[ad_1]
Known for his typical calm, Colorado Democratic Senator Michael Bennet escaped Thursday to make a fiery speech against Republicans, especially Texas Senator Ted Cruz, following the partial closure of the government.
Accusing Cruz crying "crocodile tears", Bennet hit the Republican senator after Cruz blamed the Democrats for the coast guard workers being unpaid during the closure.
"It's not normal that we do not pay the coastguards," Cruz said. "At the present time, all other branches of the army are paid.The armed forces are paid, the navy is paid, the air force is paid, the marine forces are paid, but the coast guards are not paid. "
The leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, then blocked a Coast Guard payment request after the Republicans had refused to open the rest of the federal government, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in the country. federal workers without pay.
Sitting sitting in the Senate, arms crossed, Bennet, visibly upset, noticed that he was "rarely" known to "get up on this floor to contradict someone in the room. ;other side".
"I have worked very hard over the years to work in a bipartisan manner with the president officer, along with my Republican colleagues," Bennet said. "But those tears of crocodile that the Texas senator is asking for first responders It's hard for me to take."
The Democrat then criticized Cruz for his role in closing the government in 2013, which has was prompted by Republicans' demand that any spending bill passed at the time delay the deployment of the Obama Administration's Affordable Care Act. "Cruz was at the forefront of the effort to keep the closed government in power for 17 days, until now occupying the Senate with a 21-hour marathon speech including a reading of Dr. Seuss' book Green Eggs and Ham.
Regarding the 2013 closure, which occurred as a result of the Colorado floods, Bennet said that Cruz's "crocodile tears" were "too hard for me to take, because when the Senator Texas closed the door the government in My State was flooded in 2013.
"It was under water," said Bennet, his voice rising. "People have been killed, people's homes have been destroyed, their small businesses have been ruined forever, and because of the Texas senator, this government has been closed for political reasons."
then beat to finish second. Iowa Caucuses – a word of no help for first responders, teachers, students whose schools were closed, with a federal government that was closed because of the Senegalese senator from Texas.
"Now it's his business, not my business, why he supports a president who wants to erect a medieval fence at the Texas border, who wants to use a prominent domain to build that wall, who wants to declare a Unconstitutional urgency to build this wall – that's the case of the Texas senator, "Bennet said.
"I can assure you that in Colorado, if a president said that he was going to use a prominent area to erect a barrier through the state of Colorado, in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, was going to Stealing Ownership For farmers and ranchers to build their medieval wall, no elected leader of our state would support this idea. "
Read More: Trump says he" loves and respects " "Incarcerated Government Employees": They Totally Support What We Do "
Continuing his moving speech, Bennet declared" how ridiculous it is that this government be closed for a promise that the President the United States could not hold. , and that Americans are not even interested in keeping it.
"This idea that he would build a medieval wall on the southern border of Texas, that it would be borrowed by farmers and ranchers present, and that Mexicans would pay because it is not true! Exclaimed Bennet, hands in the air, "that's why we are here. Because he's now saying that taxpayers must pay for it. "
Bennet, 59, represents Colorado in the US Senate since 2009, when he was appointed to the position after Ken Salazar resigned from his position as Secretary of the Interior
He was Chief of Staff to the then Mayor of Denver, John Hickenlooper, and also worked as Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools.
In a An interview that followed his heated speech, Bennet told CNN's Erin Burnett that the current situation, with the federal government's record-breaking 35-day closing on Friday, is "ridiculous."
"I also think that". it is ridiculous that we even have this conversation because they have not spent the money allocated to the wall. There has been $ 1.6 billion that has not been spent on building the wall yet.
The government was shut down for more than a month after Trump unleashed federal closures on December 22, refusing to sign an interim measure to keep the government in office until it was over. did not include the $ 5.7 billion that he had requested. in financing the construction of its long-promised border wall between the United States and Mexico.
A survey conducted earlier this month by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs suggests that support for the Trump Border Wall has declined in the years since it's committed to erect it during its 2016 presidential campaign.
The poll, which gathered 1,019 participants and ran from January 11 to 13, revealed that 55% of Americans did not want to see the wall while 41% were in favor of the plan.
The survey also revealed that support for the construction of the expanded border wall between the United States and Mexico has decreased by 7 points since the summer of 2016, with 48% of those supporting the plan at that time.