In the News

Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) joined House Republican leadership on day nine of the Democrat government shutdown to discuss Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith’s refusal to do their job and reopen the government.

Click here or above to watch Whip Emmer’s remarks.

Whip Emmer: “Yesterday, Senate Democrats – including the two Senators from my home state of Minnesota Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar – voted for a sixth time, as the Speaker mentioned, to shut the government down, or keep it shut down. Six times! That’s six times that Senate Democrats have voted against, as Leader Scalise was just talking about, paying our troops. Six times that they’ve voted against the 13,000 Minnesota National Guardsmen who are showing up to work without receiving a paycheck. Six times that they’ve voted against supporting federal workers, air traffic controllers, border patrol agents, and the list goes on and on. And why? Because Democrats have decided they’d rather hold the American people hostage than pass the same nonpartisan, clean CR that they supported six months ago and that they passed 13 times under the Biden administration. Tina Smith claims she shut the government down so that she can ‘protect Minnesotans’ health care.’ But, Tina, if that was really the case, why do you support a 1.5 trillion dollar proposal that would give health care to illegal aliens while cutting 50 billion dollars in rural health care? She’s just not being honest. This was never about health care for the Democrats. This has been about picking a fight with President Trump so that they can try and score points with the terrorist wing of their party. It’s pure politics. And nothing reveals their true motivations more than Chuck Schumer taking a victory lap, as both the Speaker and Leader have said, saying ‘every day gets better for us.’ So every day that our troops, TSA agents, and air traffic controllers work without pay is a ‘better’ day than the last?  That is disgusting, and every single person in this room should be holding Chuck Schumer accountable for his words. Unfortunately, Minnesota’s two senators continue to follow Chuck Schumer off the end of the political pier with their needless shutdown. Earlier this week, our entire Minnesota Republican Congressional delegation sent a letter to Senators Smith and Klobuchar urging that they please do the right and responsible thing by passing the House’s nonpartisan, clean CR and end the massive amount of pain that they’re inflicting on Minnesotans and the American people. Our message today is still the same, and it’s not going to change. All of us are united. It is enough with the games. Pass our CR. Get the government up and running again for the Minnesotans, and I say this to my two senators, the people that elected to do your job. Your constituents deserve better than this.”