An executive resolution authorizing the en bloc consideration in Executive Session of certain nominations on the Executive Calendar.

Mr. President, I believe every Senator knows and agrees that our constituents are concerned about the cost of healthcare. Just this morning, I heard some of my Republican colleagues also talking about healthcare affordability. The difference is, I think our Democratic side of the aisle wants to do something about it now. We want to fix one of the biggest health insurance spikes that we are going to see locked-in in 2026 in just a few weeks. We want to do everything we can to stop that.

We know that when you kick Americans off of their health insurance, it hurts all Americans. Democrats know that a vague promise to fix it in the future doesn't help us solve the problems of healthcare delivery today. And we know that the problem is worse than we even imagined just a few weeks ago.

Yesterday, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a new report on how expensive the premiums which the ACA expiration--the Affordable Care Act expiration of those premiums--may cost American families. The answer is, it is going to hurt a lot. The new report found that out-of- pocket premiums for a single person would more than double on average next year if the enhanced premium tax credits expire.

That is, we have had insurance commissioners and various offices across various States trying to make guesstimates about this, but increasing from $880 a year to $1,900 a year in 2026 just shows you how dramatic that situation could be for American families. These are families who will have to shoulder these unnecessary increases. They will be on top of all the other inflationary issues that they are dealing with now, issues like household goods, gas prices, electricity, housing, groceries, and now we want to throw at them healthcare costs.

We are very clear on our side of the aisle: We want the maximum amount of people to get health insurance, drive down uncompensated care, drive down everybody's cost, and deliver good healthcare for our citizens. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the uninsured rate was cut in half from almost 16 percent--roughly 15.7 percent

in 2010--down to an alltime low of 7.7 percent in 2023. So the result is not just healthy Americans having their cost decreased by taking uncompensated care out of the system. It is remarkable progress towards getting everyone covered and having net savings for everybody.

We know that the current majority on the other side of the aisle, they are no fan of the Affordable Care Act. They are no fan even of universal coverage. If you can imagine, we are not even being prescriptive. We just say, ``We want to see universal coverage.'' We want everybody to have health insurance. Not only do they not agree with that, they have tried to repeal or weaken the Affordable Care Act 50 times in the past decade--50 times they have gone after the Affordable Care Act, and they have failed.

One time, thanks to the courage of the late Senator John McCain and two of my other colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the last significant threat to our healthcare system was defeated in 2017. Maybe some people here still working on the floor remember that dramatic moment.

But now, with the passage of this budget reconciliation act in July, Republicans are trying to reverse the progress of the Affordable Care Act. Congratulations, you are having an effect. You are taking that act and healthcare out of the system. You may be trying to do it in a sneak attack. You may be trying to do it in a vague way, but we are on to the fact that you are trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and you are trying to get rid of the ability for Americans to get affordable insurance coverage.

So what now? What are we going to do to prevent rural hospitals from closing? Everyone knows that $50 billion in your slush fund that was part of the reconciliation bill is not enough to save rural hospitals, even if he uses it, even if the President would use it just on so- called red States, it is not enough. And now, you are going to say that 15 million Americans who no longer have the Affordable Care Act marketplace plans or the Medicaid coverage that was stripped out of the healthcare system, we are not going to have that.

So you have no ideas on how you are going to help keep people insured or keep these hospitals operating. So, instead of meaningful negotiations, my colleagues have decided they don't want to tell us what their ideas are to deal with the current crisis. It is not a next year problem; it is a today problem. So instead of using jurisdictional powers like the Finance Committee--they could have come up with a solution. They could have come up with a meeting today. Instead, they were having a hearing on cryptocurrency.

If you thought this issue was so important, why didn't you have a hearing today on how to make health insurance more affordable for the American people? Even if you didn't want to address this particular idea, how is it that you want to have a meeting on cryptocurrency or give tax breaks to oil companies, but you don't want to deal with the health insurance problems of the American people? So instead of working with their counterparts or the House of Representatives--oh, wait, the House of Representatives, they are not even here, and yet we are in this situation.

So who are you neglecting? You are neglecting your constituents. You are neglecting 5 million Americans, including 80,000 Washingtonians, who are not going to be able to have affordable insurance by the end of this year. They will have to make a decision in November and December, but we already know from projections, 80,000 of them will make a decision because they just simply can't afford it.

Back to those numbers that were on the chart earlier: When you look at households and incomes, somebody might say, ``Oh, well, somebody might be able to afford $840.'' Well, not if you are a family of four on $40,000. You are not going to afford that if you are on $75,000 of income, and now, you are going to pay $3,368 more--or even $90,000 of income. I got news for people: Seattle is one of the most expensive places in the country to live, and coming up with now, all of a sudden, $3,000 more for health insurance that you didn't think you were going to have to pay? People are going to make the wrong decisions.

God forbid that these people get sick or have a condition that is really life-threatening, and who is going to be responsible for taking this out of the system because people don't want to come up with a solution today? It is not that hard. We can extend these tax credits. We can have affordable health insurance in the market. We can talk as an organization of people who--by the way, Finance Committee is charged with looking at this issue and discussing it. That is why we fought so hard in the Affordable Care Act for something called the Basic Health Program, which covered people under the 200 percent of the Federal poverty line and provided more important health insurance.

But right now, we need to act. We need to say to families who are going to be threatened by this that we can work together and we have a plan. And our plan is going to be able to be implemented immediately.

What is more important than having millions of Americans lose their health insurance? And then basically say, ``We don't really care about this, when we already are teetering on so much inflation, so many affordability issues, so much of people struggling.'' And if people think we really recovered from a post-Covid era, we haven't. People are still struggling with the aftermath and the effects of that, and now, we are basically saying we are going to add to your insurance.

So, as I did a few days ago here on the Senate floor, I came and talked about how States are now putting these numbers out, a lot of States. When I found this out this summer, I did many events across the State of Washington trying to bring awareness to the public about this, and I found out that some States were really trying to hide the ball-- like they literally didn't want to tell people these costs were going up. Maybe they thought they were going to wait until after the enrollment period opened, when there was nothing you can do much past that. But these States are seeing astronomical costs for health insurance--the State of Texas, a 39-percent increase; Arizona, a 48.95- percent increase.

