Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., told reporters on the 21st day of the government shutdown Tuesday that Democrats ‘ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it.’
The Pennsylvania Democrat made the remark on Capitol Hill after being asked for his reaction to Republican senators proposing nuking the filibuster to force the government to reopen.
‘We ran on that. We ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it,’ Fetterman said of Democrats.
‘I don’t want to hear any Democrat clutching their pearls about the filibuster. We all ran on it. I ran on that in my so, like, that’s, yeah,’ he added.
Fetterman also said it’s important to open the government so that Americans can get Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, known as SNAP, assistance, adding that, ‘America’s losing’ during the shutdown and that it’s time to ‘open it back up.’
House Republicans voted to pass the GOP’s government funding bill on Sept. 19, mostly along partisan lines.
It was a seven-week extension of fiscal year (FY) 2025 federal funding levels called a continuing resolution (CR), aimed at giving congressional negotiators more time to strike a longer-term deal on FY2026 spending.
But in the Senate, where at least several Democrats are needed to reach the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster, progress has stalled.
Senate Democrats have tanked the bill in the upper chamber 11 times since the House passed it.
Three members of the Senate Democratic caucus have been voting with Republicans, but under the current tally, at least five more are needed to hold a final vote on the bill.
Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Daniel Scully contributed to this report.