Former Sen. Jim DeMint argued that if Republicans are too afraid to support defunding Obamacare, perhaps "they need to be replaced.”
DeMint, a South Carolina Republican and Tea Partyer who now serves as president of the Heritage Foundation, was speaking at a town hall hosted by the political arm of organization, the Washington Post reports. “I’m not as interested in the political futures of folks who think they might lose a showdown with the president," he said.
He later told NPR: “I think [Obama] knows that Republicans are afraid, and if they are, they need to be replaced.”
Tea Party Republicans like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are leading an effort to block a continuing resolution to fund the federal government after September, unless the resolution strips all funding for the Affordable Care Act. This could lead to a government shutdown, since neither the Senate nor Obama would approve a CR that doesn't include funding for the law. The move has caused a split within the Republican Party, because, for one thing, shutting down the government wouldn't even stop the law from being funded, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
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