Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Hawley).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, yesterday, the Senate took a major step forward on the path to reopening the government.

The bill before us is simple. It is clean. It is bipartisan. It is a continuing resolution, and it funds the government through January. It is paired with three full-year appropriations bills.

So let me repeat that: appropriations bills for the full next year.

Now, these are bills that have already passed the Senate with bipartisan support--broad bipartisan support, I would add--and they were negotiated on a bipartisan basis with the House.

They are fully funded in terms of veterans' care, and this is critical. Tomorrow is Veterans Day. Our veterans need to know that we stand behind them.

It is also fully funded on food assistance: SNAP and Women, Infants, and Children.

That is what we are debating here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I believe it is reasonable, it is responsible, and it is ready to go.

Let's remember that this shutdown has caused serious pain to many, many American families. People have stood in line around the block at food banks all across the country, and that is because 42 million Americans missed their SNAP payments.

Flights were delayed and canceled because control towers are understaffed. People there working are overworked. TSA agents and air traffic controllers have been working for the last 6 weeks without getting paid.

Yesterday, there were 2,300 flight cancellations. It looks like it may be even more than that today. Yesterday was one of the worst travel days in the last 2 years, and today may be worse.

This shutdown has hurt our economy, and it has hurt our country.

The government is finally on the path to reopening. It is the right result. This is what the American people need. They need certainty, and opening the government provides that level of certainty that the American people want, especially heading into the holidays.

I want to thank President Trump. I want to thank my colleagues in the Senate on both sides of the aisle who voted to support that.

The President stood strong when Chuck Schumer stood here and demanded that tens of billions of dollars be sent from the Federal Treasury directly to the bank accounts of health insurance companies. President Trump's leadership protected taxpayers and continues to protect the country.

Let's be clear about what comes next. The Senate is going to use the next few months to pass the additional appropriations bills that will completely fund the government for a full year.

There is a pressing need to strengthen our economy, to secure our border, to invest in our military, to promote fiscal responsibility, and we have to do that after 4 years of high prices and an open border. That is what Republicans in this body and across the hall are fighting for.

Let's be clear. Republicans are making the appropriations process work again. Last year, Senator Schumer refused to bring a single appropriations bill to the floor even though the appropriations committees passed out bipartisan, many times unanimous appropriations bills. Yet the minority leader refused to bring them to the floor. That is no way to run the government. That is no way to run the Senate. That is not leadership.

The debate ahead is also about the many failures of the Obama healthcare law known as ObamaCare. This is a debate Republicans welcome. Healthcare in American is broken and is unaffordable, and it broke the day they passed ObamaCare. Costs have exploded. ObamaCare premiums have gone up 221 percent. That is what has happened since the law passed.

You recall President Obama at the time said that premiums for families would go down by $2,500. It was all wrong. Democrats have no answer for that other than more direct subsidies directly from the Federal Government directly into the bank accounts of the insurance companies. Republicans believe Americans deserve high-quality, affordable healthcare. Americans haven't gotten that since the day ObamaCare became law.

It is time to reopen the government because Americans have waited and suffered too long.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I yield back all debate time.

I yield back all debate time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess until 6 p.m.

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

Mr. President, yesterday, Chuck Schumer, minority leader of the U.S. Senate, came to the floor with his most recent ransom note. Of course, it wasn't serious. It was dead on arrival.

Senator Schumer is demanding that the U.S. Government send a check directly to the insurance companies of America to the tune of tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars, right from the government, mainlined and into the bank accounts of the insurance companies of America.

Chuck Schumer actually cuts the people--the American people, the taxpayers--out of the process. The people who are waiting for food, the people who are waiting for paychecks, the people who are protecting us--it cuts them out completely. Nope. Direct money--Chuck Schumer, U.S. Government--into the bank accounts of the insurance companies of America.

Think about it. Direct payment, U.S. Government to U.S. insurance companies, with the American people having absolutely no say in how that money is spent. That is what Chuck Schumer wants. No accountability.

