INTERVIEW: Rep. Mark Alford draws a line in the sand on Schumer Shutdown: "There's nothing to negotiate"
Rep. Mark Alford explains to the Washington Reporter why he has faith in Speaker Mike Johnson's moves during the Schumer Shutdown.
As the Schumer Shutdown careens towards its second month, Rep. Mark Alford (R., Mo.) has a simple message for Senate Democrats and their allies in the media who are hoping that House Republicans will cave.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) “want America to feel pain so that they can put pressure on the Republicans to negotiate,” Alford told the Washington Reporter in an interview. “But there’s nothing to negotiate. And the sooner that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem realize that, the better off America will be.”
Alford explained his reasoning, attacking the “uninformed, ill-informed people in the media who don’t have the basic knowledge of how our appropriations process works” in the process. He went on to show why he is the Chairman of the Communications Task Force for the Republican Study Committee, and why he’s been on a blitz with both traditional and new media outlets.
“They want us to compromise or negotiate,” Alford explained. “‘Can you compromise? Can’t you negotiate? Can’t you meet somewhere in the middle?’ No. There’s nothing to negotiate. That’s what Chuck Schumer doesn’t understand. And the media is starting to really come around. Even some of the national media over the weekend were talking about how Democrats already approved this continuing resolution nine times before. There’s nothing different.”
“The only thing we added,” Alford noted, “was security money for the three branches of government, which, unfortunately, we need now because we live in such a heightened state of disjointedness and people trying to do harm to those they don’t agree with. But that was it, and there’s really nothing to negotiate.”
As Democrats continue their historic obstruction, Alford’s staff is working “at their desks [] without pay,” he said. “We have case workers. All of our offices are open 9-5. People are walking in. We’re taking calls. I’m putting it out there on radio, every interview I can do, that our office is open. We want to get you in the system. We may not be able to get people on the other end of the line in Washington, D.C., but we can at least get the head start.”
One story stood out to him in particular. “We have a guy named Timothy Brooks who lives in our district. He’s a veteran. I went to visit him, and he’s been working with our case worker, Michelle, and he has a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, and he’s using what’s called Community Cares,” Alford said. “It’s a program in the VA where if you can’t get the help you need immediately in the VA system, you can go outside the system and get your treatment. He’s been doing that, and now the Community Cares program is shut off because of the Schumer Shutdown. Well, he’s been working with Michelle in our office to try to get through to the VA to get an approval for this Community Cares program.”
Brooks, Alford said, “needs that treatment. He needs it every week for his mental health, and he has served our great nation, and yet Chuck Schumer is holding him hostage as well.”
While Alford maintains that Democrats are to blame for the ongoings shutdown that he doesn’t see “ending anytime soon,” he has been traversing all over his district, hosting dozens of events with veterans, doctors, small business owners, and more.
His district is home to many of the 33,000 federal workers in Kansas City, and he cautioned that as those people, and others, start to miss paychecks, the Schumer Shutdown will have a trickle down effect that could devastate Main Street.
“One of the first things you’re going to start doing when you don’t get a paycheck for the first time this week or next week, is you’re going to stop buying $5 coffees,” he said. “You’re going to see that some of these small businesses are going to start hurting because of that; things that are considered luxuries for a lot of people, like their cup of coffee, or maybe the dry cleaners, things that can be temporarily halted until Chuck Schumer reopens the government, are going to be put on hold. We are going to see small businesses starting to hurt.”
Another area where even Alford wasn’t expecting the Schumer Shutdown to have immediate consequences is the rural real estate market. But, a mortgage broker explained to Alford that he “had two clients who were supposed to close on a house last week, and you have to have the final commitment paper from the USDA, and it goes to the title agency in order to close.” That agency, however, is not open. “And they couldn’t move into their house, and that backed up the movers. That backed up the people moving into their home that they were selling. That’s just one small example, but it’s a big example of Schumer Shutdown and the pain that he’s causing everyday Americans.”
One area where Alford is optimistic that a short term Schumer Shutdown won’t have devastating consequences is the military — but that, he said, is due to President Donald Trump, not Schumer. Trump managed to secure paychecks, over the objections of many congressional Democrats, to troops.
“Thank goodness that President Trump found the money over the objection of the Democrats who did not want to get our military paid last pay cycle,” Alford said, but he asked “where are we going to find the money for this next pay cycle?”
The Democrats’ opposition to military pay raises, Alford noted, goes beyond just their obstinance during the shutdown.
