House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) on Thursday struggled to defend his party's fundraising efforts during the sit-in protest in the House of Representatives.
CNN host Jake Tapper asked Hoyer about the Democrat’s money-making attempts after House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) held up fundraising emails from the Democratic Party at a news conference earlier Thursday.
"House Speaker Paul Ryan held up a fundraising letter this morning, one that Democrats sent out in response to the sit-in and the Republican refusal to allow a vote on a gun control," Tapper said. "His argument that this is a political stunt and his proof, you're trying to fundraise off the issue. What do you say to that?"
"Well, you know, the reality is that both parties try to raise funds from people who support them on the issues," Hoyer said. "But this, as you just quoted the leader as saying, was not a political stunt."
"There is great conviction on this issue, great conviction throughout the country and the overwhelming majority of American people believe that what we were raising last night is something with which they agree and with which they think the Congress ought to deal and act and make their communities, their schools, their theaters, their restaurants, their neighborhoods safer," Hoyer said. "So this is not about politics in the small sense, it's about an issue of great importance to the American people. We want the House to act on it."
Hoyer went on a tangent and said many Americans want to discriminate against people.
"When we put an amendment on a bill, which said you can't discriminate against LGBT, the majority of Republicans voted against it because it did not allow discrimination. Now, Paul Ryan can try to divert the attention from his inaction and the majority's own willingness to put a bill on the floor that has the overwhelming support of the American public. But, the public's not going to be diverted and we're not going to rest," Hoyer said.