Recess until the third week of august. This is a look at that briefing with Senate Republican leaders. [inaudible conversation] [laughter] im always in the back. Thank you for being here today. We will be very briefin our opening comments. Im beta purdue from georgia and we got seven people here today, actually people who will actually make comments and answer your questions. Were here to talk about whether we sent to leadership last week and basically this , the message is clear. Youve seen the letter is that we are willing to forgo some or all of the august work. Because weve got some very important issues that we have got to get back home. At the first of the year, the major priorities this year, one was healthcare, one was regulation, one was the supreme court. Were moving on but most of those but right now even if we get through healthcare in the next week, between now and the end of the fiscal year we only have 31 working days left and we had the debt ceiling to get through, budget for 2018, the reconciliation that goes with that and the appropriation process upon the government before september 30 and then even if all that were to get done we got tax which is the last thing in the president s agenda we want to get to and we want to make sure that we have the time to get all that done so with that im going to open it up to the person on the left, just going to go out and i will ask him to make an opening comments. Steve baines from montana, thank you for posting the press conference today. Many of us here on the state came from the private sector, theres a lot of private sector experience here. One of the great gaps between the private sector and what goes on in washington is the word that senator perdue use, that is the lack thereof. A couple of the scorecard issues in the United States, the budgeting process has worked four times in 42 years, that the 10 percent score. 197 president ial nominations to agencies and Senate Conservatives its 48. 24 percent score. Two out of trunks 23 judicial nominations have been confirmed, thats a nine percent score. The Senate Confirmed 23 percent of trumps 216 nominations, that is an 11 percent score. As senate purdue mentioned weve got healthcare, budgets, we only have 31 scheduled days in the senate between now and the end of our fiscal year. September 30 to get a budget passed. This past year we were seven months into the fiscal year before we finally passed the budget. I dont see any reason why we need to be leaving this town in august. We should be here doing the peoples business. If you were going to school, you were getting failing grades in your spring semester, youd better stay in school for summer and go to summer school, not taking recess. Who is up next . I think most americans dont really care politically up here whos winning or losing or whose liberal or conservative, or whose left or right or whose up or down or poll numbers. They care about results. And when you look at the issues confronting us, healthcare which we are not likely to vote on until next week atthe earliest , jobs and growth, which i think can only be achieved through tax reform. Weve done everything we can do on the monitor side weve got to address the anemic growth of america on the fiscal side. The infrastructure bill , the president has talked about the budget , the appropriations process , the debt limit and a bill that is extremely important to my state been a number of other states, the National Flood insurance program. Now, anybody who thinks we can get all of that done by the end of the year, thats just a testament to the power of human denial. We have got to work longer and harder. I dont mean to step on anybodys toes. I know im new here and there are a lot of traditions and people have things to do back home. But we cant pass bills back home. Weve got to be here. And thats the reason im here today, is to suggest respectfully to my colleagues that we need to work all or a portion of the august recess and show some results to the American People. I dont know many working class americans get to take a whole month off. Good afternoon, mike grimes out of south dakota. I had the opportunity to serve as governor of south dakota for eight years. The legislative body would meet for 40 days and sometimes 40 nights but at the end of that time. Like most of the other states we would get our job done, get things completed in an appropriate fashion before the fiscal year started. People can make their plans, they could lay out basically what our budgets were, they needed to know what to expect of the agencies. Individuals would ask for dollars, new what had been awarded, had not been awarded in a timely fashion. Its not the way things have worked in washington for probably 43 years now and as senator perdue has indicated, the process has worked four times in 23 years and until such time as we can fix this process and allow good people that work here to get their jobs done in a timely fashion, were probably going to have to spend extra time in washington rather than back in the states during those state work periods. Theres back home and dont mind if we get back in and they get a chance to express our opinions once in a while but at the same time they expect us to get our work done in a timely fashion. We cant do that right now without spending extra time here. The reason for the letter in my opinion and the reason i signed on to that letter is i wanted to let leadership know that if they could see a way to put together some additional time during august in which we could be productive, that they would have our support. And this was our way of expressing to leadership our support for their interest in extending the time. And that they would have support within our conference to do that. I think thats very important that we send that message to leadership that if they feel that they can keep us in