Harry Reid on Saving One Child Through NIH Funding 'Why Would We Want to Do That?'

During a Wednesday afternoon press briefing, CNN’s Dana Bash asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about agreeing to fund the National Institutes of Health, as the GOP is proposing to do with no strings attached. Bash mentioned the fact that due to the shutdown, children with cancer are being turned away from clinical trials at the NIH and that the GOP will pass a bill today funding the NIH.

Reid and Democrats, however, are insisting they will vote against or table the limited CR. President Obama has already threatened a veto.

After Reid danced around the question, Bash drilled down and Reid’s response was quite revealing and a little chilling:

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BASH: But if you can help one child with cancer, why wouldn’t you do it?

REID: Why would we want to do that? I have 1100 people at Nellis Air Force Base sitting home. They have problems of their own.

Reid then attacked Bash’s intelligence, “For someone of your intelligence to suggest such a thing is irresponsible.”

Apparently, Reid sees healthy furloughed workers sitting comfortably at home as equal to children dying of cancer.

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