thank you. >> thank you, senator stabenow. i'm reminded that as we are talking about how we get more particularly young people into these fields, manufacturing, and all of the high-tech skills that we need, i am reminded that in most alaska villages that i visit, it is not the person with the ph.d. that has great value, it is the young kid that can repair the snow machine and the four-wheeler. they are the ones we all look to. making sure that we are not only training those on the manufacturing end and, again, kind of the fun stuff, it is those that will be repairing and working on these advanced vehicles. it is one thing to know how to fix your father's oldsmobile and the engine that was underneath it and now today so much of it is computer related, making sure that those who can be on the repair end of things have those same appropriate skillsets as well. it is changing. >> i just have a couple more questions. i will ask and then turn back to senator stabenow here before we conclude. i want to pick up on something that you r

and i want to thank you and my colleague from indiana, my colleague from ohio, senators brown and stabenow and done -- and donnelly and klobuchar and heitkamp have been stalwart voices for men and women in their states, senator man china china -- senator manchin for the miners in west virginia and others across the country. we come to the floor tonight to urge our republican colleagues to join us in doing something to shore up pension plans for millions of americans, millions of middle-class workers in this country, teamsters and carpenters, they put their money into plans year after year. they knew they wouldn't be rich when they retired but they thought they could live a life of decency. they offered 401(k) salary increases. they said give me a lower raise but put money in that pension. these people earned these pensions. they are the backbone of america. but now after all their hard work and all their savings, several multiyear pension plans are at risk of failure through no fault of the worker. families in my state and across the country could see their retirement savings slashed, team

stabenow: thank you, mr. president. before offering a motion, i first want to thank our ranking member from oregon who is -- is so dedicated, so passionate, so smart, he is working tirelessly every day. it's such a pleasure to serve with him as someone who has such a distinguished career of fighting for middle-class families, working people, for the right kinds of things. he came from his work working with the gray panthers and senior citizens, and he brings that to work every single day, and i thank him for that. i want to just stress before offering a motion that he -- he and other colleagues, senator casey, senator brown, senator carper who we had hoped would be joining us, i know is trying to as well, have all stressed the fact, first of all, that we are at a one-year anniversary of this president. we have for the first time in a number of years we have the house, the senate, the white house, all controlled by republicans, and over and over again, what has gotten the priority, what has gotten done? things for the we

the strab now- -- stabenow-blunt bill has the votes. let's do it. we have to deal with the pension issue, mr. president. 1.5 million american -- workers are going to lose their pensions. that cannot be allowed to happen. we have to stand with those workers. mr. president, i went to a feeting -- meeting earlier today dealing with the social security administration -- social security administration which provides, which is the administrative arm that makes sure that the elderly and disabled get their benefits in a timely manner. for years now republicans have underfunded that administration and today there are simply not enough employees to do the work that has to be done. and now, amazingly enough, over in the house they are talking about massive cuts to the social security administration on top of the cuts they have already received. "the washington post" wrote an article a few weeks ago, unbelievable. and what they said is that over the last year, if you can believe it, 10,000 people with disabilities who had applied for social security benefits di

stabenow bill has nine cosponsors. it represents a modest increase in funding of just $2 billion over five years. it is the very least we could do to address the major crisis of primary health care in america, especially in rural america. know, president, as you federal funding for the children's health insurance program expired on september 30, 2017. if the chip program is not 9 million children and working families will lose their health insurance. can you imagine that we have a congress prepared and acting to give tax breaks to the richest people in this country, but somehow or another, they have not gotten around to reauthorizing and refunding the children's health insurance program? that must be done immediately. and once again, without regressive offsets which take , madam president. if congress does not act soon, the earned pension benefits of more than 1.5 million american workers and retirees in the pension plans could be cut by up to 60%. promisenot rescind the we made 21.5 million workers. we must expand, so

