00:00Joining us now is Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona.
00:05Thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it.
00:07So we're now in day five of this federal government shutdown.
00:10You've been part of the talks happening on sidelines as senators look for a way to end this standoff.
00:15Are you any closer to an actual deal that might end the shutdown?
00:19At this point, no. I mean, we're still going to continue talking.
00:22And look, we know that our Senate Republicans also want to get to the deal.
00:26They understand that 24 million Americans are going to have their premiums doubled starting November 1st when they have to go into open enrollment.
00:33And most of them are going to be from red states.
00:36There's a deal to be had here, right?
00:38But we need to see them actually urgently moving because we don't want Americans on November 1st to start thinking about whether or not they should even re-enroll.
00:45But we're hearing right now that if we don't get these premiums correct, if we don't get the subsidies there,
00:50four million Americans are just going to lose their health care altogether.
00:53And it doesn't even count all the private sector premiums that are also going to go up because of the fact that we're going to kick off 24 million Americans from doubling in their price.
01:02Or they're going to end up getting their prices doubled.
01:03But is there a deal to be had in some sort of separate deal with John Thune or with Speaker Johnson where they will bring up legislation that you're working on that will amend this,
01:12but it is a pledge not necessarily tied to the to the clean.
01:17Look, we've been asked for something like that.
01:19And I think a lot of us have said, like, you know, open up the government, you know, for a couple of weeks before November 1st.
01:24That way we could make sure we have some.
01:26The problem is, like, who are we dealing with?
01:28Mike Johnson has sent away the Republicans to hide the Epstein list.
01:32Donald Trump, the art of the deal, the man who wrote the book, cannot be found anywhere.
01:37We don't know who we can even speak to over there at the White House because he's not involved.
01:42And last we heard from our leadership talking to him, he was unaware about how serious these ACA subsidies are and how it will affect not just, you know, blue America, but also red America.
01:52So there is negotiations to be had, but two of the three people that need to be involved are gone and not in play right now.
01:59So what's interesting about this government shutdown is that it's the Democrats who have caused the shutdown.
02:05I understand why, but I'm just saying usually it's the Republicans causing the shutdown.
02:10As a Democratic member of the House during a different funding fight a decade ago, you said, quote,
02:16We should pass a hashtag clean budget bill with hashtag no riders.
02:21Hardworking families can't afford another government shutdown.
02:24And Republicans say that's what they did.
02:26This is a clean budget bill with no riders.
02:28And you all voted against it.
02:29Well, first of all, it's not clean.
02:32Number two, as you, you know, I pointed out there about hardworking families, 24 million Americans are going to have their rates increase, almost doubled.
02:40Four million are going to lose.
02:41Their insurance rates, yeah.
02:42Yeah.
02:43And in Arizona, up to 100,000 people are going to lose their insurance.
02:45And then even more than that are going to have their insurance rates doubled, sometimes to thousands of dollars per month, sometimes even per year.
02:52This is something that we cannot allow to happen.
02:54Right now, everything's too expensive to begin with.
02:56You go to Costco.
02:57You go to Safeway.
02:58You go to Fry.
02:59These are the grocery stores in Arizona.
03:00Everything's expensive.
03:01Grocery is expensive.
03:02What's it called?
03:03Fries.
03:04Fries, okay.
03:05Grocery stores are expensive.
03:06Everything else like that.
03:07Now this president, in addition to everything that's already done with the tariff, which has already caused prices to increase,
03:11is going to cost another increase to working families in this country.
03:1524 million Americans are going to get hit, hit, with the Trump tax on their insurance policy starting November 1st.
03:22And that's why we want to get this done before November 1st.
03:24Here are the Republican leaders talking about your demand and the Democrats' demand to address this issue of these increased Obamacare subsidies.
03:32Take a listen.
03:33Some of the issues that they're bringing to the table and they're demanding immediate easy answers for are not easy answers.
03:39We can't snap our fingers and he and I and two other leaders in a room go, oh, well, this is the resolution.
03:44That's not how it works.
03:45We can't make commitments or promises on the COVID subsidies because that's not something that we can guarantee that there are the votes there to do.
03:54But what I've said is I'm open to having conversations with our Democrat colleagues about how to address that issue.
03:59So they're saying it's a complicated issue.
04:01It's going to take time to resolve.
04:02They're willing to work with you if you reopen the government.
04:04That's not enough?
04:05We certainly have already said a couple of times, we're willing to work with you, but we have to get this done by November 1st.
