CNN’s Dana Bash Asks Jordan Why He Doesn’t Know ‘Political Reality’

On Sunday’s “State of the Union” on CNN, host Dana Bash asked Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) why he doesn’t “know the political reality” on the funding battle over the president’s executive action on immigration.

The interview began with Bash asking “I want to ask the first question that everybody out there is probably asking, probably in disgust, saying, really? what is wrong with Congress? Why can’t you govern? And why can’t you fund a government agency that keeps us safe?”

Jordan responded, “we passed a bill at the levels that the Democrat[s] wanted. What we did say was ‘we don’t want to fund something that everyone knows is unconstitutional. Legal scholars on the right and left have said it’s unconstitutional and a federal judge, a federal judge has said is unlawful.’ That’s the bill we sent there, fund it at the levels the Democrats want, but don’t do something that’s unconstitutional.”

Bash then told Jordan, “you know basic civics because you are a member of Congress. The Senate can’t pass that. You can’t get past the Senate.”

After Jordan pointed out that Democrats in the Senate had filibustered the House’s funding bill and expressed a desire to resolve differences between the chambers in conference, Bash did agree that hashing out differences in conference is “how it’s supposed to work,” but then wondered “in the reality that you are dealing with right now, there still are not enough votes in the Senate, filibuster-proof votes. You know this…this is why your fellow conservatives in the Senate, Ted Cruz, Jeff Sessions, they allowed a bill to pass, a clean bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security no strings, because they know the political reality. Why don’t you?”

Jordan again re-iterated his desire to go to conference and further argued that the funding battle was created by the president’s executive action.

Later on, Jordan pointed to election results as justification for the push to defund the president’s action to which Bash said “you’re not saying anything that the House Republican leadership — they agreed with you on this. But they’re also living in the reality of the process in that they can’t do anything about it because they don’t have the votes ultimately to do it without shutting down the Department of Homeland Security.” Jordan said in reply that the GOP should make a stronger case against the president’s action.

Bash then told Jordan “I understand that you obviously feel very passionately about this, but this is also about passion and principle versus governing and it just — from people looking in from the outside, and even more importantly your fellow Republican colleagues think that you are more interested in chaos and sticking to principle than your responsibility of governing.”

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