Legislative Session
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 2296, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Pending:
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
Mr. President, we are just 14 hours away from a government shutdown. The House has passed a clean, nonpartisan continuing resolution to fund the government until November 21. The President is ready to sign it, but Senate Democrats are standing in the way.
Those last few lines aren't mine, and they are not a quote from some other Republican. They are a quote from a mainstream journalist who is acknowledging what everyone knows, and that is that Republicans have offered up a clean, nonpartisan funding extension, the same kind of extension Democrats have repeatedly supported in the past, and Democrats are blocking it for their own partisan purposes.
It is right here. This is what it is. This is a partisan CR--24 pages to keep the government open until November 21, at which time the Democrats will have almost the same leverage they have right now?
I mean, hopefully, by then, we will have passed more appropriations bills. I would like it if we passed all of them, but it is reasonable to expect we won't have them all through conference and in place on the President's desk. So they will have another funding cliff they can take advantage of come November 21.
This is ready to pass right now. This keeps the government open. This funds the government and protects Federal workers and the American people from the hostage-taking that has become, evidently, now the Democrat norm, even though it is something they decried not that many years ago.
It is right here in front of us--right here. We can pass this today. We can pass it right now. All we have to do is get support from the Democrats.
The House has passed it. This is a House-passed bill. We take it up, and the Senate passes it. We send it to the President, the President signs it into law, and the government stays funded.
Pretty straightforward, right?
And it was something that was done many, many times in the past, as I mentioned, by Democrats when they had the majority.
Now, this right here is a chart. I mentioned 13 times. So when the Democrats were in the majority around here, on 13 different occasions we passed short-term continuing resolutions, funding resolutions to keep the government funded. And, as you can see, there were a lot of, interestingly enough, Republican votes--Republicans who voted to keep the government open when the Democrats had the majority--on 13 separate occasions. You can look at the numbers there. The lowest number on any one of those is 65 votes.
All we need today in the Senate, in order for us to keep the government open, is to get eight Democrats to vote with Republicans. That is all it takes. That is all it takes, eight of them. It doesn't have to be all of them.
I mean, I understand the reason, in many cases, the Democrats don't want to go down this path now. It has nothing to do with the substance of this. I mean, again, look at this. They want to argue about the substance of a continuing resolution that funds the government for 7 weeks, at which time they will have similar leverage?
It doesn't have anything to do with that. It has everything to do with politics because, when this happened, there was a Democrat President in the White House. Now there is Republican President, President Trump. That is what this is about. It is about partisan politics.
Now, there is another chart, which I will show you here, which I think points out, too, the hypocrisy of the Democrats. This is the percentage of Democrat Senators who supported Biden-era CRs.
Look at that: 100 percent--100 percent. There were two of them at 98 percent. So they must have lost one or two on the other side on a couple different occasions. But 13 times, when they had the majority, almost all of them, without exception, voted to fund the government because that is kind of simply what we do. We try to avoid government shutdowns because they tend to be disruptive. Everybody knows that.
In fact, I could go through a long list of quotes, and I will just give you a few to give you a frame of reference.
In 2023, the Democratic leader called a shutdown ``avoidable, irresponsible and deeply damaging'' and noted that a shutdown would cause ``disruptions for millions of New Yorkers to services they rely on, while thousands of Federal workers would be furloughed.''
In 2019, during the midst of a government shutdown, the senior Democrat Senator from Hawaii stated:
In 2023, the senior Democrat from Massachusetts, who has been one of the biggest voices in support of a shutdown this time around, had this to say:
Well, that is a sampling. This is an endless video loop of Members on this side who have been saying these things now for years, not decades.
So I could go on. In fact, let me just give you a couple more for some additional perspective. We have got Democrats, as recently as this year, talking about the negative effects a shutdown has on American families. And now Democrats are so committed to shutting down the government, they are rejecting a clean--clean, clean--nonpartisan, short-term funding extension, the very same kind of extension that, as I mentioned, they supported 13 times during the Biden administration.
So what has changed? I think we all know. It is not that the problems with a shutdown have changed. All those quotes that they said, I assume, maybe, they still believe them. This is the Democrats far-left base and far-left Senators that have demanded a showdown with the President, and the Democrat leaders have bowed to their demands. And apparently--apparently--the American people just have to suffer the consequences.
When I took office as majority leader, I made clear my commitment to regular order, in particular to a bipartisan appropriations process, and I have delivered on that. We have passed three of the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills with strong bipartisan margins here in the Senate, and I am eager to get back to bipartisan appropriations work. That is why Republicans have put forward a clean, nonpartisan short- term funding resolution to keep the government open to enable us to finish that appropriations work.
We wanted a completely noncontroversial bill so that no one would be inclined to vote against it and so that we could get back to funding the government the way it should be funded, not through endless CRs but through thoughtful, considered, yearlong appropriations bills.
But the Democrats just can't take yes for an answer. They are rejecting a bipartisan process and attempting to take government funding hostage.
And I had hoped that yesterday's White House meeting might mean the Democrats are starting to rethink their plan to shut down the government, but it seems that their leadership, at least, is full speed ahead.
Republicans--House, Senate, and White House--are united in our commitment to fund the government through a clean, nonpartisan funding resolution and then to get back to the business of bipartisan appropriations.
So Democrats have a choice to make. They can shut down the government and subject the American people to all the problems that come with a shutdown--many of which, as I have said, they have enumerated in the countless quotes they have made in the past--or they can join Republicans to pass a clean, nonpartisan, short-term funding bill and keep the government's lights on.
For the sake of the American people, Mr. President, I really hope they choose the latter.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Democratic leader is recognized.
Mr. President, I thank the leader for letting me borrow his chart for a minute.
So he has pointed to each of these bar graphs, the percentage of Democratic Senators who supported Biden-era CRs.
Yes. That is true. Guess why. In each case, Democrats negotiated with Republicans and said: Let's have a bipartisan bill.
The leader says: It is a clean bill.
It is a partisan bill. Not once were Democrats asked for what input should be in the bill. We were not told about it, we were not asked about it, et cetera; nor did Speaker Johnson talk to Hakeem Jeffries.
You cannot pass legislation in the Senate when it comes to appropriations unless it is bipartisan.
So the leader will say it is clean. No, it is not clean because there was no discussion. Every one of these times, I went to the Republican leader and said: What do you need? What do you want?
In many cases, we had to significantly change the bill. One of our bills had aid to Ukraine. The Republicans didn't want it. To avoid shutting down the government, we talked to them, negotiated, and took it out. But not once--not once--was there any bipartisan discussion or talk on this bill.
We wanted to give our Republican colleagues a chance. That is why some of us back in March said OK. But we saw what happened after that. We saw a decimation of healthcare in the BBB--so bad right now that 80 percent of Americans support renewing the tax
So the world has changed, and one way it has changed--and there are several, and I will get to those--one way it has changed is there was no discussion. And we asked to have meetings. Hakeem Jeffries and I asked the leader and the Speaker to sit down with us as early as July. They didn't.
The appropriators--
Mr. SCHUMER.--is a bipartisan negotiation. And the appropriators, which he will say are discussing things--but the two issues we care about--
The date. They put the date in there.
The two issues we care about: extending the ACA credits--broadly popular with the American people, so they don't want to talk about it; they want to change the subject--and ending these rescissions and impoundments that would undo what we would do--the four appropriators, when they got down and discussed it, they said: That should be for the four leaders to discuss.
That is what Thune said. That is--sorry. That is what Cole said, the Republican head of Appropriations in the House. That is what Collins said. That is what Murray said. That is what DeLauro said. They did not discuss it with us at all.
So to say the appropriations process is working is wrong. It is not working. It is not working because the leaders wouldn't discuss it with us, as we discussed with Republicans on every single one of these what should be in the bill and on the bill.
Please.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
So the Senator from New York--the way that we have done it was a different business model than the one he used. We actually had the Appropriations Committee sit down, and the date that they come up with, November 21, was agreed upon by the House and Senate appropriators, Republican and Democrat.
Would the speaker yield? Would the leader yield?
I will. I will.
And the Ukraine issue you are talking about wasn't a CR. That was an entirely different issue. So don't throw that into this mix.
It was not. It was not an entirely different issue.
But what we are talking about--the Democrat leader and his colleagues have the same leverage on November 21. This is a short-term CR. This is what we do all the time around here, as witnessed by the chart you were just using. It is 24 pages long, funds the government until November 21, at which time you have the same leverage then that you have right now. And we have until the end of the year to fix the ACA credit issue, and we are happy--as I said yesterday and I said on multiple occasions--to sit down with you to do that.
Thank you.
Now reclaiming my time--
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Democratic leader is recognized.
They did not agree to the bills that the leader is talking about because they said explicitly--Democrat and Republican-- there are two issues they can't resolve: impoundments and rescissions and ACA tax credits and healthcare. And they all agreed, the four of them, that they couldn't agree to a bill until the leaders discussed it with us.
We asked the leaders to discuss it with us in July, in the middle of August, at the end of August and September. They refused. And now he says: Give us another 45 days.
Well, frankly, the Republicans have had 45 days since March--one 45 days, another 45 days, another 45 days. And in the room yesterday, Johnson said he doesn't want to do it at all; he doesn't want to have any compromise.
So the time to do it is now, and the idea that we can do it until January--when we talked to the President yesterday, he didn't understand this, but I know that the leader does. On October 1, in a day or two, millions of Americans--millions--are going to get notices that their insurance premiums will rise an average of $400 a month, $5,000 a year. A middle-class family can't afford that.
We want to renew those credits--among other things in healthcare--but renew those credits so that people won't pay that horrible increase. You can debate healthcare all you want, but the overwhelming majority of Americans--Democrat, Independent, and even a good number of Republicans--want us--want us--to renew those credits.
The impoundment, rescission--I mean, what does the leader think? That we should go along, come to an agreement, and then let them undo it unilaterally as they have done once and now have asked to do it more? No way. That is not how you deal with this. And we never had another President who did it.
So I repeat--I love this chart--Democrats negotiated with Republicans, Democrats negotiated with Republicans, Democrats negotiated with Republicans, and on through the whole chart. Didn't happen this time. Leader Thune did not come once to me and say: Is this bill acceptable? What do you want in the bill?
So they call it clean; we call it extremely partisan--not one discussion, House or Senate, between the two leaders. That is not how you negotiate, and that is not how you pass appropriations bills.
The Appropriations Committee is stalled, by their own admission, because the leader will not come and talk to us about it.
Now let me make a few other points. Republicans are heading us into a shutdown. We stand at the precipice of a government shutdown because Republicans are not serious about keeping the government open.
If you want one glaring instance of that, Speaker Johnson sent his people home. They are home right now even though the government will conclude at midnight. There is only one conclusion you can draw when the Speaker sends the House home: that he wants a shutdown, he doesn't want to negotiate. All they want to do is force us, try to bully us-- they are not going to succeed--into taking their partisan bill. Take it or leave it. That is not how this place works. And that is why we are headed into a shutdown--because Republicans refuse to negotiate a bipartisan bill that deals with the healthcare needs of the American people, which they care about.
Yesterday, Leader Jeffries and I went to the White House to meet with the President and Republican leaders about finding a way out of this impasse. It was a frank and candid discussion. It was long overdue. As I said, we had asked for it for months.
We asked the President to meet with us when Thune and Johnson wouldn't. He said yes. And according to all reports, Johnson and then Leader Thune, who just followed what Johnson wanted, said ``Don't do it,'' and the President withdrew.
So on Friday, I called Leader Thune and said, ``Let's have a meeting,'' and we did, but it is at the last minute.
There is still a chance. It is only the President who can do this. We know he runs the show here, and he has got to say to our Republican colleagues: Deal with this ACA issue so that people don't get $400 premium increases; deal with this impoundment and rescission issue-- which, when we told him about it yesterday, he seemed not familiar with it, but now he knows--and we can solve this problem.
But Johnson won't. Thune won't. And so the President is not going to be able to persuade them unless he tries at the last minute. That is the only hope here.
Look, sitting in the room with the President, it was very clear that the President hadn't fully grasped the magnitude of the disaster he is causing when the government shuts down.
As healthcare costs go up, as people lose their healthcare--rural hospitals are already closing.
Speaker Johnson, in the room, said to me: They are not.
I pointed out to him that Tim Kaine just informed us that three rural clinics in Virginia, southwest Virginia, were closing, and the head of those clinics said it is because of the bills that the Republicans passed, the so-called BBB, which we know is not beautiful. The American people know it is not beautiful.
So they know--our Republican colleagues know that the American people are fully behind us when it comes to lowering costs but also--also-- when it comes to healthcare and making sure those premiums don't go way up.
Then I spoke to Speaker Johnson directly in the room. I told him, because he can't debate healthcare because he knows it is not--the American people are not on the side of wanting these increases--even Republicans--I told him to stop making up stories, that too many Republicans are lying through their teeth. They say: Oh, the Democrats want undocumented immigrants to get healthcare, to get the Federal dollars of healthcare.
That is utter bull, and they know it. The law--the law--prohibits undocumented immigrants from getting payments from Medicare, Medicaid, or the ACA. There is no money, not a penny of Federal dollars, that is going there. So why do they bring this up? Because they are afraid to talk about the real issue, which is healthcare for American citizens, healthcare for people who need the healthcare and can't afford these premiums.
Let me say it again. Undocumented immigrants cannot receive premium tax credits by law. So they should stop these lies and address the real issue which, of course, they are afraid to do. A standard Republican MO--a standard Republican MO--is to make something else up because the American people are on our side.
Now, this week, here is what House Republicans sent out as guidance to their Members. They said ``not to make the message about healthcare because Republicans lose that argument.'' They are right. Their position is callous, malicious, unpopular.
So they are not only refusing to talk about healthcare, but apparently when they do, it is only to spread misinformation, to spread lies.
I said this to Speaker Johnson in the Oval Office yesterday. I told him it was total bull--I think that is the word I used--to say that we want undocumented immigrants to get Federal benefits, that it can't happen by law and nothing we proposed in our bill changes that. He sort of smirked. That is it--because he knows the truth. He knows the truth. And they are lying to the American people, these Republicans who use this, because they know how unpopular their position is.
Kaiser Family Foundation poll: 75 percent of Americans support extending the ACA premium tax credits, including 63 percent of Republicans.
Republicans have chosen the losing side of the healthcare debate because they are trying to take away people's healthcare. They are going to let people's premiums rise. And this idea that we can do this in January--no. The notices go out October 1 as to how much of an increase people will get in 29 States, and they only have a short time--long before January--to decide, are they going to drop their healthcare because they can't afford it? Are they going to take a lesser plan where they pay more through deductibles and copayments or are they going to keep that plan and cut back on buying a car, going on a vacation, or worse?
Simply put, folks, the Republicans have chosen the losing side of the healthcare debate--the losing side. And in the White House meeting yesterday, Speaker Johnson made it perfectly clear he didn't care if people's premiums go up because his conference is against it.