What he said is that if the Republicans will not send that $30 billion to insurance companies--and it may be more than that, actually, if you do all the calculations--the Democrats are ready to keep the government closed. No paychecks. No food stamps. No military getting paid. Nothing.

This is a true reflection of the failure of ObamaCare. Since ObamaCare was passed by Democrats--and not a single Republican voted for it in the House or the Senate; Democrats alone--the cost of healthcare in this country has skyrocketed. Do you know what? So have the stock prices of the insurance companies.

The average ObamaCare premium has gone up by 221 percent since ObamaCare passed. Remember when President Obama said that ObamaCare would actually bring down prices? He said premiums would decrease by $2,500 apiece. It was a direct lie to the American people, and I believe Barack Obama knew it. He didn't seem to care. He was going to do anything he could to get a bill passed that was named after him.

At the same time, since ObamaCare became law, the stock prices of U.S. insurance companies have gone way up--some by 500 percent, some by 1,000 percent--because the money goes directly from the Federal Government into the insurance companies' pockets.

What do Senate Democrats and Chuck Schumer, who have held this country hostage now for well over a month, well over 5 weeks, what do they want to do? They want to just send them more money for 1 more year. Let's just send them all the checks again for 1 more year.

Republicans believe that taxpayer dollars should go directly to the people who are making their own decisions about healthcare for their families, not the insurance companies. Let the American people decide what works for them and their families.

Remember, it was the Democrats who broke healthcare in this country. They broke it the very day they passed ObamaCare.

You know, recently, the liberal New York Times stated the obvious. This is from a headline Sunday, a week and a half ago: ObamaCare is pricey. Right there, headline, top of the page: ObamaCare is pricey.

I am a doctor. I practiced medicine for 24 years in my home State of Wyoming, chief of staff of the Wyoming Medical Center in Casper, president of the State medical society. I will tell you exactly what ObamaCare is. It is a failure. It is broken. It is unaffordable. The American people know that.

Chuck Schumer and the Democrats want to send another $30 billion or more to the insurance companies for the whole next year. This is a disgrace. It is not just a mistake--a disgrace.

You know, there are Democrats who realize that ObamaCare is a failure, failed to lower the cost of care, because just this week on this very floor, Senator Peter Welch of Vermont admitted that Democrats ``did fail to bring down the cost of healthcare.'' You better believe they failed. We have been saying that for years.

It is good to be here on the floor of the Senate with another physician who

knows all of the same things I know. He is going to speak about this as well.

My question is, Why are Senator Welch's Democrat colleagues holding our entire country hostage to double down on a program that they know is continuing to fail? It has failed, it continues to fail, and they want to send more money. Why are Senator Welch's Democrat colleagues holding the entire country hostage to double down on a law that has failed the Nation with regard to our healthcare?

From the start, Democrats started to realize it because they needed to paper over the terrible cost overruns they saw with ObamaCare, and they did it with juicy, permanent subsidies.

When Joe Biden became President, Democrats said: Oh, it is getting worse. We better put additional subsidies on top of the already juicy subsidies that were there just to try to prop it up.

They did it to further hide the failures of ObamaCare.

The end of the Biden COVID bonus payments--as I like to refer to these new, juicy subsidies, the add-on subsidies--only about 4 percent of next year's projected 20 percent premium spike comes from that. And what do we see? We see these new subsidies. They didn't lower premiums. They continued to try to hide the real cost of the premiums. They shift the costs. And who do they shift them to? They dump it on the taxpayers.

That is what Chuck Schumer is trying to do today--dump it onto the taxpayers and send more money directly to the insurance companies, keeping the American people out of the equation completely.

Today, taxpayers are paying 93 percent of the cost of ObamaCare premiums. This is a dramatic escalation from years before. What did all of this extra spending by the Democrats buy? There is that much money floating around. The American people who are left behind don't have a right to look right at where it is happening. It brought waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption. Oh, yes, there has been corruption.

Last year, the American people filed over 200,000 complaints with the Federal Government because they were unknowingly signed up or switched into ObamaCare plans. How did that happen? Two hundred thousand people either didn't know it or were switched. How did that happen? Because it happened without their consent. You look into those situations, and these people had to find out about it and then complain to the government. So there are people who actually got switched and still haven't found out about it.

