WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today released a video update on the state of the government shutdown. The video is available here, and a transcript is below: 

I think there’s a lot of confusion out there regarding the government shutdown. How did it happen? Why is it continuing? How do we resolve it? I think these are the questions that are on people’s minds. 

Without boring you about Senate rules, the shutdown took place five weeks ago because the majority party, in this case the Republicans, need 60 votes in order to pass a government budget. They only have 53 votes. The Democratic caucus has 47. 

And what has always happened, under these circumstances, is that the majority party negotiates with the minority in order to get 60 votes. That always happens — except now. 

For the first time that anyone can remember, Republicans have said it is our way or the highway. We’re not negotiating. You take it or you leave it, and that’s the way it is. 

And then, to add insult to injury — unbelievably, at a time when federal employees are not getting paychecks, when kids are being threatened without getting the nutrition they need through SNAP, when air traffic controllers are not being paid — in the midst of all of that, the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has given his members a six-week paid vacation. Incredibly, they are not here in Washington, D.C. They are home. 

In the midst of a government crisis, what the Republicans in the House have said is: You don’t have to come to work. 

So what are the issues that need to be negotiated? When we talk about negotiations, what are we talking about? Let me tell you what they are: 

If Democrats, and myself as an independent, were to agree to the Republican “clean resolution,” it would mean that over 20 million Americans would see a doubling in their health care premiums through the Affordable Care Act. That’s on average. 

In my state of Vermont, I’m hearing from people who are looking at a tripling or a quadrupling of their health insurance premiums. 

People cannot afford that. And as a result, people will lose their health care. 

Further, if we were to agree with the Republican proposal to pass their “clean resolution,” it would mean that 15 million Americans will, next year, be thrown off the health care they currently have because, in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” the Republicans made massive cuts to Medicaid. 

And there are studies out there that show that some 50,000 of our fellow Americans — lower income and working class people — will die unnecessarily every year because of that reality: 15 million people being thrown off their health care. 

It would also mean, if I voted yes to open the government tomorrow, that nursing homes, rural hospitals and community health centers, will be devastated because of cuts in government funding. They will have to, in some cases, close down, and in other cases, just limit the number of people they can provide health care to.

And, by the way, all of that — all of those massive cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act — were done for one reason, and that is to give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1%. 

Well, you may disagree with me, but I happen not to believe that Elon Musk, worth $500 billion, or Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg, or Larry Ellison, or the other multi-billionaires, need a tax break which results in millions of people losing their health care.

Just think about it: tax breaks for Elon Musk and people losing the health care they need to stay alive. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. 

Now, for those of you who may be following inside-the-beltway politics, you may have heard that there are certain negotiations going on between moderate Democrats and Republicans. And I must tell you that I am strongly opposed to the proposal that is being floated about. 

What the proposal suggests is that Democrats will be given the opportunity to write their own bill to extend the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act. And that the Republican leadership will give them a vote on it. In exchange, they will vote for a Republican proposal to reopen the government. 

Sounds good. Good idea, right? It is not. The devil is in the details. 

The Republicans would agree to Democrats writing a health care bill because they know that — even if that proposal were to pass here in the Senate — it would go nowhere in the House. And, if by some outlandish chance it were to pass in the House, Donald Trump would veto it. 

So, in other words, it amounts to an empty gesture. Some of my colleagues would feel great. They could go back home and say, “You know what, I cast the vote. Here’s the bill that I voted for — a great bill. It would have prevented your health care premiums from doubling. It would have prevented millions from losing their health care. Hey, I’m a great guy!” 

But they understand that that bill was doomed to go nowhere in a hurry. It would do absolutely nothing to protect the health care needs of the American people. And that is not something that I can support, nor should any other member of the Senate. 

Now, as some of you know, importantly, there were elections yesterday all across the country in New Jersey and Virginia, in New York City, and elsewhere. And the reality is that from one end of this country to the other, from California to New York, Democrats did very well. And there are a lot of reasons why people win elections, that’s for sure, but one of the reasons, in my view, is that people are sick and tired of the Republican attack against the working families of this country and the reality that Republicans would double their premiums, throw 15 million people off of health care, in order to give tax breaks to the very richest people in America. 

That is not a message that resonates in any place in America. That’s what the Republicans had to defend, and you know what? The American people said, “no way. You’re wrong.”

Even Donald Trump, interestingly enough, just acknowledged this morning that the shutdown has been “worse for us than for them,” and that Republicans are “getting killed.” 

That’s Donald Trump. And he’s right. 

The Republicans are getting killed because the American people, understandably, can’t afford to see a doubling in their health care premiums in order to give tax breaks to billionaires. That’s why the Republicans are losing on this issue. 

And it’s not just yesterday’s elections. Poll after poll says the same thing. People are holding Republicans accountable for the shutdown because they refuse to negotiate to protect the health care of millions of Americans.  

Now, I want to see this shutdown ended as soon as possible, and so do you. It is hurting a lot of people. And what we need — what we desperately need — is an agreement on legislation that will really and truly protect the health care needs of the American people. And that legislation that we agree on must have a guarantee that it will pass the House and that it will be signed by the president. Otherwise, it is a meaningless gesture. 

That is the commitment that we need. 

So, in this very difficult moment in American history, when working families are under attack, when the billionaire class has never had it so good, when we are moving every day toward authoritarianism under a president who wants more and more power for himself, we have got to stand tall. We have to represent the needs of the working families of this country. 

That’s what yesterday’s election was about. That’s what they want us to do. And to fold right now — to give into the Republicans despite massive opposition from the American people — would be a serious, serious mistake.