Montana Host Runs Into Vice President Vance at Capitol

Schumer feels the heat over the Democrats shutdown, while Montana Senator Steve Daines says it was all beef at the GOP luncheon.  

I tell you what...sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

Tuesday afternoon, AFP-Montana's Jesse Ramos and I were walking across Capitol Hill, and we figured- why not stop by and say hi at Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) office.

Thankfully we did. We got to tag along with Senator Daines' team as they were looking to link up with him following his meeting with his fellow GOP Senators and special guest- Vice President JD Vance.

As we were waiting, VP Vance popped out of the Mansfield Room and started talking to the crowd standing outside the Senate chamber. VP Vance called on Democrats to end the government shutdown.

VP Vance: The government needs to be open. We just need Democrats to actually take it up and vote. We need 60 votes...we've got three moderate Democrats, to their credit, who have voted to reopen the government. We just need five more reasonable Democrats to do what the American people want us to do, to open up the government.

We then got to catch up with Senator Daines, who said this about the federal government shutdown after we mentioned how the public employee unions are even hammering Democrats now:

Sen. Daines: "They've been caught in their own words, talking about how they're using all this as, quote, leverage, while the American people are suffering. This is a political stunt. I haven't seen this kind of theater in Washington since Hamilton. Perhaps it is all about Saving Private Schumer. It's about his political career. He's worried about AOC challenging him in a primary back in New York."

The New York Times was apparently listening in as I was chatting with Senator Daines after the meeting. They picked up on the Senator's comments where he told me how the VP "got an earful" from senators from cattle ranching states.

Senator Daines: "JD Vance periodically comes and spends time with us at our Republican Senate lunches, which was today, gives a report of what's happening with the president and the priorities. It was great update. Talked about what's happening right now with the president over in Asia. They're meeting with Xi Jinping on Thursday with a major summit meeting as a sidebar from the meetings going on in Korea, talking about how he's fighting on behalf of certainly Americans over in Asia getting better trade deals. But I'll tell you this, he got an earful today from those of us from cattle ranching states about what's going on with beef prices right now, this Argentinean beef discussion. Ranchers would have been proud to see so many of us from the states that have cattle, by the way which is nearly every state, voicing their strong concern to what's happening now with beef prices."

Here's the full audio from our show Wednesday morning: