Well, good afternoon. We just had a great opportunity to meet with the president and talk about something that unifies all Republicans. Senate Republicans, House Republicans and the president of the United States are all in favor of reopening the federal government. In fact, so much so that we've now all voted 11 times to reopen the federal government.
But the longer the federal government stays closed, the more the impacts are being felt, travel delays, benefit delays. You know, farmers are being impacted, billions of people going without paychecks. That's what this government shutdown, Democrat government shutdown is bringing to the American people. So we're hopeful that this will be the week when we break out of this and the Democrats come to their senses and decide to open up the government.
We're going to give them several opportunities, as you know, to do that. We'll have another vote to on the continuing resolution tomorrow, which is sitting at the desk of the Senate, could be sent down here to the White House signed into law. The government would open up immediately. We're also going to vote on a Ron Johnson, a resolution that essentially would pay anybody who's currently working.
So we'll see how the Democrats react to that. But the truth of the matter is you have a bunch of people here, a united team that believes profoundly that we need to get our government open. And if the Democrats want to talk about subjects unrelated to the government, getting the government open again, we're happy to have those conversations.
But we've repeatedly now gone through this and at some point, the Democrats are going to have to say yes for an answer. We want a normal appropriations process. We want to give them an opportunity to sit down and litigate some of the issues they want to talk about, but that can't happen until the government gets opened up again.
Senator Barrasso.
The Republicans here are united and were united in standing strong with President Trump. This government has been closed now for 21 days and the Democrats have had a chance to reopen it 11 times and each time they voted no, no to reopen the government, no to pay the troops, no to pay the Border Patrol, TSA agents, people who do flight control.
All of those things are critical for our nation, the Democrats continue to vote no. And why is that? It's because they're afraid of what one Democrat Senator -- Senate staffer said, they're afraid of facing the guillotine of the radical left. And who are the radical left? They are the people who would prefer to use taxpayer dollars to pay for health care for illegal immigrants than to pay for the men and women who keep us safe.
The Democrats are holding this country hostage. It's time for it to end. It's time to reopen the government for all the people of the United States.
So we just finished a great lunch with President Trump. There is one central thing that we've repeated over and over again, that is we want to get this government back open again. 13 times in a row we've reached a moment like this and each time we've said let's keep the government open while we continue to be able to negotiate.
Democrats this time stepped in and said, no, we want to shut this down. So the consequence of that is now three weeks now federal workers are receiving paychecks, now all the different businesses that are around federal buildings like restaurants and other entities, those individuals and those businesses are being affected by this.
So this contagion is now spreading out across the country. For many people that don't work for the federal government, they don't feel it, but there are many people around that do and they feel it in a very real way. And this is exceptionally unnecessary. Republicans spoke out loud and clear, even last session, voting to say we don't want to have government shutdowns at all.
We want to get this government back open again and get us negotiating and doing the work of the American people. We've been clear on that. We're going to continue to be clear on that. Let's get it back open again.
A couple questions.
Leader Thune, did President Trump offer any guidance about how you should proceed next?
Well, I think the president obviously is very interested in getting government open. We all agree on that, right? And I think he wants the Democrats to take yes for an answer. We've offered them a lot of the things they were asking for in normal appropriations process, an opportunity to get a vote on some of the things that they want to see voted on with respect to the expiring Obamacare enhanced subsidies.
But that can't happen until they open up the government. So I think the president is prepared to sit down and have conversations with the Democrats, but he knows that before that can happen, we've got to have five Democrats who have a little backbone and a willingness to take on their leadership and do the right thing for the country.
Leader Thune, you are now three weeks into this shutdown and the two sides don't appear to even be talking. Do you owe it to the American people to at least be negotiating?
Well, I think we are -- we have negotiated. I don't know what there is to negotiate. This is about opening up the government. We have offered them several off ramps now. The Democrats want something that's totally untenable, as Senator Barrasso said. I mean they want $1.5 trillion in new spending. They want free health care for people who are non-citizens in this country.
That is just a flat nonstarter. It doesn't pass the Senate, it won't pass the House, it won't be signed into law by the president. What you do have is a bill that's passed the House, sitting at the desk in the Senate that the president is prepared to sign, to open up the government. So I'm not sure, people keep saying, you know, negotiate, negotiate what?
I don't know what that is right now. The government needs to open up and then we're happy to sit down and talk about any other issues that Democrats want to talk about.
Leader Thune, does President Trump need to get more involved in these negotiations, though, bringing Democrats to the White House? Would you sit in on those negotiations?
Well at some point, but open up the government first. I mean, I think the president -- I think the president is willing to sit down with the government. And yes, I would expect that we would all want to participate in any such meeting. But as we said, open up the government and that can happen.
Leader Thune, on that front, when was the last time you spoke with Chuck Schumer and do you believe that the House should come back into session?
I think the House did their work. They passed the bill and the play, as you all know, right now the actions in the Senate.
And when was the last time you spoke with Senator Schumer?
I talk to Chuck on a somewhat regular basis. We're on the floor all the time. He wants to talk to me, our offices are right down the hallway from each other. He knows my cell phone number. And if he's got something else to offer up other than this crazy, unserious, unrealistic proposal they have out there, we're prepared to have that conversation, but open up the government first.
One more.
[Inaudible] summit is now off, on hold for now. Do you see Putin as the impediment to peace? And is your Russia sanctions bill something that you intend to put on the Senate floor within the next month?
We want to put it on the floor when the White House believes it's useful to them to get Putin to the table and to get a deal that ends the war. So we're prepared to act. We work closely with Lindsey Graham. Lindsey, as you know, is a lead sponsor. He's got 85 co-sponsors in the Senate, Republican and Democrat.
So we want to do everything we can to support the president and his team's efforts, and the efforts of our allies, to bring this -- the bloodshed to an end in a peaceful conclusion to that war.
Did the president indicate whether he's pulling Paul Ingrassia's nomination? Did the president indicate whether he's doing that?
I think they'll have something official to say about that, but you know what we've said and you'll probably be hearing from them soon. Thank you all.