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Along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy.
Congress is now less than 48 hours away from a deadline to fund the government, and there is still no clear path to getting a temporary spending bill passed.
As of yesterday, President-elect Trump was calling for a clean, continuing resolution that would also address the debt ceiling, saying 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 continue to express their support for the bipartisan spending agreement that was reached earlier this week to fund the government until March 14th, before the president-elect weighed in.
And Punch Bowl's Melanie Zanona is reporting that she's hearing that there could be a vote in the House tonight on government funding, but it's still unclear what they'll be voting on.
She also cites that leadership would like to get this over as soon as possible.
The House is currently in recess, subject to the call of the chair.
When members return, we will, of course, 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, Vimy.
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 deliberation 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 would 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 would 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 did.
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 abandon 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 Cinema 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, the American people can have their emails and text 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 Nungaree 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 have ever 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.
Yes, Representative, I first have to say that you're one of my greatest champions as far as letting people know about slaves and what they contributed to this country.
And please stay with the laws you're trying to pass in that regard.
And one more thing, on January 20th, I will be watching the tribute to Dr. King, Martin Luther King Jr.
And then maybe go to Donald Trump's campaign.
But I will be watching Dr. King, who said, my children, I hope that one day they will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
In this election, with Carmela Harris, I don't think that was realized.
I know it wasn't realized because the content of her character compared to the winner of the election, Carmela Harris, way, way, had more content in her character.
And someone said, I heard a couple of weeks ago, they said, oh, Carmela Harris could never win an election in this country, but if Hillary Clinton had been nominated, she might have won.
And I'm saying, well, Hillary Clinton, she went before the Congress, charged with things like her laptop and things like she said when Obama was running that she wasn't going to drop out because anything could happen.
He might, you know, people get assassinated.
So Hillary Clinton said some terrible things.
But Karmala Harris, she had the highest, highest character.
All right, Merlin, let's get a response.
Well, I supported Vice President Harris.
It's no secret.
I think she was the best candidate.
The best candidate doesn't always win, in my opinion.
But we still have to go on.
But he did mention something that's important.
He mentioned the enslaved.
We have not been fair to the enslaved.
Their lives were sacrificed for some 246 years.
They are the economic foundation of mothers and fathers of this country.
They built the roads and the bridges.
They planted the seas.
They harvested the crops.
They fed the nation.
The Capitol, they had a hand in constructing it.
The White House, a hand in constructing it.
Yet we will not give them the honor that we gave Confederate soldiers in 1956.
A Congressional Gold Medal was given to Confederate soldiers, but not, but not to the enslaved.
I think it's time to do this, to honor them.
And by the way, there are Democrats and Republicans who will not sign on to according a Congressional Gold Medal to the enslaved.
I'm just going to tell the truth.
And the record speaks for itself.
It's right there.
1956.
We did it for Confederate soldiers, but we can't do it for the enslaved.
We want them to always be less than human beings.
These people were not just sacrificed for 10 years or a few months.
It was for centuries.
And it's time to treat them with a degree of dignity and fairness and respect.
My ancestors haven't been respected.
Will you be attending the Trump inauguration?
That is a question that has been posed by many people.
And I have said to them that I will make an announcement at an appropriate time.
So I won't be announcing today, but I promise you, if C-SPAN will allow, I'll come back and make it right here.
All right.
Kurt Livingston, Tennessee, Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yeah, Mr. Green, you are the sheep in Wolf's clothing.
You came down on Trump the very first day he was walking down and talking about what he's going to do to the nation, turn it around.
What did you do?
You divided the nation by trying to impeach him.
You were the first one to come to that side of the fence and say, we need to impeach him.
But for what reason that you speak, speaking as a Christian, you seem, but you're not.
You hide behind that.
You talk sweet words, but you're not.
It's very obvious that you tell people you're the biggest racist on the hill.
All right, let's get a response, Kurt.
Well, Kurt, let me first thank you for your call because, quite frankly, there are many people who would not have what you said about my being the first to be a part of history.
A good many people who have, excuse me, who've written books about this, they don't mention Maxine Waters and Al Green.
They don't, black history is just erased from the process.
And these are prominent people, members of Congress.
