So Jesse, the Republicans the Republicans are saying, like you just heard, give us the votes to reopen the government and then we'll discuss health care.
What do you think of that?
unidentified
I think that's a lie and I don't think that's how it works.
Okay, because they should be working with the Democrats.
Every time there's been a shutdown, at least twice it's been during the Republicans being in charge and the Democrats bailing them out.
You said virtual visits correct for doctors visits are those You're saying those are no longer being covered by the ACA?
unidentified
Well, I don't know about ACA, but Medicare and I think Medicaid too, a physician said that they received a letter from CMC saying that the COVID-era virtual visits expired September 30th.
So as of October 1st, there weren't going to be virtual visits covered.
Now, I don't know if that's enforced.
I really don't know.
That's what I, you know, I looked it up and there is stuff online about that.
I think I'm calling from an independent line because I'm independent and I have an independent thinking line.
This is the nine of the shutdown, and I listened to both leaders in the Senate.
They are throwing blames for each other.
The Republicans are blaming the Democrats, the Democrats are blaming the Republicans.
But after listening to both of them, they both have good and valid points.
The only thing that I see there is the Republicans are not asking for anything just to open the government.
And the Democrats are asking for something that has nothing to do with opening the government.
That is why the impasse is.
As an independent thinking man, if I have to lay blame on any of these two parties, I will put it on the Democrats.
They need to vote on that.
I don't know whether it's clean or not clean, but that is what the Republicans are saying: that it's clean, no policy writers or anything like that.
The Democrats have to vote onto that one, open up the government, and then they can deal with their policy differences when it comes to the bills for, I mean, the yearly appropriations that the Democrats are making is the notices for the premium hikes have already gone out.
Mike Johnson rejects bill for U.S. military pay as shutdown continues.
It says that House Speaker Mike Johnson is rejecting calls for Congress to hold a separate vote to pay military service members who could miss paychecks next week if the government shutdown continues.
Johnson said Wednesday the House has already acted by passing a stopgap spending bill that would have kept the government funded through November 21st.
And just so you know, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, will be on this program starting at 8.30 a.m. Eastern.
He will take calls, so be sure to stay with us for that.
Mary in Ohio, line for Republicans.
Good morning, Mary.
unidentified
Good morning.
You know, there's actually two bills.
There is the bill that is currently in place that the Democrats are voting against.
And then there is the bill that the Democrats want to replace it with.
The new bill that the Democrats want to shove down our throats costs an additional $1 trillion $400,000 in the new bill, the Democrat bill.
On page 57, number 5741, the Democrats in their bill are going to authorize payments to have medical coverage for illegal aliens.
They are actually giving, in this new bill of the Democrats, $192 billion of additional American money to services for illegal aliens.
And to help pay for that, just part of it, they are going to be cutting $50 billion from small community hospitals and everything for medical coverage for Americans.
They're cutting out $50 billion to hospitals for Americans in order to help pay for Medicare or medical services for illegals.
They are also, in their bill, going to authorize more money to be paid to hospitals or medical facilities for illegals versus what they're willing to pay for an American.
So if you're an American, the hospital treats you, you don't get compensated as much as if the hospital is treating illegal aliens.
And in addition, even though it's been voted out, voted against, the Democrats want to have us go ahead and cover, return money to NPR and PBS.
While I'm on the phone, I would like to have C-SPAN bring up the Watergate issue that's currently going on, where the Democrats have turned around and wiretapped Republicans, senators, eight Republican senators, and put wiretaps and suspicion on 97 Republican programs.
Federal workers, it's my understanding that the law is that they would be paid.
There is some other legal analysis that's floating around.
I have yet had time to dig into and read that.
But it has always been the case, that is tradition, and I think it is statutory law, that federal employees be paid, and that's my position.
I think they should be.
They should not be subjected to harm and financial dire straits because Chuck Schumer wants to play political games.
With regard to paying the troops, I want everybody to listen to me very carefully.
Hakeem Jeffries and the House Democrats, as Leader Scalise said so well, are clamoring to get back here and have another vote because some of them want to get on record and say they're for paying the troops.
We already had that vote.
It's called the CR.
Every Republican and at least one Democrat had the common sense to say, of course, we want the government to stay in operation.
Of course, we want to pay our troops and our air traffic controllers and our Border Patrol agent, TSA, and everybody else.
We did have that vote.
The House, I keep saying the House did its job.
