Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) held Republicans accountable on Thursday to avoid the impending government shutdown.
“Everyone knows Donald Trump is president, Republicans have the Senate, Republicans have a home,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN's Jake Tupper on “Lead.”
“They have the keys of the entire US government,” she added. “And if Republicans want to avoid closure, they can … negotiate with Democrats and get those votes, if they need a Democrat vote. It's easy.”
Bipartisan fundraising negotiations collapsed earlier this year, with House Republicans introducing their own six-month suspension government fundraising bill. It passed the House with just one Democrat vote, but will need eight Senate Democrats to support it to overcome the filibuster.
It puts great pressure on Democrats in the upper room who oppose legislation but fear that they are being blamed for the closure. In addition to the pressure, the House was postponed after passing an ongoing resolution on Tuesday. This means they cannot approve changes to the funding bill the Senate makes before Friday's closing deadline.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) announced on Thursday he will vote to advance the GOP bill.
Still, both House Democrat leaders and progressives are urging their Senate colleagues to endure firmly.
“The American people are armed with Elon Musk and the actual gutting of all-out federal agencies, whether they're Republicans, independents, or Democrats,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN. “This ongoing resolution codifies much of this confusion that Elon Musk is wreaking havoc for the federal government.”
President Trump said Thursday that Democrats will be responsible for government funding this week, and also suggested that the closure would push back Republican efforts to extend the expired tax cuts.
“They do the shutdown and ultimately it could lead to very high taxes as we're talking about closures,” Trump told reporters. “We're talking about working quickly on the biggest tax bill ever passed. That's what we did. It's an update and that's what we added to it.”
“We cut taxes on people, and if we don't open, Democrats are stopping all these good things we have,” he added.
Oka reached out to the White House for comments.
