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A Senate Republican argued that Senate Democrats are demanding tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid for LGBT projects, pastry cooking classes, electric buses and more in exchange for reopening the government.
Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have remained steadfast in their position that unless a deal is struck to extend expiring Obamacare tax credits, they will not provide the votes needed to reopen the government.
But Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., charged on the Senate floor on Friday that his colleagues’ demands go beyond their healthcare push, and is being driven by the “socialist wing” of the Democratic Party, and more specifically, by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
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Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., speaks as Neera Tanden, nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, testifies during a Senate Committee on the Budget hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 10, 2021. (Anna Moneymaker / POOL / AFP)
“I don’t think Senator Schumer was the person in charge, because Senator Schumer is not the leader of the Socialist wing of his party, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is,” Kennedy said. “She’s running the show.”
When reached for comment, Ocasio-Cortez’s office pointed Fox News Digital to an interview she did with NBC News on Republicans’ claims that she was driving Democrats’ position.
Ocasio-Cortez called the claims that she was running the show “ridiculous,” and charged that Republicans were the ones that had shut down the government.
“It is so important to understand that these people are all talk, they are all talk, they are negotiating with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic leadership, and Democrats are united to that end,” she said.
He argued that congressional Democrats, driven by the far-left, wanted to unlock funding that Republicans and the White House had canceled earlier this year in the $9 billion rescissions package.
The lawmaker listed out nearly $20 million in foreign aid funding that he alleged Democrats had their eyes on, including, $4.2 million for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people in the Western Balkans and Uganda, $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti, $6 million dollars for media organizations for the Palestinians and $3 million for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., denies the claim that she is “running the show” within the Democratic Party. (Fox News)
He also accused congressional Democrats of seeking hundreds of thousands for electric buses in Rwanda, transgender people in Nepal, a pride parade in Lesotho and for social media and mentorship in Serbia.
“I could spend the rest of the afternoon here,” Kennedy said. “We took all that out.”
Kennedy’s office did not provide details to Fox News Digital when asked specifically where the funding he referred to could be found.
And Democrats’ goal in their counter-proposal to Republicans’ continuing resolution (CR) did not include a repeal of the rescissions’ package, which saw billions in foreign aid canceled earlier this year.
Their plan demanded a permanent extension to the expiring healthcare premium subsidies, nearly $200 million for beefed up security for lawmakers, a repeal of the healthcare title in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a clawback of canceled funding for NPR and PBS, and stiffer guardrails on President Donald Trump’s rescission powers.
DEMOCRATS REFUSE TO BUDGE OVER OBAMACARE FIGHT AS SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., left, hold a news conference on the GOP reconciliation bill, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 11, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)
However, their CR does not include a provision that would undo the broader rescissions package passed earlier this year that canceled billions in foreign aid funding.
And Senate Democrats have remained bullish in their demand that Senate Republicans must negotiate with them on a deal for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies to earn their votes to reopen the government.
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“We have asked Republican leaders for months to sit down and talk to us, talk with us. They’ve refused and barreled us into a shutdown,” Schumer said. “They thought they could bludgeon us and threaten us and scare us. It ain’t working, because my caucus and Democrats are adamant that we must protect the healthcare of the American people.”
Fox News reached out for comment from Schumer’s office but did not hear back immediately.
