On Friday’s broadcast of PBS’s “Washington Week,” Punchbowl News Senior Congressional Reporter Andrew Desiderio stated that “so many” Democrats “felt like there was so much pressure from the left, from progressives, to hold the line” that they voted against ending the government shutdown despite initially planning to vote to end it.
Desiderio stated, “Sen. Shaheen (D-NH), who I just mentioned, who was leading this effort, she told us earlier this week that, on Sunday, when they realized that they had the votes for this, more Democrats than just that eight came to her and said, I’m going to vote for this on the floor. And then just those eight senators from the Democratic side of the aisle ended up voting for it, and it ended up getting exactly 60 votes, right? So, if there was another Democrat that peeled off, the entire deal would’ve collapsed. And nobody likes to be that 60th vote when you cut a deal like this, right? Because of the criticism you’re going to get.”
He continued, “I think the point that Sen. Shaheen was underscoring was that so many of them felt, I don’t know if bullied is the right word, but they felt like there was so much pressure from the left, from progressives, to hold the line such that so many of them who came to her earlier in the day and said, hey, we’re going to actually have 12 to 15 Democrats supporting this ended up peeling off by the time the vote happened and just barely got through.”
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