Democrat Insists There Is A ‘Poison Pill’ In GOP-Passed Clean CR. She Can’t Name It.

Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-OR) insisted on Thursday that the Republicans had included a “poison pill” in the Continuing Resolution that would reopen the government — but when pressed, she appeared to be unable to identify what exactly that might be.

Bynum, appearing on C-SPAN as the shutdown hit the 30-day mark, claimed that Republicans were trying to pull something over on the American people and that the CR — which has been widely regarded as “clean,” with no changes to anything — necessarily included hidden agenda items.

WATCH:

Democrat Rep. Janelle Bynum: “Any bill that Republicans have put forth, there’s always been a poison pill.”

C-SPAN: “What were the poison pills of the clean CR?”

Democrat Rep. Janelle Bynum: “You are trying to shift the responsibility to Democrats.” pic.twitter.com/avD3qs2MMt

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) October 30, 2025

“They did have a clean CR vote on September 19th in the House,” the C-SPAN host pointed out. “Did you vote for it?”

“I disagree with your characterization and want to make sure that we’re very clear about [what] Republicans have been doing,” Bynum protested. “Any bill that they’ve put forth, they’ve always had some extra stuff to it, there’s always been a poison pill to it, so I disagree with your characterization.”

The C-SPAN anchor pushed back: “What were the poison pills in the clean CR — the continuing resolution, you say it’s not clean — that was voted on in the House in mid-September?”

Bynum ignored the question entirely, and leaned into the camera to make her next point.

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”Here’s what’s important,” she said. “I think what you’re trying to do is shift the responsibility to Democrats.”

Just hours earlier, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) had gotten himself into a similarly uncomfortable exchange on CNN.

After he claimed on Wednesday that Republican leaders had not been willing to have a conversation with Democrats in order to bring the shutdown to an end, anchor Kaitlan Collins confronted him with his own admission that he’d spoken to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) earlier that day.

Over the next two minutes, Jeffries admitted that he had spoken to Johnson — and that Johnson had been the one to reach out to him rather than vice versa. He also admitted that although nothing was resolved, the pair had discussed things “in the ballpark” of the shutdown.