Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s plan to let Republicans advance their government spending bill, saying it’s “as dangerous as it is reckless.”
The current continuing resolution “turns the federal government into a slush fund for Donald Trump and Elon Musk, it sacrifices congressional authority, and it is deeply partisan,” the Democratic congresswoman told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“To me it is almost unthinkable why Senate Democrats would vote to hand the few pieces of leverage we have away for free when we’ve been sent here to protect Social Security, protect Medicaid, and protect Medicare,” she added.
On Thursday night, Schumer announced he would not be voting to filibuster a continuing resolution bill advanced by Republicans that gives the president the power to cancel individual budget items—a power typically reserved for Congress.
In a process known as “cloture,” Republicans need 60 votes to bring the bill up for a vote, despite only needing a simple majority to pass it.
Republicans had backed Democrats into a corner because a government shutdown could have allowed Trump and his billionaire megadonor Elon Musk to put Musk’s nebulous cost-cutting task force DOGE into overdrive.
But Ocasio-Cortez told Tapper that Democrats needed to reject the stacked partisan bill and push for a clean 30-day stopgap that would keep the government open for another month while both sides returned to the negotiating table.
Every House Democrat except one—including representatives from battleground districts that Trump won—took a stand against the Republican bill. If Senate Democrats cave, their House counterparts will have taken those risks for no reason. Originally, Schumer had said the Senate would also hold the line.
“I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters at the House Democrats’ annual policy retreat in Leesburg, Virginia. “Just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk—I think it is a huge slap in the face.”
She and other House Democrats were “texting, calling, sending carrier pigeons” begging Senate Democrats not to let “completely roll over and give up on protecting the Constitution,” she told CNN Thursday.
Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) agreed that Senate Democrats were making “an awful decision.”
“People are angry. We were almost to a person in unison [on the House vote] … And a significant percentage of their caucus is voting to allow the Republicans to do whatever they want to do,” he told The Hill.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) also said that “people have to know what Democrats stand up for, and they’ve got to see us fighting for them.”
“If we’re just the same, and we’re just going to enable Republicans to do what they’re doing, I think that’s obviously why people are frustrated,” she added.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) was even harsher.
“First and foremost, Senate Republicans should back down from screwing over their own constituents,” he said. “And then second, Senate Democrats should do the same thing House Democrats did, which is fight for our constituents and block this bill.”
House Democrats were so furious with Schumer’s decision that some are already privately urging Ocasio-Cortez to primary him, CNN reported. Even centrist Democrats were sufficiently angry they were “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate,” one unnamed representative told the network.
The congressperson said they’d “never seen people so mad.”
Asked by Tapper if she would ever challenge Schumer, Ocasio-Cortez said, “What we need right now is a united Senate Democratic caucus that can stand up for this country and not vote for the cloture and not vote for this bill.”
The vote gives Democrats a rare point of leverage because reconciliation and other legislative processes only require a simple majority, she said.
“The strength of our leadership in this moment is going to demonstrate the strength of our caucus,” she said. “I cannot urge enough how bad of an idea it is to empower and enable Donald Trump and Elon Musk in this moment.”