So, again, the House isn't even set to come back until October 7. You tell me which side is actively manufacturing a shutdown. Why did the House do that? Because they want to negotiate? I don't think so. They wanted to jam it through, but they are not going to be able to.
Yesterday, during a House Republican conference, Representative Lisa McClain made it explicit. She said ``Don't talk about healthcare'' to her Republican colleagues. They don't want to talk about it, so they make these other things up, facts out of thin air.
So the Republicans have until midnight tonight to get serious with us about solving this crisis and keep the government open, but right now, they are not even talking to us seriously. They are sort of in la-la land.
On another related issue, yesterday, the President posted an offensive deepfake AI video of Leader Jeffries and me with sombreros, fake music, impersonating my voice through AI--it wasn't me talking-- with even more lies about healthcare and immigration.
Listen to this, America, hours away from a shutdown--which we don't want, the American people don't want--the President is busy trolling away on the internet like a 10-year-old. And that is exactly why Americans are going to blame him if the government shuts down. That is another proof point as to who is to blame--his video, Johnson going away and adjourning the House until next week.
We have less than a day to figure this out, and Donald Trump is busy tweeting deepfakes. It is not like he is in touch with reality; he is in a bubble. He doesn't understand if government shuts down, people with healthcare premiums will go up. When we told him about it in our meeting yesterday, by his body language, he seemed not to be aware of the ramifications. If the President was smart, he would move Heaven and Earth to fix this healthcare crisis right away because Americans are going to hold him responsible when they start paying $400, $500, $4,600 more a month on healthcare.
We have less than a day. If there was ever a moment for Donald Trump and Republicans to get serious about healthcare, it is now. Even right now, even this morning, even here on the precipice of this crisis, the President would rather troll on the internet and lie about healthcare than tell the truth and get to work.
That is why the polls are abundantly clear that Americans will hold Donald Trump and Republicans responsible if the government shuts down. Senate Republicans could stop this crisis now. The President should get on the phone with Leaders Thune and Johnson and tell them to work with Democrats to fix the crisis before it is too late and work with Democrats to fix our healthcare crisis.
Let me just say, once again, we tried over and over and over again to meet with the Republican leadership, and they said no. Appropriators said they couldn't resolve the issues until the leaders met. So we asked the leaders to meet again, and they said no because they didn't want to negotiate. They wanted it their way or no way--their way or no way. That is not how the Senate works.
If Republicans cause a shutdown, they will probably keep lying and distracting because they know we are on the side--Democrats are on the side--of the American people. We will continue to focus on healthcare. The American people will be completely on our side.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
Mr. President, we just heard the minority leader come to the floor of the Senate, once again, refusing to admit it is the Democrats who are driving America into a shutdown. Let me remind everyone what Senator Schumer, himself, said in 2013. That was when the government faced another government shutdown. This is his quote. He said:
His words--a shutdown is ``idiocy.'' They are his words, not mine.
So, today, Republicans are committed to keeping the government open. We are going to vote to do that again today. The House has already passed a clean continuing resolution with bipartisan votes, and it keeps the government open and functioning for the next 7 weeks. It allows Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committee to continue their bipartisan work on a full year of funding for our Nation.
This is where Senators from both parties have a very important part to play. The continuing resolution is now in the Senate. Senate Republicans support it. Senate Democrats should join us and vote yes to keep the government open because, if not, the government shuts down at midnight tonight. Democrats have no problem voting for 13 clean continuing resolutions, just like the one we have here today. They did that when Joe Biden was President. Now they refuse to do what they did 13 times for Joe Biden. Instead, they are demanding a ransom.
Senator Schumer has come to the Senate with a ransom note. He is asking for $1 trillion just to keep the government open for 4 short weeks. This proposal is a far-left wish list. The Democrats in this body know that they are responding to the demands of the far-left, radical wing of their party--radical, extreme, dangerous, scary people who want to take this country far, far to the left and are happy to see a government shutdown. They are demanding a government shutdown by the Democrats in this body.
So what do they want to do with this trillion dollars that is in this wish list--this ransom note--from the minority leader? Well, they want to spend $400 billion to keep Biden bonus COVID payments forever-- forever. They want to repeal reforms that strengthen Medicaid. It strengthens Medicaid for the people who need it the most. That is not what the Democrats want. They want it to go to people who are unwilling to work, want to sit home, want to get free healthcare. These are able- bodied individuals who refuse to work. Democrats say: Give them healthcare, no responsibility, none whatsoever.
Oh, and they want to spend billions of dollars for overseas projects related to their obsession with extreme climate policies.
The minority leader made a statement today on healthcare that I found to be preposterous because I am a doctor. I practiced medicine for 24 years. I was in a rural hospital in Wyoming just this past week. The Democrats' proposal--the ransom note that they have provided--wants to repeal the critically important $50 billion rural hospital fund. Every Democrat in this body voted against a $50 billion rural hospital fund.
Just a few minutes ago, the Senate minority leader came to the floor. He said one of his Members went to some rural communities in his home State and said that the healthcare providers there are really concerned. Well, then those healthcare providers haven't been informed by the Democrat Senators from that State about what is in the bill that passed this summer and the incredible resources that are being made to make sure that rural hospitals can be sustained, to stay afloat, to stay open to provide healthcare.
The Democrats are so against rural communities of this country. They view them as the enemy, the red counties. They are so fixated with the big cities and kowtowing to the big city mayors that they actually introduced a bill in July. It is stunning. They call it Protecting Health Care and Lowering Costs Act. It is preposterous because that act alone repeals the $50 billion for the rural hospital communities. They didn't just do it once with their bill in July; they have done it again with a ransom note from Chuck Schumer to the Republicans, saying that if you want to keep the government open for 4 short weeks, get rid of this rural healthcare hospital lifeline.
Hospitals all across my State and yours realize it is important for their sustainability to provide healthcare in rural communities where the next hospital may be 100 miles away. That is something foreign to the other side of the aisle who ignore, so often, the rural communities in their own States, who can say they can ignore them; don't campaign there; don't go there; don't talk to those people. It is the big cities that sustain us, and we are going to actually punish the rural communities by stripping from a successful piece of legislation $50 billion set aside for rural healthcare in this country.
What the Democrats are proposing is an outrageous shakedown, and that is why we are going to have a shutdown because they refuse to keep the government open while we are working on bipartisan funding bills. Everything they are doing is focused on satisfying the most radical, extreme, dangerous, scary part of their party.
In March, I believe, Senator Schumer did the right thing. He voted with Republicans to keep the government open. What happened? The far left immediately attacked him for doing the right thing.
Nancy Pelosi said:
She was even against it.
AOC questioned why he would ``hand away our leverage for free.'' Eighteen of Democrats' own candidates who are running right now in open seats for the Senate in 2026 were questioned by one of the newsletters in town. They all said they refused to say whether they were going to vote for him as leader of the Democratic Party.
So now, according to an Axios report from last week, what we have seen the minority leader do is he built a private war room--their quote, ``private war room''--with liberal groups to orchestrate a shutdown. When I hear the minority leader come to the floor say: Oh, we don't want to do it, he has been orchestrating this, according to this news report, for months, orchestrating with his liberal private war room. He and his staff have been meeting with these groups every week for the past 2 months to plan the shutdown that begins tonight at midnight.
Senator Schumer is doing exactly what he once called the politics of idiocy. He is threatening to shut down the government unless he gets everything that he wants. Well, Republicans are not going to pay the ransom, and the American people aren't going to pay the ransom. We are not going to sell out our Nation's servicemembers, our law enforcement officers, our seniors, our air traffic controllers.
Let me remind everyone who pays the price for a Schumer shutdown. The American Legion warns of a shutdown that will ``directly affect the lives of veterans and their families.'' They will pay a price for the Schumer shutdown.
Vietnam Veterans of America put it plainly:
They will pay a price for the Schumer shutdown.
The National Fraternal Order of Police says a shutdown ``will cause major disruptions for programs that fund public safety efforts in our communities.'' They will pay a price for the Schumer shutdown.
The National Association of Police Organizations adds:
They will pay a price for the Schumer shutdown.
The Association of Mature American Citizens warns that seniors on fixed incomes will face ``backlogs and service disruptions.'' They will pay a price for the Schumer shutdown.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association says farmers and ranchers will lose ``predictability and stability'' as harvest season begins. They will pay a price for the Schumer shutdown.
The National Grocers Association warns that vital programs feeding low-income families and children will run out of money. This is the reality of a Schumer shutdown.
Here is the bottom line: Republicans are fighting for veterans, for servicemembers, for law enforcement, for Border Patrol agents, for senior citizens, and for rural hospitals. Democrats are willing to shut down the government for illegal immigrants, climate extremism, and wasteful Washington spending.
Twelve years ago, Senator Schumer decried the politics of idiocy. If Democrats shut down the government at 12 midnight tonight, the idiocy will be theirs.
The House has done its job. It passed a continuing resolution to fund the government. President Trump is ready to sign it. It is time, today, for the Senate to pass it. The American people are watching.
I urge my Democrat colleagues to join with us. Tear up the ransom note. Keep the government open. Otherwise, Democrats will own the Schumer shutdown. The American people will suffer the costs and the consequences.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. President, well, here we are again. Republicans merely want to fund the government for 7 weeks. The House of Representatives passed a simple bill with no partisan tricks or poison pills. Yet, for the second time this year--the second time in barely 6 months--we again find ourselves on the cusp of a Schumer shutdown.
Now, I am not here to remind you that Senator Schumer came to the Senate in 1999 and that, since then, he has supported and voted in favor of a
I am also not here to remind you that, when Senator Schumer was in charge last year, the Democrats had 224 days to bring 11 bipartisan spending bills to this Senate floor, and even though 6 of these bills were passed out of committee unanimously and the other 5 with overwhelming bipartisan support, then-Majority Leader Schumer failed to bring a single one of those bills to the floor--not one.
I am also not here to tell you about the impact the Schumer shutdown will have on our national security, on our economy, and on the American people and their families.
Instead of doing any of that, I think I will just let the Democrats speak for themselves. Let's turn the clock way back to the fall of 2013, when the series finale of ``Breaking Bad'' was aired and when the word ``selfie'' was added to the Oxford Dictionary. Though it may seem like ages ago, many of the Senate Democrats who are here now similarly found themselves on the edge of a government shutdown in 2013. Let's listen to what they had to say.
Senator Durbin said shutting down the government was ``no way to run a country.''
Senator Hirono agreed, stating:
Senator Warren also echoed her colleagues and explained:
I don't disagree. The American people made the winners very clear when they went to the polls last November, and the Democrats lost their fights for Congress and for the Presidency. I would be remiss not to note all of the leftwing radical policies that continue to be challenged and also lose through the courts.
Out of touch with reality and fresh out of ideas, the Democrats have made a shortsighted play to back the Schumer shutdown. Look at the dog and pony show they are putting on right now. The Democrats are attempting to extort a laundry list of what President Trump has rightly called ``unserious and ridiculous demands.'' These demands include restoring taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal aliens, wiping out a $50 billion rural hospital support fund, and sending your tax dollars overseas for climate initiatives.
In short, Democrats want to add $1.4 trillion in new spending to pay for the partisan pet projects that were soundly rejected by the American people last November.
Radical Democrats refuse to be reasonable and negotiate in good faith. This reinforces a point that Senator Jack Reed made back in 2013 when he said:
This statement is as true now as it was then. Democrats who support the Schumer shutdown are voting to withhold the paychecks of air traffic controllers, our troops, Federal custodial staff, and countless other hard-working Americans.
As Senator Sanders put it in 2013, ``shutting the government down will disrupt the economy and cost us jobs.''
Senator Schatz added:
The bottom line: The Democrats have acknowledged that a shutdown is not some political stunt. As they said, a government shutdown can threaten national security by, for example, disrupting military training and recruiting, disrupting ongoing work to modernize our nuclear forces, and creating uncertainty in our defense supply chains.
That is not the model of peace through strength that Americans have demanded of their elected officials.
But rather than listen to the American people, Senator Schumer and the Democrats are making their own absurd demands. To make matters worse, the Democrats are conflating the budget process with policymaking, an approach that they have long condemned.
Senator Murphy perhaps put it best, in 2013, when he said:
Senator Murphy in 2013:
Enough is enough. Again, in 2013--more than a decade ago--Senator Klobuchar called for an end to the ``political gamesmanship.''
Likewise, Senator Blumenthal pledged to ``do everything possible to work with my colleagues to make sure budget brinksmanship and political gamesmanship are halted.''
Yet, solely because of the Democrats, here we are. The political gamesmanship and the budget brinksmanship are still going on.
So let me state clearly: A Schumer shutdown will be carried out at the expense and on the dime of the American people. Remember, it wasn't happenstance that the American people threw radical Democrats out of the Oval Office and congressional leadership last fall. So don't be fooled. The Schumer shutdown is a last-ditch effort to save face after spending years passing disastrous policies that led to rising costs and skyrocketing crime.
Let me leave you with one last quote from 2013:
Any guess who said that one? You've got it: Senator ``Shutdown'' Schumer--because he has decided to move forward with this Schumer shutdown and has refused to take his own advice, unfortunately, the American people will be left paying the price.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. President, I rise today to seek unanimous consent to pass H.R. 5100, a bill to extend the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs for 1 year. This bill was unanimously passed by the House of Representatives, led by the Republican chairs of both the House Small Business Committee and the House Science Committee.
Hundreds of small businesses have written to Chair Ernst and to me, urging the passage of the House bill to avoid ending the program. The National Academies, including Trump's former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, wrote to us, urging the passage of H.R. 5100.
And given that the House will not be in session today, any objection or modification to this unanimously passed House bill will result in the program's ending. Yet here we are, watching the clock expire on one of the most bipartisan and successful small business programs in our government.
If we don't pass this bill, more than $4 billion worth of research and development funding for research institutions and small businesses is at stake. SBIR and STTR have led to technologies that have changed American lives: the world's smallest heart pump, new cancer therapies, Alzheimer's treatments, GPS, and Qualcomm wireless communications systems.
This program has gone above and beyond the expectations of those who enacted it more than 40 years ago. For every SBIR dollar spent, the program returns $22 to $33 in economic benefits; and this number includes, contrary to recent rhetoric, positive returns on investment from the top 25 companies, and 63 percent of the top 25 companies have commercialized their technology. In 2024, 60 percent of SBIR awardees had won their first awards in the last 5 years, and, annually, 30 percent of awardees are new entrants.
If we don't pass this legislation today, we will be hitting the ``off'' switch to the light bulb of innovation in our country.
But that is not to say that the programs are perfect. In May, I introduced a 52-page bill with suggested improvements and extensions for the programs.
I want to provide small businesses with the certainty they deserve by making the programs permanent to ensure we do not watch the clock hit zero again. I want to increase how much
I, like all of my colleagues, want to make sure that our technology never falls in the hands of our adversaries. That is why I want to continue the bipartisan program enacted in 2022, which has identified and mitigated foreign risk in its short period of implementation.
