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Oct. 2, 2025 19:13-19:25 - CSPAN
11:55
Washington Journal Rep. Tom Cole R-OK
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tom cole
rep/r 07:12
Appearances
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greta brawner
cspan 01:50
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christopher scalia
00:27
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
To the deficit.
I will also say that the billionaire tax credits that are in here, that these Medicaid cuts and ACA premium tax credit cuts are funding, that adds $3.5 trillion to the deficit.
That is absolutely egregious.
It's disgusting that we are placating and playing to billionaires across this country while we let women like your poor mother, I'm so sorry, sir, die.
And we need to take care of everyone.
I'm a mother.
I'm a doctor.
I absolutely want to take care of every person, and they all deserve to have health care.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼
Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, Democrat of Oregon, thank you for joining us this morning and talking to our viewers.
We always appreciate that.
unidentified
Thank you so much for having me, Greta.
Take care.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼
Let's go to Capitol Hill.
Congressman Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, is joining us.
Congressman, have you heard from your Republican leadership?
And are there talks happening with the other side?
tom cole ▲ ● ▼
Well, I hear from my leadership on a regular basis.
Quite frankly, the House has done its job.
There's really no reason for talks here.
We've actually passed the legislation for a clean continuing resolution, so we can continue to negotiate.
Now we have to wait on the Senate to see what they're going to do.
So in the House, we've solved the problem, but obviously it takes a Senate vote as well.
We're pleased to see we have a bipartisan majority for our position in the Senate.
That is 55 votes.
But of course, under Senate rules, you have to get to 60.
I always like to point out that's not in the Constitution.
That's not a law.
That's a Senate rule.
But it is a Senate rule.
So again, we're hoping our colleagues come around.
We originally had one Democratic vote in the Senate.
Then we got two more, so three.
And I think as this shutdown goes on, other people will, honestly, I would put it, sober up and recognize that we shouldn't hold the day-to-day operation of the government at risk to achieve objectives that really don't relate to the normal appropriations process.
Republicans and Democrats have both done that in the past.
It's never worked out.
It's never gotten them to where they want to go.
I predict that's where we're at today.
Sooner or later, I hope my friends in the Senate on the Democratic side of the aisle recognize that shutting down the government is bad for workers, it's bad for the country, and it's an inappropriate tool of politics.
And so hopefully we'll get there.
But the longer it goes on, the more damage will be done.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼
As you noted, Congressman, two Democrats, one Independent, voted with Republicans in the Senate on the House clean resolution, continuing resolution.
The Hill, though, is reporting this morning that the votes on Friday will be more of the same, that Senator Chuck Schumer has the rest of his party in line and that he does not expect any more or at least enough would vote with Republicans on their offer.
His argument, you should respond to it, is you need us, so you should negotiate with us.
tom cole ▲ ● ▼
We are negotiating with them over appropriations bills.
That's what this is supposed to be about.
Look, the other matters they raised, number one, the Medicaid issue, Congress has already voted on it.
A majority of both houses passed the Medicaid reforms, and the president signed them.
So revisiting them is silly.
In terms of the Obama era, COVID-era tax subsidies for health care, number one, this continuing resolution actually ends before those things run out.
Number two, the Democrats actually set the date they were supposed to run out.
So this is actually their issue.
But we don't owe them a negotiation over unrelated items any more than they owed us a negotiation over Obamacare back in 2013.
Look, we did the same thing.
I'm not arguing Democrats are doing something unusual.
It didn't work out.
We didn't change it.
We just caused a lot of pain and inconvenience.
And in the end, the side that is perceived as having shut down the government, which is what Senator Schumer and his fellow Democrats in the Senate are doing right now.
To be fair, Minority Leader Jeffries would have done the same thing if he could have, but he didn't have the votes.
So this is very much a Democratic shutdown, but it's an inappropriate use of political power, and I don't think it'll end well for the Democrats.
In the meantime, it does a lot of damage to the country that I hope they reflect on.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼
In USA Today, they report that two national surveys released September 30th, Americans were more likely to blame Republicans than Democrats for a government shutdown, though results were mixed as to who would be considered most at fault.
Your response to those polls.
tom cole ▲ ● ▼
Well, number one, I think, look, I used to be a pollster.
I can tell you they changed pretty fast.
In a week or two weeks, it'll look a lot different.
Number two, it doesn't matter.
It's just not the right thing to do.
You know, the Democrats have chosen to take a hostage and punish the American people.
That's bad.
Look, I have a federal heavy district.
