Pleas ms. Pelosi good afternoon. I stand proudly with the democratic leadership of the house of representatives. Leadership of the caucus that voted overwhelmingly and with great unity to support our lues and rejecting the illfounded republican c. R. C. R. s are a way to debilitate government. You dont quite shut it down but debilitate the opportunity for our country to act full force as we go into the rest of the fiscal year. On the process, our members knew that the right thing to do is vote against the c. R. Even though republicans were advertising it as this, that and the other thing. They hid behind children and say we are going to put chip in there. Chip has been a priority of the democrats and really a bipartisan agenda all along. But what they didnt do in there is a complete program that usually goes with it to introduce legislation and puts the complete program. 27 million americans get their health from Community Health centers. Mr. Clyburn of our leadership has been a champion on that issue. They didnt put that. They didnt put medicare me will or doctorso training. They thought they tant tall lies. No. We are about children and families and what they did is not what we have done before. In any event for the process and what it means and debilitating government by having the fourth c. R. And by substance, i was very proud of our caucus which in a great unified way said no. And im so appreciative of that, not only me, the response we are getting from all over the country is a very positive one that we stood our ground. Now this subject of shutdown, the president said we need a good shutdown in september to fix the mess. This is the same president who ex claimed before in april of 2011, he said if there is a shutdown, it would be a negative mark on the president of the United States. He is the one who has to get people together. He went on to say in 2013 after the shutdown, it always happens to be the top, i mean the problem starts from the top. And have to get solved from the top. The president is the leader who has to get everybody in the room and has got to lead. The president of the United States saying that about other president s and now failing to lead. What our country needs is a good shutdown. As president , he said that. There is no good shutdown. That is a oxymoron and democrats have never been for it. I want to say and close with this, when we had the shutdown in 2013, just imagine this, on october 1, the vote was taken. 221 republicans, the majority of the congress, 221 republicans voted yes to shut down government. October 16, when the vote was 144n to open up government, republicans voted to keep government shut down. Among those who voted to shut down government were speaker ryan. Wasnt speaker then. Mccarthy, scalise, mrs. Mcmorris rodgers and mick mulvaney. And when it was time to open it up, ryan, scalise and mulvaney oted to keep government shut down. Democrats are not about shutting down the government. Dont hand us that. I hope the overtures that are being made on the other side will lead to something very positive. We had a very positive caucus this morning and again following up on acting upon their values are determined to stay to get the job done, a champion rallying those forces is our distinguished majority whip for the moment steny hoyer. Mr. Hoyer whatever i am, im pleased to be here. All of you know, republicans control all the levers of government. They control the house, they control the senate, the white house and as dick durbin said this morning, they control the supreme court. Notwithstanding that, we are now some 140 days into the fiscal year and we have not sent a single appropriation bill to the president of the United States. Why have we not done that . Because it would have required compromise. It would have required sitting down and talking to one another and saying how can we agree. Not how we can disagree but how we can agree. Leader mccarthy, just a few hours ago sent out a message to his members that they could leave. We made a motion to adjourn, which we know we were going to vote against because we needed to be here and do the peoples business. And our republican friends did not make the motion to adjourn, so we made it, indicating clearly that we would oppose that because we wanted to be here and get the work done. We have kicked the can down the road once. Every democrat voted to do that. Every democrat voted to give 90 days so we could reach agreement. And that 90 days was squandered. Then the congress, the house voted and the congress voted to kick the can down the road twice more. And that time was squandered. It is time to stop squandering the opportunity to come together and agree. Democrats have always opposed shutting down the government of the United States. We want to enact bipartisan agreement on things that we already agree on. Let me repeat that. We want to agree to that which we have already agreed upon, republicans and democrats. Let me go through them. We have historically agreed on parity. In other words, an equal increase in defense and equal increase on nondefense discretionary spending. That is the deal paul ryan made with senator murray. And that is the deal we have followed for the last four years. That is all leader pelosi has asked speaker ryan to agree on and payfors, of course. And very frankly, we have not been able to get to an agreement. We could do so this afternoon. We all agree that dreamers should remain here in america. And to that extent, we reflect 7 of the american public. Extraordinarily amount of people believe that dreamers, young people brought here through no conscious effort of their own should stay here. We had a meeting at the white house. There were 25 members present. The president said he was for protecting and making sure the dreamers stayed here. Everybody around the table agreed. Republican and democrat. We all agree that