According to the Department of Defense, only 0.04 percent of their applications have been deemed a foreign risk. If H.R. 5100 is not enacted, the current safeguards we have in place for foreign risk go away. Small businesses cut off from government funding will be left vulnerable, opening the door for foreign adversaries to swoop in and acquire American technology, and I know that none of my colleagues want that situation to become a reality.
The SBIR and STTR Programs are not graduation programs. They are research and development programs. These programs work because of their merit-based competition nature--Darwinian, paranoia-inducing competition. Kicking successful companies out of these programs would be like cutting your highest scorers after winning the NBA title. Instead of innovation, we would get decimation. We would be stifling potential technology critical to national security, our economy, our health, or to the next energy revolution in our country.
It should not matter where these technologies come from, whether it is Massachusetts or Texas or New York or North Carolina or Iowa or any State. Our standing on the world stage of innovation depends on these small businesses, and a lapse in the program would be devastating. It would lead to expansive layoffs, setbacks to scientific advancement, leave government-funded technology vulnerable to foreign adversaries, and cut billions for small business innovators.
We are already seeing the impact of uncertainty in the programs. Last week, the Department of Defense delayed their SBIR applications, and we have heard from multiple Agencies that they will do the same if the program is not reauthorized.
To be clear, this was not in response to a government shutdown but in response to Congress's not coming to an agreement on the reauthorization of the SBIR and STTR Programs.
That is why five of the six negotiators, including the two Republican House chairmen, for these programs have agreed on a 1-year extension. We all want to see improvements made, but we need the time necessary to ensure that we are making informed, evidence-based decisions that do not harm American innovation.
So, from my perspective, I ask my colleagues to work with the other five corners, pass the 1-year extension, and work toward a longer reauthorization with the improvements we all want to see.
With that, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be discharged and that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5100; further, I ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the status quo will not work. I cannot continue to let China win, allow waste to run rampant, or fail our warfighters.
When it comes to foreign influence and the SBIR-STTR Programs, the fox is in the henhouse, and my colleague wants to shut the door and check back in a year.
America's seed fund is in trouble: $5 billion of Agencies' R&D budgets is set aside each year for American startups to develop critical technology. In practice, however, too many large companies-- not truly small businesses--drain millions of taxpayer dollars by churning out white papers--white papers--instead of turning the taxpayers' investments into reality.
In the past decade, 25 companies alone in the Pentagon's SBIR Program received 18 percent of the funding. A single company received $650 million--more award dollars than the total issued to all companies in 26 States combined. Even the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board concluded that the SBIR Program has consistent overinvestment in a small number of companies that fail to deliver scalable capabilities to warfighters, warranting direct corrective action.
In short, our warfighters are not properly benefiting from the billions of dollars being invested into SBIR mills.
Additionally, companies linked to our adversaries funnel taxpayer- funded intellectual property into communist China and beyond.
I have been crystal clear that I cannot support a 1-year clean extension of the SBIR-STTR Programs unless meaningful reforms are included to ensure every dollar serves America's interests.
In just 2023 and 2024, we know that 835 applications for SBIR-STTR funding were flagged for having foreign risks--835. Yet only 303 of those applications were denied.
Even worse, a lack of foreign due diligence standards across government has opened the door for exploitation. Some Agencies denied 100 percent of those flagged applications, while other Agencies denied less than 1 percent of those flagged applications.
When I shared my report with the Pentagon, they agreed that there are significant threats to our national security that must be addressed.
If this program is to be extended, our taxpayers deserve to know that their representatives are, at a minimum, stopping wasteful spending to unproductive firms and implementing urgent safeguards to protect technology from our adversaries. That is why my amendment to H.R. 5100 would provide a 30-day extension of the SBIR and STTR Programs with necessary reforms.
Simply, this measure would, No. 1, root out waste and prioritize our truly small businesses by establishing a reasonable lifetime limit on SBIR funding, which would affect only 0.2 percent of participants in the program and, No. 2, counter Chinese espionage by standardizing the foreign risk definition across our Federal Agencies.
It is common sense, folks. We shouldn't be serving as a subsidy for Beijing when we are unleashing the golden age of America. But that risk is real and present today, and additional taxpayer dollars cannot go out the door unless we secure this program now.
Our country cannot and should not delay these reforms any longer.
If my colleagues truly oppose even basic safeguards, then this SBIR set-aside charade should end and taxpayers' dollars should be restored to the Agency's R&D budgets, where they will better serve our warfighters and strengthen our Nation's competitiveness. Instead of recklessly extending the status quo for another year, these set-aside dollars would simply be returned to each Agency, and small businesses can continue to compete for those awards.
I believe President Trump has assembled a world-class administration that is more than ready to deploy these R&D dollars. Unburdened by additional layers of bureaucracy, Agencies can execute awards to small businesses in line with both the taxpayers' interests and our national security.
I am willing to work with you to find a commonsense solution, one that works for both sides and ultimately the American people; however, as the proposal stands, on behalf of our warfighters, our national security, and our truly small businesses, I cannot let the status quo continue.
Therefore, I ask that the consent be modified and the Ernst substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the modification?
Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. President, I rise to oppose the substitute amendment offered by the Senator from Iowa.
The SBIR and STTR Programs expire at midnight tonight, separate from everything else that is going on here in the Senate today. The only bipartisan option to avoid the program ending is to pass H.R. 5100 as passed by the House of Representatives already before us. The Republican chairmen in the House have already passed it over to us.
As I said previously, we all have changes to the program we would like to enact, and that is just going to take time. They recognize that over in the House, the Republican chairmen.
We should extend these programs, which we should do on a bipartisan basis, while continuing to work on a bipartisan basis to address the Senator from Iowa's concerns, along with other reforms that other Senators and House Members would like to make.
I object to this amendment because it guarantees a lapse and because it would, No. 1, punish successful, innovative small businesses; No. 2, force small businesses to avoid pursuing the riskier, more cutting-edge ideas that keep American innovation at the forefront--it is the small companies that do the innovation; big companies buy that innovation from small companies, but it is the small companies that do the innovation in our country; and No. 3, prevent Agencies from being able to fund technology that aids their mission if that technology comes from a successful small business. The so-called waiver included in the amendment would only result in party politics as opposed to merit-based competition.
Finally, the wide-sweeping foreign due diligence changes would require Agencies to forgo the flexibility to determine their own risk tolerance. It would also leave the door open for Agencies to deny applications on any grounds they see fit, even if it is not in statute or regulations.
To top it off, this proposal aims to dismantle the entire SBIR and STTR Programs, while only extending authorization for 1 month.
Now is not the time to play games with small businesses and American innovation. We must make sure we do not hand over our crown jewel-- American small businesses and decades of American innovation--to our foreign adversaries by allowing this program to end.
So I ask my colleagues here, I ask my colleague from Iowa to join me and the Republican chairs of both the House Small Business and Science Committees to pass the overwhelmingly supported extension for 1 year on a bipartisan basis so we can work out the differences. We should not allow this program to end.
We never cap what big businesses can get from the Federal Government. Their tax benefits are permanent. Their ability to go to the Defense Department or other Agencies with big contracts--that is never capped, and we should not be capping small businesses.
That is why we need to have the discussion, because it is critical that this program continue tomorrow.
So with that, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection to the modification is heard.
Is there objection to the original request?
Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Our Nation cannot afford to extend another flawed program that fails to meet the innovation challenges of the 21st century.
With China at our heels and wasted taxpayer dollars being funneled out the door, it is clear the status quo does not work or serve our truly small businesses. The moment for action is now, but my colleague wants to shut the door on that and continue with more of the same for another year.
I will keep working to safeguard SBIR-funded technologies from our adversaries and ensure we invest in the best and brightest small businesses so America maintains our technological advantage; however, continuing the status quo is not a solution I can support.
Without my amendment, on behalf of our warfighters, our national security, and our hard-working taxpayers, I therefore object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. President, the same Washington politicians who were whining about DOGE laying off unnecessary bureaucrats just a few months ago are now exposing who is and who isn't an essential employee by forcing a government shutdown.
In the past, nonessential employees were sent home and then eventually paid for not working during a shutdown. This is an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars.
With Democrats blocking passage of the bill to keep the government open, thousands of nonessential employees could be furloughed indefinitely when funding expires tonight at midnight. Instead of paying these bureaucrats for not working, the Trump administration may eliminate many of these nonessential positions altogether.
Of course, our brave men and women in uniform will continue answering the call to duty without pay if there is a shutdown, as will other essential employees. But do you know who will still get paid? The politicians who failed to do their jobs and caused the shutdown; namely, Senator Schumer and the Democrats in Congress.
Keep in mind, the bill they are blocking would keep the government funded at Biden's budget levels--go figure--while we continue working out our differences. Senator Schumer himself stated earlier this year:
Senator Schumer went on to say only extremists who can't win an argument are willing to shut down the government to bully everyone else into submission, and, folks, that is exactly what is happening now. But, ironically, it is Senator Schumer who is being bullied by the extremists within his own party. These are the radical socialists demanding we defund the police and ICE and allow our streets and borders to, once again, be overcome by chaos and lawlessness.
Senator Schumer previously shut down the government for over a month in a failed attempt to stop President Trump from securing our southern border. During that time, food safety inspections were stopped, permanent damage was done to some of our national parks, scientific research was put on hold, applications for small business loans became backlogged, the low-income folks and the elderly and people with disabilities lost rental assistance and were forced to live in fear of eviction. And 300,000 Federal employees who went without a paycheck for over a month were eventually paid for doing nothing, costing taxpayers $3 billion.
Folks, no one wins when Democrats shut down our government. It is obvious the Democratic leader is shutting down the government for one simple reason: to protect his own job. But that is not even working. Just last week, the Washington newspaper POLITICO reported that, across the country, the Democratic base is rebelling against Schumer's ``rudderless leadership.''
Well, folks, that is a sentiment we all share. From the far left to the right, there is widespread disappointment with Senator Schumer's inability to perform his basic duties, like doing his part to make sure our military gets paid on time and the government stays open.
So on behalf of all Americans, for his rudderless leadership, his petty partisanship, and his silly shutdown shenanigans, the recipient of the ``Nonessential Government Employee of the Year for 2025'' is Senator Chuck Schumer.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. President, for the residents of southern Nevada and so many others, October 1 is no ordinary day. On October 1, 2017, my hometown of Las Vegas was struck by an unimaginable tragedy that forever--forever--changed our communities. We experienced an attack on a scale far worse than anyone could ever have imagined, a devastating tragedy that ripped families apart and destroyed lives.
During any given weekend, the Las Vegas Strip is buzzing with tourists and visitors from around the world, and that was the case on October 1, 2017. That night, tens of thousands of people came to Las Vegas to attend the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, enjoy a fun night out with friends and good music. The weather was beautiful. But in just 10 minutes--10 minutes--their lives and our entire State would be changed forever. Ten minutes was all it took for a gunman to open fire on an unsuspecting crowd, killing 58 innocent people, injuring thousands, and leaving a permanent scar on the hearts of everyone in our State and on the hearts of the families and friends of those injured and killed.
In the years since, we have lost two more individuals as a result of this tragedy, which remains the deadliest mass shooting in American history. So I want you to think about what that means. The families of the victims of that tragedy had their world shattered in just 10 minutes--10 minutes that day that changed their lives forever--families who now don't get to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, holidays; families, and I think this is one of the hardest things, who never got to say goodbye to the people they love.
And that night also changed the lives of everyone in our city: people who were attending or working at the festival, Nevadans who were just driving down the Strip, and the first responders who ran toward danger to help save lives.
In the chaos and confusion of that night, our heroic first responders, our police officers, our firefighters, and our paramedics ran toward the scene. They saved countless lives. I know taxi drivers ran; everyone ran to try to help people escape. And in the midst of this darkness, we saw our community--my community--go above and beyond to help.
Our entire State rallied together. We saw lines of people around entire blocks, waiting hours to donate blood, willing to donate blood to save the lives of complete strangers in the middle of a mass casualty.
I remember that day going to the line to talk to people and try to comfort folks in the midst of those first few days. There was a woman in line to give blood, and I went up, and I talked to her. She started crying. She put her arms like this. She goes: I don't have much but blood; blood is all I have to give, and I am here.
She started crying. I started crying. It was such a moving moment. She goes: This is what I can give--her arms outstretched.
And so I want everyone to think about that; that the hearts of so many, in a tragedy, go out to those they don't even know, to do what they can and give what they can, coming from the heart. And these selfless acts of not just this woman--this is just one story of so many that I was proud to hear and be a part of--this showed the country why we are Vegas Strong. And I am here today to honor the memories of those whom we lost as a result of that terrible night on 1 October and everyone else who was impacted. As we remember and reflect on this event, we must also commit ourselves to action to make sure that no other community in the Nation goes through what we went through.
In the last few years, we have, so sadly, seen shootings at universities--including UNLV in Las Vegas--in schools, in places where people go every day, like supermarkets and churches. We saw that just this weekend. And just this year alone, there have already been 53 school shootings in the United States.
So it is clear we need to act, and there are things we can do on a bipartisan basis. The 1 October shooter relied on bump stocks. They are just dangerous devices that attach to guns to make them fire bullets even faster so that a shooter can fire more bullets in a shorter period of time in order to inflict as much pain and carnage as possible.
And I hope we could agree that nobody wants that--no one wants that.
In response to this unprecedented tragedy in 2017, President Trump issued a Federal rule that banned bump stocks, and it did help save countless lives from these deadly modifications. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court overturned this commonsense Federal ban, allowing these dangerous bump stocks to flow into our streets once again.
This puts more lives and communities at risk, which is why I helped introduce bipartisan legislation earlier this year to restore this commonsense Federal ban on bump stocks because we have the power to do something. So let's pass this bipartisan bill and save lives before the next tragedy hits another unsuspecting community because, trust me, nobody wants to go through this--no community. Nobody wants to give this speech. Nobody wants to look in the eyes of the families. No one wants to go to that reunification center. No one wants to go to the hospitals. No one wants to see the memorials grow and grow, time after time. No one wants to see this in community after community every single day. There has to be some common sense about what we can do.
So, as we approach the eighth anniversary of the 1 October shooting, I would just ask all of my colleagues in this Chamber to remember and honor the memories of the victims, their families, their loved ones, and everyone whose lives were forever changed that night. I also ask that we come together as Republicans and Democrats, in a bipartisan way, just to save lives by passing our commonsense bill to ban bump stocks. I think it would make a difference.
And I just pray that those out there watching find comfort in remembering that their loved ones' memories serve as a blessing to them and that we will always continue to honor them.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, for a long time, the United States has benefited from free and competitive global markets.
For too long, we have relied on conventional wisdom that engaging with China--in particular, the Chinese Communist Party--by bringing them into the global marketplace would be mutually beneficial. But it has become increasingly obvious and as plain as the nose on our face now that China's primary interest in that so-called free market is to use it to undermine our interests and to further their own.
I am grateful to President Trump for ringing the alarm bells on China and for helping us reframe the way we look at the People's Republic of China.
