Baba UmarWashington, DC — US Vice President JD Vance has joined White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to criticise the Democrats as the first day of the government shutdown unfolded, blaming the "left-wing" Democratic leaders, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [AOC], for sabotaging government spending negotiations.
Democrats "want to give healthcare benefits to illegal aliens. They gave us legislative text that would have undone us cutting off healthcare benefits for illegal aliens… That's a ridiculous proposition," Vance told media on Wednesday during a press briefing in White House.
"That's one of the things that they asked for. Let's be honest about the politics is that Chuck Schumer [Senate Minority Leader] is terrified he's going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [Democratic Representative]" in 2028.
"The reason why the American people's government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far-left radicals in his own party because he's terrified of a primary challenge," claimed Vance in a rare appearance in the press briefing room.
Vance invited Schumer "to join the moderate Democrats and 52 Senate Republicans, do the right thing, open up the people's government, and then let's fix health care policy for the American people."
Democrats and Republicans are in a dispute over whether to extend expiring subsidies for the Affordable Care Act and reverse Medicaid cuts. Over 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed due to the shutdown.
US President Donald Trump has announced the shutdown would be an opportunity to dismiss numerous federal workers.
US law restricts healthcare benefits for undocumented immigrants, a point unaddressed by Democrats' demands or calls for legislative change.
The US Vice President, meanwhile, urged Democrats to help Trump administration reopen the government, citing concerns for 1.3 million troops' pay, food assistance, and flood insurance.
"Our troops are not getting paid starting today because of the Chuck Schumer-AOC wing of the Democratic Party," he said.
He stated that some low-income Americans needing food aid would miss out due to the government shutdown, blaming Schumer and his Democratic colleagues.
Vance claimed flood insurance may lapse due to actions by Schumer and the left-wing of the Democratic Party impacting the southeastern region as hurricane season begins.
"We need to reopen the government. Let's fix America's problems. Let's work together to solve them, but let's reopen the government before we have our negotiation about healthcare policy," he urged.
Layoffs are imminent
Leavitt, meanwhile, warned that worker layoffs are imminent.
"Unfortunately, because the Democrats shut down the government, the president has directed his Cabinet and the Office of Management and Budget is working with agencies across the board to identify where cuts can be made and we believe that layoffs are imminent," Leavitt said.
"America is $37 trillion in debt. We cannot afford to provide taxpayer funded free healthcare to illegals who broke the law to enter our country," she said.
She blamed Democrats' stance on healthcare for "undocumented" immigrants led to a government shutdown, "jeopardising" vital healthcare programmes for American citizens.
"The women, infants and children programme, community health centre funding, medicare treatment options and other health programmes are now all at risk because of the Democrats rejecting the clean CR [continuing resolution].”
Vance conceded the situation could rapidly escalate to redundancies should the shutdown persist.
"We haven't made any final decisions about what we’re going to do with certain workers. What we're saying is that we might have to take extraordinary steps," he told reporters when asked why federal workers will be fired — as suggested by President Trump — rather than furloughed.
"The longer this goes on, we’re going to have to take extraordinary measures to ensure the people's government operates, again, not perfectly — because it's not going to operate perfectly in the midst of a shutdown — but operates as well as it possibly can," Vance added.
