including all democrats. 17 republican senators voted against it including lindsey graham of south carolina, a state that has been hit with hurricanes before and will be hit again. he said he voted against the hurricane sandy relief bill and the debt ceiling increase because the bill did not also contain increases in military spending. joining us now is jonathan capehart, opinion writer for the washington post and an msnbc contributor, and back with us is ron klain. jonathan, so south carolina, which could be hit by the next hurricane or the hurricane after that, their senator stood up there today and said, no, i m voting against hurricane relief because you don t have other things in here totally unrelated to hurricane relief that i would like to have.
hit again. he said he voted against the hurricane sandy relief bill and the debt ceiling increase because the bill did not also contain increases in military spending. joining us now is jonathan capehart, opinion writer for the washington post and an msnbc contributor, and back with us is ron klain. jonathan, so south carolina, which could be hit by the next hurricane or the hurricane after that, their senator stood up there today and said, no, i m voting against hurricane relief because you don t have other things in here totally unrelated to hurricane relief that i would like to have. yeah, it looks like senator graham and those other no votes are standing on principle here, i guess, at a time when they think that there s no principle at all happening anywhere in this town. what happened yesterday in the oval office between the president, the senate minority leader, the house minority leader, as i wrote in my piece
people outside his district coudo not know him. he is a budget hawk, wants to cut spending. listen to what he said a few years ago in defense of amendment to hurricane sandy relief bill that required spending be offset. any dollars spent on supporting or offering relief had to be cut or saved somewhere else. here is what he said then. i think we should be willing as a body to come together and say look, there are things that we do not need this year, things that we can do without this year so that the people in new york and new jersey and connecticut and other states who so badly need the money can have it without us having to go hat in hand to other nations of this world and say would you please lend us money so that we can take care of our folks that need it so badly. i hope the amendment passes. i hope the amendment passes so that i can vote for the bill. i want this money to go where it is so desperately needed, but the time has come and gone in this nation when we can walk in
that is what the stuff looks like. she is a runner. ron fournier wrote this in the national journal. the smartest man in politics may be chris christie. i take it back. at the time the new jersey governor had channeled the public s disgust with political dysfunction chazz tiesing republican leaders to refusing to allow a vote on hurricane sandy relief bill. christie said the game playing that derailed the relief bill showed why the american people hate congress. he accused his own party s leadership for selfishness and moral failure. his approval rating topped 70%. now his numbers are dropping because he wasn t so smart and the zero game culture christie enabled if not ordered infamous abuse of power.
there s a reason i m a democrat. there s a reason that republicans republicans. the problem with washington is that we agree on the 25% of the balance. if we could just pass that 25%, america is 100% better off. what the president just said is farm bill, budget agreement, immigration reform may not be 100%, but it will make us a much better country. so instead of fighting over our differences, let s just get it done. why your hearing that these wonderful timered lunches that you had, that was a few years ago. and what a difference a few years can make. because we ve been careening from crisis to crisis for the last few years and i don t think anybody is in the mood to have that kind of lunch today. what i m asking you is on the eve we re not even 12 hours since the president signed this bill. no one may be gloating over it, but this is a huge thumping for the republicans. how are you expecting to get the republicans on board? there is gop support in the center right for many of tho