[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 26 (Friday, February 7, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H963-H966]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer), my friend, the majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring 
about the schedule for the House next week.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the minority whip for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I will say that the House will meet at 12 p.m. for 
morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes 
postponed until 6:30 p.m. on Monday next.
  On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-
hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business.
  Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for 
legislative business, with last votes of the week expected no later 
than 3 p.m. We will consider several bills under suspension of the 
rules. The complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close 
of business today.
  Mr. Speaker, the House will consider H.R. 2546, Protecting America's 
Wilderness Act. This bill is a package of lands bill out of the 
Committee on Natural Resources and would designate 1.3 million acres as 
wilderness or potential wilderness areas, preserving these public lands 
for the benefit of current and future generations.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, the House will consider H.J. Res. 79, 
Removing the Deadline for the Ratification of the Equal Rights 
Amendment. This bill would remove the deadline to ratify the ERA, 
paving the way for it to be added to the Constitution and taking a 
historic step forward for women's equality.
  Mr. Speaker, I would add this is not an adoption of an assumption, 
that, in fact, the 38 States who have ratified to date have not 
ratified within the framework of the Constitution, and, therefore, that 
amendment should in fact be judged to have been adopted.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding back and 
for going through those items that are going to be up on the House 
floor next week.
  I would like to ask the majority leader with respect to some of the 
things that were discussed at the State of the Union--and I am sure we 
are going to be talking about a few things that happened during the 
State of the Union.
  The President identified a number of items where he challenged us in 
Congress to work with him on addressing some of the challenges that are 
facing our country. And he identified some items by executive order 
that he is working on, but he also identified some items from 
infrastructure--where I noticed there was applause on both sides of the 
aisle--to some areas on educational opportunities, school choice--where 
unfortunately, the remarks weren't received as equally as maybe they 
should have been--but it also provides us some opportunities to find 
some areas where we can work and achieve some things that would benefit 
people all across this country.
  I would ask the gentleman, first, starting with infrastructure, there 
is tremendous interest that I have heard from Members on both sides to 
try to work on a package that we can get agreement on.
  I haven't seen the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 
tasked directly with doing that, but I have heard there is interest 
from Chairman DeFazio and from Ranking Member Sam Graves in trying to 
reach that common ground.
  Is there an emphasis that is placed from the leadership of the 
majority on tasking the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 
with actually going and working and going and finding that common 
ground, which we know is there, to try to put together an 
infrastructure package in these next few months?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the answer to the gentleman's question is 
yes. And indeed--as I think the gentleman probably knows--the leaders 
of the relevant committees, Mr. Neal and Mr. DeFazio--Mr. Neal on the 
funding side, Mr. DeFazio on the substantive side of the policy with 
respect to infrastructure and transportation and other items that we 
think need to be included in infrastructure.
  We met with the President of the United States in April. Mr. Speaker, 
I will tell the gentleman, it is probably the most positive meeting 
that I have had with the President and that other members in the group 
had. This was Democrats and then the Secretary of Transportation was 
also there, Ms. Chao.
  And we talked about our joint commitment to infrastructure 
investment. We had suggested, as the President suggested during his 
campaign, that our target be $1 trillion over 10 years. In other words, 
a $100 billion a year, or on average, investment in infrastructure so 
that we will not only create a lot of American jobs, but also assure 
ourselves of being competitive with our competitors around the world in 
the 21st century.

