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‘Our colleagues across the aisle have listened to the most extreme elements in their political party and shut down the government over an unrelated immigration issue.’

‘We're not going to let him hold health insurance for nine million children hostage.’

‘My message to them is think about the men and women who put on the uniform of our country and deploy in dangerous locations around the globe to fight our nation's wars and to protect our homeland, think about those who wake up in the morning and put on a badge and go out possibly into harm's way to protect our communities, and think about those nine million children who depend on us for their health coverage.’

‘The country deserves better.’

WASHINGTON –Today on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) discussed the negative impacts of the vote by Senate Democrats to block the funding bill and shut down the government. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn’s remarks are below, and video of his remarks can be found here.

“We find ourselves here in a completely unnecessary situation.”

“Our colleagues across the aisle have listened to the most extreme elements in their political party and shut down the government over an unrelated immigration issue.”

“Everything in the continuing resolution that our colleagues across the aisle voted against last night are things they support… But they voted against it in order to hold all of that hostage to this unrelated issue of immigration.”

“The Minority Leader, my friend from New York, Senator Schumer, has done the best he can to try to spin the story and to try to explain his strategy and to cast blame.”

“But not even he can come up with a credible story here for why he chose to lead this shutdown effort for the federal government, because it makes no sense whatsoever.”

“He's the leader of a tough group of senators, including some radical members who are running for president and who have held the rest of their conference hostage.”

“How do we know this is their plan all along? Well, the Democratic Whip, the Senior Senator from Illinois, laid out the strategy in The Washington Post last November.”

“So the Minority Leader can't convince us or anybody that knows the facts that this is somehow President Trump's fault. This is their plan, something they have been plotting for a long time now.”

“We're not going to let him hold health insurance for nine million children hostage over an unrelated immigration issue.”

“Soon, our colleagues across the aisle will have a chance to reopen the federal government, a chance to abandon this brinkmanship which threatens the safety and security of the country, that threatens the very people we depend upon to defend us and their families, and that threatens the access to health care for nine million vulnerable children.”

“My message to them is think about the men and women who put on the uniform of our country and deploy in dangerous locations around the globe to fight our nation's wars and to protect our homeland, think about those who wake up in the morning and put on a badge and go out possibly into harm's way to protect our communities, and think about those nine million children who depend on us for their health coverage.”

“The country deserves better.”