As our senior editor Joe Cunningham reported, eight Democrat senators joined with the Republicans to break the filibuster on an amended Continuing Resolution (CR) to reopen the government. Because it is a changed CR from the one the House of Representatives delivered to the Senate, it must go back to the House for a vote before it can be considered a done deal.
We are at Day 41 of the government shutdown, where essential and non-essential government workers have been without salaries, air traffic has become limited and compromised, and SNAP benefits to 42 million Americans are stalled. Now that critical elections in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia are done, with big wins for their party, Democrats have pretty much exposed that this shutdown was of their making and it served their purposes. They are jockeying for position on who will dethrone Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) if they take back power in the 2026 midterms.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is first in line. Empowered by his endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, and Mamdani's win as the first Democrat Socialist Mayor-elect of New York, Sanders has been strutting and fluffing and doing more pontificating on his pet bailiwick: Healthcare For ALL. Sanders was one of the senators who voted against the amended CR, and before the vote was cast by the senators, he took to the floor to rant about the increase in premiums and the injustice of throwing 15 million Americans illegals off healthcare.
I’m voting no on the continuing resolution that would double healthcare premiums for 20 million Americans, kick 15 million people off Medicaid & allow 50,000 Americans to die unnecessarily every year. All to give $1 trillion in tax breaks for billionaires. https://t.co/JDkdVrs8sY
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 10, 2025
Shocker. When Sanders was first elected to the Senate, he would rail about tax breaks for "millionaires:" then he reached that evil status, flying private jets and maintaining several homes. One wonders what he's going to do when he joins the ranks of those hated billionaires.
Sanders began:
Because I think it is important that the American people fully understand what is being voted on today. Everybody in America knows that our current healthcare system is broken. It is dysfunctional, it is cruel, it is by far the most expensive healthcare system in the world, and the only healthcare system of any major country that does not guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right: covering every man, woman and child. We are unique in that respect.
OOOMAN RIGHT! Sanders screeched. This is the senator who vociferously opposed and voted against the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services Secretary and doesn't support Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) aims, which include empowering citizens to take control of their own health and break free from the oligarchy that is the health insurance industry. But do go on about the expense, and what is dysfunctional and cruel. (Emphasis mine)
Dive Deeper: Watch: An Utterly Clueless Tim Kaine Lets Slip the Real Reason Democrats Dragged Out the Shutdown
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And yet, tonight, what this Senate is about to do is make a horrific situation even worse. So, let's be clear what this vote is about. If this vote succeeds over 20 million Americans are gonna see at least a doubling in their premiums in the Affordable Care Act. In my state of Vermont and throughout this country, for certain groups of people it will be a tripling and a quadrupling of their premiums. There are people who will now be paying 50 percent of their limited incomes for healthcare. Does anybody in the world think that makes sense? And if this resolution is passed tonight, we are on a pathway to throw 15 million Americans off of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act -- 15 million. Our job is to create universal healthcare. Guarantee healthcare to every man, woman and child, not throw 15 million people off the healthcare that have low income and working class people.
That number includes illegals and able-bodied citizens who can actually work and pay for their own health insurance, as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA-4), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt have patiently explained over these 40-plus days. So, Sanders is not giving the full facts to the American people: but what else is new?
Sanders then goes into the hackneyed talking point that 50,000 Americans will DIE if Democrats don't get what they want.
And my friends know what you are voting on, studies are out there that when you throw 15 million people off of healthcare, some 50,000 of our fellow Americans will die, unnecessarily, Every. Single. Year. Anyone think that's funny? Something to laugh at? Something to just go past? I don't. Fifty-thousand Americans die unnecessarily.
Sanders finished his rant by admitting that they know their goose is cooked: the Obamacare subsidies are going to go away, and they have to come up with a real solution to the healthcare woes suffered by every American who has been forced to fund this Ponzi scheme.
Now, I know, as part of this Resolution that the majority leader is gonna say, well, Democrats can create, put together their own bill and it will come to the floor here in the Senate for a vote. As everyone here knows it is a totally meaningless gesture. You can get a hundred votes here in the Senate won't mean anything, because the House is not going to take it up. And the President of the United States certainly will not sign it. So, Mr. President, I hope that anybody here who is thinking of voting for this reconsiders, goes back home and talks to their constituents and ask them what it will mean if their healthcare premiums are doubled or tripled. Thank you, Mr. President.
What it means is that Republicans and Democrats may actually have to hash out legislation that would open healthcare for all — but not in the way Sanders wants.
Consider this speech a jumping off point for Sanders as he jockeys for position as the new leader of the Democrat Socialist Party. Sanders tacked on to this speech, after the Senate broke past the filibuster and voted to reopen the government, complaining that it was "not a good night."
WATCH:
Tonight was a very bad night. pic.twitter.com/t2rM48XEyV
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 10, 2025
Maybe not for him, but for the American people whose salaries and benefits have been on the chopping block, and whose lives and schedules have been disrupted, they are still waiting to exhale. Let's hope they can soon.
Editor’s Note: After more than 40 days of screwing Americans, a few Dems have finally caved. The Schumer Shutdown was never about principle—just inflicting pain for political points. Help us report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.
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