  The President responded that he thought $1 trillion was too little 
and suggested a $2 trillion investment, i.e., doubling the $100 billion 
to $200 billion on average per year over 10 years. And we had 
discussion about that. We indicated that we agreed with the President 
that such an investment would be warranted, and productive and, 
frankly, grow the economy and therefore be an investment and not simply 
an expenditure.
  Mr. Neal made the point, Mr. Speaker, that the President--if we would 
give him some direction on what he could support in terms of funding 
that investment. And I made the observation, I said to him, ``Mr. 
President, neither in the Senate nor the House will Republicans or 
Democrats support that big of an investment if you are not leading. To 
which he responded to me, Mr. Whip, ``Steny, I agree with you.''
  We then scheduled a meeting to be held--we thought--3 weeks, but it 
was some 5 or 6 weeks later. And unfortunately, for whatever reason--
both sides have their thoughts as to why--the President came to the 
meeting and said he was not prepared to meet. And we have not had that 
meeting since.
  But I will emphatically say to the gentleman, we want to work on 
infrastructure. We think it is critically important. The President said 
during the campaign he thought it was critically important. I think 
your side, both here and on the Senate side, believes infrastructure is 
important.
  So certainly, as I said, yes, we want to see if we could work 
together to adopt a significant infrastructure package, which we think 
would be good for the country.
  Secondly, let me say that the President also mentioned two other 
things--one of which was prescription drugs. We had passed a 
prescription drug bill, H.R. 3. The President sent down a message that 
he would veto it if it were passed as it was.
  What I would suggest, following the regular order, the Senate ought 
to take it up, change it, amend it--do whatever they feel is 
appropriate to do--pass it, if they can, and then let us have a 
conference. Because we have all said that we want to bring down the 
prescription drug prices.
  In fact, the President says he wants to negotiate. We included in 
H.R. 3 negotiation. The President said he wanted to key prices to our 
global competitors. In particular, we put six large nations, which are 
similar to ours, including Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Canada, 
France--and one other

[[Page H964]]

nation--in that calculation. And that we would, in our bill, cap the 
prices at 120 percent of the average price across those six nations. 
That was something the President wanted to do.
  And he responded to a question about negotiation, saying ``I want to 
negotiate like crazy.'' He is a businessman. He is a realtor. He knows 
a lot about negotiation and price. And so I think we have component 
parts in common.
  And my suggestion would be, again, that they take up H.R. 3, which is 
the prescription drug bill, do what the Senate's will is to do, that we 
go to conference, and that we discuss differences, harmonize the bills, 
and pass a bill and send it to the President.
  So there is certainly, in my experience of a long time here, that is 
the way we should get that done. I think that would be positive for the 
country and I think we could reach consensus, hopefully from the 
administration, from your party, my party, and pass those two bills to 
the benefit of the American people.
  The last thing I would discuss is the President said he was against 
preexisting conditions being precluded from getting insurance. We share 
that view. We have passed a bill over to the Senate that affects that 
end. The Senate could take that bill up. Again, work on it, do whatever 
the will of the Senate is to do, go to conference. And assuming that we 
follow the President's stricture of wanting to ensure that preexisting 
conditions do not prohibit anybody from getting insurance, we could 
pass that bill.
  So my response is that we pass three bills--or two bills and then 
infrastructure, which were four--and those are positive items we can 
work on, and we are prepared to do so.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. On those fronts, 
clearly there is an ability to find common ground as we talk about 
infrastructure. There has been a lot of discussion over what that 
number would be, what the amount would be, because ultimately, it would 
have to be a number that we could both get an agreement amongst 
Republicans and Democrats that would be paid for.
  And I think both sides acknowledge, it has got to be paid for. That 
has usually been the sticking point with infrastructure. But within 
that, whether it is $200 billion or $2 trillion, there is an 
understanding that we need to do more work to try to find out how we 
can get agreement on how to pay for it. And I do think the ability is 
there to find that agreement. The amount would be variable.
  But also, it is something the President has talked about, as well as 
a number of Members of Congress have, making reforms to the way we 
build major projects: roads, bridges. The infrastructure delays so 
often are caused by red tape that is unnecessary.
  I have heard from Governors, both Republican and Democrat, that would 
like to see Congress not only send money--obviously, the States would 
like to see more Federal money come--but also, to see less strings 
attached so that a project that right now might take maybe 10 years to 
do, because of so many overlapping delays in red tape, that should 
maybe take 2 years at most. In many cases, that delay alone is what 
prohibits the project from being done because it drives the cost up so 
much. Because a project that might take 10 years, in many cases is 
going to be deemed unaffordable and it just gets scrapped as opposed to 
if we address not just the financing, but also the bureaucracy and 
eliminating red tape so that we can get more projects done quickly. I 
think that would be another area where there is a lot of mutual 
interest in seeing if we can come together.