Pay raises for American troops were “also in the One Big, Beautiful Bill that the Democrats wanted to scrap as well,” he said, “and as you saw in the Senate, just last week, they refused to vote for the defense approps that would give our military a pay raise, which they’ve never done before.”
“What we’re looking at now is a situation where, if we don’t find the money and the Schumer Shutdown continues for another week or two, we’re going to see that military families that put their lives on the line to guard us from evil are not going to be paid because of Chuck Schumer,” Alford said.
Alford, who spent years covering his community in local media, added that his goal during both the shutdown and in its aftermath is to “tell their stories, not just in Washington, but in the media, the national media, and in social media, so people can understand that we’re not just flyover country.”
“We are the heart of Missouri and the heart of America,” Alford said. “We are America. And I want people to know what we stand for. My district is filled with hard working, God-fearing families who love their country and who want to make it a better place. And that’s going to take each of us doing our part, and people want to do their part. But it’s hard to when Schumer’s holding us hostage.”
Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Mark Alford, lightly edited for clarity.
Washington Reporter:
Congressman Alford, you’ve been all over your district during the Schumer Shutdown, which is something that several of your colleagues have remarked to me. Thinking about all of these events that you’ve done, has there been one particular visit that surprised you about the consequences of this shutdown that people in the Beltway and that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are not thinking about?
Rep. Mark Alford:
Last week, I was talking with a mortgage broker; I had not followed the ramification of the pause in the U.S. Department of Agriculture loan commitment papers. He had two clients who were supposed to close on a house last week, and you have to have the final commitment paper from the USDA, and it goes to the title agency in order to close. And they couldn’t move into their house, and that backed up the movers. That backed up the people moving into their home that they were selling. That’s just one small example, but it’s a big example of Schumer Shutdown and the pain that he’s causing everyday Americans.
Washington Reporter:
You are also the co-chair of the Real Estate Caucus. Are there other ways that you’ve seen this manifest?
Rep. Mark Alford:
That’s the only example I have when it comes to real estate specifically. More broadly, we have actually been to 35 different events. We visited with more than 100 different constituents. We visited 10 rural hospital and we’re trying to help these hospitals navigate the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program that we included in the Working Families Tax Cut, and that’s the exact program that the Democrats and Chuck Schumer are trying to destroy with their nonsense of their competing continuing resolution that’s never going to pass that they proposed; the one they want actually allows for funding for illegal aliens to get back on Medicaid, and that’s not going to happen. I don’t know if they’re either pig headed or just plain stupid. I don’t know what their problem is, but this was a clean continuing resolution and extension. We had gotten our work done on the Appropriations Committee. I’m a freshman on that committee. We got all 12 bills out of the committee. We got three passed on the House floor. We were getting back to regular order, and the Democrats decided just to be jerks about it. We did not add any conservative riders or policies or anything in this — and looking back at it, I’m not in leadership, but maybe we should have put some things in there that we knew that we could give up later on if they were going to challenge us on this. But Mike Johnson, our leadership, they’re all men and women of integrity, and we just wanted to get this done and move on and work towards November 21st as the new date to get our funding bills done for 2026, but because of Chuck Schumer’s pride and arrogance, and I think mostly fear of not wanting to be primaried by AOC, they just decided to draw a line in the sand. And I think this is the wrong place to draw the line. They would rather fight President Trump and the Republican Party than fight for the American people, and that’s what has really frustrated me more than anything. I love being home. I love working in the district. I love traveling. We just got off the road, but I would rather be there finishing our funding for 2026, but Chuck Schumer has a gun to the head of the American people.
Washington Reporter:
I won’t say how many years, but you spent quite a bit of time in the media covering the community that you represent now and the areas around it. What do you find frustrating as you’ve seen media coverage of this shutdown, either at home or in D.C.?
Rep. Mark Alford:
The number one thing that frustrates me from uninformed, ill-informed people in the media who don’t have the basic knowledge of how our appropriations process works, is that they want us to compromise or negotiate. ‘Can you compromise? Can’t you negotiate? Can’t you meet somewhere in the middle?’ No. There’s nothing to negotiate. That’s what Chuck Schumer doesn’t understand. And the media is starting to really come around. Even some of the national media over the weekend were talking about how Democrats already approved this continuing resolution nine times before. There’s nothing different. The only thing we added was security money for the three branches of government, which, unfortunately, we need now because we live in such a heightened state of disjointedness and people trying to do harm to those they don’t agree with. But that was it, and there’s really nothing to negotiate. I know people want us to all get along and sing Kumbaya. And you know me, I go across the aisle all the time and talk with Democrats.
