‘Democrats Are Last Line Of Defense’: Bernie Sanders Roaring Speech In US Senate On Shutdown

Civil War. The decisions that we in Congress make right now will impact this country for generations to come. In America today, we have a megalomaniacal president who, consumed by his quest for more and more power, is undermining our Constitution, the rule of law, and is pushing this country closer and closer toward authoritarianism. I'm talking about a man who threatens to arrest and jail his political opponents here, right here in the United States of America. Not debate political opponents, not respectfully disagree with opponents. You oppose me, we're going to prosecute you. This is a man who is deploying the U.S. military, our armed forces,

into democratic cities and allowing masked ICE agents to pick people up off the streets and throw them into vans without due process and take them to God knows where. I'm talking about a president who has sued virtually every major media outlet because he cannot tolerate criticism. Who has taken funds away from PBS and NPR because he doesn't want objective reporting about what his policies are doing. And this is a man who is actively encouraging his multi-billionaire friends to buy up more and more of the media so that he will have a media friendlier to him.

This is a man who has extorted funds from law firms and is withholding federal funding from states that voted against him. Can you imagine that? There has never been a president, Republican or Democrat, who did not understand that he was president of the United States. Oh, the people in Utah voted against a Democratic president? We're not going to fund them, give them the funds that they are entitled to. That's never been the case.

And this guy is open. Trump is quite open. Oh, Mamdani is going to be elected mayor of New York City. Well, you're not going to get federal funds. Unheard of. Illegal. Unconstitutional. And because we have a president who does not believe in the

rule of law, we have just seen right now, we're experiencing literally this moment, we have a president who is illegally, illegally withholding 5.5 billion dollars in emergency SNAP funds, nutrition funds, from 42 million Americans, including 16 million children. The Congress put money into a fund to do, to make sure that if the government shuts down, there will be funding for the millions of people who depend upon SNAP funds. So that children in America, and their parents, and their grandparents, will not go hungry in the richest country in the world. And Trump says, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to withhold the funds. But then he announced, changed his mind,

and he announced he would comply with the court orders. But he told them that he had to release the funds. He said, okay, I'll comply with those orders and release the funds. And then he announced this morning, this morning, that he was not going to release the funds

and would allow children in this country to go hungry. But wait a minute. A few hours later, a spokesperson for the White House said that he would comply with the court's order. Withhold funds, release funds. Withhold funds, release funds,

all within a period of a few days. Does anyone wonder why faith in our government now is so very low? Mr. President, let us be clear. This government shutdown now in its 35th day did not happen by accident.

In the US Senate, it takes 60 votes to fund the federal government. 60 votes. Republicans have 53 members. The Democratic caucus has 47. That means Republicans must negotiate with Democrats to move the budget forward. This is what has always happened until now. Common sense.

You don't have 60 votes. You got to sit down and negotiate with the minority. That's what Republicans have done. That's what Democrats have done in the past. But right now, for the first time in modern history, Republicans are simply refusing to come to

the table and negotiate. What they are basically saying is, it is our way or the highway. Yeah, we need 60 votes, but we're not going to you. You have to come to us. This is the way it will be. To make matters worse, the Republican contempt for negotiations is so bad, so absurd, that the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, has given his chamber, House of Representatives, a six-week paid vacation.

They're not here in Washington, D.C. We're in the middle of a government shutdown. Federal, millions of federal employees are not getting paid right now. They are wondering how they're going to feed their families. Federal employees are going to food banks, worried about paying the mortgages. Right now, millions of Americans are receiving notices from insurance companies and their insurance premiums are rising precipitously, double,

in some cases triply. And as I mentioned, people are worried about whether or not they're going to get their food stamps and other nutrition programs. That's what's going on. But the House of Representatives is not in town. They're on a paid vacation.

How absurd. How insulting is that? So, the bottom line, though, Mr. President, is really, what is this whole conflict about? Democrats accusing Republicans, Republicans accusing Democrats, media does its thing.

What really are the issues that we are talking about? So, let me tell you what, in my view, is going on. I think almost everybody in the country understands that we have an economy today in which the very wealthiest people in this country, the people, the oligarchs who are sitting right behind Trump at his inauguration, multi-billionaires, they have never ever had it so good. They are making huge amounts of money.

But at the same time, as the very richest people in America are becoming richer, Trump and my Republican colleagues want to pass a budget that throws 15 million low-income and working-class Americans off the healthcare they have by slashing Medicaid and the give massive tax breaks, trillion dollars in tax breaks for the 1%, and they're going to pay for that by cutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by a trillion dollars, throwing 15 million people off the health care they have. Mr. President, it is no great secret that well before Trump, before this whole shutdown and cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable

Care Act, no secret to any American that our current health care system is broken, it is dysfunctional, and it is cruel. Today, despite spending twice as much per capita as almost any other, the people of any other major country on Earth,

85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. Before these cuts, half a million Americans are going bankrupt every year due to medically related debt.

Bad enough you have cancer or some other terrible disease, and in addition to worrying about whether you're going to stay alive, you've got to worry about how you're going to pay hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. Many can't. In fact, 42% of cancer patients drain their entire life savings within two years of their diagnosis. If that's not a broken system, I don't know what is. Mr. President, one out of every four cancer patients lose their homes to foreclosure or eviction because of the outrageous cost of health care in this country.

And in the midst of all that, a broken, dysfunctional, and wildly expensive health care system, Trump wants to make the situation even worse by throwing 15 million people off of the health care they currently have. So what happens when you do that?