Insurance agents and brokers get paid every time they enroll someone in ObamaCare. They do get something for that. So we know that some are actually criminally manipulating the system, and that is where we believe those 200,000 complaints have come from--people who have been maneuvered and manipulated without their knowledge.

But Senator Schumer continues to promote keeping the government closed while his buddies from the big insurance companies, whose stocks have soared now under ObamaCare, get another $30 billion or more injected right into their bank accounts. That is what Chuck Schumer came to the floor yesterday and demanded--the government staying closed until you guys all send $30 billion directly to the insurance companies.

We know what people across the country believe about insurance companies. Would the American people trust themselves to make these decisions or trust the insurance companies to protect them? That is what Chuck Schumer wants to do--keep the American people out of it.

Meanwhile, Federal workers have missed paychecks for more than a month. Military families are worried about rent. Air traffic controllers are overworked; they are exhausted. Planes are being canceled. Flights are being canceled. People are concerned about Thanksgiving.

Enough is enough.

Let's be clear what Republicans are offering. We are ready to reopen the government today--make sure everybody gets paid who has been working without pay for the last 5 or 6 weeks--by passing a clean, continuing, bipartisan resolution. That means funding the government at current levels so we pay our military families, we pay Federal workers, and we fund food assistance for 42 million Americans. Think about that. That is 42 million Americans. That is more than twice the number of people in this country who are on ObamaCare.

Yet Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are willing to deny food to hungry children who outnumber the people on ObamaCare right now by 2 to 1. That is what we are dealing with here. And not just once have they denied it; 14 times the Democrats have voted to not pay the working people and continue to vote to keep the government closed.

I know Republicans welcome a real debate about the many failures of ObamaCare because we believe Americans deserve quality, affordable healthcare, and they haven't gotten that with ObamaCare. Reforms are needed that actually lower costs to protect the taxpayers. The American people deserve a full debate about the unaffordability of ObamaCare.

Senator Schumer's offer does nothing to address the cost of healthcare, does nothing to lower premiums, does nothing to reassure the American people. All it does is make insurance companies richer and taxpayers poorer, and that is why it is dead on arrival.

Republicans welcome the debate about having taxpayer money go directly to the American people versus this cozy relationship that Chuck Schumer wants to have with the insurance companies, moving money directly to them.

It is time to reopen the government.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, first let me thank you for the wonderful remarks you just made on the floor, and I would hope that our Democratic colleagues were listening and would follow the advice that you have given. It was a good lesson in leadership and one that I think we all believe would be best if it were followed by all of America. Thank you very much, Madam President.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, November 9, 2025; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 168,

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, today is November 7, 2025. We are now 1 month and 7 days into the longest shutdown in the history of the American Government.

Democrats can stand here and claim they have broken the record, but for what? For leverage? For politics?

Meanwhile, in every State in this Union, the American people are getting hurt. They don't seem to care one bit.

Soldiers are working without pay at Fort Bragg in Georgia. Where are the two Democrat Senators from Georgia?

A single mom in Michigan is struggling to put food on the table for her children. Where are the two Democrat Senators from Michigan?

Capitol Police officers and staff members on this very floor in this very building are struggling to pay their bills. Do the Democrat Senators care about any of them? The government is still closed. They are not getting paid.

Each and every one of these people is being hurt by the Schumer shutdown--every one of them--and every day, it gets worse for them. Yet Senator Schumer bragged to the press--bragged to them. He said:

Every day gets better for us.

I am wondering who ``us'' is. Certainly not the American people. Certainly not the people whose flights were grounded today all across the country.

You know, to keep our airlines and to keep our skies safe, the FAA directed airlines to reduce the number of flights. It is the right thing to do. This has impacted airports all across this country. That is the impact of what the Democrats are doing by keeping this government shut.

The FAA Administrator--someone with 35 years of experience in the field--said:

We're in [all] new territory.

Never seen anything like this before.

