At a Wednesday briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed Democrats for the federal government’s failure to release the October jobs report.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: And our economy has lost billions and billions of dollars in economic activity over the course of this shutdown, hurting consumer sentiment and crushing the travel and hospitality industries. According to a CBO estimate, the Democrat shutdown could end up decreasing fourth quarter economic growth by two whole percentage points. The Democrat shutdown made it extraordinarily difficult for economists, investors, and policy makers at the Federal Reserve to receive critical government data. The Democrats may have permanently damaged the federal statistical system with October CPI and jobs reports likely never being released. And all of that economic data released will be permanently impaired, leaving our policy makers at the Fed flying blind at a critical period. It’s hard to recap all of this without asking a simple question, why? Why have the Democrats put the American people through this pain for 43 days in a row? And it feels like Groundhog Day being up here again talking about this Democrat shutdown. And the answer to that question is pure partisan politics. They started this shutdown with a ridiculous demand to force taxpayer-funded health care benefits to illegal aliens who broke into our country. Even after it was clear President Trump and Republicans would never force American taxpayers to pay for free health care for illegals. In fact, President Trump’s one big beautiful bill fixed that problem. The Democrats kept dragging this reckless government shutdown on for weeks longer to boost their turnout in an election, perhaps one might guess. That’s because the Democrats are totally captured by their far left-wing base who only care about attacking President Trump, even if it means hurting innocent Americans in our country.

RealClearPolitics Videos