what the speaker said. the bottom line is very simple. we made a plea to the president once again. don't hold millions of americans hundreds of thousands of workers hostage. open up the government and let's continue the discussions. i pointed out a call i got in a office this morning. a fire dispatcher from upstate new york. wife is pregnant. signed a mortgage. can't get the f arkfha to appro because the government is closed. this kind of situation is happening in millions of instances across the united states. we told the president we needed the government open. he resisted. in fact he said he would keep it closed for a very long period of time, months or even years. the discussion then, we discussed a bunch of issues as the leader said that were