Nomination of Russell Vought (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, our constituents, our country, and our Constitution are under attack by Donald Trump and Russell Vought.
Democrats are fighting back. Russell Vought--also pronounced ``vote''--is the mastermind of Project 2025 and of all of the chaos and the lawlessness that Trump has unleashed across our country.
Today, my Republican colleagues are trying to jam through the confirmation of this man, Russell Vought, and it is our job to say ``stop'' because this man is incredibly dangerous to the foundations of our Republic, the system of laws and checks and balances of our Constitution. When you put into the Office of Management and Budget an individual who willfully avoids and rolls over the laws of the country and says he will not abide by the separation of powers, that is a fundamental danger that all of us, having taken an oath to the Constitution, must stop.
He is Donald Trump's most dangerous nominee. Oh, you may not have heard of him as much as you have heard of the nominee for the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Hegseth. You may not have heard about him in the same way you have heard about Tulsi Gabbard, who went to Syria without the permission of the State Department to consult with a dictator. But this man, who is the chief engineer--the chief engineer--of the Trump train--a train that plans to disregard the law and the Constitution--is a bigger danger to our Republic. That is why Democrats are taking the floor now and will continue to hold the floor over every minute allowed under our rules to say: This is a mistake.
To colleagues across the aisle, you, too, took an oath to the Constitution. You have a responsibility to defend it, and the only way to defend it at the end of this 30 hours is to vote no on Russell Vought.
The American people are watching us today, and I know they are feeling rage about what Trump and Vought are doing. I know this because, this last weekend, I had five townhalls in Oregon, and we had three to eight times the number of people turn out who turned out a year ago, which was an election year, which has a bigger turnout than a normal year.
They wondered: How is it possible to break the law in firing inspectors general? How is it possible to break the law in firing a member of the National Labor Relations Board in the middle of an 8-year term when the law doesn't allow you to do that? How is it possible
Yes, the President can ask Congress to write a new law, but to do it through Executive fiat? No, the Constitution does not allow that.
The impoundment of funds people asked about. It has been very clear since the time of Nixon--when Nixon impounded funds, Congress then stood together and said, ``Hell no, you cannot do that,'' and the courts said, ``Hell no, you cannot do that,'' and then Nixon followed the issue as the courts decided.
But Mr. Russell Vought--or ``vote''--he doesn't care, he said. He says: The President doesn't agree that this should be the interpretation of the Constitution, and I don't agree. So we are just going to impound funds as we want.
That is a dangerous man to our Republic. So I encourage citizens across this country: It is your opportunity to be heard as you were this weekend at my townhalls. Take to the streets. Take to the phones. Let your message amplify and ring from the eastern coast to the western coast and the southern border to the northern border with Canada. Let your message ring that true patriots will stand with the Constitution of the United States of America, that true patriots will defend the separation of powers, that true patriots will defend the checks and balances inherent in our Constitution.
Well, just know we stand with you, America, and we are fighting back from the outside and the inside--patriots, together, patriots united-- in defending our Constitution against this sweeping, authoritarian coup. That is what we are doing.
Now, I know you hear the word ``coup,'' and you think: Isn't it a coup when the military comes in and takes over in violation of the Constitution?
There is also a quieter kind of coup. When the President refuses to follow the laws of the Constitution, that is a coup as well, and that is what we are facing now. That is why every Member of this body should be standing up to say no to the architect of this coup--Russell Vought.
What we have now in President Trump is government by billionaires for billionaires. Our fight is to say that that is not the vision of our Constitution. Our vision of the Constitution is of a ``we the people'' Constitution or, as Abraham Lincoln said, ``a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.'' That is a very different vision-- the vision embedded in our Constitution--than the vision being pursued by the President at this moment.
So you will hear from many Members of the Democratic caucus over the next 30 hours, and we ask of our colleagues: Listen to what is said. Don't mindlessly follow the dictates of an authoritarian President who is trying to violate the Constitution, because that is not your responsibility, and recognize that what he is doing is trying to take away the legislative power of the House and Senate and replace it with Executive fiats.
Wasn't it strange to listen to an inaugural speech in which President Trump didn't talk about legislative initiatives? It was just one Executive order after the other. The message was clear. He was telling America: I am not going to be a President who executes the laws; I am going to be a President who overrides the laws with Executive orders.
Just within hours--mere hours--of taking the oath to the Constitution, he put forward an Executive order that violated the 14th Amendment on birthright citizenship. Just days after taking the oath to the Constitution, he put forward a strategy of impoundment that violates the core of the Constitution, where the power of the purse is given to Congress, not to the President.
So here we are, going forward. We are in dangerous times for our Nation. We are in the midst of this unfolding authoritarian coup, and we have the responsibility to stop it.
Now, it is hard to focus on any one thing. The expression I have heard almost hourly is the President is ``flooding the zone,'' meaning he is doing so many things at once and so many Executive orders that it just creates, well, confusion and chaos, and it makes it hard to focus on any one action that is so diabolical that normally all of us would be focused on it and saying: No.
So this strategy is an effective one, but that is why we are taking the next 30 hours to not focus on 100 things but 1 thing: the danger Russell Vought presents to our Constitution and our responsibility--our responsibility--in advice and consent under the Constitution to vet that candidate, realize who he is, and say he is not fit to be the Director of OMB, the Office of Management and Budget. In fact, he is not fit to serve in any governmental capacity.
It was quite troubling to experience Donald Trump's dead-of-night directive a week ago Monday night to cut off funding for programs that families depend on--programs to feed children, programs to pay rent, programs to see the doctor--cutoffs that are cruel and indiscriminate and illegal because the President has the responsibility to execute the laws, not ignore them or violate them.
We saw so much happen in terms of disrespecting or breaking the law.
The inspectors general--17 and counting--are the watchdogs who say to the executive branch: You must obey the law. So, if you want to see what an authoritarian President does who is seeking an imperial Presidency where he can write the laws through fiat, one of the first things you do is tear down the watchdogs, and that is what he did. The watchdog for the Department of Labor, the watchdog for the Interior, the watchdog for Housing and Urban Development, the watchdog for the Defense Department, the watchdog for the State Department, the watchdog for Agriculture, the watchdog for Health and Human Services, the watchdog for the Department of Education--all fired in violation of the law.
The law does give the President the ability to dismiss an inspector general under two conditions. The first condition--30-days' notice. The second condition is that it be for cause. Both were broken.
Why is no Member of the President's party standing up on the floor of the Senate and saying, ``Respect the law, Mr. President''?
That is an obligation we all share. It isn't the responsibility of the minority party to say ``defend the Constitution'' alone; it is the responsibility of the majority party as well, of every individual Member here in the Senate.
Then we had the President fire a member of the National Labor Relations Board, but the law says you can't do that. They have a term. You get to put in and nominate a new person at the end of the term. But he was fired anyway. Why? Because it is part of the attack on families and the ability to enforce labor protections this President opposes.
He wants to give free rein to corporations to run over labor provisions embedded in the law. If there is no one to appeal to, then there is no constraint on the abuses put onto working people. That is what we are facing.
The President fired the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I can tell you, protection of consumers from terrible financial products is incredibly important.
You know, when I was elected to the Senate, we had two types of loans that were predatory mortgage loans that were turning the dream of home ownership into a nightmare.
One was called the triple option loan. What that meant was that you could pay a smaller amount, and the amount you owed on your house would actually escalate over time. Then when you got to a certain point of escalation, then the loan would switch, and you would have to pay a different amount that many people couldn't afford. So it resulted in a lot of foreclosures.
Then we had another type of home mortgage with an exploding interest rate. You would get a subsidized interest rate for a couple of years, and then the interest rate explodes to 9 or 10 percent. People couldn't make those payments.
They had been steered into those loans by mortgage brokers who were getting kickbacks undisclosed to the person taking out the loan. They were being betrayed by kickbacks called steering payments.
That is the type of thing that hurt America terribly because the foreclosures then were a key factor driving the collapse of the economy in 2007, 2008, into 2009. Hundreds of thousands,
I was very pleased to lead the charge in Dodd-Frank to end those predatory loans. But for ongoing protection against scurrilous, scandalous scams, you need a watchdog for the consumer. The President, favoring billionaires and corporations over the American workers, proceeded to fire the watchdog that protects us against scandalous scams in financial products.
Then the President fired members of the FBI, experts who were focused on making sure the executive branch stays within the confines of the law. Well, if you don't want the FBI checking out the fact that you are breaking the law, you fire them so there is no one there to hold you accountable or do a report.
These are the acts of a President determined to rule by fiat and break the laws and break the Constitution.
Then Donald Trump gave Elon Musk unprecedented and unacceptable access to the U.S. Treasury's most sensitive payment systems. Those payment systems control over $5 trillion a year in payments. Those payment systems have everyone's private information.
Do you like the fact that Elon Musk and his team of muskrats, with their laptops, has been in there downloading information on you? Don't you kind of worry about the type of Big Brother government that downloads your private information and sends in inexperienced people to take over the payments and take your private information: where you live, how much you earn, your tax returns, whether you get Medicare, whether you get Social Security, your Social Security number-- everything within that world. That is a massive assault on the privacy of American citizens by a Big Brother government--the type of government that wants to be an authoritarian Presidency and control everything and have power over everything, and so they invade the Treasury and the system of payments.
Not only is it a huge risk to the privacy of Americans across this land, but it also is an invitation to exploitation. It is an invitation to extortion because now Big Brother government, in the form of Mr. Trump and Elon Musk and his muskrats, has your information that they can use against you should they so please.
Finally, there is the danger that this crew that invaded Treasury alters the codes and screws up the payments. Maybe they don't intend to, but they do because they don't know what they are doing. They are not experts on the code. Then suddenly the Medicare or Social Security payments or tax returns don't go out the way they are supposed to.
A whole lot of Americans aren't like billionaire Trump and his band of billionaire bros. They are living paycheck to paycheck. So screwing up a single payment can put a family in a world of hurt, including missing a rent payment that gets them thrown out of their house.
That is not the only way that Team Trump is attacking ordinary families. There is also the big sales tax he wants to impose across the Nation in the form of tariffs.
Mr. Trump says: Huh, it will be the Ford companies that pay for tariffs.
Well, just factually, that is wrong. The importer pays the tariff bill, not the group that exports to the United States. The American company that imports pays the tariff. Then, in order to pay the tariff, they raise their prices. So it becomes a sales tax on the American people. So a 25-percent tariff on Mexico or Canada becomes a 25-percent tax more or less on working America.
You know, President Trump posted on Truth Social that tariffs should never have been ended in favor of the income tax system. Just recognize this: Tariffs that result in higher prices on Americans are incredibly regressive. They have a much bigger impact on those who are less well off who have to buy food and groceries. Unlike a sales tax that has an exemption for healthcare or food or groceries, there is no exemption from the higher prices driven by a tariff. So they are incredibly regressive. The tariffs are a strategy to attack working families across this land.
Trump was very clear. He said basically we should go back to the old system of funding our government by tariffs, the system we had before 1913, when America ratified the 16th Amendment and allowed the income tax. In other words, he wants to go from a tax system on income that can, if implemented carefully--and often it is not, and it has way too many loopholes--it can be progressive; that is, the rich who can afford to pay more can pay a higher percent.
But the tariffs converted into a sales tax on Americans--that is, in fact, incredibly regressive, hurting the poor. It is why rich folks always want to have a sales tax replace an income tax, because they know they pay less. The rich pay less, and the working stiffs have to pay more because their paycheck has to go directly to consumption because that is what they have, paycheck to paycheck. They have got to pay the rent, got to pay for food, got to pay the utility bill. But the well off are taking their extra funds and they are investing. So they don't have to spend every dime on consumption. That is the mechanics of how a tariff becomes a regressive sales tax.
Let's be crystal clear about what is happening. There is a three-part plan in Project 2025--again, the architect of which is up for confirmation right now--on the question of advice and consent by the Senate. So the architect of Project 2025 has a three-step plan.
Attack working families--that is step 1. That is what happens when you cut the programs for healthcare and housing and education and children--you attack the families. Step 2, borrow trillions from the Treasury and run up the debt, currently estimated to be in the area of about $3 trillion. Then take and deliver a massive tax giveaway to the billionaires. That is the plan: Attack families, borrow trillions, and give away trillions to the billionaires.
In fact, the current estimate for the amount given to the trillionaires is around $4.6 trillion--or to the billionaires or mega millionaires, the richest Americans--$4.6 trillion.
Kind of ironic, isn't it, that a President who campaigned on helping families is actually driving a plan, in partnership with Russell Vought, to attack families and deliver for the billionaires? Campaign on government for families, get elected, and immediately pivot to attacking families and delivering for billionaires--that is what we are facing.
This is the great betrayal, a betrayal of all the voters who believed Donald Trump when he said ``I am for you,'' who believed him when he said he wants to protect and help working families, and yet he attacks the ability of workers to organize and get a fair day's pay for an honest day's work. That is the great betrayal.
The architect of this is up for confirmation right now. The architect for this is advocating for the President to violate the laws and has already demonstrated that these last 2 weeks. The architect of this is arguing that we cut programs, run up the debt, and give it all to the richest Americans. That is the plan.
So over the next 30 hours, Democrats are coming to the floor united, determined to stand with the families of the United States of America. Mr. Trump is standing with the billionaires.
My colleagues who have indicated they want to confirm Russell Vought, confirm the architect of Project 2025, confirm the person who inspired the attacks on family programs a week ago Monday night--they are standing with the billionaires.
I invite them, come join us. Do not stand for government by and for billionaires. Come join us and fight for families. Come join us and honor the responsibility of the executive branch to obey the laws. Come join us and protect the constitutional separation of powers.
After all, the President's effort to move the power of the purse from Congress--the power of Congress is to say: Here are the instructions. We want you to fund this program and this program and this program. The President wants to say: It doesn't matter; those are just suggestions.
I have news for you: Read the Constitution. The President is not a king, and a law is not a suggestion.
So come join us united in support of the law and the Constitution.
Russell Vought is a leading proponent of the impoundment theory
No. We had this conversation back in the Nixon era. Remember President Nixon, along with Watergate? Remember that other unconstitutional thing he did? That was to say: I as President can stop the funding of programs that the law says I am supposed to fund. Well, the Court said otherwise. It said, in fact: No way. That is unconstitutional.
Then in 1974, in the Budget and Impoundment Control Act, Congress said: Hey, Mr. President, we will give you a mechanism by which you can present the idea of changing current law. You don't think we need to spend money on, say, that weapon program because the technology is outdated or maybe you don't need to spend money on some feeding program because it is duplicative of another feeding program or food program or you don't need to spend money on X, Y, or Z. Maybe a nuclear warhead was being rebuilt to be on a certain missile, but we are not building the missile anymore.
So the President could proceed to say: Here is a letter that comes to Congress saying: I know these are in the law. I know I have to fund them. But we shouldn't fund them, so, please, over the next 45 days, debate and vote on changing the current law so that we save this money.
It is called a rescission. It is in the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act. We gave the President a tool by which he could follow the Constitution and ask for reductions in programs already passed into law.
Now, I am quite sure that not a single Senator here, not a single Senator wandering around the Capitol somewhere, has received a rescission letter from President Trump or one on behalf of President Trump from the Office of Management and Budget.
If you want to cut programs that are already in the law, there is a mechanism to do it lawfully. You ask Congress to do so in a letter for a rescission. It is a fancy word. We don't talk about it much. Presidents don't very often ask us to undo programs we have just passed because we budget on an annual basis; we pass those laws on an annual basis. So they are rarely so out of date that a President says: OK, undo that program. But they have the power to do so because we gave the President the ability to ask in the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act.
And by the way, the lower court rescissions that preceded that 1974 law, those were then reviewed and made it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said, absolutely, the President cannot impound funds. It is a violation of the Constitution.
So to my colleagues, if you are saying: I don't know if Senator Merkley from Oregon is right about this, read the Supreme Court case. And you have a responsibility to defend the Constitution, and that is why you have a responsibility to vote no on Russell Vought, who wants to violate the Constitution.
Another piece that I am concerned about with Mr. Vought is that he didn't wait to be confirmed to start being, essentially, the shadow director of the Office of Management and Budget. I can't count how many nominees have come through and said: Well, actually, I can't go near that office until I am confirmed because that would be a violation of the intent of the Constitution that people have to be confirmed before they take a role.
But what did we hear from the White House after all these illegal Executive orders were put out? Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: Russell Vought told me to tell all of you the line to his office is open.
So here is Mr. Vought basically saying: I am really the power already at OMB. My line is open; call me.
Well, Mr. Vought, if you would quit breaking the law and advocating for breaking the law, you would know you shouldn't be in the Office of Management and Budget essentially acting as if you have been confirmed when you haven't been confirmed yet.
Again, it is a confirmation of the inclination of this individual to say: The laws don't matter; I will do what I want no matter how much damage it does to the law or the Constitution.
So we did send a letter to Mr. Vought saying: Are you on the payroll currently? Do you have a title? Have you been hired as a senior assistant? Is that legal given you are up for nomination to run the place? Is it legal for you to be hired as an adviser and then act as if you are running the place? Is that legal?
We didn't get any answers.
Another reason to vote no: The file is not complete. He hasn't answered. Why does he not want to answer? Because you wouldn't like the answer. The American people wouldn't like the answer that he is over there running OMB at a time he hasn't even been confirmed by the Senate. So he doesn't answer. That, too, should bother colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
Because we didn't have answers, the Democrats on the Budget Committee wrote to the chair of the Budget Committee and said: Delay this vote. Delay it for 2 weeks so we can get answers to questions and get a complete file.
Well, that is a reasonable request in this situation because both sides of the aisle have often worked together to say nominees have to complete their paperwork, they have to answer the questions raised by the committee. But we were told: No. This position is so urgent. The President so desperately needs the architect of Project 2025 to be the engineer on the train that we can't actually wait and get answers and have the file completed.
I certainly disagree with that answer. I think it disrespects the entire membership of the Budget Committee.
And then, the vote in committee was scheduled without the file complete, and it was scheduled to be done in a little room off the floor over here where the public cannot attend and where members would not be allowed to talk to each other and share their observations or concerns, which basically violates the whole premise of members on a committee sharing their observations to try to get to a better answer.
Now, I was told that, as the ranking Democrat, I can make a few comments, but the rest of my committee--other Democrats or even the other members of the Republican side--were told they couldn't make any comments or attempt to influence each other. So we said: No, that is not right. This is such an important nomination and his background is so troubling and his current actions are so troubling, hold that conversation about the vote in a public forum.
Just that morning, we had held just such a public conversation on the Ambassador to the United Nations in the Foreign Relations room. Each member was asked: Do you want to add anything as we consider whether or not to send this nomination to the floor?
Well, the Ambassador to the United Nations is a pretty important role. But, you know, the chief engineer of the Office of Management and Budget, the architect of this entire strategy that Trump has laid out, that is very important as well. So we asked for a public hearing or discussion so that members could talk to each other, share their concerns, maybe persuade each other--though not often enough do we listen to each other--and the result was, from the chair of the Budget Committee: No, we are not holding a public dialogue about whether people think he should be confirmed.
So the vote was held in a tiny room. I think one reporter was allowed in. No public was allowed in, no expanded press corps, no dialogue between the members. We asked a reasonable request that this be done publicly, and that was denied.
I am sorry to the American public that you were excluded because you would have heard then what you are hearing from me now and what you will hear from Members of the Democrats over the next 30 hours: how fabulously unfit this individual is to serve in any government role.
So we are here tonight, on through now, through the night, into the morning--we are here for the next 30 hours to raise the alarm about how dangerously unfit this nominee is to serve in the role of chief engineer because he doesn't respect the law, he doesn't respect the Constitution. He has already demonstrated that by stepping into the role and coordinating the dark-of-night decisions to cut programs to working families all across this land.
Now, I would say: Hmm, but does he really believe in this whole impoundment thing? Is he really an advocate of breaking the law? Well, we saw it Monday night, but we also saw it during
Now, there was another element of this, which was President Trump, during his first term, was trying to use those funds and the impoundment of those funds to get the President of Ukraine to say bad things about a member of the Biden family. That combination of impoundment, which was illegal, and then essentially using that to extort a statement from the President of Ukraine--which the President of Ukraine refused to do--led to Trump's first impeachment trial.
So Russell Vought's illegal, unconstitutional strategy of impoundment and using it as a tool of extortion to try to attack a political opponent led to Trump's first impeachment and first trial here in the Senate. So have no doubt that the man who advocated for impoundment and the extortion of a statement from the President of Ukraine back in the first Trump administration is certainly very honest when he says he is still for impoundment right now.
That is the one thing I will say. He didn't try to disguise this fact. He said: The President doesn't like what the Supreme Court decided on the Constitution. I don't like it. So we are going to ignore it.
He ignored it before. He intends to ignore it again.
I will tell you something else that I think is deeply disturbing, and that is Russell Vought's absolute disdain for the nonpartisan professionals who work for the American people as civil servants. He wants to take folks who are members of the civil service and make them at-will employees of the President so the President can sweep out of position tens of thousands--fire tens of thousands of servants to the American people who use their professional skills to deliver services as efficiently and as effectively as possible and replace them with loyalist lackeys.
I don't want a loyalist lackey in the control tower deciding when planes land. I want a nonpartisan professional.
I don't want a loyalist lackey having access to the Treasury payment system and trying to use that to extort favors from people around the country or disclosing the private information of individuals or actually screwing up the computer code and causing payments not to be delivered effectively. I want a nonpartisan professional.
I don't want a loyalist lackey deciding on how to transport vaccines across the country, who doesn't know a damn thing about whether they have to be refrigerated or not or how long they can sit on the shelf or how to get them effectively delivered. I want a nonpartisan professional.
But not Russell Vought. In fact, Russell Vought called for Federal workers to be traumatized so that they would consider themselves to be villains and would leave public service and could be replaced by loyalist lackeys. That should concern everyone.
And, listen, I understand the pressure my colleagues are under. We all become, as part of our party, essentially part of a team, and the inclination is to support the member of your team who is now President. But there is a higher responsibility here. It is a responsibility to the law, and it is a responsibility to the Constitution that you took an oath to.
And, certainly, supporting the firing of tens of thousands of nonpartisan professionals and replacing them with loyalist lackeys is a huge disservice to the families of America who depend upon all of those core programs in healthcare, housing, education, programs for children, standing on their feet so they can thrive and move into the middle class. It is part of the attack on families embedded in Trump and Russell Vought's Project 2025.
I will tell you what else I don't like about Russell Vought. He wants to weaponize the justice system to prosecute officials who investigated President Trump's crime. Weaponizing the justice system is absolutely wrong. That is what happens in third-world countries with dictators.
And I realize, as an advocate of the imperial Presidency, Vought wants to use every tool available, like a dictator does. But that is wrong. We are a republic; we are not a monarchy. We are not an authoritarian state--unless we become one by refusing to stand up against violations of laws and the Constitution.
You know, Ben Franklin, when he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, was asked by a bystander, because they had met and worked on this crafting of the Constitution: Ben Franklin, what do we have? What type of government do we have?
And he responded: A republic, if we can keep it.
But what are the fundamental elements of a republic?
The integrity of the voting booth is one--the ballot box, the integrity of an election--and that integrity is under assault across this country.
Second, the peaceful transfer of power--and President Trump, at the end of his first term, did everything possible, including incentivizing a riot that stormed through these doors and took over this Chamber, to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. They were calling for the Vice President, who was fulfilling his constitutional role, just down the hallway through those doors--down the hallway--to count the electoral votes. They were calling for him to be hung.
What else is critical to a republic? Well, it is a foundation of laws that will be respected by the Executive branch. That is being violated. And it is the separation of powers that Trump is violating right now. So every piece of our Republic is under attack by Russell Vought and Donald Trump.
Ben Franklin, right now, is turning over in his grave, fearing, perhaps for the first time since he was buried 6 feet under, that we might lose our Republic.
Russell Vought also supports the use of the military to quell domestic unrest. That is an absolute violation of the law, but he supports doing it.
Russell Vought has called for an end to any drugs that provide medical abortions. He wants them banned. He wants to interfere with the right of every family, every woman in America, to exercise her judgment in partnership with her spiritual adviser and her family and her doctor. He wants Big Brother government to be in the exam room of every woman in America, dictating whether or not they can use drugs as part of an abortion process. And he also doubles down on this saying there should be no exceptions to a law banning abortions, for rape or for incest or to save the life of the mother.
You know, I was absolutely struck by the recent memo from the new Secretary of Transportation that said: We are going to prioritize giving our grants to communities that have the highest birthrate and highest marriage rate.
What? Big Brother, socially programming, using transportation grants to determine who gets to repair their bridges or repair their roads or expand their metro system or build bike lanes, or whatever, depending on your marriage rate and your childbirth rate? That is in the memo from the Department of Transportation.
Well, here is Russell Vought. His social programming is he wants his view of reproductive healthcare to be imposed across America with Big Brother, Big Government, in the exam room of every American woman. That is who this man is. Those are his dangerous views.
Presidents are not kings. Laws are not suggestions--unless Russell Vought is confirmed and makes it so. If he is confirmed and makes it so, we have failed to defend our democracy. We have failed to defend our Republic.
We were elected by our citizens of our respective States to be here with the vision of government by and for the people, not the vision of government by billionaires, for billionaires; not the vision of Big Brother government going into our living rooms and into our exam rooms, telling us to have children in order to get a transportation grant. But that is the type of social programming we are facing.
To my colleagues across the aisle, you all have pointed out quite accurately that you are threatened with a primary funded by Elon Musk if you don't loyally follow step by step, move by move, everything Trump wants to do, including confirming Russell Vought.
I say to you: Stop trembling in your boots. You are being threatened. You are being pressed. You are being extorted. Stand up and say: I am a Senator of the United States of America. I was not elected by President Trump. I was not elected by Russell Vought. I was not elected by Elon Musk and the billionaires. I was elected by the people of my State, and I am going to fight for them.
That is your responsibility. That is your path to escape the dilemma we have heard you express. I don't believe, at any other time in our history, the President of the United States has threatened to sic the billionaires against Members of the U.S. Senate, and we need to stand together and say: Hell no.
That is what it means to defend the Constitution. That is what it means to be a Senator, this privileged position, elected by the citizens of our State in order to pursue what the people are asking us to do to build a stronger Union and better opportunity for every, every citizen.
Donald Trump and Russell Vought are trying to use their Executive orders to break the spirit of the American people, to break the will of Congress, to break the back of the Constitution. Such plans are evil, and every one of us, Democrat or Republican, should say: We will not be intimidated. We will not cower. And we will not bend to fear of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Trump may inflict his worst, but we must awaken our best.
President Franklin Roosevelt said: We won't let them ``clip the wings of the American eagle to feather their own nests.''
Colleagues, stand with me. Stand together. Stand as Senators united to stop the President from clipping the wings of the American eagle to feather the nest of the billionaires. To protect our constituents, to protect the Constitution, to oppose this sweeping authoritarian coup, to stand with American families and against the betrayal of those same families, we are coming to the floor united to say: We must not confirm the nomination of the most unfit man to be considered as Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
You all have heard me say a few words about impoundments. It is a big word, but it is a big word for a simple action. It means that the President refuses to spend the money that he is required to spend by law on a program.
Oh, I don't like healthcare programs that we are doing. And the law says here is what you must spend for this particular program in the coming year, and the President says: No, not doing it.
Yes, well, that is illegal, and it is unconstitutional. It is not up for debate.
In the 1970s, President Nixon did exactly this action, impoundment, to stop funds for the Environmental Protection Agency for individual programs that he didn't like. He told his EPA Administrator, Russell Train, to withhold the funding. A recipient of those funds was the city of New York, and the city sued. And in that case, Train vs. City of New York, the Supreme Court ruled that the White House did not have the power to impound funds and refuse to do what the law says you are supposed to do.
And, furthermore, the Supreme Court said: This is inherent in the Constitution. The Executive is to execute the laws, not to make the laws, not to remake the laws, not to ignore the laws, not to treat the laws as a suggestion.
The Executive must faithfully implement the laws of the United States of America. That is the responsibility.
Congress, in the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act, did create a way for the President to say: I am not just waiting on the budget next year. I am not just weighing in on what programs I want for the next year. I want to change the ones this year.
And we gave him--Congress did--a tool to do so. That is the tool of rescission that I mentioned before.
Well, let's fast forward from 1974 and the battle with Nixon to 1996. In 1996, there was a very interesting debate over the balanced budget amendment. And you needed 67 Senators to approve, in both bodies, this constitutional amendment. The House easily passed it. Here, in the Senate, the Republican chair of the Appropriations Committee said: No, every year, through our revenue bills and through our spending bills-- appropriations bills--we decide what the deficit will be, and we can decide, in a year, it shall be zero.
But we shouldn't be so constrained to address national emergencies, whether it be a famine from drought or whether it be war or whether it be COVID--of course, COVID or some disease--that we shouldn't be so constrained as to be unable to meet the moment.
So Senator Hatfield from Oregon said no, he would not be the 67th vote. And then he offered to resign. And what the history books rarely record is that in Oregon the Governor does not have the power to appoint an individual to the Senate seat, which meant there would have been 99 Senators, and 66 would have been enough to pass that constitutional change, and it would have gone out to the States for ratification.
Well, the majority leader, Robert Dole, turned down Hatfield's offer to resign. So the 67 standard was not met.
Well, then the Republican leadership said: Let's give the President line-item veto--essentially, give the President impoundment power, impoundment power that the Courts said the President doesn't have.
And so they passed a law and gave the President impoundment power-- line-item veto--and it went to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said: Hey, Congress, the Constitution charges you with the responsibility to lay out what will be funded for what programming. You can't simply delegate to that President. If you could, you could have a majority in the two Chambers that says: We give the power to make up any law the President wants and then to enforce it.
In other words, it would be a pathway toward an authoritarian takeover of our country, if Congress abandoned its constitutional role to set the parameters for what programs are funded. And so the Supreme Court struck it down.
Well, here we have, again, Russell Vought ignoring the Supreme Court in Train vs. City of New York, ignoring the Supreme Court when it struck down the line-item veto, and once again threatening to so undermine the law and the Constitution.
Colleagues, my fellow caucus members will be coming through the night to share their perspectives and why Russell Vought is untrustworthy, unelected, and unfit to serve as the Director of Office of Management and Budget.
I believe that my colleague from Hawaii is going to carry the train of this conversation forward, and, therefore, I am wrapping up my comments while he figures out some issue at the counter. But I want you to all go forward into this long 30 hours knowing just a core fact: that we only have a republic if we can keep it, and we can't keep it if we put a man at the head of OMB who is determined to break the law and violate the Constitution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. President, thank you to the ranking member of the Budget Committee for his leadership.
We are doing something a little unusual. First of all, every Democrat is united on the vote that will occur 26 or 27 hours from now. Second of all, almost every U.S. Senator on the Democratic side is going to come to the floor to articulate why we are united and why we think this moment is so important.
If confirmed, the Director of OMB, Russ Vought, may well be the most important man that no one has ever heard of. Under normal circumstances, the OMB Directors are powerful but kind of anonymous because they are responsible for technical things, nerdy things-- developing and implementing the entire Federal budget, and they advance the priorities of the President, whomever--Democrat or Republican.
But Russ Vought wants to go way beyond that. He wants to take an Agency that people outside of Washington haven't even heard of and turn it into the nerve center and power center of the Federal Government. He wants to consolidate power at OMB in such a stark and sometimes illegal way that he alone will get to decide who deserves the government's help and who doesn't.
You do not have to take my word for it. I am a Democrat. I always want to make the case for our side. But I want you to understand these are his words,
Let me just say what he says about this job:
This is like--everybody has watched ``Game of Thrones.'' He wants to be the king's hand. He wants to be able to say: I represent the President in any and all things: foreign policy, domestic policy, tax policy, spending policy, all of it. That is actually not what an OMB Director is supposed to do.
He then talks about a practice called apportionment to essentially get around the bills that we passed, the appropriations bills.
He wrote:
Program associate directors, who are political appointees, not career officials.
Look, the door swings both ways in Washington, and this attempt to consolidate power and basically make the legislature irrelevant is going to bite us all in the butt. There is going to be a progressive President, and if this is allowed to stand, they are going to reach in and defund stuff you like. That is the creature of a dually enacted law.
I get that this is nerdy. I am not saying anybody should make this their primary point of opposition to the President, but we are on the floor of the U.S. Senate, so let's be a little serious for a moment and say that we swore an oath to uphold the law and Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution is actually--it is ambiguous about a couple of things, but it is not ambiguous about this. We hold the purse strings. We are the article I branch, and our power, besides confirming or rejecting nominees, is substantially that we set the parameters for a spending bill.
I get that there are 53 Members on the other side of the aisle that have a different view of spending than I do, and I get that we just lost, and so we are in for some outcomes that we don't like. I am not complaining about outcomes that I don't like; I am complaining about an unlawful view of the separation of powers.
We saw it last week when they just literally froze all Federal funding--not even with a pretext of like ``Hey, we are just going to review this and make sure everything--you know, no fraud, waste, or abuse.'' They just shut down the Medicaid portal. They shut down Head Start. They froze construction projects.
So I want everybody to understand that what is at stake here is literally the American system of government because these guys view this branch of government--the one that is plural; not just 1 person elected but 535 people elected from their States and their districts to represent all of the people in the United States of America. It is supposed to be messy, and it is supposed to be contentious. And do you know what? It is also sometimes supposed to be slow. It is supposed to be slow. It is supposed to be hard.
We have the best document underlining any country that has ever existed in human history, and what it does is it says: We don't want any branch of government to be too powerful. So this is not some trivial little partisan dispute about particular programs; this is the ability for the executive branch to literally seize power, storm into the offices of an Agency that they hate and shut it down operationally and use a bunch of white-shoe law firm fancy-pants words to develop a pretext for eviscerating the U.S. Constitution, which clearly gives us the authority to establish spending laws, right?
And can we spare ourselves the punditocracies? ``Well, Democrats should be focusing on something else.'' I understand. I understand that some of the stuff that we are going to say to each other on the Senate floor is not necessarily compelling to people outside of this building, but people outside of this building understand on a very basic level that there are three branches of government, and they are supposed to be roughly equal, and stealing power from the legislative branch is inherently bad even if you agree with the outcome, even if you think: Well, I kind of agree with them. I don't like this program.
If you don't like a program, introduce a bill. If you want to defund something, there is an actual process for that.
There is a lot of stuff I don't like in the Federal budget, and I usually propose cuts to those things I don't like. Sometimes I prevail, and sometimes I don't. But I have no illusions that I am a monarch.
It is true that this President of the United States won a free and fair election to be at the helm of the executive branch, but he did not win a free and fair election to be the monarch of the United States or the CEO of the United States.
I think one of the conceptual problems with bringing in all these billionaires is they really are the monarchs of their companies. That is like how the private sector works. You are the CEO and you want something to happen, you tell them: This is what is going to happen. This is not a democracy. I am the boss. Do it.
That is literally not our constitutional system.
So Russ Vought has ideas that I disagree with about the size and the scope of the Federal Government, and that is part of this, right? He really does want to cut Medicaid, cut Medicare, cut the Affordable Care Act, eliminate programs that I think are essential for people in Hawaii and people across country. But there really is something bigger at stake right now. We, all of us--Democrats, Republicans, Independents, the media, which is so damn casual about what is happening--we have to understand that when you are in the middle of the fight, you are not sure if this is a historic moment. When you read about it in the past, you can identify that historic moment. When you observe it in a faraway place with a hard-to-pronounce name, you can identify what is happening--creeping fascism. When it happens and you are in the middle of it, you are not so sure if it is your moment to display any sense of independence or courage.
If this is going to be stopped, we only have 47 votes. Three people, at some point--I have no illusions that it will be in the next 30 hours, but three people at some point have to say: I like conservative outcomes, I like conservative justices, I like tax cuts, but I don't like unlawfulness, and those are my parameters.
I am an adult. I have been here for 13 years. I have been in the majority, and I have been in the minority. I have been in sort of every iteration of whatever elections bring. That is OK. That is the way this process works.
What is happening right now is an attempt to reorder the whole damn system in a way that is going to make every individual citizen across the country less powerful, because when you elect someone--and I will yield to the Senator from Minnesota in just a moment--when you elect someone and you tell them your spending priorities and they come home and say ``Good news; I got this'' or ``Good news; I cut this'' and then you realize that is only a recommendation, it is the OMB Director whose name you have never heard of--his name is Russ Vought--who gets to decide. That is not our system of government, and that is why we are going to be fighting all night about this issue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, I rise today--I just want to thank my colleague Senator Schatz for his clear-eyed description of what is happening right now and how that connects to this nomination that is before the Senate right now, the nomination for Mr. Vought.
So I rise today to join my colleagues in calling out the threat that Russell Vought poses to our system of government. As Senator Schatz says, this is not about liking or not liking what Mr. Vought has written, what he stands for, what he has tried to do, what his policy positions are, although I clearly
That is an institutional prerogative that I think is on the line today with this vote, and that is why my colleagues and I are going to be using the full 30 hours of debate in order to really make this point clearer to the American people.
But I will tell you, Mr. President, that Minnesotans are waking up to this, and they are not happy. In the last week, thousands of Minnesotans have called or written my office about the unprecedented chaos that is occurring at Federal Agencies and programs in Minnesota-- and they can see it as well across the country--which has come from Elon Musk and from President Trump but is rooted in Russell Vought's dangerous Project 2025--Donald Trump and Russell Vought's dangerous Project 2025. These ideas are dangerous, they are unconstitutional, and they are already hurting real people.
The funding freeze that was announced last week is straight from Russell Vought's 2025 plans, and that is one of the many reasons I am going to be opposing him when we vote on this ultimately tomorrow.
Whether this freeze is frozen, whether it is temporarily blocked in court, or whether it is still in effect is in some ways beside the point because I think that the point here is to create chaos. The real point right now is that people are feeling this pain. They are concerned. They are scared. And for what? Why is this happening? It is to test out Russell Vought's extreme and dangerous ideas and see how far they can take it.
That is what we will be voting on. We are going to be voting on the man who is behind all of this chaos.
I know my colleague Senator Schumer is going to be speaking in just a couple of minutes, but let me just go for a second about what this means for Minnesotans.
For Minnesotans, a Federal funding freeze means life or death, seriously. The administration's list of frozen programs covers people's most basic needs--food, shelter, medicine, safe drinking water.
I have heard from thousands of Minnesotans who are terrified of what this means for their families. The Senate phone lines--colleagues, I think we all know this--have been overwhelmed to a breaking point this week because of people who have been so outraged by Elon Musk and Trump's actions. This is creating torment and real concern and real pain for real families and leaving them wondering what this is all going to mean for them tomorrow.
The scope of Vought's Project 2025 and the funding freeze that it inspired is so broad that I don't think there is a single person in this country who won't be impacted in some way, direct or indirect. This is not going to be good for anyone. Americans, it is true to say, are less safe today than they were last Monday before this funding freeze.
The freeze has put our most fundamental and essential services in this country in limbo. What does this look like in Minnesota? It means that counterterrorism programs, programs to combat human and drug trafficking, programs to fight child sex trafficking--all of those were covered by this freeze. LIHEAP, which is a program that helps keep heat on for low-income families in Minnesota, that is what has been at stake. It was minus 12 degrees in International Falls last night, to give you an idea what this means in the whole North Country of Minnesota.
I also want to just acknowledge that what it means for food assistance and clean water projects is also a real and specific impact and pain that people in Minnesota are feeling.
I have a few letters I am ready to receive, but I am going to yield to the Senate minority leader, Senator Schumer from New York, so he can tell us what this means for the people of New York and the whole country.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
I want to thank my colleague from Minnesota for her passion for representing the people of Minnesota and showing how terrible this nominee is.
We are going to be speaking all night. We want Americans, every hour--whether it is 8 p.m. or 3 a.m.--to hear how bad Russell Vought is and the danger he poses to them in their daily lives if he were put as head of OMB. We want to sound the alarm--sound the alarm--on the reckless and lawless things that Russell Vought will do to American families; to sound the alarm on the chief architect of Project 2025; to sound the alarm on Russell Vought because Russell Vought--sadly, alarmingly, outrageously--stands on the brink of confirmation as Director of OMB, thanks to Senate Republicans who have fallen in line one right after the other behind Donald Trump and have rubberstamped his nominees, no matter how unqualified, no matter how harmful to the American people.
And of all of the nominees, of all of the extremists that Donald Trump elevated, of all the hard right ideologues who have come before the Senate, none of them hold a candle to Russell Vought. He is far and away the one most dangerous to the American people.
Most people have never heard of Russell Vought before. But make no mistake about it, my fellow Americans, he is the most important piece of the puzzle in Donald Trump's second term. He will be the quarterback of White House policy.
For all intents, he will run the command center of the Trump administration. And his decisions will reverberate from one end of America to the other, every city and every town and every household and every rural area.
And of all the people--of all the people--Donald Trump could have picked to lead the White House policy, he chose the godfather of the ultraright. And make no mistake about it, Russell Vought is Project 2025 incarnate. Russell Vought is the chief architect of 2025, its intellectual inspiration. And now he will have the ability, as head of OMB, to put these awful ideas into effect. And who will suffer? Not the billionaires who seem to be running the Trump administration, but the average American--the tens of millions, the hundreds of millions of average Americans.
Let me say this: There can be no worse proposal for the American people than Project 2025. There can be no position more able to implement this terrible proposal than Director of OMB, and there could be no person who would be worse for running 2025 from OMB than Russell Vought.
It is a triple loser--the worst program, the worst place to put it because it does the most danger, and the worst person to run it all rolled up into one in this vote.
Remember during the campaign, Russell Vought put together 2025 with a bunch of other rightwing ideologues. Their goal: slash the government, smash the government, break the government--not just eliminate waste. Oh, no, that is not what they wanted to do. They are so, so deeply anti-anything government does--whether it is Social Security or helping our veterans or defending our country--that they are against it.
Why? Well, their ideas really started with this small group of hard- right people who felt they didn't want to pay any taxes and they didn't want any regulation: We don't need a government. And they gained strength on the hard-right side of the Republican Party that became the MAGA part of the Republican Party. And Donald Trump embraced it.
He hid it during the campaign. When Project 2025 became public, Donald Trump said ``I don't know anything about it'' because he knew that he would lose the election if he embraced 2025; that an overwhelming majority of Americans would be against 2025. He knew that, and so he said he knew nothing about it. But the minute he won the election, Russell Vought started to take over and the pieces of Project 2025, already, we have seen, are begun to be implemented.
It is such hypocrisy for Donald Trump to say he didn't know what 2025 was during the campaign and now is putting its chief architect in the most important position where it can be implemented to the great harm of America and the American people.
Americans don't want to see Social Security or Medicare cut. They certainly don't want to see Medicaid cut.
One that really bugs me: We have so many people who need housing in America. It is one of the greatest needs. And over the years, the wisdom of the American people, administrations--Democratic and Republican--said: Let's give a little help by having the Federal Government back mortgage loans, Fannie and Freddie. And it made interest rates be lower than they normally would have been for a young family that is looking to buy their first home. They are having their second little baby and they are so happy and they can have a home for their children.
And they want to get rid of it--in part, maybe, so some private sector people can make some money doing it themselves. But mainly because they just are so viciously anti-government that they will just slash anything no matter the consequence, no matter who is hurt. That is what we are on the brink of happening here.
We had hoped on this side of the aisle--because we know how our colleagues feel. If you asked the 53 Senators on that side of the aisle to vote yes or no on Project 2025, my guess is of the 53, probably 50-- at least 45--would vote no. But they are actually voting to implement Project 2025 when they vote yes for Russell Vought.
Remember, he is the architect, and they are putting him in a position where he can take that plan and implement it--basically, shove it down America's throat.
So here we are. We have already begun to see the chaos that the Russell Vought philosophy, the Project 2025 philosophy, engenders: A freeze--freeze--on funding of all programs.
They didn't look at which programs were good, which programs were bad. No, no, no. They froze them all. Chaos erupted. Daycare centers were not funded, Medicaid hospitals were not funded, veterans' programs were not funded, mental health--so much that they had to back off, at least for a period of time.
But that is Project 2025 at work.
And now, the Treasury payment system--which in one sense is a lifeblood of how government works, of how we help people because we are giving money to things that people need--is being infiltrated by DOGE.
What is DOGE's view? Let's cut $2.5 trillion. They don't say how. They don't really care, as long as they can just slash government and hurt Americans so that their billionaire friends can pay even less taxes than they do now, despite the fact that income inequality in America is getting worse and worse. That is one of the main things that bothers average working-class Americans.
His fingerprints are all over this past week's disaster--whether it is at Treasury, whether it is with Federal workers, whether it is at AID, whether it is hurting Justice Department people, prosecutors--all of that is Russell Vought at work. He is working to hurt you, Mr. and Mrs. America, even before he gets into office. Imagine how much more harm he will do should he become the head of OMB.
I want to ask Mr. Vought some questions.
Mr. Vought, how is freezing all these funds supposed to lower people's costs?
Yeah, it may lower the taxes on your wealthy friends, but how is it going to help the average American? You never explained it. The fanatical hatred of government without rhyme or reason, without looking at its effect, without distinguishing between programs just permeates everything.
So, Mr. Vought, explain how freezing all these funds is going to lower people's costs? How is privatizing Fannie and Freddie going to lower their housing costs? How is getting rid of--I mean an example we talked about, it is small but it is indicative, it is knowledge-- cutting the programs that help us eliminate bird flu and lower the price of eggs. They raised it. People hate that. The price of eggs are so high, I don't blame them--6 bucks, 5 bucks--wow.
So imagine this, folks. Imagine a world where Russell Vought and the DOGE team, team up, and it is a team that can do such, such harm and pain for America. They team up to eradicate the funding they allege is wasteful.
What would it mean for kids at school who struggle to get a good meal? They will say it is wasteful. Or parents who struggle to pay for groceries and the things we do to try to keep food costs down? They will say it is wasteful. A couple seeking a loan to build a starter home; they will say it is wasteful.
Getting rid of Head Start. Right now--right now--in my State, even though the funding freeze has been rescinded, there are Head Start programs that are getting no money. Two hundred kids in rural Cattaraugus and Wyoming Counties had to be left out of Head Start; 200 families struggling during the week because so many of them have either one parent who is working or two parents who are working. What are they going to do? Who is going to watch the kids? Will they have to quit work for a few days? Will they get fired? Will they get demoted?
All painful, really painful.
Head Start provides dental and medical care for little kids. What a waste, Vought would say. When we know that when kids have bad teeth at a young age, it hurts their learning, it hurts their ability to become productive citizens. There is nothing more cost-effective than something like that.
Folks, bad news--bad news. What we saw this past week with the beginning of Russell Vought's ideas and programs and philosophy and ideology to be implemented is just the beginning, just a preview. I hate to say this, but, unfortunately, we ain't seen nothing yet should Vought get into office in this powerful OMB position.
Let me just say it again so people hear it: Why does Vought want to do this, the average person would ask? Why does he want to hurt so many people? Why is he being so mean and cruel and heartless and uncaring?
Very simple: So Republicans can give tax cuts to Donald Trump's billionaire friends and supporters. Of course, it is cloaked in some kind of ridiculous ideology that was paid for by the hard right. They set up think tanks for 30 years to come up with this libertarian-type philosophy. But it has no basis in reality. Where it comes from is not what would make America better but, rather, would make a few rich people richer. And the harm is amazing. Everything we see happening today--the flurry of Executive orders, all of the awful things happening at the Treasury Department and at OMB and elsewhere--all boils down to one endgame: a broken, paralyzed government that breeds corruption and self-dealing and self-interest; that ignores the public and caters to the ultra-ultrawealthy. That is the entire ball game of Trump 2.0.
The only solace I can take is we are a democracy, and it will catch up with them all--with President Trump, with Russell Vought, with all of the Republicans who vote for these things. That happens. The roots of democracy are deep. We saw little sprouts of it this week when President Trump had to back off tariffs and back off a funding freeze because so many people were going to be hurt.
But it will--it will--be rejected by the American people, and I am confident that it will change the political fortunes of both parties as it is implemented. For those who support it on the Republican side, the American people will like them a lot less. And for those who oppose it on our side, the American people will understand we are on their side.
But the damage--the damage--that will be done in the interim is enormous. The number of the millions--of the tens of millions, probably of the hundreds of millions--of people who will be hurt and hurt in real, severe ways will be horrible. So there is no solace.
I do believe that the political system, with all its infirmities-- with all the big money, with having so much power with Donald Trump and his Republican friends--that even with all of that, I believe, ultimately, our democracy's roots are deep. Ultimately, I believe those who support Russell Vought--he himself, the President, who put him in, the Republicans who voted for him--will be rejected by the American people for doing it. But the damage in the interim will be enormous-- worse than almost anything we have seen.
So I say to my colleagues on the Republican side: Maybe, it is not too late. Maybe, somehow, you will realize how damaging Russell Vought is. Maybe, you will say to yourselves: Despite the fact that I might have Trump angry with me, I am doing the best thing for him by voting down Russell Vought, ultimately--ultimately politically. Maybe. Unlikely. A forlorn hope. I always try to be an optimist--but maybe.
This is a very, very important vote. The way it is looking now, it is a very awful and sad vote--one of the worst, if it passes, that I will have seen in this body in the many years I have been here.
For those who think Russell Vought won't be so bad, read his book. See what he has done. I mean, read his Project 2025. It is a project, not a book, I don't think. Maybe, maybe, maybe we will realize--it is unlikely, highly unlikely; it is a forlorn wish--when things are so bad if Vought gets in, and we will cling to that forlorn, highly unlikely hope.
Twenty years ago, it would be hard to believe that somebody as hard right, as narrow-minded, as vicious in his philosophy as Vought would get a single vote on the floor of the Senate. But, now, he may get a majority.
We are warning the American people how bad this is. We will see the consequences in the weeks and months ahead. There are very few votes I have cast with greater fervor than this ``no'' vote for Russell Vought.
He is, as I said, a danger to working people, a danger to America's beliefs and ideals, and a danger to the unity, cohesiveness, and beauty of this great America. I proudly, strongly, and with complete conviction will vote no on this awful, awful nominee.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
Mr. President, it is not unusual in this job of ours in the U.S. Senate to run into a reporter in the hallway. It happens all the time. They are trying to write a story, and they want to ask a question or two to get a quote, possibly, for the story.
Today, I came out of one of our hearing rooms on the Committee on Agriculture, and one of the more prominent reporters for one of the cable news networks said to me: Can you give me a reaction to the suggestion by President Trump, yesterday, that, somehow or another, the United States of America is going to take over control of the Gaza Strip and develop it?
Well, I had read that in the morning papers, that assertion, and all I could say to him was, If you follow his suggestion to let Canada become the 51st State; that we take over the Panama Canal--if necessary, by force--that somehow or another we come into ownership of Greenland, then the notion of developing hotels on the ocean on the Gaza Strip is just one of the Trump suggestions we are dealing with.
For those who argue, ``Well, the American people voted for it,'' were they voting for those things?
The point I am trying to make was made earlier by Senator Schumer. There are efforts afoot that go way beyond the issues of this last Presidential campaign, where the American people, I believe, said: We want a change. We are going to vote in the majority for Donald Trump because we want to see a better lifestyle for ourselves and our kids. Those things make sense to me, and I will tell you, in my life, as I reflect on things that have happened to me, there were times when the government played a very important role in my life.
I recall when my father passed away when I was in high school. There was a Social Security Disability assistance check that helped me go to college. Then, of course, there was something called the National Defense Education Act, where I could borrow money from the Federal Government. That had to be paid back, but I could borrow the money to pay for my school expenses.
Had the government not been there in those two instances, I am not sure if I could have completed college or where I would be today. I didn't start off with a litmus test of whether I love the government or don't. I needed a helping hand, and there was a program created by this government, by this Senate, that came to my rescue.
What we are discussing now is the nomination of Russell Vought. I don't know the man personally, but I have read plenty of what his philosophy consists of. I believe he is being offered one of the most powerful jobs that most Americans don't even know--the Office of Management and Budget. One of the essential powers of the Senate, under our Constitution, is advice and consent, which means the Founding Fathers said the President can pick his team, but the Senate has to approve that team. It has to advise and consent when it comes to that person. The constitutional authority gives the Senate the power to review and approve Presidential nominations and, with it, the responsibility to ask hard questions.
Well, that has been the case, in the last several weeks, as the nominees for the President's Cabinet have all come forward to be reviewed by Members of the Senate. Our Nation's Founders viewed this as a check on the power of the President, ensuring that the country's most important leadership posts are filled by truly trustworthy, qualified, law-abiding Americans. I take that responsibility seriously.
I probably, as I reflected on running for the Senate, did not reflect on how many times I would be called to judge a person as part of my job. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee--the ranking member at this point--I have had to review the resumes and interview literally hundreds--sometimes thousands--of applicants for lifetime positions with the Federal Government. When I reflect on it, it is an awesome responsibility, but you have to project as to what that person will do once they have the power of office, and that is what we are doing today.
I join with my colleagues in opposing the nomination of Russell Vought to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He has been nominated by President Trump to run this Agency. It is the largest office within the executive branch of the government. Its job is to oversee Federal Agencies and administer the Federal budget.
Now, most of the time when we are called on to evaluate nominations, we do our best to take a look and review the nominee's qualifications and experience. We meet with the candidates--I have done that today several times with several nominees--and ask them questions to determine their fitness for the roles. Sometimes, you can tell this is the first time they have ever really, seriously, considered serving in government in their lives. We try to imagine what they will do with that power. But for Mr. Vought, there is no need for imagination. He already served as Director of OMB during the last half of President Trump's first term in office, and I believe he proved who he was in that period of time.
When he served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget during President Trump's first term, Mr. Vought illegally refused to release hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance to Ukraine, and he delayed $20 billion of disaster aid for Puerto Rico. If that sounds like a lot of power, it is. There was literally a question as to whether Ukraine would survive the invasion of Vladimir Putin. Our government had committed to helping, but Mr. Vought decided, in his capacity as the head of OMB, to withhold the funds, and there was a serious question as to whether Ukraine--in fighting for its life--would survive. The $20 billion in disaster aid for Puerto Rico after the hurricanes that struck and that did such great damage to that nation was a life-and-death proposition, and he decided that he would withhold these funds.
When he left that role, Mr. Vought went on to become a key architect of what has been referred to many, many times as Project 2025--a policy proposal written by a conservative think tank, outlining a sweeping, extreme vision of America's future. Project 2025 included policies to consolidate power in the executive branch and to undermine critical services the Federal Government provides to American families. If that sounds familiar, perhaps you are following the President's ongoing attempts to freeze Federal funds legally appropriated by Congress. That is no coincidence. Mr. Vought is the MAGA puppet master in this administration, and, 2 weeks ago, we saw it at its worst.
I see Senator Murray of Washington is here on the floor. She is our Democratic leader when it comes to Appropriations. I sit on that committee and respect her judgment. I am sure she remembers, as I do, when the word came
Then the phone started ringing from the State of Illinois. They started calling Senator Duckworth's office and my own office, and we were telling people exactly what was involved.
This involves programs like Head Start. Head Start is a critical program that began in the 1960s. It is for kids who are prekindergarten to spend a day under supervision in a learning experience and in a socialization experience that can make all the difference in their lives. For their parents, it is a great opportunity.
Last Friday, I visited one of these Head Start facilities in the city of Chicago. It is known as El Valor. It is remarkable. Seeing those kids and the experiences they are going through is heartwarming. These kids are from working families. They are not from families who have a lot of wealth. But they have an opportunity in Head Start to have a good, clean, positive classroom experience that prepares them for school and prepares them for life.
One of the parents made a point of coming in and telling me his story. He talked about what a transformation it was that took place in his little boy when he became part of this Head Start Program.
I have such positive feelings about that because I can't think of a better investment of my tax dollars and anybody's tax dollars than in making sure those kids--that next generation--have a fighting chance, and Head Start gives them that chance.
Well, when OMB announced the freeze, some of the first agencies that felt it were the Head Start Programs. They started realizing they couldn't keep their doors open because they don't have a lot money to turn to if they didn't get the regular infusion of Federal funds that had been guaranteed to them over the years. Some of them actually thought ``Maybe we could last a day or two without that Federal funding,'' but most of them realized they couldn't last at all without it.
So why in the world would OMB turn to a program like Head Start and say: That is where we want to freeze Federal spending. For goodness' sake, I will be the first to admit that there is waste in our government. There is waste in corporations. There is waste in many directions. But to start with kids, struggling kids from working families, and to say: We are going to cut off their program--that is your first priority for cuts?
Meals on Wheels. What is Meals on Wheels? Well, it is something most people with an elderly parent or grandparent know full well. It is that one time each day when someone knocks on the door and brings literally a hot meal to someone who is living alone usually and has to depend on that--not just for food but for socialization and that friendly smile once a day that they just dream of and live for. To cut that program, along with Head Start--come on. But that is what I learned. I learned that this freeze from OMB that started with the Trump administration involved Meals on Wheels.
It isn't just these programs that touch my heart and I hope touch yours; we had calls from medical researchers, from hospitals across the city of Chicago. And I am proud of those hospitals. We have some of the best in the world. They do key research, critical research--cancer, heart disease, and so many other things. They work with the National Institutes of Health, the premier medical research Agency in the world.
Well, it turns out that when the OMB of President Trump wanted to start turning out the lights, they decided to do it on medical research as well. What were they thinking?
If you have ever been in a terrible moment in your life where someone you love is seriously ill and you are wondering if they can survive, one of the first things you are going to ask that doctor: Is there a medicine? Is there a process? Is there a surgery? Is there some breakthrough that maybe can save the life of somebody I love?
That is one of the first questions you ask when you face that awful moment.
So what did this OMB decide to do under President Trump? They decided to cut off funding for medical research. These are researchers who literally said: We were told at 5 o'clock to go home. That means walking away from an experiment which I have been working on for a long time and losing all the progress I have made.
Really? That is your priority? I don't think the American people thought that was what they were voting for when they voted for Donald Trump in this last election.
Mr. Vought has made his beliefs perfectly clear. He believes the President can refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated for the American people despite this being in direct violation of the law. The law is known as the Impoundment Control Act.
Some have naively claimed that Project 2025 is nothing but a thought and an expert. It is clear that since the President took office, it has been a blueprint for a radical rewrite of the principle of the balance of power in our Constitution.
It is no surprise that as a key author of Project 2025, Mr. Vought continues to lead that charge. Knowing this as we do, placing him in charge of OMB would be irresponsible--you saw what they did initially with the freeze just a few weeks ago--and it would entirely undermine the role of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the U.S. Senate itself.
What I find disappointing and discouraging is that so many of my Republican friends who worked so hard to be elected to this Chamber are willing to give away our constitutional rights and our constitutional authority. This idea of impoundment gives away the power of Congress to appropriate.
This latest attempt to put a sweeping freeze on Federal funds is far from the first time Mr. Vought has broken the law and undermined Congress's power of the purse that is set forth in the Constitution. It is clear from Mr. Vought's comments and actions that he has contempt for Congress as a coequal branch of government.
It is appalling that so many of my Republican Senate friends voted to advance his nomination as he actively attempts to strip Congress of our congressional authority.
We are not opposing Mr. Vought solely because he poses a threat to our ability to do our jobs in Congress. Mr. Vought has made it clear that he is targeting working families across the country.
Both in his previous tenure as OMB Director and in policy proposals, Mr. Vought has proposed budget cuts that slash the social safety net resources for tax cuts for the wealthy.
It is being reported today that representatives of Elon Musk's so- called Department of Government Efficiency are now inside the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where they have gained access to key payment and contracting systems.
I know Elon Musk. I have met him on two or three occasions one on one. We had conversations. I respect him in many respects for achievements with his car, as well as with SpaceX and solar energy projects. He has done some remarkable things, making him the wealthiest person in the world.
Having said that, I don't believe he has any qualification to sit here in judgment of our government and its future. He has been given an outsized role in the Trump administration although he has no authority from the American people. He hasn't been elected to a damn thing, but he has currently won over the heart of the President and is making decisions which affect people's lives every day.
Each representative of DOGE--the Department of Government Efficiency, which isn't even a Department--is looking at the systems technology in Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the spending that flows through them. That means every hospital, every senior in a nursing home, and every child with a serious health condition is at the mercy of what Elon Musk's minions consider to be worthwhile spending.
The Director of OMB should manage funds that serve everyday Americans, not billionaires.
Moreover, Mr. Vought clearly intends to politicize the Federal workforce. While serving as OMB Director during President Trump's first term, he was the architect of ``schedule F,'' a plan which would allow the President to fire
On January 20, President Trump signed an Executive order reviving schedule F--another move right out of Mr. Vought's Project 2025 playbook--effectively stripping thousands of career civil servants of job protections.
Mr. Vought has called civil servants ``villains,'' and he has advocated for their mass termination. But more than 70 percent of the Federal workforce serves in national security roles. His plan--Vought's plan--would jeopardize American security.
To my Republican colleagues, for the sake of the institution in which we work for, the constituents we were elected to serve, and the constitutional foundations of our Nation, please don't vote for Mr. Vought.
Maya Angelo once said:
Well, from his tenure running OMB to his authorship of Project 2025, Mr. Vought has shown us exactly who he is and what he believes. He is a man with little respect for the Constitution and limited understanding of the plight of real working Americans. Giving Mr. Vought the reins of OMB is an invitation to a policy battle at the expense of our Constitution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in urging all of our colleagues to vote against Russ Vought's nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
The Senate should not vote to confirm as the head of OMB or to any important role, for that matter, someone who does not respect the constitutional authority of the Senate and thus the people we represent.
We should not entrust someone to implement our laws who made clear time and again through his past actions in this same role during President Trump's first term, through his work as the head architect of Project 2025, and through his own words in hearings and meetings that he will not follow the laws and that he will not send our communities the funding we all work together to pass.
Why on Earth would any one of us confirm someone whose entire game plan is to break the law and then dare the world to stop him? That is it. That is how Russ Vought plans to run the OMB. It is not a secret. It is a very public fact. He has put this on the record time and again.
Just look at what happened last time Russ Vought served as Director of the OMB. He tried to break the law to give President Trump unilateral authority he does not possess to hold up security assistance to Ukraine and override the spending decisions of Congress. And he has not given up on that idea. He has written about it many, many times in the years since.
As a chief architect of Project 2025, Vought doubled down on lawlessness and charted a blatantly unconstitutional plan for the President to ignore the will of Congress, which led him to being named in the first Articles of Impeachment against President Trump.
He mapped out a lawless path that, as I will detail shortly, President Trump is already barreling down at full speed.
But if you still aren't convinced that Russ Vought will trample all over the separation of powers, will ignore the authority of Congress, and will hurt the American people by holding back funds they rely on, well, you are in luck because at our hearing with him, I asked Vought directly, point blank, ``Will you follow the law?'' That should not be a hard question. Even if you disagree with the law, you don't ignore it. Maybe you don't like the 25-mile-an-hour speed limit in a school zone, but unless it is changed or struck down, you still have to follow it. It is true for speed limits, and it is certainly true for the Constitution.
That is something that almost every single American understands-- except, apparently, Russ Vought and Donald Trump, because today, the Impoundment Control Act is the law of the land. Despite Vought's own wishes and his own feelings, it has not been changed, and it has not been struck down in court.
Despite what Vought pretends is true, the reality is, the Constitution gives Congress, not the President, the power of the purse, and yet Russ Vought will not say he will follow the law.
Look, Vought is not just lawless; he is extreme. Let me drive that home for a second. Let's take abortion for example. Project 2025 already calls for ripping away birth control, allowing States to deny women lifesaving emergency care, and effectively banning all abortion nationwide. That is already a dangerous Republican fever dream--far out of line, by the way, with the American people--but Vought wants to go further.
On abortion, he is for ``abolition.'' ``Abolition.'' Do you know what that means? It means a national abortion ban without any exceptions even in the case of rape or when a woman's life is at risk. That is as far right as it gets.
Of course, abortion is not the only issue where Vought has made statements that are deeply alarming. He has stated that he believes the 2020 election was ``rigged.'' That is just not out of touch with America, that is dangerously out of touch with reality.
He has said he wants to traumatize our Federal workers. That means all the people who work really hard to help in our communities, whether they are inspecting food or reviewing the safety of drugs or keeping our travel safe; maybe they are strengthening our infrastructure, fostering innovation and small business or getting care to veterans or supporting our Tribes and so much more.
Vought has said we live in a ``post-constitutional time.'' It doesn't get any clearer than that. A post-constitutional time? That is what he believes we are in. Do my colleagues agree with that? Do they think it is time to shred the Constitution? That is what is at stake with this confirmation vote because Vought has made it all too clear that as OMB Director, he will put everything on the chopping block, from programs that people rely on to the checks and balances our democracy is founded on. Again, he has put it down on paper in black and white.
We know he wants to cut Medicare and, in particular, Medicaid, by hundreds of billions of dollars. We know he wants to find significant savings from eligibility changes to veterans' healthcare and disability benefits. We don't even need Project 2025 to see that. He laid some of that out in his budgets from Trump's first term.
Vought's goals are not secret, nor are they subtle. We do not have to decipher anything here. There is no mystery. We know he is planning for cuts beyond anything this country has ever seen. And we know, if Russ Vought gets his way and gets his hands on the Nation's funding again, he will not just draw blood; he will cut programs families rely on-- families rely on--down to the bone: SNAP cuts that leave families hungry, policies to cut people off from their healthcare, cuts to disability benefits that veterans have earned through their service to America, thousands of public servants forced out of roles serving the American people--all while he works with Trump to dole out more tax breaks to billionaires and the biggest corporations.
And here is another thing. We don't have to imagine just how painful and chaotic Vought's lawless ideas would be in practice because Vought is actually already putting his agenda in place, which, frankly, raises another question: Why should the Senate vote to confirm someone who is already secretly doing the job behind our backs?
Because--guess what--those Executive orders that Trump still has in effect, those orders which are right now illegally blocking money our communities need--that is right out of the Project 2025 playbook. Or the effort, now, to get rid of thousands of Federal workers through illegal firings; and, now, scam buyout offers that have no basis in law to carry out; or trying to illegally abolish entire Agencies with the stroke of a pen--that has Project 2025 written all over it.
And it is not just a parallel in ideas here. When OMB issued its blatantly illegal guidance and attempted to block trillions in Federal dollars Congress--all of us--passed, there were digital fingerprints all over that document linking right back to Project 2025.
And in the chaos that followed, do you know who reportedly met with OMB staffers about how to respond? Russ Vought.
So let's not pretend we have no idea just how lawless this guy is. Let's not
My phone has been ringing off the hook because, unlike billionaires like Trump and Musk, unlike hyperpartisans like Vought, the American people actually have a painfully clear sense of how this will hurt our communities. After all, they are the ones who would actually suffer the consequences of the reckless policies like this.
And let's remember that the Trump administration's first half-hearted attempt to clean up the massive mess they made with this new guidance essentially boiled down to: We will let some funding go, but we are still going to hold up everything else. And while, later, they finally admitted they were disastrously wrong and revoked the entire guidance, they are now, still today, illegally holding up other funds, which I will say more about later.
And the chaos alone they caused with their cruelty and incompetence is utterly unacceptable. The explanations the Trump administration offered throughout that saga last week--freezing seemingly trillions of dollars that families rely on--created no clarity or certainty for many panicked families and businesses and nonprofits and towns and States. And nothing they said changes the basic fact that Trump was and is still holding up funding that our communities need, funding that is the law.
But let's talk about the effect. Let's talk about the chaos and alarm they caused, the damage done to communities and families that all of us represent, and the collision course we were on before Americans spoke out and forced Trump to retreat--because, in terms of chaos, the Trump administration was trying to say a lot of programs were not affected even when we had firsthand accounts making clear that was not what organizations across the country were experiencing.
I will give you one example. Head Start providers were locked out of their reimbursement portal, meaning folks taking care of our youngest kids were suddenly not sure how they were going to keep their doors open or pay their teachers and staff. And, by the way, some providers in my State are still locked out, not getting the funding.
Let's talk about rental assistance. That is the payment system for housing providers. It was down for over a day, with rents that were due at the end of the week.
Seniors who count on Meals on Wheels were left wondering whether they would have dinner last week.
Grant programs to combat the fentanyl crisis, to get families healthcare, and so much more were, in an instant, put at risk of evaporating into thin air.
The panic and confusion were absolutely widespread because there was a long, long list of programs President Trump tried to put on the chopping block here--programs that, by the way, help red States and blue States alike.
Funding to address the opioid use epidemic could have been paused. This is a longstanding bipartisan priority, and Trump wanted funding frozen for an indefinite period that would absolutely upend prevention efforts and cut people off from the treatment that is helping them beat addiction.
COPS hiring grants, which help our States and communities hire career law enforcement officers--Trump was freezing those too. These investments increase community policing capacity, and they prevent crime. Without this money, our streets and our neighborhoods would be less safe.
And let's not forget about other crucial DOJ grants: funding for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, for AMBER Alert, for safe havens that support victims of human trafficking. Or, in my State, there are 25 child advocacy centers that were trying to figure out how they would be affected by the freeze. Think about that.
Funding for firefighters. You know what doesn't stop when Federal funding stops? Fires. And speaking of fires, Trump's move also threw funding for recovery and relief efforts into uncertainty. In Eastern Washington, in my State, $44 million was announced weeks ago to help Spokane County rebuild from wildfires. We were left with big questions about the future of that badly needed funding last week.
And while it was just 2 weeks ago that Trump visited communities in both North Carolina and California that are still reeling from disaster, the very next week, he sent them reeling himself, throwing funds that they were counting on into limbo with his initial OMB guidance because, for a while there, the system that all of our States use to get disaster relief funding was shut down.
And let's not forget grants from the Violence Against Women Act. I heard from organizations in Washington State that support survivors of violence that they were trying to figure out what to do because their Federal payment site went down. Without that vital funding, survivors would be left with no way to access the legal aid and services they deserve. Like so many other organizations, they were ringing the alarm bells because they were not going to be able to pay their staff or pay their bills.
This illegal freeze left domestic violence centers wondering how long they could keep their doors open and pay their staffs.
And our Tribes were thrown in chaos as well. The Puyallup Tribe was told they couldn't move forward with a critical road project, and our Tribes in general were all concerned that housing and healthcare and education and so much else was getting caught up in this funding freeze. One told me they were left trying to determine if they were going to have to lay off 400 people because of this. Causing layoffs with an illegal funding freeze would be a profound breach of the Federal trust responsibility to our Tribes.
Here is another alarming one: One of Trump's Executive orders was set to cut funding used to help detain nearly 10,000 ISIS militants in Syria--to detain them in Syria. That funding was about to be cut off altogether, potentially leading to prison guards leaving the job and risking ISIS militants getting out of jail, until this administration was alerted to how reckless that would be and they carved out that funding.
But trust me when I say there are many other funding streams that help keep us safe that are still at risk, especially because of the illegal Executive orders that are, today, still blocking foreign assistance--and the absolutely lawless effort to dismantle USAID, which does lifesaving relief work around the world. I will have more to say on that in just a bit.
And, by the way, how does undermining health, which will mean diseases run rampant, particularly at a time when bird flu is on the uptick and impacting many of our producers and workers and States--how does that make any sense? Because when it comes to healthcare, this attempted freeze posed a huge threat to our families.
Set aside the fact that the Medicaid payment portal went down in my State and in every State--something we are told was a coincidence. That doesn't change the fact that all Federal healthcare grant reimbursements stopped. It doesn't change the fact that community health centers were blocked from getting the funds they needed to pay their staff and continue providing care in our communities, including rural areas where they are often the only option for miles. It doesn't change the fact that title X providers who support care like family planning services and cancer screenings and more couldn't draw down their funds.
I also heard from HopeSparks. It is a healthcare provider in my State. They warned that, without Federal support, kids in the South Puget Sound would lose access to mental healthcare and crisis services.
Biomedical researchers were suddenly left dealing with questions not about how to save lives but about grant freezes and how these vague, broad actions might stop research programs and clinical trials across the country.
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center moved to bridge the gap to keep research from being derailed, but not getting this fixed would have meant putting them in the hole to the tune of over $1 million a day. That sort of unexpected burden would have had a huge impact on lifesaving cancer research.
And agricultural research was faced with uncertainty as well. WSU is a national leader in this important work: research to help our farmers grow more crops, grow more resilient crops, fight challenges like pests and plant diseases. WSU was deeply concerned funding for that research could be cut off, undermining important work supporting our Nation's farmers.
And the threats didn't stop there for those who are in food and agriculture. One organization which works alongside our local growers told me losing funding would mean a reduced capacity to grow and distribute fresh local food to our communities. Now, that would hurt both the farmers and the families who rely on those programs to put food on the table.
Meanwhile, a group in Washington who are addressing youth homelessness warned it would have to kick kids out if the funding issue wasn't resolved.
Let me repeat that. A homeless youth group was pushed to the brink of having to kick kids onto the street because of President Trump's illegal freeze.
I was also deeply concerned about how the freeze might halt an important diaper pilot program, as well as the reports I got from multiple housing providers in my State, worried that tens of thousands of people would be at risk of homelessness thanks to this illegal freeze.
And don't let me get started on infrastructure. These are projects that take years--years--to plan, to build, to complete, and do an awful lot of good for our communities.
In my State alone, there were big questions about what was going to happen to electrical grid upgrades that are happening in Okanogan and Pierce County, improvements that were planned at the Ports of Seattle and Everett and Whitman County, or Sea-Tac Airport's plan to deploy new trucks.
And, by the way, some of those questions remain till today, because, as I will detail in a minute, there are still many other ways programs are being put at risk by Trump illegally blocking funds with his Executive orders.
I will continue fighting for the Federal funding Congress already provided to keep all of those projects on track, but that can only get us so far if President Trump illegally blocks it all, and our Republican colleagues could let that happen.
The list goes on and on; the calls keep coming in. Even now that OMB has reversed course, the chaos has not died down. The questions, the uncertainty, the fear, from families and communities that Trump will pull the rug out from under them is still there, because even though after the intense outcry from the American public, Trump has now admitted this was a colossal mistake because he rescinded the guidance; but the threat, the chaos, the panic, cannot just be wiped away-- especially while some funds are still today being blocked.
No one feels any sense of calm after this. People aren't feeling lasting relief. They are wondering: How could something like that ever happen, and what in the world is going to happen next?
The Trump administration, through a combination of sheer incompetence, cruel intentions, and a willful disregard of the law, caused--and is still causing--real harm and chaos for millions of people over the span of just a mere 48 hours.
But we did learn something extremely important: When the American people speak out with one voice, when regular people stand up, it makes a difference. That victory belonged to everyone who raised their voice. But I want everyone to know--make no mistake--this fight is not over.
As I said before, we still have a lot of work to do right now to make sure all that funding actually does get moving again. This is not like turning on a light switch. We just saw through the chaotic rollout this is complicated stuff. So I want you to know I will be watching closely to make sure funds get where they belong as soon as possible. I already know that in many cases, this has not been what is happening at all, so this is a very serious concern.
I actually spoke with a constituent last week--Mike. He runs a nonprofit supporting military families and helping servicemembers transition back to civilian life. And even days after the OMB guidance was reversed, he was still unable to access Federal funding, so he used his own line of credit to pay his staff in the meantime. And if this didn't get fixed, his organization wouldn't have been able to help military families or pay its employees.
The homeless shelter that I mentioned a few minutes ago, short $5.1 million--$5.1 million because of Trump. They still have their funds frozen. They are still looking at reducing beds and facing layoffs. And as I mentioned earlier, some Head Start programs are still not able to get their grant funding.
So the chaos of this OMB saga is far, far from over.
And let me make one thing perfectly clear, even before this latest whirl of chaos, President Trump was already--already--illegally blocking billions of dollars. And even after that OMB guidance was reversed, he is still holding back all of those funds through his illegal Executive orders. You don't have to take it from me, you can take it directly from the White House press secretary.
So that was the chaos of last week. I want to talk about how that chaos remains, what we are still seeing this week, and what it means for folks back home and across the country, because there is still significant confusion. And the remaining freezes are still causing significant pain.
For example, I have heard from cities in my State and from the Washington State Department of Transportation--now, it is still hard to get a clear picture, given the chaotic rollback and more, but they are telling me they are concerned about infrastructure projects all over my State that are already getting delayed now and could get derailed entirely because President Trump is still illegally blocking funding we passed with his Executive orders.
If this illegal freeze continues, people will lose jobs, communities will lose out on projects that have been in the works for years. Trump is blocking money to repair electric chargers, to install heavy-duty chargers for trucks, to make critical repairs to bridges in order to protect the safety of millions of drivers, and to install new chargers along major roads in my State, like I-90, US-97, US-2, US-195, and US- 395.
Stopping these projects is just pointlessly--pointlessly--hurting commuters and businesses. It is costing construction workers; it is killing jobs. Trump is holding up road projects to make streets safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers, like a safer streets project in Richland, WA, and critical safety barriers in Spokane, not to mention the Liberty Park Land Bridge in Spokane--which would reconnect communities and provide more green space for families to enjoy, or funds for the City of Lakewood--they are planning to revitalize their downtown and bring in more retail space and restaurants and healthcare services and financial services and make upgrades to roads and provide a new festival area and park areas and more.
Trump's freezes are also a concern for the Samish Indian Nation as it works to improve safety and access to their land at the Campbell Lake Road intersection, which has seen growing traffic in recent years, and for a project led by the Tulalip Tribe to improve the interchanges along I-5 exits; the congestions on these ramps can get so bad it backs all the way up to the main highway.
We want to get those projects done. We want to get them done, and the last thing we need is uncertainty about these stalled funds.
There is also a project underway to upgrade the technology at our border with Canada, replacing and improving the outdated wait-time system to improve accuracy and help our inspection and our transportation Agencies.
This will help travelers who are headed to Canada avoid long wait times at the border and help fans from around the world, by the way, who are traveling between Seattle and Vancouver for next year's World Cup move quickly--but not if Trump's Executive orders stop all of this funding.
Same for the efforts to update our statewide planning with a new electronic system that would make the process for planning and specifications and estimates more efficient. And, of course, in Washington State, we can never forget about fish, which are crucial to our culture and our economy in many ways.
Trump's ongoing funding freeze is putting projects to improve fish habitats on ice: replacing the culvert at Thornton Creek; replacing the failing culvert at Wapato Creek, which is right underneath the Pierce County terminal at the port of Tacoma; or removing the fish barrier culverts at Johnson Creek, which will open up nearly 3,000 meters of upstream habitat; not to mention other wildlife preservation work like an undercrossing structure and wildlife barriers east of Winthrop and work on our waterways. Funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law is still not restored, still not restored today for some projects on the Lower Columbia River, projects like a stormwater infrastructure that will help keep toxins out of our water and restore our wetlands and protect our ecosystems.
Our ports, our ports, so critical for not only Washington State's economy but for the entire country, are caught up in this too. There are port projects now on hold across my State, including for electrical infrastructure and shore power for vessels.
These impacts are being felt from Anacortes to Port Angeles to Vancouver, frozen funding is hurting working families in Washington and across the country, and it is making our economy less competitive.
And we cannot forget our ferries, which are so crucial to many commuters in my State. Washington State ferries are looking to improve their data with a better system for collecting and analyzing and reporting wait times at all of our terminals. That would help give them some information so they can improve their efficiency and make life better for the people they serve.
Losing that funding means more people will miss ferries, and it means long waits in line for Washington State commuters who cross the water for everything from work to school to medical appointments.
We also have absolutely essential electric transmission and distribution projects that are on hold now, and they are in jeopardy. These are projects that are necessary, helping reduce our wildfire risks, ensuring grid reliability, improving resilience to natural disasters, and lowering costs for ratepayers across my State of Washington.
Those are all funded under the bipartisan infrastructure law; that is a bipartisan infrastructure law that Members of Republicans and Democrats worked on and passed. It is a program that Republicans thought was important enough to provide $10.5 billion. After what we have seen in recent months and years, I don't know how you could say with a straight face that modernizing our grid isn't absolutely vital to the future of our country.
You don't have to listen to me; Secretary Burgum and Secretary Wright said as much in their confirmation hearings.
But this project, all of these projects and many more, have been thrown into complete uncertainty because of President Trump's Executive orders.
It is completely unclear when or if those projects are going to get the funding they were counting on and that they were owed from bills that Congress passed and signed into law.
And that is not just causing chaos, it is causing delays. It is causing harm and alarm, because it could mean construction grinds to a halt, workers lose jobs. It means the work will go unstarted or, perhaps, in some cases, unfinished. Plus, it would mean increasing costs, increasing costs for our cities and counties and States and Tribes for those projects that somehow make it through all of this.
And while there are many more infrastructure projects in my State I haven't touched on, not to mention the other projects across the entire country, there are so many other projects and organizations and people who are being harmed right now by President Trump's reckless funding freeze.
I know there are medical researchers still worried their work will somehow be considered woke, when, in reality, it is actually pretty darn important that we do understand the risk of health disparities, things like why the maternal death rate is so much higher for Black or Native American women. Yet now researchers are being told that their research is at risk of being defunded if they are examining issues of equity or barriers to care, or even if they are specifically studying females.
And there are hospitals in my State and across the country who are worried that some of these programs, which are appropriately focused on someone's gender or race, are in jeopardy.
For example--give you a good example--we know that pulse oximeters are less accurate for people with darker skin tones. Making sure that these clinical measurements are accurate will save life, and it has life-and-death consequences for patients.
We know women have much higher rates of autoimmune disorders than men. We need to look at why that is. We need to invest in training the next generation of scientists, including from diverse backgrounds. Studies actually show us that diversity in the scientific workforce leads to greater innovation and productivity, but there is a serious concern that lifesaving work is going to get caught up in President Trump's sweeping, illegal Executive orders.
Another impact of Trump's actions: The National Park Service has rescinded all of its employment offers for our summer seasonal staff. Now, that doesn't just mean people are going to be facing longer wait lines or dirtier bathrooms--though they will--it could mean park closures throughout this entire summer. It will mean delayed responses to emergencies, making people less safe. And outside our national parks, Trump is also freezing regional cleanup efforts, things like stopping illegal dumping and improving air quality in our communities.
And let's talk about foreign assistance, because for decades now, there has been widespread, bipartisan understanding that promoting stability abroad, promoting democracy, improving health, strengthening trade, building partnerships, is crucial to U.S. leadership.
But Trump's Executive orders put all of that at risk by illegally freezing funds.
I have heard from organizations that operate all over the world about how they were unable to deliver the lifesaving aid that millions of people rely on due to the stop-work orders. That meant millions of doses of lifesaving drugs sat unused on shelves; time-sensitive prevention methods against diseases like malaria were not carried out, putting millions at risk; training for more than 64,000 healthcare workers was put on hold; and hundreds of millions of metric tons of U.S.-grown commodities are sitting, at the risk of spoiling, in transport instead of reaching their final destinations across the world to feed people in need.
Despite a so-called waiver from the U.S. State Department to resume work, much of this lifesaving aid is still today on hold. Without a start-work order, those organizations fear they are taking on significant risk now in continuing operations.
Put simply, this was already unacceptable, and now over the weekend, President Trump and Elon Musk have decided--against all reason, against all evidence, and against the law, mind you--to completely dismantle USAID, and that is on top of the illegal funding freeze that has already been pushing U.S. businesses and nonprofits and international aid groups to make tough choices for truly pointless reasons.
It should be obvious that these cuts will hurt people across the world. These cuts are going to mean that people starve. These cuts will mean that people don't get clean water. These cuts will mean more disease outbreaks with higher death counts. These cuts will mean less help for victims of violence and higher death rates for pregnant women.
Anyone with an ounce of humanity can see this freeze will get devastating fast. It is important to note that it will get devastating in ways you cannot just make up with more money later once that damage is done. That is just not how it works. When people are starving, you cannot just feed them money; you need to have already made the investments to grow food. When democracies are in crisis, you can't just cut them a check; you need to have helped them build strong institutions. When a deadly disease outbreak strikes, you are going to learn very quickly that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
These are not lessons we need to learn the hard way by letting people die. We know it all painfully well right now. So to freeze that funding is asking for disaster, and not just for other countries across the world but for us, for the United States and for our families here at home.
Freezing foreign assistance is not putting America first; it is guaranteeing America comes in last because every funding gap we leave is an opportunity for our adversaries to step in, fill that gap, and play the hero while casting us as the villain.
How are we supposed to lead the world if we are unwilling to invest in it? I will tell you right now, China is not holding back. They are investing constantly because they know they aren't just building infrastructure across the world, they are building stronger partnerships. We just counted ourselves out of that competition.
You want to end U.S. global dominance? You want to tell the world the United States is done being a leader? You want to tell other countries we cannot be trusted to keep our word? Because that is exactly what we are doing if we let Trump get away with illegally cutting off global aid with the stroke of a pen and let the richest man in the world cut off help from some of the poorest people in the world.
Let's be clear. It is not just U.S. leadership on the line here; there are U.S. jobs at stake. That reality is hitting home hard this week. Back in my home State of Washington, there are some world-class organizations that I know may have to lay off people this week, hundreds of people, all because of President Trump's funding freeze. It is a scene that is not isolated to Washington State. I know it is playing out across the country as well with thousands of layoffs across 38 States and Canada. I know that so long as President Trump's lawless war on foreign aid continues, so will those layoffs. We will see hundreds, if not thousands, more every week.
International aid organizations may make a difference around the world, but they support American jobs too, people who have a paycheck and a family, people who work incredibly hard and who are incredibly proud of the work they do to make the world a better place and reaffirm U.S. global leadership. But they are being sent packing, not because they have done anything wrong, not because this work is not important, but because President Trump and Elon Musk are listening to wacko conspiracists and ultra-isolationists while ignoring the experts, ignoring the obvious realities, and, again, ignoring the law. We should all stand against this.
I know we are here tonight to discuss the Vought nomination, but I want to talk about someone who has not been nominated to anything. He has not been elected to anything. Yet he is serving as de facto co- President--Elon Musk. Arguably, he is more important and more influential than the elected, sitting President, and he has proven himself in lockstep with Russ Vought--whom we are voting on tomorrow-- when it comes to slashing programs that matter to American families and ignoring the laws of our Nation.
In recent days, Musk has been busy illegally shuttering USAID, cutting off foreign assistant programs, which I said will lose jobs for Americans, lose lives in countries around the world, and lose leadership as adversaries like China fill that gap. Shockingly, Musk has even had people fired--fired--for denying his lackeys classified resources that they had no authority to access.
Last weekend, we all learned that Elon Musk essentially commandeered access to the Treasury Department's most sensitive payment system, handling $6 trillion every year and managing nearly all of our Federal reimbursements. It is a system that contains extremely sensitive personal and commercial information.
I have been hearing from people across my State who are truly alarmed about what Musk and his associations having access to this system could mean for their data and for funding they count on.
Let's not mince words here. An unelected, unaccountable billionaire with expansive conflicts of interest, deep ties to China, and an indiscreet ax to grind against perceived enemies is highjacking our Nation's most sensitive financial data system and its checkbook so that he can illegally block funds to our constituents based on the slightest whim or wildest conspiracy--funds, mind you, that Congress on a bipartisan basis passed.
Some Republicans are trying to suggest that Musk only has viewing access to Treasury's highly sensitive payment system--as if that is acceptable either--but why on Earth should we believe that, particularly when Musk himself is saying the exact opposite loudly and repeatedly for everyone to hear?
What funds will Elon target next? Lifesaving medical research? Homelessness assistance? Food banks? We already know he has falsely attacked faith-based organizations that help folks and is promising to cut off funds based off conspiracy theories. In other words, the world's richest man has vowed to cut off funding that helps the least among us. Think about that.
Next, think about how many dollars he himself makes from government contracts. I mean, seriously. The richest man in the world, with countless government contracts, ties to our adversaries, is taking over the Treasury in the name of fighting corruption? The irony is almost as rich as Musk himself.
Let me underscore just how dangerous this is because now that Trump has handed over Treasury's checkbook, what if Elon decides he doesn't like how Rivian is getting Federal funds to build an EV manufacturing facility? So what next? All Elon has to do is say ``Oh, they are woke,'' and he can convince Trump to illegally cut off those funds. Is that how this works now?
Maybe Elon will decide he doesn't like Blue Origin and not SpaceX getting a contract, so he wants to gum up the works on their payments. Is that how this works?
Maybe Elon decides he wants to get into electronic healthcare systems, and maybe he wants to punish hospital systems that don't take him up on whatever he is selling.
Private corporations and competitors need to take note. The potential for abuse and corruption by Elon--especially considering his track record--is pretty much limitless.
And it is not just Treasury. Musk and his henchmen are launching a full-scale invasion of sensitive data systems across government. We are talking about the Small Business Administration. We are talking about NOAA. We are talking about Medicare. The reporting is now clear. They are not just looking either; they are directly making changes to some of those critical systems.
This is not Silicon Valley, where you can just move fast and break things. When you break things here, people don't get their healthcare; they don't get their Social Security check; they don't get crucial warnings and lifesaving information.
Anyone who thinks ``Well, that surely won't happen'' has not been paying attention because just this week, Elon Musk and Donald Trump put Americans in danger. We have citizens in dangerous corners of the world who were suddenly locked out of their emails, and they were cut off from an app that is meant to help address threats like kidnapping.
So no one should be shrugging this off and just saying ``Well, what is the worst that could happen?'' because this can get really, really bad, really, really fast.
If anyone is thinking ``Well, it is OK. We have guardrails. We have laws,'' make no mistake, even though Trump and Musk have absolutely zero legal authority to hold up any Federal payments that are law, this has not stopped them so far. As we have seen,
The fact of the matter is, Trump and Musk have yet to find a law they think applies to them. They think because they are rich and powerful, they get to call all the shots regardless of the courts and regardless of Congress. That is not how things work in this country. Billionaires are not above the law, and neither are Presidents. We do not have a monarchy where a President is king. We do not have an oligarchy where the richest people get the largest say. We in this country have a democracy--if we can keep it--where each citizen has a vote. We have checks and balances where the President is accountable to the Congress and to the people, where he has to follow the laws we pass.
But some of my colleagues across the aisle seem to be forgetting that our democracy doesn't work by magic. We have to do our part--our part-- here to hold Presidents accountable. Our job is not to say yes to everything the President does, no matter how lawless or harmful. Our job is not to shrug our shoulders or cover our eyes. It is to fight for the people who sent us here and to defend the Constitution.
So Democrats will be pushing back with the tools we have. We will speak out. We will press this administration. We will open investigations, and we will demand accountability. But one tool we do not have is the majority in this Congress. So that means our Republican colleagues have to say: Enough. We need them to join us. We need them to stand up to the corruption and the lawlessness and stand up for the people they represent.
While I am on the subject, I want to talk about another scheme Elon Musk cooked up. We are approaching the deadline that is set in the Trump administration's ``Fork in the Road'' message, which claims--and I have to emphasize that it merely claims--to give Federal workers the option of a deferred resignation that would allegedly allow workers to retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30.
I want to speak directly to all of our Federal workers about this because they deserve better than to be pushed out the door with a 9-day pressure tactic that comes with no clarity, no details, and a lot of questions left unanswered.
So here is what is important for everyone to know. First, there is no guarantee workers who accept that offer will get paid through September 30, as they have been promised. Not only is there no funding for that timeframe right now, but I personally am deeply skeptical of any offer from a President like Donald Trump, who has so consistently shown he will try to stiff workers at every opportunity.
Being given only 9 days to decide something like this should set off alarm bells. That is a short amount of time to consider all of the financial impacts of potentially accepting this offer--including, if you were able to find another job, how would this impact your benefits like health insurance, retirement, and a lot more.
And we all know, scammers often pressure people: Act immediately.
Additionally, information being provided continues to change and includes a lot of caveats. It claims you can rescind your resignation if you change your mind. But your job may no longer exist if that happens--tough luck.
It claims you aren't expected to work if you accept this offer, except in cases determined by each individual Agency.
It claims you can stay in your current role. However, there is no guarantee your position will be needed.
The lack of clear information and research about exactly what will be allowed is rightfully creating confusion for the more than 56,000 Federal workers in my State alone. To me, this leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
Finally, I want to express a real gratitude for our Federal workers who power so many essential services provided by our government. The American Government is not Twitter. People rely on our Federal workers, and sometimes their work can be the difference between life and death.
Federal workers help inspect meat processing facilities. They make sure baby formula is safe. They approve lifesaving drugs and treatments. They manage air traffic. They help ensure clean drinking water. And there is so much more.
Where this administration continues to show outright hostility toward many of our Federal workers, I want you to know I will continue to fight for our Federal workers--everyone from Hanford workers, scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Lab, to the people making sure you get your Social Security check.
Mr. President, I got a letter this week from a Hanford worker. They started last year, hoping it would be a stable job that would let them provide for their family while making a difference in their community. This employee has already been recognized several times for hard work. And then Elon Musk tried to push them out the door with this scammy buyout, and now they are on the list of employees who are at the threat of being terminated for no good reason.
That is an utter betrayal. It is a betrayal of a hard-working parent who did nothing wrong and a betrayal of my Hanford community, where Trump is undermining important environmental cleanup work, because at Hanford alone, which is already understaffed, there are nearly 30 people now on the chopping block. They are nuclear safety engineers. They are facility safety representatives. They are procurement and contracting personnel. They are attorneys. They are labor relations staff. They are accountants.
How is firing nuclear safety engineers supposed to make anyone safer or better off?
Mr. President, there are so many stories like this already happening or just around the corner. I have heard that Musk and Trump plan to cut workers at the Department of Energy in half. These are Federal employees who put in long hours to support their families and to strengthen our country. And for all their years of service, for all their sacrifice, Elon Musk is showing them the door and saying: Don't let it hit you on the way out.
This is wrong, and it is ungrateful. And for God's sake, we are talking about nuclear security here. Why on Earth would anyone think it is a good idea to cut corners?
Here is my message to our Federal workers: You do so much for our communities. You deserve so much better than to have a billionaire with no understanding of what you do come in, belittle your work, suggest he can do it better, and push you out the door. I hope you will all keep up the good work for the American people. I want you to know we will keep fighting for you as well.
Mr. President, before I conclude, I just want to state once more what is at stake with Vought's nomination. We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal spending that Congress--us--passed that our communities are counting on and that Mr. Vought has made painfully clear he will not think twice about illegally blocking it.
Giving this man the power to enact his illegal schemes will do real harm to folks back home. It will cut people off from getting groceries and making rent. It will cut our families off from childcare and healthcare. It will cut veterans and their survivors off from disability and education benefits they earned through their service to our country. It will cut off breakthrough medical research and help for people who are struggling with opioid addiction. It will cut off communities that are working to build bridges and improve roads and strengthen their energy infrastructure. That will have serious consequences we cannot overlook.
We are here to fight for our families, but there is also another serious consequence here, one that cuts to the heart of what makes this Senate work and what makes our democracy work. Confirming Russ Vought to OMB makes it that much harder to negotiate our spending bills. It is much harder to reach a bipartisan deal with my colleagues, whom I respect and trust and have worked with for years, if that deal is going to be implemented by someone in whom I have zero trust; someone who has made clear that despite our laws, he is going to block any funding we pass. Why should any Senator vote to confirm someone who has
Mr. President, as I have said, our system of checks and balances does not work on its own. We have to actually do our part here in Congress to be the check of Presidential abuse of power. And we have an opportunity--actually, it is an obligation--right now, to do just that. Before us right now is a nominee who has made it very clear he will not respect the authority of Congress--of all us and the people who voted us in--nominated by a President who is not respecting the authority of Congress and the people who voted us in.
We have to say we can't stand for that. We have to say from here that the law is the law. And a simple way we can send that message is by rejecting Russ Vought's nomination outright.
Mr. President, I am here today to strongly urge my colleagues to join me in doing just that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. President, I would like to start by thanking Senator Murray for her extraordinary leadership. She has been a stalwart in the Senate for many, many years and now is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and knows firsthand the importance of the process by which we make a law in the United States. And that includes that we pass those laws in Congress. We fund them in Congress. It is signed by the President of the United States. And people across this Nation can know, through that process, those are what the laws are. If you don't like those laws, then elect different people who will come up with different versions of the law.
But everyone--Democrat or Republican--sticks to the same version, and that is: A law is a law.
The President of the United States or his co-President, Elon Musk, do not have the right simply to go back on the laws and say: Oh, we pick that one, that one, and that one to enforce--and that one, no; that one, no; and, maybe, that one, half time.
That is not how the process works.
Senator Murray has been the leading voice in fighting back against this, and I want to say how much I appreciate all that she has done.
I want to talk for just a minute about Project 2025. During the 2024 election, the American people became familiar with this Republican document called Project 2025. The document laid out Republican plans to reshape our country if they gained control.
Now, Americans, a little at a time, got a chance to see the plan. People started to read it, and they were shocked. In no time, people from across the political spectrum--not just Democrats; Democrats, Republicans, Independents--made clear how much they hated Project 2025 and that they wanted no part of it.
So what was in Project 2025 that made it so widely hated across the political spectrum?
A few things: firing civil servants, weaponizing the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations, unleashing force onto protesters and targeting political opponents, restricting abortion nationwide, ripping retirement and healthcare benefits from seniors, dismantling public education, and--biggest and best--funding tax cuts for the rich by raising taxes on America's middle class.
I want to be clear, it is a big document. Those are just the top lines.
So Donald Trump's response was to swear over and over and over again that he had nothing to do with those plans; he didn't know about them, didn't endorse them, didn't want anything to do with them.
Here are some of the things that Donald Trump said about Project 2025 back in 2024:
And my personal favorite:
So think about that. During the 2024 election, Donald Trump claimed he didn't know anything about Project 2025. But he lied. Shortly after the election, he nominated one of the chief architects of Project 2025 in a key role with the government.
Donald Trump has named the lead architect of Project 2025, Russ Vought, to oversee the Federal Government's entire budget office. That is right. Listen to this one. He is putting the head writer of the plans that you had only read about in nightmares in a key government position.
Russ Vought wrote Project 2025, and now, Donald Trump is rewarding him by inviting him into the government in order to carry out the Republican blueprint to make our government force people to live in the image that Russ Vought and other extremist Republicans approve of. And he plans to rework our economy to benefit the wealthiest among us and make everybody else pay for it.
Here are just a few of the things that Russ Vought has called for. Russ Vought has called on Congress to outlaw medication abortion nationwide, restricting women's reproductive rights, even in States that protect abortion. Russ Vought has encouraged discrimination against transgender people in the workplace and in healthcare. In his first stint as OMB Director, Russ Vought decried the use of Federal funding for diversity and equity training in a letter to Federal Agencies.
The Project 2025 playbook calls for eliminating almost every civil rights office in the Federal Government. And Russ Vought has said he intends to put Federal workers ``in trauma'' and destroy the merit- based system for civil servants so that he can fill the government with rightwing extremists.
I am going to pause here for a minute to see if Senator Gillibrand wants to speak.
Thank you so much, Senator Warren, for your unbelievable tenacity and clear-eyed and thoughtful remarks.
I yield the balance of my postcloture debate time on the Vought nomination to Senator Schumer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Duly noted.
Let's keep in mind, Russ Vought has called for outlawing abortion--medication abortion--nationwide. It doesn't matter whether or not you live in a State that says, no, we are going to protect abortion. Russ Vought wants to find a way to make sure it is shut down everywhere.
He wants to encourage discrimination against transgender people.
He thinks that getting rid of civil rights is the way to go for the American Government.
And he says he wants to put Federal workers in trauma and destroy the merit-based system for civil servants so he can fill up our government with rightwing extremists.
Now, we are already seeing firsthand the devastating effects of Russ Vought's plan for America. Russ Vought was the puppet master behind the funding shutdown that threw this country into chaos last week. I saw this in Massachusetts. Parents didn't know if their toddlers' daycare would be open. Seniors didn't know if the hot meals they were expecting from Meals on Wheels would grind to a halt. No one knew if the nursing homes funded by Medicaid would be able to pay their workers.
That was just the tip of the iceberg for Russ Vought. If he is confirmed, you can absolutely bet on Russ Vought pulling out the rug from working people over and over and over again. Quite frankly, we don't know where he will stop. This is where they have started. Three weeks in, and this is where they have started.
Will Russ Vought, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump stop when they have ripped abortion rights away from every single woman in America?
Will they stop when he has abolished the Department of Education and fired 180,000 teachers from their jobs?
Will he stop when he has privatized Medicare and when seniors can't afford to go see the doctor?
Will he stop when he is done stealing from middle-class families in order to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest households? By the way, that is in his blueprint, too--tax hikes for the middle class and tax breaks for the rich.
Will he stop when he crashes the economy? Take it from me, with these kinds of plans, crashing the economy is
Look, already, families all across this country are feeling the pressure from high grocery prices while Donald Trump and his administration just turn their backs on working families.
American families cannot afford for Russ Vought to be in charge. We don't know how far Russ Vought's extremism will go, but we can't afford to wait and find out.
Americans voted for each and every one of us right here in the U.S. Senate to fight for them, and they do not expect us to roll over and play dead. It is our sworn duty to stop dangerous people like Russ Vought before he destroys our freedom, our economy, and the stability of every working family in this Nation. So I urge every Senator to vote no on his nomination.
I also want to take this chance to share some of the stories I have been hearing from my constituents, the people of Massachusetts. The impacts of Donald Trump's and Russ Vought's policies are affecting people in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and all across this country. I am here to fight for the people of Massachusetts, and I am here to share their stories.
I want to start with a message I received from a family childcare center that cares for hundreds of children each day so that moms have the opportunity to succeed in their careers.
Here is how the message goes:
So think about that.
When Russ Vought and Donald Trump and Elon Musk just decide to start shutting programs down, we have childcare centers that are writing in, saying, in effect, they are not going to have the money to keep the doors open for the children and the mommas whom they serve.
This is from a small business owner in Lynnfield. Sadaf owns a small business that works to innovate new lab equipment to improve cancer and prenatal screenings. She gets money from the National Institutes of Health. This is exactly the kind of person we want to see doing work right here in the United States.
Here is what she writes:
Think about that.
Here is someone who has built a small business around doing more effective cancer screenings and prenatal screenings, and she has been recognized by the National Institutes of Health as someone who is doing the kind of cutting-edge research and delivering the kind of services we need. Because Russ Vought, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk say, ``No. We are just going to freeze funding here,'' the consequence is, she says: I am at risk of having to lay off employees and close my business.
I have heard this from many of my constituents.
Another in Worcester runs a small nonprofit to help communities vulnerable to the climate crisis. They have $1.5 million in contracts that they now can't access, and soon they are going to have to lay off employees.
The impact of holding this money up is real. It is felt in our communities. It is felt household by household by household when people can't get to the money they need so that they can issue the paychecks and keep people working. Why and how is that making America any better off?
Take this story from the Boston Globe, entitled ``'Am I going to lose my husband?': The real price of Trump's budget freeze.''
And I am going to do my best to pronounce them--
So this is someone with health insurance.
He was getting the shot every 3 weeks to keep his tumors from growing.
In other words, they wanted to continue to be able to study him.
Make no mistake, these are not one-off stories. Families everywhere, all across the country, in red States and blue States, are feeling the impacts of these policies--everyone.
Now, maybe you knew about this, maybe you didn't, but Trump is trying to keep you in the dark on some of these things while he distracts by renaming the Gulf of Mexico or dreaming about Canada as the 51st State. In just his first couple of weeks in office, Donald Trump has gone on a rampage against working people, signing hundreds of Executive orders-- rolling the clock back on progress and reinstating harmful and unpopular policies from his first term. He signed many of these Executive orders in the middle of the night because he and his administration didn't want people to know about them.
So I just want to remind everybody, for all of those pictures of Donald Trump signing while everybody looked on and everybody smiled or with Donald Trump holding up an Executive order that he signed very proudly, those are not all of the Executive orders. There were a lot of his Executive orders that got signed late at night and then were just pushed out.
Here are some of the Executive orders that the American people may not know about, and they are right in lockstep with Project 2025:
In one Executive order, Donald Trump called for a Federal Government hiring freeze. Project 2025 proposed implementing a ``hiring freeze for career officials.'' So Trump does the Executive order exactly to what Project 2025 was proposing.
Here is Donald Trump's Executive order:
There it is--Project 2025 and Donald Trump's Executive order.
Another Executive order: He withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords. So let's start with Project 2025. It proposed that the ``next conservative administration should withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.''
Here is Donald Trump's Executive order that was signed late at night:
Project 2025 calls for it; Donald Trump delivers.
He paused the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law, which is fighting the climate crisis and helping cities and towns across America to upgrade their roads and bridges.
Project 2025 called to repeal ``massive spending bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act, which established new programs and are providing hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to renewable energy developers, their investors, and special interests, and support the rescinding of all funds not already spent by these programs.'' In other words, Project 2025 is saying: Shut it down. Shut it down.
Here is Donald Trump's Executive order:
So there we are. Project 2025 calls for it; Donald Trump delivers with an Executive order.
The fact that he cannot legally do that doesn't seem to have slowed him down at all. In fact, Project 2025 talks about repealing those laws. That means you come to Congress, and then Congress votes on it-- the House and the Senate. And only if you get majorities in the House and Senate do you send it over to the President of the United States to sign it into law.
Donald Trump isn't doing it. Republicans are in charge of the House. Republicans are in charge of the Senate. But instead of saying we are going to amend the law that has already gone through the process and been signed in and the money has all been appropriated for it, nope-- instead--Donald Trump says, with a middle-of-the-night Executive order, I am just going to say: Stop spending money.
That is impoundment, and it is clearly unlawful. He is in violation of the law.
Now, on abortion, Trump reinstated and expanded the global gag rule-- a heartless rule that makes women and girls across the world less safe by cutting funding for health centers that may provide abortion.
Planned Parenthood gave us an idea of just how bad this is. Here is their quote on this:
In fact, here is what Alexis McGill Johnson, who is President and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said:
But Donald Trump just signed that Executive order in the middle of the night, and women--particularly poor women--all around the world will pay the price.
Here is more of what Donald Trump did to try to turn back the clock on women's bodies. This one comes from POLITICO:
So the President signed the Executive orders hours after addressing the annual anti-abortion March for Life in a prerecorded video.
A 2022 study by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that Trump's anti-abortion restrictions on foreign aid led to 108,000 deaths of women and children in poor countries over the 4 years of his first administration. How does that happen? Well, it is because that Executive order from the first time around slashed funding for groups like the nonprofit MSI Reproductive Choices, which operates clinics that provide contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections with U.S. funds, and it uses separate revenues to fund and provide abortions.
MSI said, ahead of the policy being reinstated, that it wouldn't abide by it. This will lead to the organization losing $14 million in U.S. Agency for International Development funding, an MSI spokesperson said. The organization estimates the financial loss could result in an additional 2.4 million unintended pregnancies because the organization would have to stop providing contraception in several countries.
I am at a complete loss to explain how the United States is better off if more unintended pregnancies happen in poor countries and how we explain that, the last time around, when Trump did this, it resulted in 108,000 deaths of women and children in poor countries, and that we are headed straight into the same plan again.
Another study by Stanford University researchers found that the narrower version of the Mexico City policy that several GOP Presidents enacted prior to Trump caused the number of abortions to increase across Sub-Saharan Africa because so many women lost access to contraception.
Let me say that once again. For everyone who thinks that abortion should not occur, understand the consequence of the Trump Executive order, and that is that it increases the number of abortions across Sub-Saharan Africa because women lose their access to contraption.
Abortion rights advocates have also argued that the policy is overbroad because it imposes restrictions in countries where abortion is legal. One day earlier, in another move that thrilled abortion opponents, Trump issued pardons for roughly two dozen people convicted of forcibly entering and blocking access to abortion clinics. In fact, this has been an important part of the Trump Executive order stream in this area.
The idea that the Federal laws that protect women who are walking from where they have parked their car to an abortion clinic and also a place where they may get contraception, where they may get a mammogram, where they may get other health screenings, not to be interfered with; that they get a chance to walk without having people scream in their faces and spit on them, that has been taken away by the President of the United States. He has said: Move in a little closer. Bear down harder on those women.
And, still, the anti-abortion groups that helped Trump win reelection are looking beyond these actions and are pushing for more from the new administration.
For example, what are they asking for now? Well, they want to look at a ban on telehealth prescriptions and mail delivery of abortion pills. They want to do rules forcing States to provide more detailed information on all abortions within their borders, so they can see more about who is getting what treatments, and repeal of the Biden administration rules that expanded abortion access for some military members and veterans. It is all happening out in plain view.
Let us be clear: This is and always has been about controlling women's bodies. Donald Trump packed the Supreme Court with anti- abortion extremists to get Roe overturned, and he
As you probably have already seen in the news, Elon Musk has taken control of the government's critical payment systems, which include sensitive personal information for millions of Americans.
This is the system that makes sure that your grandpa gets his Social Security check. This is the system that makes sure that your mom's doctor gets the Medicare payment to cover her medical appointment. And this is the system that makes sure that you get the tax refund that you are owed. Now it has been taken over by Elon Musk.
Every organization--from your State government that uses Federal money on that bridge project to your local Head Start that takes care of little kids while their mommies and daddies go to work--is now at the mercy of Elon Musk.
Maybe you get paid, but, then again, maybe you don't. Elon just grabbed the controls of that whole payment system, demanding the power to turn it on for his friends and turn it off for anyone he declares he doesn't like--one guy deciding who gets paid and who doesn't. It is not the law, but it is the reality.
There is a second problem here. It is not just payments from the Federal Government that are now in Elon's control. Elon and his handful of friends now have access to your personal financial information, anything that is in the system. Your payment history, your Social Security number, your address, your bank account numbers--Elon now has the power to suck out all that information for his own use. And, now, whether it is to boost his personal finances or to expand his political power, it is all up to Elon.
Understand, in a world in which data is power, Elon has just increased his power.
There is a third kind of problem here. In order for this handful of programmers to gain access to our $6 trillion payment system, we don't know what kind of safeguards were pulled down. Are the gates wide open now for hackers from China, from North Korea, from Iran, from Russia? Heck, who knows what black-hat hackers all around the world are finding out right now about each and every one of us, copying that information, and storing it for their own future criminal uses.
How many back doors are being installed right now in the system that is truly the financial guts of our economy--the one that makes sure that the payments go out? All of that information is now at risk.
This week, I wrote to the Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, with extreme concern following this reporting. Here is what I said:
I just want to say off to the side, the Presiding Officer and I were both in a Banking hearing this morning, and one of the questions that Democrats put to our bankers who were present is, Would you let someone come in and see the personal banking records of your customers? And the bankers, of course, said no, there is no way they would permit that. Yet the Secretary of the Treasury opened the door and said Elon Musk and his designees could come in and look at anything they wanted to look at.
We would shut down a bank that did what the Secretary of the Treasury did in letting Elon Musk come in and root around in the personal financial information of Americans all across this country.
Served Republicans, served Democrats--
I sent this letter to Secretary of the Treasury, and I said:
It is no surprise that working families are paying the price for Donald Trump and Russ Vought's reckless actions. Just look at who is running the government: Donald Trump, billionaire; Elon Musk, billionaire; Scott Bessent, billionaire; Linda McMahon, billionaire; Howard Lutnick, billionaire; Charles Kushner, billionaire. And the list goes on. The total net worth of the billionaires in the Trump administration is at least $382.2 billion. That is more than the GDP of 172 different countries.
Elon Musk, first buddy and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, himself is worth $410 billion. He is $150 billion richer than he was on election day. Linda McMahon, Secretary of the Department of Education, is worth $3.2 billion. Howard Lutnick, nominated for the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, is worth more than $1.5 billion but likely more. Kelly Loeffler, head of the Small Business Administration, is worth $1.1 billion. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., nominated for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is estimated to be worth about $15 million. And he has refused to give up a lucrative arrangement with a law firm that will enable his family to make millions off vaccine-related lawsuits, even while he is heading up HHS. Steven Witkoff, Envoy to the Middle East, is worth a billion. Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator, is worth $2 billion.
Take this piece from CNN:
These people have no shame.
After the election, after the inauguration, not until last--
So true.
And look, don't get me wrong, if you made a fortune because you had a great idea and you built a terrific business, good for you. But I guarantee that any great fortune in America was built, at least in part, using workers that all of us helped pay to educate; built, at least in part, by getting your goods to market on roads and bridges that all of us helped to pay to build; built, at least in part, protected by police and firefighters that all of us help pay the salaries for.
And now, instead of creating a system that will help the next guy or gal that comes along build something, these guys want to pull up the ladder. They poured money into the 2024 election, and now, they expect a return on their investment at the expense of everyone else.
The Trump strategy is to flood the zone, partly so we don't see each of the horrible orders and pay attention to them, but partly to demoralize us. Trump and his Republican friends hope that we will be demoralized. They hope that we will give up, curl in a little ball, and let them do whatever they want to do. I get it. It is tough right now, but it is important that we get back up and fight, and that is exactly what I am doing.
I am challenging Elon Musk on his Department of Government Efficiency efforts to take away help for seniors who are living in nursing homes and little kids who are hoping for their daycare. I am asking questions of every nominee and pointing out to other Senators and to the public where they pose a real danger to the American people.
Look at the fight over Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. He is a credibly accused rapist who has been falling down drunk at work events, and he has run not one but two nonprofits directly into the ground. Nonetheless, Republican Senators stood beside him. He made it through his confirmation, but it wasn't a freebie. Some Republicans broke ranks, and everyone in the country who was paying attention got to see up close and personal just how far the Republicans were willing to go to cower in front of Donald Trump.
Those are the fights we must keep fighting. We will not roll over and play dead. This is not business as usual. The No. 1 thing people can do right now is speak out. Speak out on social media about every one of these things. Talk about the threats these people pose. Speak out about what Donald Trump is doing.
In the middle of the night last Friday, Donald Trump issued a batch of Executive orders turning back the clock decades on women's reproductive rights. If people talk about that, then that is how we will begin to rebuild a movement to push out the Trump vision of America, in which billionaires are on top and everyone else is left in the dirt--and women don't get to make their own health decisions.
I have only got 24 hours a day, but I plan to spend as many of them as humanly possible fighting back against Trump, Musk, and the billionaires who have taken over our country to promote themselves at the expense of everyone else.
It is up to us. I am not lying down and playing dead, and I hope nobody else does either.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. President, I yield 30 minutes of my postcloture debate time on the Vought nomination to Senator Merkley and 30 minutes of my postcloture debate time on the Vought nomination to Senator Schumer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
The Senator from Louisiana.
Nomination of Russell Vought (Executive Calendar)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. President, I will bet a lot of folks watching tonight cannot believe that we are here, talking about the Office of Management and Budget. The Office of Management and Budget--there is nothing more bureaucratic sounding in this whole city, and that says something. It is not an office Arizonans should really have to think about, let alone see their Senators debate for hours.
Think of this: Think of this office as our government's financial planner. They keep track of spending for everything from veterans' benefits to disaster relief for communities. When Flagstaff gets hit by flooding or North Scottsdale gets hit by a major wildfire, this is the office that signs off on Federal relief. Every single Federal Agency must go through the Office of Management and Budget to access the dollars that Congress writes into law for the work they do for the American people.
When it is working right, this is the office that helps build the Federal budget and then makes sure it gets executed according to the law, but that is the problem. Under this administration, it is not working right, and it is not following the law.
We saw this a week ago when this office tried to illegally freeze all Federal grants. In the most reckless, incompetent action we have seen yet from this administration, they issued a two-page memo--two pages-- that said:
This effort is now temporarily blocked by the courts, but it created a
We had Head Start Programs in Arizona that nearly had to lay off staff and turn families away because they didn't get the payments they were promised. I had Arizona community health centers in my office today that just had a frozen payment come through, but it was more than a week late.
Are there places where we need to make Federal spending more efficient and effective? Of course there are, and I am willing to get together with anyone who wants to make our government work better, who wants to save taxpayer dollars, and who wants to improve people's lives. But that is not what the Trump administration is trying to do here because their endgame is not efficiency; it is not being more responsible with taxpayer dollars. The endgame of all of this is giving rich people another massive tax break on the backs of hard-working Americans.
The endgame of all of this--and, folks, we have heard a lot about this from Elon Musk over the last few weeks, about unelected, unaccountable Federal bureaucrats. Elon Musk is himself a billionaire and an unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat who is illegally shutting down Federal Agencies that make Americans safer and more prosperous.
Today, we are debating someone whose very reason for getting picked for this job is that he wants to break the law and be an unaccountable bureaucrat. We know this because Russell Vought has had this job before. When he was picked for this the last time, he told Congress he would follow the law. He said he wouldn't delay or refuse to spend money that was appropriated by Congress. He said he would follow a law that was passed by Republicans and Democrats in 1974 in response to Richard Nixon trying to abuse the powers of his office. He said he would follow that law. He lied.
He held up critical funds to support Ukraine. This was in 2019, before Russia invaded Ukraine. An independent government watchdog found that this broke the law.
Then again, after Hurricanes Irma and Maria ravaged Puerto Rico and Congress passed aid to help communities recover, Vought broke the law again by blocking the funds. Congress passed them again, but do you know what he did? Russell Vought blocked those funds once again.
This is what an unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat looks like-- Russell Vought.
Agree with these programs or disagree with them--Congress, Republicans and Democrats, voted for them. If folks don't like it, they can vote out their Members of Congress. That is what accountability means. It is not up to this guy to decide. But now it is very clear what he believes because after he left this job the last time, he went a step further. He has said plainly that the law he broke was unconstitutional and that the next time he gets in there, he doesn't think he has to follow it.
He wrote about this in his playbook, Project 2025. Do you remember that?
Now, I evaluate each and every nominee based on whether they have the experience and are committed to doing the job. Nothing disqualifies someone faster, in my mind, then when they say ahead of time that they plan to break the law. He has said that. That means he will try to singlehandedly gut the programs he and President Trump disagree with.
But what are they? Well, he spelled it out himself in budgets he has written.
He wants to cut housing support by 43 percent, including completely eliminating the largest source of housing assistance for Arizonans, and that is going to put working families on the streets.
He wants to end the expansion of Medicaid that has extended coverage to 600,000 Arizonans through a program called AHCCCS. That means more Arizonans without health insurance and unable to get the care they need. Also on the list are student loans, food assistance, and so much more.
Russell Vought wants to make it harder to afford a place to live, harder to afford health insurance, harder to afford college, and harder to afford to put food on your table. For anybody listening, do any of those things matter to you?
If he gets this job, there won't be any debate on the Senate floor about these cuts. We won't be able to have a conversation about how to make housing assistance more effective for working families. There won't be bipartisan hearings about where we can cut waste and fraud out of programs to save money and focus where it is needed. Nope. He is just going to try to stop funding these things on his own. He said he would do that. He said he is going to break the law. He has told everybody that.
That is why President Trump picked him for the job in the first place because, remember, none of this is about efficiency. None of this is about looking out for everyday Americans. This is about billionaires paving the way to get another tax cut for themselves and for their corporations and to do so on the backs of you, hard-working Americans.
Folks, we have been here before. The first time around, President Trump signed a tax giveaway that he said was going to grow the economy and help working people, but that is not what happened. In the years since that tax bill was passed, we have seen a massive transfer of wealth to the richest Americans. That is part of the reason why Elon Musk is now worth more than $400 billion. More big profitable corporations are now paying nothing in Federal income tax. Zero.
The plan is to double down on tax breaks for the rich while, behind closed doors, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats like Russell Vought and Elon Musk, they gut programs that help working families. I couldn't think of a more backward way for the Federal Government to operate.
We are supposed to be here to make government work for the American people. And I will sit down with anybody to make that happen. But the plan seems to be to break the Federal Government in order to help rich people, and I can't get on board with that.
I want to yield the balance of my postcloture debate time on the Vought nomination to Senator Merkley.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. President, we are less than 3 weeks into the Trump administration, and already, Americans across the country are reeling from the chaos.
Donald Trump ran on lowering costs for working Americans--an admirable goal, but one he clearly had no intention of making good on. Instead, he is hellbent on sowing chaos and making life harder for the American people while he pushes through massive tax cuts for his billionaire buddies.
In just the last 2 weeks, here is what Trump did. He threatened tariffs on Canada and Mexico that will do nothing but raise costs on everyday essentials like food and gasoline, estimated to increase costs for the average household by nearly $1,200 a year. So much for lowering costs for the American people.
He put a freeze on all Federal funds, creating such uncertainty that seniors in Hawaii were calling my office asking if they needed to prepare for homelessness.
He tried to scam 2 million Federal employees, including more than 23,000 in Hawaii, into taking an unauthorized, unfunded buyout. Whoever heard of such a thing?
And he has given an unelected, unaccountable billionaire free rein to raid the Treasury, to root around in the Treasury and any other Federal Agency he sees fit, enabling him to get his hands on all of our data. If this isn't a data breach, frankly, I don't know what is--right in front of our faces.
In case there was any doubt, the last few weeks have shown that Trump never gave a rip about working people and has no interest in doing anything to help make our lives better. The chaos is dizzying. But behind this chaos is a detailed, methodical plan: Project 2025. While campaigning, Trump swore he had nothing to do with Project 2025--a big fat lie, like so much of what comes out of Trump's mouth.
As soon as he was elected, guess what, Trump began appointing many of the people behind Project 2025. His handpicked choice to lead the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, is Russell Vought, the architect of Project 2025. Mr. Vought is dangerous, and he has a total disregard for the
Americans need to know that OMB is extremely powerful, with oversight over the President's budget and, functionally, all Federal Agency actions, including regulatory decisions. With such responsibility, the person leading this office needs to be levelheaded and impartial. They need to put loyalty to the Constitution above loyalty to the President. Mr. Vought, however, is the ultimate yes-man.
In Trump's first term as acting OMB Director, Vought wrote a budget that, among other things, would have cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid; slashed nearly $300 billion from social safety-net programs, like food assistance; eliminated $170 billion from student loans; and zeroed out programs, like LIHEAP and community development block grants to help with housing assistance and building community infrastructure.
Just like for families, where we spend our money reflects our priorities and our values. Mr. Vought's 2021 budget demonstrated that he sees no value in helping the American people. This time, we know it will be even worse because he is going to be in charge at OMB. Like Trump, Mr. Vought will do whatever he wants, regardless of the law or the Constitution, from forcing out civil servants to withholding funds appropriated by Congress.
We know the story of Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to help the poor. With Mr. Vought, on the other hand, he is a robber baron, who wants to steal the tax dollars of hard-working Americans to line the pocket of Trump's billionaire buddies--a robber baron.
At the end of the day, Trump, Vought, and all their cronies have just won gold, giving huge tax cuts to billionaires on the backs of working people. We have been repeating this. Why? Because how the heck are they going to do this otherwise, except on the backs of working people?
Their plan to do so is so simple. First, they will gut programs working families rely on--things like nutrition assistance, education funding, and Medicare and Medicaid. Then they will borrow trillions of dollars and run our country deeper into debt, just like they did the last time.
Finally, they will give massive tax breaks to billionaires, leaving the American people to foot the bill. Their plan is clear. They wrote it all down. This is Project 2025--Project 2025, the 900-page plan Russell Vought helped to mastermind, filled with all sorts of terrible ideas for our country and the American people. That is why I call it the plan to screw the American people. They call it the mandate for leadership; I call it the 900-page plan to screw over the American people.
I thank Democracy Forward for summarizing some of the worst proposals in Project 2025 in a report that I am going to read parts of.
Democracy Forward said:
More than 100 organizations--
That would be this administration--
Like Russell Vought--
Democracy Forward noted:
They--
We--
They said:
Even without congressional approval--
Trump--
Vought--
And I am going to repeat--
Again, I thank Democracy Forward for this summary.
Mr. President, these are just some of the countless proposals in Project 2025 that will make our country and the American people less free, less safe, and less prosperous.
Behind it all is Russell Vought. If confirmed, he will move to implement Project 2025 without delay to line the pockets of billionaires at the expense of working Americans.
You know, we have got to repeat this time and again because, guess what, this is exactly what happened during Trump's first term. Their goal was to give trillions in tax cuts to their billionaire buddies, and they are going to do it again. Trust me. That is what they are going to do.
Project 2025 is dangerous. Mr. Vought is dangerous. I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination.
I yield the balance of my postcloture debate time to Senator Merkley, up to the 2-hour limit.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes of my postcloture debate time on the Vought nomination to Senator Van Hollen, and I yield 60 minutes of my postcloture debate time on the Vought nomination to Senator Schatz.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to the nomination of Russell Vought to be the head of the Office of Management and Budget. His leadership will only continue the disruption that is hurting Georgians in every corner of my State even as I speak.
Over the past 2\1/2\ weeks, my State has been plagued by chaos and by confusion that has harmed Georgia families and Georgia workers and organizations serving their communities.
We are witnessing right now a careless and heartless assault on Federal investments and a freeze of government funding that has already been appropriated by Congress to help Georgia
Let's be clear. These are funds that have already been appropriated. We have already gone through the legislative process. And somehow the President has created this new process in which he says: I don't care what Congress has done. I don't care what laws have been passed. It has to come back by me, through the OMB manager.
This cannot stand. And I am afraid that these undemocratic antics will only continue if the Senate confirms Russell Vought to be head of the Office of Management and Budget.
Vought is one of the architects of Project 2025, which initially President Trump ran away from. You know a politician's program is really bad when he won't even admit that it is his program but, as soon as he is elected, surrounds himself by the very architects of the program he denied during the election was his.
He has now nominated the very people who wrote the playbook for reshaping our entire democratic Republic into their dystopian image. This is radical. This is extreme. This is undemocratic.
I dare say that the people of Georgia who elected me and the people of Georgia who elected Donald Trump did not vote for this. But, just as we warned, his dangerous plans are playing out in real time. This is exactly what they said they were going to do. Some didn't believe them. Even after they attempted to gaslight the American people into thinking otherwise, here we are in no time flat.
Now, I believe in democracy. I often say that democracy is the political enactment of the spiritual idea, the notion that each of us has within us a spark of the divine. And if we have a spark of the divine, if we were created in what theologians called the imago dei, the image of God, we all ought to have a voice in the direction of the country and our destiny within it.
So I respect elections. They have consequences. I know, as a result of what happened on November 5, things will happen that I don't agree with. I am not mad about that. I will push and stand and speak about the direction I think the country should go in, but elections do have consequences.
But people are tired of what happens here in Washington, DC. What all of us ought to be able to agree on is that once we have gone through the legislative process, that process of three coequal branches of government ought to be respected--I don't care if the President is a Republican or a Democrat.
So there is no question that there is a lot of pain out there. The status quo was not and is not working for Americans, and that has been the case for a long time. Folks have seen wealth trickle up and pain trickle down, and they have seen an increasing disconnect between what they need from their government and what they are able to get from their government. We can't even get movement on the things that Americans on the left and the right agree on in this country.
A FOX News poll reported--and you don't often hear me quote FOX News polls. A FOX News poll said that Americans on both sides of the aisle believe we ought to have background checks, but after one school shooting after another, after another, we can't get any movement on that in this Chamber. It suggests that somebody other than the people is trying to own the democracy, squeezing the voices of the people out of their own democracy.
That is why what is happening right now is so deeply concerning, and if you are not concerned, you are not paying attention. Billionaires surrounding Donald Trump are trying to own the democracy. They are trying to move the vision of this country away from citizenship to ownership.
Vought as OMB Director would be a disaster. He would be a disaster for the people who rely on crucial government programs to make life more affordable.
I am thinking right now about the veterans that I serve in a military State. They are the best among us. They deserve the best from us. They have been imperiled by the actions of the last 2 weeks. I am thinking about families who need accessible childcare.
This stunt that was pulled a few days ago is a disaster for communities who want well-funded law enforcement, thriving businesses, safe roads and bridges. And as they attack Federal workers, attack the government, they are trying to convince you that the government is some third entity outside of us. No. This is government for the people, by the people, of the people. Our democracy represents the highest of our aspirations, what we are trying to achieve together, and as we witness this assault, it is hitting Democrats and Republicans, blue States and red States, as the people's voices are being squeezed out of their democracy.
Just last week, without even being confirmed, Vought orchestrated the effort to freeze Federal spending--as if this money is his money rather than our money, the people's money--throwing programs, from infrastructure upgrades, to Medicaid, to free school lunches, to support for homeless, veterans, into chaos. How dare you take funds that are needed by the veterans of Georgia and all across this State. Those who fight for us should not have to fight with us to get what they deserve.
With the power of the OMB, he would enact even more harmful policies. If he is behaving with this kind of reckless disregard for the law right now, what do you think he will do if we confirm him?
This is a dangerous disregard for the separation of powers that keeps our government in check and gives the people a voice through the people's House--a check on those who would recklessly exercise power.
Vought has made it clear that he feels the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, can turn on and turn off any spending by the Federal Government, ignoring the requirement that Congress, being directly elected by the people, decide where your tax dollars can go.
In 2024--listen, in 2024, he even published an article stating, ``We are living in a post-Constitutional time.'' That is dangerous rhetoric from a dangerous man.
I beg to differ. I believe in my Constitution--hard fought and hard won. It is not a perfect document. We have had to amend it. Thank God for the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the First Amendment.
But he should explain what he means when he says we are living in a post-constitutional time. The Trump administration and its architects, including the nominee before us today, have a very simple playbook to shrink the Federal Government and to enrich themselves, even at the expense of the American people and their financial security. You are witnessing the unfolding of the kleptocratic designs that they have on our Republic.
And God help us if we just stand by and allow it to happen.
So what is their first step in getting that done? The Trump administration is telling civil servants like the people who inspect your food or monitor diseases like bird flu or care for veterans at the VA to accept a meager buyout or risk being fired, all while an unelected billionaire posing as co-President accesses your private data at the Treasury Department.
Russell Vought said in 2023 that he wanted Federal workers ``to be traumatically affected.'' That is what he said about your neighbors, that he wants them to be traumatically affected. And ``when they wake up in the morning,'' he said, ``we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.''
They are saying the quiet part out loud. Well, I got news for Mr. Vought. The people who staff our VA hospitals are not villains. The people who keep our food safe--so much that we Americans don't even think about it--are not villains. The people who keep our water clean are not villains. The people who keep our military bases operating are not villains.
A couple of days ago, my office started to receive a flood of calls from Federal employees. Friends of mine who do great work at the CDC and other places called me directly. Folks who do noble work every single day, out of a deep sense of patriotism, certainly not pay; out of a deep sense of commitment to the covenant we have with one another, in the wake of this assault, they began to call.
These are folks who, in their moment of finding themselves attacked by dangerous and dystopian designs on our country--folks demanding that the workers just quit--well, to all the Federal workers listening right now, let
This is the people's house. This is the people's democracy. And the people have to stand up and say: It belongs to us--even the people with whom we disagree--this is our house.
Democracy is the framework in which we get to fight, in which we get to have the great arguments about guns and butter, about how to spend the budget. We get to have these robust family arguments, and they get rambunctious, from time to time, in order to avoid violence. That is the American way.
What we are seeing over the last 2 weeks is its own kind of violence: the pardoning of those who attacked this house on January 6, the permission structure to do it again, the gaslighting, telling Federal workers who are working hard for you on one day: Don't come to work the next day. That is its own kind of violence, and it must be condemned by all Americans who believe in the covenant we have with one another.
And so when we are talking about Federal workers, we are talking about hard-working folks I know. Don't allow them to turn these people into some vague and nebulous dark picture of somebody you don't recognize. These are your neighbors. These are the folks who are practicing medicine and nursing care in our VA hospitals. These are those who manage our Social Security payments. These are the folks who are keeping our military bases operating safely and efficiently, ensuring folks get their tax returns on time, helping Georgians navigate their student loans, keeping our airports operating safely, providing critical support for our children, assisting farmers with loans, protecting our public health system and our public schools, eradicating diseases that know no borders, protecting our clean air and water.
These are your neighbors. These are your family members. These are not villains.
Always be wary of politicians who tell us to be afraid of each other. They are the ones you should fear and be concerned about.
These are people throughout Georgia, our Nation's Capital, and scattered across the country, dedicated to healthy and safe communities, helping to build that more perfect Union we claim to aspire to.
And so to these public servants who quietly and nobly do the people's work day by day, know this: I appreciate you. We appreciate you. And we have got your back because, in so many ways, you have had ours.
But these tens of thousands of Georgians are now living in fear that their ability to support themselves and their families are at risk. Just today, dozens of Georgians visited my Atlanta office, some of whom have already lost their jobs through the abrupt dismantling of USAID, and they are worried about how they will keep their lights on and take care of their children.
A young woman came to my office yesterday, a single mother who works for USAID, doing noble work. It is indeed a humanitarian cause to care for the sick, the poor, the most marginalized members of the human family.
It is that, to be sure, but it is national security.
It is keeping us safe as Americans, and it is a smart investment. It is less than 1 percent of the budget--one-half of 1 percent. And for that we get programs like PEPFAR, a program that is perhaps the greatest humanitarian relief program in human history, saving millions of lives on the African continent, which pays dividends for us. These diseases know no borders.
This young woman that I met yesterday came to my office, a single mother. She was doing her work one day, and then she went to the doctor, and the doctor saw something in her test that was concerning and said: I need you to come back in a couple of days and get some more tests. And in between those days, she got notice and lost her job and her health insurance.
She deserves better than that. My mama taught me to treat people with respect, with human dignity, to know that when you look in the face of your neighbor, you see the image of God. Surely, people who have been working for us deserve better than that.
So people are anxious. People are concerned. Know that you are valued, and that we will continue to stand and fight on your behalf. But not only are the careers of these Federal workers on the chopping block, so too is the Federal funding that helps all of our communities and local economies run smoothly.
My constituents were deeply shaken by last week's Federal funding freeze. I received thousands of calls and emails, folks afraid of the freeze's unknown harm to their community.
So let's peel back the curtain even more on what happened over the last few days. The Trump administration froze trillions of dollars in government spending to enact massive and disruptive funding cuts. These cuts are being orchestrated in part by Russell Vought, in partnership with the world's richest man, Elon Musk, the co-President--this unelected, unvetted bureaucrat who, by my best guess, appears to think that the livelihood of Georgians and Americans is some kind of startup he can tear apart.
So if you want to get a sense of who President Trump is looking out for, look at who he is surrounding himself with. On that stage, when he was inaugurated, you saw them, some of the richest people in the world. They were the ones who had proximity.
Well, proximity matters. You can tell a whole lot about the character of a person's public service based on the people who can get close to them, the folks who get to speak into their ear.
If you want to know who Donald Trump is working for, look at who he is surrounding himself with, the likes of Elon Musk, the billionaire, the richest man in the world, who is now telling us--the rest of us-- that we need to tighten our belts--how quaint.
President Trump isn't serving you; he is serving them. He is serving those in our country who are well-off and who don't play by the rules, and putting at risk basic programs that help folks send their kids to school, keep food affordable, and lower their energy bills.
In fact, the other day, as a member of the Banking Committee, I asked President Trump's nominee for Treasury Secretary, who manages the finances for the entire U.S. Government, if in the administration's supposed quest to cut Federal spending and give it back to the American people, would he agree with allowing the Trump tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest Americans. If you are concerned about the Federal deficit, are you willing to let the tax cuts put in place by Trump during his first term to expire for the wealthiest of Americans? Perhaps, we can return to the tax policies that we had during the Bush administration, even if just by a dollar.
And when I asked the nominee that question, now-Secretary Bessent, he said: No, we can't afford to allow those tax cuts to expire.
I said: What about folks making over $400,000 a year?
He said: No.
I said: What about millionaires?
He said: No.
I said: Well, what about billionaires?
No.
So when Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies go looking for spending cuts, and they are focused on cutting government waste, they start by targeting the working class. They target the people who work the hardest and play by the rules. He said he couldn't cut taxes for billionaires because they are the job creators. What about the folks who just work on the job day-to-day? What about the folks who clean hospitals? who mop floors? who pick up our garbage? who do a day's work for an honest pay?
Why is it that those at the top deserve so much more than those who are working at the bottom? those in the middle? hard-working Americans who play by the rules?
Already we have seen Secretary Bessent give the world's richest man the keys to the kingdom, allowing him to prowl around in the sensitive data and systems of the Treasury Department. Whoever heard of any such thing as this? What is a billionaire doing with access to the system that handles Grandma's Social Security check?
Look, I will work with anyone who is able to have a serious bipartisan conversation about how to best utilize
But right now, the playbook is obvious: Cut programs that you rely on and give the richest of the rich the money. Robin Hood in reverse: Steal from the poor; give to the rich.
And as this plan unfolds at a breakneck pace, I think it is important that we remind people that Project 2025 aims, again, to shift our democracy from citizenship to ownership, to shift the President from citizen to owner. Donald Trump the real estate developer and his billionaire friends want to own the country.
Last night, he suggested that we should own Gaza as well. Imagine that.
Here is what else they have in store under Project 2025 and its leader Russell Vought: Increase costs for families by $4,000 a year by slapping a Trump sales tax on goods that families rely on like gas, food, clothing, medicine; cuts to Social Security and Medicare--hurting hundreds of thousands of Georgia seniors; elimination of Federal funding for K-12 education, impacting Georgians from the heart of Atlanta to our rural counties, all across our State; tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations while making working families foot the bill; gutting the Affordable Care Act, which will raise healthcare premiums and threaten coverage for hundreds and thousands of Georgians and millions across the country.
Their program would end student debt relief that assures their student loan payments don't consume the entirety of their paychecks. Their plan would reverse provisions of a law I secured that is capping insulin at $35 for seniors and lowering prescription drug costs.
And their program would eliminate Head Start, which provided me with an early childhood education when I was growing up in public housing in Savannah, GA. I stand tonight on the floor of the U.S. Senate, but I want you to know that you are looking at a Head Start kid. I know it works. This program that gives poor children a chance, which exposes them as preschoolers to literacy and a love of learning, which narrows the word gap between poor children and well-off children, and which puts them on the road to success. Head Start is a worthwhile investment. It is a recognition that God is an equal opportunity employer, that God creates genius and talent and possibility on all sides of the town, on both sides of the track, and you never know where the very person we need to do the work that needs to be done--we never know what ZIP code that kid will grow up in. And so we have to invest in Head Start. To cut it is shortsighted.
But not only that, we have to invest in all of these programs that provide a childcare safety net. So mamas and daddies can go to work and children can be safe and thrive and be exposed to learning and literacy.
And so I was deeply moved when I began to get calls from folks involved in providing childcare to our kids all across our State, childcare centers in neighborhoods--some forgotten--where people get up every day and go to work, and they do their best. I heard from Sweetie Pie's Learning Center in Macon, GA. They rely on Federal funding for childcare services, but this freeze meant that they missed their regular check that covers food costs, which left employees scrambling to make plans on how they could make ends meet while still caring for children in this community.
I am thinking now about the folks I heard from at Learning Hive in Lawrenceville, another childcare center navigating this chaos--delayed payments for childcare and parent services. And if the freeze remained in effect, they would only have enough money to make payroll for 2 weeks--2 weeks until your child is without care.
Think about that. As myself, a working father of two young children, I cannot imagine the stress and the confusion that that would bring to put food on the table, keep a roof over your heads, and make sure that your kids have a safe place to learn and play while you make it happen.
I am thinking about the folks at Easterseals childcare center in Clarkston, who are counting on this funding also for fresh meals for children living at 100 percent below the Federal poverty level. These kids risk going hungry in the wealthiest nation on the planet.
So let me be clear. Project 2025 is no longer theoretical. It is unfolding right before our very eyes in realtime. We are seeing these policies implemented every day, and the President, who claimed to disavow Project 2025, is putting its chief architect in charge of administering the Federal budget.
But we must not give in. We must not give up. We must not let those who would weaponize despair win. For many, it is dark right now. But my faith teaches me that a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness overcomes it not. And so let me say that even in a time like this, I am incredibly and immeasurably blessed because I get to do this work. I get to wake up every single day thinking about what I can do for the people who gave me the great honor of representing them in the Nation's Capital.
It is a great honor when the people of your State say: Since all of us can't go to that crazy place called Washington, DC, we are going to send you. And we are going to trust that in rooms of power where decisions are being made and deals are cut, you are always going to center the concerns of ordinary people. You are not going to forget about us.
And so I am honored that people all across the State of Georgia, from Bartow to Brantley County, when they took stock in the hopes for their families and their children and their grandmothers and grandfathers, they said again and again: We want you to go to Washington to fight for us.
I will tell you that, for me, that is a sacred covenant, not much unlike my first job: pastor. A promise to walk with the people even as you work for the people. And part of the reason that Georgians have again and again voted to send me to Washington is that they know that I will fight for them, but they also know why I will fight for them.
As a pastor in the Senate, Georgians know that I bring the moral lessons from my pastoral work with me to the Capitol every single day.
And so I am going to keep fighting. I am not going to stand by and allow folks to undo what we did to cap the costs of insulin. Why? Because as a pastor, I have spent countless days in hospital rooms. I have seen up close what diabetes untreated can do. I have seen the amputations. I have been there when folks have gotten the news that they have got to go on dialysis. When you need your insulin, you need your insulin. It is not a luxury; it is a requirement.
And so that informs my fight. When I cast my vote to fund programs that range from supporting law enforcement to veterans, from making food and housing more affordable to ensuring every kid has a fair shot at making it on a college campus or a technical college--I see these votes as an extension of my pastoral work, my work to create what Dr. King called ``the Beloved Community,'' a world where everyone is cared for and all of God's children can thrive. It is an honor when the people send you here to represent ordinary people.
And that is why I take such great offense to the illegal and immoral actions that I have seen over the last few days--to try and freeze Federal funds that center the needs of ordinary people for the purpose of enriching our country's wealthiest individuals. I am a Matthew 25 Christian: I was hungry, and you didn't feed me. I was sick and I was in prison, and you didn't visit me. I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me.
And then there are those who will ask the Master: Master, when were you hungry? When were you thirsty? When were you sick with a preexisting condition and nobody came to see about you? When were you in prison? When were you a stranger, an immigrant?
The answer? Matthew 25 says: Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it also unto me.
Representing the people is holy work. It is noble work.
I return home to Georgia every weekend. I return to my pulpit every Sunday because I don't want to forget why I came here in the first place--to stand up for the very people Mr. Vought says are villains.
We all know that Donald Trump has a history of bailing on debts and shorting people of what they are owed, but our government is supposed to step in to protect hard-working individuals from bad actors who seek to take advantage of people. Yet we are seeing those bad actors fill our government's most powerful positions, playing fast and loose with taxpayer dollars at the expense of ordinary people. This is not how the most powerful government in the world ought to serve its people.
The reality is, this new level of Washington's dysfunction has real- world consequences that extend beyond Washington politicians. Georgia's economy does not stop just because Washington is exercising a kind of chaos. While we are trying to get our act together up here, guess what, farmers still need crop insurance, childcare workers and community health centers still need to make payroll, and our roads and our bridges and pipes still need repairs. When Federal investments are put in limbo, the stability of our States and local communities is also put in jeopardy.
Let me be clear. The Trump administration has demonstrated that it will try this again and again and again. When they do, the business community will suffer and Georgians will be out of their jobs unless we stand up and say no.
If this Federal funding freeze continues, as Russell Vought hopes, the impact will be felt hardest by those who can least afford it. It is easy in all the bluster of the beltway to forget who is actually bearing the brunt of Donald Trump's actions. Delays in funding are not just inconvenient; they create anxiety, instability, and they cost the jobs of our friends, our families, and our neighbors.
To be very clear, this is all unconstitutional. So why are so many of our colleagues across the aisle surrendering their constitutional responsibility that their voters elected them to carry out? While my colleagues remain silent while this new administration breaks the law, they are sacrificing their duty to their constituents in service to one man occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Well, I don't work for him, and I don't work for some oligarch threatening to run for my seat or run somebody for my seat. I work for the people of Georgia. It is this obsession with power, it is this obsession with the next election that has left us in this place in which we find ourselves tonight.
So it is up to us in this moment to stand up. I am listening to the people who sent me to represent them. I am thinking about those who do the work every single day. It is our job to respond to the call and the urgency of this moment. History will not treat us kindly if we are silent at a time like this.
In closing--and nobody believes a preacher when he says ``in closing,'' but I think my colleague is ready--in closing, Senator, I was thinking the other day about the dark challenges that your people have been through.
During the era of the Third Reich--and I am never quick to raise the specter of that ugly time--there was a pastor by the name of Martin Niemoller who, in the midst of the ugliness of that dark time, said:
When they come for one of us, they come for all of us.
Dr. King said:
Ironically and tragically, we learned from COVID-19--a deadly pandemic, airborne--that if my neighbor is sick, not only is she sick, I potentially am imperiled. That doesn't make my neighbor my enemy; that means that in my enlightened self-interest, I ought to be concerned about her healthcare, that I ought to want her to be covered so I can be covered.
We are all in this together, so we must stand up in this defining moment and resist those who would have us be afraid of one another because of our differences, because of our diversity, and know that we are one people. That is the American way.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. President, I have the bad fortune and audacity to follow one of our greatest speakers, one of the Nation's greatest orators and a preacher. I know we all appreciate the old wisdom: Never follow a preacher.
I want to thank Reverend Warnock, my great colleague and friend, for that eloquent and powerful speech and particularly the ending of his speech, which evoked a time in our history that many would like to forget. A lot of Americans are forgetting. The world is trying to erase it from its memory. But it is a time evoked by Senator Warnock that couldn't be more relevant to this moment in America's history because we face a crisis in governance. It is a moral crisis, not just a political or legal crisis. It is a challenge to us, to our better angels, to our sense of mutual respect and caring, and, as he said so well, quoting Martin Luther King, that web of mutuality that binds us as a nation.
Ultimately, it isn't our wealth, the number of dollars we have in bank accounts, or the economic strength of our corporations. It isn't our might militarily. We have the strongest and best military in the world. It is our common values and our commitment to our faith and our family and to each other, respect for each other even when we differ.
When we come to this body, we all take an oath. I have taken that oath a number of times in my life--when I became a private in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, when I became a U.S. attorney in Connecticut, when I became a State legislator, and then when I became attorney general. Now, as a Senator, I raised my right hand, as did all of us, and we took an oath. It wasn't to a President; it wasn't to a government; it wasn't to a monarch; it was to the Constitution and the laws of this country.
The Constitution stands for something that binds us together, and it is at the core of this great experiment that we call America. The Constitution will be around, I hope--and I am knocking on wood--when these young pages become our age and stand here, perhaps, but it will be around only if we fight to sustain it. It doesn't happen by magic or by inaction; it happens because we come together and we say: Whatever else happens, whatever divides us, whatever natural disasters-- tornadoes, floods, hurricanes--befall our great country, we are going to stand together for the rule of law and for each other. We will come to each other's aid, and we will respect each other's rights.
A wonderful professor and friend of mine at Yale, Tim Snyder, wrote a little book, ``On Tyranny.'' That is the name of the book. It is ``On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.'' The first lesson is, do not obey in advance, which is to say, do not anticipate what a dictator wants and accede to it in advance. Do not acquiesce. Do not obey in advance.
Today, we have to take a stand against a group of people who want to shred our Constitution. They want to light it on fire because they feel there is a higher good. They want to save money or they think we are in the midst of some religious movement or they simply want to get power.
Whatever their motive, and I don't pretend to fully understand it, they have unleashed on our government a group of DOGE technocrats--I use that word advisedly--young people, maybe older people, who think they can simply slash government spending, but more to the point, that they have a right to access information which Americans have been providing in trust to the Department of Treasury, the Labor Department, the Department of Education--private, confidential information about bank accounts, checks that are paid, and veterans' benefits.
That information is supposed to be held in trust, secretly, confidentially, and yet, right now, it is being scanned by Elon Musk and his crew. His henchmen are busy not just reading and
Here is what I have done today as the ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. I have written to every one of Elon Musk's companies--SpaceX, Tesla, all of them, including his AI company--demanding information about the workings of that company that might benefit from access to that private information.
Now, remember, his access is as a citizen. I am not sure what his status is. The White House says he is a special government employee. He has no security clearance that would entitle him to take that information and use it for his own personal benefits. No security clearance could give him that right to profit from financial information that belongs to you, the taxpayers. It is your data.
