Senate Democrats who took heat for government shutdown vote now feel vindicated
Senate Democrats say allowing a GOP funding bill to pass has allowed the party to keep their focus on Trump as his tariffs have roiled the global economy.
When a group of Senate Democrats helped pass a government funding bill in March, it caused a major fissure within the party, with the base itching to fight the Trump administration even if it came at the cost of a shutdown.
But just over a month later, President Donald Trump’s tariff policy has resulted in historic swings in the stock market and levels of economic uncertainty that are now landing squarely on his shoulders. And the Democrats who were criticized for keeping the government open are now feeling vindicated.
“I was right,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, told NBC News of his vote to keep the government open.
“I concluded, along with others, that a shutdown would actually further empower Trump and Musk to pursue what they’re doing,” King said. “We would have handed him a gift. Anything bad that happened to the economy would have been blamed on us.”
The 10 Senate Democrats who voted with Republicans to advance a six-month funding bill largely did so because of the uncertainty a government shutdown would bring, particularly in the face of the sweeping cuts being implemented by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
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