LIVE: Senate Democratic and Republican Leaderships Hold Weekly Press Conference (Sept. 6)

I had a great August. I did. A lot of work. A little vacation. And now we're all glad and eager to be back to get the people's work done. People be quiet. Okay, I want to thank Senators Durbin and Murray and Stabenow for being here. Now, over the past few months, the Senate appropriations process has been a shining example of how things should get done in Washington. These are times when people are divided. This is a closely divided chamber. But nevertheless, we can summarize the Senate's work in funding the government in one word. Bipartisan. Bipartisan. Thanks to the phenomenal work of Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, who you'll hear from in a minute, and Vice Chair Susan Collins and numerous colleagues on both sides, all 12 appropriation bills have been reported out of the committee with bipartisan support, the majority with unanimous support. That is incredible at a time when the country is so divided. And it's a beacon and it's a great example, and a great example to the House of Representatives. This month, one of the Senate's top priorities will be to keep the government open beyond the September 30th deadline. Both parties in both chambers will have to work together if we are to avoid a shutdown. So when the House returns next week, I implore, I beg my House Republican colleagues to follow the Senate's lead, to recognize that time is short, and the only way, the only way to avoid a shutdown is through bipartisanship in both the House and the Senate. House Republicans have their first chance to show their commitment to bipartisanship when they return next week. The last thing Americans need right now is a pointless government shutdown. A shutdown will hurt just about every American, and yet there are some on the hard right in the House who say they actually want a shutdown. It's hard to believe that they would be so callous about people's wants and needs and helps and fears. The economy has come a long way since the darkest days of COVID. Inflation is slowing down. Job growth remains strong. The investments we've made through the infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act are paying off with new projects, new projects, new jobs, and prices going down in so many areas, like drugs. We can't squander that all now. A shutdown is unnecessary and would harm many American families and businesses, just about everybody. But if both sides work in good faith, embrace bipartisanship as we've done in the Senate, avoid all-or-nothing tactics, my-way-or-the-highway tactics, which they tried to do on the debt ceiling, then there will be no shutdown, and that will be good news for the American people. Now, for the work ahead of us. Next week, we will take up three bills to start the minibus, Transportation HUD, MilCon, and Agriculture. I will file cloture tomorrow on the motion to proceed on this minibus, and we will vote on the motion to proceed Monday evening. We expect a strong bipartisan vote, and then we will proceed to the appropriations bills using what we said we would do, regular order, allowing amendments, and discussing the bills as the Senate should work. So that is where we're headed. We're moving in a great path in the Senate. We hope the House comes to its senses and does and follows our example and passes bipartisan legislation, and then we will be able to avoid a government shutdown. Senator Murray. Well, like all of my colleagues, I've been back home with my constituents, talking with them about their concerns and priorities, and let me tell you, they do not want to spend the next month wondering if Congress is going to fulfill its most basic obligation and fund the government. Here in the Senate, we have proven there is exactly zero reason for chaos or for shutdown. I'm working with Vice Chair Collins. The Senate Appropriations Committee has shown the American people that Congress can actually do its job, that we can work in a timely bipartisan way to solve problems and make life better for the communities that we represent. We heard from members on both sides of the aisle. They want to return to regular order, and we have been working very hard to make sure an open bipartisan process is going on to make that happen. We held markups with input from members on both sides and televised them for the first time every, so everyone could see what was in them and what was going on. The result was real progress. For the first time in five years, we passed all 12 appropriations bills out of committee and did it with overwhelming bipartisan support. Nine of the 12 committee bills were unanimous or had just a single no vote. We spent a lot of time and a lot of late nights and early mornings negotiating serious bills which can actually be signed into law and which actually follow the bipartisan debt limit deal President Biden and Speaker McCarthy struck earlier this year. We have provided a clear bipartisan roadmap to fund the government under extremely difficult constraints, proving Congress can work together and through its differences. The next step, as you just heard, is to bring these bills to the floor, and we will start next week with the MilCon VA, Ag FDA, and the T-HUD bill, and we hope, again, to move to them as early as Monday evening. That's very good progress, but I think we all understand that a CR is going to be necessary to make sure we have time to complete this whole process and that supplemental funding, like President Biden has requested, is absolutely necessary to support our Ukrainian allies, provide relief for the truly heartbreaking disasters we have seen around the country, and stop the flow of fentanyl and more. And let me be clear, we can and should meet the President's full supplemental funding request. There are too many urgent priorities that we cannot