We need to be clear-eyed about exactly what is going on. China is not interested in a level playing field where both parties benefit from a bit of friendly competition. The People's Republic of China is treating competition in the global markets as a zero-sum game where they win and the West loses.
Nowhere has this become more apparent than in the case of critical minerals and rare earth elements. I doubt many of us have given a lot of thought, at least in the years past, about the role of rare earth elements and critical minerals, but now we have become educated way too late about the importance of these two elements.
There are two ways that a competitive market economy can be undermined. One is excessive government regulation making it harder for more competitors to enter a market. This makes it more difficult for newer, smaller entrepreneurs to get off the ground. But another way for a competitive market to be threatened is when one seller has a monopoly on a particular good or service.
When a single provider of a service or good gets so big that they are the only game in town, then they get to set the terms. A monopoly can ask whatever price they demand because there is no one competing with them for a cheaper or better version.
This is precisely what China is doing with respect to mining and processing rare earth and other critical minerals, but the People's Republic of China takes it one step further: They are actively sabotaging their competitors, including the United States.
For a long time, up until the 1980s, the United States dominated the industry for rare earth elements, but then
China benefits from some unfortunate advantages in this competition. They have lower labor costs because they are less concerned than we are in the United States about ensuring that workers are paid fairly and kept safe. We know China has lower environmental standards than we do here in the United States, which further makes it more difficult for the United States to compete against them. The third and most critical advantage that China has over the United States in this field is that their government recognized the importance of these critical minerals a long time ago and was willing to put generous government subsidies in place to launch their industry, while somehow we were lulled into complacency and failed to realize our dependence on China and their processing of critical minerals and rare earth elements.
Now, people may be asking: Why do we care about critical minerals and rare earth elements? Well the truth is, these elements are essential to producing magnets and other components of our vehicles, our robotics, our aerospace, and our defense systems. We can't build our weapons systems to defend our Nation and to deter aggressors without access to these processed rare earth elements and critical minerals. That is how important it is.
But China has been successfully sidelining the United States and other global competitors, becoming effectively the only game in town-- or I should say in the world--when it comes to mining and processing these minerals.
Whether we realize it or not, there is hardly an aspect of our daily life that would not be affected were China to cut off our access to these processed rare earth elements and critical minerals--from our iPhones to the cars we drive and even our washing machines.
Because China recognized how important these minerals are, their government was willing to take extraordinary measures to make sure they control the supply chain for these critical minerals in the future.
What are these extraordinary measures they have taken? Well, over the last 20 years, China has invested $57 billion through state-backed financial institutions in the form of loans to Belt-and-Road participant countries in order to gain leverage over the global supply chain for these critical minerals.
More than 75 percent of these investments are structured through joint ventures and special-purpose vehicles in such a way that Chinese entities have ownership stakes, allowing them to influence the extraction and processing of these critical mineral projects.
More forebodingly, last December, China took steps to ban exports of technologies used in mining and processing rare earth elements in order to exert further control over the supply chain and enhance its leverage when dealing with the United States in various binational negotiations.
In April of this year, China placed export controls on seven rare earth elements, requiring any company that wishes to export them to acquire a special license, and if they didn't, obviously, it would be illegal. While the terms and conditions of the licensing process are still being spelled out in more detail, this may become the tool to incentivize various countries to act in Chinese interests to protect their own access to these minerals. In other words, it is not just the United States that depends on these rare earth elements and critical minerals; it is virtually every other part of the global community.
When China sees likely competitors, it floods the market with excess supply of these minerals, lowering the market price and thereby sidelining any potential competitors.
Now, just to be clear, rare earth elements and critical minerals can be mined in many places across the globe. Where China has gotten the monopoly or virtual monopoly is 90 percent of them are processed in China. So you may mine rare earth elements or critical minerals in Chile or in the United States or Australia or somewhere else, but 90 percent of them must be processed in China because there are not other competitors for the reasons I have mentioned.
Because China would stop at nothing to manipulate the market, prices have dropped dramatically when they flood the market with processed minerals. Since 2023, for example, cobalt prices decreased 59.5 percent, from $82,000 per ton to $33,000 per ton--again, because China has been manipulating the market to discourage any competition. Nickel prices decreased by 73.1 percent, from $48,000 per ton to $13,000 per ton. Lithium prices decreased 86.8 percent, from $68,000 to less than $10,000.
Consequently, several plants that were designed to open up in the United States to compete with China had to close because of their inability to maintain profitability in this economic environment. The United States' only cobalt mine opened in 2023 and was forced to close less than a year later, while nickel plants in Australia and New Caledonia shut down in the same timeframe.
While these competitors have closed their doors, Chinese firms have continued to hold on to their state-sponsored monopoly. China has been taking these steps for decades right beneath our nose to develop this near monopoly that they currently hold on mining and processing of critical elements.
As the United States, we should have seen this coming, and we could have done something about it, but we didn't. Joe Biden could have spent the last 4 years in the White House tackling this issue head on, but here we are with virtually nothing to show for the Biden administration's so-called efforts. So we are playing catch-up with the Chinese Communist Party, which is not a good place to be.
If another pandemic were to happen, disrupting global supply chains, or if we were to find ourselves in a hot war with China or even difficult trade negotiations with China, which we will, and they decide to cut off trade with the United States, there would be drastic consequences to our economy, to our military preparedness, and to our ability to deter an aggressive Chinese Communist Party.
Americans would not be able to purchase the electronics that power our lives day in and day out. Our Department of Defense--or Department of War, as it is now called--would be hamstrung in its ability to obtain critical components for the weapons systems that are used to deter aggression by our adversaries. Elderly or chronically ill Americans would be unable to obtain the pharmaceutical remedies they rely on to simply stay alive.
Well, fortunately, while we are late to the game, things are moving now in a better direction under unified Republican control. In March of this year, for example, President Trump issued an Executive order directing the Departments of the Interior, Defense--or now, as it is called, War--Agriculture, and Energy to work together to accelerate domestic investment and production of critical minerals.
Congress also did some things in the One Big Beautiful Bill to help. That legislation included an allocation of $2 billion to the Secretary of War to increase U.S. critical minerals stockpiled through the National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund, and an additional $5 billion was provided for investments in critical minerals through the Industrial Base Fund.
Furthermore, this law tightened our definition of a ``foreign entity of concern,'' which will help ensure that Chinese critical mineral companies are not availing themselves of U.S. tax credits in order to invest in their own critical mineral efforts.
There are ongoing discussions to ensure that the Defense authorization bill we are currently on includes provisions such as the reauthorization of the Development Finance Corporation that our colleagues Senators Risch and Shaheen have sponsored this year. We need to make sure they are successful in those efforts.
The Development Finance Corporation works to incentivize private capital markets to invest in our most critical supply chains.
I have introduced something called the Critical Minerals Security Act, which directs the Department of the Interior and Department of State to further identify vulnerabilities in U.S. supply chains for critical minerals.
Now, I believe these are important steps, but we have a bigger problem in America. We simply have a hard time building things anymore. A lot of that
That is a larger, more threatening situation, and I am only talking about a small part of it here today.
The steps we have taken so far are unfortunately too little, too late, in my view, but they are at least a step in the right direction. They are not enough, by themselves, to ensure that we have safe and secure supply chains for both mining and processing of critical minerals to meet our Nation's needs.
Once again, Deng Xiaoping, who said, ``Hide your motives and bide your time,'' has successfully snookered the United States and our other allies around the world so that we are now almost entirely dependent on Chinese processing of critical minerals.
So there is not a day to wait. We need to make sure that we catch up and we catch up quickly. It is going to take a lot of work for the United States to claw our way back to where we need to be, but I am confident that we can, if we rise to meet the occasion.
So I would urge all of my colleagues to listen to and respond to this alarm bell that I am trying to ring here on the Senate floor today and take seriously the urgency of securing our supply chains and securing American processing facilities for critical minerals.
We simply do not have a choice. Otherwise, we will continue to be held hostage by an adversary that does not wish us well. They don't want friendly competition. They want dominance, and they also want to take Taiwan in the coming years.
If we can't build things because we can't deter them by building the weapons necessary to do that, if we can't sustain our economy by continuing to manufacture technology that allows us to compete with China in the coming years, we will have failed in our fundamental responsibility as Members of Congress. If America is to have a safe, secure, and prosperous future, we have to compete and we have to win the critical minerals race with the People's Republic of China.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that the previously scheduled recess begin immediately.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026: Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Madam President, in just a few hours, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act is set to expire. If we don't extend these critical authorities, we will lose one of our most effective defenses against cyber attacks as our adversaries' attacks continue to grow more aggressive and more sophisticated.
This law has protected our economy; it has protected our infrastructure; and it has protected our government for more than a decade. It allows private companies and Federal Agencies to share real- time threat information before attacks spread, before systems are compromised, and before damage becomes irreversible. If this law expires, it will be harder to protect businesses and critical infrastructure against cyber attacks, and cyber criminals and our adversaries will be emboldened to continue to try to breach our defenses.
The original law was passed with a strong bipartisan support, and there is bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate to renew these protections for another 10 years. Even the Trump administration fully agrees and the White House and the Department of Homeland Security support this 10-year extension.
A broad coalition of industry leaders are asking for Congress to act quickly to pass a long-term extension, which provides businesses with the certainty they need to know these protections will be available to them for years to come.
That is why Senator Rounds and I introduced a clean, bipartisan 10- year extension in April, with strong support from stakeholders who are absolutely counting on these protections. It is time to pass this bill today; otherwise, we will lose our networks, our businesses, our economy, and we will leave them exposed, vulnerable, and defenseless. We need to pass this legislation.
I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 1377 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Kentucky.
Reserving the right to object, there is nothing better in politics than to fake outrage. ``I am so outraged my program is going to go away.'' But you can vote this afternoon at 5 o'clock to extend your program.
Instead of all the hot air, why don't you come to the floor and tell us you are actually going to vote to keep the government open and your program will be extended. You have a chance. Let's see how you vote this afternoon.
I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Michigan.
I want to be clear. This is a voluntary program that businesses across the country have been able to count on for 10 years. These same companies are urging us to extend the exact same protections for another 10 years.
These cyber security protections keep our country safe. They have stopped cyber attacks that could have exposed America's private data, compromised businesses and our economy, or even taken over critical infrastructure like our electric grid and our transportation systems.
Countless businesses in every industry across the country depend on these protections. Telling them they could be eliminated again in just 2 months with a short-term CR does not give them the certainty they need to work. This is why they want the 10-year extension.
The Federal Government needs to help them prevent catastrophic attacks. We have broad bipartisan consensus, not for just a couple of months--that doesn't help anybody--but broad bipartisan consensus, including support, again, from the Trump administration, which fully supports this, to extend these authorities for the next 10 years. That will ensure that every industry in America can continue to count on these protections to be available.
If my colleague doesn't support a clean authorization--he is chair of the committee--he should have initiated a bipartisan process. He should have, perhaps, convened hearings like a chairman normally would if they actually care about an issue. The committee should have had a chance to hear from key industry stakeholders. The committee could have heard directly from officials from President Trump's White House and President Trump's Department of Homeland Security. They would tell them, as they have told everyone, that they need to pass a 10-year extension--not a couple of months, a 10-year extension--but that hasn't happened in our committee.
But if my colleague is not interested in meaningful compromise or working across the aisle on legislation in his committee's jurisdiction that is absolutely essential, then I would ask that he at least--at least--stop standing in the way of the rest of the entire U.S. Senate and broad bipartisan support in the House and pass a clean 10-year extension of this proven law.
I cannot predict the ways in which cyber criminals and adversaries will try to take advantage of this situation if we can't extend these authorities. At this moment, let's be very clear, there is only one person--one person--standing in the way. I am certainly willing to work with my colleague on his concerns about free speech. He would not
It is time to let the Senate work its will and vote to extend these cyber security protections. It is absolutely essential for this Nation's national security.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Madam President, 1 year ago, Hurricane Helene brought devastating winds and recordbreaking rainfall to Western North Carolina. Families were displaced; homes were destroyed; and, tragically, lives were lost. Even in the face of devastation, North Carolinians showed remarkable strength, unity, and compassion.
Today, I rise to recognize Mr. Eddie Hunnell of Holly Springs, NC, who exemplified that spirit. On Friday, September 27, 2024, floodwaters surged through the North Fork New River in Grassy Creek, NC. Mr. Hunnell had made a 3\1/2\-hour trip to Western North Carolina to celebrate his son's wedding.
But what should have been a joyous occasion quickly turned into a crisis. As rising water carried trees, furniture, and other debris downstream, Mr. Hunnell spotted a 66-year-old Grassy Creek resident in distress, Ms. Leslie Worth. She was wearing a life jacket. She was standing in the second-story bedroom window of her home that had been knocked from its foundation.
Ms. Worth bravely jumped out of the window to save her own life. She plunged into the dangerous conditions and was swept up by the current. And without a moment's hesitation, Mr. Hunnell made the brave decision to attempt to rescue her. He steered a canoe through the flood, then, undeterred by the raging current, leapt into the water and swam to reach her. Through determination and resolve, he swam to her to safer ground, undoubtedly saving her life. This was nothing short of an act of extraordinary bravery and selflessness.
Once Ms. Worth was reunited with her husband, Mr. Hunnell welcomed the couple to join the family that evening at his son's rehearsal dinner. He knew they were without a home, without a meal, and without any warmth. He even went further by setting up a fund to help them rebuild their lives, and he was the very first to contribute.
In June, Mr. Hunnell was recognized for this extraordinary act of heroism as a recipient of the Carnegie Medal. This award honors civilians who risk death or serious physical injury, to an extraordinary degree, saving or attempting to save the lives of others. And I can think of no one more deserving than he.
The motto of the great State of North Carolina is ``Esse quam videri,'' which means ``to be rather than to seem.'' I firmly believe Mr. Hunnell has lived out our State's motto to the fullest. His actions remind us that in times of crisis, ordinary individuals can perform extraordinary deeds. I am grateful for his swift, lifesaving intervention during Hurricane Helene to save an innocent life.
I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring him for his exemplary service. May his courage continue to be an inspiration for us all.
I yield the floor.
(Mrs. BRITT assumed the Chair.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. President, passing a clean CR this week is important for two reasons. First, passing the CR, of course, will avert a harmful and unnecessary government shutdown.
Now, those aren't my words. Those are actually Senator Schumer's words from just over a year ago.
I rise today because, once again in this Congress, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided to put politics ahead of the American people. You see, just a few weeks ago, we finally unpacked the logjam that they had created on President Trump's nominees. They decided that, instead of working for the American people and allowing this body to do its job, they were going to engage in unprecedented obstruction, allowing for every single person that came to this floor-- insisting that they had a cloture vote, 134 out of 135 nominees-- something that had historically never been done. At the rate we were going, up until Republicans finally took action to remove Democrat obstruction, President Trump, at the end of his term--at the end of his term--would have had about 800 nominees confirmed out of the 1,200 that he actually gets to select during his administration.
I didn't say at the end of this year. I didn't say at the end of this Congress. That would have been just over 400. At the end of his term, he would have only had just over two-thirds of the people that he needed to make his administration work. That is what they wanted to do. That is what they were insistent upon.
