Funding the federal government. This is day two of the Government Shutdown. A vote to limit debate on a temporary spending bill to fund federal operations through february 8 is scheduled for early tomorrow morning at 1 a. M. Eastern. On twitter President Trump wrote if the stomach continues, republican should use the Nuclear Option to rewrite senate rules and try to pass and longterm spending bill with a simple majority. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell has said he opposes this option. Live coverage of the senate now here on cspan2. The chaplain let us pray. Eternal god almighty, who rules and reigns forever. As our lawmakers seek to solve the problem of this Government Shutdown, remind them of the miscalculations in our history. Give them the wisdom to remember that those who sow to the wind often reap the whirlwind. Provide them with the faith to trust you to direct their steps as they discontinue the blame game and strive to do the most good for the most people. May our senators be grateful for the opportunity to serve you and country in these grand and challenging times. We pray in your sovereign name. Amen. The presiding officer please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The presiding officer the clerk will read a communication to the senate. The clerk washington d. C. , january 21, 2018. To the senate under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable dan sullivan, a senator from the state of alaska, to perform the duties of the chair. Signed orrin g. Hatch, president pro tempore. Mr. Mcconnell mr. President . The presiding officer majority leader. Mr. Mcconnell here we are, mr. President. This is day two of the Senate DemocratsGovernment Shutdown. Day two since the democratic leader made the political calculation to do something that according to a recent survey even most democrats dont support, he shut down the government to appease a portion, a portion of his partys leftwing base. Makes you shake your head. Who comes up with ideas like this . Well, on friday, a Bipartisan Group of senators voted to advance a bill that would have kept the federal government open, provided six years of certainty for the state Childrens HealthInsurance Program which at least seven democratic governors have written theyre in dire straits, allowed ongoing talks to continue on a variety of other important issues that weve been discussing here for a couple of months. Together democrats and republicans had enough votes to pass it. Five democrats crossed over and voted against shutting down the government. To keep the government open while we do our work. The house had already passed it. The president was ready to sign it. We were poised to send him this compromise solution and erase erase the threat of a shutdown. But unfortunately, my friend, the democratic leader, had other ideas. Now, we all know in the senate the minority has the power to filibuster. I support that right from an institutional point of view, but the question is when do you use it . On friday the democratic leader made the extraordinary and destructive choice to filibuster our bipartisan bill and guarantee the American People a shutdown of their federal government. Now, its the second day of the Senate Democrat filibuster, and the Senate Democrats shutdown of the federal government. Because the president wouldnt resolve months of ongoing negotiations over massive issues in one brief meeting and give the democratic leader everything he wants, my friend across the aisle has shut down the government for hundreds of millions of americans because he didnt get everything he wanted in one meeting friday with the president. So who pays the price for that . Health care for needy children, training and resources for our men and women in uniform, care for our veterans who came home and Survivor Benefits for families of heroes who did not. Full funding for the c. D. C. , for the n. I. H. , and for routine safety inspections of food and medicine. To most americans, those signed like fundamental responsibilities to. To the democratic leader, apparently they sound like hostages ripe for the taking. And all of this was totally unnecessary. There is a broad consensus on both sides of the aisle that daca and other issues related to illegal immigration require a compromise solution. Almost everybody here, democrat and republican, believe we need to get to a solution on the daca issue and related immigration matters. Bipartisan, bicameral negotiations have been under way for months. But they can go nowhere until Senate Democrats realize the extreme path their leader has chartered leads them nowhere. A filibuster of health care for nine million children, a filibuster of the tools and training that our war fighters need to keep us safe, a filibuster of funding for the federal government itself, for hundreds of millions of americans, all over a tangential issue related to illegal immigration that does not even ripen until march. All of these other things are an emergency. The one nonemergency issue that our friends on the other side are trying to shoehorn into this discussion doesnt reach that status of emergency until march. This is pure folly. The American People know so. Thats why in a recent survey, a majority said keeping the government open is a higher priority than shutting down the government over the issue of illegal immigration. Thats why headlines all across america are laying the blame for this Government Shutdown right at the feet of Senate Democrats and their filibuster. Now, the democratic leader could end this today. We can get past this manufactured crisis and get on to a host of serious issues before us that require thoughtful bipartisan negotiations. This