Washington Reporter:
For example, you bring Rep. Jonathan Jackson to a farm in Missouri.
Rep. Mark Alford:
More than just that, he comes to my house, and we smoke cigars on my back porch and talk about abortion and gun control and his dad. It’s not like I’m a jerk. It’s that we are trying to do things the right way. And the Democrats, for so long, have operated under the theory that an omnibus bill is the way to go. They can’t get away from that. And then they start holding us hostage with all these other distractions like the Epstein files; that has nothing to do with this. The ACA premium tax subsidies is another example. Look at hospitals. They get it. They do not like the insurance companies. The insurance companies are holding back payments to these hospitals that are driving them under. The average American doesn’t realize that these temporary COVID-era tax subsidies were paid to the insurance companies. The insurance companies are getting rich off this, and in the meantime, the American people are not able to get the health care that they deserve, largely because of the insurance companies. Something has to be done about the Medicare Advantage program, for example. Every rural hospital that I went to, including the one today, is not getting the payments from Medicare Advantage. It’s easier to get a patent through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office than it is to get a repayment for a pre-authorized treatment from Medicare Advantage. And we’ve got to look at that. I talked to Brett Guthrie about this last week, and I think something is going to be done in the not too distant future on Medicare Advantage. But getting back to your original question, I know I’ve kind of spiderwebbed all over the place, but a large part of what I do when I’m back in the district is helping people understand and educate them about what reality is and the reality is is that we are on track to turn this ship around and get back to regular order under the great leadership of Tom Cole, our chair on the Appropriations Committee, to make sure we’re doing it the right way. For the first time in a long time, we’ve sent three appropriations bills to conference with the Senate. We’re on the right track. But the distractions and the intransigence from the Democrats because they’re scared of AOC primarying Chuck Schumer is a disgrace. I think it’s pig headed of Chuck Schumer to put himself above the American people.
Washington Reporter:
Because we’re already on the topic of rural topic of rural hospitals, we’ve seen that this is something that Democrats, who do not represent a lot of rural hospitals between Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, making a very big deal out of them. You visited, as you said, ten of them; you visited one today. What’s the reality with these hospitals as they think about navigating the Schumer Shutdown? Obviously there have been some highly publicized rural hospital closures in America. But what is actually happening here?
Rep. Mark Alford:
Some good things are actually happening out of this. There’s a group of rural hospitals in our district. We have 18 rural hospitals in our district. There’s 54 total in Missouri, and they are working with the governor’s office to access the $50 billion in this Rural Health Transformation Program, and trying to make sure that money goes to qualified hospitals and not to urban hospitals. A lot of urban hospitals in Kansas City and St. Louis and other large municipalities are already trying to apply for this money, and that’s not going to happen if we have anything to do about it.
Washington Reporter:
Is that via the 340B program?
Rep. Mark Alford:
No, they’re trying to see how they can apply for some of this grant money that goes to the governor’s office. Our governor is very intent, and the state Medicaid and Medicare office is very intent, on making sure this money does not go to urban hospitals, that it stays in rural hospitals. Even if the urban hospitals take in some rural patients, this is primarily meant to to help offset and mitigate some of the losses during the Medicaid reform, because they’re not going to have illegal aliens who are treated and getting reimbursed in there, and they’re not going to have 30 year old men with no dependents living in their parents’ basement on Medicaid going to these rural hospitals anymore, those kids are going to be out looking for a job. So these hospitals are forming consortiums now in groups of 10 and 20 to get better buying power, to get better self insurance when they are self-insuring for their employees and for resources and for workers and talent and doctors and nurses, and it’s kind of interesting to see how they are rising to the challenges of this Medicaid reform. I think it’s going to, in the long run, make these hospitals, more healthy in a way that they’re going to be able to survive any challenges that may come their way in the future. I think you’re also going to see some consolidation of some of these hospitals. We have two or three that have less than a couple of days’ cash on hand. They have bonds and according to their bond agreements, they have to have a lot more than that. It’s something like two or three weeks’ cash on hand. So they’re at risk of not existing. Some other hospitals, one in particular that’s in our district, that I think is looking at other hospitals to come absorb it into their system, not for greed, but to keep the economies of these smaller towns alive. We have a town called Nevada in my district. It’s spelled like Nevada, but it’s Nevada. It’s in Vernon County. It has a 3M plant there. It’s where the sticky note was invented. That was invented in our district. They’re very much in danger of losing their hospital. And I think what’s going to happen is one of these medium-sized hospital systems, like Golden Valley, out of Henry County, about an hour and a half away, could be helping to absorb these into the system, to keep that hospital open. What happens if these hospitals start closing down? It’s going to put a lot of pressure on the other hospitals who don’t have the resources to treat people in the rural communities.