Look, the American people spoke on November 5. They heard from both sides. It was probably one of the more fruitful debates. Knowing what Vice President Harris would bring to the table--seeing that she said: I would do nothing different than Joe Biden has done--and then knowing what President Trump did his first term and what he was promising to do yet again, the American people made a very clear choice.
But yet, instead of allowing this body to focus, this body to work, this body to function, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have continued to play politics. And guess what. We are over it. And that is what we are seeing happen here today.
Make no mistake, what we want to do is pass a clean CR. Now, this means we have, obviously, come to the end of our time of government funding. We have 12 appropriations bills that we need to get across the finish line. Getting them across the finish line is important to fund the government. And, look, we are on our path--a path greater than that, that was set by my colleagues when they were in charge, just over a year ago--to actually make great strides toward that.
So what Republicans are asking that we do is that we continue these conversations, that we continue the work that we are doing. You see, for the first time since 2018, we actually passed three appropriations bills out of this Chamber before the August State work period. We have been working diligently with our counterparts in the House to get those ready for final passage. What we are asking them to do today is to let us keep working, to let us keep doing our job for the American people. But they are consistently choosing politics over the very people they serve.
This Chamber is barreling toward a government shutdown and--make no mistake about it--there is no one to blame but the Democrats. Instead of saying yes, let's keep working, they decided to say: You know what? For 7 weeks of keeping working toward the goal of bringing these bills to the floor and actually passing them, getting them across the finish line, when we have engaged in record obstruction on other items, we are going to ask you for $1.5 trillion--trillion--in new spending, for 7 weeks.
So they have essentially asked--you heard that right--for not a billion with a ``b'' but a trillion with a ``t'' for 7 weeks of spending, under a Biden budget, as we extend that while we work to put ourselves under a Trump budget moving forward. It is seriously partisan and unfortunate for the American people.
Their plan also asked for some other things that are deeply unserious: to allow illegal aliens to receive taxpayer-funded benefits--that is what they are asking in exchange--to send a half a billion dollars to media that functions more as propaganda than it does as an actual news outlet. And they want to eliminate the $50 billion of investment that Republicans pledged and made to rural healthcare. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Here is the reality. Voters rejected all of that on November 5. The America-last spending of Democrats is something that the people of this country said we don't want any more of. President Trump and Republicans were elected to change that in historic fashion. But time and time again, it appears that the people pushing for a shutdown, the people on the other side of the aisle, are not living in reality and are caring more about pandering to the far left than they are about actually delivering results to the American people. And that is sad.
Look, this isn't an impasse where we said ``let's work on these things'' and
Enacting these appropriations bills needs to be one of our top priorities, because while the Republican-led CR is the best option for right now, it is my belief that we cannot continue to kick the can down the road. Every time we do that, it costs the American taxpayers more. It is time for us to get in this room right here and do the work of the American people.
A long-term continuing resolution would keep spending at Biden levels, and the American people neither voted for this nor could they afford it. We have an obligation to ensure the Senate gets back to doing its job. We must return to transparency, to accountability, and to regular order.
The last several months, it was blocking President Trump's nominees. Now, it is holding the government hostage with a wish list of demands.
Republicans are here to work for the American people, and, look, we are going to continue to do so. It is my hope that some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are committed to doing the same thing.
Make no mistake, if the government shuts down, if Federal workers go without a paycheck, if things go awry, that would be the Democrats' burden to bear.
It is not like there hasn't been progress. It is not like there is no plan. We have made progress on these bills. Our leader, Leader John Thune, has promised to continue to put these bills on the floor. It is past time that Democrats get serious and decide if they want to govern or if they just want to follow their leader. I hope that they choose actually doing the work of the American people and not making them pay the price for a Schumer shutdown.
Decisions need to be made in this very Chamber tonight, and I hope that our colleagues on the other side make the right one. Let us continue to work for the American people. Let us do the job that we have already started on and are committed to finishing. And let us get this Senate back functioning for the very people that we serve.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mr. President, I know many of my constituents are contacting me about the rising cost of healthcare. I know that many of my colleagues are saying that they are being contacted about the rising cost of healthcare.
Believe it or not, some of it is impacted by tariffs--some of it, the anxiety of what happened when Medicaid was threatened in the Big Beautiful Bill. But most specifically now, they are hearing from their State insurance commissioners that rates are going to go up as early as October 15 in the State of Idaho and in many, many States across the country, as early as November 1, are starting to now have to make a choice. Are they going to pay for this huge increase in insurance premiums because this institution, this body, did not deal with the Affordable Care Act extensions of subsidies that provided affordable health insurance to millions of Americans?
This is something that is already going to affect the burden that rural hospitals have. It is going to burden Americans as they try to keep working, and it is going to burden an ever increasing healthcare system that is facing these costs.
I hope that we can do something, to make a commitment to focus on affordability. Why? The American people are seeing a huge cost increase in groceries, in gasoline, in everyday products. Our manufacturers are seeing increases in cost. And so this is an issue that needs to be tackled today, not in a few weeks when you are locked in to the higher rates. It is not something that can be done by the end of the year because you are going to be locked in to higher rates. This is something that Congress and the administration need to hash out now.
Now, I am an advocate of--I wish we would have hashed it out last summer. I basically started realizing in July that this was going to affect my State, when our insurance commissioner came up with what they predicted would be a 20-plus-percent increase in rates, and we started speaking with small businesses across the State who said it was going to affect their ability to keep their employees because of the cost of healthcare.
So what are we doing now? Well, instead of addressing this issue, the Affordable Care Act healthcare market rate extension of making sure that premiums don't rise significantly on many Americans, people are denying that the problem exists or that the deadline is actually here-- past due, really--to affect what we think is an emergency.
Last week, my office released a report showing that dramatic increases in premiums for many States in the United States have already gotten approval, and just one chart that I will show you shows those increased rates, not just for the State of Washington--which we saw a 21-percent increase--but for many other States: Arizona, which they are proposing a 48-percent increase; Georgia, 39-percent increase; North Carolina, 29.36 percent; and Texas, 39.28 percent.
Why are they going up so much? Well, insurers are saying in their States, the primary reason, as I mentioned earlier, administration tariffs, cost of delivering the healthcare system, and the pending failure of Congress to extend the tax credits in the Affordable Care Act. As a result, as I said, many people will be paying these higher rates, but 5 million Americans across the country, including 80,000 Washingtonians, the estimates are, will just no longer be able to afford insurance.
That is the estimate: 5 million Americans across the country, 80,000 in my State, will just be like, ``Nope, can't afford insurance anymore, not going to buy it.'' Why is that so important? Well, because the Affordable Care Act drove down the rate of uninsured in America from about 15 percent to about 7 percent. That decrease in uncompensated care helped us reduce our overall healthcare costs too, for people who are getting insurance in many different ways.
When you have uncompensated care, the costs don't just evaporate and go into the sky. They are paid by the rest of us in the system. Failing to deal with this affects everybody's healthcare, not just those on the Affordable Care Act premium plan of extension of these credits. It affects everybody because you are increasing the cost of healthcare throughout the entire system.
I don't want to roll the dice on this and find out what happens to many of my constituents. I don't want to find out what happens when people who don't have health insurance get sick anyway and go to the emergency room or have a devastating diagnosis just because we wouldn't act. When you think about this, the ranks of people who are in this uninsured market don't stop getting sick. They do still have costs, and that uncompensated care is what drove up the cost of our healthcare system overall.
So now, as we face inflation, it is the last thing we should be doing, is to drive up the cost of anything just because we have failed to act. The last thing we need to do is discover that, on November 1, that those premiums, which will go into place as people purchase those plans, is something that we can't reverse for the future--because the market is a marketplace. It is a marketplace of insurance. If we want to affect this, we should affect it now.
In August, I asked the chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee to hold a hearing on how to lower these costs for Americans and find ways to keep people insured and healthy. Unfortunately, the Senate Finance Committee did not even meet in September and did not schedule any hearings to actually even discuss this particular problem.
I would have hoped that there would have been an illumination with our report, as everybody realized these rates are going to get locked in, people are going to make purchase decisions in November and December, and then, as I said, lots of people will just say, ``I can't afford these rates. They're insane, and now I'm going to just drop out of the marketplace. But yeah, I'm still going to get sick, and I'm still
All of this could have been discussed, and that is why, when we put out the report, we expressed the urgency by sending the same letter-- not a big political letter, but a letter--to the ranking member and chairman of the Finance Committee, but also to the leadership of the Senate, the House, and the President, saying you need to wake up to this problem. This problem is real. It will affect our economy. It will affect millions of people, and it will affect the rest of us by driving up the cost of health insurance.
So I heard Speaker Johnson on the television this morning saying that extending the ACA credits is a December issue. Well, it is not really a December issue if people start, in October and November, making decisions and locking themselves into higher rates or deciding that they are not going to even buy insurance because it is too expensive.
He said, ``Reforms are needed to the program.'' Great. We could have had that discussion in August or September, and we certainly could have it today, but I see no convening. The House isn't even here. I see no convening of people saying, ``Let's get serious about these extensions and the high cost of health insurance.'' Families are relying on the exchange, and these decisions need to be made during this open enrollment period.
I know people are thinking, ``Oh, this is such a geeky issue.'' Trust me: I know that many Americans are frustrated over enrollment periods for health insurance period, okay? They are always challenged by the fact that an employer or this healthcare system--yes, we need to keep working to improve the healthcare system. But right now, we don't want to lose millions of people from the healthcare system just because we don't want to talk about it and somebody wants to talk about it later.
To enroll by December 15, you need to know what the premium costs are. To get coverage starting on January 1, you need to enroll by December 15. So that means you have to know what this situation is all about now. When these insurance commissioners across the country--go back to those rates--started publishing those rates, that is when everybody should have woken up and said, ``What the heck are we talking about?'' Thirty, 40, almost 40 percent in Arizona, 40 percent. What are we talking about?
Insurance commissioners are proposing--oh, by the way, maybe in a few red States, they knew it was so bad they didn't even want to put the information out there. Our report published a lot of this, and people weren't even thinking about it. They weren't even thinking about or letting people put out the information about how high the rates were going to be. So why would you do that? Why not address the underlying issue and say, ``What are we doing about the high cost of healthcare?''
So my colleagues on the other side are so confident. Let's hear what their proposal is. Let's hear what they are going to do--because I am pretty sure the tariffs, the Medicaid cuts, and this proposal not to deal with the Affordable Care Act extension are driving up these rates to extraordinary rates that are going to hurt all Americans by making healthcare more expensive.
So I will just say we didn't even have a hearing in the committee of jurisdiction on the fact that we cut a trillion dollars out of the healthcare system and stripped Medicaid coverage from 11 million Americans. We didn't even have a hearing on that. So, our constituents, Mr. President, should be listened to. We need to address this issue. We want Members to figure out how to make healthcare more affordable for millions of Americans.
The 119th Congress thus far has squandered too much time focusing too little on this issue. We need to roll up our sleeves and focus on immediate, real solutions that impact millions of Americans. Together, we can figure out a way to extend these expiring credits and come up with solutions to lower those costs, and I urge my colleagues to do so as soon as possible. The American people are depending on us to help them not face these enormous inflationary costs.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority whip.
Mr. President, we are just hours away from the deadline to fund the Federal Government. This task of funding our government is one of the most important responsibilities vested in Congress.
This is not my first rodeo. I have been through shutdowns before. The last one and one of the longest was in President Trump's first term. So here in the second term comes another government shutdown just 9 months into his Presidency.
Accomplishing this funding of our government requires bipartisan compromise. Do the math. To pass anything of substance in the U.S. Senate, you need 60 votes. There are 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats. You need at least seven Democratic votes to join all the Republicans if you want to have a bipartisan rollcall that passes. So that would suggest to any President and any Member of the majority party that it is a good idea to sit down with the Senators from the other side of the aisle before you reach the shutdown phase of this conversation.
If we fail to fund this government, farmers won't receive their payments and loans they need to stay afloat facing President Trump's tariffs, medical breakthroughs and research will be put on hold, and American servicemembers and thousands of Federal employees across the country will be forced to work without pay. But unfortunately, we have seen little interest on the other side to sit down and talk about it and to reach a compromise. The Republicans control the White House, they control the Senate, they control the House of Representatives, and they have decided the best approach is: Don't negotiate with the Democrats. Give them a ``take it or leave it'' and let's see what happens.
Despite knowing since March that government funding was going to run out tonight, President Donald Trump waited until yesterday--yesterday-- to meet with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries. What was he waiting for? He understands the President bears major responsibility if a shutdown takes place.
Think about it. He waited until the day before the government funding deadline to finally sit down and talk to both political parties.
Republican Majority Leader Thune said he is committed to passing appropriations bills through regular order. I agree. I am on the Appropriations Committee. I think we are doing a pretty good job, and we can do better.
We also want to pass government spending bills, but we refuse to rubberstamp President Trump's harmful cuts and reckless actions. Yet, instead of being here to do the work of funding our government, the Republicans in the House are gone. They left Washington last week and don't plan to return until next week. That doesn't help at all.
The House must stop playing political games and come to work so we can actually avoid this shutdown. Republicans must take responsibility for the government they control--the government they control.
White House Republicans are on vacation. Their refusal to prevent a shutdown will ruin millions of Americans' travel plans.
During a shutdown, air traffic controllers and TSA employees work without pay. That is not reassuring. This means delays and longer wait times for travelers at airports across the country, just like the last time President Donald Trump shut down the government in 2018 for 35 long days. It took pressure from the air traffic controllers to finally end that Trump shutdown.
Our aviation system will continue to bear the effects because a shutdown would pause hiring and training programs for air traffic controllers at a time when we should be improving safety.
Does it make you feel more confident to take a flight and realize that that air traffic controller is working without pay or that the testing and training of the air traffic controllers have been delayed because of a shutdown?
So the next time you are sitting in an airport and you see your flight delayed, you can thank those who didn't want to sit down and talk before the shutdown faced us.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration is preparing to weaponize the shutdown and continue their attacks on the Federal workforce. Without any rhyme or reason, they have been chopping off thousands and thousands of Federal employees. Sometimes employees are doing essential work, and they beg them to come back to work. Some do; some don't.
Last week, the Director of the OMB, Russell Vought, sent out a memo stating that any government employee who seeks funding for their role lapse because of a shutdown would be fired if their work does not align with the President's objectives.
They are promising a big shutdown of the Federal workforce. These firings jeopardize progress in Federal Agencies--Agencies already indiscriminately gutted by the Trump administration. The Trump administration has begged fired employees to return to work at Agencies like the National Weather Service and the Department of Energy.
Even Republican Senators--some--agree that government employees are not pawns to be played with during the debate on government funding. These employees and their families deserve a better boss. But the Trump administration apparently doesn't care. They are content to cause continual chaos across the government to score cheap points.
The American people know who is making the government work and who is trying to destroy it. For months, Democrats have been ready and willing to work with Republicans to avoid the awful effects of a shutdown.