the senator from michigan miss stabenow. the senator from minnesota miss klobuchar. the senator from west virginia mr. manchin and the senator from wisconsin ms. baldwin. the members of the oscar committee will exit the chamber stood the lobby doors. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> mr. speaker. the leader of the diplomatic corps. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> mr. speaker the chief justice and asso

conversations] >> okay, good afternoon everybody and i want to thank my colleagues, senators durbin murray stabenow and brown and we will hear from each of them. as you know yesterday the senate passed a continuing resolution to reopen the government, provide a six-year reauthorization of chip and leader mcconnell and i were also able to agree on a path forward for legislation to protect gamers. the republican majority now has 16 days to prevent the 800,000 young dreamers from being deported. democrats are going to be working as hard as ever to get a bill that will pass through the senate but the pressure is on leader mcconnell and the moderates particularly the republican moderates. the clock is ticking. leader mcconnell made a promise not just to democrats but to republicans as well. we expect him to keep his word to the body and i was glad to hear that he reiterated it a few minutes ago right here. we are also, we also now have to conclude other important work. each equally as important as the next. on the budget with spending caps for defense and urgent domestic priorities. just as our military

stabenow: well, first of all, mr. azar, insulin was first approved 100 years ago so any cost to the company to recoup r&d, in addition to what taxpayers pay for would already have been done. i appreciate that you say it's too high. yet in that position, with this system, you doubled the price. so you were taking advantage , certainly, of that system. that was a choice that you had as president, which is of concern to me, because i'm assuming the price of manufacturing the insulin didn't double. is that correct? mr. azar: i don't have the data. i didn't run the diabetes business unit at lilly, so i don't have the data on the price of manufacturing, but the system it works for those players in , the system, but it doesn't work for for the patient walking to the pharmacy. stabenow: let's talk about how to make it work. mr. azar: i would love to. enow: president trump has been back and forth on this but he said in the past he supports negotiating prescription drug prices. do you believe the government should negotiate pre

stabenow: mr. president, i would suggest an extension of the quorum call. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. ms. stabenow: i would suggest suspension of the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. stabenow: before asking unanimous consent, and we will do that as soon as it's appropriate to do, i just want to stress again why we have been on the floor this afternoon, and that is that we know that we have bipartisan support, not only for the children's health insurance program, but for the health centers where they get their health care, which is community health centers, and that we can address this without pitting children against children through the unanimous consent in the amendment that i'm offering along with senator brown and senator casey, and in addition to that, there are critical issues that normally get done before the end of the year that did not relating to rural hospitals, ambulances, other issues that relate to pregnant moms and children and so on, that again normally have bipartisan support. so w

i would yield the floor to senator stabenow. ms. stabenow: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: first i want to thank my friend from ohio. senator brown has been a real champion. it's wonderful to partner with him and with the senator from indiana, senior senator, senator donnelly. all of us believe strongly and the democratic caucus together believes strongly that a pension is a promise, period. a pension is a promise. and too many people right now are finding themselves in a situation where they are being told that promise is not going to be kept. so for generations, millions of working men and women have built better lives for themselves in michigan and across the country, better lives for their families with jobs that provided more than a paycheck. that was part of the american dream. these folks have worked hard, and we know that the people of michigan can outwork and outbuild and outimagine anyone. i will take on my friends from indiana and ohio on that one because we know that in michigan, we've got bright, h

conversations] >> okay, good afternoon everybody and i want to thank my colleagues, senators durbin murray stabenow and brown and we will hear from each of them. as you know yesterday the senate passed a continuing resolution to reopen the government, provide a six-year reauthorization of chip

