Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman said during a Saturday interview on Fox News the U.S. “is losing” while his own party continues to follow a risky strategy prolonging the presently 25-day government shutdown.
Fetterman told “Saturday in America” host Kayleigh McEnany he wishes his Democratic colleagues would vote to open up the government before having a “conversation” to address expiring Obamacare premium subsidies. The federal healthcare program’s subsidies are reportedly the main issue currently holding Democrats back from agreeing to a deal with the GOP.
In the days leading up to and throughout the government shutdown, the Pennsylvania Democrat has broken with the vast majority of Democrats in the Senate by repeatedly voting for a GOP-backed continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government, as well as supporting multiple bills to pay military service members.
“I do believe that there’s a critical mass of my fellow Democrats that are dug in and now, until there’s an absolute ironclad kind of a deal. And I do fundamentally believe [Senate Majority] Leader [John] Thune is an honorable guy and I do believe we could have a sincere conversation after we can open it [the government] up,” the senator reflected.
“And then, we don’t have to do this three-card monte, about, you know, do this, do that, do the other thing,” he continued, referring to an illegal con game using playing cards. “Let’s just open it up, and then we have our SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], we have everyone’s [sic] paid. And then we can have that conversation and see if we can extend those tax credit deals because I do believe there are enough Republicans that would like to see that too.”
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SNAP is a federal food stamp program used by about 42 million Americans, including 2 million in Fetterman’s Pennsylvania, which will run out of money in November 2025 if the government remains shut down.
“And now, for me, I don’t check, it’s like, “Are we winning?”, “Are we losing?”, and the thing— it’s like, because, I guarantee America is losing in this place right now,” Fetterman told McEnany.
McEnany also asked Fetterman if he thinks “it’s time for Republicans to nuke the filibuster and end this thing.”
“I think it’s entirely appropriate,” the senator answered.
The filibuster is a long-used procedural tool in the Senate requiring a 60-vote threshold to pass most floor votes in the upper legislative chamber. Democrats, despite campaigning to end the filibuster when Republicans were the minority in the Senate, have used the tool to block GOP-supported measures to end the shutdown a dozen times.
“And I would remind all of us — the Democrats — we wanted to nuke the entire filibuster. You know, I’m referring to, right now, carving out the specific— right now,” Fetterman added. “I’m not talking about eliminating the entire filibuster.”
“And carving it out, the filibuster, now would make it almost impossible to shut our government down in the future, regardless if it’s the Democrats or the Republicans doing these things. We should remove ourselves, our power to shut this down in this way,” the senator told McEnany.
Fetterman also blasted most Democrats’ drastic shift on using the filibuster, telling reporters Tuesday, “We ran on that. We ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it.”
“Just open up the whole thing and just cut the shit. I don’t care about who’s winning, who’s losing, who’s going to blink, the maverick senator told reporters Thursday.
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