Rep. Mike Flood highlights C-SPAN’s 46-year legacy while Hakeem Jeffries slams House Republicans for an eight-week shutdown vacation, calling their inaction on ACA tax credits a "hoax" that risks medical bankruptcy for millions. He criticizes their $1.7T budget bill—cutting Medicaid, SNAP, and raising costs via energy policies favoring big oil—while questioning why they oppose athlete protections like the SCORE Act despite bipartisan support. Jeffries also condemns Trump’s attacks on journalists as "disgusting," accuses GOP of rubber-stamping extremist agendas, and warns Project 2025 threatens public education, exposing deep internal fractures like Greene vs. Stefanik. Democrats push for working-class relief; Republicans prioritize partisan chaos over solutions. [Automatically generated summary]
Rise today to applaud YouTube TV and Hulu Plus Live TV for expanding public access to Congress by carrying C-SPAN, C-SPAN 2, and C-SPAN 3 beginning next week.
For 46 years, C-SPAN's respected nonprofit service has offered Americans unfiltered gabble-to-gabble coverage of their government in action.
However, millions of streaming households were left without this vital window into the debates and decisions which shape our nation.
By adding the C-SPAN networks, YouTube TV and Hulu Plus Live TV are making a strong and, I hope, enduring commitment to public service, transparency, and civic engagement.
They now join cable and satellite providers like Comcast, Charter, Cox, DirecTV, and Dish in supporting a treasured service that strengthens accountability and confidence in our democratic systems.
This is a big win for the American people.
Full access will help inform the public no matter how they choose to watch.
I thank YouTube TV.
I thank Hulu Plus Live TV for their important decision, and I yield back.
House Republicans went on an eight-week taxpayer-funded vacation while shutting the government down and hurting the American people.
During that taxpayer-funded vacation, House Republicans didn't do a single thing to make life better for the American people.
We've been back now in session legislatively for two weeks, and yet they still have not produced a bill to drive down the high cost of living, to address the Republican health care crisis, or to make life better for everyday Americans.
It's clear to us that House Republicans have no intention to do anything other than continue to drive down right-wing extremism through the throats of the American people.
House Republicans promised, along with Donald Trump, that they were going to lower costs on day one.
Costs aren't going down in the United States of America.
Costs are going up.
Housing costs through the roof.
Electricity bills through the roof.
Grocery costs through the roof.
And now, as a result of the Republican refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, tens of millions of people are on the verge of experiencing dramatically increased health care costs that will either push them into medical bankruptcy or prevent them from being able to go see a doctor when they need one.
And yet, we still see nothing from the Republican Party as it relates to addressing the health care crisis that they've created Because they're too busy fighting each other and spending time trying to find different ways to reward their billionaire donors.
The American people deserve better, you deserve better.
And House Democrats are going to continue to fight to lower the high cost of living, to fix our broken health care system, and to clean up corruption so we can deliver a country that actually works for working class Americans.
Questions?
unidentified
Good afternoon, thank you.
They had to pull this NIL bill on the House floor this week.
Two things.
Can you speak to what that means on an issue like that that is seemingly bipartisan?
And number two, does it seem like that the issue of addressing college sports and money in college sports is a bipartisan issue, but this is now veering off into partisan territory, and that's why Congress can't legislate on this?
It's not that Congress can't legislate, it's that House Republicans can't legislate.
It's the gang that can't legislate straight.
These are individuals who continue to take a my way or the highway approach.
First of all, what exactly was the rationale to bring a bill related to college sports to the floor this week at the same time that Republicans refuse to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits?
Shouldn't we put the health care of the American people first, particularly when the votes clearly don't even exist to bring the so-called SCORE Act to the floor?
The question that a lot of people are asking this week related to the SCORE Act legislation is who exactly directed Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise to bring this bill to the floor this week?
Was it the big donors connected to LSU?
That legislation would not have benefited college athletes.
It would hurt college athletes, take away the antitrust exemption, it would preempt the ability of states to actually pass legislation that promotes the health, the safety, and the well-being of their own college students.
It would take away legal rights to seek redress.
The organized labor unions across the country were strongly opposed because it undermined the ability of college athletes.
It undermined their freedom to negotiate, took away collective bargaining rights.
And of course, the players associations across every sports league led by the NFL Players Association were opposed to it because they concluded when evaluating the bill on the merits that it would actually hurt college athletes, not help them.
Why would Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise think it was a good idea to bring the Lane Kiffin Protection Act to the floor of the House of Representatives?
Legislation that would do nothing to benefit college athletes and everything to benefit coaches like Lane Kiffin, who got out of town, abandoned his players in the middle of a playoff run to go get a $100 million contract from LSU, the home state of Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise.