So, somehow, these numbers were not available to the broader public, and we published a report last week making sure that the biggest insurers in that State--and we were projecting what the State's insurance commissioner or other groups and organizations were saying that this increase is. And now, the Kaiser Foundation is putting an even brighter light on what those numbers are, saying that probably that most people will just see an actual doubling of their premiums.

So how can it be okay to--and even if you thought, ``Well, okay, 5 million Americans, they are just going to be short changed. No problem.'' It is not that. It is when those people don't have health insurance, it affects the whole system. It takes that progress we made in the uninsured rate, driving it down from 16 or so--15 percent to 16 percent, down to 7 percent, and it means that you are not raising the cost on the entire system by seeing a bunch of people with uncompensated care.

We did this to cover citizens because it was the smart thing to do, and my colleagues should just come to the table and say, ``We agree. We need to fix this now. We agree that an open enrollment period that starts as early as October 15 in one or two States and starts for everybody November 1 is on us now. And if we don't send the right signal, this is the catastrophe that is going to happen for people, and that we really do care about affordable health insurance.''

At a time when we already have price increases in, as I said, a lot of household items, now is not the time to put healthcare on the list and crush families with this extra burden. Let's sit down and get this done.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, on Friday, in the midst of a Republican- led government shutdown, President Trump revealed his priorities. It isn't to protect the healthcare, the health insurance of millions of Americans who are about to lose their insurance or see premiums skyrocket. No, that is not it.

The President's priority is to deploy militarized immigration agents and National Guard troops to more American cities. Why? Purely for political theater and to advance his extreme agenda.

In the early morning hours of Tuesday last week, while this government barreled toward a shutdown, President Donald Trump launched a military law enforcement assault on the city of Chicago. In the city's Southside neighborhood, hundreds--hundreds--of Federal agents, many hiding their faces with masks, rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters, darted out of disguised moving trucks, armed with military-grade weapons, to descend on a targeted apartment building in the city of Chicago. They swarmed through the building, knocking down doors, tearing up homes.

It appears these agents knew nothing in advance about the residents whose homes they were destroying. In fact, in the dead of night, Federal agents reportedly started checking on the residents as they brought them out of the building, residents that included American citizens and children. They checked on them to see if maybe they had an outstanding warrant for their arrest or were undocumented.

Picture this, if you will: You are with your family in an apartment building, a helicopter lands on the roof, Federal agents with masks on batter down your doors, drag you and your children out of their beds into the street, and start an interrogation as to whether there is any undocumented person present.

America.

Many were yanked from their homes and their beds and detained shirtless and without clothing. Some were detained using zip ties, including children. Here is what one witness of the events said:

Kids were crying. People were screaming. They looked very

distraught. I was out there crying when I saw the little girl

coming around the corner, because they were bringing the kids

down, too. [They] had them zip tied [together].

In the middle of the night in the city of Chicago, an assault on an apartment building in America. The witness continued:

One of [the agents] laughed [out loud]. He said ``f*** them

kids.''

Four U.S. citizen kids with undocumented parents were separated from their parents who were taken into custody.

Secretary Kristi Noem's Department of Homeland Security posted to social media a highly produced video of the raid--her version of the story--because that is all this is to them, a promotional video, political theater. But the human toll has been immense.

What if it were your child yanked out of his bed in the middle of the night, hands zip-tied behind him, brought down with few, if any, clothes on, standing in the street, while all this is happening, watching his parents be arrested in America?

In another case, ICE agents fired a pepper ball into CBS Chicago reporter Asal Rezaei's car. What was her crime? Driving by the Broadview ICE facility to report on the protests there. It is known in the Constitution as freedom of the press. It doesn't seem to impress Kristi Noem.

I have long fought for humane reforms on our immigration system on a

bipartisan basis and evidence-based ways to reduce crimes in our city. If the President is serious about fixing our immigration system or lowering crime in our communities, I am all in. But sending in militarized Federal immigration agents and National Guard troops to terrorize Chicago or any American community in any State is not the American way.

These actions have accomplished, I believe, the President's true intention here: spreading fear in America, especially among immigrant communities.

And he has been very successful. I go to these communities virtually every weekend when I return to Illinois. I meet with the people who live there. They are scared to death, people who have been here for years, no criminal record, no reason to be removed, working and paying taxes are afraid to shop and afraid to go to church.

Last week, on the floor, I warned about this, and I have for some time now. The President's decision to unleash military personnel against the city of Chicago and American communities is another pillar in his master plan to weaponize the Federal Government against those he views as ``the enemy within.'' Where did that phrase come from? From the mouth of the President of the United States speaking to the military leaders of the United States. He told them to be fearful of ``the enemy within'' and to use American cities as their training ground.

Think of that. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ranted to law enforcement agents on the eve of their Memphis deployment that they were, ``unleashed.'' Stephen Miller's word, ``unleashed.'' Does that sound like law and order? Does that sound like the rule of law? ``Unleashed.''

In addition to Memphis and Chicago, this President has targeted cities like Los Angeles and Portland, reckless immigration raids, unnecessary deployment of military power over the objection of State and local officials. I fear these disturbing developments are the latest indicators that we are on a slippery slope into control by the Trump regime.

The President is attempting to overturn the Department of Justice, the FBI, ICE, and the military into his own personal police force. This not only erodes trust between communities and the people tasked with protecting them, it is an existential threat to civil liberty, the rule of law, and the core of values of who we are as Americans.

This is what is at stake. This is a defining moment we are in. In times like these, you have a choice. You can stand up and speak out or you can be silent or maybe you can cheer. It is your choice as Americans. But think about if it were your family in the middle of the night, people crashing through the doors yanking you and your children out of bed into the street, arresting people.

Remember what the goal was when we got started with this? The President made it very clear. We were after undocumented people, illegal people in the United States who were rapists, murderers, terrorists, criminally insane, and child predators. The President was very explicit. These are the people we are going after. We will tell you their names as we arrest them.

So what percentage of those that have been arrested with this mass deportation detained by ICE, what percentage of them have a criminal record? Fewer than 30 percent. By a 2-to-1 margin, innocent people are being dragged into this in the middle of the night in the city of Chicago in an apartment building. Children are being treated like pawns in the Trump political game.

