{"id":6028,"date":"2025-02-11T17:35:25","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T17:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-are-divided-on-government-shutdown-threats\/"},"modified":"2025-02-11T17:35:25","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T17:35:25","slug":"democrats-are-divided-on-government-shutdown-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/democrats-are-divided-on-government-shutdown-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats are divided on government shutdown threats"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With just over a month until government funding expires, Democrats remain divided on whether they should use the threat of a government shutdown as a political cudgel as they try to push back on President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

Key progressives want to use every point of leverage the minority party has at its disposal to push back against the slashing of federal agencies being undertaken by Trump’s budget office and Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the Republican majority’s responsibility to gather the votes necessary for them to pass their agenda. I do not believe that Democrats should be helping,\u201d said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). \u201cGiven the Republican majority\u2019s attempts to completely gut the federal government, any concession necessary for the Democratic Party to assist them in passing a CR must be incredibly substantial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys are in charge, running around, bragging about a mandate, so they should put on their mandate pants and pass whatever they want to pass but if they want us [to help keep the government open], they have to work with us,\u201d said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). This is about give and take \u2014 about a compromise. And if they don’t want to do that, then they’re on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

But top leaders continue to take a more measured approach, with some in the party nervous about being blamed for a shutdown. They have emphasized a multifaceted approach<\/a> that includes litigation, political messaging and a new “rapid response task force<\/a>.” <\/p>\n

Instead, with the deadline approaching, key Democrats are preemptively blaming Republicans<\/a> for any brinkmanship. During a caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, Democratic leaders stressed that any shutdown would be the GOP’s fault since they hold the levers of power, according to two people familiar with the remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo House Democrat wants to shut down the government,\u201d Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) told reporters Tuesday morning. But he added that there’s “very little appetite to help Republicans when we don\u2019t trust that Donald Trump is going to spend the resources that we\u2019ve allocated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With just over a month until government funding expires, Democrats remain divided on whether they should use the threat of a government shutdown as a political cudgel as they try to push back on President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk. Key progressives want to use every point of leverage the minority party has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}