Sunny Hostin of The View confronted Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, over his consistent decision in voting to end the government shutdown. She accused him of bringing "a butter knife to a gunfight."
In her critique, Hostin cited Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and even the left’s unlikely new ally, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has spent the past several weeks publicly criticizing President Trump and "blamed the GOP" for the Schumer Shutdown.
Fetterman refused to be lectured, saying that Newsom and Sanders answer to far more extreme constituencies than he does, and he wasn’t about to let SNAP recipients become casualties of political theater.
"As you mentioned, Democrats had big wins last week, so you had momentum. Why give in now? Why bring a butter knife to a gunfight? Are you willing to gamble that the GOP will negotiate on healthcare in good faith once the government reopens?" Hostin asked. "Because if that gamble is wrong, half a million Pennsylvanians that you represent, their healthcare costs will skyrocket if you are wrong. I believe you are wrong."
Sen. Fetterman was the only Democrat to put his country over his party and vote with Republicans each time to pass the government funding bill.
"MTG is quite literally the last person in America that I’m going to take advice or to get their kinds of my leadership and values from. Now, if Democrats are celebrating crazy pants like that, then that’s on them. Now, I don’t need a lecture from, whether it’s Bernie or the governor in California, because they are representing very deep-blue kinds of populations and a lot of those things were part of the extreme," Fetterman replied. "Forty-two million Americans now are not sure where their next meal is going to come from, and because we vote like that. Or people that haven’t been paid for five weeks now, and that kinds of chaos. Those workers borrow more than half a billion dollars from their credit union just to pay their bills."
"I refuse to weaponize the SNAP benefit for 42 million Americans that rely on feeding themselves and their family, or making flying in America, you know, less safe, or I refuse not to pay our military and all of the unions attached to all of this, and people. So for me it’s like I don’t agree with that tactic to respond to circumstances that we’re confronting on this," he continued.
🚨 WOW! Sen. John Fetterman (D) REFUSED to be talked down to by The View's Sunny Hostin after he voted to reopen the government pic.twitter.com/LsgCkIbPwT
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 11, 2025
HOSTIN: Your Pennsylvanians' healthcare will SKYROCKET!!
FETTERMAN: I don't need a LECTURE...they are representing deep-blue…
Fetterman stood out as the lone Democrat throughout the Schumer Shutdown, unwilling to wield the millions of Americans who depend on federal food assistance as leverage against Republicans.