I have tens of thousands of federal employees in my district.
I know how much uncertainty this is creating.
Again, I'm always proud to say I voted to keep the government open every time I've had the opportunity.
I authored the bill in March that kept the government open.
This current CR is one that, again, we asked, talked to the Democrats.
We asked them, what do you need?
They said, we need a clean, continuing resolution.
This one is.
And we need a short-term duration.
This one is.
We gave them what they asked for.
And then all of a sudden, their leadership decides to drop things in the middle of the negotiation that has nothing to do with appropriations.
So, again, I think American people are pretty smart.
They'll figure it out pretty fast.
And it's the Democrats that are shutting down a government, and it's the Senate that's not doing its job.
Not the majority of senators.
The majority of senators actually want to keep the government open and operating.
That's a bipartisan majority.
It's Leader Schumer and a few of his, well, and the bulk of his caucus that are shutting down the government.
I don't think it'll take the American people long to figure that out.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼
Do the polls reflect the fact that Republicans have a trifecta?
You control the House, the Senate, and the White House.
tom cole ▲ ● ▼
We don't control the Senate in the sense that you have to get to 60 votes on any significant piece of appropriations legislation.
We have 53.
So we acknowledge that they have cards to play.
They ought to be playing them in terms of the appropriation.
They shouldn't be shutting down the government.
And let me just make a prediction.
As the guy who's seen these, they never end well.
We shut the government down over Obamacare.
It's still there.
We shut the government down over building the wall.
It didn't get built.
And frankly, Democrats shut the government down over DACA, and they didn't get the reforms they wanted.
This isn't going to work either.
They're just drawing it out, and I think largely for political purposes.
Senator Schumer is under enormous pressure from his left wing.
He did the right thing in March, and what did he get for it?
A lot of blowback, not from Republicans, not from President Trump, but from Minority Leader Jeffries and other people that wanted him to shut down the government with no clear exit strategy.
This time he's giving them what they want.
They still have no clear exit strategy.
They're going to do a lot of damage.
But this is about, I think, Senator Schumer remaining popular in his district, avoiding a primary challenge, which has been threatened, and avoiding a leadership challenge.
So, I mean, I don't think you ought to hold the American people hostage, the entire country hostage, for your own political benefit.
And I think that's what's happening right now.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼
Congressman, do you have any concern that Russell Vogt and the president are saying that there could be mass layoffs, that they will take this opportunity of a government shutdown and begin reductions in force today, tomorrow, and possibly during weeks of a government shutdown if it lasts that long.
tom cole ▲ ● ▼
Well, first of all, the best way to avoid that is to reopen the government.
They have a responsibility to get us down to essential services.
And let me point out, even those people that are deemed essential aren't getting paid.
That includes our troops in the field.
That includes air traffic controllers.
That includes people that are making sure that Social Security and Medicaid cuts, well, excuse me, those people actually are covered.
But there's lots of folks that are working without a guaranteed paycheck.
That's just simply wrong.
And so I don't worry about what they're doing.
They're doing what they're responsible for, which is keeping the government operating and making tough choices.
What I'm worried about, why did we put them in this situation anyway?
And frankly, if Democrats are concerned about Mr. Vogt, they just empowered him.
The executive branch gets stronger during a government shutdown because Congress sidelines itself and isn't doing its work.
And frankly, in this case, that's due to the Democrats in the Senate.
The House has actually passed a clean CR.
We've done our work.
We're waiting on the Senate.
And the people holding up the Senate aren't the Republicans over there.
It's not even all the Democrats.
It's Mr. Schumer and the majority of his caucus that decide that government shutdown is better for their political interests than actually making sure the American people get the services they need and deserve.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼
Congressman Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, the chair of the Appropriations Committee in the U.S. House, thank you as always for talking to us this morning.
tom cole ▲ ● ▼
Greta, thanks for having me.
It's always a pleasure to be on C-SPAN.
unidentified
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Sunday night on C-SPAN's Q&A.
Christopher Scalia, son of the late Justice Antonin Scalia and author of 13 novels conservatives will love but probably haven't read, recommends 13 novels with conservative themes that he says aren't widely known by conservatives.
christopher scalia ▲ ● ▼
The title isn't conservative novels.
I think that that oversimplifies the case a little bit.
I think that their great literature is open to multiple, not infinite, but multiple interpretations and readings.
And so I offer what I think are reasonable, conservative readings of all of these novels.
But I think that there are alternate readings that progressives could offer.
That would be reasonable.
I wouldn't necessarily agree with them.
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