chip chip Community Health centers and other Health Programs should be reauthorized. We all agree on helping our fellow americans impacted by natural disasters in texas, in florida, in puerto rico and in he virgin islands. Americans are saying to themselves if you agree on those points, articulated agreement, why cant you resolve this issue and why cant you resolve it today . We are all here. We are going to stay here. And we want to resolve these issues. Fund government, protect dreamers, provide health care for children and provide relief to those so damaged by natural disasters. Protect our veterans as well. And provide resources so we can deal with the Opioid Crisis. E can do that today. Democrats have consistently been ready and willing to sit down at the negotiating table with our republican colleagues. But we will not be blackmailed. We will not be blackmailed because republicans are unwilling to compromise. I say to my republican colleagues, dont shut down this government. Sit down at the table with us and lets move this country forward. Now i want to yield to my dear friend, the assist ant leader, jim clyburn of south carolina. Mr. Clyburn thank you, mr. Chip. Bears repeating the republicans run the house, they run the senate and they have the white house. The fact of the matter is we want to stay here and want to do what is necessary for congress to work with the president to run this country. People think that washington is broken. The fact of the matter is, i work and live within the shadows of fort jackson, the second largest Army Training facility in this country. I want to support those men and women at fort jackson. I was born and raised in sumter, south carolina, headquarters for the ninth air force and the third army. I want to do what is necessary to support those men and women at that joint base. Air forcet charleston base. Every time you see men and women aking off, there are two afghanistan and coming back, ou usually see them leaving on 317s and other airplanes from charleston, south carolina. I represent Mcintyre Air National Guard base, all the men and women in the National Guard who go off to active duty. They leave from mcintyre. And i represent them. And i want to do what is necessary to support those men and women. But at the same time when those people leave, those men and women leave to go out and defend their country. They leave children who need the Childrens HealthInsurance Program and ought to be funding it. They come from urel communities and want to see their rural hospitals funded which republicans do not do with this r. R. They want to see all these disproportionate share facilities, Community Health centers. The children who get chip, health care through the Childrens HealthInsurance Program, most of them go to Community Health centers for the care. So what does it do to authorize chip and fund it if you dont have a hospital or Community Health center for them to receive treatment . Weve got to look at this. And for my republican friends who posture to fund chip, if we were to reauthorize chip permanently, it will save the government 6 billion, but they refuse to do it. Why would they save 6 billion. Take care of the children and save the government 6 billion and refusing to do that. That is the kind of thing i want the American People to look at. Dont Pay Attention to these tweets. The headlines can be misleading. What we need to do is look at what these people are doing to our government. And we are going to stay here on behalf of the American People and invite them to stay with us. And with that, i yield to my friend joe crowley. Are mr. Crowley i have never seen a rush to create web sites and hashtags to deflect blame because of their inability to govern. They control every facet of government today. They control the supreme court. Everything. Every level of government and cant do the most basic responsibility of government and governing. And that is to pass a budget. That is to pass a spending bill. The c. R. s, the continuing crmple r. s are hurting our preparedness as a nation as a military and domestically. Democrats continue to stand ready to work with our republican colleagues to advance the cause of the American People. The American People expect that much and the least they can do is show they can govern but they cannot. Let me turn to my colleague, ms. Sanchez. Its pretty clear that a group of folks standing behind me and the American People believe this is no way to run the government. The American People expect congress to make tough choices and get its work done and democrats are committed to stay as long as it takes. We have been ready, willing and have essentially asked time and time again to be a part of a discussion to come up with a bipartisan agreement to fund the government. You know, i cant think of a single business that would run their business this way, and lunch from month to month not knowing if they were going to shurps. Next month of and we need to address this. We cant keep kicking the can down the road. 27 million americans get their health care through Community Health centers and yet the c. R. Doesnt provide funding for them sm the department of defense has been funded by shortterm c. R. s for several years now and that has deprived our military of the certainty that they need in order to be prepared and that puts the security of our country at risk. Theres no relief for dreamers in this c. R. Even though the majority of the members of congress would vote to support providing relief to dreamers. And there are many, many other areas that my colleagues have pointed out. Mr. Clyburn gave excellent example of Community Health centers and republicans are stepping over dollars to pick up dimes. Its foolish and wasteful and the basic function of keeping the lights on is not that hard, yet their dysfunction continues. I call on our republican colleagues to work