00:00Okay, I'm proud to have my staff join me in this press conference.
00:18Where's Jeff? Right here. Good. Thanks, Jeff, for joining us today.
00:23Well, one thing has become clear. The more Americans learn about this big, ugly bill, the more they hate it.
00:33We just saw polling data in our caucus that showed two to one.
00:40People don't like the bill. A majority of Democrats, of course, but a significant majority of independents and a significant chunk of Republicans.
00:50Our Republican colleagues are also starting to see how devastating this bill is.
00:58Look no further than my good friend, Senator Tillis.
01:01Where's our? Sorry.
01:03They're busy talking. Okay.
01:06You gonna hold it, Gracie, or I hold it? Okay.
01:09So let me just, I'll do it.
01:10So this is a chart that he gave out in his caucus, according to Punchbowl.
01:17He handed out this sheet that says exactly what's in the bill.
01:22Thanks, Jeff.
01:23How much you lose with the provider rate tax, each state.
01:28Louisiana, 20 billion.
01:31South Carolina, 20 billion.
01:33Tennessee, 16 billion.
01:35Kentucky, 12 billion.
01:36Ohio, 8.4.
01:37West Virginia, 6.2.
01:39Missouri, 6.1.
01:42And Iowa, 4.1.
01:44And North Carolina, 38 billion dollars.
01:48That's a lot of money.
01:50For anybody.
01:52And so, in the caucus, he's handing this out.
01:56Republicans are really beginning to learn how bad the big ugly bill is for them.
02:02Tillis is actually, is right.
02:04I agree with him.
02:05He's okay.
02:07It'd be catastrophic for North Carolina with Medicaid coverage at risk for over 600,000 people.
02:15And forfeiting over 38 billion dollars to his home state.
02:19And he's not the only one.
02:21Republican senators are airing deep concerns behind closed doors.
02:26But they're not being honest at home to their constituents.
02:31Senate Republicans should listen to Senator Tillis.
02:34He's right about how devastating this would be.
02:37Republicans might not want to be honest with the American people in public.
02:41But Democrats sure as hell will be.
02:44Now and throughout the summer and on into next year.
02:50Senate Democrats have been beating the drum.
02:53Doing our best to reveal exactly what the bill does.
02:57And the more we learn about the bill, the more awful it is.
03:01And the more awful it is, the harder we fight.
03:06And we know the American people are on our side.
03:09So we know just letting them know what's in the bill is very bad for them.
03:14And shows what we are for.
03:17Republicans know that their plan is a debt buster.
03:20But they don't seem to care.
03:22They're lining the pockets of their billionaire buddies.
03:26Pretending it won't cost billions, trillions rather, by using a budget gimmick.
03:33And all it is is a gimmick, current policy baseline.
03:36They can deceive all they want.
03:39Everyone knows you can push the paper around.
03:41But they're actually putting the country in debt with these tax cuts.
03:45There's less money in the coffers when they cut the taxes.
03:49Plain and simple.
03:51And they know that.
03:54But the debt has a real effect on the American people.
03:57Costs will go up everywhere.
04:00The cost to buy a car.
04:02The cost to start a business.
04:04The cost to buy a home.
04:06The cost to retain some debt on your credit card bills.
04:11Americans are going to be hit hard by the deficit increase alone.
04:17And that won't change no matter how the Republicans paper it over with this gimmick called current policy baseline.
04:24So, it's evasive.
04:27Now, finally, I want to emphasize how utterly outrageous it was for the administration to cancel, to cancel the briefing that we were supposed to get at 4 o'clock today.
04:43The last-minute postponement was just a dereliction of their duty to let the Congress know, to let both parties know in the Congress what's going on over there.
04:58So, what's the administration so afraid of that they don't want to brief us?
05:02They keep delaying it.
05:03I asked for this briefing last week.
05:05It was scheduled last week before United States action in Iran.
05:11And here, all of a sudden, they cancel it.
