EXCLUSIVE: Trio of GOP appropriators explain why the House won't negotiate with Senate Democrats on the Schumer Shutdown

Reps. Mark Alford, Robert Aderholt, and Riley Moore lay out their thoughts on the Schumer Shutdown.

Three appropriators walk into a recording studio during the Schumer Shutdown, and the result is the latest podcast from the Republican Study Committee (RSC), obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter.

Reps. Riley Moore (R., W.Va.), Mark Alford (R., Mo.), and Robert Aderholt (R., Ala.) joined for a rare remote episode of the RSC’s Right to the Point podcast, which Alford — a former longtime local newsman — anchored once again.

Right from the onset, Alford made his position clear to his colleagues across the aisle and across the Hill.

“We are not going to negotiate,” Alford said. “We have done our part on the Appropriations Committee. We have passed all 12 appropriation bills out of committee. It was a hard fought battle with the Democrats offering numerous amendments during this process. We got three passed off the House floor, sent them over to the Senate to be in conference and they’ve done nothing with that. They’d rather shut down the government than give us seven extra weeks till November 21st to get our funding done for 2026 return to regular order.”

Aderholt, a veteran of multiple government shutdowns, shared to Alford and Moore — rookies when it comes to shutdowns — what makes this one different: “the leadership of Donald Trump.”

“Normally there’s no money to pay the troops,” Aderholt explained. “There’s no money to pay for the WIC program. But Donald Trump has found a way to move some money around to get the money to these programs so the troops can be paid. There are a lot of federal agencies and workers out there that not being paid — obviously the troops are in a category I think most of us put all to themselves because they don’t make a lot of money. They’re usually very young and they’re living paycheck to paycheck.”

“I will give credit to Donald Trump for really trying to make the best out of the situation with what is going on with the shutdown with the Democrats and trying to make it as easy as possible on our troops,” Aderholt said. “But obviously this money is going to run out. He will not be able to move that money around forever. So it’s important that we do get back to regular order at some point to try to make sure that we are doing the business of the people that have elected us and sent us to Washington.”

The lawmakers each explained how the Schumer Shutdown is harming their communities. One example that Moore provided was how “we’ve had folks who are furloughed at EMSA. EMSA is the entity that regulates mining in this country. We mine a lot of coal in West Virginia, obviously. And so that is having an effect on our ability to mine coal and be able to produce the product.”

Aderholt added that the “silver lining” of the shutdown allows for him to spend more time with his constituents, there are nevertheless problems that need to be addressed.

“I was just at one of my rural hospitals just last week,” he said. “They were celebrating their 50th Jubilee and I was able to meet with lot of the employees there and to congratulate them on their 50 years of service to rural Alabama. But I have also one of my rural hospitals actually in my hometown that is actually applied to be a critical needs hospital. Unfortunately, because of the government shutdown, CMS is not processing applications and they have about 30 to 35 days before their survey expires that they’ve been using and they’ve got to move on this pretty quickly.”

All three lawmakers represent dozens of rural hospitals, and they pushed back on the narrative from Democrats the Democrats are the saviors of those hospitals.

“What people need to think about is [that Democrats are] cutting the Rural Hospital Stabilization Program,” Moore said. “They struck basically that whole health care section within the One Big, Beautiful Bill, which includes that Rural Hospital Stabilization Program.” And when it comes to Democrats voting to give healthcare to illegal immigrants? “As Mike Johnson said many times, page 57, section 2141, that’s where they’re getting rid of that verification process for Medicaid. We had 11 states in this country that were giving Medicaid to illegal immigrants.”

Despite the problems from the shutdown, the trio had nothing but praise for their colleagues on the Appropriations Committee. Moore, for his part, also added that he credits the leadership of Aderholt, along with Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.) — the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee — and other appropriations cardinals in shepherding the budgets through.

“We do need to give credit where it is due,” Moore said. “We worked hours and hours and hours to get all 12 appropriations bills out of committee because we heard from the people the need for us to do our constitutional duty, which is to have some semblance of regular order return to the appropriations process.”

“Republicans,” Moore said, “are trying to bring regular order back to the appropriations process, get away from the massive omnibuses of the past, and all we were trying to do here is have this short-term stopgap funding measure of this CR so we could finish the work of the appropriations committee, which is actually what the American people want.”

On the other hand, Moore said, when it comes to the Democrats, “their intransigence on this is just inexplicable. It’s driven in part by the far left wing of the party, as we saw Schumer out there encouraging this No Kings rally and asking people to come out and fight against the Trump administration and the Republicans when it is he himself who is a singular figure in this that has shut down the government, along with his party, because he’s worried about a primary challenge in 2028 from AOC.”

“One man’s blind ambition to cling on to power in the United States Senate is the minority leader” is holding the entire country hostage, Moore said, echoing Alford’s hardline against negotiating with what the lawmakers clearly view as bad-faith actors.

“The issues they’re talking about,” Moore said, include provisions “like one and a half trillion dollars for health care for illegal immigrants. It’s a non-starter. And not to mention it’s not germane at all to the appropriations process, the bill, or the budget of the United States. That’s a whole separate issue as it relates to healthcare or the ACA tax credits or any of these other things. That’s a Ways and Means issue. That’s not an Appropriations issue. They’re obviously throwing as many things as they can at the wall to try to paint the Republicans a bad light and fight on ground that they feel confident about.”

Both Alford and Moore took time to fact check some of the various claims that Democrats have made throughout the Schumer Shutdown. While Democrats have claimed that House Republicans in particular are on vacation, Alford noted that that couldn’t be further from the truth.

As he recently told the Reporter in an interview, Alford said that he’s “not on vacation.” He’s been doing events all over Missouri’s 4th District. The reality, he said, is that “Hakeem Jeffries is the master of this” shutdown.

“P.T. Barnum would be very proud of the circus that he’s holding on the front steps just about every day of the Capitol,” Alford added. “They’re singing songs. He’s shaking his hand a lot, whatever he does with his hand, but trying to make a point. But I think what he’s doing most of all is deceiving the American people.”

Moore added that one of the ostensible purposes of the shutdown revolved around Obamacare subsidy extensions, but he noted that Democrats “created this false cliff.”

“We could talk about these things, and we are open to talk,” Moore said. “But these tax credits don’t expire till December 31st. So they’ve created this false cliff deadline out there and they’re trying to drive this narrative that is just factually incorrect. So, open the government back up and then we can all get back to work and get the Appropriations process back on track and actually start to talk about these ACA tax credits.”

At the episode’s conclusion, Alford left a simple ultimatum for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.): “Chuck, a personal note to you: give it up buddy. You have dug a hole, you don’t know how to get out of it, you’re in a sand trap, a very bad sand trap, and you keep using the same golf club to get out and you can’t do it. You’ve got to vote for the clean CR.”

The latest episode of the Right to the Point podcast, and all of its predecessors, can be found here.