House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole told Newsmax on Wednesday that Senate Democrats are responsible for prolonging the government shutdown, accusing them of “holding millions of people hostage” to score political points.
“We do have a majority in the Senate,” the Oklahoma Republican said in an interview with “Wake Up America” “Three of the people supporting reopening the government are Democrats or an independent aligned with Democrats.”
The House has already done its job by passing a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open, but Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have refused to move forward.
The shutdown’s growing impact on federal workers and critical services is “unconscionable,” Cole added, stressing that neither President Donald Trump nor Republicans wanted to halt government operations.
“Almost every single Republican in the House and the Senate has voted to reopen the government multiple times,” the congressman said. “Frankly, almost every single Democrat has voted to shut it down multiple times.”
He warned that the situation is reaching a dangerous stage, with military pay and essential operations now at risk, and air traffic controllers and border personnel working without pay.
Furloughed employees are also not sure if they will be paid once the shutdown is over, even though they are out of work through no fault of their own, said Cole.
“They haven’t done anything to justify this,” he said, adding that “this is just dysfunction among Senate Democrats doing what they said they would never do — shutting down the government to achieve an unrelated political goal.”
Asked whether the growing public frustration could shift the narrative, Cole said Americans understand who is voting to open the government and who is not.
“There will be a tendency to say a pox on both your houses, but in this case, it literally is a Democrat decision,” he said.
Cole said Republicans were close to finalizing several appropriations bills before Democrats, led by Schumer, inserted unrelated provisions.
“Right now, literally, I think the American people and certainly federal workers are being held hostage by Democrats in the Senate,” he said. “They know they’re doing it, and it’s dangerous.”
As for when the shutdown might end, Cole said he hoped it would be “days, not weeks,” but admitted such impasses are easier to start than to stop.
“We feel like we’ve been the reasonable party here,” he said. “We think this is all done for political purposes by the Democrats. That’s a sad decision.”
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