shutdown could get a lot worse tomorrow, a lot worse. Today would be a good day to end it. All we have to do is pass the commonsense legislation the senate is currently considerin. Ending a Government Shutdown and ensuring health care continues for vulnerable children, theres nothing in this measure that my democratic friends cannot support. So heres the situation. If nothing changes, the cloture vote will be no sooner than 1 00 a. M. Tonight. We could resolve this much earlier if the democratic leader withdraws his procedural objection and allows the senate to proceed to a vote. Our constituents want us to end this. Secretary mattis, our military leaders and our governors want us to end this and we can. Today is the right day to do it. Senate democrats only need to withdraw their filibuster and allow a bipartisan majority to move america forward. If they really care about the big issues, increased defense funding, Disaster Relief, daca and Border Security and other important matters that weve been negotiating and that i would like to bring to the floor, then they will stop their filibuster and this shutdown and let the negotiators get back to work. Everyone has figured this out. This shutdown was a political miscalculation of gargantuan proportions. But it doesnt need to go on any longer. It could stop today. So lets step back from the brink. Lets stop victimizing the American People and get back to work on their behalf. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. Quorum call quorum call mr. Schumer mr. President , are we in a quorum . The presiding officer the senate is in a quorum. Mr. Schumer i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Schumer mr. President. The presiding officer the minority leader. Mr. Schumer we now enter day two of the first real Government Shutdown ever to take place when one party controlled the presidency, the house, and the senate. Under this unified control, it was the republicans job to govern. It was their job to lead. It was their job to reach out to us and come up with a compromise. They have failed. Our democracy was designed to run on compromise. The senate was designed to run on compromise. We are no dictatorship, subject to the whims of an executive. Just as were not a oneparty system where the winner of an election gets to decide everything and the minority nothing. We are a government that can only operate if the majority party, the governing party, accepts and seeks compromise. The majority, however, has forgotten the lessons of the founding fathers. They have shown that they do not know how to compromise. Not only do they not consult us, they cant even get on the same page with their president , the president from their own party. The congressional leaders tell me to negotiate with President Trump. President trump tells me to figure it out with the congressional leaders. This political catch22, never seen before, has driven our government to dysfunction. Americans know why the dysfunction is occurring. A dysfunctional president. Hence, we are in a trump shutdown. And Party Leaders who wont act without him. It has created the chaos and the gridlock we find ourselves in today. It all really stems from the president whose inability to clinch a deal has created the trump shutdown. I agree with majority leader mcconnell the trump shutdown was totally avoidable. President trump walked away from not one but two bipartisan deals. And thats after he walked away from an agreement in principle on daca we reached way back in the fall of last year. If he had been willing to accept any one of these deals, we wouldnt be where we are today. On friday, in the oval office, i made what i thought was a very generous offer to the president , the most generous offer yet. The president demanded for months that a deal on daca include the wall. Most of we democrats dont think the wall is effective. We think its expensive and a waste of money. Were all for tough Border Security, but every expert will tell you that drones and sensory devices and roads and personnel are far more effective than the wall. So but, because the president campaigned on the wall, even though he said it would be paid for by mexico, and demands the wall, for the sake of compromise, for the sake of coming together, i offered it. Despite what some people are saying on tv and mind you, these are folks not in the room during discussion that is exactly what happened. The president picked a number for a wall, i accepted it. It wasnt my number. It wasnt the number in the bills here. He picked it. Now, it would be hard to imagine such a more reasonable compromise. All along, the president is saying, well, i will do daca and dreamers in return for the wall. Hes got it. Cant take yes for an answer. Thats why were here. And we dont have anyone in the white house or here in the senate, in the house, republicans, or the president s own party to tell him hes got to straighten this whole thing out. He cant say yes one minute and no the next. Three four, five times. The bottom line is this it would be hard to imagine a much more reasonable compromise. I was in principle agreeing to help the president to get his Signature Campaign promise, something democrats and republicans on the hill staunch ly oppose, in exchange for daca, a group of people the president said he has great love for. I essentially agreed to give the president something he has said he wants in exchange for something we both want, but only hours after he seemed to be very open, very eager about that generous, tentative agreement and it was only tentative, no handshakes he backed away from the last best chance to avoid a shutdown. Thats why from one corner of america, this is being called