Floor Statements

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 3109 to

amendment No. 3748 and ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, back in May, President Trump accepted the largest foreign gift to an American President in modern history--a $400 million luxury Boeing 747 for use as Air Force One.

It is outrageous that President Trump wants to fly around the world like a King while Americans are getting hammered by tariffs and paying more for healthcare, groceries, rent, and electricity.

Some say that this plane was gifted and that it didn't cost the United States anything, but make no mistake about it, merely retrofitting this foreign-owned luxury jet to make it fully operational will cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

That is money that shouldn't be wasted, so, today, I have an amendment that will make sure not a penny of taxpayer dollars provided in this NDAA will go to any remodeling or maintenance of the President's foreign-owned Air Force One.

It would prohibit funds authorized by this bill from being diverted for procurement, modification, restoration, or maintenance of an aircraft previously owned by a foreign government for the purpose of providing a Presidential airlift, and it would ensure the security and continued reliability of the Air Force One fleet.

Republicans like to talk about eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. Spending even a penny of taxpayer dollars on retrofitting this luxury is about as wasteful--as wasteful--as it gets.

I urge my Republican colleagues who care about spending taxpayer dollars responsibly to support this amendment.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, it has now been a full week--a whole week--of Donald Trump's government shutdown, and the country is feeling the sting of Republican intransigence. Over 700,000 Federal employees have been furloughed. Services are being disrupted. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that businesses nationwide with government contracts are in peril.

The Republican-manufactured disaster did not need to happen. The government is shut down for one reason and one reason only: Donald Trump and the Republicans would rather kick 15 million people off health insurance, would rather raise premiums by thousands and thousands of dollars a year on tens of millions of Americans, rather than sit down and work with Democrats on fixing healthcare.

That is the reason. They would rather kick tens of millions off healthcare than sit down with us and work with us in addressing this so important issue--so important to the American people.

Now, Americans are frustrated. The cost of living continues to go up. Donald Trump's tariffs have sent grocery prices spiking. It is even more expensive now to buy a cup of coffee, the first thing many people drink in the morning. They are going to see Trump's tariffs hurting them.

People are worried about paying more on their electricity bill. Forty-one States have seen increased prices. Why? Because in their mania of hating clean energy, they cut out so much of wind and solar, solar being the cheapest form of new energy to go on the grid.

Americans are pessimistic that any of this is going to get any better, and they blame President Trump and the Republicans. A CBS poll from a few days ago found that 75 percent of Americans don't think the administration--the Trump administration--is focusing enough on lowering costs. Fixing healthcare would be at the top of the list for lowering costs for people.

Now, Democrats want to reopen the government right away. We want to have a serious negotiation to fix healthcare so that people can see their costs go down. And we can do both: fix healthcare and reopen the government. This is not an either-or thing, which Republicans are making it, and the American people don't like it.

Democrats have been consistent. Our position remains the same. We have been saying it for months: Republicans are shutting down the government because they refuse to address the crisis in American healthcare.

One sentence sums it all up: Republicans are shutting down the government because they refuse to fix and address the crisis in American healthcare.

Now, our Republican colleagues, being against public sentiment, are flailing. On the one hand, it is starting to sink in for Republicans that their position of not fixing healthcare is untenable in the eyes of the American people.

As President Lincoln said, ``Public sentiment is everything.''

Well, public sentiment is building on fixing healthcare. It is high already. It is getting higher every day, and it is not going to recede. It is getting even stronger.

Republicans refuse to acknowledge that public sentiment is not on the side of Trump and Johnson. And Johnson has become the No. 1 roadblock to ending a shutdown.

He sent everyone home for 3 weeks now. If you care about fixing the crisis, if you care about reopening the government, how the hell do you keep your House not in session for 3 weeks?

And now their buddy Johnson himself is feeling the heat. At first, he and his caucus were telling Republicans in the House: Don't talk about healthcare. They knew the American people were against what they thought. Johnson's leadership team explicitly told Members in a memo not to mention healthcare when talking about the shutdown.