  And the President is very interested in doing that, when I have had 
talks with him. It is not just the amount that we are able to get 
agreement upon, but it is also the reforms to the red tape so that we 
can move projects quicker. And in many cases, do projects that are 
unaffordable because of those delays that are unnecessary. And I know 
that is something we can work on. Hopefully, we can get everybody 
together a few more times to get closer to finding that agreement on 
infrastructure.
  As it relates to healthcare, there has definitely been a divide 
between our sides, if you look at H.R. 3. I think the gentleman 
recognizes it was a very bipartisan bill. The vote reflects that.
  The Senate--however our agreement might be on how the Senate does 
business, clearly, they do business differently than the House--but 
traditionally, they have been reluctant to take up hyper-partisan bills 
when they are moving things through. They will go more to a bill that 
has got more broad support. USMCA is a real good example of that. It is 
probably the best template for how both sides can work together to do 
something big. Something very bipartisan, something very good for our 
country and something that we were able to get moved through both 
sides.

                              {time}  1230

  If you look at H.R. 19, for example, I would suggest to the gentleman 
that whatever the bill number is, it is not really the number of the 
bill. It is what is ultimately in it that we can get bipartisan 
agreement upon.
  H.R. 19 was an approach that we took to say let's go find not the 
partisan approaches to healthcare, but areas where we had broad 
bipartisan support, including the package of bills that came out of the 
House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously.
  Most people across the country are shocked when they hear that 
Congress actually did work together.
  Republicans and Democrats came together to put together a package of 
bills that would lower drug prices that the President would sign that 
could be in law today where prescription drugs, generic drugs, would be 
on the market quicker so people could be paying a lower cost.
  That package of bills came out of committee unanimously. Every 
Democrat, every Republican worked for months. It took a long time to 
put that agreement together, but, ultimately, both sides did come 
together.
  If we could look at those approaches. And, again, H.R. 19 includes 
only bills that were bipartisan. People had worked together on various 
elements of improving healthcare, from lowering prescription drugs, 
protecting preexisting conditions, but not in a partisan way, in a 
bipartisan way that could actually get signed into law.
  One way or another, we are going to find some issues where we can 
move, both Republican and Democrat coming together, bills over to the 
Senate. Those would clearly have a much higher likelihood of not only 
getting taken up by the Senate, but actually getting signed into law.
  So I would suggest, when you look at some of those approaches, the 
bipartisan approach where you don't have a Presidential veto, but you 
also have a strong ability to get Senators on both sides to want to 
take that up as well.
  And then, finally, on school choice, the Education Freedom 
Scholarship and Opportunity Act, this is something that President Trump 
cited in the State of the Union specifically, and you can see it in 
isolated cases.
  I come from a city, New Orleans. I was born in the city of New 
Orleans. I was on the board of Teach for America in New Orleans, and we 
had a dramatic overhaul of our public school system where we created a 
charter school movement.
  It was actually a Democrat Governor, Kathleen Blanco, who, 
unfortunately, passed away recently, who signed that bill, Republicans 
and Democrats working together, that has transformed some of the worst 
failed public school systems in the country.
  New Orleans' public school system--prior to our reforms, considered 
by most as the most failed public school system in the country--now has 
a very healthy charter school movement where children have real 
opportunities. Parents have real opportunities. Schools are competing 
for students, and it is working for the student. This is in a large 
urban system where it was failed, and now it is very successful.
  Clearly, no system is perfect, but there are many more options there. 
There are many more options for parents.
  Congressman Byrne has a bill--there are other bills that are out 
there--to try to give at least some additional options to families so 
that, if they are in a failing school, they can have a better place to 
go, and, ultimately, the system would be working better for the 
students.
  So, on all of those fronts, I would hope that we could find those 
areas of

