House Freedom Caucus members speak to reporters about the reconciliation bill.
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00:00We are greatly encouraged by the progress that's been made in the last 24 hours.
00:23Obviously, the President came here yesterday and he laid out a few things.
00:26He said, you know, don't go any further on salt.
00:29He said, oh, by the way, eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid.
00:31That's fine.
00:32That's what the American people expect.
00:33And then he said, by the way, you have to eliminate the Green News scam.
00:37So in the last 24 hours, well, there was a little salt deal made.
00:41I don't think it went in the right direction.
00:43But the White House offered a proposal late last night that I think fulfills the other
00:48two parts of what the President talked about.
00:50And we – there's a broad agreement in the House Freedom Caucus that if that's included
00:54in the package, I think this package is en route to get passed.
00:57I don't think it can be done today.
00:59I mean, the runway is short today.
01:02The leadership is going to have to figure out, you know, where to go from here.
01:05But I think progress is made.
01:07I think that there is a pathway forward that we can see.
01:11But, again, the leadership will have to figure out, you know, what the timeframe of this is.
01:15As you know, I've come and I've spoken to several of you in the past few days and said, I'm not sure this can be done this week.
01:20I'm pretty confident it can be done in ten days.
01:23But that's up to leadership to decide.
01:26We just want to emphasize we want to deliver the President's agenda.
01:29The bottom line is, he said, end waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid, which is a hugely popular issue with the American people.
01:35And he said, end the Green News scam, which is hugely popular with the American people who are watching their energy bills go up as our deficit goes up.
01:45And they wonder how in the world where we have all the energy resources we have, gas, oil, you know, how in the world are our energy bills going up?
01:53We're going to try to help solve that for the American family.
01:56So, anyway, so with that, if any of my colleagues want to make a statement?
02:01So, the legislation that we've got right now has made significant progress to advance the President's agenda.
02:07And that's what we're doing.
02:08We're trying to sit at the table.
02:09We're going to work with our colleagues, work with the White House to continue to deliver what the President campaigned on and what we all campaigned on.
02:16As my good friend from Maryland just said, the President yesterday laid out some real clear terms.
02:22And we're working to achieve those.
02:24And we were working last night with the White House to achieve those and working with our colleagues today to deliver on what the White House put forward as a good faith effort to deliver on those objectives.
02:33Look, and just on a personal note, you know, 14 years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer.
02:39And one of the reasons I ran for Congress was to deal with our very badly broken health care system.
02:44Today, there are millions of Americans right now who can't get health care because of our broken system.
02:49They're on wait lists.
02:50The vulnerable Americans are on wait lists because we've got a broken system that rewards the able-bodied over the vulnerable, that gives more money to people on Medicaid than on Medicare.
03:00We are trying to fix those things and match those so we have a system that works.
03:04That's what we're trying to do.
03:05We're trying to deliver so that the people who are actually out there working hard can actually get the health care that they want to get, that they can get, and get it the best way possible.
03:14That's what this is all about, changing a broken system, making sure we're saving taxpayer dollars, and being able to provide a better environment for people to be able to thrive in their families.
03:23So we're going to work with the President today.
03:25We're going to work with our colleagues to deliver.
03:27But there's a long way to go.
03:29I want to be very clear.
03:30We've got to deliver on what we're talking about or we're not going to be able to get the bill done.
03:34And that's what we're trying to achieve.
03:36That's exactly right.
03:37The White House reached out to us with, look, it's not perfect.
03:41No bill ever is.
03:42We understand that.
03:43We'd like to have more, but we recognize we've got a big conference in a big country and that the Democrats aren't going to help us.
03:50The Democrats want to see the taxes go up.
03:52The Democrats want the status quo in the failed health care system.
03:56We accepted the White House's offer last night.
04:00Unfortunately, it's not yet codified in this agreement.
04:04We need to we need to continue to work at that.
04:07We as members are at the table.
04:09We don't want the deal to be ended.
04:11This is an arbitrary deadline.
04:12If today comes and goes, it doesn't mean that this this possibility to make sure the taxes stay low and that we fix America's health care system and fix America's energy system.
04:23It doesn't mean that prospect is off the table.
04:25It just means it might not happen today.
04:27And it's important that everybody knows that because there's some kind of belief in Washington, D.C.
04:32that once today comes and goes, that this cannot be fixed.
04:36This is a completely arbitrary deadline set by people here to force people into a corner to make bad decisions.
04:42It's more important to get this right to get it correct than to get it fast.
04:46And we are sitting at the table to do that.
04:48And for the bill to move off of the floor, these issues have to be addressed.
04:52I want to be very clear.
04:53And that has to be addressed today, tomorrow, whenever we get to it.
04:56But it has to be done right, like my friend from Pennsylvania said.
04:59So if this if if this comes to the if this comes to the floor today, you're going to vote no to move ahead both on the rule and on the bills.
05:07Is that correct? You're going to vote no.
05:09Well, we're not there yet.
05:10The bill's not on the floor.
05:11You say if this comes to the floor, we have yet not seen the managers.
05:15You don't know what this is yet.
05:17The speaker wants to pass this tonight.
05:19Well, so then we should get busy working to get it done.
05:21We want to get it done, too.
05:22But you're saying it will not pass tonight if it comes to the floor.
05:25It is not ready yet, but we got to see the language.
05:27What are the terms of this agreement with the White House?
05:30What are the terms of it?
05:31Well, look, broadly, the president came and said he we need to end waste, fraud, abuse and Medicaid.
05:37And we believe that that the agreement and, you know, look, we're not going to get into specifics.
05:41So we think that will help end waste, fraud, abuse and Medicaid.