Why should the average American care about a shutdown? What import does it have to you and your life and your family? It is basic. It is healthcare. That is what this is about on the Democratic side. We think this is a battle worth fighting.
We face a prospect of some 24 million Americans either losing their health insurance in the next several weeks or seeing dramatic increases in their premium payments. Some will have to get a different insurance policy with higher deductibles. Some won't be able to afford health insurance at all.
Take a look at what the cutback in Medicaid is going to do to hospitals across our country. Illinois is a great State--very diverse, with the beautiful, big city of Chicago and a lot of smaller, rural area towns as well. These rural areas count on hospitals like no other place in our State. They are literally the lifeline. If these hospitals start to close, it not only presents a hardship when it comes to medical care, it hurts the economy of the region. Imagine trying to keep or attract a company to bring their business to your town when you have just lost your hospital.
This cutback in the big, beautiful budget bill of the Trump administration of paying into Medicaid is exactly the wrong thing to do for my home State of Illinois and for most other States. We want to make sure that doesn't happen. We want to stop this cutback in healthcare quality and availability across this country. That is what we are holding out for. It isn't some big, beautiful border wall; it is what American families have to pay for health insurance each month.
You ought to see the numbers if we don't do anything. The so-called ACA tax credits means there is a helping hand for families in income situations where they are eligible to pay for health insurance. The Republicans eliminated this helping hand, and now that the premiums are going to go up, we have already received notice in Illinois of several insurance companies that have gone out of business. It is a problem--a really serious problem--in terms of the cost of premiums for families. So that is what this is about.
Bringing down the government is not a good policy by and large, but neither is cutting the healthcare for 25 million Americans. So that is what we are bringing this issue together on.
Can we have a sitdown with Democrats and Republicans and reach an agreement? Yes, we can. We can start tonight. There is no reason why we shouldn't.
So I hope that my friends on the other side of the aisle will understand that uninsured Americans and Americans with health insurance that they can't afford is a serious hardship for working families. I hope my Republican colleagues will join us in a bipartisan conversation. It is long overdue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. President, I rise to discuss a vote that the Senate will take later this week on en bloc Executive nominations. The vote will likely come either tomorrow or possibly Friday. There is an en bloc of approximately 100 nominations that we will be considering, and I rise to talk about the nomination of one individual--Bill White to be the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium.
I regret that we are taking up nominations en bloc. I think there are good reasons to reform the nominations process. I think we probably have to have Senate confirmation for too many people. But I didn't believe a few weeks ago in the Senate action that allowed people to be lumped together because my view was that that causes individuals who were in the en bloc not to get the appropriate scrutiny they should get. I viewed the action, bluntly, as a little less about advancing nominations as raising the risk of hiding nominations in large groups where individuals would not get the appropriate scrutiny, and I believe that very strongly to be the case with Mr. White.
Mr. White is President Trump's nominee to be Ambassador to an important U.S. ally, Belgium, the headquarters of NATO. Mr. White has done some good things in his life, and I don't dispute that, and I know he has been a strong supporter of President Trump, as are virtually all of the Trump appointees, many of whom I have voted for. I haven't done this calculation, but I probably have a track record on the Democratic side of voting for as high a percentage of President Trump's nominees, both in term 1 and term 2, as just about anyone because I do believe as a former Governor that your election does carry with it a mandate to be able to assemble a team of like-minded people. Even if I might disagree with you, President Trump was elected, and he should have the ability to assemble a team of like-minded people.
But I do carefully scrutinize the character, judgment, and qualifications of the individuals who are put before us for important positions, and this nomination of this individual for this country at this time I view as so uniquely bad that I wanted to take the time to come to the floor and talk about why.
What I am going to talk about is Mr. White's judgment as evidenced by his social media postings. I have a whole lot of examples I could use, but I am going to just narrow it down to the ones that I think are a true window into this individual's judgment and character and that demonstrate that he is not suitable to represent the United States in a critical ambassadorial position.
On May 16, 2023, he tweeted out about one of our colleagues, Senator Graham of South Carolina:
He has tweeted out many bad things about Democratic colleagues that I am not going to post before you, but someone who says about Lindsey Graham that he is a snake is not demonstrating the judgment you need to be an ambassador representing the United States in Belgium.
Mr. White fell down the rabbit hole of election conspiracy in 2020 and has repeatedly tweeted and posted his belief that the 2020 election was not accurately called and that Donald Trump actually won rather than President Biden. Now, I think any intelligent person recognizes that as a conspiracy theory that most fourth graders wouldn't be gullible enough to fall for, but Mr. White has tweeted it over and over and over again.
He has gone beyond just asserting that Donald Trump won the election in 2020. He has actually gone much, much further than that. In the runup to the election of 2024--so this is now 4 years after the 2020 election--Mr. White was posting material and reposting material about Georgia's secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, claiming that he had acted improperly in the 2020 election.
And forgive me; this is a quote.
That is what he is calling to happen to the Republican secretary of state in
Mr. White went on to continue in this extreme rhetoric in the aftermath of President Trump's election in 2024. Within the days to follow, shortly after the election, he basically says Donald Trump won Georgia--that is referring to the 2024 election--and that it is high time now to legitimately prosecute the Georgia secretary of state and Governor Kemp, the Republican Governor of Georgia. Mr. White is calling for them both to be prosecuted, and this was just at the time that Donald Trump won the 2024 election.
OK. Donald Trump was elected President in 2024. Why are you still so focused on a campaign of retribution against Georgia Republicans whom you were urging to be locked up and prosecuted?
To be an ambassador, you need to have some judgment, you need to have some diplomacy. You will deal with tough issues. Belgium is not a big country, but Belgium is a very important country. It has been a U.S. ally for a very long time, and it is the headquarters of NATO, which has a huge importance in the world right now.
Putting somebody into a position like this who puts out negative tweets about Lindsey Graham and who is encouraging Republican officials in Georgia to be prosecuted and locked up--I think those would be disqualifying in and of themselves, but as I was looking at this individual's social media account, I came upon something else that a lot of people didn't notice, because it seemed odd, but I did a little bit of research into it, and I want to focus on it.
Mr. White, in May of 2024--months before President Trump's election-- retweeted a post from an individual named Dries Van Langenhove, with a video from this individual. The video is a lengthy video wherein this individual, Dries Van Langenhove, says:
Among the other tweets of calling a colleague a snake and calling for people to be locked up, this one seemed odd. Who is Dries Van Langenhove? Who is Dries Van Langenhove? Dries Van Langenhove is a convicted, Holocaust-denying, pro-violence anti-Semite in Belgium. The tweet that Mr. White posted was his video the night before he was sentenced to a year in prison for inciting violence and denying the Holocaust.
This is an article from POLITICO Europe in March of 2024, and it talks about Mr. Van Langenhove. Title: ``Belgium's far-right prodigy gets prison term for inciting violence.''
Why would Mr. White, in March of 2024, even know who Dries Van Langenhove was?
When I saw this, as I was researching this prior to the hearing on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I had no idea who Dries Van Langenhove was. I wondered, Why is Mr. White platforming this individual I know nothing about? Then, as I read it, I find that he is a notorious violence-promoting, Holocaust-denying anti-Semite criminal convict in Belgium. This is a big deal.
The ADL says that of any nation in Europe, Belgium may have seen the most spike in anti-Semitic behavior since October 7.
Some of you might remember the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris a couple of years ago, pre-October 7. There was a similar attack on the same day in Belgium, an anti-Semitic attack. Belgians have been charged with crimes of vandalism and religious-based violence and attacks on the Holocaust museum in both Belgium, Brussels, and Paris. And the Belgian Government is really working hard to try to deal with this cancer of anti-Semitism in this nation.
As far as I know, Mr. Langenhove is the only individual who has been successfully prosecuted in Belgium for Holocaust-denying, inciting violence, and reveling in pro-Nazi ideas. The material that Bill White posted was Mr. Van Langenhove seeking support in donations to help him avoid accountability for his words and actions.
Mr. White's work in the past might qualify him to serve in some capacities. I am not saying there isn't a position, one that doesn't require diplomacy, where his skills might be necessary, but this particular appointment is an insult to Belgium--a nation that is trying to deal with a deep, deep challenge in anti-Semitism.
For the United States to send as an ambassador to that nation someone who has platformed the far-right prodigy who has received a prison term for inciting anti-Semitic violence is a slap in the face of this important ally.
I started by saying I am worried that the fact that this nomination is being slid into the middle of a big block of nominations means it won't get the attention that it deserves. Traditionally, on a nomination like this, we might get 1 or 2 hours on the floor to focus on this particular individual.
My colleague Senator Merkley, as we were discussing the change that allowed en bloc nominations, proposed an alternative where you could remove a name from the en bloc if you wanted to actually have some ability to focus on it. That effort was unsuccessful. But I want to raise this today.
This is already getting press in Belgium. The hearing itself, where it came to light that Mr. White was platforming Dries Van Langenhove, is getting press in Belgium; it is getting press elsewhere in Europe; and it is being examined as: Wait. How does the United States feel about this country and this relationship? How does the United States feel about qualifications for diplomats if someone who is so intrepid in his speech but also is platforming Belgian Holocaust deniers gets the plum position to be our Ambassador to Belgium?
So my hope--and in life, I have often learned that high hopes are great and so are low expectations. I will say in standing here today, I stand here with high hopes and low expectations. My hope is that some of my Republican colleagues might look at this and say: This is a bridge too far. This is too important a country and anti-Semitism is too important an issue to send, with the imprimatur of U.S. Ambassador and to this ally of the United States, somebody who is platforming and promoting an anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying convicted criminal.
That is my hope that when we have this vote later in the week, we might decide that the United States can do better by our ally.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, hurricane season ends November 30--2 months left to go. Last week marked the first anniversary of Hurricane Helene, and I see from reports that the area of North Carolina most affected is still terribly affected. It was such a severe storm that people in Louisiana went from Louisiana to help North Carolina and other States with their emergency operations on the ground.
This weekend saw two category 4 storms churning in the western Atlantic. Thankfully, they do not appear that they will hit our coast. Still, the storms remind people in Louisiana and other States that flooding is not a matter of if but, rather, when.
Now, Democrats, as we know, are pushing us toward a government shutdown. What does that mean for the National Flood Insurance Program? Imagine you are about to close on a house in 2 days and the bank requires you to have flood insurance. If you are in a special flood hazard area--by the way, over half of Louisiana is a special flood hazard area--and you are purchasing a house with help from a federally backed loan, you will not be closing on that house, nor will you be able to renew your existing policy, all because Democrats have rejected a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open.
Let me repeat: They are walking away from a bill that simply extends
Now, back to flood insurance, Americans are left wondering how a shutdown will affect them. While Democrats are writing checks to the far left, folks are wondering if they can close on their house.
Now, I will tell you what the American people care about. They want the government to do its job. They want disaster recovery when needed. They want flood insurance that works. They want rural hospitals to stay open. They want energy security and a balanced budget--not trillion- dollar add-ons that only serve a political agenda. The American people deserve accountability. They expect Congress to put their needs before partisan politics.
If this shutdown happens, it means that the National Flood Insurance Program cannot renew policies. That is 500,000 people in Louisiana and millions across the country unable to renew policies while we are still in hurricane season. It will mean delays in disaster aid and emergency response coordination. It means uncertainty for families still recovering from Hurricane Helene and other past storms. Now, this is personal for folks in my State.
If Democrats would stop trying to please the fringe of their party and start focusing on the real, immediate needs of the American people--like keeping the government open, maintaining flood insurance, and protecting access to rural healthcare--we could solve this today.
So I ask my fellow Senators who are Democrats: Who are you working for? Are you working for the American families watching the weather, hoping the next storm doesn't wipe out everything they have built? Are you working for veterans waiting on care, the seniors relying on Social Security checks, or the communities who count on rural hospitals in a crisis? Or are you working for political activists and special interest groups that have nothing to do with the lives of the people you were elected to serve?
Mr. President, the path forward is simple: Pass a clean bill to keep the government open.
Mr. President, middle-class Americans are taking it on the chin. If you ask anybody buying groceries and you start talking about high grocery prices, their heads just start to nod. American farmers can't hire workers to pick their crops. Foreign products are being tariffed. Beef and coffee prices are through the roof. For the first time ever since it has been tracked, ground beef is over $6 a pound, and it keeps rising. To put that into perspective, it was under $4 when President Trump left office in 2021.
People can't afford to live. If you combine the cost of the things they absolutely need--their healthcare, their flood insurance, property and casualty or homeowners insurance, car insurance, mortgages, car payments--after that, they are sitting around an empty kitchen table, worried as to whether there is enough left in their pocketbook to buy the groceries to feed their family.
Now, with 67 percent of Americans saying they are living paycheck to paycheck, you can imagine how many empty kitchen tables there are.
Last week, I got a message from a woman in my State who lives on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. She told me this is the problem she is facing: She can't afford to live and to pay for her groceries. By the way, she is a teacher--a good job--and has been for 26 years. But she can't afford to live and pay for groceries?
The middle class is taking it on the chin, and a lot of Americans are in the same situation as she is. No matter how hard they work, no matter how many jobs they work--sometimes two or three--they can't keep up.
Now, since 2000, housing demand has grown more than housing supply. Roughly 46 percent of Americans let their credit card payments roll over month to month because they cannot afford to pay in full. That is almost 50 percent of people in the United States who are not paying their credit card bills, and that is with 21 percent to 26 percent interest rates on them. Almost a quarter of Americans don't think they will ever pay off their credit card debt. And the hole keeps getting deeper.
Now, Republicans are trying to address this. In the working families tax cuts bill, we increased wages by eliminating taxes on tips and taxes on overtime. Most seniors will not pay taxes on their Social Security payments. We increased the child tax credit. We incentivized companies to start building in the United States now, instead of waiting for 10 years. We attract private investment into low-income communities by giving investors a tax break in exchange for developing economically distressed communities. Our goal is to create jobs--better paying jobs--as we spur this revitalization.
We can increase affordable housing for families and workers by expanding and strengthening the low-income housing tax credit, which will help build more than 1.6 million affordable homes nationwide over the next decade.
Again, we give tax incentives now for those better paying manufacturing and construction jobs, while working to decrease the high cost of healthcare with, if you will, programs to incentivize the education of more nurses, to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and to lower the cost of health insurance.
We have proposed ways to lower the cost of the National Flood Insurance Program, which in my State is one thing that just saps from people's pocketbooks. Now, the government shutdown will not help. It creates unnecessary worry and puts a strain on working families, veterans, and folks living on a fixed income.
The American middle class is taking it on the chin. Republicans are working to give the American people hope instead of one more body blow.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. President, well, it looks like we are going to have a shutdown. What does that tell us? I will tell you what it tells me. It is simply that much more evidence that human evolution is a slow, slow process. I thought humans had advanced more as a species, but, apparently, we haven't.
What do I mean by a shutdown? Well, we can't keep government open without a budget, and tonight, at midnight, our current budget expires, unless we vote to maintain the status quo and continue the current budget as we negotiate a new one.