afford to shortchange. Everything from delivering the disaster relief communities desperately need to recover to paying our wildland firefighters and continuing to have our Ukrainian allies back. On that note, I have to say I hope we can all come together, Democrats and Republicans as well, to address the child care crisis, as critical dollars for that are expected to expire at the end of this month. I'm ready to work with our Republican colleagues in every way possible to make sure that our child care centers remain open and our kids don't lose those slots and parents, especially our moms, can stay at work. Now, as many of you know, I am no stranger to tough negotiations or fiscal brinkmanship, but I think it does bear repeating the Senate has shown there is a genuine bipartisan path to do our jobs and fund the government. The Senate Appropriations Committee, with plenty of members on opposite ends of the political spectrum, strongly progressive Democrats and deeply conservative Republicans, wrote 12 bills to make our country safer, our economy more competitive, and do good for the people that we all represent back home. We are full steam ahead here in the Senate, and as we move forward, I hope that my colleagues in both chambers remember the power of the purse rests with Congress. We have to take that responsibility seriously. Thank you. Senator Durbin. What you've just heard from Senator Murray is nothing short of remarkable. I've been on the Senate Appropriations Committee for 25 years. I had just about given up hope that we could return to regular order, but the two new leaders on the committee, especially Senator Patty Murray, along with Senator Collins, are setting an example for Congress and for the nation that when the two parties work together, it's in the best interest of the United States, and they've done it in a fashion that is easily explained and easily defended. They've based their appropriation bills on the agreement reached between the President of the United States, the Speaker of the House, and the leaders in Congress just several weeks ago, for that matter, and they've done it in a remarkable way. To think that we have had only maybe 12 dissenting votes and 12 bills is amazing, and it's just a tribute to both of their efforts, and I hope that we can see much more of that occurring in the near future. We need to avoid wild cuts in spending that have been proposed by some extreme members of the House. The notion that we're going to cut medical research at this moment in our history, the idea of cutting education, public safety, public health programs, we've got to reject these extreme views, stick to the center line in the American political scene, and that means coming together to solve problems in a responsible, bipartisan way. Here in the Senate, we're going to follow regular order, which is another thing I never thought I'd see again. I want to commend Senator Murray and the leadership with Chuck to bring us to this point. We need to work together on a bipartisan basis. I was on the floor the other day when Senate Minority Leader McConnell said, and I quote, keep the lights on by funding government through regular order, in which the Appropriations Committee has made a true unified headway in that regard. I hope our House Republican colleagues are watching. I hope they'll come back and work with us on a bipartisan basis. That is exactly what the American people have asked for. Senator Stabenow. Well, thank you, and good afternoon. Welcome back, everybody. I, too, want to lend, first of all, my words of thanks to Senator Schumer. Always wanting to get things done. That's what we're all about. And Senator Murray and Senator Collins for moving the appropriations process forward in regular order with strong bipartisan support. I will note, for the record, first time two women as the leaders of the committee. Just saying, just saying. Right. So, women leading on time on budget. So, I'm just saying. This is really good news. We agree. Yes. This is really good news, and it follows the agreement. Remember that agreement at the end of May with President Biden and the Speaker of the House shaking hands on a budget agreement on spending that we would be doing for this year? Well, that's what we're doing, is following through on the commitment that they made. And we all know then what happened. Extreme members of the House are trying to derail the agreement the Speaker of the House made with the President of the United States and trying to derail our progress. A government shutdown threatens the safety of Americans in every single area of our lives. Support for the troops and national defense. Air travel. Rail safety. Food inspections through the USDA. Basically, our ability to provide Americans with the daily services that they need and deserve. Not to mention the hardship that will be created for millions of hardworking public employees. You know, there is so much good news right now. We're rebuilding America, bringing jobs home from overseas, creating a manufacturing renaissance, and I can say that from Michigan, that it's very exciting to see what's happening on manufacturing. 187,000 jobs created in August alone. 