05:44And also bend the out-of-control spending trajectory by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse.
05:51And I don't think many Americans disagree with that.
05:53And the other component is in the setting of rising energy costs.
05:57Look, energy costs have gone up 30 to 40 percent.
05:59Where's energy costs supposed to be going down in this country?
06:02We have more energy than anybody else in the world.
06:04This green news scam isn't working.
06:07It's making our grids unreliable.
06:09We want to make sure that we can deliver affordable energy to all Americans.
06:13Those are the two major components, both of which are totally consistent.
06:16And when the president said end the green news scam,
06:19he didn't mean leave 40 to 45 to 50 percent of the subsidies ongoing.
06:23So we're working to continue to scale that way.
06:24So what specifically are you asking for?
06:27What is the easiest thing that the speaker could give you right now specifically that would
06:31get told to a yes?
06:32We're not going to negotiate this for you guys.
06:34I mean, you guys know the issues.
06:36We put them out there.
06:37And we're sitting at the table to work through them.
06:39But you guys know the issues that we're very concerned about.
06:42The abuse, the wastewater and abuse in Medicaid, the scam that is going on, the money laundering,
06:46where we've got 90 percent.
06:48Y'all agreed to the levels of ENC.
06:50The ENC has exceeded those levels in Medicaid.
06:52Y'all agreed to those.
06:53Y'all voted for the budget in February.
06:54Why now are y'all moving the goalposts?
06:56Y'all agreed to those.
06:57Wait, wait, wait.
06:58That's how you want to put it in time.
07:00The premise of the gentleman's statement is not correct.
07:03The premise of your statement is not correct.
07:04The premise of your statement is not correct.
07:06We're in the process of assembling 11 bills that just last week were finalized.
07:12And that our final opportunities to tweak and improve and solidify our intentions that
07:20were written into those bills is through the Budget Committee and the Rules Committee,
07:24where managers' amendments can be written to tweak, improve, and solidify the intentions
07:31and the agenda of the President of the United States and conservatives within the House
07:36and the Senate, by the way.
07:38So we're in the midst of those final stages, gentlemen, of working through the Rules Committee
07:45with managers' amendment, and the details remain unrevealed, but we're at the table working
07:53those details out.
07:54You guys are being very general.
07:55Can you be specific to tell the public what exactly you're asking for?
07:58You're asking for changes to FMAP.
08:00Do you want more energy?
08:01Waste fraud.
08:02Yeah, but that's very, very general, waste fraud and abuse.
08:04Specifically, what are you asking for?
08:05Waste fraud and abuse.
08:06I don't understand how that works.
08:07You want FMAP changes.
08:09Are you demanding that there will be changes to that?
08:11Are you demanding that the IRA tax credits all be phased out immediately?
08:14We demand that waste, fraud, and abuse be addressed in Medicaid.
08:19It's inadequately addressed in the current bill.
08:21And we believe that as much of the Green News scam should be eliminated as is possible.
08:26But why are y'all doing this now?
08:28Let me address the goalpost nonsense.
08:32We are working within the goalposts.
08:34You voted for using levels.
08:35Whoa, whoa, whoa.
08:36Excuse me, can I answer the question?
08:38Yeah.
08:39Or you just want to filibuster?
08:40You can talk.
08:41I'm just asking.
08:42No, no, no, you're a filibuster.
08:43You're not accurate.
08:44You're not very smart.
08:45You're not.
08:46We are working.
08:47We're deep into details.
08:48We're working within the goalposts.
08:50We're not saying we need to move the amount of cuts up because goodness knows we moved the
08:57amount of spending yesterday with the SALT agreement.
09:00We're saying work within the goalposts.
09:03Rearrange it within the goalposts in accordance with what the President wants.
09:07End waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid, which is wasting dollars that should be spent on
09:12the truly vulnerable, and then end as much of the Green News scam as possible.
09:17Right.
09:18Mr. Chairman.
09:19The President and the Speaker say you've gotten what you've asked for.
09:22You're saying they're wrong.
09:24The White House, the White House last night, the White House last night.
09:28Sat down with us to address the concerns that we're talking about.
09:33The White House was very clear about what we're working on together to actually deliver
09:38on what the Chairman, Chairman Harris, just talked about.
09:41We're talking about specifics, man.
09:43I mean, what we're talking about here, you know the issues.
09:45You know the levers, right?
09:46We've been very public about this.
09:48There's been articles written.
09:49Some of you have written some actually reasonably honest articles about the extent to which
09:54you're having seven times more money going to the able-bodied than the vulnerable.
09:58We're trying to fix that.
09:59We're trying to fix a system that is corrupt so there's a money laundering machine where
10:04dollars go from red states and from responsible, hardworking Americans to go to blue states
10:09like California to give money to people who are illegal or who are able-bodied.
10:13We want to fix that.
10:14That's what we're trying to address.
10:15And on the goalposts moving, that's utter nonsense.
10:18The fact of the matter is this has massive savings in the out five years and it has massive
10:23deficits in the first five years because we're not addressing the structural reforms
10:27that we're talking about right here, including very specifically eliminating the 45% of the
10:34subsidies under the Green News scam that continue.
10:37So that's what we're talking about.
10:38We're not moving goalposts.
10:39We want to save money.
10:40We want to save as much money as we can.
10:42But we want to do it the right way to deliver for hardworking Americans who are getting
10:45left behind by government here, Republican and Democrat, who keep spending money we don't
10:50have, racking up massive amounts of debt, driving up inflation so Americans can't afford
10:56homes, the Moody's bond rating gets dropped, and people are getting left behind.
11:00No more.
11:01Now's the time for transformative reform.
11:03We're going to work the White House to deliver it.