Dem Sen. Bennet: Ted Cruz Using Coast Guard as Political Pawns — ‘This Is Absurd’

Friday on CNN’s “New Day,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) charged Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) of using the Coast Guard as a “political trick” when he voiced his sympathy for members of the Coast Guard not being paid during the partial government shutdown after he shut the government down in 2013 in a time of flooding in Colorado.

“What happened with my colleague from Texas, Senator Cruz, was on the floor claiming that he felt sympathy for the Coast Guard guys that aren’t being paid,” Bennet told host Alisyn Camerota. “I have huge sympathy for that. I think it’s ridiculous that they are not being paid. What I pointed out was that in 2013, Ted Cruz shut the government down while Colorado was beset floods. You know, we had people dying, we had people’s homes destroyed, communities trying to recover, people trying to do everything they could to rebuild — the best of America, the best of America. And here, we were shut down for politics so he could read Dr. Seuss on the floor of the Senate.”

This is absurd that the government is shut down,” he continued. “We should never shut the government down.”

Camerota noted that Cruz was pointing out how there was a clean bill to get members of the Coast Guard paid that Democrats voted down, but Bennet said it “was an excuse for not opening the rest of the government.”

“It was a political trick,” Bennet replied. “It was an excuse for not opening the rest of the government. It was an excuse not to pay those FBI guys or those DOJ guys. Having worked at the Department of Justice myself, I know what amazing civil servants they are, not to pay the people at Homeland Security, but to claim to the American people that somehow just paying the Coast Guard was adequate or sufficient. It was a political trick, is what it was. We should open the government up.

“The idea that we are holding hostage the American people’s government over a campaign promise that the president simply can’t fulfill because it was a lie is ridiculous in the greatest democracy ever known on the planet,” he added.

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent