Fresh off a call with U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought, U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) posted a video to social media to update Alabamians on the government shutdown, which began Tuesday night.

“Let’s make this clear, that it was the Democrats that absolutely shut the government down,” Moore said.

“In the House, we passed it [a seven-week continuing resolution] out with a party-line vote, but the Republicans voted to keep the government open in the House of Representatives.”

Moore, who is running for Alabama’s open seat in the U.S. Senate, noted that Senate Democrats could have passed the House bill, but have stalled in an attempt to force Republicans to add partisan provisions to the bill.

“All of a sudden, Schumer — we call them ‘Shutdown Schumer’ and ‘Hold-Up Hakeem’ Jeffries — decided that they were going to go back and demand a trillion dollars in additional spending in order to keep the government open,” Moore said.

“They wanted to undo the Big Beautiful Bill, where we took illegals off of Medicaid, and they wanted to take away the $50 billion that we put in the budget for rural hospitals and $9.2 million for every rural hospital in Alabama to keep those hospitals open for working people who live away from a bigger city.”

Although the government is shut down, Moore noted that critical programs will continue to operate.

“USDA programs and farm programs are going to continue to be processed and funded.”

“Social Security will continue to move and do what it does, and you’ll get your checks there.”

“Medicare will be funded. The VA will be funded. Parks are going to be funded.”

“TSA is going to be open. Air Traffic Control, National Weather, FEMA’s going to be functioning. Hospitals will be open.”

Moore also said he hopes Democrats will agree to a deal before military personnel are due to receive their mid-month paychecks. Service members were paid on Wednesday for work done prior to the shutdown.

“The Democrats just simply don’t desire to fund the government right now to punish the American people for Donald Trump and us moving his agenda forward,” Moore said, adding that he thinks Congressional Democrats will eventually cave.

“I feel like we’re seeing some cracks in there. They’re getting a lot of pressure.”