Transcript of Senator Kelly Calls out Trump for Disaster Trump Shutdown

Congress and get everybody back to work. I certainly pray and hope that they will do that and they don't drag this on for political purposes. Thank you all so much.

Mr. Speaker, we're really slurming, Mr. Hulva.

There goes Maga Mike. You're watching a closed House of Representatives chambers, because despite Maggie Mike saying, I want to get people back to work, he's literally shut down the House of Representatives and told the Republican caucus, Everybody, time for a paid vacation. And you saw right there, he wouldn't answer a basic question, When are you going to swear in the Congresswoman elected from Arizona's seventh Congressional district, Adalita Grijalva? Are you too scared that she's going to be the 218 signature on the discharge petition to force a vote on the Epstein files. Well, attorney general Pam Bondi in that Senate committee hearing today, sure didn't want to answer questions about Donald Trump and the Epstein files. That was for sure more on that later. But Megan Mike Johnson, during that press conference, was asked, Marjorie Taylor-Green in your party, she says that you all don't have a plan on health care, and that health care costs are already unaffordable, and it's going to get far worse if you don't extend the ACA subsidies. So what do you say to her? Meg, a mic here. Play this clip?

Yes, sir.

Congresswoman Green specifically said that Republicans do not have a plan to deal with health care.

Congresswoman Green does not serve on the committees of jurisdiction that deal with those specialized issues. Issues, and she's probably not read in on some of that because they've still been in their silos of the people who specialize in those issues. When we get the conference back and when everybody's back together, we'll go through a lot of that.

I mean, I've spoken personally- She doesn't know the answer. He claims that she was not read on and that she just doesn't know anything about health care. Mike Johnson also floats not giving furloughed federal workers back pay. Here, play this clip.

It is true that in previous shutdowns, many or most of them have been paid for the time that they were furloughed. But there is new legal analysis. I don't know the details. I just saw a headline this morning. I'm not read in on it, and I haven't spoken to the White House about it. But there are some legal analysts who are saying that that may not be appropriate or necessary in terms of the law requiring that back pay be provided. I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion about that. But there are legal analysts who think that that is not something that government should do. If that is true.

He reminds me of a high school student who didn't prepare for the speech in front of the class and is just winging it. I read a headline today that said, I didn't talk to anybody about it. I'm just going to rip a little bit here, make up some things, see what sticks, and then, brag that I did lots of press conferences, not answer any of your questions. Let's bring in Arizona Senator Mark Kelly. Senator Kelly, it's great to see your state Arizona. That's Congresswoman-elect, seventh Congressional district right there, Adelita Griehalva. Maggie Mike refusing to swear her in. Everything they're doing right now, it just seems it's so Cinsparently, they seem to be enjoying the shutdown. Let me just say it. The MAGA Republicans seem that this is what they've always wanted. They hate government. To me, there was a de facto shutdown anyway before. They were killing government no matter what. They seem to like it. They're posting memes. They seem to enjoy the suffering. That's what I get out of this.

Well, yeah, I think that depends on the person. Russ Fote over at OMB has said previously, in one way or another, he has said that he wants a government shutdown, and it's not clear what parts they would want to open back up. On Adelita and Mike Johnson's unwillingness to swear her in. She's from Arizona. She's also from the district that Gabby and I live in. There are well over 100,000 people that would be represented by her if he would swear her in. All of those individuals in our district don't have representation in the US House. And it seems to be, like you indicated, it seems to be about Jeffrey Epstein. I don't know of another reason. I mean, he would still have the majority. He would still be speaker of the House. She doesn't change that. She needs to be sworn in. I think whenever they happen to come back into session, I expect that she will be. He's keeping people out right now because he doesn't want to deal with the Jeffrey Epstein issue. He also doesn't really want to deal with the issue that Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene brought up. And that's their plan on how do you deal with these health care costs that are about to go up dramatically for millions of Americans, including her two adult children.

I mean, it sounds like she learned the details by talking to her kids. Now, I talked to my constituents, and last week, there were a couple of them that really stood out. A woman named Robin in Northern Arizona who's going to see her premiums go up from $250 a month to over a thousand. She said, she's not looking for a handout. She's looking for a hand up. She's looking for a little help. She also told me that this isn't about immigrants. This is about her. She's a fifth-generation American, 60 years old on a fixed income who will not be able to afford health insurance. I imagine there are a million other people just like her that are going to see these costs rise dramatically. Don't let anybody tell you or your your listeners here, that this is about undocumented people. This is about the health care premiums that Americans are going to have to pay that they can't afford. And it's good to see Marjorie Taylor-Green and other Republicans, they're starting to realize that they are in an untenable situation without a good plan. Now, they do have a plan. It's just a lousy plan.

And if they want to discuss that publicly and make that argument to the American people about what that even is. I heard Leader Jeffrey's in the House and Leader Schumer in the Senate say, Let's go in front of the American people. Let's either have a debate or we can do it in public, but this It wouldn't be what happened the first time we were in the White House where we thought there were going to be cameras. It's interesting that Trump and Mike and Thune now all say, we don't want to do any conversations before the public with each other because that would be too theatrical. And this administration doesn't like theatrics. So we have to handle this behind closed doors. I just think the Americans are getting wise to it because it's like, of course this conversation should have a public... This is a public issue. This is public health. This could affect life or death right here. And we know that there's probably ways to make the Affordable Care Act better. Let's improve it. Okay, sure. But don't kick people off their subsidies. Then you're going to kill it.