a productive mode during that time period that we would support them in that effort. In doing so we can actually get more of this done, wouldnt it be nice for the first time in years to actually go back to the American People and say while we are trying to fix the system which isnt working, we will at least let you know in advance at the beginning of the next fiscal year what we intend to spend when that be something the American People havent seen in over 40, wouldnt it be nice to go back and say weve accomplished something along that line. Healthcare in the meantime, this is something we are moving in the right direction now. We can move it forward but were going to need more time and allow more members to ask the right kinds of questions that they want and feel comfortable with what they are doing. Were impacting 18 percent of the economy, and allow the time you actually get this done correctly. You. Thanks david. Well i join my colleagues, newest member of this body and im still learning his ways but im signing a letter to people of my state in the country, i like the president to change the way of washington and a warning to late at night, weekends to address the issues that have been discussed by my colleagues. Were not doing that when we are on vacation, as important as things maybe. People of my state work very hard and ones that pay taxes, they listen to them and to deliver. I do not take kindly to the idea that we are not solving the problems they sent us here to solve to take time off to go back and tell them essentially that we had gotten done what they sent us here to do. Im urging the leadership to keep us here, the bustier through the weekend, let us work late at night, early in the morning. They are working all hours of the day to protect us. We have nothing left to predict the issues and address the time necessary to do it so i asked the leadership to consider that, im talking about the leadership of my party and i hope the democrats will join us of course but try to solve real problems that affect real peoples. Steve sullivan, alaska. Bottom line here is we have a state agenda and you heard a lot about sales and that also entails rebuilding the military, a stronger economy, unleashing americas enormous energy opportunities. When you look at that agenda the president ran and a lot of us ran on, a lot of it is actually bipartisan agendas. And what we dont have is time. Were running out of from the start is time. So we can create time. We can create more time. We can do that. And you know, you get a sense here, a lot of the members on the dais talked about this or some of the newer members, like mike lee senior statesman right now and just showing this , but you get the sense when you talk about august recess or any other elements of recess that is some kind of secret issue you cant cut you but i think what should be more sacred is getting things done and we can do that, we can create the time to do it. And thats why we are respectfully urging our leadership and hopefully the democrats to help create time and also to be a government, you may haveseen a washington journal editorial talking about some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle ,slow roll and even under secretaries , assistant secretaries that its time to get to work, we can create time and thats why were standing up here. Years ago i heard someone say that the worst thing that ever happened in washington was the invention of the air conditioner because it allowed members to stay in session longer than they should. The airconditioning has now been invented, it works and works well, theres no reason why we when we had as much to do as we do now why we have to take this much time as has been planned. We have an enormous amount of work to do. Whether you are blessed of the political spectrum or somewhere in between, its difficult to dispute the fact that theres a lot thatneeds to be done. At this time , it doesnt make any sense for it to take months of august off and i think we have continuing to work through it. I also think that as we also even need to look at things like weekends. Particularly as we are up against certain time crunches, we ought to be prepared to work long hours and certainly not take this recess. The American People like us to make laws. And when our own ability to make those laws is thwarted by our own artificially imposed deadlines, our own artificially calendar, doesnt serve anyone as well, not ours, not out of the American People, certainly. Thats why i applaud senator perdue and my other colleagues for standing firmly on this issue. And i hope that we can make progress. Thank you. Thank you, im thom tillis in North Carolina and i want to thank senator perdue for standing up to the letter and i want to thank leader mcconnell because he shares our concerns for a variety of reasons in the chamber. They say chandler time is the coin of the realm in the senate. One of the ways we can get back is to compress the schedule for recess and i for one think that if we send a clear message as we have, we are prepared to work. We are prepared to work through august to work on fulfilling the promises and ultimately fulfill the promises on healthcare, taxes, we can talk about a number of other things that we have to get done before the end of september. This is pivotal in making sure we have the time to do it. I supported and again want to thank all the members that are on the podium and i want to thank the leadership for working through difficult times, im optimistic that we will get to an outcome and all these other outcomes, particularly if we stay back at work in august more than we are planning on right now, thank you. Thank you, you heard from eight of the 10 on this letter, jodi ernst and James Lankford had conflicts but they have also been supportive and now we will take your questions. [inaudible] could this be