People are asking the question: why did you decide to bring this bill this week with all the other issues That the country is demanding that we focus on, led by the affordability crisis that they claim is a scam and a hoax, but that the American people know is very real.
unidentified
This morning, a bipartisan group of members led by Godheimer and Kiggins announced a framework which, if the Democrats decided to back it, would have enough Republican votes in the House.
Are you encouraging Senator Schumer to look at other options as opposed to the three-year clean extension that he currently announced, which is not expected to get 60 votes in the Senate?
The path forward that has the greatest number of votes in both the House and the Senate is a three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
Time has run out.
Republicans have been promising all year that they were going to get to addressing the health care crisis that they themselves have created.
But clearly, they've had no intention to do anything about keeping health care affordable, beginning with extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
This is December.
The tax credits expire at the end of this month.
What has taken so long?
We started to raise this issue with great urgency in the spring while Republicans were trying to jam the one big ugly bill down the throats of the American people.
They somehow found the time to enact the largest cut to Medicaid in American history, cut $186 billion from SNAP, the largest cut to nutritional assistance in American history, and then with great urgency, these Republican extremists enacted massive tax breaks for their billionaire donors and skyrocketed the debt by more than $3 trillion.
And they made those massive tax breaks permanent.
And now there's no viable path forward that Republicans in the House or the Senate have put forth to address the fact that the Affordable Care Act tax credits are expiring.
I mean, the time has long passed to do anything other than move forward with the legislation that will be triggered by the discharge petition that House Democrats have filed that has every single House Democrat on it, 214, which means all we need are four House Republicans.
Out of 219, we only need four to join us.
And we can get this legislation onto the floor and out of the House.
And I'm thankful for the leadership that Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats are showing and triggering an up or down vote on a three-year extension in the Senate.
And the American people will see which party supports the health care of hardworking American taxpayers.
That would be Democrats.
And which party is continuing to break our health care system?
That would be the GOP.
unidentified
Thank you, Mr. Leader.
Earlier this year, you said that your relationship with Speaker Johnson was, I believe, productive and forward-looking.
A lot has happened since then with the shutdown and everything.
I'm just curious if your relationship has evolved at all throughout the year and how you've characterized it now.
It's evolved and not necessarily in a constructive direction.
Thanks.
unidentified
Thank you, Mr. Leonard.
I'm just curious, why three years on the AZA tax credits?
I mean, doesn't that seem kind of unrealistic if we're being honest?
And wouldn't the bipartisan efforts that she mentioned in the House, like the Common Ground Framework, be a little bit more realistic, path forward in regards to addressing the health care issue?
It's my understanding that the Common Ground Framework has the support perhaps of a handful of members of the House of Representatives, less than 10, as far as I can tell.
Now, we're open to having good faith discussions with any House Republican who's serious about extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
But the House Republican leadership is not.
They've repeatedly said they have no interest in addressing the Affordable Care Act tax credit issue.
In fact, Donald Trump and his administration were apparently prepared to put forth a proposal that Mike Johnson and House Republican leaders detonated because they have no interest in keeping health care affordable.
The legislation that has the greatest amount of support in the Congress right now, both House and Senate, is a clean three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
We believe that the American people deserve a similar level of certainty that Republicans provided to their billionaire donors when they made those massive tax breaks permanent in the one big ugly bill.
unidentified
Thank you.
In the recent interactions between President Trump and female members of the press, calling them piggy, ugly, stupid, do you have any concerns about the tone or treatment of journalists so far?
And what is your overall view on the role of free press in America?
Well, the tone that has consistently been adopted by Donald Trump toward members of the free and fair press generally and specifically most recently directed at female reporters is disgusting.
It's unbecoming of a president.
It's unconscionable, unacceptable, and un-American.
And this is part of the reason why Donald Trump's approval rating is at 36%.
The American people know that Donald Trump and Republican control of the House and the Senate has been a disaster for them.
And instead of actually focusing on the issues that matter, like driving down the high cost of living or fixing our broken health care system, continue to engage in personal attacks against folks, ad hominem assaults on the character of individuals who are just doing their jobs.
Now, in our democracy, it's clear we have a legislative branch, the House and the Senate, separate and co-equal.
We're supposed to provide a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch.
James Madison, in fact, one of the original framers of the Constitution, said that at its best, Congress should be a rival to the executive branch.
But that's not what Republicans have done.
These people are not rivals.
They are a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump's extreme agenda.
Got the Article II executive branch.
We got the Article III judiciary.
But of course, connected to the fabric of our democracy is the free and fair press.
And Donald Trump, of course, is behaving more like a wannabe king who's uninterested in the scrutiny that comes from being part of American democracy.
Part of that scrutiny is the Congress.
Part of that scrutiny is the judiciary.
And part of that scrutiny, of course, should always be the free and fair press.
unidentified
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Going back to the Speaker Johnson, the reconciliation law.
