On Monday, Tom Donahue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce suggested Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) should “sit down and shut up.” Donahue’s remarks come a week after the group indicated it will wage war against conservatives by backing moderates in Republican primaries.
At a Washington event sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, a reporter said, “People are assuming that the business community would kind of like him to sit down and shut up.”
“Well, that might be one thing we could work on,” Donahue reportedly replied. He then said Cruz “has his right as a member of the Senate to get out and push the things he supports or resist the things he doesn’t support and we’re going to try to work with him wherever we can.”
Groups like the Chamber of Commerce that back establishment Republicans disapproved of Cruz’s strategy to defund Obamacare and his opposition to comprehensive immigration reform, which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports.
At the event, Donahue said his group would support Republicans and Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections.
“We will support, to some peoples’ discomfort, numbers of Democrats in both houses,” he reportedly said. “The bottom line is this is all about the economy, so for us it’s all about the American business community and all about the country.”
Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce indicated it will back moderates in favor of comprehensive immigration reform against conservatives in Republican primaries.
“We are going to get engaged,” Scott Reed, a senior political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told Bloomberg News. “The need is now more than ever to elect people who understand the free market and not silliness.”
The Wall Street Journal also noted that business groups like the Chamber of Commerce were researching what races they could potentially impact because they are worried that “Congress will now be unable to tackle other big issues on their agenda, including immigration policy.”
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