Chairman Aguilar: Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. They own this crisis. They own this shutdown.

Chairman Aguilar: Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. They own this crisis. They own this shutdown.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar joined Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic Whip Katherine Clark for a press conference about the Republican shutdown and how House Democrats are fighting to protect health care. You can watch the full press conference here and read the transcript below.

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Thank you, Whip Clark. We're fighting. Republicans are nowhere to be seen. Our message has been very clear: cancel your vacations, cancel the cuts, lower the cost, fix health care. That's why we're here. Donald Trump and House Republicans have shown their true colors this week. Instead of protecting health care, they're ripping it away. 15 million people at risk of losing their health care coverage. And while we're here trying to keep the government open, the guidance from our colleagues on the other side, Lisa McClain, my counterpart, the Chair of the Republican Conference, instructs their members: don't talk about health care. That is their message. So while we're fighting for health care, we're fighting to keep this government open-the guidance from the GOP has been very clear: don't talk about these issues. Because they know the American people are with us.

Democrats have been at the negotiating table for months, and we want to work in a bipartisan way. We've always wanted to work in a bipartisan way to solve these issues. Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. They own this crisis. They own this shutdown. And instead, they want to use people as political pawns. Russ Vought wants to lay people off. He wants to fire people. He wants to use this shutdown to carry out the agenda that he has wanted all along. It's shameful, and it's wrong. [Democrats] will do everything in our power to fix this Republican mess, to provide health care to people and to ensure that the American people aren't left out in the cold, because it's the right thing to do.

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