We did that almost three weeks ago.
And every Democrat in the House except one voted against it.
They voted that they did not want the troops to be paid.
They did not want TSA agents to be paid.
They did not want air traffic controllers, Border Patrol agents, and all the rest.
They live with that vote.
They made that decision.
The House is done.
The ball is now in the Senate's court.
It does us no good to be here dithering on show votes.
We did it.
We sent the product over.
It is clean.
It is 24 pages in length.
It's the most bare minimum that's necessary to keep the lights on for the people.
And Chuck Schumer and 43 of his colleagues, Democrats, continue to do the wrong thing.
And here's more information on that from Gov Exec.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration said furloughed feds were not guaranteed back pay.
On Wednesday, it sent notices saying they were.
Just one day after taking a different argument, the Trump administration notes federal law guarantees back pay for employees sent home during a shutdown.
And Speaker Johnson will be joining us later today at 8.30 to take your calls.
Meanwhile, we will hear from Ron in Illinois, Republican line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
Thank you, Mike, for your work.
I do like what's going on.
I got just one basic question.
When the party has boosted about the money that has came in as trillions of dollars that have come into the country because of the tariffs, where is that being utilized at?
And why do we have to have this situation if we're bringing in them kind of monies?
Quoting JD Vance on September 28th, saying, Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government because they want to give hundreds of billions of dollars of health care benefits to illegal aliens.
It has been rated as false by PolitiFact.
It says that immigrants in the U.S. illegally are generally ineligible for federally funded health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and subsidized private insurance through the ACA.
Democrats' funding proposal would restore access to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplace for legal immigrants who will lose access once certain provisions of the Republicans' tax and spending law take effect.
William in Jackson, Mississippi, Independent, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call once again.
I want to say, yes, they should leave the government closed until they come to a resolution.
Republicans were offering a 21-day resolution just to go 21 more days.
They never governed.
They stopped governing after George Bush.
So they don't have no intention on governing.
You asked a question to a call a couple of calls ago.
What about they said they was going to do something after the government?
They always lie.
Just like the woman you allowed to lie three calls ago, talking about what was in the bill.
You know it's illegal for them to fund for illegal aliens to have this.
But you all continue to allow the lie.
At the end, when people come in with facts, you want to cut them short.
That's not right, Grubb.
That's not right.
It's not right for you to do that.
You spearing misinformation out here.
And that's why the orange chief in charge loves the miseducated.
He loves people that don't know how to go and research.
Don't know how to go and don't know civics, period.
And it's wrong for you to do that.
You all need to stop doing it unless this country is not going to get back on track.
Here's Tom in Raleigh, North Carolina, Republican line.
Good morning, Tom.
unidentified
Good morning.
I think these elected officials, not a single one, should get paid while the government shut down.
You got these employees going to work every single day, not knowing how they're going to pay their lot bill two weeks from now, their mortgage two weeks from now, and it can affect their credit.
So when there's a shutdown, I don't think any of these elected officials need to get paid.
It just infuriates me that they're sitting there getting paid and people going to work with the government and they're not getting paid.
It makes no sense.
And they need to pass a law.
When there's a government shutdown, no Republican, Democrat, or independent gets paid until it's passed.
I would like to make my comment without anger or hate because we have enough of that these days.
And I'm not speaking anger and hate against President Trump nor the NRC.
And what I would like to say is that we have to realize, Americans, that this shutdown is hurting all Americans.
And the fact that we do not have sufficient insurance, this affects all Americans, not just Democrats, but all Americans.
So be mindful of that.
And speaking to the immigrants, which we refer to, questionable term, illegal aliens, immigrants have liberty to go to receive emergency service only in hospitals.
And that's something that was enacted by our president, Republican president, some time ago, Reagan, President Reagan.
And I like President Reagan, by the way.
But it's just a personal thing.
And I think we should try to come together and try to think before we speak and try to come together to encourage our Congress and leaders in general without the anger and the hate.
And this is actually about financial disclosure reports.
So if you go to the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate will have this as well.
There is kind of a couple of information here about what are financial disclosure reports and what is public and how you can look at that.
You can, right here, you can download financial disclosure reports by year.
So what are they required to disclose?
Here's for congressional candidates as well.
And you'll be able to see what's public as far as what Mary was talking about.
Randy, St. Louis, Missouri, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified
Well, good morning.