They just absolutely have made it appear as though we had no hand in the impeachment process.
I am very proud of what I did, and I did not do it on his first day in office.
I did it after he displayed impeachable behavior.
And because of that behavior, I filed multiple motions to impeach him.
Over 100 members of the House signed on to our efforts to impeach him.
We laid the foundation for the impeachment that took place.
I will never back off of that because, in my opinion, at that time, and I still stand on it, the president did some things that were worthy of his impeachment.
I just trust that history will do what you have done and acknowledge that there were African Americans who laid the foundation for the impeachment of President Trump at the time.
Bill in Depew, New York, Independent Line.
Good morning, Bill.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Congressman.
You know, facts are facts.
The first decade of the century under George Bush and the Republican conservatives led by Larry Kudlow was the worst economy in this country since the Great Depression.
The second decade of the century under Barack Obama and the Democrats was the best financial decade since this century.
From 2009 to 2019 was the best.
Trump was in there for two years, and he's bowing and taking, and they give him all the credit for his economy.
It was the best.
COVID came back.
And my other point is with the migrants.
Ronald Reagan, governor of California, is the one who allowed the illegals to flow into California because the legal green card migrant workers wanted to unionize.
Reagan wanted to kill it, so he let them flow in.
And now they're flowing into New York, and all I hear is it's a Democratic problem.
It all started with Ronald Reagan.
When he became president, he gave amnesty, he gave him education.
He welcomed the illegals in.
George Bush Jr., governor of Texas, allowed the illegals to come in.
The butchers in Texas were getting $15 an hour when Bush was elected governor.
When they left, they were getting $10 because he allowed all the illegals to come in.
And the whole South, I've been down there a number of times for years.
They hired those illegals, and then they say we were going to build a wall.
Build the wall, get around the wall, and they're still going to hire the illegals.
People who hire the illegals should be arrested for crime because it's against this country's society.
These people don't pay.
The employers do not pay disability.
They don't pay other insurances to provide a society.
And Musk is going to work with Trump to cut taxes to 15%, and he's then he's going to cut the budget.
And what American people don't realize, our first government was a Confederate state.
They did not pay their bills.
It was General George Washington said this country's a farce.
And that's when they wrote the new Constitution, the new government, the federalist.
Okay, Bill, we'll take your point.
Go ahead.
Just briefly, I think that comprehensive immigration reform is a way to resolve our immigration issues.
We have people in this country who have been here.
They've been law-abiding persons.
They have families that are here.
And many of them came not of their own volition.
They came as children.
My hope is that we'll do something to normalize things and allow them to become a part of this country as citizens.
I believe that if we have comprehensive immigration reform, we can deal with issues associated with the border and make sure that we know who's coming in and out of the country.
I think we need to know who's coming in and out of our country.
So I'm not a person who believes that we should not have anybody come into the country.
I do think lawful entry is appropriate.
And I look forward to the day that we will have comprehensive immigration reform, take care of the millions who are here already, make sure that we have a means by which people can get in and out to work who would like to come to work and still have a pathway for persons who are being persecuted in other countries to come here as we have done for many, many, many, many centuries in this country.
Real quick, we have a question that says, what programs will be affected by a government shutdown?
Well, programs are affected in this way.
While we may not affect the persons directly, the people who process the paperwork may be out of work.
And that processing then impacts them.
So a Social Security check has to be processed by somebody.
And if those people are not working because of the shutdown, then it'll impact Social Security.
Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas, thanks so much for joining us.
Well, thank you very much, Mimi.
Look forward to seeing you again.
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Congress is now less than 48 hours away from a deadline to fund the government, and there is still no clear path to getting a temporary spending bill passed.
As of yesterday, President-elect Trump was calling for a clean, continuing resolution that would also address the debt ceiling, saying 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 continue to express their support for the bipartisan spending agreement that was reached earlier this week to fund the government until March 14th before the president-elect weighed in.
And Punch Bowl's Melanie Zenona is reporting that she's hearing that there could be a vote in the House tonight on government funding, but it's still unclear what they'll be voting on.
She also cites that leadership would like to get this over as soon as possible.
The House is currently in recess, subject to the call of the chair.