looked at as a way toavoid going home and talking . Only in washington would you answer questions with a negative motive to this of trying to hide away from the questions. Everyone in the state goes home every weekend and talk to our constituents every day when we are back home. Thats not the purpose of this at all. Theres only one purpose and thats to get the results of people back home who we are talking to or asking us to get. Would you care to respond to the email chain with donald trump junior saying that he wasnt aware of the russian government trying to give him information . It has nothing to do with what need we need to get done in august. The process is going to follow out. And we will let the committees of jurisdiction or the appropriate folks in the department of justice sort that out but thats the very thing we need to not be distracted by. We have specific things we need to do here. Weve gotto come up with a healthcare outcome, weve got to come up with a tax plan, got to come up with a spending strategy and we got to be disciplined and not get distracted by things that might be legitimate but right not right now in our lanes. Kelly major, my question is do any of you have a congressional delegation thats been received and if so do you have a sequence that wants to stay here through august . Yes. Is there a timeline or will you cancel . I told my schedule and im sure my colleagues have as well, lets assume august has been rescheduled. Im prepared to do that any hour of the day. Are you at all concerned, talking about meeting for time that the time is not the answer to bridging some of the debate on health care, that there might be people in your conference who are too far apart in this priority and its two different to get to Common Ground on healthcare . Out okay, we have about next week. Thats my understanding, i hope we do. Theres been in an enormous amount of time in our caucus on healthcare bill and in the Healthcare Delivery system. Some of mcconnell talks about 30 different meetings but ive been to probably about 50 by now. I think everybody understands the bill. And my judgment its time to vote. Put it out there, let people offer amendments. Lets just see if it will get on,its not going to, not going to get any less complex. The Affordable Care act is not going to get any better. My position on the healthcare bill has not changed. I dont think anybody up here has changed their position. They can speak for themselves but i dont think the Affordable Care act has worked for the American People. First chance i get to repeal, im going to vote for the repeal. Ive also said that if theres a replacement build is better than the Affordable Care act, although it may not be perfect, im going to vote for that. But the bills changing by the minute. We will learn more about it but there comes a time, youve got to fish or cut bait. And thats where we are. And its time to vote. If you dont like the bill, amended on the floor. I welcome their support. After that one, on the question of time, its not about healthcare. You look at the agenda that we are talking about here. You know the senate can walk and chew gum at the same time. If you are here, we can be working on starting a markup tax reform bill which is critical. Anything to grow the economy which we allagain, bipartisan , we have to do that. We can be working on an infrastructure bill as we move forward. We can bemoving forward on a whole bunch of different fronts. A whole bunch of different priorities and most of the bipartisan, we just markup the nda a two weeks ago. Thats a very important bill, very bipartisan by the way and so the point is, we need to be here. And we need the time to do it but we can be attacking these different issues that are key priorities for all our constituents whether democrats or republicans. For this country but if were not here, and if were essentially working three days a week , which is what we do, were not going to get it done. Thank you senator, have you received any response to that letter . , well this was the talk to leadership, thank you. Several of us have talked to leadership about this over some period of time. This is not our shot leadership, basically this is a positive letter saying that this is the work we have ahead of us. Were willing to amend the tradition here in the senate. Last time this was attempted was 1994. So this is a time. People back home had a new president in the white house. And most of us are new and in fact all of us are relatively new. So we are really close to what people back home are telling us and they expect results of your. This is bigger than healthcare. We need to get to this tax bill, this tax bill is the final chapter in getting this economy going. Love, senator purdue is what hes saying is correct. We had the opportunity to get back on a regular basis over the summer time. Weve been two copies as we called it in south dakota, some people called them townhall. We on the programs where we do our parades, powwows in south dakota. We one message we get time again is they sent us to fix things. They didnt send us your status will continue on. And portable way to do that is we actually get together and you get things done. Were finding that this Senate Schedule is such that when you have the delays that are being imposed right now. It is the democrats prerogative to delay, they can do that. Thats their right. But that means then that weve got to do as the majority what we think is right and that is to get our job done as well. And not only tax reform that we have to address, weve got a budget thats got to be done. None of this is really any of you, youve been covering all this but to look at the 30 days or so that we have in august and to say that simply a number of us have looked it could help and i know some of our senior members are really serious about the hotels, theyre important