Speaker Mike Johnson (00:01):
Welcome, everyone to day eight of the Democrat shutdown. As is our custom now, we'll come out every morning and give you an update on where things stand. I've tried to make this as simple as possible and as digestible as possible. It seems complicated what's happening in Washington right now. It actually is very simple. Don't let the Democrats distract you and try to convince you of things that are not true. Yesterday or a couple of days ago, Monday, I laid out six simple truths about how the Democrats shut down the government, why they did it, and why it is so important for them to come to their senses and turned the lights on. Yesterday I went through five fast facts for you about the shutdown, and I explained, as everyone now knows, Chuck Schumer's desperate attempts to rehabilitate his own image by shutting down the government. Today we're going to talk about some of the consequences of that shutdown and what it means to real people around this country, real Americans experiencing the devastating cost of their political antics here.
(01:06)
And I'm going to read you some sample quotes and headlines that we just collected yesterday from around the country. Here's a headline from The Hill. "GOP Leaders point to Capitol Police missed paychecks as shutdown drags on." So today the U.S. Capitol police officers are going to come to work to bravely protect U.S. government officials and staff in these dangerous times, and they're going to do that without pay. Many Democrats in this chamber, by the way, I want to note, are going to receive paychecks this month while the men and women of the U.S. Capitol Police who are protecting them will not. Here's another headline from the New York Post. "Aviation groups warn a government shutdown will delay aircraft safety inspections, maintenance work on critical equipment." While air traffic controllers are going to continue to serve in their posts, thankfully. Critical safety inspections are going to stop increasing risk for air travelers. That affects everybody. Here's another headline from Georgia, local media in Georgia. "Central Georgia food banks prepare for surge of new clients during the government shutdown." It's a sad headline.
(02:10)
Remember, Georgia's two Democrat Senators, Warnock and Ossoff, have now voted five times to keep the government closed down, five times so far. I suspect they may continue, and they're hurting real people in the state of Georgia. Here's one from New Hampshire local media. "National Parks caught in the cross hairs of government shutdown." Let me point out that both senators from New Hampshire, Senators Shaheen and Hassan have repeatedly voted to keep the government closed and New Hampshire's National Park sites closed by extension. How about New Jersey? Here's a headline yesterday. "Hospital at-home telehealth programs on hold amid government shutdown." You got two Democrat senators in New Jersey, Andy Kim and Cory Booker, and they have repeatedly voted against funding these programs which New Jerseyans rely upon daily. Here's one from Michigan. "Michigan nonprofit leaders said a shutdown would be at best disruptive and at worst potentially devastating for local communities." There are two Democrat senators in Michigan, Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin, and they have voted now five times to enable this devastation upon their communities. One more. I could do this all day. Here's one more from CBS News.
(03:22)
"Government shutdown fears have Colorado food banks bracing for potential new visitors." You guessed it, two Democrat senators from Colorado, Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper. They keep voting over and over to keep the government closed. Democrats claim they want to negotiate, but that is already happening in a bipartisan bicameral fashion. And we brought in the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee this morning, Tom Cole, who can talk more about that, but I just want to say this as I yield of Mr. Cole and then you'll hear from the rest of the leaders and I'll take some questions. There is one sad and inescapable fact that no one can forget here. This shutdown is nothing more than political cover for Chuck Schumer and the Democrats. They are worried about the Marxists flanked in their Democrat party.
(04:11)
The Marxists are about to elect a mayor in New York City, that's Chuck Schumer's state, and he's terrified that he's going to get a challenge from his far left. I've noted that Chuck Schumer is a very far left politician, but he's not far enough left for the communists and they're coming for him, and so he has to put up his dukes and show a fight. So they picked a fight on something that's not even related at all to the shutdown and the funding that we should have gotten done by the end of September. We just need a stopgap measure to give us a little more time to get the job of Congress done. They refuse to do it because they're playing politics, and real Americans are paying the price for it. But let me introduce Chairman Cole and he can tell you about some of these discussions that have been going on. Mr. Cole.
