Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) addressed the U.S. Senate regarding a potential government shutdown, attributing the situation to stalled negotiations between Republicans and Democrats. Kennedy stated, “It looks like we’re going to have a shutdown. What does that tell us? I’ll tell you what it tells me: It’s simply that much more evidence that human evolution is a slow, slow process. I thought humans had advanced more as a species, but apparently, we haven’t.”
Kennedy explained that keeping the government open requires bipartisan cooperation in the Senate. He said, “We can’t keep government open just with Republican votes here in the Senate. We only have 53 Republicans. We need seven Democrats to join with us. So, for my Democratic colleagues to say, ‘Well, the Republicans are in charge, and they don’t need us.’ They know that’s not accurate.”
According to Kennedy, Republicans proposed maintaining current funding levels until just before Thanksgiving to allow time for further budget negotiations—a method he noted was used previously when Democrats held the majority and President Biden was in office. He remarked, “What we have proposed to our Democratic colleagues and the Minority Leader, Sen. Schumer, is to make no changes to the current budget. We just want to continue the current budget and keep the government open until just before Thanksgiving to give us more time to negotiate a permanent budget. We did that many times when President Biden was president, and when the Democrats had the majority. In fact, we did it 13 times… But this time the Democrats have said no, no, no, no, no. We want more.
“You may be thinking, ‘Okay, that’s reasonable. What do you want?’ Well, it’s not reasonable. And in fact, what the Democrats are saying to us is that. ‘We’re going to close the government unless you Republicans agree to make it bigger. We don’t want the status quo. We want you to commit to spending $1.5 trillion more than you’re spending now.’ … Their demands to keep government open, you could stack them here, and you could stand on them and paint the ceiling. And that’s not much of an exaggeration. When Sen. Schumer announced these demands, that’s when I knew. I knew it in a nanosecond. We’re going to have a shutdown.”
Kennedy also commented on internal pressures within the Democratic caucus: “The loon wing is mad at many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate. They shouldn’t be, but they are. And therefore many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate are scared of the loon wing and they want the loon wing to love them.” He added: “The loon wing will never love them,” advising his colleagues they would be better off acting according to their own judgment.
He concluded by warning about political consequences if a shutdown occurs: “So if you want a shutdown I say to my Democratic friends you better be prepared to deal with the mud… How are you going get it back open? How are you going get it back open? I wouldn’t want be in their shoes have make that decision.”
