Chuck Schumer bizarely invokes Epstein firestorm as he rips GOP leadership for shutdown

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer desperately invoked the Epstein files firestorm as he tried to rip GOP leadership for the government shutdown.

The New York Democrat accused House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) of not being genuine about his offer to negotiate the Obamacare subsidies after Dems stop blocking their bipartisan bill to end the partial government shutdown.

Schumer (D-NY) called the offer “not serious” and accused Johnson (R-La.) of keeping the House out of session to punt on the fight to release files on sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

“Look, Johnson’s not serious about this. He sent all his congressmen home last week and home this week,” Schumer told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “How are you going to negotiate?

“The reason he sent them home is because he’s more interested in protecting the Epstein files than protecting the American people from the health care crisis,” Schumer chided.

“We’ve been trying for months and months to sit down with them and have a serious conversation addressing America’s health care needs. And they’ve refused and refused and refused.”

Johnson has kept the House out of session during the government shutdown as a pressure tactic.

Last month, the House passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through Nov. 21 to buy time to finish the bipartisan appropriations process and keep Uncle Sam’s lights on for the rest of the fiscal year.

That CR hasn’t been able to clear the Senate because Democrats have declined to relent on the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to break.

The “clean” CR has garnered up to 55 votes in favor in the Senate during various votes on it. Republicans have a 53-seat majority in the Senate.

The Senate was in session most of last week and will be in session this week. But Johnson has kept the House away to tell Democrats that Republicans won’t accept anything other than a “clean” CR — similar to Dems’ past demands in prior shutdown fights when the roles were reversed.

Democrats have demanded a reversal of GOP-backed Medicaid reform enacted earlier this year under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (now the Working Families Tax Cut Act), and an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) have been open to a bipartisan deal on the Obamacare subsidies, but have been adamant that it be delinked from the partial shutdown.

“There’s a lot of points to be made on that, and we’re ready to talk about, negotiate and do all of that, but they’re trying to create that as a red herring here right now,” Johnson told “Face the Nation” about addressing the Obamacare issue.

“There has to be reforms to that subsidy, because there’s a lot of fraud, waste and abuse involved in it,” he added. “We’re not saying that we won’t negotiate it. We’re saying turn the lights back on in Congress.”

Johnson also noted that he hasn’t “staked out a position” on whether he will back extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which were enacted during the COVID-19 era under the Biden administration. But he stressed that he wants the program reformed.

Bipartisan negotiations over the Obamacare subsidies have been in the works since before the shutdown fight erupted.

The government has been shut down since last Wednesday, the first time Uncle Sam’s lights have gone off since early 2019.

During the last partial government shutdown, which lasted 35 days beginning in December 2018 and spanning through 2019, President Trump had demanded $5.7 billion for border security and rejected a “clean” CR for weeks.

Democrats accused him of holding the government “hostage” at the time with his demands and insisted on a “clean” CR. Now their healthcare demands could cost as much as $1.5 trillion over a decade, according to GOP-backed estimates.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, claim to have reached the signatures needed to force a vote in the House on a bill to force the release of the Epstein files after the House gavels back into session.