Talks between Republicans and Democrats broke down in a last-ditch effort on Monday to avoid a government shutdown. Vice President J.D. Vance and House Majority Leader Mike Johnson held a news conference to say that Democrats were being hypocritical by \u201ctaking hostages\u201d during the negotiations. At the same time, Democratic leaders kept saying that Republicans would be to blame if the government went dark.<\/p>\n
Vance started by saying that a shutdown was coming because of the crazy things that Democrats, who are in the minority, were asking for:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t always agree\u2026\u201d But you don\u2019t stop the government from working.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t threaten the American people with a gun and say, \u201cWe\u2019re going to shut down your government unless you do exactly what Senate and House Democrats want you to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, we need to remember that they are very angry. They say they are very upset that this negotiation hasn\u2019t happened yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you look at the original, the original thing they did with this negotiation, it was a $1.5 trillion spending package, basically saying to the American people, we want to give massive amounts of money, hundreds of billions of dollars to illegal aliens for their health care, while Americans are struggling to pay their health care bills.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought it was crazy. We told them it was crazy, and now they come in here and say that if you don\u2019t give us everything we want, we\u2019re going to shut down the government. We think that\u2019s crazy. We think it\u2019s completely wrong.<\/p>\n
WATCH:<\/p>\n