WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown neared its end on Wednesday, one prominent Democratic member of Congress had choice words for Republican leaders, whom she called "godless" and "gutless."
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), a leading U.S. House progressive, told Raw Story in an exclusive interview that she was shocked by her Republican colleagues and what they had put Americans through in the more than 40 days since the government closed.
"I'm just disappointed because we're in this position at all,” Pressley said. “Our Republican colleagues, I think they have proven that they are godless, they are gutless, and they are complicit in wholesale harm.
“So we're here because of their incompetence and their indifference, and I resent that we're in the position at all. They don't know how to govern.”
Senate Democrats prompted the shutdown, holding up a government funding measure in an attempt to force Republicans to work to avoid spiraling health-care costs for millions of Americans thanks to the lapsing of Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Democrats held out for more than a month, even as Republican threats mounted, prominently including attempts to fire federal workers and to suspend Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Payments (SNAP), popularly known as food stamps, a vital resource for millions of low-income Americans.
On Sunday, eight senators – seven Democrats and Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who caucuses with the party — climbed down, citing such threats as good reason to give up the fight.
Pressley said many Republicans were "so-called Christians,” given their willingness to enact such punitive measures for political gain.
"This is what they do? We deny people? They're medically deprived and they go hungry? It's unconscionable, and the worst part: 100 percent preventable,” Pressley said.
“So I just resent that we were put in the position at all. But for House Democrats, I'm proud that we stayed united and never lost the plot, which is [to support] the people."
That might have been a veiled shot at Democrats in the Senate, amid plenty of party calls for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to step down, having failed to keep his caucus united.
Among House Democrats who spoke to Raw Story on Wednesday, Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) was not calling for Schumer to go — instead focusing fire on Republicans under Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who kept the House closed for eight weeks.
“I think Chuck is not the martinet or the dictator of the Senate Democrats,” Beyer said.
“And you get, you know, good people like Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Angus King and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who were more responsive to the 42 million without SNAP benefits and the 8 million federal employees without paychecks. So that's not his fault.
“You know, [Schumer's] done a very good job, holding over together for seven weeks because of the shutdown.”
Raw Story asked: “What do you make of Speaker Johnson?”
Beyer replied, “I would have to say that for me, he's the most disappointing member of the US Congress.
“First of all, because in his daily press conferences, he just lied again and again and again. He also used the most extreme language, you know, this 'Marxist' and 'communist' and all this crazy stuff.
“I mean, I'm not big into name-calling, especially things that are sort of disconnected from reality. Also, I thought there was a pettiness, a meanness, about the way he managed this place, locking all the doors, not lifting the barriers. Poor staff had to wait in line 30 and 45 minutes to get in in the morning because they would lock all the doors … that's worrying about a leader.”
On Wednesday, Johnson finally swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), a new congresswoman due to become the 218th and deciding signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, related to the late financier and sex offender and his links to powerful men, including President Donald Trump.
“That was petty, it was small,” Beyer said, adding that Republicans had been “on a seven-week paid vacation” while Grijalva had been “coming in for free.
“All of our folks have come in, but [Johnson] missed the fact that the Senate stayed in. And so there was the opportunity to do a lot of other work that needs to be done in committee after committee, and that didn't get done.”