Rep. Tim Burchett had his flip-flopping support for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) called out live on CNN—but the Tennessee Republican insists he had the network “for supper.”
During a tense interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Wednesday night’s OutFront, Burchett said he was still “firmly undecided” over how he would vote on Donald Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, but admitted he had been swayed by a private conversation with the president.
Burchett claimed the CBO score that calculated the impact of Trump’s spending package had not taken the “economic output” into account. As well as adding $3.3 trillion to the country’s deficits, the CBO analysis estimated an additional 11.8 million Americans could be left uninsured by 2034 if the current version of the bill was passed, as well as highlighting the bill’s major cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.
The Tennessee congressman then slammed the CBO by claiming “85 percent“ of their staff in the health-care division ”identify as Democrat,“ including their leading economist.
He even called for scrapping the CBO. “You’ve got a bunch of bureaucrats on a lifetime gravy train,” he said, “And frankly, we’ve got independent agencies that can do that. We have people up here with accounting degrees that can do the math. So, I feel like that is a waste of taxpayers’ money.”
Host Keilar then coolly reminded Burchett of a Republican representative in January last year “who trusted the CBO so much that they reintroduced a resolution to require the House clerk to read the CBO estimate of any bill.” The host then said, “I believe that was you, Sir. The third time you introduced that resolution—is that right?”
Burchett replied, “That’s correct, Ma’am.”
Keilar added, “But you don’t like the CBO now. You introduced that resolution over multiple years but now you’re dissing the CBO?”
Burchett hit back, “Did the bill pass?” Keilar said, “Your resolution? You introduced it, Sir. It’s irrelevant.”
The congressman replied: “I know it, Ma’am. They never passed because nobody wants any verification.”
After a fiery exchange, Burchett said he had a private conversation with Trump that was making him change his mind on the bill.
“He talked about the economic output that we would have that was not in the CBO scores,” Burchett said. “I think there are a lot of things that probably be revealed when this is passed, and I think America will embrace it further.”
Burchett added: “I think America understands what we’re up against in this. People want to call it the Swamp up here, but it’s really just a sewer. It’s a man-made thing that just doesn’t produce anything. And it fights us every step of the way.
“And so I think once you allow Americans to get out and work and actually force those to work and get them off the couch, that some of them are on that are and the illegals and folks that are gaming the system, I think you’re going to see that this country will bust wide open economically.”
Burchett then took potshots at the “left” media and claimed Keilar was trying to “dictate” what he could say.
“Y’all are just trying to scare America by telling millions of people are going to be cut off this thing, Burchett said.
He continued, “You’re talking about the people that are on it illegally, that are gaming the system… you want to talk about transparency, and then there you are, attacking me on a bill where I’m trying to make it transparent to how much we’re spending on each piece of legislation. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
Burchett was quick to claim he came out of the interview victorious, posting on X, “My wife had spaghetti for supper I had some @CNN.”
The post CNN Host Grills Fence-Sitting GOP Rep Over Budget Indecision appeared first on The Daily Beast.