[[Page H965]]

common ground and start there, build that, and work with the Senators 
and with the President, who wants to address these issues, like we were 
able to address USMCA, which was signed into law last week.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comment.
  First, let me talk about the prescription drug bill. We did pass a 
bill that was a compilation of six bills that had five Republican 
supporters when we voted on it. So there was a bipartisan bill.
  Let me suggest we ought not to dismiss however the Senate operates, 
the way the regular order operates is we pass a bill. Yes, we are in 
charge, and, like you, we pass bills that we think are important. When 
you were in the majority, you did the same thing. Some had Democratic 
votes, some did not. But the Senate had an opportunity to send us back 
bills.
  We have 275 bills that we have done. We think they are all on 
substantive matters that deal with items that are good for the people, 
for the American people, and the Senate has not acted on them.
  The way the system ought to work is we send our ideas over there; if 
they have different ideas, they send them back to us, and we go to 
conference and resolve it. I agree with the gentleman, that is what we 
ought to do, and I am hopeful that we could do that.
  But the bill that we did pass, as I say, was a compilation of seven 
bills and had five Republicans. But, as you do, five Republicans makes 
it a bipartisan piece of legislation, and the Senate could send it back 
with something we don't agree on and try to resolve it because we want 
to reach that end.
  The other bill the gentleman talks about, H.R. 3, the bill that we 
brought out had improvements to the ACA to make it work for the 
American people.
  Your side, of course, wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Our 
side differs and believes that, in fact, millions of people, not only 
those who avail themselves of ACA--and, in the short term, it didn't 
bring down premiums, but it is now starting to bring down premiums, as 
we thought it would.
  The constant assaults on the ACA by people who want to see it 
repealed have obviously hurt that because it has undermined certainty, 
which means that the insurers are not certain what the rules are going 
to be, and, therefore, our view is the premiums are still inflated.
  But, again, I would urge the whip to talk to Mr. McConnell and say: 
Look, we have a lot of bills over there. Pass your version of the bill, 
send it back and let us work on it, and let's see if we can get to an 
agreement.

  That is how we have done for hundreds of years, and that is the way 
we ought to continue to do it.
  I realize that Mr. McConnell, as any majority leader the Senate has, 
has challenges in doing that; and what I think, frankly, he does not 
want to do is get to a bipartisan agreement which will allow passage 
through the Senate.
  We don't have that here, as you know. Your side could pass bills on a 
partisan basis when you were in charge; we can do the same.
  As I say, we had five Republicans agree with us on the bill to which 
you referred, but I would hope you would urge Senator McConnell to pass 
our bills.
  Senator Braun from Indiana was on TV with Chuck Todd on ``Face the 
Nation'' talking about impeachment. He said: Let's get through this 
impeachment and get to the people's business.
  I think that was a reasonable proposition. The problem is the Senate 
is not getting to the people's business. They are not passing their own 
bills, and they are not passing our bills. In fact, they are spending 
all their time confirming judges.
  We think that has a purpose of making sure that, for the long term, 
whether they are in the majority or not, they will have an influence on 
what happens in the United States. I understand that political 
motivation, but it is impeding us doing the people's business.
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Scalise and I try to work together. I would hope 
that the Senate would work together so that they could send us back 
bills of their choice, we can go to conference, and we can make things 
happen.
  This House, last year, passed over 400 pieces of legislation. I don't 
have the exact number that the Senate has passed of significant bills 
as opposed to naming post offices or something like that, but it is in 
the tens, not the hundreds.
  Mr. SCALISE. Clearly, we have got a lot of agreement on our 
disagreement with the Senate's way of doing business. Of course, one of 
their impediments that I know I have encouraged a change in that they 
haven't taken up is the 60-vote rule just to bring up a bill.
  So many of the bills, when we were in the majority, that would go 
over to the Senate that we felt strongly about that would not be 
brought up, it was a majority Republican Senate, but because they have 
a 60-vote requirement, the minority could and would, on occasion, 
prevent many of those bills from coming up.
  But that is why I suggested to the gentleman, what we found is, of 
the issues we would like to tackle that we really do feel confident we 
can get an agreement with the President on, the Senate has shown a 
higher likelihood of taking up a bill if it has got that broad support.
  And so in the example of H.R. 3--and, for the record, there were only 
two Republicans who voted for it--while that could be called 
bipartisan, there was a separate package of bills that came out of 
committee unanimously.
  So, if you have one approach that still is viewed as very partisan, 
with just two Republicans voting for it, to address healthcare issues, 
if there is a different way to approach it where every Republican and 
every Democrat on the committee of jurisdiction passed those bills that 
would lower drug prices and the President said he would like to sign 
it, I would think the gentleman would agree, if those two bills are put 
side by side, which one do you think would have a higher likelihood of 
making it through the Senate to the President's desk? It is very clear 
that the one that was unanimous would have a higher likelihood.
  And that is why I just suggested H.R. 19, because that was a bill 
that, while we would have liked to have included a number of other 
issues that maybe just our side might support, we put those on the side 
for now to say let's find those areas in healthcare where we have very 
broad support amongst Republicans and Democrats, and that is reflected 
in H.R. 19. You want to put a different package together.
  If the approach is let's address this in a bipartisan way, we have a 
very high likelihood of getting not just the President's support, but 
also the Senate's support at moving that through.
  I don't know if the gentleman has any more comments on that.
  Mr. HOYER. I would simply say, if we reach a consensus in the 
Congress--we are a coequal, separate branch of government--and whether 
Obama was President or whether Mr. Trump is President, I am for the 
Congress acting on that which it agrees.
  Is it helpful to have agreement with the President? It is. But if we 
can't reach agreement with the President, our responsibility as a 
Congress, the Senate and the House, is to move policies that we believe 
are advantageous for the people.
  If the President disagrees, then we have the option of overriding 
that veto. It is doubtful that we would do that, I understand. But that 
is the process that I think is most productive and most expected by the 
American people.
  I would again reiterate, on the bill that you keep saying could have 
unanimous support, in my opinion, what it would not have in terms of 
healthcare is support for doing what we so fervently believe needs to 
be done, and that is to make sure the ACA works as it was intended to 
do.
  If there is an alternative, we should consider that. But, very 
frankly, neither the President nor your side of the aisle has had 
agreement on an alternative.
  Senator McCain, as you know, was the deciding Republican vote on the 
last health bill that you sent to the Senate, and you sent that when 
you were in the majority. It didn't pass, notwithstanding the fact that 
you also had the majority in the Senate.
  Two weeks after you had the celebration at the White House, I was 
astounded to hear that the President effectively called that a mean 
bill.
  So we do have substantial disagreements. That does not mean that, 
given

