Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Government Shutdown Through The Eyes Of One Congresswoman
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: If I passed the hour, we're gonna waste no time
- 0:07Speaker 1: because time is fleeting this morning. That's what happens when
- 0:10Speaker 1: you are a member of the United States Congress. Joining
- 0:14Speaker 1: us is US Congresswoman Cat Caemick from Florida's third District.
- 0:17Speaker 1: Good morning, Cat, how are you.
- 0:19Speaker 2: I'm doing good. Great to be with you in between
- 0:22Speaker 2: diaper changes. And by diaper changes, I don't mean my own,
- 0:24Speaker 2: I mean little baby young.
- 0:26Speaker 1: I thought you might be talking about some of the
- 0:28Speaker 1: members of Congress, but certainly.
- 0:30Speaker 2: In the Senate, absolutely, because they won do act like
- 0:33Speaker 2: babies in summer of the age for that to actually
- 0:36Speaker 2: be a thing. But anyway, I digress.
- 0:39Speaker 1: I have spent a good bit of time this morning
- 0:41Speaker 1: talking about the shutdown, pointing out that this primarily is
- 0:44Speaker 1: about an absurd number of requests that people like AOC
- 0:48Speaker 1: want to put back in and Schumer is basically surrendering
- 0:52Speaker 1: the rest of the party to the extremists, plus illegal
- 0:56Speaker 1: immigrant health care in the form of health insurance subsidies
- 0:59Speaker 1: in the like. How would you characterize the shutdown?
- 1:04Speaker 2: I would say it's not just a shutdown, but it's
- 1:07Speaker 2: a shakedown. You hit it right on the head there
- 1:11Speaker 2: we're looking at a request from the Democrats of one
- 1:15Speaker 2: point five trillion dollars, and in that one point five
- 1:19Speaker 2: trillion dollars, they are requesting two hundred billion dollars with
- 1:25Speaker 2: a B for illegal non citizen taxpayer funded healthcare. And
- 1:32Speaker 2: I actually have had a few Democrat constituents in my
- 1:36Speaker 2: office here in the last couple of days, because I
- 1:38Speaker 2: always have an open door policy. You know, anyone who
- 1:40Speaker 2: wants to come in and meet, they absolutely can, and
- 1:44Speaker 2: they all try to challenge me on this, and I'm
- 1:46Speaker 2: always happy to point out that on page fifty seven,
- 1:48Speaker 2: section twenty one forty one of the Democrat counter proposal,
- 1:53Speaker 2: it says in black and white exactly what we've been saying.
- 1:57Speaker 2: That they want to give non citizen and illegals healthcare
- 2:02Speaker 2: that is even better than what people on Medicaid effectively kick.
- 2:08Speaker 2: And so yes, that is actually their number one ask.
- 2:11Speaker 2: But as part of that, there's also some other nuggets
- 2:14Speaker 2: in there. In trying to do the subsidy for insurance companies,
- 2:19Speaker 2: they're actually rolling back the historic fifty billion dollars that
- 2:23Speaker 2: we just invested into rural healthcare. And for anybody in
- 2:27Speaker 2: North Florida, you know, you see it. The healthcare system,
- 2:31Speaker 2: it's crumbling as we know it. We don't have healthcare.
- 2:34Speaker 2: We've got sick care, the health all the clinics are
- 2:37Speaker 2: shutting down, we have maternity health desert hospitals shutting down,
- 2:40Speaker 2: and the Democrats want to take that investment and direct
- 2:44Speaker 2: it elsewhere. So we have a huge mess on our hands.
- 2:46Speaker 2: But we're going to hold firm.
- 2:48Speaker 1: I was just going to ask you, will the Speaker,
- 2:51Speaker 1: will the Senate majority leader.