Chairman Tom Cole (04:52):
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Usually when I follow the speaker, I usually think I should just say what he said and excuse myself right away. But in this case it is pretty easy. I mean, we've had a pretty decent year in the House Appropriations Committee, all 12 bills out of committee before September 30th, three that we are in negotiations on with the Democrats. Those negotiations have gone very well. We are prepared pretty quickly to close. Once the government's reopened, we could get at least three bills done. President could sign them in. Those things would be immune from a shutdown until the following September 30th. Then we'd pick another group of three or four bills and then we would do in cooperation with our democratic colleagues and start working on that. So the process honestly was moving along pretty well. And then we had unrelated demands obviously related to repealing work Congress had already done on Medicaid and then these new discussions on subsidies. And I do want to point out, at least the bill we have right now in front of us, doesn't even go 'til December 31st.
(06:02)
I mean, these actions, we could do this work and still have time to turn around, as the president and our leadership has pointed out in both chambers, and sit down and talk about these other issues. But it's hard to do much when the negotiations aren't happening simply because the government is shut down. So again, we're prepared to work. I've got very talented counterparts on the Democratic side, are good negotiators. We've negotiated a lot of labor [inaudible 00:06:31] bills together between Patty Murray, Rosa DeLauro, and myself. And obviously Susan Collins is one of the best legislators in the building. So it's not like we are going to have a hard time, I think, finding common ground, but you do have to restore the government for that to happen. Democrats are not likely to move bills while they've got the government shut down because it suggests that absent that we would be moving through the process as normal and frankly in a much better shape than we've been in recent years.
(07:02)
So again, I'm just hopeful that my colleagues in the Senate. And it's worth pointing out, a majority of the Senate's already on our side, a bipartisan majority of 55. So this really does get down to Leader Schumer and the bulk of his caucus to simply shutting down the government over items unrelated to what we normally do in appropriation. I've mentioned this to both the speaker and the leader because they make these decisions, but we don't, we should not be handling Medicaid on my committee. We should not be handling the Obamacare subsidies simply because we don't have the expertise or the jurisdiction to do either one of those things. What we can do is move the bills through the process and make sure that every soldier is paid, make sure that every air traffic controller is paid, make sure that the American people don't lose any services. So we're prepared to do that.
(07:54)
Frankly, I think my democratic colleagues are prepared to do that once we resolve this shutdown. And that's quite simply in the hands of Leader Schumer and hitting the bulk of his caucus. When they make the mind that they want the government up and running, believe me, we'll move very quickly and we'll try to move away quickly from a CR status to passing bills individually or in small groups and get folks up and working again and to get the government restored and continue that process as we're supposed to do. So with that, Mr. Speaker, I'd just yield back.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Well, appreciate the work that Chairman Cole and the Appropriations Committee have done months and months ago to get us in a place where we would be ready to have all of the appropriations in a place where you can negotiate those differences. It was Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries who chose to take their toys and go home all to appease the most radical elements of the far left because Chuck Schumer is more concerned about his political job
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Than he is about the jobs of millions of American families. American families lives are at stake here. Whether or not we're going to be able to pair troops, whether or not people can get on an airplane and go visit a relative or take a vacation, whatever their plans may have been are being disrupted. Real lives of real people are being disrupted so that Chuck Schumer can show the far-left Marxist in his party that he's having some kind of tantrum in fighting Donald Trump because he's afraid of the far-left part of his political base. A lot of people say, "What is this really about?" And obviously you see Democrats trying to make it about things that have nothing to do with the basic funding of government, the bill that we passed here in this house just a few weeks ago. And in fact, a lot of Democrats are having buyer's remorse, but every one of us has a voting card.
(09:56)
And weeks ago, Republicans and Democrats in the house had an opportunity to put this voting card in the machine and tell the American people where they stand on a government shutdown. And 99% of House Republicans voted yes to keep the government open while we negotiate our differences. And 99% of Democrats voted no to shut the government down. Some of them are having buyer's remorse, and I don't blame them. They're now realizing the dire consequences that their no vote caused to real families across America. Some of them are begging the speaker, "Please bring us back in so they can get another shot at this." You don't get a do-over. They picked the wrong side. They voted to shut the government down. They failed the test. But the good news is they can get bailed out by the Senate.
(10:51)
If they really want to solve these problems, if they really want to make sure our troops get paid, which by the way, we voted for, they voted against, they can call their two Democrat senators who have five times voted to shut the government down and say, "Today's the day you can make amends. Today's the day you can open the government up." We only need four more votes. It's not a large number. Four Democrat senators have come to their senses and said, "Yes, let's open up the government and not have this charade continue." But it takes four, more because Chuck Schumer wants to have a tantrum? Let me tell you what another senator just said yesterday about why this shutdown is going on. He said, quote, it's a Democrat senator yesterday, "The point of this shutdown is not just suffering for suffering's sake, but to make a point." So you even have Democrat senators admitting that they're imposing suffering on the American people, but they just want to make a point.