and they are. And we learn about a lot of different issues and we think even if we cant do the entire recess or the entire state workday, back here in washington, we at least try to do one or two weeks back in washington rather than on the coattails or back during the state workpiece or work. And spend more time here on the floor of the senate to work through this process. Wouldnt be a refreshing thing if the American People could actually see us serious enough about doing things on time for a change , even if it meant disrupting a plan casual for the United States senate, i think thats her message is that leadership is looking for that kind of a message coming from the members. Particularly for senator sullivan and me, senator kennedy said that he had not one healthcare bill that i want to know who brings it to you. My position right now is still that 50 is better than what we have and that i think our biggest challenge is trying to get over and obama care hangover. Have to back into a competitive market position again. But right now whats happened is the cost of healthcare has gone up so dramatically since obamacare was installed in the country, the American People cant afford to simply have us do a repeal only, we have to do a repeal and replacement, otherwise you are going to get hurt. So i think we have to do when were talking about 18 percent, were talking about real lives that are impacted by what we do. Weve got to send a message out there that the plans we are looking at still protect against preexisting conditions. They still provide more money for medicaid and what there is today as we are all slowing the rate of increase, were not topping the rate of increase on medicaid and what were trying to do is get this into a sustainable fashion for the next generation. Ask the message we got to send but we can make this a better product than what is today. This is all we can do, its still better than what we got. We can make it better if we are given the time and the opportunity to do so. I want to make sure you understand my position. I dont know whats in the bill. Weve seen a draft, its changed. I think everybody up here deserves the right to read the bill. I dont want to make the mistake the democrats made in thehouse. Im undecided what to do on this bill, i want to see. I will go along with my preference for full review repeal but basically every republican who campaigned for federal office has promised that and thats what we have to do. The bill, the last iteration of the senate bill is one that i cannot support. I pointed out to my colleagues theres changes that could be made to it that would bring me along and one of those changes that could be made would be to allow people to use pretaxdollars to pay their premiums using a Health Savings account and another amendment , amounting to the Consumer Freedom language that weve discussed. Thats one way to get me to yes on the bill, if its not that particular amendment, other form of relief from the title i regulation in the Affordable Care act. Very quickly, ive been arguing that theres probably no state in the country thats been more negatively impacted by the Affordable Care act than alaska. Our premiums in the individual market have more than tripled if you saw this hhs study from a very high level already. The average premiums for one individual now is close to 1100 a month. X in my state. So what ive been focused on poor folks, im going to look for, and continue to press for opportunities is make sure the bill has provisions that address the structural high cost of insurance in healthcare and in extreme rural states like mine. I dont want to deal with distractions but isnt it more than a distraction at this point if we have email evidence thatdonald trump junior and Campaign Manager met with someone who was described as a russian government lawyer . The question i ask myself as one of the members of the u. S. Senate is to what extent those that swim in the lanes of Veterans Affairs where we are trying to discuss the next choice act . It doesnt. To what extent does it involve my role on the committee of aging . To what extent does it involve my role on senate and Armed Services . It doesnt. For my purposes its about discipline in the areas that we have to focus on that just as senator sullivan says, we can walk and chew gum and thats what we need to do. To the extent that there are members in this body who need to focus on that, those questions need to be levied towards them so that we stay focused and we get the most out of what will hopefully be additional legislative days between now and the end of august, thank you all. Thank you very much. I want to reiterate one thing that you heard from everybody up here. This is a positive, constructive effort to get results from the people back home, thank you very much. [inaudible conversation] and as you saw on your screen, republican leader Mitch Mcconnell at that briefing announced a twoweek delay in the start of the Senate August Recess to give senators time to make progress on their legislative agenda. Its a live picture from capitol hill as we await the arrival of centimeters from their party lunches. We hope to hear from republican and democratic leadership and reporters are likely to ask about the healthcare replacement plan. Mike pence lunching with the republicans today, senator john cornyn indicating yesterday he hopes to unveil a new plan for the healthcare replacement plan by the end of the week. Live coverage here on cspan2, we expect this senate to gamble in in just a moment. [inaudible conversation] and we will leave this area and go to the Senate Chamber at the senate is about to dabble in. Live coverage here on cspan2. The chaplain, dr. Barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. The chaplain let us pray. Lord god, source of righteousness and the center of our joy, forgive us when we