- 2:53Speaker 2: Hold absolutely there's zero appetite out of the Republican conference
- 2:58Speaker 2: in the House or the Senate to perpetuate a four
- 3:02Speaker 2: hundred billion dollar subsidy to insurance companies. Keep in mind
- 3:06Speaker 2: that insurance companies have logged a two hundred and thirty
- 3:09Speaker 2: seven percent profit margin this year. There's no appetite in
- 3:15Speaker 2: the country. And I don't care if you're a Republican
- 3:17Speaker 2: or Democrat. It's third that an insurance company would get
- 3:20Speaker 2: the subsidy to then turn around and say I'm going
- 3:23Speaker 2: to lower your health insurance. Meanwhile, I'm going to keep
- 3:25Speaker 2: denying because we see denials on the rise and perpetuate
- 3:30Speaker 2: a system that is effectively broken. We're not going to
- 3:33Speaker 2: do that. So the Speaker has been very clear, we
- 3:36Speaker 2: are not going to hold the American people hostage over
- 3:40Speaker 2: a discussion that is entirely separate, and I should add
- 3:43Speaker 2: entirely of the Democrats to do and keep in mind,
- 3:46Speaker 2: they were the ones that made these subsidies temporary and
- 3:52Speaker 2: slated the date for this and everything. Meanwhile they're saying
- 3:55Speaker 2: it's so essential that it needs to be made permanent. Well,
- 3:57Speaker 2: they had nothing but time, space and eye opportunity to
- 4:00Speaker 2: do so, and they opted not to. Makes you wonder.
- 4:02Speaker 1: Why it's sucking a lot of air out of the room.
- 4:06Speaker 1: The government quote shut down. The fact of the matter
- 4:09Speaker 1: is the overwhelming majority of you feel no impact of this,
- 4:13Speaker 1: which really speaks to the large esse of government. But
- 4:16Speaker 1: kat I thought it was amazing. The Washington Post and
- 4:19Speaker 1: an op ed said, the real problem is that the
- 4:21Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act was never actually affordable. President Barack Obama's
- 4:25Speaker 1: signature achievement allowed people to buy insurance on marketplaces with
- 4:29Speaker 1: subsidies based on their income. The dirty little truth about Obamacare,
- 4:34Speaker 1: which we knew more than a decade ago, is finally
- 4:37Speaker 1: being admitted to by some on the left.
- 4:41Speaker 2: M H, I mean, that's it right there. I couldn't
- 4:44Speaker 2: have said it better myself. The Affordable Care Act is
- 4:47Speaker 2: never been affordable. And when you talk about people who
- 4:52Speaker 2: are watching as this fight is going on, and they
- 4:55Speaker 2: hear all my premiums are going to increase, keep in
- 4:58Speaker 2: mind that again a broken system that over the entire
- 5:03Speaker 2: course of the ACA or Obamacare as we all know it,
- 5:06Speaker 2: it has gotten worse. Your premiums have doubled, while the
- 5:08Speaker 2: quality of care has been cut in half. The number
- 5:11Speaker 2: of doctors, the number of procedures, you know, accessibility has
- 5:17Speaker 2: actually gotten worse. That is why you see, not only
- 5:22Speaker 2: is it fiscally irresponsible to continue moving forward down this path,
- 5:26Speaker 2: but we have some serious structural reforms that have to
- 5:29Speaker 2: be made in order to really get back to a
- 5:31Speaker 2: place where you and your doctor are making decisions for
- 5:34Speaker 2: yourself and your family rather than some bureaucrat or someone
- 5:37Speaker 2: at the insurance company who's going to either approve or
- 5:40Speaker 2: deny your procedures and your healthcare needs. That's me is absurd.
- 5:45Speaker 2: So again, we're eighty five days out from those those
- 5:49Speaker 2: subsidies expiring. There's absolutely no good reason as to why
- 5:53Speaker 2: they want to tack on a massive and I mean massive.
- 5:57Speaker 2: You heard four hundred billion dollars with a single debate
- 6:01Speaker 2: on it. And so I just think that this is ridiculous.
- 6:04Speaker 2: People are seeing the writing on the wall that Democrats
- 6:07Speaker 2: conveniently omit that they voted for this bill four times. Previously,
- 6:11Speaker 2: this exact bill, every single word exactly the same, they
- 6:14Speaker 2: voted for it four times. But now they're willing to
- 6:17Speaker 2: hold hostage the entire American government. And you see, most
- 6:20Speaker 2: people aren't really impacted by this because people have gotten
- 6:24Speaker 2: smart to the fact that the fearmongering doesn't work. Social
- 6:27Speaker 2: Security checks still going out the door. Where we do
- 6:31Speaker 2: need to actually address things is the military. They should
- 6:35Speaker 2: never be used as political pawns in the Democrats games,
- 6:38Speaker 2: or any game for that matter. They're the ones that
- 6:41Speaker 2: are not getting paid. When you look at TSA, border patrol, ice, etc.
