Well, good afternoon everybody. We just had very frank conversation with the Senate and, uh, House Democratic leadership. Look, the principle at stake here is very simple. We have disagreements about tax policy, but you don't shut the government down. We have disagreements about healthcare policy, but you don't shut the government down.
You don't use your policy disagreements as leverage to not pay our troops, to not have essential services of government actually function. You don't say the fact that you disagree about a particular tax provision is an excuse for shutting down the people's government and all the essential services along with it. If you look at what Chuck Schumer has said in the past, consistently, it's whatever our disagreements are, let's negotiate with them.
Let's talk about 'em. Let's figure out a bipartisan solution. But you don't shut the government down. In other words, you don't put a gun to the American people's head and say, "Unless you do exactly what Senate and House Democrats want you to do, we're gona shut down your government." That's exactly what they're proposing out there.
Now, we have to remember, they're, they're very frustrated. They say that they're very frustrated about the fact that this negotiation has not taken place until today. But if you look at the original, uh, the original thing they did with this negotiation, it's a $1.5 trillion spending package, basically saying to the American people, we want to give massive amounts of money, hundreds of billions of dollars to illegal aliens, their healthcare, while Americans are struggling to pay their healthcare bills.
That was their initial foray into this negotiation. We thought it was absurd. We told them it was absurd. And now they come in here, uh, and saying that, "If you don't give us everything that we, we, that we want, we're gona shut down the government." We think that's preposterous. We think, we think it's totally unacceptable, and we think the American people are gona suffer because these guys won't do the right thing.
Now, I wana make one final point here. You will hear a lot from Senate Democrats, from House Democrats about the fact that American healthcare policy is broken. Well, we know that American healthcare policy is broken. We've been trying to fix it for the eight months that we've been in office. But every single thing that they accuse about being broken about American healthcare is policy that Democrats have supported for the past decade.
So, if they want to talk about how to fix American healthcare policy, let's do it. The Speaker would love to do it. The Senate majority leader would love to do it. Let's work on it together, but let's do it in the context of an open government that's providing essential services to the American people. That's all that we're proposing to do, and the fact that they refuse to do that shows how unreasonable their position is. I think we're headed into a shutdown because the Democrats won't do the right thing.
I hope they change their mind, but we're gona see. I'll let the Speakers, uh, say a few words.
Thank you. Uh, Vice President Vance. I wana thank the president as well. Uh, they showed strong leadership today. They invited the four leaders over here because the president is operating in good faith that he demonstrated that very well. The problem is that, uh, Chuck Schumer and, uh, Leader Jeffries refuse to acknowledge the simple facts.
Let's review what the simple facts are, as the vice president would say, this is the common sense thing to do. This is the right thing to do. This is the simple thing to do. By way of review, the House is getting back to the way the regular appropriations process is supposed to work. 12 separate appropriations bills passed through the, the, uh, the House Appropriations Committee, three off the floor.
Senate doing their work as well. All this in bipartisan fashion by the way. They passed three bills in the Senate. Those bills don't match up exact. So for the first time in years, since 2019, you have a, a conference committee that is being constituted between the House and the Senate. This is the way a bill becomes a law.
They work out the differences. All this is happening in bipartisan fashion. The problem is we've run outta clock. September 30th is the end of the fiscal year. So we need a little more time. So what we did in the Republican majority is the right, responsible simple thing. A plea continuing resolution, a short-term non-partisan continuing resolution.
It's only 24 pages in length. Uh, Leader Thune has a copy if you wana see the, uh, the exhibit. There's nothing partisan in here. No policy writers, none of our big party preferences because we wana do the right thing by the American people and allow more time for negotiation. Now, there's a reason that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have come out here, stomp the feet, saying that they can't go along with this.
They're, they're trying to bring in extraneous issue. They issued a counterproposal. You should go and take a look at what they request. $1.5 trillion in new spending that is unrelated to the ongoing appropriations process. Uh, they wanted to, as you said, restore taxpayer-funded benefits. Okay? Hard-working taxpayers in America.
They wana, they wana take your funds and give that for benefits to illegal aliens. They wana restore that because we got rid of it. They, they wana, they wana prop up left-leaning media outlets. 500 million they threw in on top of that. $1.5 trillion on a seven-week stopgap funding measure. We're not gona do that.
They know we can't do that. And -- and we never have in the past. During the Biden administration, there were 13 threatening shutdowns. The Republicans in the minority did the right thing. We kept the government open. We're simply asking for the Democrats to do the same. A -- again, I want to thank President Trump for the, the strong solid leaderships.
He listened to the arguments and, and they just wouldn't acknowledge the simple fact. Uh, I wana thank, uh, the vice president here for, for showing his leadership as well. If the Democrats make the decisions to shut the government down, the consequences are on them. And I think it's absolutely tragic. We've never said that was a good idea.
