‘Why Is It Suddenly Right?’: CNN Host Kasie Hunt Reminds Gallego Democrats Set Up Crisis They’re Blaming On Trump

CNN host Kasie Hunt pressed Democratic Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego on Tuesday over his party’s stance on healthcare subsidies.

The government shut down Oct. 1, and Democrats have refused to reopen the government unless Republicans agree to extend expiring Obamacare premium subsidies. During an exchange on “The Arena With Kasie Hunt,” Hunt said Democrats long championed the importance of maintaining legislative “norms” — the very ones they’ve now abandoned in defense of extending the expiring Obamacare subsidies.

“Why is it suddenly right to do it [shutdown] this way, and to do it for this long, when it didn’t used to be, though, the right way, in Democrats’ view?” Hunt asked Gallego.

“It’s Donald Trump. You’re talking about norms in the time of Donald Trump,” Gallego said.

Hunt pointed out that Democrats once insisted on preserving the political norms that they’re now discarding in defense of their policies.

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“But Democrats have spent so much time arguing about how maintaining those norms is actually incredibly important,” Hunt said.

“It’s all out the window, Casey. No, when you’re in the time of Donald Trump, this is the man that is extorting people. He’s literally breaking every rule,” Gallego said. “We’re not going to go back and play by the norms when we know that what’s on the line is 24 million people are going to have their insurance rates, premiums doubled. That’s a new thing, by the way. And the fact is, the president and everyone expects us to play by these old norms.”

Hunt pressed further, telling Gallego that Democrats created the very problem they’re now blaming on Republicans.

“But didn’t Democrats kind of set that up in the bill that you passed, though, that these subsidies were going to expire?” Hunt asked.

“When we passed the bills back in the day as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, of course, we were trying to maybe hope for the best that this country and our Republican colleagues would understand that raising insurance rates on people is a bad thing. I’m sorry they don’t see it that way, but it’s also not my job to make their job easier,” Gallego told Hunt. (RELATED: Jake Tapper Point-Blank Asks Chris Murphy If He’s Willing To Let Americans Go Hungry Over Obamacare Subsidies)

Senate Democrats continue to block every Republican effort to end the shutdown, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer leading the Democrats in repeated filibusters. The filibuster, a procedural tool that forces most Senate measures to meet a 60-vote threshold, has become Democrats’ weapon of choice as they block GOP efforts to end the shutdown, despite once campaigning to abolish it when Republicans were in the minority.

Democrats have said they won’t support any funding deal that leaves out extending the Obamacare subsidies and other Democratic priorities.

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