Chris Coons: “Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleagues from Alaska, Maryland, and other States for their willingness to spend…”

“Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleagues from Alaska, Maryland, and other States for their willingness to spend so much time talking, listening, and trying, together, to craft a path forward. The role the Senate has historically played in our constitutional order is one where we are the body that others look to when there is either an inflexibility or an unreliability in negotiating a path forward. We have lots of folks across this country suffering from this government shutdown. It is having an impact that all of us could detail. I have to ask, what is it going to take for us to reopen this government? Is it going to take a breakdown in food security or airline security? Is it going to take an increase in crime or terrorism, an accident, or thousands more Americans struggling to feed their families, losing housing or electricity? I will not go on with the list. We all know the human cost of this shutdown. I am here to join my friends, my colleagues from both parties, in saying that we are intent on making a good-faith effort to reopen the government for 3 weeks, to promptly support good-faith negotiations, to address the President's priorities, to discuss what effective, modern investment in border security and changes in immigration policy would look like, and then reach a resolution in 3 weeks or less. We have to be able to do this. We have to show our country and the world that democracy can work.…”