Many of my Democratic friends say: Well, what is the problem? The Republicans are in charge. The President is a Republican, and the Republicans have a majority in the Senate, and the Republicans have a majority in the House. What is the problem?
They know what the problem is. We can't pass a budget, we can't keep government open just with Republican votes here in the Senate. We only have 53 Republicans. We need seven Democrats to join with us. So for my Democratic colleagues to say, ``Well, the Republicans are in charge, and they don't need us,'' they know that is not accurate. And that is what is going on.
Now, we have had a few shutdowns before, and every shutdown is different. But most shutdowns are a combination of both policy and politics in varying degrees. This shutdown, in terms of policy, makes absolutely no sense--none. What we have proposed to our Democratic colleagues and the minority leader, Senator Schumer, is to make no changes to the current budget. We just want to continue the current budget and keep government open until just before Thanksgiving to give us more time to negotiate a permanent budget.
We did that many times when President Biden was President and when the Democrats had the majority. In fact, we did it 13 times. Not only have Republicans done it, but Democrats have routinely done it.
But this time the Democrats have said: No, no, no, no, no. We want more.
And you may be thinking: OK, that is reasonable. What do you want?
Well, it is not reasonable. In effect, what the Democrats are saying to us is that we are going to close government
First, they want us to repeal all of the Medicaid reforms that we did in the reconciliation bill. Some call it the One Big Beautiful Bill.
The One Big Beautiful Bill would not reduce Medicaid. In fact, it would go up about 2 percent every year as a result of our bill. But it would say to people who are on Medicaid who aren't eligible for Medicaid that you are not going to get Medicaid anymore. Dual eligibles, people who sign up in Louisiana and Mississippi--that is fraud--under our bill, they would be thrown off. The Democrats want them put back on.
Under our changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill that the Democrats want us to reverse, you would have to satisfy certain income levels to be on Medicaid. The law says, if you make too much money, you can't get Medicaid because Medicaid is for the poor. In my State, we have found people, through audits, making $120,000 a year on Medicaid. So our bill, which the Democrats want us to repeal after just passing it, would say to those people that if you don't meet the income limits, you can't get Medicaid.
So that is the first demand of the Democrats: Take out all of the reforms we made to Medicaid in the reconciliation bill and throw them out the window.
No. 2, they want to extend the ObamaCare subsidies. What does that mean? Well first let me say, Obamacare was a mistake, and we know that now. When President Obama passed ObamaCare, we were told that our lives would be better; our lives have been worse. We were told it would make health insurance more accessible and more affordable; it has done neither.
On the non-Medicaid part of ObamaCare, we have got--I don't know--20, 25 million Americans who are accessing it. And for the most part, about 90 percent of them are low-income families, but the rest are making huge sums of money. Some are making $160,000 a year getting ObamaCare subsidized by taxpayers. And that is not the way it was supposed to be.
How did we get here? It is simple. During the pandemic, when people were being laid off or losing their jobs or couldn't work, President Biden ran through a bill to enlarge the subsidies. He took the cap off the amount that you need to earn in order to get ObamaCare, and those subsidies, at the end of this year, are about to run out.
Now, the Republicans have said: We will sit down with our Democratic friends and talk about how to extend them, but we want to reform the program because it is not right that people making $125,000, $150,000, $250,000, $200,000 a year are getting their health insurance subsidized by the Federal Government.
That is bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid. But the Democrats-- Senator Schumer and his colleagues--have said: Nope. We will shut the government down unless you agree automatically to extend these subsidies, which were passed near the pandemic, after the pandemic is over permanently.
And that is just some of my colleagues' demands. I mean, you need-- you need an Excel spreadsheet to be able to follow their demands. Their demands to keep government open, you can stack them here; you could stand on them and paint the ceiling. And that is not much of an exaggeration.
When Senator Schumer announced these demands, that is when I knew; I knew it in a nanosecond: We are going to have a shutdown because my colleagues--my Democratic colleagues--are very smart people, and Senator Schumer is a smart person. And he knew when he announced these demands that I could tell he wasn't serious. He knew they weren't serious, and he knew neither the President nor the other Members of Congress were going to accept them.
You know what, many Democrats know they are unreasonable as well. So that is why I say the policy part of this makes absolutely no sense, and that is because this isn't about policy. This shutdown is about politics.
Now, parties change just like the human experience changes over time. Political parties change. My party has changed; so has the Democratic Party. And there is a wing of the Democratic Party--I call it the socialist wing. Some less charitable people call it the loon wing of the Democratic Party, and they are in charge right now.
And the nonloon, nonsocialist Democrats are scared to death of them. This particular wing of the Democratic Party that is in the ascendency, what do they believe? They believe--they try to outweird each other all the time.
They hate--if you listen to them, they hate Thomas Jefferson; they hate Abraham Lincoln; they hate George Washington; they hate Dr. Seuss; they hate Mr. Potato Head.
They think our kids should be able to change genders back and forth at recess--kids--and if it is their preference, should be able to undergo sex-change operations while minors paid by you, the taxpayers. They believe that.
They believe in open borders. They believe that if you support the law, which says you have to be vetted to come into our country--if you support the law, you are a racist. I think if you support the law, you are being prudent, but they believe in open borders.
My Democratic friends are able to elect a new mayor in New York City who is a member of the loon wing. He is a self-avowed socialist. He has said if the Prime Minister of Israel comes to New York City, he will have him arrested.
But this is not the majority of Democrats that believe this. I don't think that for a second. And I know many of my Democratic colleagues here don't believe that. But the loon wing, the socialist wing, the angry Gary Busey wing of the Democratic Party is in ascendency, and they have got a lot of power, an enormous amount of power.
Many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate are scared of them. The loon wing is mad at many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate. They shouldn't be, but they are. Therefore, many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate are scared of the loon wing, and they want the loon wing to love them.
The loon wing will never love them. They are better off doing the right thing, and they know what the right thing to do is. But that is why I say this is a political decision. That is why we are going to shut government down.
Now, once you shut government down, unless you are prepared to leave it shut down permanently--and maybe my Democratic colleagues are, but I don't think so. Maybe I am naive, but I still think many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate know better. Once you shut the government down, you have got to get it back open.
How are they going to get it back open? We are not going to agree to their demands--$1.5 trillion. They know we are not going to agree to it.
So how is my friend Senator Schumer going to get the government back open? You know, there is a famous movie line. I don't remember the movie. I think Denzel Washington said the line. I love Denzel Washington. He is what cool looks like. The guy is awesome. He is a total bomb. I love Denzel Washington.
But anyway, I think he said in one movie: If you pray for rain--if you pray for rain, you better be prepared to deal with the mud.
And truer words were never spoken.
So if you want a shutdown, I say to my Democratic friends, you better be prepared to deal with the mud.
How are you going to get it back open? How are you going to get it back open? I wouldn't want to be in their shoes to have to make that decision.
Let me just say a few words--every time we do a shutdown, it scares the living daylights out of the American people, especially our elderly. It breaks my heart. All of us get phone calls from folks scared to death they are not going to get their Social Security check or they are not going to be able to see their doctor. And it just breaks my heart. So I want to give them a little bit of assurance.
During the shutdown, the executive branch will be in charge, and the Trump administration is not going to do anything to hurt our elderly. I want to assure them of that. If you are receiving a Social Security check or Medicare or Medicaid or veterans disability, your checks are going to continue. We will make sure of that. The Trump administration will make sure of that. Government may be shut down,
If you are hungry and you don't have money to eat, we are not going to let you starve to death. The administration is going to continue payments--some people call it SNAP; I call it food stamps--and we will continue the payments for the Women, Infants, and Children's Program. Most of us refer to that as WIC.
You will still get your mail. Don't worry about that. The Postal Service will be working through the shutdown. If you depend, for healthcare, on your Veterans' Administration and VA medical centers, they are going to remain open. So I don't want you to be scared about that.
Now, you are going to notice an impact. Probably, we have got 2 million to 2\1/2\ million Federal employees--probably 750,000 aren't going to be on the job. Under the law, they have to go home. So you will notice an impact.
You will notice it in our parks. You will notice it in our museums here in Washington if you are visiting. You will notice it in many of the Federal Agencies. That is the law. They can't come to work in a shutdown--doesn't matter who initiates the shutdown.
You know, we still have a little time, midnight tonight. We are going to be taking some votes here in a few minutes, give our Democratic colleagues one last chance--one last chance--to do the right thing. And I certainly--I certainly--hope they accept it.
With that, Mr. President, I appreciate your patience.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, Democrats do not want a shutdown. Democrats also do not want millions of American families to go bankrupt next year because their healthcare premiums more than doubled. Democrats do not want people to get kicked off their healthcare, get sick, or even die. Democrats want to stop our rural hospitals from closing and laying off more staff.
We have been clear about this for weeks and weeks and weeks. All along, Democrats have made clear we are ready to hammer out a solution to prevent a shutdown and save people's healthcare. But I am afraid that at every step of the way, Republican leadership has made clear they would rather shut down the government than make sure people can afford healthcare. Apparently, working with Democrats to save American families money and keep the government open is too much for Republican leadership because their plan so far has been to let healthcare premiums double--double--next year and insist that Democrats swallow a bill that does nothing on healthcare.
President Trump and Republicans in Congress would rather shut down the government than have serious negotiations to lower costs, save healthcare, and prevent a shutdown.
Unfortunately, Republicans decided on the shutdown track weeks ago and have done nothing to steer away from that cliff. This is not hard to understand. Republican leadership has not been subtle.
If Republicans were serious about avoiding a shutdown, they would not have skipped town last week, and Speaker Johnson wouldn't be refusing to return lawmakers until after the funding deadline.
If Republicans were serious about avoiding a shutdown, they wouldn't be holding a vote on a bill that already failed and that, I should say, actually got fewer votes than Democrats' bill since eight Republican Senators didn't even bother to show up to take that vote.
If Republican leadership was serious about avoiding a shutdown, they wouldn't be refusing to hold the vote until the last minute.
If Republican leadership was serious about avoiding a shutdown, Trump wouldn't say:
He wouldn't shrug his shoulders and say:
If Republican leadership was serious about avoiding a shutdown, they would not have waited until the last possible moment to hold the meeting that could have happened weeks ago, and they would have listened and negotiated at that meeting instead of just saying ``my way or the highway.''
Ask yourself this: If Donald Trump and Republican leadership were serious about preventing a shutdown, would Trump be tweeting out completely unserious, AI videos riddled with lies, debunked conspiracies, and mariachi music? Would they be toying with the lives of public servants and threatening to fire more of them when they know the vital role that they all play in providing services to the American people? Come on.
The President is thrilled to be shutting things down and sowing division, not working to solve the problem. He is showing every day how unserious he is in this moment.
Let's look at this another way. What would the Trump administration and Republicans be doing if they wanted a shutdown? Well, if President Trump and Republicans wanted a shutdown, they might be planning how to cause as much damage as possible, planning how they would hurt women and children who need vital nutrition assistance.
The administration might be planning to conduct a shutdown as a pretext to conduct more of the mass firings we have seen for months and inflict more pain. Republicans might openly talk about how Trump ``welcomes'' a shutdown and how they will use it to advance their extreme agenda--exactly like Russ Vought and his team at OMB are doing and have been doing.
If President Trump wanted a shutdown, he might be scheduling meetings with Democratic leaders, only to cancel them and finally reschedule them at the last possible moment--exactly as he just did.
If Republican leadership wanted a shutdown, they might mischaracterize what Democrats' position is because they know that refusing to lower costs and protect people's healthcare, which is what they have been doing, is not popular. And, of course, mischaracterizing Democrats' positions is exactly what Republican leadership has been doing.
I swear, the only way President Trump knows how to compose a sentence is noun, verb, illegal immigrant. And hey, why not throw in ``transgender'' for good measure? That is how he aims to sow division and hatred.
Are they serious?
American citizens across the country are starting to get letters now warning that their premiums are set to double. Hospitals are already closing or laying off staff and not for no reason in particular--this healthcare crisis is happening explicitly because of Republican policy decisions.
Instead of talking with us about addressing healthcare from the start, Republicans decided to pass a partisan CR. They decided they would do nothing about the fact that healthcare premiums are about to skyrocket. They decided they preferred a shutdown because they don't want to act in time to prevent families from paying dearly with exploding healthcare costs.
Good luck explaining that to the American people.
Good luck arguing: Sorry Republicans left town until the eleventh hour and shut down the government, but, you see, we wanted to make sure you couldn't afford healthcare.
Good luck saying that to your constituents.
Good luck saying: You don't understand, those radical Democrats demanded we stop your premiums from more than doubling next year.
It is not going to fly. The American people are a whole lot smarter than that.
Despite all this, Republican leadership is pretending they want to talk about healthcare later. The reality Republicans won't talk about is that higher premiums are being announced right now. Let's be clear about that because it underscores why addressing healthcare is so urgent.
The reason we need to start this conversation right now is because people will receive letters in the mail with
It is worth noting that according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a quarter--a quarter--of our farmers and ranchers are enrolled through the healthcare marketplace, and nearly one-half of marketplace enrollees are small business owners, small business workers, or self- employed.
Why do Republicans want to price farmers out of healthcare? Why don't they care about small businesses and their workers?
I heard about one family in my home State of Washington who learned that if Republicans get their way on this, their healthcare premium could jump from $278 a month to as much as $1,800 a month. And they are far from alone in staring down a huge, huge healthcare increase if Republicans refuse to act now. Millions of families are going to see their healthcare costs jump by thousands of dollars. That is why we have to act. That is what Democrats want to avoid. That is what we want to avoid, and we know we have to do this now, but still, Republican leadership has refused to start that conversation.
Meanwhile, Democrats are at the table. We have ideas ready to go. Democrats put forward our proposal for funding the government--not, as Republicans are pretending, as a ``take it or leave it'' demand but a proposal, one with several key issues we want to discuss with Republicans.
We want to talk about how we stop Republicans' Medicaid cuts before our families get kicked off their healthcare and before Republican cuts shutter many of our rural hospitals.
We want to talk about how we can stop Russ Vought from stealing money for cancer research.
We want to talk about how we save the healthcare tax credits that tens of millions depend on before those higher premiums kick in and get locked in, before families decide they just can't afford their coverage--in short, before it is too late--because if Republicans insist on sitting on their hands, if they decide to wait until the last minute to finally work with us to save these credits, 1\1/2\ million Americans will lose their healthcare. Again, that is if we do pass an extension at the last minute. If Republicans never get serious about this at all, it is going to be even worse. But even delay has a real cost and one that is paid for by our families. So it is time for Republicans to get serious.
Despite what Republicans are pretending, Democrats are not asking for the Moon here. We are literally just insisting that Congress take action to address the looming healthcare crisis that they themselves caused. It is shocking that Republican leaders are digging in so deep against doing this now. If nothing changes, that is a pretty ominous sign.
