CNN Newsroom: Interview with Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL)

Interview

"No. Thanks for having me on. No, I'm not tired. This is what we're supposed to be doing, right? I mean, you know, it took a little longer than we would have liked. We didn't need to get to this point to avert a government shutdown, because we could have done this obviously days or weeks ago.

But look, this is what the people have sent us to do. So I'm glad we passed this on a bipartisan basis out of the House. I am hopeful I think the Senate is going to pass this. I think this will get to the President's desk and it will get signed. The timing of which I obviously don't know, because I don't control the Senate. And but what I do think is obviously we are clearly trying to do what we can to avert a government shutdown. I'm glad the House took the first step and passed this bill on a bipartisan basis.

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No. Because I don't believe that, you know, that the Ukraine funding is over, right? I wouldn't I can't shut the government down because we don't get Ukraine funding, right? I got to fund the U.S. government first before I can then go provide foreign aid to other countries. And so this was step one, keeping the government open so that we can then solve the Ukraine issue. I support Ukraine funding. I support the White House's request for Ukraine funding. But this was the vote to keep the government open. And I'm not going to shut the government down over foreign aid.

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I do. I do. And I support the funding. And I think we're delaying the inevitable. So I do agree there that, you know, we could have done it today. And I think we're delaying the memo. I think we're going to have that vote. I will vote for support of the Ukraine funding. But this kept the government open.

This gave us the $16 billion of disaster aid, being from Florida, being in hurricane season, being a former Director of Emergency Management, that disaster aid was critical. FEMA needed those resources to help communities, cities, counties, states that had been affected by hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, fires.

And so, you know, this was, you know, 90 percent of what I would have liked to see, so I'm not going to let perfect become the enemy that good. I'm going to live to fight another day. And I will fight for that Ukraine funding. But I'm happy that we're keeping the government open for all those federal employees and for all Americans so that we don't crash our economy.

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Well, look, it doesn't surprise me that people talk around Capitol Hill, right? So I'm sure the Speaker's Office and the Senate Minority Office, were in constant contact on what, you know, they each could get their members to vote for it, right? Look, we're in divided government. The House is controlled by Republicans. The Senate is controlled by Democrats. And so, you know, as a Democrat who got 90 percent of what he would have liked to see, I voted for it, by the way, so did every single solitary other Democrat except one Democrat.

And that's because we understand the catastrophic failure, it would have been to close the government. I mean, remember, they -- we didn't have to get here. You know, this is the same crew that, you know, almost, you know, took us off the cliff with the debt ceiling, took us right to the brink of defaulting on our debt. And they took us right to the brink of closing the government. And so we could have been doing this weeks ago to avert this crisis. But I'm glad obviously the House passed this on a bipartisan basis.

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Well, listen, I'm a pretty quick read. It was clear to me that it was almost perfectly clean CR with disaster aid. And as soon as I made the conclusion that it was a clean CR with the fulfilling the White House's request on disaster aid to 16 billion I came out and said I was a yes vote. You know, I think it was a mistake for Republicans to try to push this through and give people 20 minutes to read the bill, that's not what they promised to do.

They promised to give people time to read bills around here. Oftentimes this place passes, you know, 1,000-page bills with very little time to read them. So I'm glad that the Leader Jeffries did that and took the time so members around here could read it. I think that's important. But it was very easy for me to read it come to my conclusion, see it was a clean CR with disaster aid and get on board and that's why 99.9 percent of Democrats here voted for the bill.

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Thank you.

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