| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country. | |
| Coming up this morning, New York Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko, a member of the Budget and Energy and Commerce Committees, discusses tariffs and Democrat strategies to counter the Trump administration. | ||
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| I am prepared, under my constitutional duty, to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require all I have. | ||
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|
unidentified
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Each program includes historians, authors, and archival footage from the C-SPAN video library, providing rich context and analysis of presidential leadership during the critical opening stretch of new administrations. | |
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| House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke about the status of the House GOP budget resolution after the chamber canceled a vote on the measure due to disagreements within the Republican caucus. | ||
| I'm glad you've done this a few times. | ||
|
unidentified
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Go for it. | |
| Okay. | ||
| So we're having very productive conversations with a good subset of the House Republican conference. | ||
| Everybody has the same idea and mission and goal in mind, and that is we want to deliver the one big beautiful bill. | ||
| And you all know what's entailed in that. | ||
| We've talked about it many times. | ||
| This is the procedural step to continue that process. | ||
| The House and the Senate Republicans are working together as one team. | ||
| There's a mutual commitment that we're going to find real savings in federal spending because we have to do that. | ||
| We have a stewardship obligation to take care of that responsibility because we're on a trajectory that will quite literally bankrupt the country. | ||
| So in the reconciliation process, we want to ensure and have commitments amongst ourselves that we're going to find a requisite number of savings while also protecting essential programs. | ||
| We're not going to cut Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid. | ||
| Don't believe the lies about that. | ||
| Anybody who's an eligible beneficiary will be protected in this process. | ||
| But there are a lot of other savings in fraud, waste, and abuse and all these other areas that we are identifying and will continue to identify. | ||
| So the equilibrium point that we're trying to reach, the consensus tonight, is what is the amount of a minimal number of cuts and savings that we can find in the budget that will satisfy everyone to move forward with this nation-shaping piece of legislation. | ||
| I think this is a very productive conversation. | ||
| It's a very good one for us to be having. | ||
| I'm encouraging the dialogue amongst our colleagues as we have been working on this for almost a year. | ||
| And we're right up here at the fine point. | ||
| And everyone wants to make sure it is the best possible product that we can have. | ||
| And that's where we are tonight. | ||
|
unidentified
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How is it different about what would happen tomorrow morning of getting the votes? | |
| Or you're going to do this alternative and maybe motion to go to Congress? | ||
| Right now there's a couple of different ideas on how we might change the numbers or how we might amend what the Senate sent over, maybe go to conference. | ||
| There's a few different ideas on the table. | ||
| I'm not going to forecast where this all comes out, but I just want to tell you there's a very good, healthy spirit of cooperation and discussion. | ||
| Everyone is trying to get to the right point that will satisfy every member of this conference. | ||
| And I encourage that. | ||
| I'm encouraged by it. | ||
| And I'm very optimistic that we are going to get this job done. | ||
| And for all those in the media who doubt us, you continue to doubt us and we continue to deliver and we will again. | ||
| So I'm very optimistic about it. | ||
|
unidentified
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No doubt here. | |
| Do you, so there's some talk about going to rules, putting something in that says you won't put it to the floor unless it has a requisite number of questions. | ||
| That's one of the ideas, among others. | ||
|
unidentified
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I mean, the Senate does not want you to amend this clearly and does not want to go to conference. | |
| So, I mean, what do you see as the leading possibility at this point? | ||
| Well, I mean, going to conference takes more time, and the calendar is not our friend. | ||
| We have real deadlines upon us and lots of reasons to move this along. | ||
| And we want to project and send a message to the bond markets, to the stock markets, to investors, job creators, and entrepreneurs, and our allies and friends around the world that we are going to get this job done. | ||
| And the fine-tuning that we're doing right now is part of this process. | ||
| It will yield a better product in the end. | ||
| Both of these chambers will work together. | ||
| We have been very cooperative today. | ||
| Just most recently in the last several hours, you should know, Leader Thune and some of his committee chairs met with some of our members and had a thoughtful dialogue. | ||
| This is all part of it. | ||
| So everything is moving along just fine. | ||
| We have a little bit of room here to work, and we're going to use that. | ||
| That's right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you commit that you guys are going to have a vote on this budget before you go on recession? | |
| Well, that's certainly my intention because I think it's really important for us to do that before we leave, that we have a resolution to this or a plan to get to that resolution before everybody leaves for the district work period. | ||
| And, you know, Passover is Saturday. | ||
| I don't have any intention to have us here working this weekend, but if we have to come back next week, then we'll do that. | ||
| We are going to get the job done. | ||
|
unidentified
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Are the senators, or the Senate leadership on the Republican side, are they receptive to these ideas? | |
| They fully understand. | ||
| I mean, Leader Thune and I talked multiple times today, talked to some of the key leaders over there who are most attuned to this process and have been leading it thus far. | ||
| They know exactly what we're doing and why and what the conversations are, and they've been very helpful in that regard. | ||
| So I'm very encouraged. | ||
| This is not an us versus them prospect. | ||
| There's no animosity between the chambers, and there's no animosity between anybody in this room. | ||
| This is a productive part of the legislative process. | ||
| We work in the greatest deliberative body in the world, and this is how it happens, especially in a time when you have a small majority, small margins. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I know you said that you spoke to the president. | |
| I did. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But did the president speak to the other folks in the room? | |
| No, there was just too many voices, too many people in the room, so I stepped out and talked with the president. | ||
| What was his message? | ||
| It's very positive, very encouraging. | ||
| I gave him an update of where we are. | ||
| He's obviously very closely monitoring all of this. | ||
| There's a lot at stake here. | ||
| He was on his way to another event, and I was trying to get back in the room to finish it, but we had a good discussion, very positive. | ||
| He said, let's just get the job done. | ||
| I said, yes, sir, we will. |