It says, Speaker Mike Johnson has once again instructed House lawmakers to remain in their home districts next week, keeping attention and heat.
In Washington on Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for over a month.
A clerk in the House of Representatives announced on Friday that Johnson has designated October 20th through 23rd as a district work period, meaning no votes or House hearings are expected to be held for that time.
It goes on to say that the House GOP passed its federal funding package on September 19th, a seven-week extension of the fiscal year 2025 government spending levels called a continuing resolution.
It goes on to say that Johnson told reporters earlier on Friday that he would give House members 48 hours notice before they had to return for any votes.
Something he stated both publicly privately for weeks.
It was yesterday on ABC this week that House Speaker Mike Johnson explained his reasoning for continuing to have the House out of session.
Well, first of all, we're fighting for health care as well, not just in word, but in deed.
We put it in the one big, beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cut, real reforms to Medicaid to make it work better to preserve the program because we had illegal aliens receiving benefits.
We had young, able-bodied men who were not working.
They don't have dependents.
They were riding the wagon.
We cleaned that up in our bill.
In their counterproposal, what Chuck Schumer was arguing for is he wants to reverse those reforms, which would be a terrible policy decision for the people.
It's exactly a month ago today, on September 19th, we passed the clean resolution.
The continuing resolution would keep the lights on, keep the government working for the people.
By the way, keep Border Patrol agents paid, our troops paid, you know, air traffic controllers, all the rest, all the services that go to veterans and young women who need nutrition assistance for their infants.
The Democrats, every single one of them, have now voted 11 times, except for three Democrats in the Senate.
They voted 11 times to shut down the government and cease and halt all of those services and programs.
It was House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, also on ABC this week yesterday, explaining the Democrats' position and saying that Republicans have gone radio silent since the negotiations started.
We have repeatedly and publicly and privately made clear to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that we will sit down with them anytime, any place, with anyone, either at the Capitol or back at the Oval Office, to reopen the government, find a bipartisan path toward enacting a spending agreement that actually improves the quality of life of the American people, while at the same time,
decisively addressing the Republican health care crisis that's devastating people throughout the country, working class America, rural America, urban America, small town America, the heartland of America, and of course, black and brown communities throughout America.
But we haven't heard anything from Donald Trump or the Republicans over the last few weeks.
They have gone radio silent since the Oval Office meeting.
In fact, we know Donald Trump has spent more time on the golf course over the last few weeks during this painful government shutdown than he has speaking to Democrats on Capitol Hill to try to find a bipartisan resolution.
And as you pointed out earlier with Speaker Johnson, House Republicans are now heading into their fourth week of vacation.
They continue to cancel votes.
They have no interest in doing the business of the American people, and that's unfortunate.
We are starting today's Washington Journal with your calls on this day 20 of the government shut down the lines there in your screen.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
If you are a federal worker, there's a line for you.
That number is 202-748-8003.
We will start with Sip, who's calling from Houston on the line for Democrats.
Good morning, Sip.
unidentified
Good morning.
All right.
I'm going to speak from 20,000 feet above.
If everybody can remember back when President Obama come out with health care, everybody knows that the Republicans don't want health care.
They don't care about health care.
I mean, there it is right there.
All right.
One other thing.
Donald Trump, the Republicans jumped on Bill Quinton for just meeting his Attorney General at an airport.
President Biden went, aborted the DOJ by appointing a special prosecutor.
And I mean, just that the Republicans have demonized the Mexican immigrant and got people thinking that they are the cause of all our problems when they are not.
They need to, I wish you would get somebody on there to set how much revenue tax that the immigrants pay in versus what they get.
Yeah, I'm glad she reminded us about the big bad bill.
That's the Doge cuts included in this.
So although I don't want to blame the government shutdown on Democrats, I'm glad that they're standing firm that this budget is including those horrible Doge cuts.
Now, the other thing I was going to raise, since Donald Trump and his father were slumlords, the management of America under them or under him is the management of a slumlord.
He doesn't want to fix America.
He doesn't want to fix our property.
He just wants to weasel around and pretend that he's the grand vizier over the property, except he's supposed to be a public servant.
He's not supposed to be a grand vizier.
He's supposed to be a public servant that's making sure that the potholes are fixed, the libraries are working, the schools are working.
But he's a slumlord, a slumlord by nature.
And then the slum lord hung around with organized crime for 40 years and created the opportunity to cash in, put cronies all over America.
And when he invades these cities, he's creating new territories for his organized crime buddies.
When he creates these tariffs, he's creating smuggling, and he's creating opportunities for his organized crime buddies.
So this is not political.
It's organized crime, and it's organized crime run by a slumlord.
Let's hear from Steve in Massachusetts, line for Republicans.
Good morning, Steve.
unidentified
Hi, good morning.
Thanks for taking the call.
I'd just like to thank the president or slumlord president for not taking a paycheck and everything that he's doing for the country.
I'd also make a point that is the government actually shut down the people that voted to shut it down are still taking a paycheck.
And as far as the Affordable Care Act goes and subsidies for Medicare or whatever you want to call it, I thought Obama fixed all of that.
Isn't that what the Affordable Care Act was all about?
That their health care products weren't going to go up, but yet now we're playing this game of, how do you say it, politics, where people are trying to do their jobs while other people are standing on street corners yelling, no kings, no kings.
