John Boehner mocked President Barack Obama in a floor speech just before the shutdown started on Monday.
“I didn’t come here to shut down the government,” Boehner said, moments before the House voted on the GOP’s latest continuing resolution, which includes a one-year delay of Obamacare’s individual mandate.”
“The American people don’t want a shutdown, and neither do I.”“I talked to the president earlier tonight: ‘I’m not gonna negotiate, I’m not gonna negotiate, I’m not gonna do this,’” Boehner said, mimicking Obama, reported the Huffington Post.
Republicans in the chamber applauded his remarks.
On Wednesday, Obama and Democrats ridiculed another Republican, GOP Rep. Marlin Stutzman.
Stutzman is being mocked for saying Republicans should get something from the budget standoff — but he doesn’t know what that is. The tea party-backed lawmaker told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday: “We’re not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”
The three-term congressman backtracked Thursday, saying in a statement he had “carelessly misrepresented the ongoing budget debate.”
But Obama and the Democrats jumped on his original comments, calling him selfish while some 800,000 federal workers remain out of work, parks and museums remain shuttered and various government services are on hold.
At an event in Rockville, Md., Obama repeated Stutzman’s quote as the audience laughed.
“Think about that. You have already gotten the opportunity to serve the American people. There’s no higher honor than that,” Obama said. “So the American people aren’t in the mood to give you a goodie bag to go with it.”
Riffing on the remark, Obama described a worker stopping in the middle of the day, saying he wanted something but didn’t know what it was and shutting down the entire plant. Audience members yelled out that the employee would be fired, and Obama agreed.
The president said that what the Republican would get from a budget resolution is intelligence experts and medical researchers back on the job, parks and monuments open and an economy back on track.
“That’s what you get; that’s what you should be asking for. Take a vote, stop this farce, and end this shutdown right now,” the president said.
The Associated Press contributed tot his report.
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