Today, Illinois attorney general Kwame Raoul filed a lawsuit to block the administration's unconstitutional attempt to deploy troops in Illinois.

I join with all of my Democratic colleagues in the Illinois delegation who are calling on the President to immediately rescind this unnecessary and dangerous deployment of the military to Illinois.

I have spoken personally to the Governor of our State, JB Pritzker, several times this weekend amidst this development. He did not ask for the National Guard troops to be sent in from Texas or anyplace. There is no need for it to either protect Federal facilities or to protect the people living in the city of Chicago.

I am going to continue speaking out as the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I appeal to my Republican colleagues who are watching this in silence: It could be you. You could have an opportunity soon for the President to send in troops.

It is not likely as much from the Republican side, as very few of their communities have been targeted, but if you happen to live in a State that didn't vote for Donald Trump, buckle up. He is coming down on you, whether it is California, Oregon, or Illinois.

I will close with this: At that Tuesday morning raid, videos taken at the scene showed detained immigrants being held in an adjacent parking lot across the street. A woman is seen and heard calling out in broken Spanish:

I will always love you.

Where is the humanity in tearing families apart?

If there is a dangerous person, for God's sake, put him in a separate category, but families who are doing their best to get by and struggle, who work and pay taxes, and who have children who are citizens of the United States should never be treated like this in America.

In an interview recently, Secretary Noem was quoted as saying:

This country is a country of laws. If you don't like the

laws, go change them. We are enforcing them.

She said:

That is sending a message to the whole world.

The Secretary is right. The administration certainly sent a message in Chicago on Tuesday night--a shameful message and one that shouldn't be part of American history.

Terrorizing families with midnight raids and troops in our streets is writing a shameful chapter in our Nation's history. This is going to make America great again?

President Trump is not intent on fighting crime; he is intent on spreading fear. In doing so, he is destroying the values which define us as Americans.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this really is a turning point for our country and a turning point in our fight to make healthcare more accessible for all Americans.

For the first time in 6 years, the government is shut down. Certainly, nobody wanted to get to this point, including me. But we are here for one reason: because MAGA Republicans shut down the government because they refuse to address the healthcare crisis they have created.

Earlier this summer, the Trump administration passed their--what we call--``Big Bad Betrayal Act,'' as we call it. At a time when Americans are begging for financial relief, they were stripped of their healthcare and are faced with the loss of healthcare for 15 million people. That is right. MAGA Republicans have gutted more than a trillion dollars over the next 10 years from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, healthcare that literally millions of Americans rely on.

And we are not just talking years in the future. It starts this month.

At the end of this year, the Affordable Care Act's tax credits will expire, unless Republicans act now to extend them. If they don't--and they are clearly divided on this issue--premiums across the country, on average, are going to double starting next year.

As a little perspective, that means many Coloradans will pay over a thousand dollars more for healthcare in 2026 than they did in 2025.

Now, insurance companies are just starting to notify Americans about these massive cost increases. You talk about a kick in the gut.

When I was Governor, we expanded healthcare to 400,000 Coloradans with help from the ACA tax credits. We got to 96 percent coverage for Coloradans to have healthcare. MAGA Republicans want to undo that progress, and we shouldn't let that happen.

It doesn't end there. The budget bill is a centerpiece of a much broader campaign to strip healthcare coverage away from millions and millions of Americans. The moment the President took office, MAGA Republicans essentially handed him and Secretary Kennedy a free pass to attempt to dismantle our public healthcare system and to destroy much of the science-backed public health policy.

Now, what exactly did they do? Well, the President and R.F.K., Jr., fired every single member of the CDC's independent panel on vaccines and replaced them with vaccine skeptics, people who really didn't believe too much in the value of vaccines. Then, when the President's own CDC Director voiced her opposition, they fired her too.

Now, that puppet panel completely changed the COVID vaccine recommendations for Americans. Now, folks across the country are struggling to figure out whether they can get a vaccine at the pharmacy and what it is going to cost.

The President's first administration oversaw Operation Warp Speed, which developed the first COVID vaccines in what was almost a miraculously rapid timeframe. But now he is actively undermining that same science. It is astounding.

Reproductive healthcare? They are gutting that too. Again, back when I was Governor of Colorado, we made free and low-cost birth control accessible to every Coloradan. We reduced unwanted pregnancies by almost 60 percent. Now, this administration is doing everything it can to eliminate the last remaining abortion protections. They are threatening access to mifepristone, a medication that has been proven safe and effective for nearly 30 years.

On top of that, they have completely given up on things like fighting cancer, slashing hundreds of millions of dollars in cancer-related research grants. That is right. You heard me clearly--cancer. Now, we can't even agree that cancer is worth beating.

If that wasn't enough, the White House actually reached out and publicized--the President talked to pregnant women and told pregnant women not to trust their doctors, but that they can feel assured that taking Tylenol while you are pregnant would cause autism. They did this without any scientific proof. It is hard to believe that they were telling pregnant women that Tylenol was going to cause autism.

It is in many ways one large diabolical fear tactic, and it puts the health of so many Americans at risk. And we can't let it continue, which really brings us to this showdown. We are asking for this administration to negotiate and to take basic action to restore healthcare to Americans.

MAGA Republicans, I think they should be thanking us for giving them an off-ramp to undo the horrendous cuts that are going to ruin people's lives--real lives. It will cost people their lives.

So far, no one seems to be listening, but here is what is at stake if we don't hold our ground.

I, recently, a couple of weeks ago, visited a nursing home in Lakewood, CO. Now, many Americans don't know this, but Medicaid covers the cost of roughly 60 percent of residents in nursing homes across the country. At the facility I visited in Lakewood, over 90 percent of the residents are there because of Medicaid.

I sat in a circle surrounded by residents, some with disabilities, and their caregivers, all trying to understand what these cuts meant for their health, for their lives. One resident told me pointblank that Medicaid saved his life. He said he would still be living on the streets without it because the cost of his epilepsy medication was far too high.