Of course, that didn't work because the public knows, overwhelmingly, that we need lower healthcare premiums and that is what Democrats are fighting for and that is what is preventing the Republicans from coming to the table. They don't want to fix it. That is why they are causing the shutdown.

So feeling the heat, Speaker Johnson held a press conference yesterday and said perhaps one of the most ridiculous things I have heard from Republicans in a long time. He said: ``Let me look right under the camera,'' said Johnson, ``and [I will] tell you very clearly: Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare.''

As he did it, he couldn't look right into the camera. Deep in his subconscious, he knew he wasn't telling the truth. What he said was nonsense. He couldn't even look in the camera when he said this because he knows the American people don't buy what he is saying.

Republicans are the ones who cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid, who tried to repeal the ACA. Three times we asked them to vote to sustain it after the new year. Three times they voted it down.

So that is first.

Second, Donald Trump is making all these terrible threats led by the evil Mr. Vought. Trump is saying, he is going to fire people en masse, saying that Federal workers don't even deserve backpay, even though he signed the law guaranteeing backpay in 2019.

Again, they are threatening. They are bludgeoning. They are using the American people, government workers, as pawns. But these kinds of tactics from the administration are backfiring. Americans don't like being used as pawns. Even if they are not one subject to being held hostage, they don't like watching it happen.

The American people know clearly that it is Republicans who are in charge. Republicans have the White House. They control the House and the Senate. So when people are laid off, when people are not paid, when people are not getting backpay, they know it is the Republicans trying to do it, even though they are using it to try and bully us.

It is not Democrats who are threatening to fire people or threatening to withhold backpay. It is the Republican side, Donald Trump, saying all this, and the American people know it and will blame them for these mass firings and chaos.

The data is very clear that trying to use the public as political pawns will backfire for Republicans, and plenty of Republicans in Congress know this. That is why, behind closed doors, some Republicans are praying the administration tones down its threats because these mean-spirited tactics by Russell Vought aren't going to win in the court of public opinion or the hearts and minds of Americans.

Look, Republicans are tripping over themselves because they are divided on the core issue: fixing people's healthcare.

When someone on the hard right--the hard, hard right--Marjorie Taylor Greene, openly says Republican leaders are wrong and that we need to fix the premiums, that is how you know how deeply Republicans are split.

Let me read what she said. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene, not Chuck Schumer:

I'm going to go against everyone on this issue--

Healthcare that is--

because when tax credits expire this year my own adult

children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE,

along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people

in my district.

More Republicans should listen to her because on this issue, she is right on the money. Meanwhile, Democrats' position hasn't changed. We urge our Republican colleagues to join us in serious negotiation to reopen the government and extend ACA premiums. It is the right thing to do for the American people, and by doing it, we will be able to quickly reopen the government before any more serious damage is done by the Republicans to our country.

Nomination of Jennifer Lee Mascott

Mr. President, finally, on nominations, today, the Senate will vote to advance the nomination of Jennifer Mascott of Maryland to be a circuit court judge for the Third Circuit. I will oppose Mascott's nomination because she does not seem to have any other qualification for the job other than this: She is a career loyalist and sycophant to Donald Trump.

She has no connections to the Third Circuit. She has never lived in Delaware. She is not even licensed to practice law in Delaware. In fact, her only link to the State is a beachside summer home.

If you look at Mascott's resume, the only time she has ever really practiced law is the 2 years she worked in Trump's Department of Justice. That is it, and you are putting her on the circuit court, one of the most important courts in the country?

Well, the only reason Donald Trump is putting Mascott on the bench is because he thinks she will do whatever he wants from the bench. She will be a total, total Trump sycophant--not look at the law, not look at the facts, just look at Donald Trump and see which way he is nodding and follow it.

This nominee is another troubling example of the ``Trumpification'' of the Federal bench, where loyalists replace jurists and obeisance to Trump matters more than adherence to the law or precedent or even the Constitution.

It is just like what we saw yesterday in the Judiciary Committee.