And here is what really should terrify the American people: It is one Democrat staffer who said Democrats won't open the government until planes fall out of the sky. Can you believe that? Let that sink in. Democrats are waiting for a disaster, and in the process, they are gambling with American lives.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a Democrat with Presidential ambitions based on his scheduling and his speeches--he admitted it on the record. He said in an interview just yesterday with Punchbowl News--Senator Murphy said that reopening the government would do, he said, ``substantial damage'' to the Democrats' ``brand.'' There you have it. Bad for the brand: a functioning government.

The Democrat brand means more to them than 42 million hungry Americans. The Democrat brand means more to them than military families who aren't getting paid. The Democrat brand means more to them than safety in the skies.

Let's call what we are seeing with the Democrat shutdown what it is. It is cruel, and it is heartless.

Now, let's be fair. Even some Democrats now recognize that it is cruel and heartless. They are starting to turn on each other. One Democrat staffer admitted to the press that the far-left Democrats in their caucus have no plan to ever end the shutdown--none, zero. They want to keep it going forever. The staffer even admitted the far-left Democrats are hurting people, and they are doing it for political gain. This is the direct quote from the Democrat staff member, Senate staff: ``[F]amilies who can afford it the least . . . are . . . getting walloped'' every day the shutdown continues.

Mr. President, the Democrats can and should end the shutdown today. Republicans have a clean, bipartisan continuing resolution at the desk to reopen the government. We want to pair this with three full-time appropriations bills. These are bills that have already passed the Senate with bipartisan support. They have been negotiated on a bipartisan basis with the

House--progress. We need to get it done.

These bills would fully fund veterans' care. They would fully fund our Capitol Police. They would fully fund food assistance in America, such as the SNAP and the WIC Programs. This is a very reasonable deal, a reasonable proposal--a deal that Democrats earlier this week asked Republicans to put onto the floor. And if it passes, the Schumer shutdown will end quickly. Mr. President, 13,000 air traffic controllers would get paid, 50,000 TSA agents would get paid, 1.3 million military members would be paid, food assistance for 42 million Americans would be fully funded, flights would get restored, and the government would reopen.

Some Senate Democrats have signaled they will still vote no--no. Evidently, they want the pain; they want the pressure. As Members of this body, as well as the Democrat whip, said to the press on television--she said they want ``leverage'' to continue so they can score political points.

Let me be clear about what a ``no'' vote means. A ``no'' vote is a vote to refuse to pay air traffic controllers who are working, refuse to pay TSA agents who have been working for the last 37 days, refuse to pay members of the military who continue to defend us and are serving us all around the world, refuse to pay Capitol Police officers who are here in this very building and that the Democratic Senators walk by each and every time they come into this Chamber. A ``no'' vote is a vote to cut more flights and to cause more chaos for families hoping to travel over Thanksgiving. A ``no'' vote is a vote to deny food to 42 million hungry Americans. A ``no'' vote means Democrats continue to play their dangerous game of the politics of pain.

There is no excuse--none--for voting no. Don't tell me ``I want leverage,'' which is what the Democrats have been saying. The American people are not leverage. They are not pawns. When Democrats treat American people as political pawns, the American people lose. And I don't want to hear them say ``I stand on principle.'' What are the principles when you allow 42 million Americans to continue to go hungry?

The American people are watching. They are watching to see who is fighting for them and who is simply using them as leverage.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I withdraw my motion to proceed.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Tuberville).

Mr. President, today is day 37 of the Schumer shutdown. Senate Democrats have now broken the record for the longest shutdown in American history.

Democrats have already acknowledged the government must reopen. They have said it. On ``Face the Nation'' this past Sunday, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, referring to the shutdown, said:

I hope it ends this week.

Well, it is already Thursday.

Now there are reports that 10 to 12 Senate Democrats are actually coming forward and saying that they are going to be willing to vote for a clean, bipartisan continuing resolution--something that has been sitting out there for 37 days. Looks like more Democrats are getting ready to finally do the right thing for the American people and reopen the government.

My question to the Democrats is, Why do you continue to prolong the pain? How much longer are you going to force families to stand in line at food banks? How much longer are you going to force workers to miss paychecks?

