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A live look at Capitol Hill where Congress is now less than 48 hours away from a deadline to fund the government and there's still no clear plan for getting a temporary spending bill passed.
As of yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump was calling for a clean, continuing resolution that would also raise the debt ceiling.
He now tells Fox News that any Republican who doesn't take care of the debt ceiling should be primaried.
In addition, multiple House Republicans are now calling for a government shutdown until the next administration is sworn in next month.
House Democrats are essentially staying out of the funding fight, saying they're in no mood to bail out Republicans after the bipartisan spending agreement announced this week by House Speaker Johnson was shelved.
House Republican Whip Tom Emmer met with Speaker Johnson in his office this morning, and he told reporters a number of times that the current situation is fluid.
The House is currently in recess, subject to the call of the chair.
When members return, we'll have live coverage here on C-SPAN.
Welcome back.
We are joined now by Democratic Representative Al Green of Texas.
He's a member of the Financial Services Committee.
Congressman, welcome back.
Thank you.
I'm honored to be with you.
Well, let's start with the CR.
The government funding deadline is in about a day and a half.
What's happening right now?
Well, right now, we're trying to get a better understanding of why the Republican Party has chosen to abandon an agreement.
This is something that was agreed to, and I fully anticipated, I don't speak for anybody but myself, but I fully anticipated that we would have voted on it yesterday, and this would be behind us.
But for whatever reasons, they have decided that they would not support the CR.
And of course, the consequences that may emanate from this will have to belong to those who choose not to support something that was agreed to.
Do you think that the government will shut down?
I don't want to say yes to that.
I hope not, okay?
But we're living in a different era now where people are willing to go to the extreme of extremes.
And so I can't really say, but I hope not.
We've not done that.
That would take us to a new place where we've not been.
So let's hope that that never happens.
When do you expect to vote?
Has leadership told you anything about anything that you could vote on?
No, we haven't had any additional information accorded me.
There'll be a meeting this morning.
When I leave here, I'll go straight to that meeting.
And perhaps at that time, we'll get some additional information.
But currently, I know pretty much what you know, and that is that we had an agreement and that that agreement was not honored.
So late yesterday, as you know, President-elect Trump rejected that CR deal.
Then he made the proposal to combine it with a debt ceiling increase.
What are your thoughts on that?
I think that the debt ceiling is something that requires special attention, just as the CR does.
And the amount of attention necessary to come to an agreement, hopefully we'll continue to try to reach agreements.
I think people appreciate bipartisanship, even though it's difficult to achieve.
And that debt ceiling could be quite a challenge.
My hope is that we can pass it.
I'd love to pass it right now if I could, but I don't think that it works quite that way when you get into the nuts and bolts of doing it.
It's easy to say do something when you don't have to do it, when you're putting it in the hands of others.
My hope is that we'll be able to pass it, but I don't think that it's going to be a part of this CR.
I think that we have a deal.
We ought to honor that.
We're not honoring it, so we need to now work our way back to the CR first.
So do you, I mean, some Republicans are upset with how Speaker Johnson has handled the situation with the CR.
Are Democrats going to have to vote to pass kind of essentially whatever CR you get in order to keep the government open?
Well, if Republicans can agree among themselves, they have a majority in the House, then we would be forced to do that if they can agree among themselves.
Unfortunately, well, as the case may be, they haven't been able to do this.
And let me just say this, Beamie.
I really feel sorry for the Speaker.
I know there's some people who would say, Al, why would you say that?
Because he can't get an agreement among his people, meaning the Republicans.
And when he can't, they then condemn him for reaching an agreement after much deliberations with the Democrats.
They won't agree, and they won't agree to any other agreement.
So the Republicans are really putting themselves in a position such that the American people will be very much concerned as to why they've chosen this path.
Part of this deal was a 3.8% cost of living increase for lawmakers.
Are you in support of that?
Do you think lawmakers should get that increase?
I think this.
I live in Washington, D.C.
I live in Houston, Texas.
I know what it costs to live here, and I have my home in Houston.
While I can probably be okay as I am, there are a good many people in Congress, I don't know the exact number, who sleep in their offices.
I don't have children in college, but many of my colleagues do.
And I'm talking about Republicans and Democrats.