just an update from our capitol hill producer, who retweets joe williams, who says that senator stabenow set a vote on the -- implying democrats are rejecting a vote today. caplanaplan c --raig replies -- some clarification on that. democrats line first. we go to chris in el dorado hills, california. to the after listening blame game as to how the government is now shutdown, i think it is rather important that people understand how all of the members voted last night, and as it turned out, there were five republicans that voted no and five democrats that voted yes. -- i willgly enough, just tell you who the republicans were that did vote no. just blake, lindsey graham, mike lee, mitch mcconnell, and rand paul. where is on the democratic side, there were five, specifically including doug jones, the newly elected representative from alabama. it seems to me that with everybody pointing fingers at each other, what happened here was a wash. if five republicans had not voted no, this bill would have passed and we would not be having this shutdown. i think we probably should be asking ourselves

closer to extending the controversial foreign and domestic surveillance powers granted in section stabenow to the foreign intelligence surveillance act or as we lovingly call it guys. eighteen senate democrats including senators claire mccaskill dianne feinstein and renown from prison lake have now joined fifty five fellow democrats in the house of representatives to basically hand rather than donald j. trump an attorney general jeff sessions of the keys to the superfast surveillance supercar that is section seven o two i guess when the national security state is on the line hash tag resistance quickly becomes hashtag assistance yes that bad and it's this kind of failure of governments to properly protect an act in their citizens best interests that help spur larry think the founder and chief executive of the six trillion dollar investment firm blackrock to levy an unprecedented ultimatum to wall street tuesday he basically says help make society better or else in the letter think right since the financial crisis those with capital have reaped enormous benefits society is demanding that co

consideration of calendar number 36, h.r. 1301, that the stabenow-casey-brown amendment at the desk providing for the permanent extension of the children's health insurance program, a five-year extension of the community health centers program and extensions of other expired medicaid, medicare, and health extensions be considered and agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. proom is there objection? -- the presiding officer: is there objection? the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: i agree with the gentleman from new jersey. we wanted to fund the chip program which is why we voted to extend it for six years just a couple of days ago. the gentleman voted against it. i agree with him that the states are beginning to run out of money and we need to come up with a reauthorization soon. but this looks more like a way to atone for a bad vote that was made a couple of days ago on the part of people on the floor today. what we need to do is go back an

the blunt-stabenow bill has 9 republican cosponsors. it represents a modest 5% increase in funding at a cost of just $2 billion over five years, the very least that we can do to address the major crisis of primary health care in america, especially in rural america. madam president, as you know, federal funding for the children's health insurance program expired on september 30, 2017. if the chip program is not reauthorized, nine million children in working families will lose their health insurance. can you imagine that we have a congress prepared and acting to give tax breaks to the richest people in this country but somehow or another they have not gotten around to reauthorize and refund the children's health insurance program. that must be done immediately and once again without regressive offsets which take money from other health insurance programs. madam president, we must keep our promises on pensions. if congress does not act soon, the earned pension benefits of more than 1.5 million workers and retirees in mull take employer --

claire mccaskill, debbie stabenow, joe manchin up for reelection announced that they are hours ahead of what looks like now will be a government shutdown. we want to hear what you think around the country. independent line from thousand oaks, california, joe.thanks for waiting. go ahead. are you there? caller: hi. host: hi. caller: hi. we have to responsibility for our president. take responsibility for needy people in our country. were not doing that. were not responsible for our elderly, and we are not responsible for our country. that's a wrong thing. when, with this kind of situation is happening, we need to gather ourselves, and, and come together and get as much as we can to make things right. ourselves from, well, i want to do this or do that is just not the right thing to do. host: mmhmm. caller: if we go along with the different,that uhh, different people or entities want us to do, then we're giving into our, the wrong thing to do. host: a couple more points from the washington post. "last shutdown 2013 lasted for 16 days as republicans tried unsuccessfully to force changes

