Press Releases

Today, Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (WA-01) joined House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33) and Vice Chair Ted Lieu (CA-36) to highlight House Democrats’ accomplishments in strengthening the economy and middle-class, lowering costs, increasing wages for workers, and achieving record-low unemployment rates. Meanwhile, Republicans are willing to risk a government shutdown to advance their extreme and unpopular agenda.

The video can be found here and the transcript is below.

Thanks to our Chair and Vice-Chair.

Good morning, everyone. It’s great to be here with you today.

We just finished our Caucus meeting with our Democratic colleagues down the street.

I’ll start by saying there’s a lot of energy in the room around taking back the majority next year.

We are united, unlike Republicans, around governing and addressing the issues families are facing right now.

We’ve accomplished a lot of important work when Democrats were in the majority.

And we know families are still struggling and there’s more to do and that should be the focus.

There couldn’t be a clearer contrast between Democrats and Republicans than the one our colleagues in the majority are making for us right now.

House Democrats’ top priority is rebuilding a strong middle class and an economy that works for everyone.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are hell-bent on forcing their extreme, right-wing ideology on the American people.

We should all be clear that the cuts and policy riders they are pushing do nothing to help families, who are struggling right now, or move our economy forward.

And they’re willing to force a MAGA shutdown if they don’t get their way.

No one in the Republican caucus is willing or able to stop this from happening. The truth is the extremists are the ones truly running the show for House Republicans.

And you have 18 members, Republican members, in districts that President Biden won who fall in line every time and continue to enable the extremism.

They call themselves moderates, sometimes you[the press] call them moderates, but I can tell you there aren’t any moderates left in the Republican Party. They’re just vulnerable Republicans who give in to the extremists and we’re going to continue to hold them accountable.

If Republicans shut down the government, we’re going to make sure the American people know why federal efforts to combat drug trafficking aren’t funded, or why federal firefighters have to work without pay, or why homebuyers won’t be able to get their mortgages approved.

There is a huge list of things that are impacted when the government is shut down and shut down for no reason.

The truth is that House Republicans are not serious about improving the lives of hardworking Americans.

Democrats are focused on the kitchen table issues that families are facing every day across the country, from lowering costs to creating good-paying jobs here in the U.S. to making our communities safer.

So that’s why the contrast is so important, something we’ll be focused on highlighting from now until next November.

And I’ll turn it back over to the Chair.