Sen. John Fetterman, D-P.A., called out his fellow Democrats and demanded the liberal party take ownership of the government shutdown during a Sunday CNN interview — a remarkable break from the Democratic Party.
Fetterman told “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper that Democrats bear responsibility for the ongoing shutdown, which ranks among the longest in U.S. history.
“I feel like the Democrats really need to own the shutdown. I mean, we’re shutting it down. I know why — they claim — because they want to address the tax credits,” Fetterman said. “And I fully support that. I voted for all of their CRs, our CRs, every single time. And I refuse to put 42 million Americans in the kinds of food insecurity.”
The Pennsylvania Democrat called the shutdown “an absolute fail” and said Democrats are hurting the voters they claim to fight for.
“We are hurting the very people that we fight for. And now we’re getting nothing for them if we continue to keep our government shut down,” Fetterman said.
Democrats have repeatedly blocked Republican continuing resolutions to fund the government because they demand more spending on Affordable Care Act credits included in any bill.
“It’s the wrong tactic,” Fetterman said. “It was wrong when the Republicans did it. It’s wrong now that we seem to be driving it.”
“I’m deeply, deeply distressing to know that 42 millions Americans are going to lose their SNAP benefits,” Fetterman said. “And, now, that’s one of the big reasons why I refused to shutting our government down.”
Fetterman also told CNN on Thursday that Congress cannot “get our sh*t together and just open up our government.”
“Americans are not leverage. This is not, this is not some shitty game show about who’s winning or whatever. It’s just like we have to be better than this and just open this up,” Fetterman said
“It’s an absolute failure what occurred here for the last month, and now things are really going to land, and imagine being a parent with a couple kids, and how you’re going to fill their refrigerator and pack their lunches and get on with their lives when the things that they’ve depended on now is gone, because we can’t even agree to just open things up,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman blasted Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s suggestion that each day of the shutdown helps Democrats politically.
“Ask the hungry people on Saturday,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman also criticized Democrats for not paying Capitol police officers and federal workers during the shutdown. He said federal workers borrowed more than a third of a billion dollars to pay their bills.
“These are the kinds of people why I am a Democrat, fighting for people like that,” Fetterman said. “Now it seems like we’re moving against our core values to keep our government shut down at this point, as now we’re approaching now 33 days now.”
Fetterman voted with two other Democrats — Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine — for Republican-backed proposals to fund the government. Republicans have voted 13 times to reopen the government with a clean continuing resolution at President Joe Biden’s spending levels.
Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters released a statement praising Fetterman’s honesty.
“After weeks of Democrats spreading lies to deflect blame, Senator John Fetterman said the quiet part out loud: ‘Shutting down the government is really what the Democratic Party wants to do,'” Gruters said.