We never believed it is. And I want you to remember, when we voted in the House, we passed it outta the House. The House has done its job. Did that almost two weeks ago. Every Democrat in the House except one voted to shut the government down. That is the record and don't forget it. Uh, uh -- go ahead.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President. Uh, this right here, ladies and gentlemen, is what we're talking about. 24 pages continuing resolution to fund the government 'til November the 21st. I don't know where they're saying this is some huge partisan thing. This is something we do fairly routinely. And when the Democrats had the majority on 13 different occasions, they had the majority, President Biden was in the White House.
We passed continuing resolutions to fund the government. This is purely and simply hostage tape on the gap on behalf of the Democrats. Publicans are United. House Republicans, Senate Republicans, President Trump, the House has passed a clean funding resolution upon the government till November the 21st. It's clean, it is bipartisan, and it is short term, but it gives us enough time to finish the appropriations process, which is the way we should be funding the government.
So Republicans in the House, Senate, president United, they pass the bill. This is setting, sitting right now at the Senate desk. We could pick it up and pass it tonight. They could pick it up and pass it tomorrow before the government shuts down. And then we don't have a government shut down. It is totally up to the Democrats because right now they are the only thing standing between the American people and the government shutting down.
We're all in favor of funding the government. And this is something that's been done routinely 13 different times by the Democrats and they have the fjord. So it's, it's, to me, this is purely a hostage taking exercise on part of the Democrats. We are willing to sit down and work with them, but some of the issues they wana talk about, whether it's extension of premium tax credits with reforms, uh, we're happy to have that conversation.
But as of right now, uh, this is a, this is a hijacking, uh, all the American people and it's the American people are gona pay the price.
[Crosstalk]
Do you want to say a few words?
Sure. Uh, we wana keep this government open. It is not good for the American people that have the, the government shut down for any period of time. We will manage it appropriately, but it is, it is something that can all be avoided. It can all be avoided by accepting a reasonable position, which is what the house has passed, and which sits on the desk, which is to continue to fund the government with a short term continuing resolution.
Uh, that, it has never been a good thing, a viewpoint, that one and a half trillion dollars is a reasonable amount of spending to be included on a short term CR. And this is hostage taking. It is not something that we are going to accept, uh, and we hope that the, the Democrats come back to the brink on this government and allow us to move forward.
Thank you.
Right.
Mr. Vice President, so, just to be clear, is there room for negotiation here with Democrats? And you mentioned you believe that we are headed toward a government shutdown. Is the federal government preparing to fire federal workers if the government does indeed shut down?
Well, first of all, we have to keep essential services functioning as well as possible if the Democrats shut down the government, and Russ has been tasked with making sure that's possible and you ask about negotiations. One of the things I admire about the President, but frankly, the entire team's approach during the conversation we, we just had with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries was, you know, yeah, they have some crazy ideas.
Giving taxpayer money to illegal aliens for healthcare, that's a crazy idea. Funding transgender surgeries in Peru, that's a crazy idea. But they had some ideas that I actually thought were reasonable, and they had some ideas that the president thought was reasonable. What's not reasonable is to hold those ideas as leverage and to shut down the government unless we give you everything you want.
There were multiple times where, uh, leader Jeffries or, or leader Schumer would say, "You know what? We should be doing this." And the President of the United States would say, "Yeah, absolutely. Let's have that conversation, but we're gona do it in the context of the people's government being open. We're not gona let you take the people's government hostage and then give, give you everything you want." And that's really the, the, the state of negotiation.
Yeah, let's have a conversation. Let's have a negotiation, but we're not gona shut down the government because we won't give the Democrats everything they want.
Can you respond to what Senator Schumer says that there were aspects about healthcare and things for certain people that the president was learning about for the first time at that meeting. And was the president open to a deal on PAC subsidies?
Well, I'm highly skeptical that the president was learning about it for the first time, thanks to Chuck Schumer. But what I, what I will say is, look, we have put a $50 billion rural hospital fund into the actual, the big beautiful bill that we passed a few months ago. Because we know that under Biden administration's policies, there are a lot of small town hospitals, a lot of rural healthcare that was getting shut down and it was struggling.
We're trying to fix that problem. In fact, we're happy to work with Democrats to fix that problem. We wana work across the aisle to make sure that people have access to good healthcare. We are not gona let Democrats shut down the government, take a hostage unless we give them everything that they want. That's not how the people's government has ever worked.
That's certainly not how it's gona work under the Trump administrative.
This is very important on healthcare, their counter proposal, what Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are demanding is that they call back the $50 billion that we put into the rural hospital, uh, support structure. They wana take that back. We're not gona do that. We passed that because we have to, uh, and to allow for that.
Also, if they shut the government down, not only are troops unpaid, federal workers and all the services that everybody relies on, but the WIT program, the nutrition program, women, infant, and children, they will not get that program, will not be funded. FEMA won't be funded. We have hurricanes off the coast of the United States right now.
This is serious business. Uh, you have telehealth, you have mental health services. All that that's funded by the government would stop the Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats have their way. The Democratic shutdown would be damaging for the country. We can't allow for it.