the strab now- -- stabenow-blunt bill has the votes. let's do it. we have to deal with the pension issue, mr. president. 1.5 million american -- workers are going to lose their pensions. that cannot be allowed to happen. we have to stand with those workers. mr. president, i went to a feeting -- meeting earli today dealing with the social security administ administration which provides, which is the administrative arm that makes sure that the elderly and disabled get their benefits in a timely manner. for years now republicans have underfunded that administration and today there are simply not enough employees to do the work that has to be done. and now, amazingly enough, over in the house they are talking about massive cuts to the social security administration on top of the cuts they have already received. "the washington post" wrote an article a few weeks ago, unbelievable. and what they said is that over the last year, if you can believe it, 10,000 people with disabilities who had applied for social security benefits died while waiting for those

be immediate consideration of calendar number 36, hr-1301, that the senator-- excuse me that the stabenow, casey, brown amendment as providing for the permanent extension of the children's health insurance program, a five-year extension of the community health centers program, extensions of other expired medicaid, medicare standards be agreed to. the bill as amended be considered, read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. >> is there objection? >> mr. president. >> senator from north carolina. >> reserve the right to object. i agree with the gentleman from new jersey, we wanted to fund the chip program, which is exactly why we voted to try and extend it for six years, just a couple of days ago. the gentleman voted against it. i agree with him that the states are beginning to run out of money and that we need to come up with reauthorization soon, but this looks more like a way to atone for a bad vote that was just made a couple of days ago on the part of people on the floor today. what we need

there's two women standing up senator stabenow and mccaskill are going and fighting for our troops.support but, of course senator mcconnell's not going for it. he's objecting for. they're the ones doing just what mike pence wants. he's never here when with we're having any problem. >> there's the blame game and gamesman ship. we saw this during the obama era in 2013 when there was a shutdown and the world war ii memorials. governments decide what they're going to shutdown. >> members of the trump administration have learned lessons from the 2013 shutdown. department zinc can i was at the world war ii memorial this weekend. we're going to have it open. they're picking their battles. you're going to see president trump, just like vice president pence did saying, you are going to put amnesty as a higher priority than funding the troops. if that is where the debate goes, donald trump is going to win that fight and he is doing a better job messaging it on those terms than the democrats are explaining why a government shutdown is worth a vote on daca. it's just not. >> do you disagree wit

republicans lost their top choice to challenge debbie stabenow in michigan and top choice to take on higheitkamp. they know the game is coming and battle down the hatches. think democrats 2010. with so. predicting disaster, hold on to one chamber, consider it a win and breathe a sigh of relief knowing thing koss have been a whole lot worse. into the weeds more. sharpest political minds we like to talk to about these issues. larry and amy, and welcome to both of you. larry on remote. give you the first word here. a good gets great and the bad gets worse -- how does this environment turn around for the republicans, and is there any historical precedent showing an environment this bad thisser in a midterm year somehow gets better for that party? >> no. not an environment this bad getting better. you can have an intervening event, like a terrorist event or some foreign policy disaster that the united states is involved in that might change things but i kind of doubt it. essentially, what you're looking at here is guessing on our part as to how high the blue wave will go. if it's a modest

he's laying out, next to him is debbie stabenow, asking a question in the red to his left, from michigan. this has been happening throughout the last 40 or so minutes. and lindsey graham has bounced back and forth from republican gagles of senators on the floor to democrats. now, it seems, they are trying to iron out some deal to rework this bill, that is still open on the floor. we don't have the details of what's being talked about. it had been suggested they were going to do some shorter continuing resolution, short of four weeks, again another angle from a different side, different side of the camera. and perhaps some agreement to then move forward on daca after that. graham suggested that the bill go past the state of the union, which is january 30, where the president obviously will present his policies going forward. and to get past that, we don't know the specifics, but you can see the senators huddled here. as we're closing in on 12:00 midnight, remember this is going to be january 20, one year and 12 hours ago president donald trump was sworn in as president of the united state