I hope, despite the completely partisan path Republicans are on right now, they will come to their senses and come to the table because I don't just want us to keep the government open with a deal brokered by both sides; I want to stop the enormous price increase that is about to hit families. I want us to ultimately get those full-year funding bills that help people--I want those to get signed into law.
Here we are. I have to say that right now, what we see is Russ Vought trying to hold government workers hostage. Right now, we have House Republicans refusing to even come back here to DC to do their jobs until next week. Right now, we have Senate Republicans replaying a failed vote.
Look, if Republicans want to avoid a shutdown like Democrats want to avoid a shutdown, then stop spending so much time saying you will sit down with us on healthcare later. Spend that time working with us right now. But if Republicans insist on writing a bill without any Democrats, they better pass it without Democrats, too, because I am a no.
Democrats will continue to work to keep government open and to save your healthcare. I am ready to keep the government open, as I said many times over the last several weeks, and I am ready and I am willing to stay at the table for as long as it takes. The question here remains, will Republican leadership get serious and negotiate?
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2026
Mr. President, I move to proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote on passage of H.R. 5371.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote on passage of H.R. 5371.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Shall the bill pass, upon reconsideration?
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 55, nays 45, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 55, and the nays are 45.
The 60-vote threshold having not been achieved, the bill, upon reconsideration, is not passed.
The bill (H.R. 5371) was rejected.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. President, we for a second time failed to pass a continuing resolution to allow the Federal Government to continue to operate. It is because we are coming to the end of the fiscal year. Not all the appropriations bills have been approved, though most all of them have been approved by the Senate Committee on Appropriations. In fact, three have been passed by the Senate.
This makes no sense to me. This is not a shutdown that makes any sense at all. The American people, Kansans, deserve something different from the U.S. Senate.
Every city council or commission, every school board, every local government office in my State passes a budget and then lives within that budget every year. Every local unit of government can figure this out, and the U.S. Senate is failing one more time.
A shutdown means uncertainty. A shutdown means dysfunction. The issue to me is this continuing resolution that would fund the Federal Government until November 21--a short period of time--is designed to avoid that dysfunction, to avoid that uncertainty. All that is required is that we pass the continuing resolution, 60 votes in the U.S. Senate, to keep the government functioning so--and this is the reason it makes no sense to me--so that we can pass the remaining appropriations bills, all but one of which have been passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee and most in a bipartisan manner. For whatever purpose and for whatever reason, that seems beyond our capability.
I understand there are those who wish to bring other issues to this bill. Could we do one thing at a time, and when that one thing is as important as this continuing resolution, to do it now? to do it yesterday? to do it tomorrow?
We can't pass a continuing resolution because there are those who want to bring other issues into the bill. Could those other issues not be considered at a later time?
It seems to me that appropriating, passing appropriations bills, keeping the Federal Government functioning, is one of the primary necessities and responsibilities of the Congress of the United States. This is simple and straightforward. Give us a few more weeks to process the remaining appropriations bills, and the government continues to function while we do so.
A continuing resolution, particularly long term, is a crazy thing because it says we are going to fund the Federal Government at the same level, in the same way that we did last year. And if it is multiple years of continuing resolutions, the same way we funded the government the year before that. Does anyone believe that the priorities of this country are identical to last year? Does anybody believe that they are identical to 2 years ago? Aren't there things that deserve a higher priority? Aren't there things that deserve no money? Aren't there things that deserve less money or maybe even the same?
A long-term continuing resolution is a crazy idea, but the short-term resolution that we are dealing with now is a necessary solution. It is necessary because we can pass the appropriations bills and avoid a long-term CR. And we just need the time to do it.
So pass a short-term continuing resolution, do it, take up the appropriations bills as this majority leader has promised to do--and this majority leader has demonstrated he is willing to do it--is a straightforward solution. Give us a little more time--a few more weeks--immediately begin the consideration of the appropriations bills that have been reported by the Senate Committee on Appropriations, and at the end of that period of time, we won't need a continuing resolution. We will have done our task.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kansas. And at the risk of getting him into political trouble, I am a huge fan of his, but I want to address the question that he asked, which I think is a legitimate one, which is: What is the hurry on the Affordable Care Act premiums?
There is a really straightforward answer, which is that people are getting letters tomorrow from their insurance carriers. Around 24 million people are going to get letters anytime from now until mid- November, and they are going to pay. Now, 24 million Americans are going to be told that because of the last tax bill that was just enacted by Trump and the Republicans, people are going to be paying an average of 114 percent more per person per month.
It is not like we just went into a lab and cooked up an issue to try to hijack some unrelated moving legislative vehicle. The reason for this is that 24 million Americans are specifically on the ACA exchange, and they are absolutely going to get hosed. And because we are all in the same risk pool, it is not just people on the ACA exchange that are going to see massive increases in their healthcare premiums; almost every American is about to see a spike in their healthcare premiums, just like they have seen electricity rates going up at double the rate of inflation, just like they have seen the price of vegetables go up by 39 percent, just like they have seen shortages of lumber and labor.
We have an opportunity to do something because our Republican colleagues--at least some of them--understand the magnitude of this problem for their constituents. So the normal thing to do in a functioning legislative body, where the President of the United States does not believe that he is an elected Monarch, is to try to negotiate some accommodation. After all, these are all of our constituents. It is not like they are exclusively in urban areas or something. They are not exclusively Democrats. In fact, there are slightly more Republicans than Democrats on the ACA exchange.
So if this were a normal functioning time in American-style democracy, the President of the United States would convene what they call the four corners--majority and minority leaders of the Senate; Speaker and minority leader of the House--and we would try to figure out whether there was an accommodation to be made to save our collective constituents from all this pain.
When Democrats had the trifecta--when Democrats had the House and the Senate and the Presidency--we didn't have any shutdowns. It wasn't because there is more good will on the Republican side toward continuing resolutions than there is on the Democratic side toward continuing resolutions. The reason is because Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi sat down with Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy--or whomever it was--and the President, and they figured out a deal. Even to raise the debt ceiling, Kevin McCarthy said: Not for free.
So this idea that the minority party, only this minority party, only in this time in the U.S. Senate history--we are to shut up and do whatever we are told. What is worse is they are asking the majority party to do the same thing.
This President believes that he is a Monarch. This President finds the legislative branch to be a nuisance. And you know what? The legislative branch is a nuisance. That is the architecture of the Constitution of the United States. We are supposed to be in a struggle with each other. We are supposed to argue and fight. And then we are supposed to come to an accommodation.
But we can't come to an accommodation until there is a meeting. So we are going to be here fighting for healthcare, and we are also going to be here fighting to reopen the government. If the clock strikes midnight and we are not able to avert this shutdown, then we are going to be here, ready to deal.
We understand we are not going to get everything we want. We understand we are in the minority. We understand we are out of power. But understand this: We are not powerless. We still represent, pessimistically, 47 percent of the--certainly, 47 percent of the Senate seats. But something like half the country wants us to represent their point of view. And the point of view that we are representing, by the way, is shared by most of the constituents who are represented by Republicans too.
And so there is still a pathway, but it has to be pursued. So the onus is on the President of the United States and the majority leader and the Speaker to find that pathway.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. President, we are just a few hours away from the start of a government shutdown that could have been prevented by Washington Republicans just talking to us, but Donald Trump and Washington Republicans chose to, once again, put politics ahead of the American people. They won't come and talk to us.
After slashing Medicaid and taking healthcare away from families who need it the most, Donald Trump and Washington Republicans are now shutting down the government because they refuse to come to the table, they refuse to have a conversation, and they refuse to work in a bipartisan way to stop a massive spike in healthcare costs for hard- working families--for all of you. And that is it. That is it. This is why Trump is about to shut down the entire Federal Government.
You know, my dad often said: If you don't have your health, you don't have
So while Republicans, those folks here in Washington, fight for billionaires, Democrats are here fighting for you--for your healthcare, for your ability to see a doctor, to see a doctor and get your prescriptions without breaking the bank.
In my State of Nevada, over 110,000 Nevadans get their healthcare coverage through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace. We know it as Nevada Health Link. Nearly 95,000 of those families are able to afford their premiums using Nevada Health Link thanks to what we call the enhanced premium tax credits.
So I want to be clear because there is a lot of misunderstanding here. It is not a handout. It isn't welfare. It is just a tax break that helps lower the costs for nearly 95,000 Nevadans so they can afford to buy an insurance policy, so they can go to the doctor when they are sick and have a copay and go to the pharmacy to get their medication for a copay, so they can just afford their insurance. And we are talking about hard-working families, small business owners, and workers who don't get healthcare through their jobs--so many of them.
And these enhanced tax credits, they are about to expire. They are about to expire this year. And if Congress fails to act, healthcare costs across the board will double for everyone--everyone. So when premium costs go up, many families won't be able to afford it any longer, meaning they will lose their care. And for the ones who can afford it, their deductible is going to be so high they are never going to meet it, and they are still going to be paying out of pocket in ways they can't afford.
You know, more than 38,000 people in my State alone are probably going to lose their coverage right away, all because Washington Republicans just refuse to extend this tax credit allowing them to purchase their own insurance.
Families, sadly, are going to be forced to make impossible choices. They will be forced to delay care. They will skip doctor visits. They will cut their medications in half. They will cut those pills or give themselves half a shot of insulin to make ends meet. These choices are real. They are real for these families, and sometimes they have tragic consequences.
Since the beginning of this year, Democrats have been trying to work in good faith with Washington Republicans to extend these ACA enhanced premium tax credits and protect Americans' healthcare coverage. We have even introduced bills to extend the tax credits. We have tried to pass them right here on the floor. And at every turn, Washington Republicans have refused. They have refused to hear your voice, refused to listen to you.
My phone is ringing off the hook about people scared to death about losing their health insurance. And earlier today, when given an opportunity to keep the government open and extend the credits, every Republican voted no.
Instead of working with Democrats to keep healthcare affordable, Washington Republicans are holding the government and the American people's health hostage to score political points.
So I am going to be clear here. We will not be bullied by Donald Trump, and we will not be bullied by Washington Republicans into sacrificing your healthcare--the healthcare of American families, of our children, of our seniors, of our friends and neighbors--not now, not ever. Trump can't bully us into taking away your healthcare.
Nevadans sent me here to fight for them, not to cave and let Washington Republicans and Donald Trump take away your ability to go to the doctor and get your medication.
Everyone--everyone--should have access to affordable, quality care. Healthcare is not a bargaining chip. It is not a political weapon. It is a lifeline. And Washington Republicans have the power--they have the power--to prevent this shutdown today. Just come and talk with us.
So I urge them to do their jobs: Come to the table. Have a discussion. Have a negotiation. Extend the ACA premium tax credits. Put people over politics. The time is now.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. President, my thoughts tonight are with the millions of Americans who will bear the brunt of this shutdown: the families in the path of hurricanes who will go without the services of FEMA, the veterans who will lack many of the helping hands in the VA, the recipients of Social Security who will be unable to verify their cards or perhaps receive payments that they have been denied, and others--millions of other Americans--who unnecessarily will be hurt, perhaps people who depend on the social safety net that we have established and may be torn by this shutdown.
And I am thinking about the millions of Americans--about 24 million in total, 139,000 in Connecticut alone--who will be notified that they can buy health insurance as a result of open enrollment, but what they lack in information is whether or not that health insurance will be affordable because they have no way of knowing whether it will extend beyond the end of the year, those subsidies that are so essential to their affording healthcare.
And our Republican colleagues--we just heard the Senator from Kansas say there is no hurry. Well, Americans can't get sick on Donald Trump's timetable. When people are told there is no hurry, if you get sick, for medical care, that sounds cruel because it is cruel. And it is stupid. People who go without health insurance may lack the healthcare that can save costs of preventing more serious illness, and those costs eventually are borne by all of us. So this misguided denial of the certainty people need that healthcare insurance subsidies will be extended beyond the end of the year really affects all of us. Premiums are rising already for all of us by 18 percent this year alone because the healthiest people are deciding they are not going to buy health insurance, and insurance companies are predicting they will have to increase their costs to cover the sicker people who will buy the health insurance because they need it.
But the simple fact is, nobody is invincible. All of us need healthcare. And the Affordable Care Act recognizes that healthcare in America, aspirationally, should be a human right. And our failure to provide it to those millions of Americans who will find healthcare insurance unaffordable is unacceptable, and that is why we are taking this stand and why America can't wait for Donald Trump to tell them that they are sick enough now to be given this subsidy, which they deserve.
I am here to urge my Republican colleagues to stop rolling over for Donald Trump. Their constituents, as well as ours, are affected by this delay in providing affordable health insurance. For months we have been calling attention to the need to act now, and this shutdown was avoidable. The path to stopping it was available. And shortening it, assuming it will occur, is still a possibility, if we come together, if Republicans are willing to negotiate, if they come back to town. House Republicans are out of town. They are out of touch with reality. The way forward is simply bipartisan negotiations, coming together, reaching a solution, as is the way shutdowns have been avoided in the past.
The fact is that Donald Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill-- actually a big, blatant betrayal--along with inaction and avoidance by Republicans, is already wreaking havoc on America. In Connecticut, health insurance rates for 2026 have increased by nearly 18 percent, the largest increase in the last 6 years. Without the subsidies, consumers with ACA coverage will see premium increases in the range of 75 percent.
I have visited with hospitals, community health centers, physicians, and many more who have raised their deep concerns about the impending cuts in Medicaid.
The budget bill Republicans passed in July is also threatening Medicaid coverage for 158,000 Connecticut residents. Anyone lucky enough to keep their coverage will see reduced benefits as the State struggles to make up the difference in lost Federal revenue.
Americans and our healthcare system simply can't afford to be nickel- and-dimed like Republicans are forcing them to do. The ACA premium tax credits have protected millions of Americans from higher healthcare costs, they have reduced the number without healthcare insurance, and they have provided robust choices for consumers and provided stability for healthcare providers, particularly in rural areas, and there are rural areas affected in Connecticut.
In addition to the impending cuts in Medicaid, Republicans are refusing to extend these subsidies. It is cruel. It is unnecessary. It is dumb.
So I am here to advocate for the 139,000 Connecticut residents who depend on these credits and the 24 million Americans who are making decisions about healthcare insurance coverage right now at their kitchen tables, in their living rooms, in their homes.
It should not be a partisan issue. At the end of the day, it is a choice: Do we choose a highly successful solution that has reduced healthcare costs for the whole Nation or do we allow the clock to run out and raise healthcare costs for families in every State in this country?
That choice can still be made in the next 24 hours, in the next 2 days, to shorten and lessen the pain that will be felt by Americans.
I choose to stand with working families. I will fight, and we are unified in our fight. As a matter of conscience and conviction, we will not be bullied.
Donald Trump should know that we will stand strong for working families in America. They deserve healthcare. It is about saving healthcare and holding Donald Trump accountable to follow the law. When there is a budget, when it is passed by Congress and signed by the President, he cannot be allowed to simply ride roughshod over it and disregard it.
It is the rule of law and healthcare that are at stake here. I will fight for it.
I yield the floor.
