Vice President JD Vance held a closed-door meeting at the White House on Thursday with aviation officials about the impact of the federal government shutdown.
Watch Vance and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s news briefing in the video player above.
Vance spoke to reporters after the meeting outside the White House West Wing, with his message aimed at Democratic lawmakers.
“All we need is five reasonable Democrats to join three moderate Democrats and 52 Republicans to reopen the government,” Vance said.
WATCH: Johnson says House GOP ‘just fed up’ with the shutdown at news conference
“I just want to say to any Democrat in the United States Senate, we are happy to talk about any policy issue. We’re happy to talk about health care policy. We’re happy to talk about tax policy. We’re happy to talk about regulatory policy, but not at the point of a gun,” he added. “You do not get to take the American people’s government hostage and then demand that we give you everything you want in order to pay our air traffic controllers.”
Duffy warns of Thanksgiving travel woes
“Our traffic will be snarled. It will be a disaster in aviation,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters at the briefing Thursday.
Duffy has warned in recent days that flight delays could grow as air traffic controllers who are missing paychecks because of the shutdown call out sick. Duffy and Vance were joined at the roundtable by former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, and leaders from the aviation industry.
WATCH: Shutdown puts further strain on already understaffed air traffic control system
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, who joined Vance and Duffy at the stakeout, urged “it is time to pass a clean CR.”
“It’s been 30 days and I don’t have a position on which partisan side, and how things should be settled with health care,” Kirby said.
