Van Hollen: “Senate Republicans Just Voted to Shut Down the Government”

Today, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) released the following video on Republicans' vote to shut down the government:

A transcript of the video follows:

"Senate Republicans just voted to shut down the government. They voted against our proposal to keep the government open without giving Donald Trump a blank check for his lawless activity, and our proposal, which would prevent huge spikes in health care costs for Americans. Because when Republicans passed their so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill' - which was beautiful if you're a billionaire but really stunk if you're anyone else - they made big cuts in Medicaid, and they did not turn off this ticking time bomb that's going to explode on people's health care and increase costs ultimately for everybody in America.

"So what they did in their 'Big Beautiful Bill' was they extended tax credits for the richest in America - for Elon Musk and other people across the country. The tax benefit they did not extend was for working Americans to help them better afford their health care. That's a tax benefit that they're letting die. We want to turn off that ticking time bomb. So we're saying to Donald Trump, 'let's keep the government open, but you don't get a blank check for your lawless activity.'

"I mean, think about what he's been doing since he was sworn in. He has actually been shutting down parts of the government every day. He brought in Elon Musk. They took a chainsaw to important government services. So they've been shutting down the parts of the government they don't like and simply funding the parts they do like.

"That is a lawless president, and I'm not signing up for that. So, we want to keep the government open. We're not going to give Donald Trump a blank check. And we want to focus on what he claimed he was going to focus on, which was bringing down prices - including bringing down the price of health care and certainly preventing this big spike in health care costs that we're going to see very shortly if we don't do something about it."