LEADER JEFFRIES: "HOUSE REPUBLICANS HAVE A SIMPLE CHOICE -- PUT THAT BIPARTISAN SPENDING AGREEMENT ON THE FLOOR"
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Good morning. Great to be with you. My hope is that there's a bipartisan spending agreement that continues to work its way through the Senate that earlier this week, Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans voted by a margin of 77 to 19 to advance. It would continue to fund the government in a way that provides for the health, the safety, the economic well-being of the American people. It avoids any partisan political policy riders, and it would provide support for the American people in the context of extreme weather events, as well as continue to fund the Ukrainian war effort. That bill will advance out of the Senate hopefully in the next day or so and arrive in the House. At that point, House Republicans have a simple choice -- put that bipartisan spending agreement on the Floor for an up or down vote, and I'm convinced that it will pass. Anything short of that is a House Republican effort intentionally to shut down the government and hurt the American people.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
It would certainly pass if it was to receive an up or down vote because the overwhelming majority of Democrats, if not every single member of the House Democratic Caucus, in terms of the bill in its current form in the Senate, would certainly receive Democratic support. And there are Republicans who have indicated they're prepared to support bipartisan legislation. And if that were to be the case, we only need six House Republicans to join us. Certainly there are six traditional Republicans, six reasonable Republicans willing to avoid a catastrophic government shutdown.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
We certainly should be able to. And all House Republicans need to do is keep their word. In May, at the insistence of House Republicans who were threatening to default on America's debt for the first time in our history -- that would have been catastrophic -- they insisted on bringing the spending dynamics into the discussion to protect the full faith and credit of the United States of America. President Biden agreed. We all had a negotiation. It resulted in a bipartisan agreement that avoided a default and also set top line spending numbers for the fiscal year that is fast approaching. That bill passed the House by more than 300 votes. The overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans support it. Same thing happened in the Senate. It went to President Biden's desk. He signed it into law. The reason why we're in this situation right now is because House Republicans have broken the agreement that they themselves negotiated in terms of top line spending numbers. Everyone else in Washington is adhering to that agreement. House Democrats, Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, President Biden. Why are House Republicans threatening this government shutdown and breaking the agreement that they negotiated? It's because they would rather cut Social Security, slash public school funding and criminalize abortion care, loading up these spending bills with unnecessary extreme MAGA Republican policy riders.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Well, the President did submit a funding request to provide for additional border resources in terms of the situation that is taking place in the border and throughout our hemisphere. And so far, Republicans in the House at least haven't even indicated a willingness to consider that proposal, which apparently in the Senate, they're working through some dynamics. We'll have to see where they ultimately land. We do need a bipartisan effort to address the issues that we are confronting at the border and to lean in to comprehensive immigration reform to fix our broken immigration system in a way that is consistent with our values as a nation of immigrants and as a nation anchored in the rule of law. That's important and House Democrats stand ready to find a bipartisan path forward. The problem is what you have in the House is that the extreme MAGA Republicans basically on every issue, including issues that they previously agreed to and negotiated, are adopting a my way or the highway approach. They are changing the terms of an agreement that is a matter of law at this moment.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
So, yeah, Joe, there's no point in this interview or at any other point in which I have actually commented on the number of Republicans who fall into a particular category.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Yeah, thank you for saying that because in the Senate right now you have a bipartisan spending agreement--
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
That passed. Earlier this week, 77 members of the United States Senate. That means the majority of Democrats, a majority of Republicans--
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
That's bipartisan--
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
That's bipartisan. And also, I think it's important to point out that in May, when we reached an agreement, part of that agreement was that when we approached the end of the fiscal year, preparing to fund the government, that there should be no policy changes one way or the other, asked for by the left or asked for by the right, which should be part of the spending discussion. That was an agreement that was reached in May. And so now again, House Republicans are changing the terms of that agreement. That doesn't work in politics. That doesn't work in the business world. It doesn't work in the not-for-profit world. It doesn't work. Your word matters. And now a government shutdown is being threatened because the House Republicans want to go in a different direction. Of course, we stand ready to find the common ground with the other side of the aisle on any issue, whenever and wherever possible. But we can't be put in the situation where extreme ransom demands are being made at the 11th hour that are inconsistent with a spending agreement that was already reached in May of this year.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Well, first of all, let me point out that we had the exact same numbers in the previous Congress, not even a hypothetical situation or question. We had literally the exact same numbers. And under the wonderful leadership of Speaker Pelosi, what we were able to do is pass measures that make life better for the American people and measures that help business, competitiveness of our economy, whether that was infrastructure, whether that was the CHIPS and Science Act, whether that's standing up a clean energy economy--
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Well, we don't like--
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
We run to win but we win to govern and we govern and make life better for everyday Americans. That's why we got big things done. And by the way, the majority of those things were bipartisan in nature in both the House and the Senate. And that's the path forward. Run toward the center, don't run toward the extreme right, run toward the center. And we are ready, willing and able to find the common ground to make a difference for the American people in ways that will lift up the great American middle class dream and allow for a business environment where companies can continue to thrive because when companies thrive, workers thrive. And that's what our agenda has been all about.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Well, I think that President Biden, in granting Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan refugees, is taking an important step forward. We believe that numbers in New York currently under the care of the city of New York are anywhere between 15,000 and 30,000 Venezuelan migrants who are eligible to work while they are awaiting a decision on their asylum application. And when I talk to people, both members of organized labor and members of the business community, they said that there are labor shortages and that these are refugees who now have work authorization and provide assistance and meet unmet needs. And I think what the mayor and the governor and all of us need to do is focus on making sure we can implement the step that has currently been taken and provide relief resources at the border to try to alleviate the situation. We also need to provide resources to adjudicators so that the asylum applications can be processed in a more expeditious fashion.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source