His healthcare, his medication, and the roof over his head are now under threat with these cuts coming to Medicaid. This is a very sobering truth. If you are a single adult in Colorado, you don't even qualify for Medicaid--you will be making too much to qualify for Medicaid--if you earn more than $1,735 a month. That is $10 an hour. If you make more than $10 an hour, you don't qualify for Medicaid. So you have to be working, and you have to make less than $10 an hour. It is pretty easy to verify. And creating the redtape of bureaucracy to get at these mythical cases of abuse--it defies rational thought.

The President's ``Big Ugly Bill'' doesn't just put a $1 trillion hole in healthcare, but it creates mountains of paperwork and endless reams of redtape. It creates challenges that people with disabilities and people making $10 an hour are going to have a really hard time navigating.

And if they fill out a form incorrectly or they don't turn it in on time or they get something wrong, they will get kicked right off of healthcare. It is immoral. It is inhumane.

This is what Medicaid is for, to make sure Americans get the care they need to stay alive, to keep shelter over their heads when they need around-the-clock care. All of it is under threat.

Take one look on social media, and you will see why the White House and MAGA are trying to make this into one big joke. It is a carnival of jokes, but they can't avoid the suffering and the fear that their actions are causing.

Americans elected the President because he promised to fight for the people who slipped through the cracks. But he is turning the very ground they stand on into quicksand.

MAGA Republicans have passed a bill to take healthcare from 15 million Americans--Americans with cancer, sick kids, people living in nursing homes. With the money they saved, they gave trillion-dollar tax breaks, in many cases, to the wealthiest of Americans and to the largest of corporations.

Now, hundreds of rural hospitals and clinics are at risk of closure. Millions of Americans are going to be uninsured. Many of them have preexisting conditions, which will make them getting insurance again nearly impossible. And they are going to be faced with healthcare premiums that will be doubling, and that is for literally millions of Americans.

And we are not talking decades in the future. We are talking about next month, when these premiums go up. By November 1, Coloradans on the marketplace plans that they get from the healthcare exchange, they will be getting the terrifying news--the alert from the insurance companies--that their premiums are about to increase.

What we are being told is some Colorado families are going to see pricetags a thousand dollars a month higher than what their normal payments were.

Democrats are fighting for one thing: to protect the essential care that millions of Americans rely on every single day. It is about making sure that moms and dads, little kids, grandparents, and newborn babies don't fall through the trillion-dollar hole that MAGA has created in our healthcare system.

Let's work together. Let's reopen the government and protect the healthcare for the people of this country. We will be waiting and ready at the negotiating table.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is very obvious that Democrats are losing the Schumer shutdown. Even their media allies are turning against them.

Here is an editorial from today's Washington Post. The headline is ``The shutdown conversation no one wants.''

The Washington Post editorial board, today, wrote this:

Democrats have demanded that Republicans agree to extend

the covid-era insurance subsidies without proposing any way

to pay for it.

They go on to say:

The Congressional Budget Office estimates this will cost

$350 billion over the next decade.

Now, that is the Washington Post talking, not Republicans. So it is no surprise that Democrats are avoiding this conversation.

Obamacare is broken. Obamacare is a failure. And now Democrats are holding the American people hostage to prop it up.

The Biden bonus COVID payments are a bait and switch. Democrats created them in 2021, but they did it as a temporary COVID program. They extended them temporarily to 2022. They set an end date from this year, when they extended them once again.

Now, these same Democrats are demanding that they become permanent, at a cost of $350 billion. It is unacceptable. This is a system that is riddled with waste, with fraud, abuse, and corruption.

Big insurance companies are rewarded with direct payments from the Federal Government to the insurance companies. Hard-working taxpayers are left holding the bill. In many of these policies, there are no premiums, no deductibles, no income limit, no accountability. Even families making a half million dollars a year, they still qualify for these Biden bonus COVID payments.

This is reckless, permanent new spending. The American people can't afford it. The American people know it. And even the Washington Post knows it and has reported on it today.

Democrats lost the election. They have lost their media allies, and now they have lost the argument.

On a related matter, here we are on day six of the Schumer shutdown. Senate Democrats have now voted four separate times to keep our government closed. Radical Democrats are shutting down the government with an outlandish list of demands, and the Presiding Officer has seen them. Included in that list is giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants.

When the interests of Americans and illegal immigrants collide, Democrats always seek to benefit the latter at the expense of the former. Think back to the last Democrat primary for President, back in June of 2019, when they were having a big debate on live television. There were so many candidates that they actually had to do it on two separate nights to get them all on the stage.

Every running candidate for President was asked in that one debate if their platform would give free healthcare to illegal immigrants. Every single Democrat candidate on the debate stage that night raised their hand and said yes. Every one of them promised to give free healthcare to illegal immigrants.

Senator Bernie Sanders was on the stage that night; he raised his hand. Senator Gillibrand of New York was on the stage that night; she raised her hand. Yes, free healthcare to illegal immigrants.

Those are current Members of the U.S. Senate who voted to shut the government down. They voted four times in the last 6 days.

And it is more than talk. When Democrats get power, that is exactly what they are going to do.

Look at California. In 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom expanded State- sponsored healthcare to illegal immigrants. He actually bragged about it. So there is no hiding from this.

One year later, the Los Angeles Times reported that, by doing this, costs had tripled. It was a headline dated March 13 of this year. It says:

Cost of undocumented healthcare in California is billions

over estimates--

They go on to say--

pressuring Democrats to consider cuts.

Instead of $3 billion a year, the California healthcare system costs taxpayers $9.5 billion, by providing healthcare to illegal immigrants.

California financed its healthcare for illegal immigrants through a money laundering scheme aimed at the Federal Government. They used it to increase the State's Medicaid payments from the Federal Government directly to the State of California. This is money vacuumed away from hard-working Americans and from the vulnerable people in this country, our friends and neighbors, who need Medicaid the most. What did California do with it? They used it for illegal immigrants, not for U.S. citizens.

President Joe Biden and the Democrats--they went even further. Apparently, they weren't liberal enough in doing that. Joe Biden created multiple illegal parole programs when he was President. It was a blatant attempt at amnesty by the sleight of hand. Parole is supposed to be rare, it is supposed to be temporary, and it is supposed to be case by case. And I am talking about the flood of illegal immigrants that have come into this country across our southern border. People saw them on television. Joe Biden abused Presidential parole authority and turned our law on its head.

