Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) went against his party’s beserk and radical leaders when he appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” on Sunday, October 12, skewering how his party is sending the “wrong message” about the shutdown standoff and arguing that the shutdown decision was a very bad one.
As background, the shutdown began on September 30, after the Senate was unable to strike a deal on funding the government with a continuing resolution. While Democrats claim the problem is Republicans not being willing to support Obamacare subsidies, Republicans have more convincingly pointed to Democrats wanting to spend huge sums on healthcare for non-citizens, including illegal aliens.
Sen. Fetterman, who has routinely criticized radicals in his party like AOC before, chimed in on “Sunday Morning Futures” to skewer his party for the message it is sending about the state of America with the shutdown, telling Bartiromo, “Shutting our government down. That’s the wrong message for the world, for Americans as well, too.”
Continuing, he argued that his party needs to get serious about actually trying to open the government so that the problems they claim to want to fix can indeed be fixed, saying, “I don’t care whose that blame is. It’s not about a blame game. It’s about opening this government, having this conversation, and literally let’s address these kinds of healthcare issues as well too.”
Fetterman also noted that he has remained resolutely opposed to shutdown stunts like this, saying, “It was wrong if the Republicans did these things, and I led that charge back in March, saying it’s wrong to shut us down, and we kept it open. I said then, back in March, that, when September comes, I’m going to be the one guy that’s saying it is wrong to do this.”
And, adding to that, the senator noted that those who are suffering are Americans who are being hurt by Congress not sitting down as a body of adults and figuring out the solution. He said, “Really, the losers are these poor Americans here that are going to get caught in the middle of this thing. I fully support [having] a conversation about extending those [Obamacare] tax credits. I think a lot of Republicans might even agree with that too.”
Still not done, Fetterman added that getting the government opened back up needs to be a priority for all involved, saying, “That’s a priority for us, and they might agree, but let’s get our government open and have that conversation, so people can get paid, and we can’t have this kind of chaos.”
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Watch Fetterman here:
Mike Johnson, for his part, noted on X that the ball is firmly in Schumer’s court, saying, “.@SenSchumer is incapable of telling the truth. After 44 YEARS in Congress, he pretends not to understand the Senate’s rules. As every 8th grade Civics student knows, it takes 60 votes to end the Schumer Shutdown. Since we only have 53 Republicans, we must have a handful of Senate Democrats do the right thing this week and vote to reopen the government. It’s time to stop the political games!”