Washington Reporter:
So I want to zoom back in on your visits in a second. You were talking about the failures of the legacy media to accurately cover the shutdown; looking at what you’ve been doing in the past three weeks, you’ve been doing a lot of new media yourself. Obviously, we’re a new media outlet as well. Tell me why that’s important to you as a guy who was Mr. Local Media, Mr. Local TV in particular. Now you’re doing these podcasts and interviews with other new media outlets. Why is that a priority of yours?
Rep. Mark Alford:
I don’t want to brag about what we’re doing. Our team is amazing.
Washington Reporter:
Well, you should brag! They’re great.
Rep. Mark Alford:
Our workers are at their desks working without pay. We have case workers. All of our offices are open 9-5. People are walking in. We’re taking calls. I’m putting it out there on radio, every interview I can do, that our office is open. We want to get you in the system. We may not be able to get people on the other end of the line in Washington, D.C., but we can at least get the head start. We have a guy named Timothy Brooks who lives in our district. He’s a veteran. I went to visit him, and he’s been working with our case worker, Michelle, and he has a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, and he’s using what’s called Community Cares. It’s a program in the VA where if you can’t get the help you need immediately in the VA system, you can go outside the system and get your treatment. He’s been doing that, and now the Community Cares program is shut off because of the Schumer Shutdown. Well, he’s been working with Michelle in our office to try to get through to the VA to get an approval for this Community Cares program. I feel bad for him. He needs that treatment. He needs it every week for his mental health, and he has served our great nation, and yet Chuck Schumer is holding him hostage as well. I’m so proud of the work that our team has done, returning more than $10 million in the two and a half years that I’ve been there to constituents that the federal government was holding on to. Now, you’re going to help more people in Florida or Texas, but we’re kind of a rural district.
Washington Reporter:
That’s $10 million more than I’ve returned.
Rep. Mark Alford:
I think it’s a great testament. I want to showcase that. When I ran for office, I told people that I am going to be the loudest, strongest, most consistent, unwavering, conservative voice they’ve ever seen. And I want to tell their stories, not just in Washington, but in the media, the national media, and in social media, so people can understand that we’re not just flyover country. We are the heart of Missouri and the heart of America. We are America. And I want people to know what we stand for. My district is filled with hard working, God-fearing families who love their country and who want to make it a better place. And that’s going to take each of us doing our part, and people want to do their part. But it’s hard to when Schumer’s holding us hostage.
Washington Reporter:
The whole world heard Missouri’s 4th District loud and clear when America bombed the Iranian nuclear facilities.
Rep. Mark Alford:
That’s correct; bombers took off from our district in June and flew 17 hours, I believe, over to Iran and decapitated the nuclear capabilities of Iran, and then flew back. I just interviewed on one of my podcasts, Colonel Keith Butler, who had worked on planning Operation Midnight Hammer for years and years and years and decided that he was going to retire and he set a retirement date. I went to his retirement ceremony, and it was already set. But two days later, Operation Midnight Hammer was carried out. He was not able to be in command because he had retired. It’s quite a testament, not just to the pilots, but to the ground crews, the flight controllers, people who load those armaments on the B2 Stealth bombers, and we’re getting the B21 which is going to be a replacement.
Washington Reporter:
As a former member of the House Armed Services Committee, and as a guy who interviewed one of the planners of Midnight Hammer, and as the co-chair of the Long Range Strike Caucus, are there ways that the Schumer Shutdown is hampering our military readiness?
Rep. Mark Alford:
Well, there could be. Thank goodness that President Trump found the money over the objection of the Democrats who did not want to get our military paid last pay cycle. Now, where are we going to find the money for this next pay cycle? There are some families out on Whiteman Air Force Base who qualify for food stamps. I think that’s wrong. That’s why I’ve work with General Don Bacon on the quality of life panel in the Armed Services Committee to make sure that we got a significant raise for our lower level enlisted troops. That was also in the One Big, Beautiful Bill that the Democrats wanted to scrap as well, and as you saw in the Senate, just last week, they refused to vote for the Defense approps bill that would give our military a pay raise, which they’ve never done before. It got out of committee fine, but this was another way for them to thumb their nose at the American people. What we’re looking at now is a situation where, if we don’t find the money and the Schumer Shutdown continues for another week or two, we’re going to see that military families that put their lives on the line to guard us from evil are not going to be paid because of Chuck Schumer.