Democrats made noncitizens who were paroled eligible for free healthcare. Look no further than the illegal immigrant who murdered 22- year-old nursing student Laken Riley in Georgia. He crossed the border illegally in 2022. The Biden administration released him into our country instead of removing him. The Biden administration paroled him for what they claimed were ``urgent humanitarian reasons of significant public benefit.'' And then he murdered a nursing student. Joe Biden made Laken Riley's killer eligible for taxpayer-funded healthcare.

Democrats even promised free healthcare as an enticement to attract illegal immigrants to our southern border. It was a magnet.

Well, Democrats have now shut down the government. Why? To defend a system where Laken Riley's killer can get taxpayer-funded, free healthcare. That is who they are. Those are their beliefs. That is their commitment--not to the American people but to the illegal immigrants.

Well, Republicans closed the loophole. Our working-families tax cuts put in place strong eligibility verification requirements. So that person can't qualify anymore or anyone like him. It also ended the gimmicks that allowed California to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants through higher Federal Medicaid payments, the way they syphon money from the Federal Government into California to pay for illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, what we have seen is that President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rightfully terminated all of these Joe Biden categorical parole programs. He should have never let them in in the first place. Now we have terminated it.

The Supreme Court was called into play in an action here. The Supreme Court upheld this decision by the Trump administration after several rounds of leftwing lawfare.

President Trump is securing our border. He is putting American citizens first, not illegal immigrants. That is the difference between our parties. Democrats want to undo all of that. That is why they are holding the Nation hostage by shutting down the government. That is what this fight is all about.

Let's be clear. By shutting down the government, Democrats are putting illegal immigrants ahead of American citizens--ahead of our veterans, ahead of our military, ahead of our seniors, ahead of our children. It is reckless, it is radical, and it is wrong. It is time for it to end.

So today, the Senate is going to vote for a fifth time on our bipartisan continuing resolution, and we want to reopen government. It passed the House with bipartisan support. The Senate this evening will have a simple choice once again: vote to reopen the government and put America first and Americans first or vote with Senator Schumer to put illegal immigrants ahead of the American people.

Voting with Chuck Schumer tonight will keep the government closed.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, it has been 1 whole week since Republicans shut down the government. So why did they close the government? Because Republicans decided they would rather shut down the entire government than lower costs and save healthcare for millions of Americans.

Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are knocking 15 million people off their health insurance, driving up the cost of healthcare for everyone else, closing rural hospitals, shutting down community health centers, and much, much more--all so that they can fund giant tax cuts for billionaires. Those are Republican priorities.

Democrats are fighting to prevent insurance premiums from doubling. We are fighting to help American families hang onto their health insurance, because no one should go bankrupt because they got sick and needed to see a doctor.

In the next few days, Americans will begin getting letters in the mail, telling them their insurance premiums are going up--way, way up. For some families, those premiums are doubling. Others will get priced out of their plans completely, leaving them with no coverage at all.

Here is what that means: Thanks to Republicans in Congress, a 60- year-old couple making $85,000 a year will have to pay more than $22,000 every year to keep their coverage--$22,000. For families already hanging on by their fingernails, that could be a matter of keeping healthcare coverage or just giving up, and that could be a matter of life and death.

I know what it is like. Growing up, there was never a time when my family didn't worry about money. My daddy ended up as a janitor. When I was 12, my daddy had a heart attack. He lost his job. The family's station wagon was repossessed, and we were about to lose our home. My mother had never worked outside the home, but that is when she put on her best dress, got herself a minimum wage job of answering phones at Sears, and saved our home and saved our family.

Our healthcare system was already broken with high premiums, insurance denials, and huge copays, and that was before Donald Trump and the Republicans decided to make the healthcare crisis so much worse.

Democrats are fighting to reverse Republicans' giant healthcare cuts and lower costs for Americans. Right now, it is only the Republicans in Congress who stand in the way. Affordable Care Act tax credits help people afford their healthcare, and they are set to expire at the end of the year. And insurance companies are resetting their rates right now--right now.

We are barreling toward a tipping point for American families. If Congress does not act, nearly 22 million Americans will see their health insurance premiums more than double on average. Democrats want to lower those costs right now. Republicans are shutting down the entire government instead of coming to the table to help American families.

An overwhelming majority of Americans wants us to extend these tax credits so that insurance premiums don't go through the roof. Even most Trump supporters agree with us on this. Donald Trump himself just said he wants to make it better. It is only Senate Republicans who are standing in the way. Senate Republicans have refused to even sit down and negotiate over healthcare cuts, even though thousands of their constituents will see their costs go way up.

For example, in Alabama, about 447,000 Americans will see their insurance premiums skyrocket. In Alaska, about 24,000 Americans will see their insurance premiums skyrocket. In Arkansas, it is about 144,000 Americans. In Florida, it is 4.4 million Americans. In Idaho, it is 101,000 Americans. In Indiana, it is 290,000 Americans. In Iowa, it is 118,000 Americans. In Kansas, it is 182,000 Americans. In Kentucky, it is 77,000 Americans. In Louisiana, it is 276,000 Americans. In Maine, it is 54,000 Americans. In Mississippi, it is 320,000 Americans. In Missouri, it is 383,000 Americans. In Montana, it is 67,000 Americans. In North Carolina, it is 888,000 Americans. In North Dakota, it is 38,000 Americans. In Ohio, it is 514,000 Americans. In Oklahoma, it is 290,000 Americans. In Pennsylvania, it is 422,000 Americans. In South Carolina, it is 588,000 Americans. In South Dakota, it is 50,000 Americans. In Tennessee, it is 593,000 Americans. In Texas, it is 3.7 million Americans; nearly 4 million Americans will see their insurance premiums skyrocket. In Utah, it is 395,000 Americans. In West Virginia, it is 63,000 Americans. In Wisconsin, it is 272,000 Americans. In Wyoming, it is 43,000 Americans.

Look, Democrats are fighting to lower costs for every single one of those Americans. Where are their Republican Senators? Those were the insurance premiums, which will cause about 5 million people to lose their coverage because they just can't afford those higher costs.

