Hours before the government funding clock runs out, Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said Tuesday that a shutdown would benefit President Trump.
“The president has a lot of levers he could pull. This is one we could pull but why would we pull that lever? Because that allows him to pull a lot more levers,” Fetterman told reporters on Capitol Hill.
“I think that would be the ideal for Project 2025,” he added, referring to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for Trump’s second term.
With a shutdown set to begin Wednesday morning if the Senate does not reach an agreement to fund the federal government, Republicans and Democrats are at an impasse.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters he expects the upper chamber to start voting on funding proposals at 5 p.m. EDT Tuesday.
The Democratic proposal funds the government through the end of October, permanently extends the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies and restores nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.
The Republican proposal, passed by the House, would fund the government through Nov. 21.
Both, though, are expected to fail. Thune and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have scheduled procedural votes on the proposals Wednesday, and leaders from both parties have pointed fingers at the other side.
But Fetterman said the shutdown will benefit the president while “plunging the nation into chaos.”
A shutdown would result in federal workers not getting paid, although they are paid retroactively once the government reopens. Key services, such as Social Security benefits and disaster response, could also be impacted by a shutdown.
Last week, the Office of Management and Budget directed federal agencies to prepare for mass firings in the event of a shutdown, according to a memo reviewed by The Hill.
Since January, the Trump administration has sought to reduce the size of the federal government via widespread layoffs — some of which have been overturned by court rulings and agencies themselves.
Yet White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday that the president “wants to keep the government open.”