13.5 million jobs created during President Biden's just first two and a half years. This isn't by accident. Democrats are focused on growing the middle class of this country and by bringing down costs. A Republican government shutdown would completely undermine our country's progress right now. So thank you again to Senator Schumer, to our great leaders on the Appropriations Committee. We are committed to a bipartisan approach to governing our country. That's what the American people want and that's what they deserve. Thank you. Okay, questions. Will you commit to holding a vote on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's nominee if this standoff with Tommy Tuberville persists? The bottom line is this is a problem created by Republicans, and it's up to them to solve it. Senator McConnell, Senator Thune have said they disagree with Tuberville. It's now up to the Republican Party to get him in line. We're not going to shift the burden to Democrats when this is a Republican-caused problem. Next, next. Go ahead. I've had a conversation with Speaker McCarthy, and we had a good conversation. We agreed a CR is the best way to go. He's going to have a rough time implementing it, but I hope he sticks to his guns. And I think he knows, I think Leader McCarthy knows that if a shutdown happens, it will be caused by House Republicans. It will be bad for the country, but it will also be very bad for them. Leader Schumer. Yes. Thank you, Leader Schumer. No, I think that the present situation is where we should stay. Leader Schumer. Yes. Yes, there was a hand there. Yeah, way back there. I would like to call on a new person there. Hi, new person. Look, I'm very glad to see McConnell back. He's doing well. We're working together well, and I always wish him the best. Leader Schumer. Yes. There's this forum coming up on AI next week with these leaders. Talk about your goal in that, and secondarily here, are you any closer to getting from members any sort of legislation that you think you can move on AI in the next few months? Okay, look, AI is one of the two or three most serious problems we face in the future, but it's also one of the two or three best opportunities we face in the future. So it's very, very important to both maximize the opportunities and the good that AI can do and minimize the harm, both of which are very large. Our forum is unique because this is such the insight forums that we've set up, and you can see that we have a very broad-based, balanced attendance of people who are experts, people who have AI systems in place, and critics. They're all coming together. And the idea is for all of us in the Senate to listen to their ideas and thoughts, for their facts and ideas to be the nutrient agar, and then our committees to go forward and move forward with legislation. We can't put our heads in the sand like ostriches. If we don't do anything, AI is going to move forward without us, and the dangers could be maximized and the opportunities could be minimized. And so this is going to be one of the most important sessions, if you will, that Congress has had. Why did we do it this way? Because it's so unique. It is broad and deep. It's going to affect every aspect of society. It is constantly changing, and it is very complicated. So I'm very, very pleased with how this has happened, and as everything else we're trying to do or much else we're trying to do, we're doing it in a bipartisan way, and Senators Rounds and myself and Heinrich and Young have been working very hard all of August to put this forum together. We think it will do a lot of good. Yes? Are you concerned at all that Republican calls could get in the way of the budget negotiations? The Republican calls for impeachment are absurd, and we're going to move forward and do our job here in the Senate of funding the government and doing the many other things that I listed in the dear colleague I sent that we need to do. Thank you, everybody. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do in a very short period of time. We have to figure out how to fund the government past September 30th. We have to have it as close as we can to a regular order process on appropriations. Senator Collins and Senator Murray have done a spectacular job of at least getting bills out of committee, which hasn't happened in the Senate in five years, so that's a step in the right direction. And then there's the supplemental, and as all of you know, I think maintaining our support for Ukraine is extremely important. Number one, virtually all the money that we're allocating for Ukraine is actually being spent in the United States to replenish our industrial capacity. Secondly, we haven't lost anybody. Not a single American has been lost. Third, I think it's important to remember that we have a country here fighting for their independence, degrading the military of one of our biggest rivals. I know there's a difference of opinion in my party on this, and I think the President has, I think, been too slow to keep the commitments that he's made publicly, but at least he's supporting the effort. I think he could have done it more skillfully, but he is supporting the effort, and I intend to continue to support it, and I hope the majority of my colleagues will feel the same way. Let me just pick up on the first point the leader made, and that is that if you look at the, before we broke for the August break, the last bill we processed, the National Defense Authorization Act, we had a robust amendment process. We considered 33 amendments on the floor. The Armed Services Committee team got lots of other amendments included in the bill that were adopted without having votes, but nevertheless, it was a process that was open and transparent in which individual members who don't serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee had an opportunity to have their voices heard and get votes on amendments that were important to them and their states. Now we're looking at the appropriations process. As the leader pointed out, we haven't had a normal appropriations process for a long time around here, but we do now have 12 bills. All 12 bills have been reported out of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The key now is to get those bills moving across the floor, and I'm hopeful that that will start happening next week, and when it does, that there will also be an open, robust amendment process in which members who don't serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee have an opportunity to make their voices heard