{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/the-schumer-shutdown-is-cruel-and-heartless/", "The Schumer Shutdown is Cruel and Heartless", "2025-11-07", "2025", "2025-11", "Republican", "Senate", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", "barrasso", "https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom/news-releases/", "scraper", "\u201cIn an interview just yesterday with Punchbowl News, Senator Murphy said reopening the government would do \u2018substantial damage\u2019 to Democrats\u2019 \u2018brand.\u2019 There you have it. Functioning government is bad for the \u2018brand.\u2019\u201d\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Senate Majority Whip, today blasted Senate Democrats for their 38-day cruel and heartless shutdown.\n\nClick HERE to watch Senator Barrasso\u2019s remarks.\n\nSen. Barrasso\u2019s remarks as prepared:\n\n\u201cToday is November 7, 2025. We are now one month and seven days into the longest shutdown in American history. Democrats can claim they now broke the record. And for what? For leverage. For politics. Meanwhile, in every state in the Union, the American people are getting hurt.\n\n\u201cSoldiers are working without pay at Fort Benning in Georgia. Where are the two Democrat Senators from Georgia? A single mom in Michigan is struggling to put food on the table for her children. Where are the two Democrat Senators from Michigan? Capitol Police Officers and staff members on this very Floor are struggling to pay their bills. Do Democrat Senators not care about them? The government is still closed. They\u2019re not getting paid.\n\n\u201cEach and every one of these people are being hurt by the Schumer Shutdown. Every day gets worse for them. Yet Senator Schumer has bragged to the press, \u2018Every day gets better for us.\u2019 Who is the us? It certainly is not the people whose flights were grounded all across the country today.\n\n\u201cTo keep our skies safe, the FAA directed airlines to reduce the number of flights. This impacted major airports all across America. It was the right thing to do. The FAA Administrator \u2013 someone with 35 years of experience in the field \u2013 says we\u2019re in \u2018new territory.\u2019 He\u2019s never seen anything like this. And here\u2019s what should terrify every American. One Democrat staffer said Democrats won\u2019t reopen the government unless \u2018planes are falling out of the sky.\u2019 Let that sink in. Democrats are waiting for disaster. They\u2019re gambling with American lives.\n\n\u201cSenator Chris Murphy of Connecticut \u2013 a Democrat with presidential ambitions \u2013 admitted it on the record. In an interview just yesterday with Punchbowl News, Senator Murphy said reopening the government would do \u2018substantial damage\u2019 to Democrats\u2019 \u2018brand.\u2019 There you have it. Functioning government is bad for the \u2018brand.\u2019 Democrats\u2019 brand matters more to them than 42 million hungry Americans. Democrats\u2019 brand matters more to them than military families who aren\u2019t getting paid. Democrats\u2019 brand matters more to them than safety in our skies.\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s call this Democrat Shutdown what it is. It\u2019s cruel. It\u2019s heartless.\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s be fair. Even some Democrats now recognize it\u2019s cruel and heartless. They\u2019re starting to turn on each other. One Democrat staffer admitted to the press that far-left Democrats have no plan to end this shutdown. None. Zero. They want to keep it going forever. This staffer even admitted, the far-left Democrats are hurting people for political gain. He said, \u2018Families who can afford it least\u2019 are getting \u2018walloped\u2019 every day the shutdown continues.\n\n\u201cDemocrats can and should end the shutdown today. Republicans have a clean, bipartisan continuing resolution to reopen the government. We want to pair this with three full year appropriation bills. These are bills that have already passed the Senate with bipartisan support. They have been negotiated on a bipartisan basis with the House. They fully fund veterans\u2019 care. They fully fund our Capitol Police. They fully fund food assistance programs such as SNAP and WIC.\n\n\u201cThis is a reasonable deal. A responsible deal. A deal Democrats earlier this week asked Republicans to put on the Floor. If it passes, the Schumer Shutdown ends quickly. 13,000 air traffic controllers get paid. 50,000 TSA agents get paid. 1.3 million military members get paid. Food assistance for 42 million Americans gets fully funded. Flights get restored. The government reopens.\n\n\u201cSome Senate Democrats have signaled they will still vote no. Evidently, they want the pain, they want the pressure, and \u2013 as members of this body as well as the House Democrat Whip said \u2013 they want \u2018leverage\u2019 to continue so they can score political points.\n\n\u201cLet me be clear about what a \u2018no\u2019 vote means. A NO vote is a vote to refuse to pay air traffic controllers who are working. Refuse to pay TSA agents who are working. Refuse to pay military members who are serving around the world. Refuse to pay Capitol Police officers who are here in this building working.\n\n\u201cA NO vote is a vote to cut more flights and to cause chaos for families hoping to travel over Thanksgiving. A NO vote is a vote to deny food to 42 million Americans. A NO vote means Democrats get to continue to play their dangerous game of the politics of pain. There\u2019s no excuse \u2013 none \u2013 for voting NO.\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t tell me \u2018I want leverage,\u2019 which is what Democrats are saying. The American people are not leverage. When Democrats treat Americans as political pawns, the American people lose. Don\u2019t tell me \u2018I\u2019m standing on principle.\u2019 What are your principles when you allow 42 million Americans to continue to go hungry?\n\n\u201cThe American people are watching. They\u2019re watching to see who is fighting for them and who is simply using them as leverage.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/the-schumer-shutdown-is-cruel-and-heartless/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8305488154292107, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}