Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, John Fetterman and Angus King defended their decisions tonight to join nearly all Republicans in voting for the House-passed GOP funding bill, arguing that a government shutdown would be more harmful.
Fetterman, D-Pa., told NBC News moments before tonight’s vote that the Republican measure resembled a six-month funding bill he backed in March to keep the government open.
“We have to find a better solution. As a senator, I think that’s one of our core responsibilities: keep the government open and then keep it open. And then debate and figure out some kinds of compromise, though,” he said.
Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said she couldn’t back “a costly shutdown that would hurt Nevada families and hand even more power to this reckless administration.”
“We need a bipartisan solution to address this impending health care crisis, but we should not be swapping the pain of one group of Americans for another,” she said in a statement.
King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement on X that a shutdown would further empower Trump.
“The irony — the paradox is — by shutting the government, we’re actually giving Donald Trump more power. And that was why I voted yes,” he said. “I did not want to hand Donald Trump and Russell Vought and Stephen Miller additional power to decimate the federal government, to decimate the programs that are so important to so many people.”
The 55-45 vote on the House-passed measure fell short of the 60 needed to pass in the Senate.
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