But Republicans are also cutting healthcare for another 10 million Americans. Those are seniors in nursing homes, mamas with newborn babies, and it is your neighbor who needs a wheelchair or a home health aide to be able to live independently.

Democrats have said, time and time again: If Congress is going to pass a budget for the U.S. Government, then saving healthcare for those millions of Americans has to be part of the deal. We will not stop fighting for Americans' access to their doctors and to their hospitals.

What has been the response of Donald Trump? He doesn't want to talk about healthcare. Nope. Instead, his plan is to inflict maximum pain on Americans during this Republican shutdown.

His right-hand man, Russ Vought, is shutting down important infrastructure projects as political punishment. They are threatening to fire many more Federal workers. And get this: The White House is furloughing hundreds of staffers because of the Republican shutdown, but they are keeping every single DOGE staffer on.

In total, the Trump administration is furloughing over half a million workers who work every day to keep our country running. But at least Elon Musk's pals at DOGE are safe, and that tells you everything you need to know about the Republican plans.

Look, this may feel like a surprise to millions of Americans, but the Republican attack on Americans' healthcare has been long in the making. It is exactly the shutdown playbook Donald Trump and his lackeys laid out in their Project 2025. Since day one, Trump has tried again and again and again to shut down the parts of government he just doesn't like. He has tried to illegally wipe away millions of dollars for programs that Congress had already agreed to fund. He has illegally fired tens of thousands of Federal workers. He has illegally sent our troops to invade American cities.

The response of Republicans in the Senate has been to bow down and let Donald Trump do all of that and more.

Now, during a government shutdown, the President of the United States is saying: ``A lot of good can come'' from a shutdown, and ``we can get rid of a lot of things we didn't want.''

While all of that is going on, why would Democrats sign off on a Republican budget without ironclad guarantees to make sure that Trump won't just turn around and go back on the deal and not lower costs for families? The answer is, we won't. While Senate Republicans keep taking orders from their wannabe King and drag out their government shutdown, Senate Democrats will not stop fighting to save healthcare and to lower costs for families. We want rollbacks of the Republican cuts that will take away healthcare coverage from 15 million people and drive up insurance premiums for everyone else.

This is not a partisan issue. This is not a partisan fight. Democrats are in this fight for all Americans, and we urge Senate Republicans to join us to protect healthcare coverage for millions of Americans and end this painful government shutdown.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, while I voted nay on S. Res. 412, which calls for an up or down vote on 108 nominations, en bloc, I would have voted yea on the following nominations if I had the opportunity to vote on each nomination separately:

1. Calendar Number 126: Leah Campos, of Virginia, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Dominican Republic.

2. Calendar Number 128: Joseph Popolo, of Texas, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

3. Calendar Number 158: David Fink, of New Hampshire, to be

Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration.

4. Calendar Number 265: Marc Andersen, of Virginia, to be

an Assistant Secretary of the Army.

5. Calendar Number 355: Christopher Fox, of Virginia, to be

Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Office of

the Director of National Intelligence.

6. Calendar Number 359: Macon Hughes, of Texas, to be an

Assistant Secretary of Defense.

7. Calendar Number 360: Philip Weinberg, of Virginia, to be

an Assistant Secretary of the Air Force.

8. Calendar Number 374: Arch Capito, of West Virginia, to

be United States Attorney for the Southern District of West

Virginia for the term of 4 years.

9. Calendar Number 375: David Dunavant, of Tennessee, to be

United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee

for the term of 4 years.

10. Calendar Number 376: Matthew Harvey, of West Virginia,

to be United States Attorney for the Northern District of

West Virginia for the term of 4 years.

11. Calendar Number 379: Adam Sleeper, of the Virgin

Islands, to be United States Attorney for the District of the

Virgin Islands for the term of 4 years.

12. Calendar Number 380: David Toepfer, of Ohio, to be

United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio for

the term of 4 years.

13. Calendar Number 381: Kurt Alme, of Montana, to be

United States Attorney for the District of Montana, for the

term of 4 years.

14. Calendar Number 382: Nicholas Chase, of North Dakota,

to be United States Attorney for the District of North Dakota

for the term of 4 years.

15. Calendar Number 383: Bart McKay Davis, of Idaho, to be

United States Attorney for the District of Idaho for the term

of 4 years.

16. Calendar Number 384: David Metcalf, of Pennsylvania, to

be United States Attorney for the Eastern District of

Pennsylvania for the term of 4 years.

17. Calendar Number 385: Lesley Murphy, of Nebraska, to be

United States Attorney for the District of Nebraska for the

term of 4 years.

18. Calendar Number 386: Ronald A. Parsons, Jr., of South

Dakota, to be United States Attorney for the District of

South Dakota for the term of 4 years.

19. Calendar Number 387: Kurt Wall, of Louisiana, to be

United States Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana

for the term of 4 years.

20. Calendar Number 388: David Charles Waterman, of Iowa,

to be United States Attorney for the Southern District of

Iowa for the term of 4 years.

21. Calendar Number 389: Daniel Rosen, of Florida, to be

United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota for the

term of 4 years.

22. Calendar Number 391: Somers Farkas, of New York, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Republic of Malta.

23. Calendar Number 392: Nicole McGraw, of Florida, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Republic of Croatia.

24. Calendar Number 395: Stacey Feinberg, of California, to

be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

25. Calendar Number 396: Kenneth Howery, of Texas, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Kingdom of Denmark.

26. Calendar Number 397: Richard Buchan III, of Florida, to

be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Kingdom of Morocco.

27. Calendar Number 398: Bill Bazzi, of Michigan, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Republic of Tunisia.

28. Calendar Number 400: Howard Brodie, of Florida, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Republic of Finland.

29. Calendar Number 401: Arthur Fisher, of North Carolina,

to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the

United States of America to the Republic of Austria.

30. Calendar Number 402: Melinda Hildebrand, of Texas, to

be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Republic of Costa Rica.

31. Calendar Number 403: Michel Issa, of Florida, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Lebanese Republic.

32. Calendar Number 404: Nicholas Merrick, of Texas, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Czech Republic.

33. Calendar Number 405: Roman Pipko, of Florida, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Republic of Estonia.

