By Jacob Burg
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said on Oct. 25 that his fellow Democrats are “dug in until there’s an absolute ironclad kind of a deal” between Democrats and Republicans to end the government shutdown, and he reiterated his call to end the 60-vote threshold to resume funding.
In an interview with Fox News that aired on Oct. 25, Fetterman said that he believes there are Senate Republicans who are receptive to discussions to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies but that the conversation will have to come after the government is reopened.
“Let’s just open it up,” Fetterman said. “Everyone’s paid, and then we can have that conversation to see if we can extend those tax credit deals. Because I do believe there are enough Republicans that would like to see that too.”
He said he worries about the 42 million Americans who will not receive their food stamps on Nov. 1.
“That’s a big deal right now. And now we all realize that a lot of the premiums are going to go up, and we might want to address that too,” Fetterman said. “We can support those two things, but I think it’s fundamentally wrong, regardless, to shut our government out for those things. You know, the Republican side has their priorities. We have our priorities.”
Fetterman added that he thinks it’s “entirely appropriate” to remove the filibuster, or 60-vote threshold, from the Senate for the sake of passing a continuing resolution to reopen the government but to keep it otherwise intact.
“I’m referring to carving out this specific item right now. I’m not talking about eliminating the entire filibuster,” he said.
Carving out the filibuster would make it almost impossible to shut the government down in the future, regardless of whether it would be the Democrats or the Republicans, he said.
This is not the first time Fetterman has suggested removing the filibuster to pass a resolution to reopen the government.
On Oct. 21, Fetterman told reporters on Capitol Hill, “[Democrats] ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it.”
“Carve it out so we can move on. I support it because it makes it more difficult to shut the government down in the future, and that’s where it’s entirely appropriate,” he said. “And I don’t want to hear any Democrat clutching their pearls about the filibuster. We all ran on it. I ran on that.”
Fetterman is one of two members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, along with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who have voted with Republicans each time to approve their continuing resolution to end the shutdown. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has also voted in favor of the resolutions.
Fetterman said on Oct. 12 that his party is sending the wrong signal by not voting to reopen the government.
“I can’t ever or will ever vote to shut our government down,” Fetterman said on Oct. 12 on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“It was wrong if the Republicans did these things, and I led that charge back in March, saying it’s wrong to shut us down, and we kept it open. … I said in March that when September comes, I’m going to be the one guy that says it’s wrong to do this. The losers are these poor Americans here that are going to get caught in the middle of this thing.”
Earlier this month, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) criticized Fetterman for his post that seemingly praised the Trump administration for efforts to end the war in Ukraine and suggested the president deserved a Nobel Peace Prize.
“Trump’s favorite Democrat,” Boyle wrote on social media, referring to Fetterman.
Boyle is seen as a potential primary challenger to Fetterman when the senator runs for reelection in 2028. However, Boyle has not formally announced a campaign.
Chase Smith contributed to this report.
