Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) predicted on Sunday that the ongoing government shutdown will end by Thanksgiving.
“Given that real pain, do you think the government will reopen by Thanksgiving?” NBC News’s Kristen Welker asked Lankford on “Meet the Press.”
“Oh yes,” Lankford responded.
“You do?”
“I do, and it absolutely needs to — and needs to be open today, if we can get it open. So we put out a proposal literally 14 times to say, ‘Let’s open it today, let’s keep negotiating,’” Lankford said.
“And on the health care issue, it’s been fascinating. President Trump came out within the first week and said, ‘If you want to talk about health care, we’ll talk about health care as soon as the government is open,’” he added.
The government shutdown has dragged on for over a month as a fight over health care between Democrats and Republicans continues. It came after months of simmering tension from Democrats over sweeping actions the president has taken during his second term.
On Saturday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters that members of the upper chamber would remain in session until a deal is reached to get the government back open.
President Trump said Saturday that Democrats were buckling under the pressure from the shutdown, a few days after he said the shutdown is at least part of the reason for Republican election losses earlier in the week.
“The Democrats are cracking like dogs on the Shutdown because they are deathly afraid that I am making progress with the Republicans on TERMINATING THE FILIBUSTER!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“Whether we make a Deal or not, THE REPUBLICANS MUST ‘BLOW UP’ THE FILIBUSTER, AND APPROVE HUNDREDS OF LONG SOUGHT, BUT NEVER GOTTEN, POLICY WINS LIKE, AS JUST A SMALL EXAMPLE, VOTER ID (IDENTIFICATION),” Trump continued.