- 6:47Speaker 2: They're showing up doing their jobs and they're not being paid.
- 6:51Speaker 2: That's not okay, that's not right. They should absolutely be paid.
- 6:54Speaker 2: But every time we put the bill on the floor
- 6:56Speaker 2: to pay our essential services in a government shutdown, the Democrats,
- 7:00Speaker 2: they know, tells you everything you need to know about
- 7:02Speaker 2: where they're at. And that's me is really really discouraging
- 7:06Speaker 2: this as an American that's really discouraging.
- 7:08Speaker 1: Well, you highlight and you brought up ICE, and I
- 7:12Speaker 1: have to point out, boy, if there's not If there's
- 7:15Speaker 1: an issue that highlights the difference better between Democrat run
- 7:20Speaker 1: states and Republican run states, it's what's going on with
- 7:24Speaker 1: trying to enforce immigration laws in this country. You look
- 7:29Speaker 1: at what's happening in states like California, in Illinois, in Oregon,
- 7:33Speaker 1: and you compare it to what's happened, say in Florida,
- 7:36Speaker 1: where nothing's happened, where we're getting it done.
- 7:38Speaker 2: It's stark, I mean, and my heart just broke. We all.
- 7:45Speaker 2: I hope everyone has heard that that call out where
- 7:49Speaker 2: ICE was getting swarmed by some very agitated protesters. They
- 7:55Speaker 2: were getting violent, and they called for backup, and you
- 7:59Speaker 2: heard rank file officers in Chicago on the radio talking
- 8:04Speaker 2: to dispatch saying, you know, are we going? Are we
- 8:07Speaker 2: being dispatched? And the dispatch operator was basically saying, no
- 8:11Speaker 2: leadership has given us directives, do not respond. My heart
- 8:14Speaker 2: broke for not only the ICE agents on the ground
- 8:17Speaker 2: that must have been absolutely terrifying, but then the aids,
- 8:20Speaker 2: the officers who wanted to be there to back their
- 8:23Speaker 2: fellow brother and sister up as the wife of a
- 8:26Speaker 2: first responder. This is something that it really hits home,
- 8:31Speaker 2: It really really hits home. And that again is the
- 8:34Speaker 2: Democrats political leadership right there saying that they are going
- 8:39Speaker 2: to literally play politics with people's lives by issuing a
- 8:43Speaker 2: directive like that. So I think that the difference couldn't
- 8:47Speaker 2: be more stark. Americans are not stupid. They're seeing how
- 8:51Speaker 2: this is playing out around the country, and overwhelmingly, I
- 8:54Speaker 2: think you're going to see that reflected in midterms next year.
- 8:57Speaker 1: I hope so. And I hope that members of Congress,
- 8:59Speaker 1: I hope. I don't know if you're on the Appropriate Committee, Cat,
- 9:02Speaker 1: but I hope that the superintendent of police in Chicago
- 9:06Speaker 1: who lied to the media yesterday and said no such
- 9:09Speaker 1: order was given when the evidence is overwhelming, I hope
- 9:12Speaker 1: he's called to testify an answer to that.
- 9:15Speaker 2: I imagine he probably will. Let's get the government back
- 9:19Speaker 2: up and running and get back to our work of
- 9:21Speaker 2: actually doing our appropriation bills so we can reduce the
- 9:24Speaker 2: size and scope of government, and I'm sure in the
- 9:27Speaker 2: meantime we'll be holding people accountable through the Appropriate Committee.
- 9:31Speaker 1: Kat, Thanks as always, we'll talk again in a couple
- 9:33Speaker 1: of weeks.
- 9:34Speaker 2: Be well appreciate it, Preston, have a good one.
- 9:36Speaker 1: Thank you. US congress Woman Cat Camick with US sixteen
- 9:40Speaker 1: past the hour, and it perfectly tease up our next
- 9:43Speaker 1: segment on the Morning Show with Preston Scott