Weingarten: Dems Were Using Shutdown to ‘Get the Issue of Health Care Out There, And They Did’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said that, in her opinion, with the government shutdown, “what the Democrats attempted to do was to get the issue of health care out there, and they did that.”

Host Blake Burman asked, “So, did Democrats make a mistake by forcing the shutdown? Like, if you could talk to them over again, if there was another — if there’s another opportunity for them to force a shutdown, would you tell them not to do it again?”

Weingarten answered, “I don’t think — I think what the Democrats attempted to do was to get the issue of health care out there, and they did that. I’m part of the labor movement. As a labor movement, we have three things that we kept saying during the shutdown: get the government open, deal with health care, and pay people. Don’t have the air traffic controllers actually doing the heroic job they were doing and not get paid.”

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