation to the subject of food stamp benefits, which two federal judges ruled Friday must be continued to be funded by the Trump administration and the U.S.Department of Agriculture, as the deadline for funding the program was slated to run out Saturday.
"The question I'm asking you, because you're a Republican and that is your party — and that is your party in the White House making that decision — do you think it's fair to just to the country's most needy as leverage?" Keilar asked.
"I was just about to answer when you interrupted me, because the blame is not just on this administration, because this administration is not the one that voted to shut down the government. It was the Senate Democrats that chose to," Malliotakis shot back.
"But what I'm simply saying is, if the Democrats are not going to vote to reopen the government, they want to continue using this leverage and inflict this type of pain in the American people unnecessarily. Then what I think the president and the administration should do is what they've done with the Women, Infants, and Children program," she said. "They were able to find some money to shift funds to continue that program, very critical for young families that I represent. They found funds from Pentagon research and development to be able to pay our military. And as I said earlier, they should do the same here, if given, which they seem to have received green lights from the judges to allow them to use it."