04:11The American family needs certainty.
04:13By November 1st, if we do not get these subsidies, people are going to get their open enrollment.
04:17They're going to see their premiums are going to double, all because these guys can't move fast.
04:21They certainly can move fast when they need a tax cut.
04:24They certainly can move fast when they want to back up the president.
04:26They certainly can move fast to cancel Congress to hide the Epstein list and protect the president.
04:31But to actually take care of the American working family that's going to have their insurance premiums doubled, they seem to not be able to do it.
04:37Well, what I see and I understand, they control the White House, the Congress, as well as the Senate.
04:43They certainly have been able to change the rules to get things done to benefit the richest of the rich in this country.
04:49But to take care of the middle class, they seem to have to be impotent.
04:52Well, you know, there's a time and a place for all that right now.
04:55I'm telling them if we can get together, get something done before November 1st, then you can have a great deal.
04:59But the fact is they want to wait till after November 1st, after people have already gone through open enrollment,
05:04after they have to either pay their insurance premiums or they're going to just not get insurance anymore.
05:08And then they want to negotiate for the American public, I'm sorry, for the American middle class.
05:12And I'm not going to do that. I want to negotiate for the American middle class right now.
05:15So some of your colleagues are refusing their paychecks while the government shut down.
05:19You told NBC, quote, I'm not wealthy and I have three kids.
05:22I would basically be missing mortgage payments, rent payments, child support, so it's not feasible, not going to happen, unquote.
05:28I saw that you got into a little Twitter war.
05:30Yeah, these are all gimmicks. These are all gimmicks.
05:32Most of these senators are millionaires to begin with, right?
05:35And all these congressmen that are complaining about it, they already got paid for the whole month.
05:39That's all one big gimmick. And when these people are complaining about this or that, what's going on is that they're not actually focusing on all these Americans.
05:46They're going to lose their insurance, right?
05:48Right. But the government workers who are furloughed or maybe even laid off permanently, it hasn't happened yet, but it could.
05:54I mean, that's happening now. And like they also have kids and mortgage payments and rent payments and child support.
06:01Look, we're going to do, every time this happens, we always go back and we back pay our government workers.
06:06What's not going to happen is if we don't get any action, 24 million Americans aren't going to get their premiums back.
06:1124 million Americans will get their insurance rates doubled.
06:14And or if this doesn't actually get reauthorized, then you're going to have 24 million Americans that are going to always have their insurance rates doubled or even beyond that going forward.
06:23There's a short time period we have to take care of these middle class, hardworking Americans. And unfortunately, you know, our federal workers are caught in this mix.
06:31How long could this last, you think, the shutdown?
06:33We need to make sure that the premiums stay where they are, that, you know, we have the cost of insurance stay as low as possible.
06:42And we're going to negotiate that for that to happen. We need to have partners that are there. Where is Donald Trump in this? I have no idea.
06:48But I mean, could this last till the end of the year? I mean, how long are you guys willing to take this?
06:51I can't speak for everybody else, but I'm going to make sure that no matter what happens at the end of this day,
06:5624 million Americans do not see their insurance rates doubled because that's what's going to happen.
07:01All because a couple of Republicans refused to act. Donald Trump refused to get off the golf course.
07:06And all they want to do is continue their project 2025 agenda, which is to get rid of the Affordable Health Care Act.
07:13We're out of time, but you're a veteran. So I would be remiss if I didn't ask you what you thought of Secretary Hegseth's and President Trump's discussion
07:19before the generals at Quantico. I think it's absolutely ridiculous.
07:24It was number one, it politicizes more than military, which is what you don't want to do.
07:29As someone who sat in briefings of that nature, it really tells you what's happening.
07:33You know, it's definitely clear that Secretary of Defense Hegseth is trying to compensate for something.
07:38Everything he did at that meeting, he could have sent in an email.
07:41He was just trying to, I don't know, show force. And he looked very weak in the process.
07:47What do you think he's trying to compensate for?
07:49I think the fact that he doesn't know what he's doing.
07:51He knows that within the Department of Defense, people think he's a laughingstock
07:55and that he is probably one of the worst Secretary of Defense that this country has had.
07:58And I think he's trying to exert his power over some of these generals.
08:02But it's not going to help when he clearly is way out of his league.
08:06All right, Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, thanks for being here.
08:10Appreciate it, sir.
08:36I've been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the they're doing.
08:48You know who you can fight, you can fight.
08:50No, no, no, no, no.
08:52It's not going to be another issue.
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