(11:57)
My God. Millions of lives are at stake. They know they're inflicting suffering on the American people so they can make some kind of point? If you want to have a tantrum, this is not the third grade. This is the lives of American people. Real lives are at stake, real careers and families. Will they be able to pay their house note come the 15th? That's at stake. The safety of our Air Traffic Control system so that some senator that wants to have a tantrum can make a point? I think the American people are getting sick of this charade that's going on. They know what the Democrats in the house did to shut the government down, but they also know that just four senators doing the right thing can turn this around and open the government back up again. And yes, we have big differences on a lot of things that we need to be negotiating on.
(12:52)
All those bills that Chairman Cole and his Appropriators sent out of committee. You can't have those negotiations while you're in a shutdown. And they know that. But they don't mind inflicting suffering on the American people because they want to make a point. I think the American people are going to start making points. People could pick up the phone and call their Democrat senator. We did a press call yesterday in the states of Georgia and Maryland where all four senators there could literally end this today. But they've all been five times voting no on the bill to get the government back open. It was ironic. The Maryland delegation of Democrats held a press conference just days ago talking about how bad a shutdown will be for the state of Maryland. And they're right. The irony is, they're the ones who voted to shut it down. Over 150 employees in the state of Maryland alone will be hurt, and they're on Democrat delegation, is saying how bad it's going to be, yet they're the ones who voted to inflict that "suffering" on the people of Maryland.
(13:55)
This madness can end. This madness needs to end with sanity finally emerging. Bring some common sense in. And Chuck Schumer, if you can't do the right thing because you're so afraid of your political job, think about the jobs of millions of families out there who don't want to have that suffering inflicted on them. And let four other of your Senate Democrat colleagues do the right thing for you. Let's end this. Our whip, Tom Emmer.
Tom Emmer (14:30):
Eight days. We are now eight days into the Democrats shutdown. Eight days that our troops are not getting paid. Border patrol agents are going without mission-critical funding. Federal workers are being forced to figure out how they're going to put food on the table for their families, all because Democrats would rather hold the American people hostage to appease their radical base than to pass our clean, nonpartisan government funding bill. As of this morning, Senate Democrats have had five opportunities to get the government up and running again for the people they were elected to serve. And the vast majority of them have voted no every single time. Their obstruction is not only a slap in the face to hardworking Americans whose livelihoods are being put at risk due to the Democrats shutdown. It's also a slap in the face to the constituents who fund their salaries with the expectation that they fulfill their basic constitutional responsibilities.
(15:36)
In my hand, I have more than a dozen pages of organizations from across the country representing Americans from every end of the political spectrum echoing the exact same message. And that message is that government shutdowns solves nothing and hurts everyone. So to our Democrat colleagues in the Senate, enough with the political grandstanding. Do the right and responsible thing by passing the House's clean CR immediately. Americans are already hurting. People's jobs are at stake. You can and must end the political games and reopen the government today. And with that, I turn it over to our conference chair, Lisa McClain.
Lisa McClain (16:25):
Thank you. Good morning everybody. Again and again, Democrats have chosen to put illegal aliens over hardworking Americans. That is not my opinion. That is fact. Read the bill. Democrats let millions of illegals pour in across our border under Joe Biden. Democrats gave them driver's license. Democrats allowed them to cast ballots in elections. And now, Democrats are fighting, they are fighting to give illegals healthcare on your dime. Democrats want to take money out of your pockets and give them to illegal aliens so they can get government benefits. These aren't my opinions, these are actual facts. Go to the website and read the facts, right? But what Democrats do when they have no plan, no vision and no leader, they have to misrepresent the truth. And they do that over and over again and they think you, the American people, aren't going to notice. They're not going to notice. You are not going to notice that they're taking money out of your pockets and giving them to illegals. They're going to try and put their spin on it. But I challenge you. Go to the website and read it for yourself. When Democrats have the choice between standing up for American people
Lisa McClain (18:00):
… or catering to the illegal aliens, what do they do? They choose illegals every single time, time and time again, and that's exactly what they're doing again, in this government shutdown fight. Democrats are putting illegals above American citizens.