Washington Reporter:
One of the other committees that you’re on that seems to be related to all of this is the Small Business Committee; you’ve been meeting with small business owners throughout your district. How is this impacting that section of your economy?
Rep. Mark Alford:
Well, I’ve been in several coffee houses. I was one in today called The Gathering, which is in Warrensburg. They’re getting along. Unless you have a pending transaction or a loan with the SBA, you’re not going to really feel any effects in that regard. We have 33,000 federal workers in Kansas City, and many of them live in my district and commute into Kansas City. One of the first things you’re going to start doing when you don’t get a paycheck for the first time this week or next week, is you’re going to stop buying $5 coffees. You’re going to see that some of these small businesses are going to start hurting because of that; things that are considered luxuries for a lot of people, like their cup of coffee, or maybe the dry cleaners, things that can be temporarily halted until Chuck Schumer reopens the government, are going to be put on hold. We are going to see small businesses starting to hurt. And I really think that’s what Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries want. They want America to feel pain so that they can put pressure on the Republicans to negotiate. But there’s nothing to negotiate. And the sooner that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem realize that, the better off America will be.
Washington Reporter:
From your perspective at the RSC, where you’re one of their go to messengers, both on the Schumer Shutdown, for obvious reasons, clearly, and more broadly, what have you been hearing from your colleagues as you wait in this limbo period for the Senate to pass the budget that you already passed, and that most Democrats voted for countless times already? And what is your advice to them as they go about navigating the both their constituents and the media landscapes in their respective districts around the country?
Rep. Mark Alford:
I’m the Chairman of the Communications Task Force for the Republican Study Committee, the largest and oldest conservative caucus for Republicans on Capitol Hill. We have over 120 members now. Lisa McClain is doing an unbelievable job. Speaker Johnson, Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer are too. I watch their conferences from the podium there in the press room on Capitol Hill. I know they want us to all stay on message. They don’t have to tell us that. I call around every day and check on some members who are friends of mine, just making sure they’re doing okay. I’ve checked on Tom Cole and Hal Rogers and Mario Díaz-Balart yesterday. I kind of miss people and seeing them, but everyone is on the same message on this: there’s nothing to negotiate. This is different than any other shutdown that we’ve had in the past. There’s always been some room to negotiate, and eventually that happens, and that’s why I don’t see this ending anytime soon if Schumer and Hakeem continue their political games. It’s going to take Schumer and Hakeem coming to the realization that there is nothing left for us to do. You can talk about these COVID-era insurance subsidies when we get back if you want to; they’re the ones who passed it under the Inflation Reduction Act and set the expiration date for these COVID-era insurance subsidies. That’s on them, and we can have a conversation about that, but now, first off, we’ve got to open the government. That is the messaging that everyone is in alignment with, and not because the leadership has said that. It’s just because it is right. It is easy for us to repeat that because we all know it is the right thing to do.
Washington Reporter:
Finally, I think you’re going to be in a distinct minority, especially among your colleagues here, but the Chiefs have been looking a lot better recently. You think they have what it takes to go all the way?
Rep. Mark Alford:
Yes.
Washington Reporter:
I’ll note, there was a pause there.
Rep. Mark Alford:
Here’s why. Last year, before the season began, I predicted a 17-0 season, and people scoffed. This year, I knew that we were going to have more trouble. We have a lot of players in and out. We have some characters on our team this year, like Rashee Rice who likes to drive fast in Dallas; we have a Taylor Swift component and Travis Kelce. There’s a lot happening, a lot of moving parts on the Kansas City Chiefs. We have a fantastic coach, Andy Reid, who has guided this team, built this team, and is trying to hold everyone together. When I was in television and we were trying to get to number one when I first got Kansas City 28 years ago, I remember our boss saying, ‘remember this when we get to number one: it’s a lot easier to get there than it is to stay there.’ That’s what the Chiefs are figuring out now: everyone wants to pick them off every game, especially when teams come to the Arrowhead, to them, it’s the Super Bowl. I think we proved when we played the Lions, and I was at that game last week, the true tenacity, strength, intelligence of our team, and yes, I think we will go all the way and I think we will win the Super Bowl.
Washington Reporter:
Well, no better note from your perspective to end on than that. I’ll end by saying the New England Patriots are number two in the AFC right now, so we’ll potentially be seeing you in the playoffs.