And we have nothing that I have seen in writing from the President of the United States that gives him authority to seize and exploit that information. He certainly has nothing under law that would justify his monetizing after purloining that information, the use of it.
I think the American people have a right to know all about the workings of those companies that would be benefited from seizing and exploiting this information. I have written to those companies today, and I am very hopeful that they will explain to me what the facts are, because the American people deserve those facts.
In a sense, what you need to know about this administration and about DOGE and about Elon Musk is to follow the money. Now, he says he is following money that may be wasted or abused. I want to follow the money that will come to him and other billionaires in the government and others who may be made privy to this information and use it for personal benefit and who may profit from it. I want to follow their money, and I want to follow any of the money that comes to other officials in emoluments.
Now, ``emoluments'' is a term in the Constitution, and the reason it is in the Constitution is that our Founders most feared, in addition to tyranny, that leaders of this country--people in public office--would take benefits, gifts, cash from foreign governments. We were a struggling, small country at our very beginning. We were nascent in our weakness. And their fear was that leaders of that small, struggling country might be tempted by one of those big monarchies in Europe--that had the glittering palaces and jewels and riches and colonies around the world--that they could be bought. So they said: No gifts, no benefits--nothing from any foreign source. And they had a domestic emoluments clause, as well, that, in effect, prohibited foreign bribery and that kind of domestic misappropriation as well.
I want to know whether any of these officials in our government are benefiting in any way from advantages, benefits, payments from foreign governments, because we have become a global economy. We know that-- just to take one example that comes to mind--one of the President's relatives is planning developments--hotels--all around the world. The President has said he wants to make Gaza into a Middle Eastern riviera. Who is going to build the hotels? Who benefits? Who is going to be paid? We need the facts. So I believe we need to be watchful, vigilant, and wary. Follow the money.
We are here tonight before a vote on someone who is going to be following a lot of money. Russell Vought, if he were to be confirmed as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, would be in charge of all the money spent by the U.S. Government--or almost all of it.
I know most Americans have no clue as to what OMB does. OMB is the Office of Management and Budget, not to be confused with PMB, the Office of Policy, Management and Budget. In the State of Connecticut, we call a similar body the office of policy and management. I suspect that the Presiding Officer's State and all of our States have something equivalent to OMB or to PMB. It is kind of the brain central of the financial nervous system in the government. It controls the flow, the disbursement, and then also the projections for the future about what the government does. It administers the Federal budget, and it is the entity that actually gets that money out the door. After Congress appropriates it, it puts the money into use by portioning it out to various Federal Agencies and programs.
Mr. Vought is no stranger to the OMB because, for 4 years, in the first Trump administration, as both Acting Director and Director, he served that Agency. Unfortunately, for us and for him, his record there ought to be disqualifying. He slashed budgets. He obstructed oversight efforts. He repeatedly violated the law by withholding funding Congress had already appropriated--all of it harming American families, farmers, working people, communities, and in violation of the law.
The OMB Director is very powerful, but do you know? There is this thing--and I keep coming back to it--the Constitution, the Constitution of the United States, which says we have separate branches of government. The Congress is the one that has the power of the purse strings. It authorizes and appropriates money. The executive implements that budget. It executes--as the term ``executive'' implies--on that budget and many other laws. It enforces criminal laws. It implements other statutes. Of course, the judiciary calls them both in to account if they violate the Constitution.
The Congress actually believes maybe there ought to be an additional guarantee of its power to appropriate and the President to faithfully execute laws. So, in addition to the Constitution, it passed a statute known as the Impoundment Control Act, which says--you know, when the Constitution requires that money appropriated by Congress be spent faithfully by the executive branch, the Constitution really means it, and the Impoundment Control Act implements it by saying it must be spent in exactly that way. But in his first service in the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, Mr. Vought really didn't think it was his duty to follow the law and the Constitution, and so he impounded money.
Now, you would think: Well, maybe it was an error. Maybe, it was an oversight. Maybe, it was just, you know, kind of an innocent mistake.
But he came before us in a hearing at the Committee on Homeland Security, and I asked him specifically whether he would follow the law and the Impoundment Control Act. He said that the act was unconstitutional. His theory was that the Constitution doesn't really mean what it says; that the Framers didn't really think that the President had to spend money if he felt it was against the public interest; and that if his intention was good, he didn't have to follow the Constitution.
Well, the Supreme Court has affirmed and lower courts have followed that law again and again and again. So Mr. Vought thinks he is, in effect, above the Supreme Court, above the law, and above the norms that others in his position followed faithfully in executing appropriations bills.
I joined my Democratic colleagues in voting no on Mr. Vought's two previous nominations, and I join my Democratic colleagues in voting no on Mr. Vought's current nomination. In fact, Mr. Vought's record and views are so troubling, he has never received a Democratic vote--never.
I am here to tell you that, if confirmed again, Mr. Vought will be even worse than he was the first time around. He has had practice. He told this body that the one lesson he learned from his previous tenure was the need to act faster. During the confirmation process, he told us that he ``does not intend to do the job differently'' than he did the first time around, and he would apply his experience ``from day one.'' He said he would be acting and taking the helm of OMB at a time when President Trump has thrown that Agency and the country into chaos and confusion with his unconstitutional, illegal funding freeze.
With Mr. Vought in charge, there will be more of the same. He has already proven that he is willing to break the law on behalf of President Trump.
As I mentioned, one of his most concerning beliefs is that the executive branch--the President--in acting through OMB, has the authority to withhold funding that Congress has legally appropriated. Now, this point is fundamental because, if he believes the President doesn't agree with funding already enacted into law, he doesn't need to release that funding, and the President is above the law.
Let's be clear on appropriations bills. As the Presiding Officer and all of our colleagues know, budgets in the U.S. Government are the result of extensive negotiation, leading to compromise and agreements that are then put into writing and incorporated into drafts and then finally into the bills that are voted on in this Chamber and then approved in the House of Representatives. If they are approved, they go to the President of the United States, and he signs them into law. That is kind of high school civics; everybody should know it.
And it becomes a law. The President signs it. These funding withholding decisions that President Trump made during his first term, on the recommendation of Mr. Vought, were a violation of laws that a President--either he or a predecessor--signed. That is why I want to focus on the devastating effects of this wrongheaded, misguided philosophy and approach to law.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, when I questioned him on this very topic, he was clear that he disagreed with it, which is his right to do. He can disagree with the Constitution. Nobody says you have to think the Constitution is perfect. But if you take that oath--it is that oath we all take--it is to follow the Constitution, so help me God.
When he fails to spend money appropriated by Congress, he will be violating that oath, and he has indicated he is ready, able, and willing to do it.
He is unqualified. He is unprepared. He lacks the character and confidence to be OMB Director.
These issues--I know they appear abstract, hypothetical, but they have real consequences for real people in their everyday lives.
As wildfires raged across California, I asked Mr. Vought if he would commit to releasing disaster relief funding promptly and fully-- disaster relief funding for the people of California but also for the people of North Carolina, Texas, Florida, and Connecticut. We had floods recently.
My colleagues and I came together in the closing days of the last session to overwhelmingly approve this funding: $110 billion, the disaster supplemental. That is $29 billion for FEMA--the Federal Emergency Management Agency--to help North Carolina to recover from Hurricane Helene, California to recover from wildfires, and my own State of Connecticut to recover from the devastating flooding that occurred last August. That is $21 billion to the Department of Agriculture to support farmers recovering from disasters, and billions of dollars for countless other programs, from small business loans, to fisheries assistance, to roads that have to be repaired, to other kinds of effects of disasters that are the result of the new normal--climate change. The people who are victims of it, who suffered financial losses or the loss of their homes, injury, are not to be blamed simply because they were in the wrong place or their house was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There are things we can do now in rebuilding that make those homes more resilient, rebuild them in a different place where the risk is lower. But many lack the insurance because they were told they didn't need it by banks that gave them mortgages, because there had never been a storm of any real magnitude before that happened in Connecticut. They were victims of rains or floods or earthquakes or other natural disasters that were not their fault.
That is why we come together. We help people, as I mentioned earlier. We support each other. That is part of the fabric. That is not the legal fabric; it is the social and moral fabric.
But Mr. Vought told me that he was not ``going to get ahead of the policy process of the incoming administration.'' He never committed that he would release the disaster funding. He left himself an out. He might violate the law. And we now know, because of his testimony, that he will likely violate the law.
We also have his past experience to inform our judgment. Under Mr. Vought's past leadership, OMB delayed community development block grant disaster mitigation funding to Puerto Rico that Congress had provided for recovery from Hurricane Maria.
I visited Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. I saw the devastating destruction to that island--to roads and bridges, to electricity and utilities, to hospitals and clinics, to agricultural areas that were completely isolated, some of them. I flew over them by helicopter and saw the homes that had been leveled or rendered roofless and now isolated, people unable to find food and water without it being dropped from the air sometimes by FEMA. But he withheld the community development block grant disaster mitigation funding provided by Congress for recovery from Hurricane Maria.
The symbol, the visual symbol of that time became President Trump throwing rolls of paper napkins or towels at people in the crowd waiting for food and water. It became emblematic because Mr. Vought withheld that money.
My constituents and all Americans should not have to worry that when disaster next strikes, they may not receive the aid that they need and deserve and that should be forthcoming because of actions by Congress only because a single man, Russell Vought, has taken it on himself to make a decision that it should be withheld, as he did with Puerto Rico.
Natural disasters--all the more frequent and damaging because of climate change--don't discriminate between red States and blue States. Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Connecticut, Oklahoma, California--they have all suffered these natural disasters recently. It doesn't matter whether they are red or blue; they need and deserve help. No administration should withhold it.
Just as troubling is Mr. Vought's track record on Ukraine aid. This issue is especially close to my heart. I am wearing a pin at this very moment that has both the American and Ukraine flags. I wear it always. I have been to Ukraine six times since the beginning of the war. I believe fervently that their fight is our fight and that we have a moral obligation but also a self-interest in supporting them because Vladimir Putin will keep rolling. If he conquers Ukraine, he will keep going.
The first law, first lesson from ``20th century tyranny'': Do not obey in advance.
Tyranny starts abroad sometimes, but it comes for us. Vladimir Putin will come for others if he succeeds in Ukraine, and we will have an obligation under article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to put American soldiers and troops on the ground: airmen, sailors, marines--all of our military. So it is in our interest to stop him where he is right now.
During his first term, Mr. Vought was instrumental in delaying security assistance to Ukraine. We all remember--those who served in this Chamber during those years--that first impeachment of Donald Trump because of that withholding of money and the circumstances surrounding it.
In 2019, under Mr. Vought's leadership, OMB withheld $250 million appropriated to the Department of Defense for security assistance to Ukraine. The Government Accountability Office found that OMB's actions to withhold this funding violated the law. GAO also concluded that OMB's withholding of an additional $141.5 million appropriated to the State Department for Ukraine might be a violation of the law. That is the Government Accountability Office--nonpartisan, impartial, objective, and independent; violated the law by withholding that money. Ultimately, Congress had to pass another law to ensure that our allies in Ukraine receive the funding they needed.
When I asked Mr. Vought if he would release the remaining security assistance now that has been authorized and appropriated for Ukraine, Mr. Vought said that he, again, was not ``going to get ahead of the President on a foreign policy issue of the magnitude of the situation with regard to Ukraine.''
That is astonishing. That is a yes-or-no question. Will I obey the law? Yes.
I was and remain astonished and aghast that someone in a position of such responsibility that we are considering Mr. Vought to have would, in effect, say: Well, maybe the President would be above the law, so I am going to wait and see whether he chooses to follow it.
Saying he is going to not get ahead of the President on a foreign policy issue--that is not a foreign policy issue; that is an integrity issue. That is whether or not the President is above the law and whether he will follow it.
Legal scholars at the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel and even the Supreme Court have all found again and again and again that the President doesn't have the authority to withhold congressionally appropriated funding, but here we have a nominee in Mr. Vought saying in effect the Supreme Court is entitled to their opinion, but he could still proceed.
It is baffling to me that this man is now before the Senate for a nomination to a post that is one of the most critical in our government at an unprecedented moment of crisis in our history.
I think my colleagues ought to be equally aghast--both Republicans and Democrats--because this issue of the Constitution--I keep coming back to the Constitution--is bigger than any of us here, bigger than Mr. Vought, even bigger than President Trump. It is what sustains us through constitutional crises, as we face right now.
It is bigger than this administration or any other. It is whether the law of the land should prevail, whether it is up for grabs depending on what the President thinks or what Mr. Vought recommends the President should think. It is about the power of the purse being usurped from Congress and put in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, special government employees like Elon Musk. The Constitution provides for nothing like it--nothing close to it. This issue goes to the foundation of our country.
Again, I know these issues seems esoteric and legalistic. I am a lawyer. I understand that making the law real for people is a challenge, and a lot of what I have said, even when it concerns natural disasters, might seem abstract.
But the person who appropriates the money--Congress--makes judgments about where it should go, who it should benefit: childcare; community health centers; the SNAP program, providing aid for the hungry; the military; new weapons platforms; our intelligence community; our national security; all the domestic needs; all of the challenges from abroad. They are not hypotheticals.
And we saw last week how real the threat is, how damaging the effect would be on every single American if Mr. Vought's views prevailed. Last week, the Trump administration swept the country into chaos and confusion. And all of us in this Chamber heard from our constituents loud and clear: What in God's name are you doing? You are disrupting the payrolls of community health centers that provide basic services to patients who need them, children who use them; childcare; Head Start; Medicare; Medicaid--the basic nuts and bolts of our government disrupted.
I know the President wants to be a change agent; he shouldn't be a chaos agent. Disruption shouldn't mean destruction of those basic services, but that is what a delay in funding could mean--or a suspension of financial support.
And that move wasn't approved by Congress. To be clear, it was against the law. They made the unconstitutional and unilateral decision to halt congressionally mandated funding, as a result of that order-- chaos and confusion--halted Federal payments to food bank programs, healthcare and nutrition assistance programs, Head Start and childcare programs, housing programs, energy assistance programs, and so much more we heard about.
And throughout the chaos, the administration was utterly unable to communicate to the public. First, there was a vague memo which claimed there were exceptions to the Trump funding freeze, but many of those programs like Medicaid and Head Start remained unable to access funding for extensive periods of time. A Federal court had to step in and halt the order and stop the chaos. And then, in another one-sentence memo, President Trump caved to the public outcry and allegedly rescinded the funding freeze entirely, 24 hours after it went into effect.
Of course, it didn't end there because, right after the funding freeze was supposedly halted, it was put back into place by a tweet. That is the way we govern these days, in the Trump administration, by a tweet from the White House.
Agencies and organizations on the ground were still in chaos solely because of President Trump's incompetence but also advice that he received from people like Mr. Vought who contended he was above the law and he could unilaterally freeze that funding.
But here is where things really get scary. Mr. Vought shares President Trump's ludicrous and unconstitutional views about the executive power over Federal funding; but he, unlike President Trump, is not incompetent. He knows what he is doing. He spent 4 years at OMB carrying out this agenda of withholding funding, and he is primed and ready to continue that mission with all of that experience behind him, as he put it, on day one.
Make no mistake, even though courts have intervened to halt Trump's Federal funding freeze, this fight is not over. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is not even the end of the beginning. We are in the first 2 weeks--or now maybe 3 weeks--of the Trump administration, and I am hearing from constituents that funding has yet to be unlocked, especially from the Inflation Reduction Act.
And even if all the Federal funding taps are turned back on, this administration is not done wreaking havoc in our communities. The President will try again. Only this time, if we let him, he will have Mr. Vought on his side, with all that experience, breaking the law at OMB on the President's behalf. It won't be a vague, several-line memo from OMB imposing the freeze; it will be a well-articulated set of falsehoods designed to confuse and obstruct but still order a freeze in funding.
Let me give you some examples from Connecticut about what the ramifications are in real life. Given the magnitude of the danger facing us, I want to take some time to highlight again the harms that result from a funding freeze.
I have spent the last couple of weeks--the last week particularly-- fielding concerns from constituents who are understandably worried and confused and scared about the devastating effects that the freeze has imposed on services they provide to people who need and deserve them.
Let me be clear that congressionally mandated aid this administration has illegally withheld helps families put food on the table and keep their homes heated in the winter. It helps our communities, and particularly farmers, recover from extreme natural disasters. It provides needed support for infrastructure updates in every State across the country.
To every American who is listening: It is your money that President Trump is playing games with. It is your taxpayer dollars that are owed back as investments in your communities. It is not Donald Trump's money. It is not Russell Vought's money. It is your money, taxpayer money.
Let's call the funding freeze what it is: theft. President Trump is stealing money from American taxpayers and citizens and threatening their ability to pay rent, heat homes, and much more. And that money, stolen by Donald Trump, will be used to finance tax cuts for billionaires and the ultrawealthy like himself.
Follow the money. Follow the money when it is illegally impounded to be used to finance tax cuts for the benefit of a tiny slice of the American public: the ultrawealthy, billionaires. There is nothing wrong with being a billionaire. We all can aspire to be a billionaire. It is the favoritism and discriminatory use and effect of our laws benefiting them at the illegal expense of everyday Americans whose taxpayer money has been stolen, grifted, thieved.
I have no doubt that every single one of my colleagues, even on the other
In fact, I saw a statistic in the New York Times that something like 80 percent of all the infrastructure money has gone to congressional districts represented by Republicans. Don't hold me to the 80 percent number, but that is approximately what it was--which is not to say they shouldn't receive that money. If they are entitled to it under the formula that Congress establishes based on need or other factors, it doesn't matter whether they are red or blue; the law ought to be executed fairly and faithfully, implemented properly.
But then to turn around and say, well, we should impound money that has been lawfully appropriated, affects them as well as the congressional districts represented by Democrats. It is not about Republican or Democrat.
Here are some real stories. During the chaos that overwhelmed Federal Agencies, community health centers were unable to access the Federal funding they rely on to provide critical health services. Many of them were weighing furloughs of their doctors, their nurses, their counselors, their essential providers.
A nonprofit in Connecticut that provides critical mental health services was terrified that they may not be able to pay their staff if the funding freeze continued.
I spoke to the head of the Alliance or Association of Community Health Centers. He told me about one in the northeastern part of the State that had to close its dental services. Medicaid payments are now seemingly back online, but this administration put 1 million Connecticut residents who rely on Medicaid and the Connecticut Children's Health Insurance Program at risk with these needless and reckless theatrics.
Childcare, similarly: Connecticut Head Start was unable to access payments. President Trump jeopardized childcare and early childhood education for 5,000 families in Connecticut.
Connecticut farmers, who just over a week ago were celebrating--and I was there with them--millions of dollars in much-needed disaster assistance from extreme weather events--they weren't sure whether they would ever see that money, or when. You know, farmers really can't wait a few months to plant the seeds or feed their livestock. There are seasons, there are days when obligations have to be met. And they deserved the aid that was coming to them, and they should not be forced to wait for it.
Millions of dollars to the hard-working farmers of Connecticut withheld potentially on that day. We still are unclear whether that freeze for that aid has been unequivocally lifted.
At the outset of the freeze, I spoke to the CEO of Connecticut Foodshare. He expressed to me his deep fears about the potential impact to food assistance like SNAP, the emergency food assistance program. Freezes to these funds could push hundreds of families into poverty and hunger.
Any more politically motivated funding games from the Trump administration would have potentially life-threatening impacts on survivors of domestic violence because they depend on VAWA--Violence Against Women Act--and the money that is appropriated under it for the domestic violence shelters, for the counseling, for the hotlines--all necessary to provide survivors with options rather than just stay in homes where they are victims of abuse. They are survivors if they can get away, and they deserve these services.
The operation of Connecticut's 24/7 domestic violence hotline could be severely impacted by another suspension. Court-based and community- based services for survivors and their children are also on the chopping block. This funding freeze was terrifying to these women and children and potentially tragic--not just for Connecticut but for the whole country--on domestic violence.
Housing: Connecticut organizations that rely on Federal funding from HUD to help families at risk of homelessness, also in jeopardy. Mr. President, 150,000 Connecticut residents depend on federally funded housing programs.
Even a temporary pause puts them at risk because, potentially, it puts them out of their homes. I heard from one organization that can provide permanent supportive housing to over 40 households in Waterbury and Meriden with the help of HUD funding. This housing is for people with disabilities and their families during this chaos and confusion.
They reported that the payment system for HUD was down, and they were unable to access these funds just days before the rent was due on the first of the month.
While the system now seems to be back online, that organization had to live through potentially tragic trauma, and the stress was debilitating for them, and the trauma has lasting effect. It increases the sense of insecurity for people who already feel an anxiety about their future.
The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP--we all know it because it heats the homes of people on days like this one--cold--here in the District of Columbia, a lot colder in Connecticut and the Northeast and in many of our States. And people need this critical program that provides energy assistance to low- income individuals and households. It was in jeopardy too; over 100,000 households in Connecticut that rely on heat were told: The money has stopped.
Again, it may be back online, but no one knows whether that is for sure because Russell Vought and Donald Trump think they may be above the law. Funding to support critical water infrastructure, brownfields mediation, and clean drinking water also frozen. That move threatened the health of communities everywhere. And I am still hearing from constituents that grants they received under the Inflation Reduction Act are continuing to be frozen.
The city of New Haven received over $10 million from EPA for two grants under the IRA that they say have been blocked, severely disrupting work. Recipients of EPA's Solar for All program, which enables households in low-income and disadvantaged communities to benefit from solar power, are similarly still frozen, including recipients in Connecticut. Make no mistake, the Trump funding freeze continues in effect today.
The courts need to block it, and then they will need to hold in contempt the officials who fail to obey it, whether it is Mr. Vought or the President of the United States, and lawyers will go to court to seek contempt motions to hold them in contempt.
Trump's funding freeze put the future of Connecticut and our Nation's roads and bridges and rail at risk. Amtrak's state of repair backlog for the Northeast corridor is tens of billions of dollars alone. It was estimated at $78.7 billion in 2023. This funding is critical for safety repairs along Amtrak rail lines.
Funding the Connecticut River Bridge Replacement Project and the Gateway Hudson Tunnel replacement project, it will ensure rail passengers can safely enter and move through all of New England. And without this funding from the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail and the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Programs--just naming a few--all of these investments will be at risk because they are all connected. You can't stop work on one part of the line and expect the trains to magically go in the air over that break.
And transportation costs will escalate because construction costs will rise. The interruption itself could be devastating financially.
Last week, I was proud to join the mayor of New Haven and Representative Rosa DeLauro to announce that the city of New Haven was awarded $2 million under the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program to study reuniting the city of New Haven, which was divided by Interstate 91. When that road was built, it split the city. It created a physical barrier. It isolated residents from social and economic opportunities that are critical to thrive. It destroyed city blocks and dozens of homes. And now this grant will help reunite neighborhoods, bring communities closer together, incentivize housing and other important assets.
But right before we made our announcement, DOT pulled down meetings it was supposed to have with grant
The longer the Trump administration's reckless agenda causes chaos and confusion, the clearer it will become that everyday Americans are suffering from this ill-conceived, wrongly implemented, reckless, and heartless program.
I talk about all these stories concerning my constituents, but every Member of this body could tell the same kinds of stories across our Nation. It bears repeating because the trauma and the hurt and the harm are to our neighbors and communities.
With Russell Vought as Director of OMB, if he is confirmed, he will have President Trump as his leader, who has apparently indicated he will follow recommendations that put him above the law. Russell Vought is the perfect person to help Donald Trump rob the American people--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL.--and carry out his agenda of theft. He has proven he is willing and able to break the law for President Trump in his first term, illegally withholding disaster aid--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time is expired.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL.--and security assistance, and he will do it again. I recommend that my colleagues say no to this nomination.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
I yield 120 minutes of my postcloture debate time on the vote nomination to Senator Murphy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. President, well, we are in interesting times, and we are beginning to see the corporate and billionaire takeover of the U.S. Government.
And in that corporate and billionaire takeover of the U.S. Government, the nominee Russ Vought to run OMB has a key role, and that key role--to do the work for the billionaires and the big corporations--is what makes him unfit and dangerous and what compels us to come to the floor tonight to warn the American people of what this guy will do and who he is.
Let's start with a little history. This is the guy who violated the Impoundment Control Act by withholding 214 million appropriated dollars from the soldiers fighting and dying in the trenches of Ukraine against Putin's thug army. It was that stunt that led to the impeachment of President Trump.
This is the guy who caused lives to be lost in those Ukrainian trenches by withholding funding they needed desperately, withholding the funding they desperately needed illegally, and withholding that desperately needed funding illegally in order to support a scheme by President Trump to put pressure on the Ukrainians to give him dirt on his political opponent. That is a little bit of history of where this guy will go.
The OMB is the nerve center of the Federal Government, and to have someone there of that character is dangerous.
Vought is also lawless. The Impoundment Control Act that he violated, the Government Accountability Office said this:
He violated that, and they specifically find:
Is he repentant about that now that the Government Accountability Office has called it out as being illegal? Never mind the Ukrainian lives that he caused to be lost. No. He continues to say the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional, even though no court has ever said so.
