| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
That was a made-for-C-SPAN moment. | |
| If you watch on C-SPAN, you're going to see me physically across the aisle every day, just trying to build relationships and try to understand their perspective and find common ground. | ||
| And welcome for to everybody watching at home. | ||
| We know C-SPAN covers this live as well. | ||
| We appreciate that. | ||
| And one can only hope that he's able to watch C-SPAN on a black and white television set in his prison cell. | ||
| This is being carried live by C-SPAN. | ||
| It's being watched not only in this country, but it's being watched around the world right now. | ||
| Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He was on C-SPAN 1. | |
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
| Eric Wasson reports on Congress for Bloomberg. | ||
| Joining us now. | ||
| A lot going on in both the House and Senate side. | ||
| Eric Wasson, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks so much for having me. | |
| On the House side, let's start there. | ||
| There's a deadline coming up for funding. | ||
| Tell our viewers where that deadline is and what's being done to meet it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Congress needs a bipartisan agreement by October 1st to prevent a government shutdown. | |
| Right now, it looks more likely than not we will see some kind of government shutdown. | ||
| This is due to a deep disagreement between Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| Republicans are preparing as soon as this morning to unveil a stopgap bill through either November 20th or November 21st, just to keep the government on autopilot for about seven weeks. | ||
| They do not want to attach other big policies to that. | ||
| Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, wants to see major health care legislation attached to this. | ||
| He's asked for a rollback of this big, beautiful bill, Medicaid cuts, cuts to rural hospitals. | ||
| That's unlikely to happen. | ||
| But also on his list of potential demands is extending expiring Obamacare premium subsidies, without which we might see a 75% increase in some people's health care insurance. | ||
| Some Republicans are interested in that, but Senate Majority Leader John Thunen said, no way are we doing this big policy change on a short seven-week bill. | ||
| It's really going to be up to Chuck Schumer whether he sort of backs down. | ||
| In March, he did make a government shutdown threat. | ||
| In the end, he allowed just enough Democrats to vote. | ||
| This is a reminder: you need 60 votes in the Senate to clear. | ||
| Republicans don't have 60 seats. | ||
| They need at least seven Democrats. | ||
| So we could see a shutdown at the end of the month. | ||
| What's the willingness of Chuck Schumer to go ahead and let that happen? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, he's talking a lot tougher than he did even in March. | |
| You know, the argument then was that Trump was at peak popularity with the tariffs and other concerns, Trump's popularity would be eroded and there would be a chance for Democrats to really take on the president in a potential shutdown fight. | ||
| You know, it's just a hard argument for a congressional minority to make. | ||
| You know, if there is a clean funding bill to go up and make that argument, it's a bit convoluted. | ||
| It's a bit hard to make. | ||
| Bernie Sanders was out there this weekend making the argument that Republicans would be the ones shutting down the government if they don't negotiate with Democrats. | ||
| So really, once a shutdown begins, it's all bets are off. | ||
| But in the past, the ones who were viewed as being the ones who caused a shutdown generally tend to have to back down. | ||
| How does the narrow majority in the House complicate what majority leader, or sorry, the House Speaker Mike Johnson has to accomplish? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so normally he's got to deal with the House Freedom Caucus, but the House Freedom Caucus has really changed in this Congress. | |
| It's become sort of tamed by House Speaker Mike Johnson. | ||
| Even during the big, beautiful bill, the $4 trillion tax cut and spending cut bill, there were threats of voting against at the last minute the Freedom Caucus backed down. | ||
| So the Freedom Caucus, interestingly, is kind of pushing for a full year continuing resolution at sort of current levels. | ||
| The reason here is because the White House budget office, the Office of Management and Budget, has taken on a sort of a novel Theory of the case where they're doing pocket rescues, where they're going in and sort of canceling spending unilaterally without congressional support, something that critics call it an illegal impoundment. | ||
| The courts will have to decide that. | ||
| But for the Freedom Caucus, the idea is Congress just put everything on autopilot and then OMB can come in and selectively just cut the spending unilaterally. | ||
| What that act set off a lot of Republicans in the House and Senate does it come back to bite them, so to speak, in this process? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, it certainly could. | |
| You know, once Congress cedes power to the executive on spending, it's already ceded power on war powers and foreign policy. | ||
| You know, it would be hard to claw it back. | ||
| So, you know, again, in any, you know, the institutionals will say, no, Congress needs to defend the power of the purse. | ||
| We see Susan Collins, who's the leader of the Appropriations Committee, you know, against impoundment, you know, urging OMB not to take these actions, but she needs at least a few more colleagues to go along with that stance in order to block them. | ||
| Just to give viewers a sense of where the House Speaker is yesterday, he was on the Sunday shows and was asked about this idea of passage and what complicates that. | ||
| I want to play a little of that exchange and we'll talk about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You were in the middle of answering about Obamacare's tax subsidies, possible sanctions against Russia, and a government funding mechanism. | |
| Please continue. | ||
| Yeah, sorry about the interruption there. | ||
| Listen, we're very encouraged that we've been able to restore the regular appropriations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right, but are we going to get this done? | |
| Are those two other things going to be added to the process, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| We'll have to see. | ||
| I've got to build consensus around all of it, but I think we'll need a short-term funding measure, a clean CR that will allow more time to figure all this out. | ||
| We certainly hope that Democrats will go along on that, because if not, they really have no excuse. | ||
| If they shut the government down, it would be their unilateral decision to do so. | ||
| So, Eric Watson, two things, I have to build consensus. | ||
| That's what he has to say. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| And one of the elements that might be attached to this, they say clean CR, they might have more lawmaker security. | ||
| In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there's a lot of nervousness. | ||
| There's some pilot programs out there that have been done, but the speaker was telling us in a gaggle that only 20 lawmakers have opted for this extra $20,000 a year for security. | ||
| They may expand that, extend that. | ||
| But, you know, leaders in Congress have full security details, but rank-and-file members don't. | ||
| And the speaker said that would not be feasible. | ||
| It would be billions of dollars, perhaps having to hire 5,000 more U.S. Capitol police. | ||
| But they want to find some ways to keep lawmakers safe, and there's certainly a lot of nervousness now in the wake of the tragic killing. | ||
| He's also laying it at the feet of Democrats if this does not happen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, right. | |
| So, yes, so the interesting thing is the House Democrats. | ||
| We'll leave this here to take you live to the U.S. House on this Monday, September 15th. | ||
| Members are considering legislation related to veterans and small businesses. | ||
| This is live coverage of the House on C-SPAN. | ||
| For what purpose is the gentleman from Florida seek recognition? |