05:14Now, they say they want to wait to have Rubio and Hegseth there.
05:18Rubio and Hegseth were never scheduled.
05:20And, frankly, they want to do that Thursday?
05:23That's fine.
05:24But it should not be a substitute for this serious briefing, but in addition.
05:29And we know what will happen.
05:31Hegseth and even Rubio will give us a lot of happy talk, but not the sinew, the details that we need.
05:38The people coming today, including Major General Cain, he's known as a straight shooter, would have given us the details we need to know.
05:48We don't need some canned talk points for Pete Hegseth to roll out.
05:53If secretaries and Rubio, as I said, want to come, that's fine.
05:57But what happened today was obstruction that undermines the very principles of democracy.
06:06Okay?
06:08Where is Leader Thune and the Republicans?
06:11Why are they not defending the very right and obligation of senators, both Democrat and Republican, to be informed?
06:22What the heck is going on?
06:24They are just out of control, violating every precept, every principle, every law, unlike any other administration in American history.
06:34Senator Merkley.
06:39You're on this side.
06:40I keep moving around.
06:42Well, let's talk about debt.
06:44Republicans have become the kings of deficit and debt creation.
06:49Afghanistan War, Iraq War, the Bush tax cuts, the Trump 1 tax cuts, now the Trump 2 tax cuts.
06:57But it's not just legislation in which they have driven up the deficits and the debt.
07:04It's also by modifying and undermining the structure of the process that was designed to control debt, specifically the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Act.
07:19It was two decades and two years after that bill passed.
07:24Republicans said, well, this bill, it was only for deficit reduction, but we're going to use it for tax cuts that drive up the deficit.
07:32Well, that was huge damage to the ability of Congress to make sure that we had a special pathway for reducing deficits.
07:42Instead, they turned it into a pathway for increasing them and increasing them massively.
07:47And now we have the Republicans saying, well, there are two things that survived our 1996 massacre of the 1974 Act,
07:57and that was there could be no deficits after 10 years, and we'd continue to use honest numbers.
08:02Honest numbers from the Joint Committee on Taxation.
08:05Honest numbers from the Congressional Budget Office.
08:08But now, Republicans in the Senate are saying, let's get rid of both of those forms of discipline as well.
08:18There is a provision in Section 313 that says, absolutely, there can be no deficit creation after the budget window for the reconciliation bill.
08:31That's a 10-year window.
08:33But Republicans are, speaking of windows, they're throwing that out the window.
08:37And the process was designed to create this new organization, Congressional Budget Office, to give us honest numbers.
08:43Quit lying to ourselves.
08:45Quit lying to the American people about what things cost.
08:48Get rid of the smoke and mirrors.
08:50That was a form of discipline that is also being thrown out with this so-called current policy baseline.
08:58Now, that strategy, invented out of thin air by the Republicans, comes from Section 312.
09:04So, I just want to encourage you all to be a little bit educated about Section 312.
09:11This is the history of Section 312.
09:13One good turn deserves enough.
09:15Oh, there we go.
09:16Thank you very much.
09:17Section 312 has always been used only on a bipartisan basis.
09:22Section 312 has only been used on very narrow provisions.
09:27Section 312 has always been resolved in that bipartisan way to resolve a small ambiguity.
09:34And it has never, ever been used in reconciliation.
09:39Because 312 wasn't about reconciliation.
09:42Section 313 is about reconciliation.
09:45Thank you very much.
09:46My pleasure, Chair.
09:47You did that really well.
09:49And so, let's turn to Section 313.
09:52And what does it say?
09:53It has five provisions that say, or five elements that say, look at each provision and find out how much it changes revenue or how much it changes costs.
10:04This is the 313.
10:06I've circled a whole bunch of things here.
10:08It says, check this provision.
10:10In other words, check what the proposed law is, each provision, find out how much it costs or how much revenue it produces or decreases.
10:20And how do you do that?
10:22You say, here's the provision versus if the provision wasn't there.
10:26What is that?
