Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images News / Getty Images
Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is publicly breaking with his own party over a partial government shutdown that has left the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) without full funding for more than a month — and he's placing the blame squarely on Democratic leadership.
The partial shutdown, now in its 35th day, has forced key DHS agencies — including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — to operate under emergency protocols, according to the DHS. TSA workers are going unpaid during one of the busiest travel seasons of the year.
Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote in favor of reopening the government. On Friday (March 21), the Senate fell short of the 60 votes needed to end the shutdown, with the chamber voting 47–37 — marking the second time in under a year that Democrats withheld votes over a policy dispute. The rest of the party has remained unified in blocking full DHS funding until major changes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP are approved.
Speaking on The Record with Greta Van Susteren, Fetterman did not hold back. "I was the only Democrat through this entire thing to refuse to shut our government down," he said. "This is wrong. Now you can want to reform ICE. That's reasonable, now, but it has no impact on that directly."
Fetterman also pointed to a recent security incident in Michigan — where a man drove a truck carrying explosives into a synagogue — as evidence of the real-world dangers posed by the shutdown. Israeli officials later reported the attacker's brother once held a leadership role in Hezbollah. "Now, look what happened in Michigan," Fetterman said. "So with all the kinds of security, not just TSA, all of DHS is shut down at that. So that's also our cybersecurity agency."
The Pennsylvania senator accused his colleagues of being too afraid of their political base to do what he called "the right thing." "The Democrats are afraid of their base to just tell them, 'Hey, we're gonna do the right thing. We're gonna reopen this,'" he said. Fetterman added that he's willing to work with newly confirmed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, whom he voted to confirm — a vote that drew criticism from within his own party. "He's a good guy and he's someone that I can work with," Fetterman said. "Let's just reopen DHS, pay everybody, stop all these lines and make our nation more secure."
With no resolution in sight after the Senate's failed vote on Friday (March 21), the shutdown continues to impact federal workers and travelers across the country. Democrats have indicated they will not back down until their proposed reforms to ICE and CBP are addressed.