And I think that given that it's been now more than a decade, I believe, since there has been any increase in the salary, I think that under the law, as it is written, this would be an appropriate thing to happen.
I don't say that we should get something that's out of the ordinary, but I think that this is within reason for people who do what we do.
I know that that is something that a good many people don't favor, but here's something that I marvel at.
We will accept giving millions in tax breaks to billionaires.
But we now would not want to see the people who are trying their very best to make things work for us receive this raise.
I do support it, although I will tell you it's not a deal breaker for me.
It's not.
I don't want to eulogize a dead bill, but the things in there that are important that would be a deal breaker or potential deal breaker for me would be the $100 billion that is going to go to those people who are victims of these natural disasters.
But for the grace of God, it could be me.
I live along the Gulf Coast.
I remember what happened when Katrina hit New Orleans, which is where I was born.
And I remember how it impacted us.
So I'm saying to you, I wouldn't want that to be in any bill.
That's important.
I also think that the $20 billion for health care, health care is important.
We cannot allow health care to become wealth care in the richest country in the world, where those who have money will get good health care and those who don't, they won't get it.
So those are the things that could be potential deal breakers for me.
But beyond that, it's not a deal breaker for me, although I think that it would be the right thing to do.
If you'd like to join our conversation with Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas, you can do so.
Our lines are bipartisan.
So 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats, and 202748-8002 for Independents.
There is an article in the Hill saying that the approach for Democrats for countering or opposing President-elect Trump in his second term will be different this time, given the loss in the election and the kind of the results of the elections.
Are Democrats going to be changing their method, their approach?
As I've said on this program multiple times before, I speak for myself and everyone who agrees with me.
So here's my position on this.
I think that we have to realize that this last election was one that caused us to come up short.
By the way, it wasn't a landslide by most definitions.
We didn't get the majority of the votes, but it wasn't a landslide.
Don't want to go into the details of it, but here's what did happen.
There were people that were depending on us when we had unitary government, when we had the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.
When Democrats is.
We, meaning I'm a Democrat, a liberated Democrat.
So they were depending on us to do certain things.
They wanted us, this is our constituents, to pass the PRO Act, the Protecting the Right to Work Act for people to organize, protecting the right to organize Act.
This was a labor issue.
We had the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, and we did not pass that.
I'm going to get to the reason why in just a moment.
We also were expected to pass something on the minimum wage, to raise the wage, to make it a living wage, if at all possible.
And we didn't do that.
We had the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.
People were depending on us to get this done.
There were people who were depending on us to pass John Lewis voting rights.
As you know, Shelby County versus Holder was a case wherein we lost significant portions of the Voting Rights Act.
Well, this would restore some of that.
There were people who were depending on us to do things that were going to impact their lives, like immigration reform.
Comprehensive immigration reform is something that we've been talking about since I've been in Congress.
And when we didn't do that, and we didn't pass these other things, these people, some of them, became disenchanted.
And I don't think that we should blame them and say, well, they were not loyal.
Here's what I think.
There were two senators, I'm not going to call their names, but there were two senators who were roadblocks, prevented us from moving forward with significant portions of our agenda.
Had those two senators come on board, we could have passed these things.
And when Vice President Harris was running, she could have talked about how we passed comprehensive immigration reform, how we passed the PRO Act, how we passed John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and also George Floyd justice in policing.
That was a big deal for a lot of my constituents, especially black men who are taking some of the blame for our not succeeding in this last election.
I think that those things were important to people.
And when you don't do those things, then you're going to lose some of your enthusiasm.
And I think that we have to stick with those things.
I don't think we abandoned them.
I'm for expanding.
I'm for being inclusive.
I want to bring everybody in that we can, but I don't want to see us abandon the things that are important to people that I've been representing for many years now.
But what's a liberated Democrat?
A liberated Democrat is a Democrat that is unbought, unbossed, and unafraid.
Let me explain.
Unbought.
There are some people I don't take money from.
It wouldn't matter what amount.
Like who?
Like some of the big banks.
I sit on the Financial Services Committee.
I won't take money from them.
Now, I'm not condemning anybody who does, but this is how I believe that I can best serve people by not allowing the appearance of that impropriety to be in place.
Unbought.
