Democrat Asks GOP With Straight Face To Open Government Despite Voting To Force Shutdown

Democratic California Rep. Dave Min called for Senate Republicans to reopen the government on Monday — despite Min having almost all House Democrats in voting against a GOP-backed bill to fund the government and avert a shutdown. 

Min urged Republican lawmakers to “open up the government and not, in the process, terminate the health care of 15 million more Americans” in a video posted to X on Monday by his colleague Democratic Virginia Rep. Suhas Subramanyam. Both Min and Subramanyam, who also appeared in the video, voted against a stopgap funding plan to keep the government open through Nov. 21.

In the video, Min called on his Republican colleagues to “get your stuff together.”

“You were able to pass bills on a partisan basis, when it took away Americans’ health care, when it cut vital food aid,” Min continued.

Spoke with @CongressMin on how the Republican shutdown is affecting airports and air traffic controllers across the country. pic.twitter.com/6SlG9ieB9U

— Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (VA-10) (@RepSuhas) October 13, 2025

“This [the shutdown] is already having impacts near my district. We saw that in Burbank today, air traffic controllers didn’t show up,” Min added in the video. “Right now, all of the air traffic controllers, all the TSA [Transportation Security Administration] agents, are going without pay. They’re being asked to show up. But at some point, as this thing stretches on, I guess I’d ask all of you, would you keep showing up to your job if you weren’t getting paid?”

“We’re hearing more and more reports of people not getting their social security checks and other checks,” Min continued. “So this is a slow unfolding disaster happening before our eyes.” (RELATED: Democrats Who Voted Against Funding Government Are Suddenly Hysterical About ‘Harm’ Shutdown Would Unleash)

Congressman Min’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. 

The White House took steps last week to prop up two of the most critical programs facing lapsed benefits in the shutdown. 

A program providing food security for nearly 7 million low-income mothers, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), was injected with funds from tariff revenues after it was reported that the program’s benefits would lapse in the shutdown. The White House also stepped in during the weekend to direct funding for the 1.3 million active duty troops who would have otherwise missed a paycheck for the first time in history. 

Representative Min came under fire last month after he posted on X that Charlie Kirk’s killer had been “identified as MAGA,” in what proved to be a premature diagnosis of the assassin’s motives.

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