WASHINGTON — Sen. John Fetterman slammed his fellow Democrats Wednesday for prolonging the government shutdown for 36 days — making it the longest in US history — even as millions of Americans lose their food stamp benefits or work without pay in their federal posts due to a “s—-y political game.”
Fetterman, one of three Democrat or Dem-leaning senators — along with Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Angus King (I-Maine) — consistently voting with Republicans to end the shutdown, told The Post that the standoff “should have never started.”
“People like to celebrate about breaking a new record, but this is a terrible record and that’s why I refuse to ever be a part of it,” the 56-year-old Pennsylvania Democrat said.
“And here we are — what is it, like three weeks out from Thanksgiving? — and 42 million Americans now are going to lose … their SNAP [benefits]. And now you have a lot of people [who] are going to be flying and anyone that spent time in our airports can realize things are seriously deteriorating,” Fetterman went on. “I couldn’t even find a flight to get here last weekend.”
“And then also, our military — who wants to vote to not pay our military?”
Though Republicans and Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine voted the stopgap measure through the House, more than 40 Senate Democrats have blocked a bill funding the government at current levels until Nov. 21 now fewer than 14 times.
The measure first passed the lower chamber on Sept. 19 but has languished in the Senate — despite talks among moderates of both parties aimed at resolving funding lapses.
The stalemate has imperiled the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for poor Americans, stopped paychecks for US military service members and air traffic controllers and stalled negotiations on health care subsidies whose expansion was Democratic leaders’ express purpose in forcing the shutdown in the first place.
According to Fetterman, the shutdown has inflamed interparty tensions, hurt some of the Democratic Party’s core constituencies, hampered law enforcement and snarled airline travel.
“Somebody [was] arrested yesterday that was here from Pennsylvania, looking to kill a member of Congress,” he noted. “The people that are protecting us aren’t getting paid because of the votes, and I would never vote to prevent that.”
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, released a statement Tuesday announcing a suspect who “attempted to enter the Congressional complex” had been made “death threats … stating that he was going to travel to Washington, DC, to kill him.”
“And all of the unions,” Fetterman continued, “we are fighting for the workers’ families. It’s like all the unions [are the] ones that are being hurt by this. So I could never vote for this and support it.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) have demanded another bipartisan meeting with President Trump to discuss ways to end the shutdown, fresh off Democrats’ off-year election triumphs in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City .
Some Democrats have suggested voting on both the funding bill and a separate measure extending Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of this year.
Others have talked with GOP colleagues about partially funding certain sectors of the federal workforce.
Schumer hasn’t indicated whether his caucus is united behind those solutions, but senators on both sides expect that the shutdown could very well end with Senate Democrats shrugging off leadership’s demands and approving a temporary spending bill.
“We need five more people [Democrats] to realize,” Fetterman said, “this has run way too long, but even if you wanted to do this to make a statement, you know, we are way past that for any value, and you are going to hurt millions and millions of Americans.”
“There are no winners, you know, America loses,” he added. “I’ve said that from the beginning too. It’s like history demonstrates: Shut our government down, America loses our reputation, the stability, and the economics, but primarily all the people’s lives now have been upended by, you know, a really sad s—-y political game.”
