U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., not only defended the massive $1 trillion infrastructure package, which is being billed as “bipartisan” legislation with a number of moderate Republican senators on board, but he claimed that Fox News viewers “love this bill.”
Appearing on “The Ingraham Angle,” Cassidy was asked right out of the gate by host Laura Ingraham if he had read the 2,702-page monstrosity of a bill and his response made it clear that he had not personally read it.
“My staff and I read it totally,” the GOP senator said, before justifying his support for the bill by pointing to $110 billion earmarked for “broken down bridges, to replace or make them better. And to make them safer.”
Cassidy added that $65 billion was being spent “to bring broadband in areas that do not have it, creating jobs along the way,” and that the Army Corps of Engineers would get $16 billion for “coastal restoration issues and other things that place Americans at risk of losing their homes and their businesses from floods.”
He also claimed the legislation is “paid for,” despite skepticism from the Wall Street Journal editorial board — DC math never pans out quite the way slippery politicians claim it will. Cassidy may not realize it, but he could be a poster child for everything that is wrong with not just the Republican Party, but Capitol Hill in general.
(Video: Fox News)
When Ingraham pointed out the bill also spends billions on carbon capture projects, Cassidy defended this as a necessity for American businesses to compete overseas, all the while echoing the Democrat claim that climate change-related efforts create jobs.
Ingraham played a clip of Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, panning the bill, even claiming that “some of the wealthiest and most well-connected Americans will get rich off of legislation like this.”
“The White House is quite giddy about this,” Ingraham said. “Reuters describes this as a glide path to the $3.5 trillion tonight in their write-up of this.”
Cassidy responded with a fanciful take on how the infrastructure bill is being received by Americans, which is when he uttered the claim about conservatives who watch Fox News.
“It is the person in my state stuck in traffic who’s fearful of their home flooding, who wants to have a better job, that actually would like to make more money but doesn’t make a lot of money now, who really likes this bill,” he said. “I talked to Fox News watchers. They love this bill.”
After all, who hasn’t sat in rush hour traffic worrying about their homes flooding?
And since he was telling tales, the senator went on to say that, in a convoluted way, Republicans like Sen. Lee who oppose the bill are “helping” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pass her $3.5 trillion social justice bill – House Democrats are looking to tie the two bills together in reconciliation.
Ingraham chimed in to say the GOP senators backing the $1 trillion bill got “played” by Pelosi.
“Why not do what Pelosi did and say, show us your hand first, let’s see the full text of our reconciliation bill, everything that’s in it — climate change, amnesty, tax increases, all the nightmares that we already delineated tonight — let them show their hand, but it got flipped, didn’t it?” she said. “You guys got played on this. You had to vote first or agree first. They still haven’t shown the text of their legislation, have they, sir?”
Cassidy repeated the nonsensical argument that by opposing the bill, Ingraham was helping the left.
“The ironic thing you are agreeing with the Squad and Bernie,” he said. “It’s amazing, you’re agreeing with Pelosi. We think this makes that behemoth less likely to pass.”
The Fox News host, who chuckled at much of what Cassidy claimed in the interview, got a good laugh out of that one.
As Ingraham continued to dismantle his case, Cassidy ended up going full circle and touting the talking points he opened up with on the benefits of their bill.
“You could have gotten that without giving away the store,” she replied. “But I know you are talking loudly because you are trying to be really persuasive, but it’s just not working.”
Ingraham closed out the segment by saying, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the senator talk so loudly to Democrats before but I love that he did that.”
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Tom@bizpacreview.com
The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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