You know, he said this morning, he told reporters this morning that Americans will start feeling the relief from that bill next year, and some of the affordability concerns that they have now will start to subside.
I know you've been critical of the Medicaid cuts, the SNP cuts, but I'm curious how you and House Democrats will speak about some of those working class provisions that they point to, whether it's on tips, overtime, Social Security, auto loan interest.
How are you all thinking about speaking to the American people about those particular provisions that it seems will be core to the Republicans' message next year about affordability?
Yeah, House Republicans have no issue as it relates to affordability.
They believe that the affordability crisis in the country is a hoax and a scam.
That's what their leader has said, Donald Trump, who says he's both the president and the speaker at the same time, Donald Trump's words, not mine.
They don't plan to address the high cost of living in this country because they don't even believe that it exists.
Now, the interesting thing is that I agree that the American people will continue to feel the impact of the one big ugly bill that Republicans jammed down their throats, but it's going to be an adverse impact because hospitals and nursing homes and community-based health centers are going to continue to close as a result of Republicans enacting the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.
Electricity bills are skyrocketing because of the Republican attack on the clean energy economy.
Clean energy is cheaper energy, but they gutted those provisions of the tax code.
Republicans did so they could reward big oil and their donors.
But as a result, the American people are seeing their electricity bills skyrocket.
And then, of course, if you rip $186 billion from SNAP, which Republicans did in their one big, ugly bill, they're going to cause everyday Americans to go hungry.
We're talking about 42 million people, 16 million children who are going to be hurt by what Republicans did in their one big, ugly bill, 8 million older Americans, and over a million veterans who rely on SNAP.
And so the adverse impact, the harm that Republicans have done to the American people, actually, we're just scratching the surface in terms of the hurt that everyday Americans will experience.
And then we have the ongoing Trump tariffs, which of course in real time are increasing costs on the American people by thousands of dollars per year.
And the American people know it in terms of what they're paying now for groceries and for goods.
The American people are concerned about the fact that housing is totally out of control, health care is totally out of control, child care is totally out of control, and Republicans have no plan to deal with any of it.
Donald Trump is fighting with Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is fighting with the House Republican Conference.
Corey Mills is fighting with Nancy Mace.
Nancy Mace is fighting with Mike Johnson.
Mike Johnson is fighting with Elise Stefanik.
Elise Stefanik is fighting with Lisa McClain.
The whole thing is a mess.
The 119th Congress has turned into a bad episode of Republicans Gone Wild.
And here's the problem: Republicans are so busy fighting each other, they can't be bothered to fight for the American people.
Big difference between us and them.
House Democrats are going to continue to fight for you to drive down the high cost of living and to fix our broken health care system.
Yep.
You got it.
unidentified
Brooklyn Borough President Internal Reynoso got his name for Rep Flask as a spot for next Congress.
He's a Brooklyn guy, you're a Brooklyn guy.
Have you talked to him yet?
And at what point do you start really focusing on 2026?
And if so, are you basically, is this whole scenario proven to be true from shutdown?
unidentified
And two, if there was a vote of no confidence in Johnson, which is certainly much more of a live wire than it was a couple weeks ago, what would you tell your members to do?
Well, we'd have to have that discussion in terms of what House Democrats might do to the extent there is such a vote.
But clearly, nothing that the Speaker of the House has done over the last several months has endeared himself to Democrats in the Congress.
unidentified
Congresswoman Luna has piloted a discharge petition earlier this week that would force a vote on the stock trading ban bill that a Congressman magazine or Congressman Roy been working on.
Do you anticipate supporting that, and would you anticipate Democrats probably supporting that?
Well, we haven't had a caucus-wide conversation about the best path forward, but there's overwhelming support for the legislation to ban congressional stock trading.
It is long past time that that is done.
I think part of the challenge, again, is that Mike Johnson apparently said he's got zero interest in moving the legislation that is actually bipartisan, led by Chip Roy and Seth Magazina.
Mike Johnson, zero interest in banning congressional stock trading.
So we'll evaluate the different vehicles moving forward, and I look forward to having a conversation with many of the stakeholders over the next few days into the early part of next week, including Seth and Pramilla and Alex, as well as, of course, Joe Morelli, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, to figure out the best path forward.
We want to clean up corruption in this institution, in the Supreme Court, and also as it relates to the administration.
I think one of the challenges that some members have raised directly with me about the Ana-Paulina Luna approach is that apparently she's unwilling to prohibit stock trading within the Trump administration.
Unwilling to prohibit stock trading as it relates to Donald Trump, JD Vance, or cabinet secretaries like the Treasury Secretary.
That's kind of extraordinary to me since they have concentrated executive power.
We definitely have to deal with the issue of members of Congress trading stock.
It should be banned.
But it also seems to many of us at the same period of time there's got to be a path forward to banning stock trading within the administration.
