Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:45 pm
Republicans in Congress were stunned on Thursday with Donald Trump’s tweets suggesting that a vote to raise the debt ceiling should be tied to a veterans benefits bill.
According to a report in The Hill, Trump’s unexpected proposal means “raising the debt ceiling just got tougher.”
More from the report:
Yet congressional sources pushed back against Trump’s claims, saying the notion of using the vets-benefits bill as a debt-ceiling vehicle, while bounced around, was rejected out of hand for fear of politicizing veterans and risking the failure of legislation that had strong bipartisan support.
“There was just no traction on it at all,” said an aide on the Veterans Affairs Committee. “We’re not going to politicize veterans’ care.”
The pair of Trump tweets that is leading to yet another feud between himself and GOP leaders in Congress:
I requested that Mitch M & Paul R tie the Debt Ceiling legislation into the popular V.A. Bill (which just passed) for easy approval. They…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2017
…didn’t do it so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up (as usual) on Debt Ceiling approval. Could have been so easy-now a mess!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2017
While the president complains that members of Congress are turning the debt ceiling debate into “a mess,” it is his irresponsible tweets that are turning the simple vote into a political game.
As The Hill also noted, Trump’s Twitter posts “won’t ease the process, heightening the growing tensions between the president and the Republican leaders he needs to realize his ambitious policy agenda.”
As a result, the odds of a government default, a devastating prospect for the economy, are increasing – all so this president can score some cheap political points on the back of American veterans.
Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was quick to fire back at Trump, saying, “Republicans need to stop the chaos and sort themselves out in a hurry.”
With the chaos president in White House, it’s unlikely Republicans will be able to restore order within their own party anytime soon.
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