The Trump administration canceled a billion-dollar energy project impacting the northwestern United States, including Montana. But that state's Senator could only regurgitate GOP rhetoric, blaming Democrats, when asked about the cuts in a CNN interview.
Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House, but expect voters to believe the minority party are to blame for the GOP budget blunders and Trump administration mistakes.
To that end, GOP members of Congress are making the media rounds to spew their false narrative, complete with identifying specific Democratic villains to blame and a laundry list of suffering wholesome characters—military, law enforcement, farmers, families—to draw public sympathy.
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins spoke with Montana MAGA Republican Senator Tim Sheehy on The Source on Tuesday night. During the sit-down, Collins tried to ask Sheehy about Trump administration cuts being made to items from prior budget years, entirely unrelated to the current fiscal year 2026 government shutdown.
Collins said:
“The Department of Energy just canceled a billion dollars to the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub. Part of that covers your state of Montana, and your governor actually praised [the project] when it was happening, saying it was going to create good-paying Montana jobs and boost American-made energy."
“[The Trump administration] just yanked a billion from that.
The CNN anchor then asked Sheehy:
"So is that taking away good-paying jobs in Montana?”
You can see a clip from the interview here:
Ignoring the actual question, Sheehy instead replied with the GOP shutdown script, saying:
“Of course it is. As I said, we want the government to be open. You should be saying this to Chuck Schumer, who’s closing the government down. I’m agreeing we should have the government open right now. This is an unnecessary shutdown.”
Collins redirected back to the actual question, asking:
“But you’re acknowledging that what the Trump administration just pulled in funding is hurting your state?”
Sheehy again deflected, saying:
“Having troops not being able to fulfill their functions, having law enforcement officers, having air traffic controllers not be able to direct flights into our airports in Montana hurts our state. Not having federal employees attending, showing up to Farm Service Agency offices during cattle shipping season—that hurts our state.”
Continuing his "Republicans’ as helpless victims of a party they outnumber in Congress" screed, he added:
“Not having Department of Transportation employees overseeing our highways, our bridges, our airways, our road construction efforts—all those things are hurting every state. So this shutdown is not a good thing, and that’s why we don’t want it to continue. That’s why we’ve voted—we’ve voted eight times to reopen the government, and we’ve not been supported.”
Undeterred, Collins again redirected Sheehy back to the actual question, saying:
“Yeah, we’ve pushed Democrats on their stance. We’ve had many of your colleagues on the show, but on [the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub] specifically, I mean, the Trump administration didn’t have to make that decision. They decided to pull that billion dollars from your state. Do you disagree with that?”
But, as an apparent one-trick pony only able to regurgitate the Republican rhetoric fed to him, Sheehy was still unable to go off his canned script. Instead of addressing any part of the actual question, he again replied with nothing relevant.
The Montana MAGA minion said:
“Well, I think the reality is we wouldn’t be here if the government was still open. And now we’re going on to week three of a pretty unnecessary shutdown.”
So Collins provided some facts for Sheehy to ponder, stating:
“Well, actually, Chris Wright, the [Trump administration] Energy Secretary—I asked him about that project specifically, and he said they would have done that even if the government wasn’t shut down, that that was months in the making, even before the government shut down.”
Unable to answer such a direct question with more from his memorized spiel, Sheehy was left in stunned silence for several moments.
MAGA Republican President Donald Trump and his White House handlers have been very vocal about exploiting the shutdown to fire government employees and cut congressionally funded projects and programs, once again exceeding the powers of the presidency.
Per the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8, the "power of the purse" belongs solely to Congress, not the President or any of his staff, cabinet, or agents acting on his behest. Funds appropriated by Congress cannot be canceled by the President.
Finally, Sheehy —while still never answering the actual question—lamely replied:
“Well, it’s unfortunate we’re still shut down. We shouldn’t be."
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People were tired of the GOP rhetoric and refusal to answer simple questions.
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The Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub is a clean energy project spanning Washington, Oregon, and Montana.
The Trump administration has repeatedly vowed to eliminate all clean energy projects because they're "woke."
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