Pam Bondi exposed herself as woefully unqualified to be Attorney General but a supremely obeisant Trump deputy is what she is instead. She spent her time dodging questions, hurling insults, and, most importantly for Donald Trump, defending the President's interests more than anything else, even if the law or the facts or the truth pointed strongly in the other direction.

This troubling pattern of obeisance above all in our judiciary system is dangerous and troubling. So I will oppose today's nominee and urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to the motion to reconsider the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 2882.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 2882.

I yield the floor.

Cloture Motion

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

Mr. President, well, unfortunately, it is a sad day. Today marks 2 years since Hamas's horrific, brutal, terrorist attack on Israel--a day of inextinguishable grief, the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. No matter how much time passes, I will always remember October 7 as if it were yesterday.

On October 7, I was in Beijing, leading a bipartisan delegation in China, meeting with President Xi about opening up Chinese markets to U.S. companies, when I first learned of the attack. I will never forget the story. The Israeli Ambassador to China came and told me what happened in Israel and talked about what happened at the Kibbutz Be'eri, where Hamas gathered children, grandparents, mothers, and babies into one community center and gunned them all down.

It reminded me of the story of my grandmother in Chortkiv, in western Ukraine, in 1941, when the Nazis came to her home and asked her to gather her greater family on the porch. About 35 people gathered, from ages 80 to 3 months.

The Nazis said: You are coming with us.

She said: We are not moving.

They gunned them all down--machine-gunned them all down. So the story of Be'eri was eerily reminiscent.

After hearing of the attack, I cut my trip to China short, as important as it was, and got on a plane to Israel as soon as I could. I told the Israeli people, during these troubled times, that the American people were with them.

What I saw in Israel, in the aftermath of the attack, shook me to my core. I met with families whose loved ones were killed, injured, and a woman telling us she was waving good-bye to her son, 12 years old, who was kidnapped and on a motorcycle with a Hamas thug. I will never forget those meetings. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.

The world must never--never--forget the horrors that Hamas inflicted on them that day. The brutality and viciousness of Hamas's attacks-- indiscriminate violence against innocent infants, young people at a concert, women, the elderly; sexual violence--taking hundreds of hostages, will remain ever present in my mind and in the minds of the conscience of the world.

Today, we remember the victims of the October 7 attacks--may their memories be a blessing--and we reaffirm our commitment to finally bring home all the hostages still held so cruelly by Hamas, vicious organization that it is.

Two years later, 48 hostages remain in Hamas's captivity, including the remains of two New Yorkers, Omer Neutra and Itay Chen. Every day that these hostages remain in captivity, every day their families are denied full closure and burial of their loved ones is a day too long. We remain committed to bringing the hostages home as soon as possible.

At this crucial moment in negotiations, the Trump administration and all those at the table and the international community must do everything--everything--to finally secure a cease-fire and hostage agreement to end the war in Gaza and to bring the hostages held by Hamas home, and to surge desperately needed humanitarian relief to innocent Palestinians facing heartbreaking levels of hunger and devastation in Gaza, and, finally, to build an enduring and lasting peace.

It is imperative that all parties involved do everything possible to secure this desperately needed agreement.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 167, S. 2882.

I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I withdraw my motion to proceed.

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.

Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the cloture vote for the motion to proceed to S. 2882, Calendar No. 167.

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

Mr. President, well, it is day 3 of the Trump shutdown, and the government remains closed because Donald Trump and Republicans insist on raising Americans' healthcare premiums and kicking millions off their insurance.

Sending premiums skyrocketing, as Republicans insist, is fundamentally unsustainable. The American people overwhelmingly support affordable healthcare. Seventy percent of Americans support extending the ACA premium tax credits according to a poll released yesterday by the Washington Post, and another poll by KFF yesterday found that nearly 80 percent support an extension. Guess what. Even a majority of Trump supporters support an extension. Even a majority of Trump supporters--nearly 60 percent--support an extension.

You don't need the polls. Just go into a barbershop. Just go into a diner. Just go into a supermarket and ask people. People are learning about this issue, and they are aghast that their premiums could go up so much. They are aghast that our Republican colleagues don't even want to fix it when it affects so many tens of millions of people and the amount that it goes up is so high--so high. It is not difficult. We know Americans want this, and we know many of my Republican colleagues want this as well.

