Dana Loesch: Democrats to blame for government shutdown—‘They set themselves up for a trap’

Seattle Red 770 host Dana Loesch explained on The Jason Rantz Show that Democratic leadership is clearly to blame for pushing the nation into a fiscal crisis with a government shutdown. But she also lauded Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) as the only Senate Democrat still acting like a grown-up.

Loesch didn’t mince words. She argued that Democrats in the Senate are holding out for bloated spending packages that include benefits for illegal immigrants, subsidies, and Obamacare expansions.

“Democrats in the Senate, they’re trying to hold out for excessive spending that is including people who enter the country illegally in the worst health care system ever, which is Obamacare, into all of these subsidies,” she said.

Loesch noted that history is not on Democrats’ side

The 9am-noon Seattle Red 770 AM host pointed to Newt Gingrich’s strategy in the 1990s, when Republicans refused to cave to President Bill Clinton during a shutdown fight, only to come out stronger in the midterms.

She recalled the Tea Party era in 2010 as another example: “The public reacted, and they saw that Republicans were really, genuinely trying to negotiate in good faith, and Democrats were the ones that kept putting all these caveats and demanding excessive spending, and that turned into the shellacking that, as Barack Obama described it, that Democrats took in 2010.”

Her warning for today’s GOP? “So long as Republicans don’t blink and don’t look weak. If they show a sign of weakness, if there’s blood in the water, they’re going to lose this. So they have to hold strong,” she told Rantz.

The Fetterman exception

While blasting Democratic leadership, Loesch pointed out one surprising exception: Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.

“He doesn’t vote the way I want him to all the time, but he’s not a nut. Isn’t that crazy? We have to evaluate, well, he’s not a nut, so he’s okay, but he seems…smarter than all the other Democrats now,” Loesch explained.

She added: “He just seems to have the most realistic view of how this affects his voters in Pennsylvania, and he just, I just think he kind of keeps it real.”

That lines up with Fetterman’s own public comments this week. Asked about the looming shutdown, he told Pittsburgh’s WTAE.

“I’m not really worried about the politics. It’s just like – this is our core responsibility. Republicans or Democrats. Just keep our government open. If they did that in 2013, that was deeply wrong. And it’s wrong any time they shut the government down. I’d be very critical about it. So that’s – here we are. And if it’s our party, that’s, that’s why I refuse to do it,” Fetterman said.

Relishing at Democrats’ incompetence

Loesch closed with a bit of relish at the Democrats’ predicament.

“This is a bad gamble for Democrats, either way. I think they sort of set themselves up for a trap, and I’m very happy to see them walk through it. I’m not even going to pretend that I don’t enjoy the schadenfreude of it,” she explained.

With the clock ticking, Republicans are holding firm while Democrats refuse to back down. As the shutdown starts, Loesch says Americans should remember exactly who turned down every lifeline.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on Seattle Red on 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on X, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.