I guess I'm concerned that for months as that bill, as the great, wonderful, lousy bill was being prepared, the Republicans said, oh, we're not cutting, we're not touching Medicare or Medicaid under any circumstances.
And in the if you watch the hearings, at one point, the Democrats made the Republicans do a line item on every line that enforced them to say we're not going to touch that.
But they went ahead, and that's what they do.
They're not holding to their word.
And they have nothing to back it up.
They have no plan to replace it.
So you have to shut the government down.
And it's better.
No government is better than the Trump government, is the bottom line.
The House Oversight Committee, the House Oversight Committee is working on the Epstein files right now, releasing 34,000 pages and more on the website.
And he was talking about the swearing in of the newest Congresswoman-elect, Adelita Gorhalva.
He has said that that will not happen until the government reopens.
And you can, of course, hear more about that.
He also talked about the Epstein files.
He'll be joining us as a guest on this program at 8:30 Eastern Time.
Bernice, Detroit, Michigan, Democrat.
Good morning, Bernice.
unidentified
Hi.
In the reconciliation bill that the Republicans passed earlier, they cut Medicaid and the Obamacare, which is the ACA.
They all, in that bill, was so large that it kicked in that Medicare will be cut because you can only do a certain amount of money and it's going to kick in and cut Medicare.
So the Republicans did not want the Democrats because they knew the Democrats was not going to cut the Obamacare.
unidentified
So they did it in their reconciliation bill that they can only do one time a year because if they could do it again, they would pass the CR under it, but they can only do reconciliation once a year.
All the Democrats is saying the money that you took from ACA and Medicaid to give those tax cuts to the rich, put it back in Obamacare and Medicaid.
They're not asking for added money.
Just take that money that you've taken for those two programs, put it back in those two programs and give people health care.
Before Obamacare, the American people didn't have any health care.
So it might not be the best of health care, but people, you have health care.
So the Republicans need to put back that money that they took out of the reconciliation bill for those two programs and figure out how to give tax cuts to the rich permanently if they want to without that money.
Thank you, Mimi.
You should ask Mike Johnson.
You are pretty good at getting your guests.
You're pretty good at getting your guests to answer questions.
So if you'd like more information on what Bernice was talking about, the headline is: How will the One Big Beautiful Bill Act affect the ACA, Medicaid, and the uninsured rate?
And there is information here if you scroll down on Medicaid provisions and then also changes to the ACA marketplaces, including proposed rule codifications.
So this is in the act that passed the reconciliation bill that passed and was signed by the president.
And Jay in West Palm Beach, Florida, Independent Line.
Good morning, Jay.
unidentified
Hi, thanks for taking my call.
I know you've been covering this news, the shutdown almost every day.
The biggest news today is there's a big peace deal in Gaza because of President Trump.
This big thing happened.
And I was expecting you to cover that instead of covering the same old story every day.
I did mention it at the very beginning of the program.
Jay, we are going to start with that during open forum, and we will take calls on that as well and get you as much news as possible on that.
Scott in New Jersey, Republican.
Good morning, Scott.
unidentified
Good morning, Ahara.
I believe that what we're seeing right now with the government shutdown is laughable.
When it is that you look at the fact that it is that they were willing to pass this 13 times with the exact same CR.
But now, because it is that the Democrat Party finds themselves floundering, they're looking for any win possible.
So what they're trying to do is they're trying to create a headache that doesn't need to be.
And all of a sudden, they want to say, oh, they're before it.
When it is that almost every single member of your party votes no, how can you say it's the other side that didn't allow it to happen?
And one of the things that I wanted to point out, too, is earlier, and I've heard a number of different callers, I hear different groups, and they talk about, oh, well, that doesn't happen.
And illegal immigrants don't benefit from these different things.
I don't understand why it is seeing more about this superintendent of schools who was in charge of the largest school district in Iowa at Des Moines, making, what, $300,000 a year, multiple weapons that were loaded.
He was a registered voter in the state of Maryland.
All things that should not be available to an illegal immigrant.
But we understand the fact that it is that this man was so brazenly participating in this type of behavior.
It's happening and they're not fearful of the consequence.
And when it is that we want to talk about, oh, they're cutting from Medicaid and the ACA and things like this, I believe that language is very important.
And this is something that politicians are all too good at.
Each one of them, they act like lawyers.
It comes down to semantics.
Just like we say, oh, a recount versus an audit or something like this.
Same thing, cuts.
