(The Center Square) – Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker says President Donald Trump is to blame for the U.S. government’s partial shutdown, but Vice President J.D. Vance has a different opinion.
The governor took questions from reporters Wednesday after he hosted a panel discussion with Illinois Department of Public Health Director Sameer Vohra and doctors at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Medicine.
“The president of the United States decided to shut down the government because he’s unwilling to sit down with Democrats to discuss things,” Pritzker said.
The federal government partially shut down early Wednesday after Democratic U.S. senators withheld the votes necessary for Republicans’ funding resolution to pass.
Speaking at a White House press briefing Wednesday morning, Vance pointed the finger at Senate Democrats.
“They talk about doing something. They don’t actually do the hard work of making it happen. What they have done instead is to shut down the government because we won’t give billions of dollars in healthcare funding for illegal aliens. That is what actually happened,” Vance said.
The vice president said the Trump administration has had communication with U.S. Senate Democrats
“A lot of them will admit in private that it’s kind of absurd to shut down the people’s government over these disagreements, but just agree to negotiate with us in good faith on these issues, and of course we’re having that conversation with them,” Vance said.
Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Don Tracy said Washington Democrats drove the nation into an unnecessary shutdown.
“Instead of joining Republicans in passing a clean funding bill to keep the government open, they are holding our country hostage to appease the radical left’s trillion-dollar spending demands,” Tracy said in a statement.
The former Illinois GOP chairman called out Illinois Democratic U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly, saying they politicized the budget vote. Krishnamoorthi and Kelly are also running for U.S. Senate.
Pritzker said about 45,000 federal workers in Illinois would be furloughed during the shutdown.
The governor insisted it was Trump, not Democrats, who shut down the government.
“He wrote a book, or supposedly wrote a book, called ‘The Art of the Deal’ and says he’s a great dealmaker. Time to go to work,” Pritzker said.
Thérèse Boudreaux contributed to this story.
