Brit Hume: "Shutdown Is A Disaster For Republicans Because They Will Be Blamed"

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, what you saw — you saw it in the interviews that you just did, is how the two sides view this. Senator Lee kept saying this is a bad law. And (inaudible) reasons why. Senator Kaine kept saying don’t shut down the government. In fact, it was only Senator Kaine who mentioned the shutdown, and that’s because the Democrats believe that shutdown is a disaster for the Republicans because they will be blamed. And if history is any guide, they will indeed be blamed. So that’s sort of where we are and neither side I think feels it has an incentive to move forward with a compromise. Now, it’s possible, Chris, with an 11th hour deal where you pass a continuing resolution that doesn’t have any of the contentious additions to it for a matter of several days to give us more time. But unless some compromise emerges that both sides seem likely to agree on, I don’t think that would do anything which would delay the inevitable. That’s where we are. Shutdown appears to be where we’re going.

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Brit Hume: "Shutdown Is A Disaster For Republicans Because They Will Be Blamed"

Brit Hume: "Shutdown Is A Disaster For Republicans Because They Will Be Blamed"

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, what you saw — you saw it in the interviews that you just did, is how the two sides view this. Senator Lee kept saying this is a bad law. And (inaudible) reasons why. Senator Kaine kept saying don’t shut down the government. In fact, it was only Senator Kaine who mentioned the shutdown, and that’s because the Democrats believe that shutdown is a disaster for the Republicans because they will be blamed. And if history is any guide, they will indeed be blamed. So that’s sort of where we are and neither side I think feels it has an incentive to move forward with a compromise. Now, it’s possible, Chris, with an 11th hour deal where you pass a continuing resolution that doesn’t have any of the contentious additions to it for a matter of several days to give us more time. But unless some compromise emerges that both sides seem likely to agree on, I don’t think that would do anything which would delay the inevitable. That’s where we are. Shutdown appears to be where we’re going.

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Brit Hume: "Shutdown Is A Disaster For Republicans Because They Will Be Blamed"

Hume: Threatening Government Shutdown As A Way Of Forcing Policy "Is A Loser"

BRIT HUME: No, I know. But look, I said this is — government shutdown as a way of forcing policy when you control one House of the legislature is a loser. Now, people like Ted Cruz who Senator Ted Cruz who is one of the main leaders on this issue and certainly one of its principal spokesmen believes that the political conditions are different now from the ones that prevailed in 1995. And in some respects they are. But in one respect they’re different and not in a way that’s helpful to his cause, which is that the Republican Party is in much worse favor with the public than it was in 1995 when people had just installed a new House Republican majority for the first time in decades, and my sense about this is that the sort of axiom in Washington that when the government shuts down, it doesn’t matter who causes it. Republicans get blamed is still in effect. And this is a very risky proposition.

Now, Cruz and company say, you can win the vote, if you win the argument. Well, they’re out trying to win the argument now, and they’re trying to provoke something along the lines of what happened on guns. When a popular sentiment just rose up and next thing you know, no bill passed. What remains to be seen if they can do that. I have real doubts.

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Hume: Threatening Government Shutdown As A Way Of Forcing Policy "Is A Loser"