If you're going through and you're removing people from roles that never should have been eligible for a service, that's not a cut.
What that's doing is making sure that the right people are receiving the money.
So the thing is, if it is that people pay closer attention to the things that are actually going on, maybe they'd have a better understanding.
And also, this cannot be done with a simple majority.
They need Democrat support in order to get this through.
And on top of that, the juxtaposition of what it is that you have President Trump doing in Israel and what it is, the action that he's taking to try and restore safety in cities across this country that has been going on for far too long versus these members of Congress and these senators who are shutting down our government, who want to kick the can down the road.
And think of this.
13 times we passed a CR.
That's not a balanced budget.
That's just restoring funding at current levels to make sure that things can keep running.
We're still running this nation into debt, and it's absolutely ridiculous to see a man of action who's getting things done so quickly with such little time and to understand that the Democrats are simply trying to delay because they understand that the rules work against him.
He only has the remainder of his term and he'll be gone.
And guess what?
They'll still be there.
So if they can hold tight, they could try to throw every wrench in there as much as possible.
They can keep as many of these wasteful programs in place that they like.
And once it is that he's gone, you're sure going to see these things blow right back up again.
Because guess what?
I don't see somebody who's going to be following him up who's going to be fighting as hard and doesn't care because the man is already rich.
He's 54 years old, was the superintendent for over two years before his resignation on September 30th, days after his arrest.
He had previously held leadership positions in school districts across the U.S. for two decades.
It says in the days since he was taken into custody, Roberts has been federally charged for alleged firearms offenses, and lawsuits and state investigations are being pursued over his hiring.
And it goes on to talk about the timeline of his arrest.
If you want more information at ABC News, Jimmy in Georgia, Independent Line.
Hi, Jimmy.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
That was an interesting story about the guy in Iowa.
I had not seen that yet.
Earlier, a caller had said that this shutdown affects all Americans.
And my immediate response was, no, it's not going to affect me.
I'm immune from that.
But it actually has.
I'm not going to be flying next week because I'm scared of the air traffic controller situation.
And it made me think that, yeah, there's some guy in the government somewhere who decides who's going to stay open and who's going to not work during these government shutdowns.
And I'm trying to imagine why this guy or whoever it is decided, oh, we're going to leave ICE open, but we're going to shut down the air traffic controllers because they're not really important, but ICE keeping us safe from this school, keeping us safe from this school superintendent.
So here's what's happening on air traffic control.
NBC News delays reported at airports for third day as government shutdown drags on.
It says the FAA said one of the hubs hit by staffing shortages was Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
This is the it says the agency has ordered a reduction in the number of flights in and out of Orlando, Newark, and one of three major, which is one of three major airports in New York area.
It says when air traffic controllers, staffing shortages began Monday when air traffic controllers started working without pay because of the shutdown.
Lloyd in Virginia, line for Democrats.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Thank you for checking my call.
I guess with all the negative David going on left and right at the time, we thought, yeah, we can get together in some kind of way.
The countries are looking at us, the young people are looking at us and seeing how we're acting.
And all this, all this negative information, negative stuff just going left and right, not helping anybody.
Can we get together with all the smart minds or that we can put a man on the moon?
But we can't settle down and try to get this stuff straight.
Let's get this country back together and get this, get everything open and stop pointing things.
They're not doing anything at all, a pointing thing, left and right.
Everybody's all divided.
It doesn't seem to be the United States of America, just 50-something states now.
So we need to get back together, see if we can work together as a people.
So you're talking about the exempted employees who still have to work without pay, not going to work.
Yeah, got it.
unidentified
Yeah, if we all stood together, I stopped getting paid.
If I'm not mistaken, my last paycheck is going to be tomorrow.
If we were allowed to strike, there would be no government shutdown because we'd all stand together and we'd force the government to say, hey, we need to get paid.
And also, like somebody said a while ago, if we don't get paid, then Senate and Congress shouldn't get paid either.
I just, I just, it's really a comment to the speaker.
I wish that the government needs to work for the people, not political agendas.
Please, I'm begging both Democratic and Republican Republicans, make the country first.
You know, we've had such a divide.
I came here in 1967 from a communist country.
This is ridiculous what we're going through here in the United States.
People don't realize what it is to be a communist and not have and not have your freedoms.
This is the best country in the world, and we're taking it away from our people, from our citizens this way, by the politicians fighting all the time about things that really don't matter for the American citizens.