the trump shutdown. Its trending all over. People from one end of the country to the other know its the trump shutdown, and they know why. Theyve seen what the president has done. Its a direct result of a president who has been proved unwilling to compromise and is thus unable to govern. The deal wasnt everything the president wanted. It certainly wasnt everything we wanted. What it was was compromise, something nobody loved but everyone could live with. Something good for the country. It would have staved off a Government Shutdown on friday. We could still reopen the government today. So, mr. President , im willing to seal the deal, to sit and work right now with the president or anyone he designates. Lets get it done. Meanwhile, the republican leader would have you believe we democrats forced the shutdown. He first forgets that several members of his own party voted against the c. R. Are they holding the government hostage over illegal immigration . No, it doesnt seem that way. The republican leader accuses democrats of holding up pay for our troops. I heard speaker ryan blame the senate on tv. But yesterday, mr. President , senator mccaskill offered a motion to make sure our military gets paid, and the majority leader himself objected. The majority leader prevented the troops from getting paid. Because this would have passed in a minute. Speaker ryan should talk to leader mcconnell who is the only person in the United StatesSenate Standing in the way of paying our troops. Not anybody here. We dont want to use the troops as hostages. Unfortunately, some on the other side may be doing just that. We could make sure our troops get paid right now if the majority leader would only consent or if there is pride of authorship, let him offer the resolution. We wont block it. Well applaud it. I hope it can happen as soon as possible. The republican leader also accuses democrats of blocking chip when he full well knows that every democrat here supports extending chip. Its four months lapsed. Who let that happen . The republican majority. The democratic majority would never have allowed chip to expire. Now, just because it was placed on a c. R. That was a bad idea for so many reasons, republicans want to pretend that they are advocates of chip. Quite the contrary. They were using the ten million kids on chip, holding them as hostage for the 800,000 kids who are dreamers. Kids against kids. Innocent kids against innocent kids. Thats no way to operate in this country. So, again, a party that controls the house, the senate, and the presidency would rather sit back and point fingers of blame than roll up their sleeves and govern. The way out of this is simple our parties are very close on all of the issues we have been debating for months now, so close i believed we might have a deal twice, only for the president to change his mind and walk away. The president must take yes for an answer. Until he does, its the trump shutdown. He has said he has a love for dreamers. Let him show it. He said he needs a wall and Border Security. Accept our offer to do both of those things because we deems, while we think the wall will not accomplish very much and cost a lot of money, we strongly believe in Border Security and have fully supported the president s offer or Budget Proposal on Border Security for this year. So this is the trump shutdown. Only President Trump can end it. We democrats are at the table, ready to negotiate. The president needs to pull up a share and end this shutdown. I yield the floor. The presiding officer under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. Morning business is closed. Under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of house message to accompany h. R. 195, which the clerk will report. The clerk house message to accompany h. R. 195, an act to amend title 44, United States code, to restrict the distribution of printed copies of the federal register to congress and other offices and employees of the United States, and for other purposes. Mr. Cornyn mr. President. The presiding officer the majority whip. Mr. Cornyn mr. President , President Trump didnt vote to shut down the government. Hes not a member of the United States senate. President trump did not shut down the government. And now Senate Democrats are reeling because the president has said while the government is shut down, hes not going to negotiate a change of our immigration laws that our democratic colleagues and frankly many republicans like me would like to see changed relative to the deferred action for childhood arrivals, or daca young adults. So it seems to me that our democratic colleagues have literally well, figuratively, lets say, shot themselves in the foot, reloaded, and shot themselves in the other foot. And now they expect President Trump to somehow rescue them out of this box canyon. I know im mixing my metaphors here, but this situation they find themselves in. They shut down the government, and now theyre hurting the very people that they shut down the government to help. Because there are no negotiations going on on a solution that we would all like to try to achieve. So this is really surreal. You know, the old saying, everybodys entitled to their opinion, but youre not entitled to your own facts. Facts are facts. Democrats voted to shut down the government because theyre inpatient to get a solution for these daca young adults. Now they have to blame somebody else because theyre unwilling to own up to their own responsibility. You know, growing up, my parents told me one of the most important things that i could do and my sister and brother could do is accept responsibility for our own mistakes. Not blame somebody else. Thats simply juvenile. We c