Yeah. Well, you could have the debate in public Eric, I think that's fair. We're having this right now. Me being on your show and going on cable news is part of this debate and others. That's fine. I think the negotiations, though, when it's the leadership of the Congress negotiating with the President, I do think that should be in private. We shouldn't try to repeat the fiasco that you saw with President Zelensky in the oval office. That's not the way any President should do a negotiation. They do like the theatrics, especially when they feel like they have leverage. In this case, they're realizing that they're on the opposite side of the American people. Donald Trump won rural areas. In most states, I think in all states, he won rural areas. A lot of these folks are his voters. There was another guy I talked to last week named Rusty, who lives in Tucson. He also happens to live in the district that doesn't have representation right now, which is where Adalita won that special election. But after he got sick with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and then because of a slight injury, he wound up losing a leg, not so slight.

He wound up with sepsis, lost his leg. He had to change his career path, and he does tax preparation. A lot of his clients, he told me, are Donald Trump voters. They voted for the President, and they, because of him, because he understands how this works, how these premium tax credits work. You can have the government directly pay your premium, or you can sort this out at the end of the year with your tax return. He's telling them how much their premiums are going to go up. His premium is going to go up, by the way, as well. And he said it's going to be unaffordable for him. So folks are starting to understand what this means. I think it's really important to understand the why behind this. I mean, people are starting to figure out where we are. But the other important part is, how did we get here? We got here because months ago, the President and Republicans in Congress wanted to extend that big tax cut for rich people. That's what this is all about. And that tax cut cost a lot of money. And that bill is going to add $4 to the debt over 10 years.

But if we didn't kick people off of Medicaid and we didn't cut these premium tax credits, that $4 trillion was going to be a lot higher. So this is to pay for Tax cuts for the wealthy. That's all this is about. It is we're fighting for health care. They're fighting for big tax cuts for rich people.

I got to ask you about these so-called connection kinetic military strikes off the Coast of Venezuela that we're seeing Donald Trump post these videos. He posts the images or the videos, like these death videos. And you're a former naval officer. You flew combat missions during the Gulf War as a naval aviator. So you know what it's like to fly missions and to have to utilize weapons.

I actually sunk two ships in the first Gulf War. I sunk a Polnokny a Troop Carrier, a Iraqi Troop Carrier, and I sunk an OSA-2 missile patrol boat in the middle of Kuwait Harbor. And never once during those missions did I ever think to myself, Am I operating outside of the law? Is this in some way unconstitutional? I really worry about those aviators, drone operators, Special Forces guys that are in the Caribbean right now that are striking these boats. And whether or not this is legal or are they going to find out on some future date that what they did was not consistent with our laws here in the United States and laws of international conflict. There's no authorisation for the use of military force. The United States Congress has not given that to the President. He hasn't asked. He's just doing this saying that this is a threat to the United States. And on some level, yeah, it is. I mean, these are drug smugglers. But we have not, as far as I know in the history of our country, authorized kinetic action as the first step against drug smugglers. We bore these ships, we interdict them, we arrest them.

That's probably the way we should continue to do that. We should step it up. We should do more of it. That is clear. Nobody wants these drugs coming into the United States. But I do worry about the aviators out there and the drone operators who may have been put in a legally challenging position.

And finally, Senator, I want to talk to you about there were two events last week. One, Norfolk, Virginia, over the weekend where Donald Trump was speaking to the Navy. During that speech, he called the Democrats, Nats, that we have to get rid of these nets on our shoulder in front of the Navy. And then earlier in the week, of course, he spoke to the admirals and generals and talked about the enemy from within and that your work and your missions are going to be focused more on invading American cities, essentially, than foreign affairs. What did you make of both of those?

Well, I mean, it's just ridiculous uncalled for and un-American comments from a commander in chief to address the military and make it so political in the way he did, uncalled for. I think the reaction of those in the room said it all, stone-face, no response, entirely professional and apolitical. I imagine the President and the Secretary of Defense walked out of there not happy. That is not the response they expected from the senior leadership of the United States military. The President just looks for every single opportunity to divide us as a nation, to divide us with regards to the military. He's got an instinct that is exactly the opposite of every other person who has served as Commander and Chief and President of the United States. Everyone. He goes to the opposite place. We're going to have to get used to that for another in another three years. It's just who he is. But I feel somewhat better after seeing... I knew he was going to do that. I knew the second death was going to do that. I feel a little bit better seeing the response and the professionalism from the US military. Now, sending troops into US cities, there's no insurrection, there's no rebellion.

So he is outside the bounds of his authority to do that.

You see reasons for hope during this period of darkness right now? Do you see signs? I mean, you do see people in Arizona, as you said, even Trump supporters saying, Wait a minute, this is impacting me. You see signs of hope?

Well, let me just start by saying, Ben, I'm an optimist. I'm a guy who flew a spaceship built by the lowest bidder. So I'm an eternal optimist, and I do. I mean, despite what you see and from the outside and the way you think Washington works, it's actually a lot more bipartisan than people realize. We have good conversations with our Republican colleagues. I call many of them friends. Sometimes this stuff gets very divisive, but often at the end of the day, we tend to find a way to work it out. I hope we do in this case because the American people just cannot afford this. These increase in premiums. I mean, it is like our entire health care system is careening towards a cliff. Democrats in the House and the Senate, we're trying to stop it before it goes over the cliff here on January first, when these premiums go up and millions of people could lose their health insurance just because they can't afford it.

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

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