In the wake of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats voting alongside Republicans to pass the continuing resolution (CR) to avoid a government shutdown, MSNBC host Symone Sanders said that she was ready to change her voter registration to independent.
"I’m pissed," Sanders said on MSNBC’s The Weekend on Saturday. "Okay, so, you know, there’s actually little that the Senate minority leader can say and the 10 Democrats that voted with the Republicans can say, to appease someone like me. I’m about to change my voter registration to independent."
She later said that the "Democratic tea party was born the same day that Chuck Schumer took to that podium to read that very well crafted statement that told us he folded like a paper napkin."
Nine Democrats and one independent, Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats, voted to advance the continuing resolution. Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick Durbin, Brian Schatz, Chuck Schumer, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Gary Peters, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Jeanne Shaheen voted in favor of the CR, which passed 62 to 38 in the cloture vote.
In the final vote, the bill passed through the Senate with a vote of 54 to 46. Two Democrats joined the Republican senators in passing the bill. Voting for the CR in the final vote were King and Shaheen. The lone Republican to vote against it was Senator Rand Paul, per ABC News.
Ahead of the vote to advance the CR, Schumer said on the Senate floor, "While the bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse." He added that the "Republican bill is a terrible option. It is not a clean CR, it is deeply partisan, it doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs, but I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option."
