Senator Marshall: This Shutdown is Driven by AOC, the Squad, & Liberal Media
Senator Marshall Joins Newsmax to Discuss the Schumer Shutdown
Washington – On Thursday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined The Record with Greta Van Susteren on Newsmax to discuss the Schumer Shutdown, how the socialist left has hijacked the Democrat Party, and how Chuck Schumer is fighting for his political life.
Click HERE or on the image above to watch Senator Marshall’s full interview.
On the current status of the Schumer Shutdown, with follow-up questions by Greta:
Senator Marshall: “Well, I think we’re on day number two of the Schumer shutdown. This is a political shutdown driven by AOC, the Squad, and the liberal media.”
Greta Van Susteren: “Why do you say it is driven by her. She’s over in the House. Is it because she’s sort of breathing down his neck, and he’s worried about that?”
Senator Marshall: “Yeah, all the above. So certainly he’s worried about a primary. I think the bigger picture, he’s afraid that she’s about to hijack the entire party. The liberal media has empowered her, the Squad, and these talking points, and they’re trying to pull their whole party hard, hard to the left. And the only thing Chuck Schumer had left to do was to respond to that and shut the government down.
“So they’ve taken the hostages, as Congressman Scalise said, they’ve taken the hostages, these health care credits, these Covid-era subsidies, and now they’re wanting him to shoot the hostage.”
On why Chuck Schumer is fighting for his political life:
“You got it, and all you have to do is just go back to the decades of history of him saying how we should never shut the government down. That’s very contrary to what he believes. Democrats wake up in the morning thinking about spending more money, not to shut the government down. It’s very antithetical to what they want to be doing.”
On the influence that AOC has on the Senate:
“Yeah, so I think it’s none. Her name never comes up. No one ever says, well, what does AOC think about this? You know, you’ll have thought leaders in different areas. But I think when we saw Nancy Pelosi bristle yesterday, I’m not sure if you saw she reacted when a reporter asked her about AOC’s comments, that the Senate should come over to her and negotiate this, rather than with Hakeem or with Schumer. I think that all caught her eye like, Oh my gosh, this truly, truly is political. It’s about Chuck Schumer’s political life. It’s about the cannibalization of the Democrat Party by AOC, and again, that left leading liberal media.”
On how the Democrats are using healthcare as a hostage in the shutdown:
“Yeah, it’s a great point, and that’s why it’s amazing to see Chuck Schumer cave to her. Look, what they’re doing is they’ve taken this hostage of these Covid-era subsidies, and happy to dive into that. That’s the hostage he’s using as an excuse. But that is wrought with fraud; that this program of theirs, these Covid subsidies, grew from $50 billion a year to $150 billion a year.
“And we think a third of that is fraud, waste, and abuse, not to mention, I have one more point here, the premiums are going up 20% this year, and so the federal government is toting 90% of the bill right now. We should be talking about how to get those premiums down, and the Republicans have a plan.”
On what’s broken in America’s healthcare system:
“So, actually, you know, healthcare costs are up 400% over the last couple of decades. So what Obamacare did was create overregulation, which led to the consolidation of industries. So now every state has two or three insurance companies. They have two or three hospital systems in each community, and we have pharmacy benefit managers, three of them controlling 90% of the drugs.
“So this overregulation has killed competition, and because of the lack of that, along with it, it’s killed innovation. There’s no transparency. Our signature bill this year is a Price Tags Bill to force hospitals, surgery centers, and imaging centers to show patients the price of things before they get them done. You’ll see a difference of 4x between one facility and another.”
On the need for affordable healthcare in America:
Senator Marshall: “So the other problem we have, part of my pillars of MAHA is affordable access to primary care. If you think about seven chronic diseases, they drive 90% of the spend on health care. You know, think about heart disease, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s…”
Greta Van Susteren: “Oh, by the way, if we gave free Ozempic and those other drugs to bring people’s weight down, because a lot of people don’t want to be overweight, which leads to diabetes and heart problems. Even that might be a good idea, like people, instead of charging $1,000 a month.”
Senator Marshall: “I’m not going to go there. Free drugs for everybody… I’d rather address their true root of the problem that we have a nutrition problem in this country, we have a lifestyle problem in this country. That it’s a combination of poor nutrition, exposure to toxins, which is driving this healthcare dilemma.”
On some of the best ways to fix American healthcare:
“Let’s go back to our fixes for healthcare prices, the cost of healthcare. Anything that makes healthcare more transparent, that promotes innovation, that turns patients back into consumers, we need more competition, not less. We talked about our transparency bill, then I think we should talk about healthcare savings accounts, expanding them, and allowing patients to use that money to pay for direct primary care. Where one doctor manages a group of patients for a set amount of money. We got other solutions out there as well, but those would be, I think the signature bills transfer more, more transparency, more HSAs.”
On what the negotiations look like between the Senators:
Senator Marshall: “Yeah, the negotiation is going on in the Appropriations Committee…”
Greta Van Susteren: “Right now? Today?”
Senator Marshall: “I would suppose so, it’s hard for me to say day to day, but I know that Senator Susan Collins and her Appropriations Committee are working their tails off.”
Greta Van Susteren: “But they’ve either got to accept that Continuing Resolution, or not?”
Senator Marshall: “But I think if they would give us the two months, Senator Collins can finish the job. She has 90% of the funding done. Chuck Schumer wants to go into a back closet to negotiate the deal with himself and President Trump. We want to do it openly. We want to do it through the Appropriations Committee. We want to bring it to the floor. That’s where the negotiations should be happening on the spending bill.”
On where the funding actually comes from and why Chuck Schumer is obstructing the GOP:
Senator Marshall: “So we went at record speed, to the mat, for decades, we’ve never gone this fast. 90% of the funding is done in the Appropriations Committee. Three of those bills have passed the finish line on the floor. So yes, we could bring them to the floor, but the ones that are not brought to the floor are because Chuck Schumer is being an obstructionist. He wants to slow down this America First agenda, and this is one more way he can do it. And of course, he has his marching orders. Do whatever you can to obstruct President Trump.”
Greta Van Susteren: “His marching orders from AOC?”
Senator Marshall: “You bet – AOC, the Squad, and don’t forget the liberal left media.”
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Contact: Payton Fuller