The Schumer shutdown can end today. Republicans continue to work in good faith to reopen the government. We continue to talk to Senators about ways to get the government open. The only question is, When?

Remember, it is the Democrats who are keeping the government closed.

Remembering Dick Cheney

Mr. President, on a separate matter, I come to the floor today to remember Vice President Dick Cheney.

Tributes are pouring in from Wyoming, from across the Nation, and from around the world.

Dick Cheney's career was extraordinary. He rose from modest beginnings to serve this Nation in four different Presidential administrations. He was the youngest White House Chief of Staff in American history. He represented Wyoming for 10 years in the House of Representatives. He served as Secretary of State for this Nation at a moment of dramatic global change. He was by any measure one of the most consequential Vice Presidents our Nation ever had. Dick helped guide the course of history in Wyoming, in America, and around the world.

We are always going to remember Dick Cheney as the son of Wyoming. He was a political giant in my home State. He was plainspoken, he was direct, and he was steady in purpose.

Senator Al Simpson once said that Dick was a ``big-time, make-things- work [kind of a] guy,'' and that is exactly right.

Dick grew up in Casper, WY. He was a football star at Natrona County High School. The high school field there still bears his name.

He worked as a power line man in Rock Springs, WY, earning $3 an hour. He got his start in politics in the 1960s as an intern in the Wyoming State Senate. He went on to Washington. He served Gerald Ford as the White House Chief of Staff--still, as I said, the youngest person in history to hold that position.

When Art Laffer sketched out the legendary Laffer curve on a cocktail napkin, talking about economics, it was on Dick Cheney's napkin.

Dick was at the center of our Nation's history in so many ways. After the Ford administration, Dick came home to Casper. He ran for Congress, and he won that seat six times in a row. In Congress, he fought for lower taxes, for Second Amendment rights, and for preserving our State's natural beauty.

Dick rose to become the whip of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. That made him the second Republican whip in Congress from Wyoming. Senator Al Simpson was chosen to be the Senate Republican whip just a few years earlier.

When George Herbert Walker Bush became President, he chose Congressman Dick Cheney to serve as his Secretary of Defense. The Senate confirmed him unanimously, 92 to 0. We don't see anything like that happening around this place today.

In 4 transformative years, he oversaw a victory in Desert Storm, he guided America through a peaceful end to the Cold War, and he helped shape America's role as the world's only superpower.

A decade later, he became Vice President of the United States. He liked to joke that he personally delivered Wyoming's three electoral votes. In an election decided by one vote in the electoral college, those three votes from Wyoming mattered.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Dick's calm, steady leadership reassured Americans in one of our darkest hours.

Dick's values were the values of Wyoming, enshrined in the cowboy code: Live each day with courage, take pride in your work, and do what needs to be done. That was Dick Cheney, and that is how he lived.

Some of our Founders questioned whether America ever needed a Vice President. Benjamin Franklin joked that the title for the Vice President would be ``Your Superfluous Excellency.'' Had Franklin met Dick Cheney, he would have changed his mind. Vice President Cheney was anything but superfluous. He shaped history. He steadied nations. He stood for a stronger, safer America and a freer world.

As Vice President, Dick held the title of President of the Senate. In that capacity, he presided, as the Presiding Officer is presiding today, over our Chamber. His eight tie-breaking votes on the floor of the Senate were cast at decisive moments in our history. In 2001, he cast the tie-breaking vote on the budget resolution that paved the way for generational tax relief for American families.

Dick never treated this office as ceremonial. He was hands-on and deeply engaged in governing.

A bust of Vice President Cheney now rests in the Senate wing of the Capitol. It marks not only the office he held; it memorializes the values that he lived. A son of Wyoming, a defender of freedom, and an American original, we remember Dick Cheney as he lived: steady in purpose, firm in conviction, loyal to his country, and unafraid to do what he believed was right.

My prayers are with Lynne, with Liz and Mary, and with their grandchildren, as they celebrate the life of an incredible man.

May he rest in peace.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I object.