WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Breitbart News exclusively that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is careening the nation towards a government shutdown, and labeled the impending impasse a “Schumer Shutdown.”
“Chuck Schumer has made it very clear that he wants a shutdown, and I think he wants that to appease his far left activists and despite, as you pointed out, him speaking on the dangers of a shutdown no less than just six months ago,” Thune told Breitbart News this week. “He’s got a long history of talking about how terrible it is when the government shuts down. We’ve got to avoid it, and we need to pass clean spending bills, and we’re offering that up to him, but this if this ends up in a shutdown it will be a Schumer shutdown make no mistake about it.”
“What we are trying to do here, what Mike Johnson and the House Republicans are trying to do, is to fund the government into November to give us time to actually move on the individual appropriations bills to fund the government, which is something under Schumer’s leadership the Senate did not do because everything was decided behind closed doors in his office,” Thune explained.
“So you know, we’re going to need a short term CR to keep the government funded… we will continue in our effort to process individual appropriations bills but we’re going to need a little bit of a stop-gap measure in order to do that. Right now he’s signaling that, even though it’s going to be a clean bill — something he’s advocated for in the past — that he intends to shut the government down over it,” the Majority Leader said. On the prospect of passing a spending bill, he said, “So we’ll see if he follows through. Hopefully, there are some Democrats on his side of the aisle who see that as a really bad idea and irrespective of what he does will vote to keep the government open. But we’re going to know that here pretty soon.”
To pass the government funding plan that would keep the government open until mid-November — by which time Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill hope to have their twelve Appropriations bills passed — they would need to pass a continuing resolution (CR) out of both chambers of Congress. Republicans can pass this with a simple majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, but Senate rules require a 60-vote threshold to pass the plan. That means at least seven Democrats, but probably more, would need to join Republicans to fund the government and keep it open.
Thune told Breitbart News that despite Schumer’s insistence on steering the nation toward a shutdown, he is hopeful other Democrats from red or purple states like Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and Raphael Warnock (D-GA), or retiring Democrats like Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), or even Dick Durbin (D-IL), despite his current position in Schumer’s leadership operation, might join with Republicans to vote against a government shutdown.
The House passed a government funding bill that would do exactly this on Friday, but Democrats in the Senate — except for Fetterman, who voted to fund the government and avert a shutdown — voted down the House-passed plan. The House-passed plan won bipartisan support in both chambers, as Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) also voted for it.
“I hope there are Democrats who see the folly of going along with the Schumer shutdown, and to your point, there are Democrats out there for whom this is going to be a very unpopular thing,” Thune said. “If you’re running for reelection this year as a Democrat, or if you’re a retiring Democrat, you understand that these political games and this petty partisanship that Schumer is engaging in is not conducive to your best political interest. I think the American people are going to see this for what it is, that it is Schumer trying to appease a far left constituency and at the expense of not only the best interest of the country, but I would argue [against] a lot of the best interests of a lot of his Democrat senators who ought not be voting for a Schumer shutdown.”
Thune offered cautious optimism, saying, “So we’ll find out where the votes are. But I’m hoping that there are some who are going to see past this, this gamesmanship, and defy their leaders even though on their side of the aisle the leader, in my experience at least — the business model they operate under is very hierarchical. It’s very top down. The leadership usually calls the shots, which is why most often these bills are written behind closed doors in Schumer’s office.”
At least as of now, Schumer and the Democrats in Congress except Fetterman and Golden are steering the nation into a government shutdown. This, Thune argues, is in large part because Democrats are beholden to their radical base.
“I just think that the Democrats in the country have to decide who they are,” Thune said. “They’re desperate for an identity right now, and the only identity they have is this far left activist base which is calling the shots. Unfortunately, their leaders are cowering in fear of that base. I’m hoping there are going to be some rational ones who step up and realize that we need to do what’s in the best interest of the country and not what a minority — a far left minority — in the country, wants to see done.”
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