Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) ripped Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday after he said he’d vote to advance a GOP-backed funding bill, abandoning his plans to filibuster the legislation in a move that will likely avoid a government shutdown.
“I believe that’s a tremendous mistake,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN’s Jake Tapper, who asked about Schumer’s new plan and why she thinks it’s “wrong” to allow for a simple majority vote.
Ocasio-Cortez pressed that Americans are “up in arms” over Elon Musk, adding that the continuing resolution codifies the billionaire’s chaotic cuts.
She described the legislation as an “extreme spending bill” that “sacrifices and completely eliminates congressional authority.”
“This turns the federal government into a slush fund for Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” she said of the “deeply partisan” legislation.
“And so to me, it is almost unthinkable why Senate Democrats would vote to hand the few pieces of leverage that we have away for free when we’ve been sent here to protect Social Security, protect Medicaid, and protect Medicare.”
Ocasio-Cortez was among a number of members of her party — moderates and progressives alike — who blasted Schumer over the move to back the bill, which all but one House Democrat voted against when it passed on Tuesday.
Schumer, in a speech on the Senate floor, said Trump and Musk would have “carte blanche to destroy vital government services” under a shutdown as he argued in favor of siding with a “very bad” continuing resolution instead prior to Friday’s funding deadline.
Schumer was called out by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes later in the day after he agreed with the host, who referred to an “unconstitutional assault on the government right now.”
“There is, these guys are the worst and we’ve got to fight them every step of the way —,” said Schumer as Hayes scoffed.
“But they’re saying you’re not fighting,” Hayes interjected.
The congresswoman, in remarks to reporters, pointed to House Democrats that won Trump-held districts and “walked the plank” to defend Americans only to see Senate Democrats “even consider acquiescing” to Musk.
She later declared on her X account that “virtually every” House Democrat from a Trump-won district was part of the “new ‘left.’”
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Ocasio-Cortez, in a post to her BlueSky account, questioned Senate Democrats who “convinced themselves that the backlash to folding will be limited to ‘the left’ and therefore ignorable.”
“Those people are deeply and profoundly misreading the moment and the stakes,” she wrote.