[[Page H966]]

the fact that we have a Democratic House, that is, that we are in the 
majority, and a Republican Senate with the Republicans in the 
majority--now, I understand the gentleman's concern that it is 
necessary to get bipartisan agreement in the Senate in order to get 
that 60-vote threshold. And you and I may agree on the 60-vote 
threshold of getting bills on the floor. It is one thing to pass 
something or not.

  But, in any event, I would urge the gentleman to urge Mr. McConnell 
to pass their prescription bill. And if it is what you say and it can 
be done unanimously, send it over here and we will have a conference. 
Because both of us have articulated that we are for making sure that 
prescription drug costs do not price people out of being healthy. So I 
would urge you to do that.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  And now that the Senate has a little more free time, maybe we can get 
them to take up some of that legislation. I surely hope that we, on 
both sides, will continue working toward those, because there are areas 
of common ground that many have found and many have worked for months 
to find.
  I do want to shift gears and talk about the decorum the night of the 
State of the Union.
  The President talked about many things, as in any State of the Union, 
and I have attended 10 now. We have had Republican and Democrat 
Presidents, and there are things that I agree with in certain States of 
the Union, and you can stand, you can sit, you can applaud. But I think 
we all saw something that goes way beyond and, in fact, violates the 
rules of decorum in the House, and that is when the Speaker ripped up 
the speech.
  Clearly, it was a premeditated move. I have seen actual video of her 
practicing or starting to rip it prior to the end of the speech.
  But when you go through the speech--and, again, the President's theme 
was ``the great American comeback,'' and he talked about things that 
are working well in our country, working well for everybody, where 
every segment of society is benefiting, and, of course, as every 
President since Ronald Reagan has done, highlighting some of those 
great things that are happening in our country by bringing people into 
the gallery to show the real face on some of these great things that 
our country does.
  Again, if part of a policy that created that great visual is 
something that one side disagrees with, some people stand up, some 
people don't. But to suggest that it didn't happen or that it is a 
lie--as some in the leadership of your majority actually said, the 
whole speech was a lie--I would ask: Was General Charles McGee's 
recognition as a Tuskegee Airman a lie? I think that was something 
great that people enjoyed celebrating.
  Kayla Mueller, the humanitarian worker who was brutally murdered by 
al-Baghdadi--it happened. Her family was here. And al-Baghdadi was 
taken out by American troops, which I think was the right thing to do. 
That is not a lie. That is something that we ought to recognize and 
respect.