34. Calendar Number 408: John Giordano, of Pennsylvania, to

be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Republic of Namibia.

35. Calendar Number 411: Sean O'Neill, of Virginia, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Kingdom of Thailand.

36. Calendar Number 412: Julie Stufft, of Ohio, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Republic of Kazakhstan.

37. Calendar Number 413: Dan Negrea, of Connecticut, to be

Representative of the United States of America on the

Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, with the

rank of Ambassador, and to serve concurrently and without

additional compensation as an Alternate Representative of the

United States of America to the Sessions of the General

Assembly of the United Nations.

38. Calendar Number 414: Sergio Gor, of Florida, to be

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United

States of America to the Republic of India.

39. Calendar Number 415: Stephanie Hallett, of Florida, a

Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of

Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and

Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the

Kingdom of Bahrain.

40. Calendar Number 416: James Holtsnider, of Iowa, a

Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of

Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary

of the United States of America to the Hashemite Kingdom of

Jordan.

41. Calendar Number 417: Jacob Helberg, of Florida, to be

an Under Secretary of State (Economic Growth, Energy, and the

Environment).

42. Calendar Number 418: Benjamin Black, of New York, to be

Chief Executive Officer of the United States International

Development Finance Corporation.

43. Calendar Number 419: Thomas DiNanno, of Florida, to be

Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International

Security.

44. Calendar Number 424: Michael DeSombre, of Illinois, to

be an Assistant Secretary of State (East Asian and Pacific

Affairs).

45. Calendar Number 427: Todd Wilcox, of Florida, to be an

Assistant Secretary of State (Diplomatic Security).

46. Calendar Number 428: Neil Jacobs, of North Carolina, to

be Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere.

Mr. President, the story of America is the story of a people that looked upon the West and saw promise. Where others saw wilderness, Americans saw a future. They dammed rivers that had flowed ungoverned since creation, mined mountains that had defied the reach of man, and turned harsh plains into fields that would feed a continent. From that audacity came a republic that could feed itself, power itself, and then, when tested, defend itself.

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act--known commonly as FLPMA-- enshrined this principle of multiple use and sustained yield for Federal lands. It codified the promise that the land belongs to the people and ought therefore to serve them. Its promise was plural: energy, grazing, recreation, timber conservation--each coexisting with the others in balanced and productive harmony. The law does not permit Federal officials to choose one purpose to the exclusion of all the rest. It demands balance, and it demands use in particular.

But the Biden administration's clerics of the green new scam disregarded that agreement struck nearly half a century ago. They preferred a museum to a nation, an America under glass, admired but untouchable. Under their edicts, vast stretches of land--millions upon millions of acres--have been sealed off from the citizens who built their livelihoods upon them. In Montana, North Dakota, and Alaska, communities that have mined, grazed, and worked for generations are now treated as trespassers in their own story. Their supposed crime is self-reliance--hardly something we should be seeking to punish. Their punishment is unemployment.

The Senate now faces three resolutions that would help restore the balance. Each disapproves of a Biden administration decision that violated the multiple-use mandate of FLPMA and locked away public land from productive Americans, contrary to FLPMA's promise.

In Montana, for example, the Miles City Resource Management Plan barred future coal leasing across nearly 2 million acres, erasing access to 338 million tons of clean domestic coal. In North Dakota, more than 4 million acres of Federal coal reserves were closed--nearly 99 percent of the reserves available in that State. In Alaska, the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan imposed new restrictions on 56 million acres of land, including millions of acres newly labeled as ``areas of critical environmental concern''--one of the great trick plays used by the left in order to bring about de facto wilderness or de facto monument designations without actually having to go through the process that the relevant laws would require.

Joe Biden's bureaucrats wrote over the voices of those who actually live near that land and live with the consequences of these bad decisions, and the results were predictable: higher costs, lost jobs, and deeper dependence on nations that, to put it mildly, do not wish us well.

Every shuttered mine, every idled rig is an act of self-imposed amnesia--a willful type of forgetting of what made America both prosperous and free.

Now, luckily, President Trump and Secretary Burgum are correcting that course. They are returning resource management plans to their proper role under the law; that is, to manage the land responsibly and keep it working for the American people, the intended beneficiaries of those lands.

The Congressional Review Act allows us, mercifully, to repeal these unlawful plans and restore the statutory balance Congress intended and Congress, in fact, created with the Congressional Review Act.

When these resolutions of disapproval take effect, after they have been passed and signed into law by President Trump, the Bureau of Land Management will still have the necessary environmental analysis to issue new resource management plans that are consistent with the law and the clear intent of Congress--plans that open access where it was previously closed, respect local voices that were previously ignored, and bring Federal management back within its legal bounds. That is how the process should work. That is how it is supposed to work. Under the law as written, it is how it does work.

It is, at least, how it always should have worked but didn't work under the Biden administration, like so many other things.

Now Republicans are defending the right of a free people here--the right of a free people to power their own future, to determine their own course. Democrats are still genuflecting before the alter of the green new scam, clinging to their faith and their false hope that if only Americans grow poorer, the planet will somehow grow purer.

In that same spirit of self-righteous delusion, this week, Democrats are yet again bringing forth a measure to denounce President Trump for declaring an energy emergency. It is a gesture so

unserious, it would be comical if it weren't so dangerous.

At the very moment when the world is entering an energy race that will decide who commands the engines of artificial intelligence and all that goes along with it, who manufactures the tools of war, and who will feed and defend their people, Democrats have instead chosen to strike a pose. They are congratulating themselves for denying the existence of the fire while standing in the smoke and holding the matches. Theirs is the politics of aesthetic virtue: better to be cold and appear righteous than to be warm and competent.

But the American people fortunately are not fools. They understand that we can no longer afford to pad the pockets of Democratic allies propping up unreliable industries that cannot--no matter how hard Democrats wish it were otherwise--cannot keep the lights on, while punishing the workers and the communities that can and will if only we will allow it without undue interference from the U.S. Government.

These resolutions to overturn the reckless Biden-era land plans are part of that larger defense. They would restore lawful management of public lands, honor the voices of those who live nearest to them and are therefore most directly affected by them, and keep faith with the law Congress enacted.

