(VIDEO) Oops, He Did It Again – Bruce Rauner Gets Schooled by a Reporter for the Second Time in a Week

Last week, Governor Bruce Rauner stood in front of reporters and erroneously claimed that his amendatory veto of the state’s school funding formula (SB1) only required a simple majority instead of the needed two-thirds majority to uphold.  Rauner was challenged by reporters on his facts, and all Rauner could do was stare at this final question – “Wouldn’t that be something, though that your staff would have found out before you did this?” Watch the video here.
Yesterday, Governor Rauner had the same deer in headlights look as the Chicago Tribune’s Rick Pearson challenged him again on another one of his talking points. Rauner was in the middle of one of his favorite rants – Democrats purposefully held SB1 to prevent the Illinois State Board of Education from “scoring” changes Rauner was planning on making with an amendatory veto.  Pearson then asked Rauner why he didn’t just do it. He had no answer – after shifting uncomfortably for a minute, Rauner just took the next question.
Watch the video here (transcript provided by Capitol Fax).

PEARSON: Why didn’t you have Sen. Brady just introduce a bill that had the language of your amendatory veto since much of the debate that’s been going on was about what you were going to be proposing in your amendatory veto? It could’ve been scored already, we would’ve already had the numbers and then you could have a back and forth discussion where everybody knows where they stand instead of trying to cherry pick numbers?
RAUNER: Well, Rick if your argument is trying to defend what the General Assembly did…
PEARSON: I’m not trying to defend anybody… You say you couldn’t score the numbers and you accuse the Democrats of holding the bill so that they couldn’t score the numbers. You said if it was in legislative form it could be scored. You could’ve asked Sen. Barickman, you could’ve asked any of the Republicans to put your AV… in legislative form and it could’ve gotten scored. That’s all I’m saying. It’s a process question, it’s not a political question.
RAUNER: [Takes deep breath, maybe says “Fair,” moves along to next question.]
PEARSON: I’m sorry! Couldn’t you have done that?
RAUNER: [Takes next question.]

These pesky reporters keep ruining Rauner’s talking points!
“Bruce Rauner’s house of cards is crumbling,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “Every day it becomes clearer that Bruce Rauner is just playing politics with school funding and it’s only going to hurt Illinois families. Just like he did with the state budget, Rauner refused to compromise and then irresponsibly vetoed the state’s school funding bill in the hopes of extracting political concessions. Now school districts across the state are warning they may not be able to stay open all year. Rauner’s failed leadership pits his political ambition against Illinois school children.”

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