Unbossed, meaning when I come on your program, you're going to hear my candid opinions.
I don't bring you a canned message that somebody else has scripted for me and pushed me out on the stage and say, okay, read this.
No, I believe that my constituents elected me to take a strong stand on the things that are important to them.
They don't expect me to always win, but they do expect me to fight.
And not pugilistically, not with histicuffs, but in the sense that I'm going to push the issues that are important to them.
And the ones that I just mentioned are very important to them.
Let's talk to callers and start with the Republican line in Bessemer City, North Carolina.
Mike, good morning.
Good morning.
Yes, Manchin and Sinema did save democracy by not allowing the Democrats to do away with the filibuster.
I'll say their names.
And they both got redemption against the Democrats.
But this bill that there's so much pork in this bill.
I mean, it's wanting to hide emails and text from congressmen and women.
That shouldn't be.
I mean, American people can have their emails and texts confiscated.
And it's just this bill needs to be passed with a CR, with $10 or $100 billion for disaster and the farmers, because if we don't have farmers, we don't eat.
And one other thing, Mr. Green, say you're from Houston, you represent Houston?
Yes, sir, I do.
All right.
Have you had any contact with Jocelyn Nungare's family about the two animals that raped and murdered Jocelyn Nungare and discarded her like garbage?
Well, let me start by saying I do regret the loss of any life.
And there are many lives that I have not had contact with or many people that I haven't had contact with.
Many.
But I do regret it.
Thank you so much.
Let's talk to Brenda in Indiana, Pennsylvania.
Democrat.
Good morning, Brenda.
Hey, good morning.
I have a statement that I have a question.
I'm sorry that I didn't get in with the previous guest when he talked about wanting to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in the SNAP program.
So he wants to come down hard on the poorest Americans.
Yet it is my understanding that Republican Senator Rick Scott was convicted of running one of the largest Medicare fraud schemes in the state of Florida.
And if that's true, then he got his fraud, got rewarded with a Senate seat.
So that's my statement.
My question is, Republicans are always deficit hawks when Democrats are in.
Biden added $8 trillion to the national debt.
Also, I know Trump added $8 trillion to the national debt, and Biden added about $4 trillion to the national debt.
So if we have a spending problem, like the Republicans say, how can they push to raise the debt ceiling?
Thank you.
Well, thank you very much.
They are not pushing to raise the debt ceiling.
They're pushing to have the debt ceiling raised on President Biden's watch.
And I think you make a good point.
That would then free them of having some of that debt ceiling become a part of things that they have been a participant in.
But I think that the debt ceiling has to be raised.
We have to pay our bills.
And I will be voting to raise the debt ceiling.
I don't know how the richest country in the world can become a deadbeat nation.
I will be voting to pay the bills that we've already made, and that's what it is all about, the bills that you've already promised to pay.
And we have to honor our commitments.
We're the United States of America.
Now, regarding bringing down government spending, concerning Social Security, so some people have proposed removing the cap on Social Security taxes.
Others have said making the retirement age later.
Either of those, would you be open to those?
Well, let's examine where we are, if I may.
Social Security is more than just a monthly stipend for some people.
This is a necessity for them.
This is some, for many people, it's the only income they have.
And we do have to make sure that we secure Social Security.
That's an absolute necessity.
And to do that, we have to do it in such a way as to not cause some people to, at some point, not live long enough to benefit from it.
For example, black men have a shorter lifespan than white men.
And if we just decided that, well, what we'll do is we'll not raise the cap.
We'll just simply decide that we'll not tax people and allow those who are not living as long, unfortunately, they just won't benefit from it.
We'll find other clever ways to do something about it.
I don't agree with that.
I think, yes, we can raise the cap.
If we raise the cap, we're requiring people who are making large amounts of money to put more into Social Security to secure the social order in this country.
I think that's the better way to go.
And in doing that, black men will, and I'm not speaking for myself, I've already reached the age.
I've celebrated my 25th birthday three times, and I'm now two years into my third 25th.
So, fourth 25th, excuse me.
And I'll invite you to the fourth 25th party when it takes place.
But the point is, I think that we have to consider all of the constituents, and raising the cap is the best way to make sure that everybody can benefit from Social Security.
Merrell in Far Rockaway, New York, Independent Line.