Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Sunday attacked eight Senate Democrats’ “very, very bad vote” to start reopening the government, saying that the recent elections serve as a mandate for Democrats to stand up to “Trumpism” and the president’s alleged authoritarianism.
Late Sunday night, eight Senate Democrats joined Republicans to advance a continuing resolution (CR), a stop-gap spending bill, to end the weeks-long government shutdown.
The Vermont Democratic socialist called the move a “very, very bad vote” in a post on X.
“Tonight, eight Democrats voted with the Republicans to allow them to go forward on this continuing resolution. And to my mind, this was a very, very bad vote,” Sanders said, as he walked through the halls of Congress.
Sanders claimed that the continuing resolution would raise health insurance premiums for 20 million Americans.
Democrats shut down the government over expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, subsidies. Democrats agreed on Sunday to vote for the government funding in exchange for a vote to continue these subsidies.
“People can’t afford that when we are already paying the highest prices in the world for health care,” Sanders said.
Sanders claimed that the recent Democrat victories in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia serve as a mandate from the American people to stand up to “Trumpism.”
“As everybody knows, just on Tuesday, we had an election all over this country,” Sanders explained.
“And what the election showed is that the American people wanted us to stand up to Trumpism — to his war against working-class people, to his authoritarianism. That is what the American people wanted. But tonight, that is not what happened.”
He continued:
So we’ve got to go forward, do the best that we can to insure and protect working-class people, to make sure that the United States not only does not throw people off of healthcare, but ends the absurdity of being the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people. We have a lot of work to do, but to be honest with you, tonight was not a good night.
Less socialist-leaning Democrats said that the government shutdown strategy “wasn’t working:”