stabenow: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, today marks a sad and, frankly, shocking day for too many of america's children and hardworking families because it's now been a hundred days since funding for the children's health insurance program and community health centers expired, a hundred days. history's shown us that there's a whole lot that can get done in a hundred days. it took thomas jefferson only 17 days to write the declaration of independence. the brave allied forces who landed on d-day advanced through france and liberated paris in only 80 days. and congress managed to pass 15 major pieces of legislation during president franklin delano roosevelt's first 100 days in office. and yet here we are, a hundred days pasted september 30 deadline and congress still hasn't managed to pass the long-term legislation to reauthorize what we call chip, children's health insurance program, and to fund our community health centers. we have a strong bipartisan bill funding chip. this was passed out of committee. i give our

and debbie stabenow, the democrat from shaken.ere are the democrats that voted yes -- five of them -- joe donnelly, senator heidi heitkamp , senator jones of alabama, as well as senator joe manchin and senator claire mccaskill. republicans able to get those states.m trump states where trump co won in 2016. look at the numbers of those 10 states where democrats are up for reelection. this is the percentage of trump's victory in those states. not able to get all of those democrats, but republicans did get five. as we noted earlier, they were not able to get all of their republicans either. let's talk public relations. the hashtag between trumpshutdown and schumershutdown. senator chuck schumer tweeting out this will be called the trump shut down. there is no one who deserves the this shutdown for more than the president. let's talk about the hashtags. in the last hour, there have been 8400 tweets with the hashtag #schumershutdown. 16,000 tweets with the hasthag #trumpshutdown. those are the numbers, and scientific as they are. unsci

mansion in west , high camp in ohio, sherrod brown, the cast school, clairebie staab and -- senator stabenowey will be coming into session later this morning. good morning. good morning. thank you for taking my call. i wanted to make a comment about the continuing resolutions. it is obvious that they are just a stopgap measure. i called both of my senators yesterday and said why don't you do a cr every two weeks for the rest of the year? how sad we cannot reach an reemt on something like daca. daca would be fine. if we're going to push for legalization of dacas they should be able to take important phd'sbecause they are all . they should be able to replace ofryone at c-span and all the staffers in congress because they are so much smarter than everyone else and they deserve a mean?ou know what i so all of the people advocating for daca need to be willing to sacrifice their own welfare for the program. host: here is one from dan sullivan, the republican from alaska. immigration reform that includes border security should occur. keeping the government open and operational must take priority. i

the chairman of the agriculture committee and the ranking member, senator stabenow, let's get a good farm bill done and on time and make sure that economic opportunity is alive and well and trade flourishes between the united states and the rest of the world. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, may i ask unanimous consent that any pending quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i believe that my distinguished colleague and friend, senator blumenthal, will be joining me on the floor, and i would ask unanimous consent that i be allowed to speak as if in morning business for such time as i may require, and at the conclusion of my remarks, that senator blumenthal be recognized to make his remarks on the same subject. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you.

with democratic senators cane, stabenow, donnelly, klobuchar, bennett, cardin. the scrum continues to grow. tillis and corker. meanwhile dispatched to the democratic side of the room to talk to elizabeth warren, cory booker, and so on and so on. that's how it works there in washington right so many times that have come down in this short period of time that has come down to the wire. it certainly has been a dramatic year with this administration. i mean this is a mess. do people out in the country, salena, before i bring other folks in, do they feel like no one in washington is doing their job and no one in washington is really listening to them even though many of them may have voted for this president, who they think is hearing them, but the folks in washington may not be doing their business? >> well, i always think it's interesting in that i think congress, in particular the house of representatives, but also in the senate, they are the most reflective of who we are in our communities, right? and so i think that this congress and this senate is reflective of

i want to reiterate what senator stabenow said about your service, and commend your service what you'vedone in the health insurance program. hopefully we can get that done in the next couple of days, i hope by the 19th. hope for that. mr. chairman-- thank you for putting yourself forward for the service and your family. you and i have common state roots, despite those we have disagreement on health care policy and i wanted to explore that. first and foremost, appreciate the time you spent in our office going back a couple of weeks ago when you were going after the health labor pensions committee, a committee of which i am a member and we talked a good deal about medicaid, which is a program i think many americans appreciated over many years, but probably never more so or never with greater urgency and this year when there were proposals which, in my judgment, i think and the judgment of a lot of folks who followed health care policy for their whole lives, a lot of concern that medicaid would have been decimated by some of the proposals this year that were put forth. i tend to focus on i

