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.

Do you agree with the Apostle Paul?

That was the question police asked Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen repeatedly over the course of 13 hours of interrogation over a social media post she made featuring a Bible verse. 

Six years ago, Räsänen found herself in a small room being questioned after she shared a Bible verse from the book of Romans detailing the Christian understanding of sexuality. After she shared the verse, she was charged with hate speech and dragged to the police station for numerous rounds of questions about her beliefs. 

“It was a very, very absurd and surreal experience,” Räsänen said on Thursday when asked by The Daily Wire to describe her experience. “I was sitting in a small room in a police station. I had the Bible on the table and the police were asking me very theological questions.”

She said that she was asked about the meaning of Romans and about the concepts of sin and shame in the Bible. Räsänen said she was brought in for questioning three times for a total of 13 hours, leading to a joke that she was “going to have a Bible study” at the police station, she said. 

Räsänen said her experience reminded her of stories she heard about Christians being persecuted by the Soviet Union. 

“Those stories that I had heard from these communist countries,” she said. “So I was so shocked that something like that could happen in Finland, in a country that has long roots in Christianity and rule of law and freedom of speech and faith.”

After each interrogation, she was given two weeks to delete her social media post and apologize. She refused each time. 

“I said that I do not apologize… because it’s not my opinion, it is what the Word of God says,” Räsänen said. 

She is a member of the Lutheran Church and was previously Finland’s Ministry of the Interior, meaning she once oversaw the police who interrogated her. Her case is now before Finland’s top court and comes after she was unanimously acquitted in 2022 and 2023 by lower courts. She faces two criminal charges for “agitation against a minority group.”

Räsänen’s case was heard on Thursday by the Finnish Supreme Court. She was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom International and criminal defense lawyer Matti Sankamo. 

Räsänen outside the Supreme Court/ Alliance Defending Freedom International.

In a press call after Thursday’s hearing, Sankamo said that it appeared that prosecutors had changed the primary focus of their case against Räsänen.

Also on trial is Bishop Juhana Pohjola, a Lutheran church leader who published a pamphlet in 2004 written by Räsänen defending the Christian view of marriage as between one man and one woman. Prosecutors have called for Pohjola to pull the pamphlet from circulation. 

“The Christian message of marriage and sexuality has been taught for two millennia, and it should never be considered a crime to speak what Christians have always believed,” he said ahead of the hearing. 

Both Pohjola and Räsänen face a hefty fine if they lose their case. The charges they face could come with prison time, though prosecutors have not requested that punishment. 

Paul Coleman, the executive director of Alliance Defending Freedom International, said that losing the case could make countless other Christian materials considered criminal. 

“We’ve not yet seen a case reach the highest court of a land where actual theological concepts like sin are considered hate speech, or where the words of the Bible are being put on trial,” he said Thursday. “And so again, if the prosecutor is successful, then that will set a new low, really, for freedom of expression in Europe and specifically for Christians.”

A verdict in the case is not expected until spring 2026, but Räsänen is hopeful that the result will be a resounding win for freedom of religion and speech. 

“The main question in this whole process is, the heart of this trial, is the question of whether teachings related to the Bible can be presented and whether it is still permissible to agree with the Bible, even when they contradict the main ideology of the society,” she said.