10:27That is a comparison to current law.
10:30So, let me be absolutely clear.
10:34Section 312 has no role in reconciliation.
10:40It's being used completely out of place.
10:43And it's inherently inconsistent.
10:46Let me give you two examples.
10:49In the middle of the 10-year window, Republicans are stopping some tax provisions.
10:57Under their theory of current policy, you would continue to cost those out over the 10-year period because you're assuming that they go on after they are dying in law.
11:09So they're saying, well, provisions that were in previous law, we're assuming those continue forever.
11:13Even the law says they don't.
11:15And then they're saying provisions that we're creating and saying stop, actually stop.
11:20Totally inconsistent.
11:22Or look at another inconsistency.
11:24Look at that $5 trillion debt ceiling increase they're putting in.
11:29Why is that there?
11:31Because the bill increases the debt massively over the couple coming years.
11:38So, just really want to say we are going to contest the obliteration of fiscal discipline.
11:46We are tired of hearing Republicans say they are champions of fiscal responsibility when they do legislation after legislation that drives us into massive deficit and debts and then proceed to dismantle the bipartisan structure that was designed to create discipline over the budgeting process.
12:04Thank you, Jeff.
12:05I just want to show everyone how diligent he is.
12:08Look at this.
12:11Questions.
12:12Stop yelling.
12:13Stop yelling.
12:14Is there a way, thank you, is there a way that Democrats can force a ruling against the current policy based on that Republicans are trying to use?
12:20And did you vote in the New York mayoral race?
12:23I did vote.
12:24I was early voting, I think the first day on Sunday.
12:27I'm keeping my ballot to myself.
12:31But the bottom line is that overruling the parliamentarian would be something Thune said he'd never do.
12:42He always said we'd be for regular order and maintain the filibuster.
12:46This in effect is not maintaining the filibuster because they're doing this in a sneaky way to try and get either a 51 vote or no vote.
12:56It's violating the filibuster.
12:58No, go ahead.
12:59Do you think the winner of the Democratic Party, though, primary in New York, should that be the only person from the parliament that stays on the ballot in November?
13:07Let's wait and see the results today.
13:09Leader Sherman, what is the Democratic alternative to this bill?
13:13Isn't it correct that without some mediation, we're going to see an increase in both personal and business taxes, regardless of what is bad in the bill?
13:24Taxes are going to go up.
13:25Okay, look.
13:26The bottom line is you will see in the amendments and reconciliation not only what we oppose in the Republican bill, but some of the things we stand for.
13:36And the public will see it.
13:38We just welcome the contrast that this reconciliation bill brings between what the Democrats stand for and what the Republicans stand for.
13:48Senator Schumer, you tried to get something last fall on AI.
13:51There's a major AI provision in this bill, the 10-year moratorium.
13:54Is that a good idea to delay that for such a long period of time?
13:58Well, what happened in the moratorium is they withdrew the entire national moratorium.
14:05They put some strings attached to it.
14:07There's a great dispute as to what those strings mean.
14:10Senator Cantwell feels they mean one thing, and Senator Thune thinks they mean another.
14:14Okay?
14:15Finish your own Medicaid.
14:16Last one.
14:17Yes, Bolton.
14:18You know, if there are amendments to make this bill better on Medicaid, reduce the size of the cuts, would Democrats support it to make the bill less bad?
14:26Well, look, there's so much bad in the bill.
14:28It's as bad as the Medicaid is.
14:30There are so many other things we oppose.
14:32Tax cuts for billionaires, as you've heard from us many times.
14:35So I don't think that would happen.
14:39We always, of course, we will support.
14:41We're going to see.
14:42We'll have amendments to change the Medicare provisions.
14:45And we'll see how Republicans, who have always said they don't like this vote, let me just say one other thing.
14:50Rural hospitals get clobbered.
14:53This little fund to help reimburse rural hospitals is just a fraud.
15:00There won't be even close to enough money to probably reimburse rural hospitals in any of the larger states.
