Manchester, New Hampshire — New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker Friday he took his frustration with him The deal that ended the government shutdown To the home of two of her Democratic colleagues who helped broker the settlement.
Booker cited his past as a college football player when asked about Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, who were among the seven Democrats and one independent who defected after concluding that Republicans would not bend. Extending health care tax credits Under the Affordable Care Act.
“This charade is over,” Booker said at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, where a large photo of Shaheen and Hassan hung on the wall behind him. “I’m not happy about it. I think we lost yardage, and the kind of yardage we lost is not a game, it’s our health care.”
Although he earlier used a baseball analogy when he said Republicans and Democrats needed to be brave in “calling the balls and strikes of their party,” he stuck to football in refusing to further criticize the New Hampshire senators.
“When you make a big mistake on a play, get back in the huddle and buckle up because we have a job to do,” said Booker, who was scheduled to speak Friday night at a fundraising dinner with Shaheen and Hassan.
The settlement signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday night funds three annual spending bills and extends the rest of government funding through January 30. Republican senators promised a vote by mid-December to extend health care subsidies, but there There is no guarantee of success.
Booker’s visit followed a similar trip by Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who joked that he was playing a familiar role as a warm-up act for Booker when he spoke at the same venue on Wednesday. Both senators were warmly received.
Murphy noted that he was not calling out any of his Democratic colleagues by name in criticizing the deal to end the shutdown. But he said showing Americans who Trump really is will require pain and sacrifice, and he urged his caucus to learn from leaders of the civil rights movement who suffered beatings and imprisonment.
“What they were trying to do was show the regime that their willingness to endure pain was greater than the regime’s willingness to impose it,” he said.
He said Democrats need to have tough conversations about doing better.
“You know those families where all the problems and hard things are buried? They come back and bite you in the ass,” he said. “So let’s get to it, let’s talk about it.”
Given New Hampshire’s tradition of hosting early presidential primaries, the appearance of out-of-state politicians always raises questions about their future ambitions. Democrats haven’t done that yet Determine their basic schedule For the year 2028.
When asked if he planned to run for president, Murphy demurred a little differently than some, saying he was focused on saving democracy.
“What a fool it is for any of us to plan to run in elections that may not happen,” he said.
Booker, who ran for president in 2020 but It leaked Before the first vote, he said only that he would be in New Hampshire in 2028 “no matter what.” Like Murphy, he also compared today’s problems to the civil rights movement.
“You cannot have great courage without great fear,” he said. “And you cannot have great hope unless you stare unflinchingly at great despair.”