politics

Senator Uses Term ‘Shot Their Wad,’ Clarifies He Meant It the Civil War Way

Senator Orrin Hatch used an interesting phrase in a recent interview. Photo: Zach Gibson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In an interview with Politico published Monday, Utah senator Orrin Hatch used an interesting phrase to describe the defeat of a series of Republican health-care bills. “We’re not going back to health care,” said Hatch, who’s head of the Senate Finance Committee. “We’re in tax now. As far as I’m concerned, they shot their wad on health care and that’s the way it is. I’m sick of it.”

Hatch has previously indicated his frustration with the health-care deadlock; in an earlier Reuters report, he all but killed the Obamacare-repeal effort when he said he intended to tell the White House that “[t]here’s just too much animosity and we’re too divided on health care.” But, um, that wasn’t what got people’s attention here.

Hatch’s office defended his turn of phrase on Twitter, pointing out that, although it’s come to mean something completely different (and far more vulgar), “shot your wad” meant something else during the Civil War:

Nothing like some good old Civil War slang … in … 2017.

Orrin Hatch Explains What He Meant by ‘Shot Your Wad’