TRANSCRIPT: Leader Schumer Remarks And Q&A At Press Conference Following The Bipartisan Meeting At White House To Avoid A Government Shutdown

Washington, D.C. - Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today held a press conference with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries after a bipartisan meeting at the White House with President Trump, Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson to discuss bipartisan negotiations to keep the government funded:

So we just finished, Hakeem and I finished meeting with the president and the two Republican leaders. We had candid, frank discussions. It was a real discussion. And the two issues that we focused on were: number one healthcare. The American people are hurting in their healthcare. The American people-we're seeing hospitals close. We're seeing people laid off. We're seeing people not being able to get the healthcare they need and the American people are crying out for some help. It is our job as legislative leaders to try and solve this problem or at least fix the problem. And we focused in the room in particular on the ACA and its extension.

And the other issue that was sharply drawn were rescissions, impoundments, and pocket rescissions. Where we made the point clear that how could we negotiate a bipartisan agreement and then have the president unilaterally through impoundment or Republican Party through rescissions and the president unilaterally through pocket rescissions undo it all without any input at all. Without any input. So, we made the arguments very strongly and the particular focus was on healthcare.

When we made these arguments, it was clear there was a division or possible division between the president and the two Republican leaders. The Republican leaders were almost - were adamant that they do nothing on rescission, and they just wanted to kick the healthcare problem down the road. Well, they've been kicking it down the road since March. And in fact, I made the point clear to the president and to the legislative leaders, as did Leader Jeffries, that this meeting should have occurred much earlier. But it didn't.

But there was a real division, because when we talked to the president about the problems in healthcare, I mentioned to him a woman I had met who was crying because she said her daughter's losing her healthcare. Her daughter has cancer. She doesn't want to sit there and watch her daughter suffer and even die. And when we talked to him about the other issues, he was not aware that Americans would pay, so many Americans, tens of millions of Americans would pay huge increases in their healthcare, in their healthcare bills because of the ACA expiring in December. And he was not aware that the real effect of that starts October 1st, not December 31st. So it seemed from his body language and some of the things he said, that he was not aware of the ramifications of the treatise, the, you know, the bad, bad implications on healthcare for Americans, nor the argument about rescissions.

So how do we solve this problem? Well, we told the president he can solve the problem by demanding of the legislative leaders, of Thune and of Johnson that they simply, we'd start off with the ACA, just take our provision on the ACA and put it in their bill and take our provisions. It's all in our bill - so it doesn't have to be legislatively changed or gone over - on rescissions and on impoundment and on pocket rescissions and add it to their bill.

And we could avoid a shutdown, but it's in the president's hands whether to avoid a shutdown or not. He has to convince the Republican leaders. Now we know why they didn't want him to meet with us. But finally, they did, because their view is take this partisan bill. They call it a clean bill. Clean equals partisan. And I reminded the Republican leaders, that when we were in the majority, we always negotiated these bills. And that's why there were no shutdowns in the four years I was Majority Leader. We negotiated the bills. Each side got something. They had some input. We've had no input. Leader Jeffries had no input from Johnson. I had no input from Thune. And they say, well, the appropriators talk. They did talk on three bills. We are glad about that. But on the issues of healthcare and on rescissions, the appropriators, the four appropriators, said they can't resolve it, kick it up to the four corners.

But it's now in the President's hands. He can avoid a shutdown if he gets the Republican leaders to go along with what we want. And if they don't, the American people are going to know they had a partisan bill, that the President's in charge, and he admitted in the room, I said, you know, the President gets the blame for this stuff. He admitted that. And that healthcare, the American people, want us to do just what we are doing. We also made clear in the meeting that any bipartisan agreement by necessity has to have something in the legislation that makes clear to the American people that what we agree upon actually takes place. If there is a bipartisan agreement to meet the needs of the American people, it can't be subject to Republicans then undermining that agreement in ways that actually hurt everyday Americans. We pointed out that as a result of the Republican " One Big, Ugly Bill," hospitals are closing, nursing homes are closing, community-based health clinics are closing right now, all across the country, including in rural America. And there's an urgency to dealing with that issue right now.

