GOP senator scrambles to walk back his attack calling Dems 'terrorists' in CNN interview

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) walked back remarks Sunday he made to CNN’s Manu Raju in which he said Democratic lawmakers were acting like “a terrorist,” suggesting he misspoke when using the highly-charged term.

McCormick sat down with Raju at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. in an interview aired Sunday to discuss the ongoing government shutdown, now on its 26th day and the result of a debate around funding government health care subsidies.

“Why not work with Democrats right now, try to cut a deal and reopen the government?” Raju asked McCormick.

McCormick bluntly responded by saying that the “main reason” he and his Republican colleagues couldn’t negotiate with Democratic lawmakers was because “you can’t negotiate with a terrorist.”

“What's happening right now is that the Democrats are trying to ask for something extremely unreasonable,” McCormick said. “We can have any discussion; the president's said this, [Senate] Majority Leader [John] Thune (R-SD) has said this, you can have any negotiation discussion you want about extending health care benefits, but you can't start with you're going to shut down the government to get that!”

Raju immediately picked up on McCormick’s claim that Democratic lawmakers were acting like terrorists, and asked him if he believed they were “acting like terrorists right now.”

“I think they're irresponsibly imposing pain on the American people,” McCormick said. “The basic thing that government should do – support those essential services – they're holding that hostage to try to get a political win, and that's just unacceptable.”

Following the aired interview, Raju said that McCormick addressed his comment referring to Democrats as terrorists, and sought to correct himself.

“After the interview Sen. McCormick told me he did not mean to refer to Democrats as terrorists, but a more apt term he suggested was ‘hostage takers,’” Raju said.