the fake political campaign to run against michigan's debbie stabenow. >>> coming up could one of the big tech companies buy netflix outright? tech watcher gene munster has a prediction on this we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ashley: the government shutdown is over, well for now, and it is time now to negotiate on immigration. kellyanne conway says democrats need to understand there is more to that discussion than just daca. roll tape. >> the democrats decided to waste three days and a lot of worry for our brave people in the military, our children who rely upon chip for their health care, they wasted three days when ironically could have kept the government open instead of shutting it down and started to negotiate immigration reform. when the democrats hear immigration, they hear one thing, daca, they hear "dreamers." the president hears at least four things. in fact his plan he released two months ago or so, stuart, has 70 points on it. merit-based immigration, four principles you laid out, 10,000 additional i.c.e. agents. end catch-and-release. unaccompanied

stabenow: thank you very much, mr. president. i rise today to speak about why i, too, will be opposing alex azar to be the secretary of health and human services, and i appreciate, as always, my great friend from massachusetts and her advocacy for the people of her state and all of the country. perhaps no more than any other agency, the department of health and human services touches the lives of people in michigan and across the country every single day. it provides families access to head start and other early childhood education programs that help our youngest learners get to have a strong start. it helps ensure that families have health insurance, whether through medicare, medicaid, children's health insurance, or private insurance. it administers the food and drug administration, which makes sure that medications are safe and effective, and it works to ensure that health insurance and prescription drugs are affordable, because the best medication a understand health coverage -- and health coverage in the world won't help any

i want to reiterate what senator stabenow said earlier about your service. we commender work that you've done in the children's health insurance program. i hope we can get that done in the next couple of days by the 19th. we're grateful for that. mr. azar, thank you for putting your self forward for service with the federal government. it's good to see your family. you and i have common state roots, scranton and johnstown. but despite those commonalities, we have a lot of disagreements on health care policy. i wanted to explore that first and foremost, appreciate the time you spent in our office going back a couple weeks ago when you were coming before the health education labor pensions committee, a committee of which i'm a member. at that time we talked a good bit about health care policy, in particular medicaid, which is a program that i think many americans appreciated over many years but probably never more so or with greater urgency than this year, when there are proposals which in my judgment, i think in the judgment of a lot of folks who followed hea

that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 36, h.r. 1301, that the stabenow-casey-brown amendment at the desk providing for the permanent extension of the children's health insurance program, a five-year extension of the community health centers program and extensions of other expired medicaid, medicare, and health extensions be considered and agreed to, the bill as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. proom is there objection? -- the presiding officer: is there objection? the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: i agree with the gentleman from new jersey. we wanted to fund the chip program which is why we voted to extend it for six years just a couple of days ago. the gentleman voted against it. i agree with him that the states are beginning to run out of money a

this is why senator stabenow and i fought for a year to deliver federal resources to flint and continue working to make sure that families are receiving the care that they need and get their damaged pipes repaired. in addition to addressing all of these urgent issues, we need to keep the lights on here in the federal government where funding is set to expire again in just two weeks. while the government was shut down this past weekend, i worked with a bipartisan group of senators pulled together by my colleagues, senator collins and senator manchin. this group is called the commonsense coalition. we worked through the weekend to find a bipartisan compromise to open the federal government and find a path forward to tackle the complex, pressing issues before us here in congress. while the lights are back on, the real work is just beginning. in the coming weeks, we need to find a legislative solution to provide certainty to the dreamers, young men and women brought to the united states as small children. they grew up as americans, went to school here, served in our military, only speak eng