Any excitement House Republicans may have felt after spending weeks cobbling together an acceptable budget bill that met the needs of both GOP hardliners and moderates was likely dampened by comments made by influential Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Not long after the budget bill passed by one vote on Thursday with two Republicans joining with Democrats to halt it, Graham was cornered by reporters and asked how it will be received during negotiations with GOP senators who will have their say before a final budget is approved and sent to Donald Trump.
Speaking with CNN host Dana Bash, Raju said, "This bill would add roughly $3.8 trillion to the national deficit over the next several years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)). Some of them want to cut spending deeper to try to offset some of the deficit increases, others are concerned about how it deals with some of those cuts."
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"So the question will be if they were able to get that through the Senate, which is a narrow Republican majority, will the House Republicans ultimately accept it and send it to President Trump's desk?" he asked.
He then shared a clip where he asked Graham, "Some of the Freedom Caucus members are warning you guys not to water down any of their cuts. What do you say to them?"
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"Well, you had your chance," Graham shot back and then laughed. "Some of these cuts are not real. And we're talking about over a decade — you know, if you do a trillion and a half, that's like a percent and a half. So don't get high on our horse here that we've somehow made some major advancement of reducing spending because we didn't."
You can watch below or at the link.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
