00:00At midnight, the federal government officially shut down because Republicans failed to fix the
00:05health care crisis that they've created. This is a sad, serious, and somber moment for the country.
00:12Americans are already facing a dual affordability and health care crisis thanks to Donald Trump's
00:18tariffs and Republicans' big, ugly law. And now, because Republicans refuse to come to the table
00:24and negotiate with Democrats, Americans can suffer even more. We were elected to solve
00:30the problems of this country, not make them worse. And that's exactly what Donald Trump
00:36and his Republican henchmen are seeking to do. We've been having these conversations. We've been
00:42pushing to engage since March, by the way, a CR that we didn't support as well. And we have been
00:50saying loudly that we have huge concerns from the rescissions that Donald Trump and his
00:58administration have executed to not spending resources that Democrats and Republicans have
01:04allocated. We have been telling our Republican colleagues for months these are concerns of
01:08ours. And we have told them, work with us, talk with us. And all we got were partisan bills because
01:16Speaker Johnson is just interested in being the chair of the Republican conference. He isn't
01:23interested, apparently, in being the Speaker of the House. Donald Trump and Republicans have
01:28barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect Americans' health care. It's clear that
01:36the way out of this shutdown is to sit down and negotiate with Democrats to address the looming
01:41health care crisis that faces tens of millions of American families. Democrats want to avert
01:49this crisis. But Republicans tried to bully us. And it's clear they can't. They don't have
01:57the votes. The way out of this is for Republicans to finally roll up their sleeves and get to work.
02:04If Republicans work with us and fix America's health care crisis, the shutdown could go away
02:08very quickly. And that's what Democrats want. To end this now, fix health care now. It's the right
02:15thing to do for the American people. We urge our Republican colleagues, we urge President Trump
02:21to take yes for an answer. At midnight, Democrats followed through on their threat to shut down the
02:28United States government. The sad thing about it is that every single bit of this was entirely
02:33avoidable. Democrats could have worked with us in a bipartisan manner to avert this unnecessary and
02:40very harmful shutdown. But instead, they did something that is rather shocking to us. They
02:45prioritized taxpayer funded benefits for illegal aliens over keeping the government open for American
02:51citizens. Whether or not the government remains open or reopens is entirely up to them. There's still
02:58time for Democrats to pass this clean bipartisan bill that's sitting before them. And we encourage
03:04our Democrat colleagues to do that. I certainly pray they'll come to their census soon and do the
03:09right and responsible thing. This could have been avoided. It's totally unavoidable. And everybody's
03:14now asking the question, how does this end? Well, it ends when the Senate Democrats pick this bill up,
03:21passed by the House of Representatives, and vote for it. President, House Republicans, Senate Republicans,
03:27we're all united on this. And what's interesting now is some of the Democrats are joining us. Our vote last
03:32night was a bipartisan vote. There were three Democrats that came over and voted with us because
03:36they know this strategy is a losing one. And it hurts the American people. It's not about who wins or who
03:43loses or who gets blamed in all this. It's about the American people. And they have taken the American
03:49people hostage. Yesterday in the Senate floor, the crack started to appear in the Democrat base. Three
03:58Democrats voted with the Republicans to prevent a shutdown. And why? Because they know the American
04:04people are hurt when the government shuts down. The Democrats need to pass the House's seven week
04:11funding bill. Until then, there's nothing to negotiate. No compromises to be had. There's no
04:18gains. There's no back channels. There's another vote today in the Senate. And Senate Democrats will
04:24hopefully do the right thing. And if they don't today, then they'll have another chance later this
04:29week and next week and as long as it takes until the Senate passes the House bill.
04:35We are here ready to get the job done. Schumer needs to end his shutdown and finally join with us
04:43and let's start real negotiations without holding the American people hostage.
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