What happens if you say to 15 million low-income and working-class people, sorry, you no longer have health care? Well, it's not hard to understand that people can't go to a doctor, and if they have a chronic health care problem, you know what happens to them? They die. So let's be clear about it.

When you throw 15 million people off the health care they have, according to a variety of studies, from Yale, University of Pennsylvania, up to 50,000 Americans will die unnecessarily each and every year. These are people who, if they had decent decent health care would not have to die. That is what we are voting on. That is what we are debating right now. Will we allow 50,000 of our fellow Americans in every state in this country to die unnecessarily. And let us be very clear, these cuts will not only kill people, not only throw 15 million off the health care that they have, it will devastate

nursing homes that are highly dependent upon Medicaid for their funding. It will devastate community health centers and rural hospitals all over this country. That means the quality of care in nursing homes, in rural hospitals, and in community health centers will deteriorate. In other words, the budget that Trump is demanding to be passed here in the United States Senate will be a harrop for working families all across this country.

But that's not all. That's not all. It's not just throwing 15 million people off the health care they have at a time when health insurance in this country is already outrageously expensive. People can't afford it today. Trump's proposal, his big beautiful bill, and what he wants Democrats to do is to vote for a budget that doubles health care premiums. In my state of Vermont it's not just doubling,

some cases tripling, even quadrupling. So how, when right now people can't afford health care, how are you going to see a doubling of your premiums, a tripling of your premiums? That is going to impact some 20 million Americans, many of whom, by the way, are getting their notices right now from insurance companies, people who are on the Affordable Care Act. Mr. President, according to every poll

that I have seen, the American people, quite understandably, by overwhelming margins, do not want to see a doubling of their health care premiums. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 78% of Americans, including 59% of Republicans, want to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Now I have got to say, I'm not a great fan of the

Affordable Care Act. I believe that we should do what every other major country on earth does and guarantee health care is a human right to a Medicare for all single-payer program. You want cost-effective universal health care that is the way to go. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of support for that here in the Senate. So our immediate job at least is to make sure that 20 million people who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act do not see a doubling of their premiums.

This impacts, believe me, not just Democrats, but Republicans as well. Tony Fabrizio, President Trump's own pollster, has said, and I quote, this is Donald Trump's own pollster I quote, this is Donald Trump's own pulser, quote, by broad bipartisan margins, voters want to see the Affordable Care Act tax credits extended rather than expire at the end of the year, whether in the context of premiums doubling or 5 million families losing their health insurance. This includes solid majorities of Trump voters and swing voters.

End quote.

Tony Fabrizio, President Trump's own poster. So it's not just Democrats, it's not just independents, it's not just the far left. It is Trump supporters. Further, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the American people do not want to see the billionaire class receive a trillion dollars in new tax breaks for the 1%.

So let me be clear. I know this is a radical thought, but the truth is, Elon Musk, the richest man alive, worth some $500 billion, man who owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households, you know what? I don't think he needs a tax break. Now around here, that's a radical statement.

Nor does Mr. Bezos, nor does Mr. Zuckerberg, nor does Mr. Ellison, nor do anyone in the top 1% who today are doing phenomenally well. It is time that we started worrying about the working families of this country, people who cannot afford health care, who can't afford to pay rent or mortgage, cost of housing outrageously high, who can't afford child care, can't afford to send their kids to college, who can't afford to buy decent quality food at the grocery store. Those are the people that we should be worrying about, not tax breaks for Mr. Musk and the

other billionaires in this country. So, Mr. President, let me be very clear in telling you what I will not be doing. I will not vote for a budget that throws 15 million Americans off the health care that they have. I will not be voting for a budget that doubles premiums for 20

million Americans. I will not be voting for a budget that decimates rural hospitals, nursing homes, and community health centers. I will not be voting for a budget that causes over 50,000 Americans to die unnecessarily every year. I will not be voting for a budget that provides a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top 1%. And I hope very much that we can win some Republican support in opposition to these

disastrous proposals, but at the very least, I would hope that the vast majority of my colleagues in the Democratic caucus will not vote for these proposals. families of our country and in opposition to Trump's effort to virtually destroy the American health care system today. The American health care system was broken before Trump, but when you throw 15 million people off of health care, you decimate rural health care, you raise premiums for 20 million people in the Affordable Care Act, you are bringing the health care system to the verge of collapse. As the President poll after poll shows that the American people know what in fact is going

on. They understand who is responsible for the shutdown. They want strong opposition to Trump's unprecedented and dangerous agenda. Not just Democrats, not just Independents, but Republicans as well. And despite the Democratic Party's all-time low approval rating, Independents and even a number of Republicans are now standing with the Democrats

in their fight to protect health care for working families. If Democrats surrender now, at a time when Trump already has no regard for our democratic system of checks and balances, he will simply be emboldened to go forward and decimate programs, not just in health care but programs that protect the elderly, protect the children, protect the sick, and protect the poor while giving more tax breaks and other benefits to the people on top. So Mr. President now is the time for us to stand with the American people. They know

the economy is rigged. They understand that it is absurd and unfair to give tax breaks to billionaires and throw millions of people off of the health care they have. They understand that it will be a horror show if 20 million-plus Americans are forced

to see a doubling in their health care premiums. The American people want the Senate to stand tall Americans are forced to see a doubling in their health care premiums. The American people want the Senate to stand tall and say no to Mr. Trump and the Republican leadership. I hope we will be able to do that. Thank you, Mr. President. Republican leadership. I hope we will be able to do that. Thank you, Mr. President.

With that, I yield the floor. Thank you.