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Anchored by Jake Tapper, The Lead airs at 4 p.m. ET on CNN.
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national lead
Deal to end shutdown and raise debt ceiling passes in House and Senate
The House and Senate approved a deal late Wednesday night to reopen the government and avert a potential economic crisis. In the house, 87 Republicans voted to approve the deal. One of them, Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Illinois, sat down with CNN's Jake Tapper to explain why he supported the bill.
national lead
GOP Rep. says shutdown “was worth having the fight”
In the wake of a Senate-brokered compromise that would end the partial government shutdown that furloughed over 800,000 federal employees, Rep. Mick Mulvaney said the 16-day closure “was worth having the fight” over President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
“We believe what we did is right,” Mulvaney told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “You have to believe that good policy is good politics. If not, you might as well go home.”
Mulvaney also said that he believes John Boehner’s job as Speaker of the House is safe, even after a failed Tuesday vote to pass a House measure that would both fund the government and delay the implementation of the individual mandate for a year. Rather than fault Boehner, the South Carolina Republican said his conservative colleagues deserve the blame for the proposal being scrapped.
“No one blames him for this,” Mulvaney said. “We could not get him the votes. That was our failure. This wasn’t the Speaker’s fault.”
national lead
Schumer: Deal shows “brinksmanship won’t work”
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday that the Senate-brokered compromise to reopen the government and delay the debt ceiling shows that conservative intransigence won’t be able to net concessions from President Barack Obama or Democratic leaders in Congress.
“Mainstream Republicans realize the politics of confrontation and reckless brinksmanship won’t work,” Schumer said.
Praising the president and leaders of his caucus, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate said of Obama, Sen. Harry Reid, and others that “no one blinked at any one point” in the face of Republican demands to defund or delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act
national lead
Fmr. Cpt. Swenson awarded Medal of Honor
In 2009, in Afghanistan's Kunar province, a unit of American troops walked into an ambush. Outgunned and outmanned, one man ran into enemy fire over and over again, determined to help the wounded and recover the bodies of his fallen comrades.
Tuesday afternoon, former Army Captain William Swenson was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.
"Americans like Will remind us of what our country can be at its best, a nation of citizens who look out for one another, who meet our obligations to one another not just when it's easy, but when it's hard, maybe especially it's hard," President Obama said during the medal ceremony.
Swenson is the sixth living recipient of the medal from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the nation's highest award for military service.
politics lead
Sen. Klobuchar: The House just hasn't learned
The women of the senate are getting a lot of credit for putting together the bipartisan deal that is currently on hold while the House writes its own proposal.
Among some of the key players is Democratic Senator Klobuchar of Minnesota.
“You have in the Senate a group that's come together under Senator Collins' leadership. That group plus the work of Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, I think we all know they are pretty close there to getting that deal negotiated with bipartisan support and the Senate is ready to go,” she said.
The Senate is avoiding political spin and instead focusing on common ground between the parties, according to Klobuchar. She is not convinced however that the House is doing the same.
“That is not the message that we're hearing from the House right now and we need to go back, get that Senate bill in, bring people together,” Klobuchar said. “The House just hasn't learned yet you cannot put these partisan poison pills on and then decide that this is going to pass. We need to open the government and pay our bills.”
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