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Tom Cole: “We're asking air traffic controllers to work for free while…”

Featuring: Tom Cole, Republican | U.S. House Oklahoma, 4th Congressional District

Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown

Published October 23, 2025 | Video Starts at 19:20

But it certainly doesn't help men and women that don't get paid. So it doesn't help, you know, families where genuinely need assistance. And it certainly doesn't keep our skies safe. You know, We're asking air traffic controllers to work for free while we travel. I mean, you know, they got bills to pay too. They've got mortgages, they got car payments, they've got families that need to get fed. (19:20–19:25)

CLAIM

Asserts that air traffic controllers are working without pay during the shutdown.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Tom Cole

“Appropriations cover only about 26% of total federal spending.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 00:46-00:55
“Women and children in the WIC program will run out of money in November.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 03:23-03:31
“They've asked for a guaranteed trillion and a half dollars over ten years in exchange for a four to seven week continuing resolution.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 08:43-08:52
“Tinker Air Force Base is the largest air depot in the world.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 25:46-25:51
“Every bomber in the United States fleet moves through Tinker Air Force Base.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 25:58-26:03
“Every tanker, every AWACS plane [in the U.S. fleet] moves through Tinker Air Force Base.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 26:02-26:03
“Most of the budget is Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, which we don't handle.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 00:37-00:43
“All 12 [appropriations] bills were out of committee before September 30th.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 01:30-01:34
“Democrats decided to place two unrelated demands in appropriations.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 01:55-02:01
“Obamacare subsidies for health insurance are running out on December 31st.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 02:15-02:25
“No Republican voted for Obamacare or these subsidies.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 02:25-02:35
“The president would be unlikely to sign [the measure] as is.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 03:02-03:06
“Capitol Police got half a paycheck two weeks ago, probably get nothing this time.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 03:14-03:23
“We have to get to a bipartisan majority to pass these bills.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 05:59-06:05
“The continuing resolution itself is a clean bill, there's nothing new about it. There's no gimmicks, there's no tricks, there's no poison…”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 07:21-07:31
“In the four top appropriators meeting, my Democratic colleagues asked for two things. They asked for a short term CR, which is what we gave…”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 07:37-07:47
“The Trump administration had wanted to go into January, but frankly we all agreed. No, we want deadlines that are closer.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 07:46-07:55
“They wanted what's called a totally clean cr that is nothing else extraneous put into it. And that's where. And we gave them that.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 08:04-08:13
“Here comes the demand from their leadership. No, we're going to add things that this committee has no jurisdiction over.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 08:14-08:22
“We're going to undo the Medicaid changes that you passed into law and the president signed on July 4th.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 08:22-08:30
“They've now done the same thing for 20 days and no end in sight.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 09:32-09:37
“It's jeopardizing millions of American paychecks, services that people that really do need services rely on like wic.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 09:38-09:48
“The Senate, which had done much better than was still behind us, they've only gotten six bills out of committee, three across the floor like…”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 11:00-11:09
“It's the first time that they had passed bills across the floor before September in seven years.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 11:10-11:17
“If we passed the three bills that are under consideration now, military construction and Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and then what's…”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 12:04-12:21
“This is a bill Democrats wrote, passed themselves and a date they set.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 12:51-12:56
“Almost every Democrat has voted no [to keeping the government open].”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 14:24-14:33
“Almost every Republican member of the House and the Senate has voted over and over to keep the government open or reopen the government.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 14:25-14:33
“We do have a bipartisan majority in both chambers that voted to keep the government open. 55 people in the Senate.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 14:37-14:45
“It's only the two top left leaders of the Democratic Party [Schumer and Jeffries]...have ginned up this fight.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 15:12-15:27
“Appropriators want to do their job. They do not want a year-long continuing resolution.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 15:51-15:58
“It's an artificial crisis literally created by Democratic leaders.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 16:45-16:52
“We would need another CR because we've wasted so far four weeks of this one.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 17:38-17:44
“Each bill you pass means that part of the government's open and functional through the end of the fiscal year.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 17:46-17:52
“One of [the rescissions packages] was for about $9 billion. One of them was for about 4.9 billion.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 20:10-20:16
“The amount of money we're talking about here [in rescissions] is relatively small. Most of it came out of foreign aid or what was leftover…”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 21:28-21:38
“Fort Sill is the home of the field artillery since 1911.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 25:50-25:57
“The National Weather Center [in Oklahoma] is important because it's tornado alley and it's also storm prediction for the entire country for…”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 27:35-27:46
“The president at least made sure our men and women in uniform got paid, but he can't do that indefinitely.”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 28:23-28:30
“I expect to get Democratic votes. I won't get every Republican vote, but I would hope a majority of each side can vote on keeping the…”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 29:30-29:41
“Democratic leadership is being incredibly unreasonable. They're demanding things that they don't have the votes to achieve, and they're…”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 30:06-30:15
“How safe are you if there's not meat inspectors making sure that the product you buy and put on your table, maybe for your family is safe?”
Rep. Tom Cole shares about chairing appropriations and his optimism post-shutdown | Uploaded October 23, 2025 | 30:21-30:31