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Leader Schumer: Questions?

Reporter: Wouldn't it be worse to send this country into a prolonged government shutdown than to spend seven weeks negotiating a possible compromise on healthcare?

Schumer: Ask the Republicans. They are the ones causing this.

Reporter: Republicans say that they want the clean CR to buy time to negotiate over the enhanced premium tax credits, et cetera. Are you worried that when people give their notices that their premiums are going up in October, that they will decide not to buy insurance? And even if you do fix it by the end of the year, they won't see your laws.

Schumer: Yes. That's the reason, you know, some of the Republican leaders said, let's wait till January or late December. You hit the reason. They can't. On October 1st, they get these notices, and many of them, by November, have to make a decision whether to change their healthcare. If you are a person, you know, a middle-class person, and you are going to hear that the premiums are going to go up $400 a month, that's the average in the country, $5,000 a year, you may say, either I can't afford healthcare and drop it, or more likely take a less generous plan where you pay much more for co-payments, deductibles, and everything else. So you can't wait till January. You have to do that now.

Leader Jeffries: Let me address this issue.

Schumer: Go ahead, please.

Jeffries: Donald Trump promised that costs were going to go down on day one. But costs aren't going down in the United States of America. Costs are going up. Inflation is going up. America is too expensive. And Democrats are fighting to address the Affordable Care Act issue and the Republican healthcare crisis because we believe that we need to make this country more affordable. And the reality is that in a matter of days, notices are going to go out to tens of millions of Americans making clear that their healthcare is about to become dramatically more expensive in ways that will actually cause medical bankruptcy for many, or some to have to forego necessary healthcare. And that's not an acceptable thing in this country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world. And we pointed that out consistently. This is a healthcare fight, but it's also a fight to lower the high cost of living here in the United States of America.

Reporter: On the ACA subsidies, are you saying that that has to be included in this CR or no deal? Or are you willing to accept: pass this CR as is and then have a separate -

Schumer: You know, they say give us 45 days. Since March, we've had 45 days and 45 days and 45 days and 45 days. We asked to meet earlier, they didn't want to. So we think when they say later, they mean never. We have to do it now, first because of the timing issue, and second, because now is the time we can get it done.

Reporter: On the policy front with ACA, Leader Thune has said that the only way it will get extended is if there are new reforms and restrictions on where that money can go -

Schumer: We said to him, renew it so that people aren't hurt, and then we can discuss whatever reforms you want. But you've got to renew it now.

Reporter: Now that you presented these issues directly to the President, would you propose or would you support a 7 to 10 day CR, so there's more time?

Schumer: No, we have to do it now. The time is a wasting. We have to do it now. We have delayed and delayed and delayed. As I said, as Martin Luther King once said, later means never. They don't want to do this, the Republican leaders, because they're right-wing. It'll divide their party. Their right-wing hates ACA altogether. But we have to get it done. And the President, the way to do this is the President, who is really listening to us, tells the Republicans to do it.

Jeffries: I'm talking about timing. House Democrats are here. Senate Democrats are here. The Senate is ready to act. House Republicans cancel votes. They're on vacation right now, all across the country, and some are spread out across the world. They're not serious about actually reaching a bipartisan agreement that meets the needs of the American people. If House Republicans were serious, they'd be here right now. And there was no explanation in that meeting from the Speaker of the House of Representatives as to how possibly votes could be canceled. And at the same time, people are supposed to believe that Republicans are serious about addressing the healthcare crisis that they've caused, but simply want to kick the can down the road and expect us to take a hail merry promise. That's unreasonable. That's unacceptable. And it's divorced from reality. If you ever wanted proof that Republicans want to shut down because they're afraid of this vote, look at when the Speaker scheduled the House to come back in after a shutdown.

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