U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Senate Majority Whip, addressed reporters in Washington, D.C., expressing concerns about a potential government shutdown that he attributes to Democratic leadership.
According to Barrasso, the “radical wing of the Democrat party is demanding that Chuck Schumer shutdown the government.” He added, “If not, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Barrasso claimed that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been preparing for a shutdown over the past few months. “We know that Chuck Schumer has had a war room going for the last couple of months to orchestrate the shutdown. That is their plan. So, he comes up with this ransom note asking for a trillion dollars to just keep the government open for four weeks,” Barrasso said.
He emphasized Republican opposition to what he described as excessive spending demands and stated, “Republicans aren’t going to buy that. President Trump’s not going to sign it. There’s a solution, and it’s a simple, clean, continuing resolution to keep the government funded for the next seven weeks, as the appropriations committees work through the process.”
Barrasso also noted that Democrats have previously used continuing resolutions multiple times during President Biden’s administration: “Democrats are pretty familiar with this. They’ve done it 13 times when Biden was in office, and the minimum number of votes they got was 65.” He criticized Schumer for yielding to more progressive members within his party: “But Chuck Schumer continues to bow down to that liberal wing, AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren. The American people should not suffer the costs and the consequences of a Schumer Shutdown because he is politically toxic in his own party.”
The debate over funding measures continues as Congress faces another deadline to avoid a lapse in federal operations.
