Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Senator Chuck Schumer’s decision to back a Republican spending bill and avert a government shutdown a “tremendous mistake.”
Schumer, 74, announced Thursday that he would advance the GOP bill to keep federal funding flowing past a midnight Friday deadline. The measure, which was passed in the House on Tuesday, has been the central point of contention in the Senate this week.
AOC, however, criticized the move during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper Thursday evening and said it would be “a tremendous mistake.”
The Bronx-born lawmaker said that the bill would create a “slush fund” for President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
“I cannot urge enough how bad of an idea it is to empower and enable Donald Trump and Elon Musk in this moment. It is dangerous and it is reckless,” AOC told Tapper.
AOC insisted that the time to act was now.
“The American people, whether they are Republicans, Independents, or Democrats, are up in arms about Elon Musk and the actual gutting of federal agencies across the board,” AOC said.
“This continuing resolution codifies much of this chaos that Elon Musk is wreaking havoc on the federal government. It codifies many of those changes,” she continued.
In defending his decision to support the bull, Schumer said that there were fundamentally “no winners in a government shutdown.”
The veteran lawmaker said that a shutdown would grant Trump and Musk “carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.”
However, AOC said the bill’s passage would “sacrifice” congressional authority to regulate Trump’s “impulsive” tariffs.
She added that for those who were concerned about “effectiveness in government,” supporting the billion-dollar bill would remove the checks and balances necessary to ensure that the money was being spent in accordance with Congress’s commands.
“It is almost deeply 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”, she shared with Tapper who pressed her on the matter.
Taking to her Bluesky account shortly after the bold interview, she wrote: “I think some in the Senate have 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.”
AOC said it was crucial for Schumer to recognise the risks associated with supporting the bill and declared that the funding was about “deep cuts to social security, Medicare, Medicaid” – not party loyalty.
Government shutdowns are immensely costly. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the last funding lapse was estimated to have caused a permanent loss of about $3 billion, as reported by CBS News.
The Senate has until 23:59 ET Friday to decide on the matter before a shutdown comes into force.
