Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who announced days ago that he would vote for a House-passed funding bill to avoid a government shutdown, said he doesn’t care about firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) harsh criticism of Democratic senators who will vote to advance the controversial bill.
Fetterman said Ocasio-Cortez and other liberal lawmakers who are calling for the Senate to block the bill, which would fund government through Sept. 30, don’t have a viable exit strategy for ending a government shutdown.
And he says it’s easy for House liberals to take potshots at the Senate when members of Congress would continue to receive paychecks during a shutdown while tens of thousands of federal workers would be furloughed without pay, possibly for weeks.
“I hope you can relay how little I care about her views on this,” said Fetterman when asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s comments that Senate Democrats who vote to advance the bill are betraying their Democratic House colleagues.
“I’m going to stand on what I happen to believe is the right thing to do but ask her, ‘What’s the exit plan once we shut the government down?’ What about all the millions of Americans who are going to have their lives damaged?” he asked.
“What about the ones that won’t have any paycheck? She’ll have her paycheck, though,” he said.
“If we’re worried about Musk going to shut down the government or damage the government, we have the power to do the one thing that Trump and Musk can’t do, shut it down,” he asserted.
Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Thursday that many Democrats felt a “deep sense of outrage and betrayal” over Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s (N.Y.) announcement that he would vote to advance the House-passed funding package.
Schumer acknowledged it was a “bad bill” but warned that allowing the government to shut down would be far worse.
But Ocasio-Cortez, who has not ruled out running for Schumer’s seat in 2028, argued that Senate Democrats who vote for the bill will betray the House Democrats representing districts that Trump won who voted against the bill.
“There are members of Congress who have won Trump-held districts in some of the most difficult territory in the United States, who walked the plan and took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people,” she said.
“I think it is a huge slap in the face,” she added.
Fetterman said he’s not worried.
“Whatever her views, I’m going to sleep just fine,” he said.
