Fetterman Apologizes For Dems Who Can’t Get ‘S**t’ Together Amid Shutdown
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) publicly apologized Thursday for his party’s failure to end the ongoing Schumer Shutdown — a rare break from Democratic leadership as pressure mounts over lapsing food assistance for millions of Americans.
Speaking with CNN’s Manu Raju, Fetterman acknowledged that Senate Democrats have played a central role in keeping the government closed, leaving federal workers unpaid and placing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits at risk. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has repeatedly warned that without congressional action, roughly 42 million Americans could lose access to benefits beginning Nov. 1.
“And like I said, to all of the viewers, I’m apologizing that we can’t even get our s— together and just open up our government,” Fetterman said, according to the New York Post.
Democrats in the Senate have spent weeks refusing to pass the clean continuing resolution already approved by the House — a bill that would immediately reopen the government while negotiations continue on longer-term funding. Instead, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has insisted on tying negotiations to extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies and healthcare benefits for illegal immigrants.
The shutdown has now stretched into its fourth week, and Fetterman says the damage is already visible back home.
“My wife, Giselle, she develops the Free Store in our community. It distributes food three times a week and her lines have already got longer,” he told Raju. “And now, I will encounter people that have no SNAP benefits starting on Saturday, and I don’t have an explanation for them.”
He continued, offering an explicit apology on behalf of Senate Democrats:
“All I could say is I’m sorry. It’s an absolute failure — what occurred here for the last month — and now things are really going to land,” Fetterman said. “And imagine being a parent with a couple kids and how you’re going to fill the refrigerator and pack their lunches and get on with their lives when the things that they’ve depended on now is gone because we can’t even agree to just open things up.”
Fetterman further noted that the Senate should have immediately taken up the clean funding bill:
“If a Democrat — you know, we’re not allowed to just open this up, I mean, then our party has bigger problems than I thought we might have already,” he said. “It’s like, that’s not controversial. Pay everybody… Like, it’s a failure.”
Meanwhile, Schumer has attempted to shift blame onto President Donald Trump, even though appropriations can only be written and passed by Congress.
“Donald Trump is a vindictive and heartless man. Never before in American history has a president cut off SNAP during a shutdown, including Trump in his first term,” Schumer said in a video posted Wednesday. “But now he is manufacturing a hunger crisis to bludgeon the American people so he doesn’t have to fix healthcare.”
However, under the Constitution, the President cannot allocate funds without congressional appropriations. President Trump has repeatedly urged Democrats to reopen the government immediately so benefits can resume.
Republican leaders have stressed they are willing to negotiate broader healthcare issues — but not while the government remains closed.
For now, Senate Democrats continue to block the clean funding bill, and the families Fetterman referenced are left to wait.