Failure to act would be devastating, and Republicans know it. Even Donald Trump knows it. He talked about it a little bit with us in the White House when we went a few days back.

If we don't act now, then at least 22 million people will see their healthcare premiums double--double--on average. But for many people, it is even worse than that. If these ACA premium tax credits aren't extended, the average 55-year-old couple making $85,000 a year would see their premiums not just double but triple--$25,000 a year. How does a senior citizen--even one who has a little bit of savings and a little bit of a cushion--afford $25,000 a year?

So that is all Democrats want to fix. We are on the side of the people. People know it and want it and need it. It is not complicated. Americans want it. Republican voters want it.

Democrats remain ready and willing to work with the other side. We are ready to work on a path forward to lower healthcare costs for the American people and fund the Federal Government.

I yield to the floor.

I move to proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2882.

I move to reconsider the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2882.

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 167, S. 2882.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

I withdraw my motion to proceed.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today is October 1, the first full day of Donald Trump's government shutdown. Donald Trump and Republicans have barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect Americans' healthcare.

It is clear that the way out of this shutdown is to sit down and negotiate with Democrats, to address the looming healthcare crisis that faces tens of millions of American families. Democrats want to avert this crisis, but Republicans tried to bully us, and it is clear they can't. They don't have the votes. The way out of this is for Republicans to finally roll up their sleeves and get to work. Republicans need to get serious and start actually addressing the looming crisis and reopen the government.

Now, why has all of this happened? Why are we here on October 1? Because Republicans have tried to stick us with a partisan CR that fails to protect Americans' healthcare and does nothing--nothing--to fix the healthcare mess that they created. It has now failed twice to get enough votes in this Chamber. So Republicans need to negotiate with us, and Speaker Johnson has to get his people here. If anyone wanted evidence as to who wanted this shutdown, just look at the fact that Johnson does not even have the House in session.

When Democrats had the White House, the Senate, and the House, when Democrats had the majority in this Chamber, when I was majority leader, we never had one shutdown in 4 years--not one. Do you know why? Because we worked with our Republican colleagues to find a way to keep the government funded. We did this 13 times, as Leader Thune likes to remind everyone. That is a lot of bipartisan negotiation--but not this time, not so today. Republicans need to negotiate.

Today is October 1, and that means something else is happening today. Americans throughout the country are opening their mailboxes and finding letters in there telling them that their health insurance is about to go way, way, way up. The other day, we thought it was about $400 a month that the average American family would pay more in insurance premiums, but it turns out it is even worse than that. The Kaiser report--the nonpartisan, well-respected Kaiser report--from yesterday, says it is an average of $1,000 a month and, God forbid, even much more for so many Americans. Healthcare premiums, because of what the Republicans have done, are going up 114 percent a year, on average. The average premium is going to more than double.

What is the average American family supposed to do with that? What happens on Friday night when the family sits around the kitchen table and says, ``How are we going to pay the bills?'' when they see that their insurance could be $1,000 more a month--health insurance, vital to the parents and to the children of the family. What are they going to do? The average American can't afford $1,000 a month or even $400 a month without cutting back on their healthcare or cutting back on something else that is vital.

You know, Americans are saying the No. 1 issue is cost. They now rate Donald Trump worse on costs than they rated Joe Biden, and he didn't have very good ratings. It is the tariffs. It is the change in electricity costs because of what they have done with the cheapest and cleanest source of energy putting electrons on the grid, which is solar. They got rid of it, in their fanatical hatred of clean energy. Now, they are putting money into coal. It is incredible--because of the costs of groceries, of meat.

But the No. 1 increase in cost now, on October 1, is healthcare costs. And the average American is going to say: What the heck happened here? And we Democrats are going to be there every day, every hour-- Senate, House, groups that care about healthcare: hospital groups, healthcare groups, research groups--letting them know this didn't have to happen. It happened because our Republican colleagues wanted to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut their healthcare. It is incredible. It is incredible.