If they cannot work together to work out a budget in time, and then they can't agree to things for the people, they're the ones who shouldn't get a paycheck.
I'm not a speaker, a public speaker, but I am listening to what's going on in Washington, and it is just a terrible mess.
And I think our president has forgotten that he is our employee.
He doesn't look at it that way.
And I am very disappointed in him.
I may not be a Republican, but I am an American, and I expect him to be the president of all Americans.
This is Thomas calling from Fresno, California, on the line for independence.
Good morning, Thomas.
unidentified
Good morning.
You know, yesterday I participated in the No Kings protest here in Fresno, California.
And what I observed was thousands of American citizens that are voters.
Mike Johnson, Hakeem Jeffries.
You know, the game is cool when they sit and they're getting paid on taxpayer dollars.
They have health care on taxpayer dollars.
But then those individuals that pay taxes are denied services because we vote for individuals to have what we can't have.
I thought I voted for them to go to Washington to make sure that my needs were met, not to basically seek power for themselves, wealth for themselves, the insider trading.
It's starting to get a little ridiculous here in America, where we, the taxpayers, the voters, send these individuals to Washington to do nothing for us.
But the corporations seem to glean from their power, not the people of the United States of America.
Longest Shutdown Impacts00:03:37
unidentified
When are we going to wake up as voters, as citizens of this great nation, and put an end to this?
Thank you very much, and everyone have a nice day.
Yeah, so there's a number of concerns here I think that are longer term that we're not really accounting for here.
Yes, there's short-term impacts to federal employees, to the functions of the government that deliver to the people day in, day out.
It's also longer-term impacts.
If you have everybody out of work for a month, programs can be delayed two, three, four, five months just because of that trickle-down effect.
So you're delaying services from the government to the people longer term as well.
And then, third, every day that the government is shut down, you're also impacting the perception of U.S. markets, whether that's climate to invest in or it's the willingness of a company to take a risk.
You're impacting that slightly by not having reliability in the federal government in that way.
So there's a number of longer-term impacts there from these shutdowns that are cyclical, right?
This may be headed towards being one of the longer ones, but this has happened frequently.
So what I would like to see, who I think a lot of folks would be supportive of, is what measures can Congress or the government put in place to prevent these in the future or to at least mitigate these in the future.
Maybe that's a tool of negotiation for the majority here, but it's sorely needed because there's a lot of downstream impacts that are hurting the country.
Carol is calling from Massachusetts on the line for independence.
Good morning, Carol.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm saying this, making a statement for the American people.
American people, this is on you.
You did this because you voted this congressman in.
All these congressmen have been in power and have been voted in for years and years and years.
What you need to do is start voting them out and vote for more independents or people who are more moderate in their thinking and not far right or far left.
So people like Schumer, I'm so tired of listening to him.
He's what, 44 years in Congress or something?
And what does he do?
Nothing but cause trouble.
You need to vote these people out and vote for younger, more knowledgeable, younger people who know what's going on and have more business sense.
So you did this to yourself, American people.
And I do agree with one thing.
I do not think we should be paying health care for illegal immigrants.
And I know you don't have the time, but I have two or three incidents that have happened where American people taxpayer have had to be set aside and wait in emergency rooms so the staff could take care of people who are illegal and not even here for, you know, have a job or doing everything else, but just using our tax and tax money.
It says, President Donald Trump blasted Democrats for prolonging the government's shutdown in an interview on Sunday, vowing to permanently eliminate what he called Democratic, quote, welfare programs.
He went on to say that Trump argued that Democrats lack strong leadership and viable candidates for an upcoming election.
He said that the shutdown stalemate gives him leverage to cut billions of programs in programs Republicans have long wanted to eliminate.
That is from an interview yesterday on Sunday Morning Futures.
Here is a clip from that interview.
unidentified
Do you think that the government shutdown is all about this rally that's happening this weekend, the No Kings Rally?
Barbara is calling from Columbus, Ohio on the Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Barbara.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm calling about what the Democrats should be talking about, and so should the media.
Fox News is nothing but propaganda.
And what we need to be talking about is the reason for the shutdown.
And it had to do with the fact that they did not want the Epstein files made public.
And that's also the reason that the Republicans will not swear in the new Democratic candidate from out west because she has the last vote who would cause these files to be made public.
And SCOTUS is the biggest problem because they're the ones who are giving Trump all the power that he needs.
Well, I hate to say this, but Donald Trump, he may not actually be a king, but he's acting like a gangster, which pretty much has the same connotations.
I mean, just look at the people that he's pardoned already.
They're all criminals.
And George Santos, the GN6 combatants, Rob Lagorovich, Prabhupada's Old Keith.
And the list goes on.
And he's turned the government into his own personal Group of criminals, also talking about he doesn't take a salary, Donald Trump.
Who needs a salary when you can embezzle money from the American people in other ways?
So, as far as I'm concerned, the country would be better off without Donald Trump ever since he came down that escalator.
Actually, even before he was a criminal.
And that's why there's so much attention.
Or, I mean, if it was the same thing with Al Capone, you know, they went after him too because they knew he was a criminal doing criminal activities.
I have a lot to prove to a lot of people, and I have to make sure President Trump understands that I am not going to disappoint him.
unidentified
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country.
Coming up Tuesday morning, we'll talk about the government shutdown, President Trump's economic policies, and the upcoming November elections with the Club for Growth's David McIntosh.