and get amendments considered that are important to them and the people that they represent. I talk a lot around here about regular order, and the reason I do that is because I think bills, when they move through regular order, is a more transparent process. It is more accountable to the people in this country, and I hope that we can have a regular order process as we begin to deal with appropriation bills so we don't end up like we did last year. At the end of the year, with everything piled up in this big train wreck of one big appropriations bill, that's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. The way it's supposed to work is to do these in regular order through a process that allows for open debate on the floor, and that's what our conference is going to insist on in the appropriations process this year. Joe Biden's recent statements on the economy reveal a president completely out of touch with the pain and the suffering that he's causing the American people. If you wanted to describe Bidenomics in one word, it would be failure. The economy is the number one issue facing our country. All of us have been traveling our states. I've been all around Wyoming over the break talking with folks. People are fed up. They're fed up with record-high prices, record-high interest rates. If you want to borrow money and a record-high debt. And they're tired. They're tired of having to work so very hard just to try to keep up with the prices that continue to go up. They seem to be hit right between the eyes every time they go to the store, fill up with gas, try to buy groceries, all of those things, and they're mad. People are mad because they see the country heading in the wrong direction, and they don't see us getting back on track. People also do not believe that Joe Biden is up to the task. Only one in three Americans think that President Biden and the Democrats are actually doing a good job on the economy. And the case in point is this past Labor Day weekend, gasoline prices hovering at about $4 a gallon. Well, that's up over $2 a gallon from where we were about two years ago. And back to school shopping, it has become very, very expensive and very stressful for American families. Whether it's putting food in the lunchbox, supplies in the backpack, we're all seeing increased costs as a result of Bidenomics. Well, Republicans have solutions to make things more affordable, and it's to cut the wasteful Washington spending, it's to release this death grip that the regulators have, the bureaucrats here in Washington making everything more expensive back home, and it is unleashing American energy. We have it in abundance. That's the way to get America back on track. Well, welcome back, everybody. I'd like to say it's great to be in Washington, D.C., but I think I prefer Iowa. And for those of you that had the opportunity to come out, spend some time in Iowa, go to our great state fair, we appreciate your support. I finished up the 99-county tour while I was at home in Iowa, and it was great to get out across the state. But while I was out and about and talking to families and talking to manufacturers and other industries, it was abundantly clear that Iowans are very, very frustrated with the state of the economy. And it really didn't matter what industry or what location I was in, they are frustrated. They're frustrated with this administration. They're frustrated with Bidenomics. It is increasingly difficult to support their families. And it's really tough because even in my communities in southwest Iowa where I was born, where I was raised, and where I live today, seeing the men and women that I have grown up with, they are two full-time income families now taking on additional jobs just to make ends meet. So folks, when the President is out there talking about how successful Bidenomics has been, I'm pulling the BS card on this, and I'm throwing it down, because things are rough on our families. There's no getting around it. And I know sometimes you're in this bubble here in D.C., but again, folks, if you can get out to Iowa, any of our great states, you're going to see a different story when it comes to our families and our businesses. So please pay attention. So with that, Iowans are really frustrated with the taxes that they're paying to this federal government when they hear us talk about Washington, D.C., and how a number of our federal agency's headquarter buildings are only 25% occupied. Okay, where are all of those workers? I know they're still on the payroll, right? Is COVID over? Are we able to come to work safely? I think we can do that. And yet we still have a huge number of people from this city that are telecommuting. They're teleworking. And there's no reason we should be doing that. When you have bureaucrats that are doing bubble baths during their conference calls for work, when they are golfing during business hours and yet they're still getting paid the wages they were pre-COVID, we've got to figure this out. So I've pushed out a letter to all 24 inspector general offices, and I'm demanding answers. So one, what are these people doing? Who has oversight of the work that is being done by these employees that are so-called teleworking? Okay, two, what are we going to do with all this unused office space? If you're not bringing people back to work, we don't need to lease all of these buildings. We don't need all of these buildings. How much money can we save if we get rid of it? And then finally, folks, and this really gets under my skin, is that how many of these federal employees who get location-based pay, Washington, D.C. wages, who are teleworking from a lower-cost area, how many of them moved away during COVID and are still getting paid for living in Washington, D.C.? It is fraud, folks. It's fraud. So you federal employees that are out there, we're coming after you. We're coming