with us to resolve these issues and put them behind us and move onto the next set of challenges because they are always our next challenges for us to try and resolve. But instead, they continue to lock us out of the room and cry we are not at the table helping them. And i cant think of anything that is more hypocritical. The democrats will say we are here waiting patiently for them to extend a hand to Work Together to address these issues that there is agreement on and get our government on a same path towards certain funding that allows our country to provide the quality of life that our constituents deserve and have earned. Thank you. Ms. Pelosi one of those issues agreement, colleague, peter welch of vermont read the letter of the president he received yesterday or saw this morning. Spelled out what those priorities are about opyoids and addressing the needs of our veterans, National Institutes of health and issues that relate to the pensions that are endangered in our country and the issues that relate to natural disasters and as mr. Hoyer mentioned and all of our country and especially focusing on puerto rico and the virgin islands, which have been underfunded in the previous bill that came forward. You know, in recent weeks, we had the thanksgiving break, the christmas break and every year the republicans plan for and we come in for a week or two. Why would that be . Why is the house out . Republican leadership can go visit their friends and celebrate the passage of a very unfair tax bill that increases the deficit, undermines our future by having 83 of the benefits go to the top 1 . These are all connected, because the increase in the deficit and reduction in revenue from the high end have an impact of what we are able to afford as we go into these discussions. We know we will be able we know that their caucus wants to resist any increase in domestic spending. Domestic spending includes homeland security, veterans affairs, antiterrorism activity at the Justice Department and state department. These are security functions. Yet they are on the domestic side of the tally. So when they try to suppress that budget, they are suppressing security functions but other measures of the strength of our country. I was excited to i was so excited to hear mr. Clyburn talk about south carolina. Because just last week i learned that my brothers grandson is going to fort jackson. He just enlisted. Our family is so proud. One of my brothers my Four Brothers who served in the army, one of them started out there too. So this is about certainly supporting our defense, our department of defense, and general mattis told us he cant take these c. R. s. Its just not a way to run a military. And its not a way to run a government. My colleague, mr. Cicilline, reminded me of mr. Welchs letter. Did you want to speak to that at all . Mr. Cicilline i just wanted to reinforce what leader pelosi said. That we have over 170 of our colleagues who communicated to the white house the five priorities that we thought were important to be included in the continuing resolution. This parity between defense and nondefense spending. Responding to the Opioid Crisis in our country. Making sure we fund the Childrens HealthInsurance Program. Take care of the dreamers. And be sure that we ensure our veterans have the resources they need. As the leader says, these are not controversial. This wasnt sort of a wish list of every democratic wish. These are all bipartisan issues which enjoy bipartisan support. And all weve asked the republicans is to engage with us, include these issues so we can Work Together and so far they have been unwilling to do that. There are over 170 of us who joined in that communication. Ms. Pelosi having said, that i think we could come to an agreement, as mr. Hoyer aid. I think agreement is in reach reach. They just have to make the decision. Questions . Reporter right now your colleague, Chuck Schumer, is over at the white house meeting oneonone with President Trump. What do you think this signals for the chance of President Trump making a deal . Ms. Pelosi well see. When they come out of the room. We have worked very closely, house and senate, democrats in trying to work in a bipartisan way on what our priorities are. In this debate. Ive said before, even if there were no dreamer on the face of the earth, we still have our ssues about parity and payfors and thats we can just sit down and settle that. I dont know the extent of the conversation because it was an invitation of the president. But mr. Schumer is well aware of the priorities that we share. So im optimistic that that overture was made. Hopefully to be constructive. Reporter with the idea that they did pass the bill last night, the republican c. R. , with just enough votes on their side. No democrats went up on the oard until they hit 220. Obviously the bigger problem on this bill seems to have been with the senate. You said you expect senator schumer to represent some of your priorities. What does that mean they have to figure out something with the senate first, but obviously they have to enlist your side so theres buyin over here. Theres certainly going to be a lot of republicans who dont want [inaudible] what will that potentially look like, depending on the message enator schumer delivers . Ms. Pelosi that was quite a convoluted statement. [laughter] honest to god. You want to repeat the question . Just the last part of it. What does that look like . Im going to defer that one to steny. Its far too complicated. Eporter [inaudible] mr. Hoyer the reality is the republicans over the since 2011, have not had the votes on the house side in almost every matter of fiscal policy. Ms. Pelosi they have the majority. Mr. Hoyer theyve always needed democrats. I told you, on the first c. R. , the 0day c. R. , the period in which we should have reached agreement, 90 republicans voted against that.