White House prepares for government shutdown but won’t pause PR war on GOP

The White House has all but resigned itself to the government shutting down but didn’t pause its onslaught Friday blaming House Republicans for their opposition to bipartisan funding legislation.

Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young joined White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at Friday’s briefing to continue those attacks while also detailing some of the preparations the Biden administration is taking ahead of this weekend’s deadline.

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: IF WASHINGTON CLOSES, IT COULD COST THE GOP IN VIRGINIA

For weeks, the White House has hammered House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the Republican caucus for seeking to undercut the budget agreement brokered by McCarthy and President Joe Biden over the summer. White House officials have distributed memos to interested parties, in addition to press releases, of the downstream economic impacts an “extreme Republican shutdown” would have on households.

On Friday, Young repeated past administration lines on the impact a shutdown would have on food assistance for mothers and children, delay natural disaster relief and recovery projects, and further exacerbate the migrant crisis at the southern border.

She also sought to hammer home the strain a shutdown would have on low-wage federal workers, like custodians, living paycheck to paycheck.

Susan Walsh/AP

“I’m glad that the speaker has made that statement. By the way, members of Congress have to get paid constitutionally, so maybe he’ll put it in a sock drawer, I don’t know,” she said of McCarthy’s stated plan to forgo a paycheck in the event of a shutdown. “But they have to get paid during a shutdown. That’s theater. That is theater. I will tell you, the guy who picks up the trash in my office won’t get a paycheck. That’s real, and that’s what makes me angry.”

Young ball-parked the number of “civilian” federal employees who would go unpaid during a shutdown at 1.5 million, with roughly 800,000 deemed essential and still coming into work. She noted that service members would also remain on active duty to protect national security operations but would also go without pay.

Young spent years as a top appropriations staffer on Capitol Hill before joining the Biden White House. And on Friday, she specifically zeroed in on House Republicans, unlike Senate Republicans, and House and Democratic senators, for refusing to stick to the debt ceiling budget deal and potentially undermining public trust in the federal government in the process.

“It’s a pox on all of our houses. That’s why four out of the five corners are trying not to go there. We’re doing everything we can to plead, beg, shame House Republicans to do the right thing. Don’t have this happen,” Young continued. “The cavalierness is what gets me. I’ve heard people say in the Republican in House conference, ‘Oh, shut down. It’s not that bad. It’s not like the debt ceiling.’ Well, you go tell people who cannot pay their daycare bill. You go tell people that. You go tell men and women in uniform that they don’t get a paycheck when they show up to work every day. You go tell that mother that she cannot get formula after having had to be convinced to even give government a try. It’s the cavalierness that really gets me, and you’re right. It sets an expectation for how people deal with their government throughout their lives, and it’s something we should work really hard to avoid.”

Following Young’s comments, Jean-Pierre confirmed that much of the White House staff would also be furloughed but that the press office continued to hold briefings, likely with added emphasis on Republicans’ role in shutting down the government.

She also suggested that Biden, who has escalated his national reelection campaigning in recent months, did not plan to travel as long as the government remained shut down.

However, Jean-Pierre flat out rejected the possibility that Biden himself enters the negotiations, as McCarthy has requested.

“The reason why we’re not negotiating is because we already did that. We did negotiate. The president spoke multiple times with congressional leadership on this, and there was a bipartisan piece of legislation that was agreed upon that was passed that was made into law,” she stated. “We’re going to be very clear about this, and you know what, I don’t want to get into hypotheticals from here because we believe that this can be fixed. We believe that House Republicans can fix this. It is their job to fix this.”

“The conversation is not with this president. The conversation is with Speaker McCarthy and his caucus. They need to have that conversation and get this done on behalf of the American people,” Jean-Pierre closed. Millions of Americans are going to be hurt by this by their action, and it is reckless and it is irresponsible.”

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You can watch Friday’s briefing in full below.