after you. Let's do the right thing. Well, welcome back, everybody. It is nice to be here on a 100-degree day almost, and I'm glad that we had a nice break. I'll say two things of what some of my colleagues have said. Senator Barrasso said his definition of by economics is failure. Mine is paying more and getting less. That's absolutely what you're doing every day, whether it's your mortgage, your rent, your grocery store, your gasoline tank, whatever it is. And as to what Joni was talking about, Senator Ernst was talking about, our offices are inundated during the summer. More people have traveled this summer probably than have over the last four or five years. The request for passports and assistance on getting passports and passport renewals is much greater than it has been, but because the workforce is not there, we had people that had to cancel trips, couldn't go, and they had planned months in advance to try to secure their passport. So that is one area specifically where the work ethic that we're seeing at the D.C. level mostly but also at the federal level is coming up short. So during the break, it's nice to get home and see everybody and hear anecdotal stories, but I did, during my break, took a once-in-a-lifetime CODAL with four other bipartisan, bicameral, all-women delegation to see our USA women's soccer team play in Auckland, New Zealand. We didn't get to see them play, but we did get to see a lot of other women athletes in team sports. I was one of the lead senators on equal pay for equal play for Team USA. I believe firmly that any woman athlete who's representing our country should have the same benefit and pay as any man who is under the flag of the United States in competition. And I can tell you it was glorious to see those fields filled with women's teams all across the globe, really led by the U.S. team. The U.S. team was the leader here. It's just people are catching up to us now, and that's inspiring to me because I love sports and I love women's sports, and it was really, really fun. The other side of that CODAL was a security portion. We talked to a lot of the Indo-Pacific leaders and defense leaders about the looming challenge of China, how our allies are realigning, and how we need to shore up our allies. We were in Australia talking about AUKUS, the new agreement that we struck on submarines. We were talking about how the Taiwanese and China situation is becoming very precarious, and how are we preparing for that. And I thought, what are these two issues that we went on this CODAL? What do they really have to do? And the unifying thing here is American values. We believe in freedom. We believe in making and giving all of our men, women, and our military the ability to do the best they can do in any situation for a great country. And so I was very inspired when I came home to talk about this value-based, American values that lead in the world. And we've got to keep that in the forefront, not just for us, for our friends, our neighbors, and also those who are unable to see that freedom for themselves, that we can be that guiding light that we've always been. So President Biden spent the month of August telling a very different story to the American people than what we are seeing back home with the people that elect us to come back here to Washington. But don't take my word for it. Don't take my word for it. As Joe Biden is trying to spin this Bidenomics story, look at the headlines that have come out in publications from your colleagues in the press. The housing market is stuck. Americans can't afford homes. Investors aren't buying property. Economists see little relief ahead. New York Post, credit card and car loan defaults hit a 10-year high as inflation squeezes families. This came out in Forbes just yesterday, the fact that I was flying in from Montana. Strapped for cash, more Americans are making early withdrawals from their retirement savings. And you've seen the headlines in the last month about credit card debt at over a trillion dollars, an all-time record high. And now we've got new information that says our deficits are going to exceed $2 trillion. To put that in perspective, our deficit over the next year will be larger than the GDP of every country but 10 in the world. This is a direct result of what's happened, what we've seen with President Biden and their spending spree. It's unacceptable, but the reality in Joe Biden's America versus what Americans are actually seeing are completely disconnected. It's time for the administration to reverse course on its out-of-control spending. Leader McConnell. Good afternoon. Welcome back. Respectfully, can you tell us what is afflicting you and describe, characterize what is the level of transparency that the people of Kentucky deserve to hear about your condition? Well, I think Dr. Monahan covered— We'd like to hear from you. I know you are hearing from me. I think Dr. Monahan covered the subject fully. You had a chance to read it. I don't have anything to add to it, and I think it should answer any reasonable question. But he ruled things in. He didn't rule things—he ruled things out. He didn't tell us what it might have been. Do you know what it is? Leader McConnell, you've had all these evaluations. What have doctors said is the precise medical reason for those two freeze-ups? What Dr. Monahan's report addressed was concerns people might have that some things that happened to me did happen, but they didn't. And really, I have nothing to add to that. I think he pretty well covered the subject. Leader McConnell, what do you say to those who are calling on you to step down? Do you have any plans to retire anytime soon? I have no announcements to make on that subject. Well, what do you say to those who are calling on you to step down? I'm going to finish my term as leader, and I'm going to finish my Senate term. Thank you.