                              {time}  1245

  When Staff Sergeant Christopher Hake was killed serving a tour of 
duty in Iraq by a roadside bomb that was generated from an Iranian 
terrorist, which was led by General Soleimani. And now Soleimani is 
gone because the President took action to take him out. That happened. 
It is not a lie.
  In fact, the fact that Soleimani is gone is something we should all 
celebrate, just as we celebrated when President Obama gave the order to 
take out Osama Bin Laden.
  I think for most people there wasn't a dry eye in the House. I know I 
have heard from friends all across the country who were tearing up when 
they saw First Class Sergeant Townsend Williams, who had been on his 
fourth tour in the Middle East, and here was his wife and young 
children, and the President surprised surely her, and all of us, by 
bringing him back home. What a special moment that was, just to see 
that family reunited.
  And, again, tears, I think, were not a partisan issue at that moment. 
But it clearly did happen, and is not a lie, and it is something, 
again, we should all celebrate.
  But again, for decorum of the House, for the Speaker to do that, I 
think most would agree, was not appropriate. At a minimum, an apology 
should have happened. There wasn't.
  We brought legislation yesterday to rebuke the Speaker to make it 
clear that that is something not becoming of any Member of the House, 
let alone the Speaker of the House. Unfortunately, it was tabled on the 
roll call vote yesterday.
  But I would hope that we could recognize, when that happens again, 
that we won't tolerate that kind of activity from our Members, let 
alone our leader.
  If the gentleman has anything to say about that, I will yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, starting a State of the Union with a shout of 
``four more years'' reminds me more of a rally than a State of the 
Union.
  Clearly, neither the Speaker, nor any of us in any way diminished 
people that he introduced; some of whom I severely disagree with and 
thought that the actions taken with respect to that individual were 
totally inappropriate in a State of the Union because it served further 
to divide and to undermine any ability to work together.
  Having said that, ``four more years'' was disrespectful to this 
institution.
  The recitation in the gentleman's resolution of the honoring of 
individuals he just reflected had nothing to do with the State of the 
Union, but had everything to do with honoring people who had done great 
things, experienced great hardship, who ought to be empathized with; no 
one was saying those were a lie.
  One can interpret the speech for what each believed it was and can 
say something about it and reflect to the American people what they 
think of the substance of the representation of the State of the Union.
  It had nothing to do with the people who were honored, whether we 
agreed with them being honored or not. Certainly, I agreed with almost 
every one of them, save one.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments, but 
those names were part of that document that was ripped, and I am sure 
many of them were as offended as we are that it happened. I just would 
hope it wouldn't happen again. I wish we would all speak out equally 
against that.
  I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, none of those individuals should take 
anything that was done personally. In fact, almost every one of those 
individuals was honored by people on this side of the aisle and that 
side of the aisle acknowledging them and honoring them with appropriate 
action.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman making that 
statement, and I would share that. I wish the person who took the 
action would make that statement to those people because many were 
offended. But that will be left to discuss later.
  But for now, I look forward to working with the gentleman on all of 
these issues that we discussed that the President offered the olive 
branch for us to work with him on and, I think, are very achievable if 
we do roll up our sleeves and tackle it together.
  I think there is, again, a template for how to do it. USMCA is 
clearly one, and there are many others. 21st Century Cures is another 
example when we were in the majority with a Democrat President and 
worked very closely to achieve something that will be a milestone in 
curing major diseases for years to come; and, hopefully, we can deliver 
more of those kinds of wins for the American people that we all 
represent.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________