Nations that lose their memory soon lose their nerve. The same spirit that split the Rockies and bridged the Golden Gate cannot be reconciled with a bureaucracy that measures virtue by paralysis.

America, in short, was not built by those who made idols of the land but by those who worked it and in so doing, ennobled both themselves and it.

We cannot continue to bow to the Ashtoreth of climate alarmism and bow to the Moloch of ecoterrorism and pretend that is going to work out well for America. Americans know better.

Rewinding these management plans will not desecrate the environment-- far from it--but they will deliver it from an orthodoxy that mistakes idleness for piety, reminding us that liberty, like the land itself, withers when left untouched.

It is therefore with all the energy and enthusiasm that I am capable of communicating that I invite my colleagues to do the right thing--to vote for these resolutions of disapproval and to right the gross wrong that has been inflicted on the American people, particularly Americans in and around the States affected by these ill-designed, ill-conceived resource management plans.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, today is the sixth day--the sixth day--of Donald Trump's government shutdown. Senate Democrats returned to Washington ready to negotiate. We are ready to work with Republicans to reopen the government and end the healthcare crisis that faces tens of millions of Americans.

But it takes two sides to have a negotiation. We need the Senate Republicans and the House Republicans and the President to come to the table. And, meanwhile, Donald Trump and Speaker Johnson seem to be on another planet.

Instead of trying to solve this shutdown crisis, Donald Trump spent the weekend golfing and posting memes and deepfakes on the internet. He seems to think this shutdown is some big joke.

He is wrong. People will lose their paychecks; seniors will see Social Security support services slow down; there will be chaos for travelers. This shutdown is all on Donald Trump's shoulders, and Americans agree, according to the polls.

Poll after poll after poll, from CBS to the Washington Post, to Marist, to Morning Consult, and many others, consistently showed that the public sees the President as most responsible for the shutdown. He is in charge. His party holds majorities across the government.

So Americans naturally and correctly believe the burden is on him to fix this mess. Speaker Johnson, meanwhile, has canceled yet another week of session for the House. Why? Because the Speaker knows House Republicans are bitterly divided on healthcare. He knows a large chunk of his conference doesn't want to fix people's premiums at all--the rightwing MAGA folks.

Meanwhile, some of his less-extreme Members feel a necessity to fix this mess. The Speaker knows these divisions in his conference are serious and deep.

So what does the Speaker do with these divisions in his conference, almost irreconcilable? He ducks. He chooses the politically expedient way out. He keeps the Congress out of session for weeks at a time, passes to the Senate a partisan bill with no Democratic input.

That is not leadership. That is derelict.

Even today, the Speaker said that we can deal with the ACA crisis sometime later. He said: Wait, kick the can down the road, to postpone any negotiation until the very last minute.

Speaker Johnson--I ask him the question--why the wait? Why not solve this crisis now?

If you are not ready to solve it now, how do we know you are going to solve it 45 days from now, when you won't even do it now, and the same reasons that hold you back now will exist then?

Insurers are waiting around to set rates for next year. They are doing it right now, not 3 months from now.

Delay has always been Speaker Johnson's MO. Speaker Johnson has survived by kicking the can down the road on every major issue under his speakership, promising everyone that the thing they wanted is just around the corner.

He did it repeatedly with the Freedom Caucus, for instance, and he is doing the same thing now with healthcare. If Speaker Johnson is serious about lowering costs and protecting the healthcare of the American people, why wait?

Most of America, when Johnson says ``later,'' they know he means ``never.''

Democrats want to deal with the healthcare problem now. A recent poll by KFF shows that 80 percent of Americans want to extend the ACA tax credits, including 60 percent of MAGA Republicans. That is where the people are.

A CBS poll also found that 75 percent of Americans don't think the administration is focused enough on lowering costs.

Well, lowering healthcare premiums would be one of the very best ways to lower costs because those costs are going through the roof. Many estimates show the average American will pay a thousand dollars more for healthcare.

Listen to this. If you are a 55-year-old couple who makes $80,000 a year, your premiums could go up $25,000 a year. How is anyone going to deal with that issue? Why is Johnson waiting?

But yet again, Speaker Johnson and MAGA Republicans continue to lie and change the subject. Donald Trump does the same thing. The Speaker today, once again, lied--that the Democrats' proposal would provide healthcare benefits to undocumented immigrants. He even cited page number and section within our proposal that he says supposedly proves the point.

Of course, our proposal doesn't say that, as the Sunday show talk commentators Johnson sat down with this weekend pointed out, and he had no real rebuttal. Saying that the Democrats' proposal provides health insurance to undocumented immigrants is, plain and simple, a blatant lie. It was a lie yesterday. It is a lie today. It will be a lie tomorrow.

Nothing in our proposal, not even the page the Speaker keeps citing, changes that, as fact-checkers have repeatedly pointed out--independent fact-checkers, not Democrats, not Republicans, just experts.

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid, Medicare, or ACA credits under current law or under the Democratic continuing resolution proposal. It has been the law for decades.

Instead, here is what Democrats want to do. We want to reverse the devastating cuts to American healthcare that Republicans passed in their ``Big Ugly Bill.'' We want to extend the ACA tax credits that lower costs for eligible Americans. These are the plain facts.

But Speaker Johnson and Republicans don't want to deal with the facts. They don't want to talk about healthcare because they know the American people are appalled by their healthcare policies. So, instead, they lie and change the subject. And Speaker Johnson and the House Republicans would rather duck out of town than come into session and do their jobs.

You know, when Leader Jeffries and I met with the President, he, of all people, seemed to at least somewhat appreciate the immense harm of letting these ACA credits expire. Of course, we had to walk the President through it first because it seemed he had no clue of the crisis before our meeting.

But, frankly, what should happen now is this. The President should lean on Speaker Johnson to relent on his extreme refusal to negotiate. It is not a sustainable position for the Speaker to literally shut the entire House down and not do anything to solve this crisis.

Again, why wait? Democrats are ready to solve this now. We urge Donald Trump to get Speaker Johnson and our Republican colleagues to come to the table with Leader Jeffries and me to negotiate and address this problem and fix it once and for all.

I yield the floor.