I think Donald Trump literally just purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock in Warner Brothers when his administration is in the middle of a merger review.
How is that acceptable?
That's corruption in plain sight.
And it also seems reasonable to many of us that we've got to find a path forward toward addressing it.
unidentified
On the ACAS subsidies, you frame this debate as Democrats fighting to protect millions of people from Republican policies, in this case the expiration of the subsidies.
But those same people went to the polls last November, many of them, and voted for Republicans, who they must know by now that Republicans don't like the ACA.
They've been fighting for 15 years.
So is this not, is the expiration of the subsidies not simply democracy at work?
And at what point do you risk accusations that you're trying to protect voters from themselves, which is sort of inherently undemocratic?
Well, many voters were promised that costs would go down on day one.
January 20th came and went, and Republicans didn't do a damn thing to lower costs.
Donald Trump didn't do a damn thing to lower the high cost of living.
Why?
Because they don't give a damn about everyday Americans.
That's increasingly clear.
Now, the American people have come to that conclusion with a greater degree of intensity because they were lied to by Donald Trump and Republicans.
We're giving our Republican colleagues a chance to actually keep your word to the American people.
Start by extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
So this fight is not over.
And to Kevin's question as well, this fight is not over as it relates to the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
Let's see what happens on the Senate floor next week.
Thankful that Senate Democrats are bringing legislation that would extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for three years.
And we're going to continue to press our case in the House.
Every single House Democrat on the same page, Republicans in the middle of a civil war, which is why they can't even focus, just a handful of them can't focus on keeping their word to the American people and driving down the high cost of living.
We still got a couple of weeks for them to change their tune.
unidentified
Thank you, Mr. Jefferson.
You and a majority of other Democrats voted against the parent bills on the floor earlier today.
The Republicans have argued this aimed at keeping foreign influence out of schools.
Could you explain the reasoning for Democrats' opposition?
The Republicans have not brought a single credible bill to the floor.
I think Bobby Scott and others did a good job of explaining our concerns.
We just want to educate our children.
Focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Developing a holistic child, giving the ability to them to think critically.
And we're not going to be lectured by a group of Republicans who are dismantling the Department of Education in real time.
Literally, 90% of the Department of Education as it existed last year is now gone.
It doesn't exist within the Department of Education.
It's been broken into pieces.
Republicans are attacking public education, just like they're attacking public health and attacking public safety.
And it's the reason why Republicans are either underperforming dramatically across the country electorally or have been crushed, as was the case across the country, up and down the ballot in the off-year elections in early November.
The American people are through with these extremists.
Done.
Had enough.
The extremists have gone too far.
They've broken all of their promises.
They spent the entire year rewarding their billionaire donors and trying to implement the most toxic parts of Project 2025, which is a difficult thing because the whole thing is toxic.
But they've been focused on doing things that they know will harm the American people.
In our view as Democrats, we're just going to continue to fight for a country where when you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to live an affordable life, a comfortable life, live the good life.
Good paying job, good housing, good health care, good education for your children, and a good retirement.
Not too much to ask for in the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world.
Thank you.
unidentified
Friday on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, host Dasha Burns sits down with Democratic California Congressman Roe Conna and Republican Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon for a bipartisan dialogue on the top issues facing the country, including rising U.S. tensions with Venezuela and the future of ACA subsidies.
Bridging the divide in American politics.
Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only on C-SPAN.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
This Sunday with our guest, best-selling author Jodi Pico, who has written 29 books about a wide range of controversial and moral issues.
Her books include The Storyteller, 19 Minutes, and Her Latest by Any Other Name.
She joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
And you can't always have a discussion with people.
Some people just aren't ready to hear it.
But there are a lot of minds that you can change one mind at a time.
unidentified
Watch America's Book Club with Jodi Pico this Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
Middle and high school students join C-SPAN as we celebrate America's 250th anniversary during our 2026 C-SPAN Student Cam Video Documentary Competition.
This year's theme is Exploring the American Story through the Declaration of Independence.
We're asking students to create a five to six minute documentary that answers one of two questions.
What's the Declaration's influence on a key moment from America's 250-year history?
Or how have its values touched on a contemporary issue that's impacting you or your community?
We encourage all students to participate, regardless of prior filmmaking experience.
Consider interviewing topical experts and explore a variety of viewpoints around your chosen issue.
Students should also include clips of related C-SPAN footage, which are easy to download on our website, studentcam.org.
C-SPAN's Student Cam competition awards $100,000 in total cash prizes to students and teachers and $5,000 for the grand prize winner.
Entries must be received before January 20th, 2026.
For competition rules, tips, or just how to get started, visit our website at studentcam.org.
C-SPAN. Democracy Unfiltered.
We're funded by these television companies and more, including Cox.
When connection is needed most, Cox is there to help.