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Several Democrats broke ranks with their party to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history in a move that has triggered backlash from rising progressive stars, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who questioned whether the 43-day standoff had been worth it.
The intraparty revolt has exposed a widening rift between Democratic leadership and its left flank, as progressive candidates accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of surrendering leverage to Republicans and President Donald Trump in exchange for a funding deal that left key healthcare priorities unresolved.
“We have federal workers across the country that have been missing paychecks. We have SNAP recipients, millions of SNAP recipients across the country whose access to food stability was imperiled, and we have to figure out what that was for,” Ocasio-Cortez said, before adding, “We cannot enable this kind of cruelty with our cowardice.”
Back on the campaign trail, several Democrats running in next year’s midterm elections blasted colleagues who voted to reopen the government without extending the pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies — the key provision they’ve pushed for since the shutdown began on Oct. 1.
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Aftyn Behn, the Democratic nominee to represent Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District who has been described as the “AOC of TN,” said the shutdown ending proved “we need a new generation of leadership in Washington” and criticized the “career politicians” who caved without a guarantee to vote on ACA subsidies from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
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Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff who is running to replace House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi in her congressional district in San Francisco, agreed those Democrats who “caved” to Trump to reopen the government proved “we need a new generation of leaders in Congress.”
“After 40 days of holding firm, with public opinion and momentum on our side, establishment Democrats decided to cave to Trump. Schumer and the entire democratic leadership need to step down — and if they run for re-election, we need to primary them,” Chakrabarti said.
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Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, one of several progressive candidates vying for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat next year, who “literally wrote the book on Medicare for All,” according to his campaign website,” said the healthcare fight shouldn’t end with ACA subsidies.
“It HAS TO BE bigger. Too many Americans are suffering over medical debt and spiraling costs. It should be nothing short of Medicare for All,” he said.
El-Sayed said Americans should be “spitting mad about a few Senate Dems capitulating as health insurance premiums skyrocket for 25M people.”
As word circulated Sunday night that Congress was approaching a deal to reopen the government, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani called on Democrats to reject the bill.
“This ‘deal’ dramatically hikes healthcare premiums and only exacerbates the affordability crisis,” Mamdani said. “It should be rejected, as should any politics willing to compromise on the basic needs of working people.”
And Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who traveled to Queens, New York City, to campaign for Mamdani last month, has said this week that reopening the government without healthcare guarantees proved Schumer is “no longer effective and should be replaced.”
“If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?” Khanna said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on Thursday shifted the blame to Republicans, charging Trump and Republicans of adopting a “my way or the highway” approach in Congress.
“Unless they change course, we’re going to have challenges governmentally for the balance of the first two years of Donald Trump’s time in office,” Jeffries said on MSNBC’s “Way Too Early.”
Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) expired on Nov. 1, jeopardizing food access for millions of low-income Americans who rely on the benefit.
While Ocasio-Cortez questioned what the shutdown was for, if not to preserve the healthcare subsidies, Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Ala., argued Wednesday that healthcare in Alabama is more than just a “talking point,” citing Alabama’s low life expectancy rates and limited hospitals.
“Protecting health care for us is a requisite,” he said. “It’s a requirement. It’s something we have to do. And if you ask us if the shutdown was worth it, I say, hell yes, it was worth it. Because fighting to maintain healthcare for American people, there’s nothing more pure than that. There’s no more important role that we have here as members of Congress.”
Meanwhile, “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called the Senate’s deal a “betrayal of working people and a sham.”
“The public rightly recognizes that Trump and Congressional Republicans are to blame for the longest government shutdown in history,” Omar said in a statement on behalf of the progressive caucus.
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And Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a longtime supporter of Medicare for All and universal healthcare, also criticized Trump on Wednesday for being “willing to see children go hungry to make a political point.”
“I think what is so important for folks to understand is that this problem is bigger than one person, and it actually is bigger than the minority leader in the Senate,” Ocasio-Cortez said Wednesday, calling this failure of Democrats to hold the line on the government shutdown a “reflection of the party.”
Fox News’ Tyler Olson and Ryan Schmelz contributed to this report.
