On Sunday, during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said that Democrats “own the shutdown,” which he described as a “fail.”
Host Jake Tapper said, “So, as you know, 42 million Americans, including 2 million Pennsylvanians, will not receive food stamp or SNAP benefits this month because funding officially lapsed yesterday. The White House says this is the fault of Democrats for shutting down the government. Democrats note that the Trump administration is not dipping into the contingency funds for SNAP, and they think that Trump is doing that to to pressure Democrats. How do you see it? Who do you blame for this?”
Fetterman said, “Well I mean, for me, fundamentally, I’m deeply, deeply distressing to know that 42 million Americans are going to lose their SNAP benefits. And now that’s one of the big reasons why I refuse to shutting our government down. And again, I feel like the Democrats really need to own the shutdown. I mean, we’re shutting it down. I know why they claim, because they want to address the tax credits, and I fully support that. I voted for all of their CRs, our CRs, every single time. And I refuse to put 42 million Americans in the kinds of food insecurity. Now, this is all all solved by just reopen our government and the people are now paid.”
He added, “This is an absolute fail. It is actually embarrassing honesty if we can’t even keep the lights on.”
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