“White House press secretary Josh Earnest called the current stall of a National Security Agency reform bill in the Senate ‘grossly irresponsible’ ahead of the expiration of key provisions of the Patriot Act at the end of the month,” National Journal reports.  

Said Earnest: “The fact is we have people in the U.S. Senate right now who are playing chicken with this… They are in a situation where they’re going to try to do a two-week extension or a short-term extension on these critical national security authorities, and to play chicken with that is grossly irresponsible.”