Posted on 11/13/2026 11:28:39 AM PST by MinorityRepublican
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., floated using a government shutdown to get President Donald Trump to end the war in Iran during an interview on Thursday, after announcing he would challenge Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for the incoming Majority Leader position.
Van Hollen was asked multiple times during an MS NOW interview how he would be different from Schumer as leader. The senator pointed to ending the war in Iran.
"Well, the difference is, I believe we need to be firm," he said. "I think that we heard loud and clear from the American people that they want to end the war in Iran and bring down prices. We shouldn't say we're going to wait until January when we have the power to do it on Dec. 11. And so, this should not be a finger in the wind issue. This should not be sort of frittering around. This should not be a question of timidity. We need to answer the call of the American people, end the war, bring down prices, do it now. Not a penny, not a penny to fuel this war."
Congress will need to fund the government by Dec. 11 to avoid a shutdown. MS NOW's Jen Psaki asked Van Hollen if Trump would be "forced" to end the war because Congress couldn't do it unilaterally.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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Republicans don’t care if government is taking some time off.
End it how exactly?
“Not a penny, not a penny to fuel this war.” I thought that war was ended.
Please don’t throw me in that briar patch.
The rats want us to believe that they suddenly care about money?
Nah, just leave the Iran subject until 2027 so the demoncRATS can put up or shut up. Let the RATS have another debacle like the RATS pulled out of Afghanistan leaving a humongous mess.
I watched an economic analysis on the effects of the annual threats to not extend the borrowing limit and potentially default on bond payments. The bond interest rate, the rate the government borrows money at, at four percent will cause an exponential increase in the debt. The rate has recently been around five percent. Every time congress threatens to not pass a budget or extend the debt limit the countries who buy the debt want a higher rate to accommodate the risk. So if four is bad and five is worse, picture six or seven percent and what that does even held for a short time. We’re talking about rolling over billions of old debt to new debt.
If the concern is inflation holding this now traditional theater has the potential to give us Jimmy Carter style stagflation. And that’s what it is, theater.
Van Hollen would use the French solution,,,,,,we should totally surrender!……/s
Not extending the borrowing limit does not mean taxes are not collect. Fed guv collects taxes every day, day in day out.
To be expected. Republicans hardly supported Trump but they gave him cart blanche on foreign aid, tariffs, kidnapping, and bombings. Eventually the system catches up, self corrects and curtails out-of-category adventures. The cost of achieving lame duck status.
“Not extending the borrowing limit does not mean taxes are not collect. Fed guv collects taxes every day, day in day out.”
At four percent every penny collected in taxes is paid out in interest. The taxes collected are not sufficient to pay off the bonds that regularly come due. The problem is the there is no way now to pay off the debt as it exists. For a very long-time money was free as the interest rate was so low. At a low rate you can’t deny every politician his bridge to nowhere, so the budget ballooned out of control. We’re stuck with a debt that can only be paid off by inflation. (As Trump stated several times.) All we can do now is try to manage the situation and holding up the vote on the debt ceiling and the budget is the opposite of managing the situation.
Right after the election is the time to do unpopular things in lame duck session of Congress. People will forget about a government shutdown after almost two years when they go to the polls in 2028. I expect this shutdown to happen. Stock up on food and necessities now.
This might be a crazy question, but if our troops were not on a ship protecting the Hormuz Strait, what would they be doing? They’d still be getting a salary. Right now we’re not using up munitions much, since we’re doing “Economic Outcast” instead of bombing. It’s kind of a waiting game, until the financial strangulation cuts off the IRGC’s supplies and ability to fight its own desperate people.
At this point, how much do the operations in the Strait actually cose above and beyond the normal costs of salaries? I suppose the fuel to have the ships there; where would they be and what would they be doing if they weren’t there?
Seems like what Van Hollen is suggesting is that we quick, let go of the neck of the mass murdered we have in a chokehold, before he has a chance to die.
The price of gas is already going down; it started right after the election like clockwork as I had predicted. It wasn’t needed to manipulate the election any more.
The fact that Van Hollen is saying they should force Trump’s hands off the IRGC’s neck now rather than in January suggests to me that he fears what’s coming down the pike in the next 2 months, that could make his plan to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory might no longer be possible in January.
That’s a threat? Shut it down, please.
mass murderer, not murdered.
Fine. Shut it down. Your threats are empty.
VH is a psychopath and he is probably going to be Majority leader
Our munitions stockpile has been seriously depleted, I’ve read. I don’t know how much more it costs to keep assets on station. In my day, Combat Pay was a whopping $60 or so per month.
This is the same guy who went to El Salvador to drink margaritas with a deported MS-13 gang member, and who got him back into the US.
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