Three times we asked our Republican colleagues to extend the ACA tax credit. Three times they voted no. Well, it is not too late. They could change. When I met with the President, he seemed not to know the magnitude of the crisis. He said: Ooh, this is going to hurt me.

Well, it sure will. But it is going to hurt every American.

What is motivating Democrats--what is motivating me--is simply to take this burden off the shoulders of tens of millions of American families who struggle each week to pay the bills, and they don't need this huge increase in something as vital as health insurance.

And the Republicans sort of know this. So what do they do? They make up lies, absolute lies. They say, oh, what they are fighting to do is prevent--they say--illegal immigrants from getting Federal healthcare dollars.

That is a damn lie. Not one dollar of Medicare, Medicaid, or ACA is allowed to go to undocumented immigrants--not a dollar.

So why do they keep saying this? This seems to be their theme. Because they are afraid to talk about the real issues. Typical Republican response: Have a diversion; try to scare people emotionally.

But I will tell you, to the average American family, that $1,000-a- month increase or that $400-a-month increase on their healthcare bills means a lot more than political crap put in the air--lies--by our Republican colleagues.

So I was very glad this morning that some of the commentators on TV said that. When they say that undocumented immigrants are going to get this money, it is a lie, plain and simple. It is a lie so lazy and so outlandish that it is easy to rebut. But again, let me be clear: Undocumented people cannot and will not receive premium tax credit by law. The Federal Government does not fund Federal health insurance for undocumented immigrants in Medicaid or Medicare--period, full stop.

So they don't care. Why? Because they know the American people are on our side, and they know they are going to get angrier and angrier starting today, when they see these healthcare bills.

Listen to this poll. The Kaiser Family Foundation poll found a whopping 75 percent of Americans support extending the ACA premium tax credit, including 63 percent of Republicans. When our Republican Senate and House colleagues go around their communities--of course, the House isn't even here this week, as I mentioned--they are going to hear it in the barbershops and in the restaurants and at the diners and at the Little Leagues and at the veterans halls, because it is so shocking, and people are going to be talking about it. They will see.

And we Democrats are going to be there relentlessly, letting people know why it happened: because our Republican colleagues did not want to help us out of this crisis. Instead, they wanted to give the dollars to billionaires.

President Trump calls what the Democrats want radical.

President Trump, it is not radical to say Americans deserve lower healthcare premiums. It is not radical to say we want to prevent the average American family from getting these huge increases--those on ACA--$1,000 a month.

When Democrats say we want to work with Republicans to lower premiums, to strengthen healthcare, all we are doing is reflecting what the American people already want--nothing more, nothing less. They want us to sit down and negotiate something real that takes this huge, huge burden off their shoulders.

And Donald Trump, instead of acting like an adult--he is the most immature President we have ever had--instead of doing something to stop the healthcare crisis, is threatening to hurt countless hard-working Americans.

Let me repeat the quote Donald Trump said yesterday:

We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible,

that are bad for them and irreversible. Like cutting vast

numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting

programs that they like.

Donald Trump says it loud and clear; that is one thing about him. He is using the American people as pawns, threatening pain on the country as blackmail.

Well, that is not going to work. For the American people, it is so easy to see through those tactics. They know this is the Trump shutdown. They know Republicans control the Presidency, the Senate, and the House and what is done during a shutdown will fall squarely on Republicans' backs. Donald Trump even says it. He says he is going to close down all these things people want.

It is going to fall right on his back. The American people will know who is doing it, and he is going to have to recoil from it--just as they have done so many cuts already, even before October 1. And they had to back off on many of them, some because of the courts but some because of public outcry, such as the huge cutbacks they made in the

Mr. President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2882.

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

credits of the ACA. We saw them use rescissions, pocket rescissions, impoundments, to undo what was done in the legislative process.

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 job of a leader--

--is a bipartisan negotiation. And the appropriators, which he will say are discussing things--but the two issues we care about--

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.

Would the speaker yield? Would the leader yield?

It was not. It was not an entirely different issue.

Thank you.

Now reclaiming my time--

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.