Boehner Says Thomson Prison Will Never Happen
"I wouldn't vote for this if you put a gun to my head"
Getty Images
House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner will be here all week, on Twitter. Please tip your waitress.
To hear the House minority leader tell it, Illinois is not going to play host to a group of relocated enemy combatants, ever.
“I wouldn't vote for this if you put a gun to my head," John Boehner said on CNN’s State of the Union.
Boehner predicted Guantanamo won’t close, despite Democratic promises that it will be shut down.
"They keep saying they are,” Boehner said. “But they want $500 million from this Congress to rehabilitate this prison in northwest Illinois. I want to see who the members are who are going to vote for this.”
President Obama made closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay one of his goals for the first year of his presidency and set a deadline that passed two months ago.
The president instructed the federal government to purchase the prison at Thomson, but several lawmakers, including Boehner, have vowed to block the funds for its purchase.
Senior Adviser David Axelrod, speaking on the same show, said he thought the move would happen at some point.
"Obviously, there are a series of issues related to this, some of them legislative, that have to be dealt with," Axelrod said on CNN. "We have made good progress. You know, when we got there, the legal status of many of the people there was unclear. We had to go through a process of really sorting all of these cases out. We are beginning to work those cases."
Posted Monday, Mar 15, 2010 - 6:43 AM CST