(18:24)
So I ask the Democrats, how long will it take you to put Americans first in this funding fight? I ask our senators, Senator Peters and Slotkin, when are you going to put the American people first, the people that elected you to represent them? How many times will you vote against our troops?
(18:48)
I ask Senator Peters and Senator Slotkin, how many times are you going to vote not to pay our troops? How many times will you vote against moms and babies who rely on WIC? Against flood insurance? How many times will you vote to put illegals first and Americans last?
(19:10)
The answer to that question is as long as the radical base keeps calling the shots. My two senators are pandering to their radical base as well. Republicans, however, are actually putting Americans first every single day. And why? Because that's our job, that's our duty, and quite frankly, that is our responsibility. And I call on the Democrats, especially the two Democrats from my state, Senator Peters and Senator Slotkins, please put the American people who you represent first.
Speaker Mike Johnson (19:56):
Now, |I'll take a few questions. Yes ma'am.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Speaker Johnson, thank you. Do you agree that the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois should be in prison?
Speaker Mike Johnson (20:06):
Should they be in prison? Should the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois be in prison? I'm not the attorney general. I'm the speaker of the house, and I'm trying to manage the chaos here. I'm not following the day-to-day on that.
(20:17)
I do know that they've resisted the introduction or the offering of National Guard troops in Chicago, which is a terribly dangerous city and has been destroyed, in the process of being destroyed under liberal Democrat governance and their terrible policies. I would just cite for you in response Exhibit A, which is the District of Columbia. All of you are able to walk safely into the capitol today and you can park your cars blocks away and walk back to your cars, and you're not in fear of having your purse snatched or your car being jacked or being assaulted.
(20:49)
And why is that? Because President Trump had enough of it. He's a strong leader in the Oval Office and he used the resources that were available to him, the National Guard, to bring order to the chaos. The Democrat mayor of the District of Columbia ultimately said, "Thank you so much for the reinforcements," and you're all enjoying the spoils of good policy and return to the rule of law.
(21:11)
If we could do that in the other major cities in the country where they're having terrible crime crises, that should be seen as a positive, and I think most Americans see it that way. If you're a resident of Chicago or New Orleans or one of these other Democrat-run cities, you've had enough. You're tired of your family walking in fear and not being able to enjoy their lives. And if President Trump can use the resources and do it in a lawful manner to allow National Guard troops to help bring order and restore the rule of law, that is something that is wildly popular with the American people.
(21:42)
Now, if you have elected officials in some of these states who are committed to their radical soft-of-crime ideology and defunding the police and all the things the Democrat party championed for the last several years and they want to stand by that, we encourage them to do so. We'll see what the people think about it. Yes, sir. Back row.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Speaker Johnson, a lot of the free healthcare for illegal aliens that you've been talking about is care provided in emergency rooms, which are required by federal law to care for anybody even if they can't pay, even if they're not a citizen. Do you think that that law should be changed?
Speaker Mike Johnson (22:13):
No. You're talking about EMTALA, which has been part of the law for most of my life. Emergency care is provided without question to anyone who comes in. If you're hemorrhaging and you show up in an emergency room, you get treated. That's something we all support. That's a very good law. We're in favor of it.
(22:28)
You're cherry-picking a tiny subset of the issues. We put, and go to my, it's still on the website Speaker.gov, look at page 57, section 2141 of Chuck Schumer's counter-proposal CR that he filed. There's six categories of things that they would like to restore funding to, and it adds up to $192.8 billion, almost $200 billion, of hardworking taxpayer funds that would go to support illegal aliens and other non-citizens.
(22:53)
Now, with regard to EMTALA, are we seeing a change in the law? No, but one of the things they're doing, and one of the things that Chuck Schumer is advocating for and has filed in the law and is using as a leverage point to keep the government shut down, is he literally wants to reimburse hospitals more money for treating illegal aliens than American citizens. Fact. Go look it up. Go look on the website. Don't take my word for it.
(23:16)
We're not doing that. If you're a young, pregnant American citizen woman who shows up in an ER and you get treated, and they pay the hospital less for treating you than some illegal rabble-rouser who came in from some South American country to do us harm, that is wrong. The Republican Party stands for common sense.
