00:00The House and Senate Republicans are utilizing the budget reconciliation process primarily
00:18because Leader Schumer in the Senate, Leader Jeffries in the House, and their Democrat
00:23colleagues refuse to engage in anything, no matter how meritorious, even to improve
00:29the lives of their constituents if it means that President Trump will somehow be credited
00:33with a win.
00:34I mean, it's really sad, but that's the fact.
00:36They'd rather put up, put on performative stunts and host these activist town halls and
00:40all this other nonsense than just work with us to bring costs down and make communities
00:45safer for their constituents.
00:47Just think about how the American people feel about these issues.
00:51Consider it.
00:52No, I don't make promises I can't keep.
00:55This is a consensus-building operation, as you know, and it's member-driven, bottom-up,
00:58and every single member of the conference has had many opportunities and has more this
01:03week to weigh in and let their preferences be known.
01:06This is about balancing preferences.
01:08I mean, no one's going to be surprised.
01:10Everybody knows where the touch points are on the final details of the final analysis,
01:14and we've been working really hard to take all the input and find that kind of equilibrium
01:19point where everybody is at least satisfied.
01:22Some people are not going to be elated by every provision of the bill.
01:25It's impossible.
01:26It's impossible.
01:27One big, beautiful bill.
01:28It's a big piece of legislation.
01:29There's a lot in it.
01:31So there's always going to be things page by page.
01:33Somebody can go through a large bill and find things that they would have preferred
01:37to be handled another way.
01:40But in its totality, this is going to be the most important, most consequential legislation
01:44that we'll ever be involved in in our lifetimes and arguably one of the biggest in the history
01:48of Congress.
01:49I think at the end of the day, we'll get that consensus.
01:52And, you know, there may be some grumbling about certain provisions, but as the whip said
01:56so aptly this morning in the conference meeting, he said, you got to focus on the totality
02:01of the bill and not just individual details.
02:04But my job is to work out those details.
02:05And look, I'm very confident that we're going to get to that point by the end of this week,
02:09and we'll move this thing forward.
02:11We've got some strong leaders in the Senate.
02:14They're all friends and colleagues of ours.
02:16We truly regard this as one team.
02:18I know that's an innovation in Washington.
02:20I know the House and Senate just will be fighting each other all the time.
02:23But that's not the game we're playing.
02:24And I've been very deliberate, and Leader Thun has as well, to have no daylight between
02:29the two chambers.
02:30So there shouldn't be any big surprises.
02:32I mean, they're following very closely what we're doing and vice versa.
02:35But the lion's share of the work has been done in the House, not by virtue of pride of
02:38authorship or because there's a competition between the two chambers, but just because
02:42that's the way the calendar fell.
02:45So we're going to be very proud of the product we send over there.
02:48I don't expect that it will take much modification.
02:50I hope that there's very little at all and that we can have an agreement.
02:54But the difference now and in years past, perhaps, is that our colleagues over there know
03:00exactly what we're doing.
03:01We're in careful, close communication and with the White House team as well.
03:06So we're not sending over some package, you know, that they'll receive blindly and not
03:09know what's in it.
03:10Everybody knows what we're working on and why and the discussions we're having and we're
03:14keeping them abreast of all of it.
03:16And if there are individual senators who have a problem, I'm apt to reach out to them myself.
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