(23:33)
In the Big Beautiful Bill, we fix that, and Chuck Schumer wants to unwind it, and it is unconscionable to me that he's inflicting all this pain on American citizens so they can play games and try to appease the radical left base. That's what this is. Back. Yes?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Two questions about federal worker pay. One, is it your understanding that federal workers will be repaid after this shutdown as part of current law? And two, would you allow a UC, for example, for the military to ensure that they would be paid in the shutdown?
Speaker Mike Johnson (24:03):
Those are two questions. Federal workers, it's my understanding that the law is that they would be paid. There is some other legal analysis that's floating around. I have yet had time to dig into and read that. But it has always been the case. That is tradition, and I think it is statutory law that federal employees be paid, and that's my position. I think they should be. They should not be subjected to harm and financial dire straits because Chuck Schumer wants to play political games.
(24:28)
With regard to paying the troops, I want everybody to listen to me very carefully. Hakeem Jeffries and the House Democrats, as Leader Scalise said so well, are clamoring to get back here and have another vote because some of them want to get on record and say they're for paying the troops. We already had that vote. It's called the CR. Every Republican and at least one Democrat had the common sense to say, "Of course we want the government to stay in operation. Of course we want to pay our troops and our air traffic controllers and our border patrol agents, TSA and everybody else."
(24:56)
We did have that vote. I keep saying the house did its job. We did that almost three weeks ago, and every Democrat in the house except one voted against it. They voted that they did not want the troops to be paid, they did not want TSA agents to be paid, they did not want air traffic controllers, border patrol agents, and all the rest.
(25:14)
They live with that vote, they made that decision, the house is done, the ball is now in the Senate's court. It does us no good to be here dithering on show votes. We did it. We sent the product over. It is clean. It is 24 pages in length. It's the most bare minimum that's necessary to keep the lights on for the people, and Chuck Schumer and 43 of his colleagues, Democrats, continue to do the wrong thing. We're not having it. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Thank you so much. Democrats continue to allege that the Republican-controlled Senate can change the rules to push through the shutdown impasse. Congressman [inaudible 00:25:46] is also now saying the same. Is there any validity to this, and what sort of precedent would that set for future Democrat-controlled [inaudible 00:25:53]?
Speaker Mike Johnson (25:53):
Well, I'd lead the house, but the Senate has its own rules. Some of them are arcane, and when you're in the minority, you don't like it a lot. The filibuster is a tradition over there that's been maintained by both parties whenever they've been in the majority for a long, long time, and they can make a very compelling case as to why that's true.
(26:12)
Now, could you go nuclear and blow that all up and end the filibuster once and for all and allow everything for only majority party vote, 51 votes, in the Senate? I mean, is it possible? Yes. Is it wise? You can have a lot of people who would tell you it's not.
(26:29)
I mean, on the Republican side, I would be deeply concerned if the Democrats had a bare majority in the Senate right now. A Marxist ideology taking over the Democrat party? Do I want them to have no safeguards and no stumbling blocks or hurdles at all in the way of turning us into a communist country? I don't think that's a great idea. That's me.
(26:49)
So what's good for the goose is good for the gander, as they always say, and there are some safeguards in the process that were built in a long, long time ago to prevent one party just running roughshod. Now, there's a
Speaker Mike Johnson (27:00):
… a big contrast between what I just said and the issue that is before us today. We're not asking Chuck Schumer and the Democrats do anything different than what they've always done. We've shown you the highlight reel. Chuck Schumer gave impassioned speeches as recently as seven months ago in March of this year. He said, "We have to keep the government open. It would be dangerous and harmful to the American people." He said after the vote, he went on CNN and said, "I'm proud of that vote. I didn't like it, but we had to do that." He was right then, he is not right now.
(27:28)
We're not asking the Democrats to do anything heroic, we're asking them to do their basic duty and responsibility. As Chairwoman McClain said, "Keep the government open, the first responsibility," I'm sorry, I'm aggravated, "The first responsibility of the government is to protect the people." And the people who are supposed to be protected are being completely cheated by Democrats in the Senate because they want to play politics. They hate Donald Trump. I mean, they have Trump Derangement Syndrome. It's very real. Listen to their own comments, and they have to show a fight at any cost. When does that cost become too high? In our view, it already has. They have another chance today to reopen the government and we'll see if they do the right thing. I pray that they do because real people are being affected by the games here and they're sick of it. Thanks so much.
Group (28:15):
[inaudible 00:28:19].