He was pressed on this question in the Budget Committee and answering the Appropriations Ranking Member Senator Murray's questions about this, he said:
Again, no court has said this. He said:
Pay attention.
Not ``I will follow the law,'' not ``I will follow court decisions that say what the law is.'' No. ``I will follow the advice of legal counsel, and ultimately the President.''
So let's just have a quick look at who his legal counsel is. People may remember this. This is a painting that was commissioned by this guy, the billionaire Harlan Crow. As you may remember, the billionaire Harlan Crow has been funding the lifestyle of the next person over-- Justice Clarence Thomas. Millions of dollars in secret gifts to the Thomas family.
And the next guy over in the painting--by the way, if you saw Kristi Noem sworn in by Justice Thomas, he has a picture of this right behind them. He is so pleased with it that he has got his own version of it, him with his billionaire sugar daddy, and with Mark Paoletta. This is the guy who is going to be the legal counsel whose advice Vought is going to listen to.
This guy is neck-deep in the billionaire court capture scheme; of course, his advice is going to be what the billionaires say.
The next guy over is Leonard Leo, the court-fixer. This is basically a panorama of the corruption of the Supreme Court: the billionaire who funds it, the Justice who secretly accepts millions of dollars in billionaire gifts, the guy who cooks up the whole scheme and travels with Justices on these billionaire-funded trips and is here at the billionaire's estate in the Adirondacks with them, and, of course, Mark Paoletta.
That is whose advice he is going to take. Again, he was careful to say: not the courts, not the law--the billionaire court-fixer guy who is now his counsel and the President, who has already said he thinks the law is unconstitutional.
This guy, on this question of the Impoundment Control Act, he hasn't said he is going to follow the law either. In fact, he said the Impoundment Control Act is a stupid law, and he tweeted at Russell Vought: ``Impound, baby, impound.''
Yes, you are going to get sober legal advice from a guy who says, ``Impound, baby, impound,'' and hangs out with billionaires who fund the capture of the Supreme Court as part of Leonard Leo's scheme.
This is an illustration of how this guy, Russell Vought, is a creature of the far-right, billionaire dark money world. Before he went to OMB the first time, he worked as vice president of Heritage Action.
What is Heritage Action? Heritage Action is a billionaire-funded dark money group that advocates for the things that dark money billionaires want, and he, for years, worked for them.
Then he went into OMB. And I submit, he still worked for them, although they weren't paying his paycheck at the time.
He gets back out after Trump won, and he sets up something called the Center for Renewing America--again, a billionaire-funded, dark money enterprise whose purpose is to advocate for the things that the dark money billionaires want.
It also, by the way, took care of the refugees from the first Trump administration--that creepy character Jeffrey Clark, who was in the Department of Justice and tried to wrangle his way into the Attorney Generalship by proposing that he would put the Department of Justice into the election fixing scheme that President Trump was running down in Georgia--that guy? Where did he land? Right, at the Center for Renewing America, courtesy of Russ Vought.
Who else is a senior fellow there, funded by the billionaires? Oh, Mark Paoletta, the guy who is going to be his legal counsel and was chumming it up with the billionaire and the Justice.
Who else? Kash Patel, the guy who has threatened publicly, over and over again, to turn the FBI into a political weapon for Donald Trump against his adversaries. He went so far as to repost a tweet of himself chainsawing the heads off members of his enemies list.
Yes, this is the guy who published an enemies list of who he was going to get in what he called a manhunt. ``The manhunt begins now,'' he said, of his enemies list.
And Trump wants to put him in charge of the FBI so it becomes his personal, political weapon. And Kash Patel has shown, time after time, instance after instance, that he is all too willing to do that.
And where did he land? Yes, right, at Vought's Center for Renewing America.
So this guy Vought is neck deep in the billionaire, dark money operation that is working right now to take over the U.S. Government and run it its own way.
The way it wanted to do this is through a plan that it cooked up and paid for called Project 2025. And if you look at the first couple of weeks of the Trump administration, you see Project 2025 playing out again and again and again and again. And who was the central architect of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025? Oh, yes, Russell Vought. Paid for with $120 million--you know, in Rhode Island, that is still a pretty big number--$120 million from a couple of rightwing billionaire families to cook up a scheme to run the government. And Vought both writes it and now goes in to implement Project 2025.
If you want to look at the guy's lawlessness from another angle, he doesn't believe in independent government Agencies. So the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, for instance, that is an independent government Agency because it adjudicates disputes in the energy sector and because it makes policy and has to do a number of things, but it has to be independent to have this adjudicative function, or the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Federal Reserve--he doesn't believe that any of them should be independent. He says:
``Seize them''--for the corporate and billionaire takeover, they want to seize the independent Agencies in government so that they are under the control of the big donors who put this administration in.
He said specifically about the Federal Reserve:
Except that the Supreme Court of the United States has squared the Fed's independence with the Constitution for decades. The decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the existence of independent Agencies goes back to the Humphrey's Executor case in 1935. This has been a long run of Supreme Court precedent in which literally dozens of cases involving independent Agencies have come before the Court, and it has never said that it is hard to square the independence of Agencies Congress has deemed to be independent with the Constitution.
This is an eccentric and illegal lawless view, and they intend to impose it, notwithstanding the law.
There are--``Number one'' he says, ``is going after this whole notion of independence. There are no independent agencies. . . . [The] SEC, or the FCC, CFPB . . . that is not something that the Constitution understands.''
Oh, yes, except for those 90 years of Supreme Court precedent interpreting the Constitution to understand exactly that.
In addition to the billionaire ``stoogery'' that he has been involved in for decades, in addition to his penchant for lawlessness where there is clear Supreme Court precedent, he is just a little bit strange. Here is what he has said about the men and women who work in the Federal Government. ``We want'' them, he said, ``to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains''--your postman, the villain; the meat inspector who makes your steak safe at the USDA, the villain; the health inspector; the people who do the tests on pharmaceutical drugs; the people who do brain cancer research--yes, we definitely want them to be viewed as the villains and to not want to go to work.
He goes on. ``We want their funding to be shut down so that''--and, of course, he picks the EPA because we are dealing with mostly polluter billionaires--``so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.''
If you think that is normal, you might want to go have just a little look in the mirror.
He wants mass firings, which we are already seeing threatened. He wants to eliminate the civil service, fire staffers so that they can be replaced with loyal partisans.
So let's say you are a big polluter. Let's say you are a big oil company. Let's say you are not cleaning up your methane leaks. You are spewing waste methane into the atmosphere for everybody else to breathe, and the Environmental Protection Agency or perhaps the Department of the Interior, who may be your landlord, comes to you and says: You know, you have got to clean up your mess here. You are spilling methane into the atmosphere. It is poisoning people. You have got to knock it off.
Nope. Out you go. Bring in the sycophants. Bring in the loyal partisans. Bring in people who will tell the corporate and billionaire takeover artists that are at work now: Never mind. We got your back here. You just keep leaking that methane.
And here is one that kind of stunned me, a pretty simple question. I ask him:
What was his answer?
No court has ever believed that. People got their bar ticket removed for telling courts falsehoods that the election was rigged. This was the first big lie of the Trump administration, and he is not over it, and he wants to go and run the nerve center of OMB.
He even wants to invoke The Insurrection Act, bring in the U.S. military onto domestic soil, to break up people who are protesting the Trump administration.
This is not a normal guy. This is not a guy who respects the law and the Constitution. This is a tool of a very small, rightwing billionaire elite, and he has proven himself with his participation in the Trump scheme to hold back urgently needed money from Ukrainian warriors trying to defend their country against Putin so that he could put pressure on Zelenskyy to develop dirt on Trump's political opponent. He was part of that scheme--what a guy.
The last thing that I will mention is that he has described Joe Biden and his administration as having engaged in climate fanaticism--climate fanaticism--this from the slow, cautious, temperate, noncombative Biden administration. I wish they had been a little bit more fanatic, but they sure weren't. They were slow. They were cautious. They were temperate. They were noncombative. And he found that to be fanatic.
Well, I will close with what is coming because what is coming from climate change is a beginning meltdown in property insurance markets all around the country, which is going to cascade into a problem in mortgage markets around the country because you can't get a mortgage if you can't get property insurance. And unless you are selling billionaire-to-billionaire Palm Beach estates, if you want to sell your home, you have got to find somebody who can get a mortgage. If your home can't get a mortgage because it can't get insurance, you can't find a buyer, and so your property values crash.
And the chief economist for Freddie Mac has warned that this ``insurance to mortgage to property values'' crash is going to happen, and it is going to hit the U.S. economy as hard as the 2008 mortgage meltdown. So somebody who takes this not seriously at all is the wrong person to lead us as we head toward disaster.
Here is some of the work that we have been doing on this out of the
Here is another one. This followed our Budget Committee report that I just referenced. This is where home insurance premiums are predicted to go because of climate change--up to a 300-percent increase. That is quadrupling. If you have a $6,000 home insurance policy, that is $24,000.
It is all over. It is in the hot spots for wildfire, and it is in the hot spots for coastal property damage from storms and sea level rise.
When you raise home insurance premiums by that much, what do you do? You knock down the value of the home because when you buy a home, if you are buying into a let's say $24,000 expense every year, the present value of $24,000 out of your pocket year after year after year comes off the value of the house. So it will knock down property values.
Indeed, it is predicted that in many of these areas, homes are going to lose as much as 100 percent of their value. A home that people have invested in--purchased, loved, raised their children in--will lose its value in some places completely because you can't get insurance, you can't get a mortgage, and you can't find a buyer. The place is going to burn. The place is going to flood.
It is not just me warning of these things. Here is an article from The Economist magazine--not exactly a liberal, green publication-- predicting globally that the next housing disaster is going to come from climate change.
The world is facing roughly a $25 trillion--trillion--hit.
If you look back here to Florida, you see how acute the trouble is as that insurance market melts down. Home insurance in Florida--the average annual premium for a typical single-family home in the State is likely to hit nearly $12,000 this year, says The Economist magazine.
This is a high-risk situation.
The Financial Times report says that billion dollar-plus disasters occur once every 3 weeks now on average, compared with every 4 months for equivalent events in the eighties. As insuring high-risk homes becomes increasingly hard and costly, cracks in the U.S. housing market will widen.
This danger of housing value collapse is already underway. Residential properties in the United States are overvalued by $121 billion to $237 billion for flood risks alone--not for wildfire risks out West, the flood risks alone. That is the Financial Times.
The New York Times:
Headline: ``Insurers Are Deserting Homeowners as Climate Shocks Worsen.''
Bloomberg News: ``US Home Insurance, Real Estate markets Teeter on Financial Crisis.''
Here is what they say: It is hard to overstate the role that insurance plays in the modern economy. Banks won't make mortgage loans for uninsurable properties. Without those loans, the real estate market slows to a crawl, which in turn eats away household wealth and the tax revenue that State and local governments rely on. For insurers to play their part, they have to feel confident predicting how much damage they might have to cover. To do that, they build models of the future based on what has happened in the past. They don't have to be right all the time, just enough to win by more than they lose.
Climate change has made that much harder. A warming world is more dangerous and unpredictable. In the eighties, the United States experienced roughly three disasters a year that did at least $1 billion in damage. Now the annual occurrence is closer to 18.
It is not just news reports. Here is the Congressional Budget Office analysis:
Here is the Financial Stability Board. It is the global board that advises banks on how to stay sound.
I will cut to one of the end points here: The projected physical risk impact from climate change could cause global GDP to decline versus the baseline by 5.3 percent by 2030 and by up to 15 percent by 2050.
That is a global recession, folks, driven by climate change, pounding insurance markets, which pound mortgage markets. And this guy thinks that taking climate science seriously is fanaticism.
Here is what the American people think about some of this stuff. Penalties on high-pollution imports--letting high-pollution Chinese products into our country, putting a penalty on that: 12 percent oppose, 74 percent support--a 62-percent positive swing.
Carbon pollution limits on big companies: 12 percent disapprove, 72 percent support.
Impose a fee on big polluters: 10 percent oppose, 74 percent support--a 64-percent swing.
The American public wants to solve this climate problem, which is why the billionaires need to come in and take over the government from the inside with people like Russell Vought, so they can defeat the American people, continue to pollute, and let the economic mayhem ensue.
I will close with this last image just because I really love it. Here are the MAGA guys standing outside the wall of Trump's Mar-a-Lago palace:
Meantime, inside are the helicopters from Wall Street, Big Tech, Bezos, pharma, Big Ag, Musk, coal, Big Oil, crypto bros.
This is what is happening. MAGA may have thought it won the election, but here is who really won the election: the looters and the polluters; the Musks, who are running into our information systems, looting data out of them for their own purposes; and the polluters, who want to pretend that this climate change threat is not real.
Russ Vought is dangerous because he won't face the facts on these things because he belongs to the billionaire looters and polluters.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. President, I rise to continue the discussion about Russell Vought, the President's nominee to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Before I do, I thought I would just share with my colleagues and all who are in the Chamber a vigil that I just attended.
There was a vigil at a riverfront park in Alexandria near the site where the flight went down a week ago, killing 67 people on the American Airlines flight and the Army helicopter that had deployed out of Fort Belvoir.
It was a simple, moving candlelight vigil that was organized by my friend Don Beyer in the House of Representatives. It was attended by a few hundred people, mostly residents of Alexandria and Arlington, nearby communities. There was a heavy representation of law enforcement there because the Alexandria Police and Fire Departments were very integral to the rescue and recovery operations that were ongoing.
It was somber. It was somber. You struggle for words at a time like that.
Thinking about the children, the ice skaters and their friends and families who were killed, but, frankly, all of us have short lives, even the oldest of those who died that day. The mother who was celebrating her birthday, a wife who was on her way home whose husband was waiting for her in the airport, these coaches, folks who were in Wichita doing a pipefitter training program, and, frankly, all of the attendees--our lives are all short.
So what is the wisdom if you follow the logic in Psalm 90, ``Teach us how short our lives are, so that we may become wise''? What is the wisdom we are to gain if we understand our lives are short?
Well, the Psalm doesn't really say. The Psalm kind of leads us to conclude for ourselves what is the wisdom we are to gain out of such situations and out of the realization of the temporal nature of human life.
But what I said to people there is, if there is one bit of wisdom you should gain when you realize how mortal we all are, it is probably wisdom about the value of community, that we link arms and we support each other. Certainly, if we are celebrating positives, we ought to do that, but particularly when we are mourning and we are thinking about lives lost and lives and futures cut short, our wisdom should compel us to find solace and comfort in each other's company.
This vigil lasted about half an hour. We had candles. After Representative Beyer spoke and I spoke and the mayor of Alexandria, Alyia Gaskins, spoke, the chaplain of the Alexander Police Department gave a prayer, and the vigil was over. But we stayed. We stayed to visit each other and comfort one another.
I was struck because I was coming here to speak tonight. I met a guy from DHS who was involved in the recovery effort in frigid waters out on the Potomac. I met a key official from Fort Belvoir, where the three soldiers had deployed from in the training flight who were killed that night. I met other people who are part of the Federal family, you know, who work in air traffic control, who work in the FAA.
Alexandria is pretty close to the Pentagon. I met people who work at the Pentagon or whose family members do. I met some folks who weren't Federal employees, but they talked to me about--one woman talked about her son, who is a Federal employee currently stationed in Tennessee. I took that to mean a member of the armed services.
This was the random community that gathered to commemorate the 67 lost lives and comfort one another.
While we were there to focus on the tragic accident, most wanted to talk to me about their own fears for their careers and for their families and for others who are feeling confused and afraid right now because of actions that are being taken against Federal employees.
That brings me to Russell Vought. My colleagues have spoken on the floor about a particular statement of Mr. Vought's that I examined him about fairly aggressively during the Budget Committee hearing. In the course of a speech, he said: I want Federal employees to be traumatized. I want to put them in trauma. I want them to not want to come to work because they know that they are increasingly viewed as the villain.
Now, who talks like that? I mean, who talks like that? Is there a single manager or leader or organizational chief that we admire who believes that their mission, their happiness, their glee, their purpose is to make their workforce feel traumatized? No. We would never celebrate a leader of that kind. Yet that is precisely what Russell Vought said.
I asked him: Do you really mean that? Do you really want air traffic controllers to come to work traumatized?
Well, no, no, I didn't mean that.
Do you want people who inspect our food to come to work traumatized?
No, I didn't mean that.
Well, how about people at OMB? You ran it before, and you are running it again. A lot of folks might call OMB staffers--do you want them to come in to work traumatized?
No, I don't like that.
But that is what he said.
When he was not in front of the Senate Budget panel and he was speaking candidly--and there is a beautiful Biblical phrase that, I think, is from the Gospel of Luke that says: From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.
When he was speaking directly from the heart, what he said is, I want Federal employees to be traumatized.
What I want to do in my time on the floor tonight is talk a little bit about these Federal employees and what having a traumatized workforce means. Then, for a few minutes, I want to focus upon not the Federal workforce but on others who were affected by the Russell Vought strategy on the Federal budget.
This is what I have heard from Virginians just in the week since the funding pause order went into place, which I will agree was something that was masterminded by Russell Vought.
Federal employees: Yesterday, I decided, after hearing stories from Federal employees, to launch on the website a resource where Federal employees could share their stories if they chose to, with anonymity guaranteed, because so many are afraid.
Some will remember that I took to the floor yesterday, and I read an open letter to Federal employees. There are 140,000, give or take, in Virginia. I read an open letter, offering them a bit of a pep talk, encouraging them to keep doing what you are doing--serving your fellow Americans. Just do that. You signed up for the job to do that. Don't pay attention to all of these things and all of this trauma. I know that is such hard advice to give to somebody. Just keep serving your fellow Americans every day, and if you have a problem, call our office, and we will try to be helpful if we can. There is no guarantee that we will be able to avert this, but just do what you have a passion to do, and we will try to help you if we can.
But also, in delivering that letter to Federal employees, we launched a website in my office, and we encouraged people to share their stories. Within 3 hours, we had about 400 stories of Federal employees who had reached out and shared, and those stories keep coming in. Some are asking us to give them a call and probe further details. Some are giving us their names and the Agencies where they work, and some are too afraid to give us those.
What I thought I would do tonight is I would just take 18 of these stories from the Federal employees--that had just come in, in less than 24 hours--of the hundreds that have been submitted, and I just want to read some to you to tell you about who these people are who Mr. Vought believes need to be traumatized, who these people are that Mr. Vought wants to personally make feel as if they are the villains.
The first is a Federal employee who works at USAID:
She is 34-weeks pregnant after two extremely painful miscarriages and is just hoping that she will not lose her job and her health insurance.
The second story is of a Federal employee working for the National Science Foundation, headquartered in Virginia:
A third story from a Federal employee working at USAID:
These are the direct words of Virginians who have shared their stories with me.
A fourth story is of a Federal employee working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
A Federal employee who works for the Department of Transportation:
A Federal employee working for the Department of Defense:
A Federal employee at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, headquartered in Alexandria:
Another story from a Federal employee working for the General Services Administration:
Here is a story from a Virginia Federal employee working for the Department of Homeland Security, and this is a pretty common one:
Meaning they are relatively new employees.
Another employee working for the Department of Homeland Security:
A Federal employee who didn't feel comfortable even sharing the Agency that he or she works for:
A Federal employee who works for the Defense Health Agency:
Which is a little bit east of Fredericksburg.
Stop and think about that for a minute. This DHA employee received a ``Fork in the Road'' letter, drafted by Elon Musk. This is somebody who has worked for the DHA for many, many years.
The DHA employee reaches out to their own direct supervisor. ``We don't have any information for you. We can't clarify what this letter means.''
They reach out to the base commander. ``We don't have any information. We can't clarify what the letter means.''
He even reaches out to the very head--the lieutenant general, the head of the Defense Health Agency, asking: What does this mean?
``We don't have any information for you. We can't clarify what this letter means.''
Just imagine that. The entire chain of command in this Agency, responsible for providing healthcare to our troops, is unable to tell the medical professionals who are providing service to our Active-Duty military every day what this ``Fork in the Road'' letter even means. It is shocking.
Another Federal employee who did not feel comfortable sharing the Agency where he or she works:
This, clearly, must be from an individual who works with a Federal contractor. I suspect probably with USAID.
And starting off public service careers and now--
Here is another letter from a Federal contractor working for USAID:
Here is a Federal employee working for a small independent Agency. Again, the employee didn't feel comfortable identifying it.
It is interesting. The Trump Executive order tried to kill DEI-- diversity, equity, inclusion--but in many of the documents that are being sent to Agencies, they are adding an ``A'' at the end. I never had seen that before, DEIA. What is the ``A''? ``Accessibility.'' Even though the Executive order signed by the President did not specifically attack accessibility programs for those with disabilities, the implementation documents that are going out from the administration are adding accessibility as a negative that needs to be rooted out of the Federal workplace. Could anybody be crueler than that?
Being forced to take down these reports on things, including accessibility, the writer says:
Finally, one last story, and then I will say a word about Federal funding to programs around Virginia, moving on from just sharing the stories of Federal employees.
This is another Federal employee who doesn't feel comfortable-- actually, not one less story. I have three more. This is from a Federal employee who doesn't feel comfortable revealing the Agency where he or she works.
A Federal employee from an Agency:
Not all employees, for all applicants--
Finally, the last story I will read before saying a word about Federal funding, this is from a Federal employee who works for HHS, Health and Human Services.
An intentional strategy of traumatizing Federal workers produces stories just like these, now in the hundreds. And by tomorrow, I will have hundreds more. And that is just one State. That is just Virginia. I know my colleagues are receiving these as well.
I see my colleague Senator Baldwin is here and will take the floor in just a few minutes, but I do want to turn to not just Federal employees but the Federal funding that is coming to Virginia and Virginia organizations. It has been hard to get the sense of this because, of course, the administration didn't share anything with us. They didn't tell us what they were going to do. And my Governor, frankly, hasn't been sharing with us either.
The analogy I have been using is this funding order. When it came out, I feel like a jigsaw puzzle was dumped in front of me on a desk upside down, and all I could see was the cardboard on the back of all the pieces. Nobody gave me the box with the picture on it, so I didn't even know what the jigsaw puzzle was supposed to be.
I am getting no information from the Trump administration. I am getting no information from my Governor about what this plan is, what is going on. But every time somebody shares a story like these and every time someone calls me office and every time a mayor talks to me about an infrastructure project or something, I turn over one of those pieces. I have been turning over pieces for the last 10 days, and the picture is starting to emerge.
Let me tell you what people in Virginia are telling me. I met today with the--``today.'' My days are running together. I met yesterday with the Virginia Association of Community Health Centers.
Mr. President, you know these. Senator Baldwin from Wisconsin has been very active in this space on the HELP Committee. These are the federally qualified health centers, chartered and funded pursuant to congressional appropriations to be the safety net for Americans' primary care.
In Virginia, there are 29 federally qualified health centers that serve hundreds of thousands of individuals. They are talented and focused in their localities and regions. These centers are particularly important in rural America that tends to have a shortage of primary healthcare providers.
On Monday, when I came into the office, I had an outreach from one of our largest FQHCs in the Hampton Roads area, the second largest metro area in Virginia, 1.6 million people.
Here is what they said. They are used to getting a payment for their congressional appropriation at the end of every month. It would have come in on January 29. President Trump's Executive order paused Federal funding that happened a few days before, but that order was enjoined.
The Trump administration was ordered to continue to make payments and not pause Federal payments. But
I had the entire association, coincidentally, in my office yesterday with representatives from virtually all of these, and I asked them what was going on. They said, well, more than half of the FQHCs in Virginia had not received their January payment. They had submitted to receive it under normal course of business at the end of January but hadn't gotten it and couldn't get an answer about when or whether they could get it.
This is frontline healthcare for low-income people. If they are not getting primary healthcare, they are still going to get sick, and then they are going to be in emergency rooms, which is the worst place to get healthcare, creating long lines and congestion that will make it harder for everybody else to get the treatment they need in emergency rooms. It will make people sicker. It will make hospitals more crowded for everybody who needs hospitals.
You know, the thing about it is Russell Vought was not only the architect of the funding freeze, but now he and others are responsible for following the court order, for God's sake. The court order said they had to resume payments.
My FQHCs are not getting paid. They are not getting paid. My Commonwealth attorneys, my prosecutors around Virginia, they all get funding through various programs that come to our State's department of criminal justice services. They use that Federal grant funding to hire victim witness coordinators.
I had the organization of prosecutors from Virginia in my office today. They talked about how they rely on Federal funding to hire victim witness advocates in their offices. That is not funded by the State. It is funded through the Federal grant program. They don't know whether they are going to get the funding for that.
So compounding these concerns from Federal employees, I have Head Start programs, I have healthcare clinics, I have Commonwealth attorneys, I have sheriff's offices who get Federal funding to provide mental health services for people who need mental health services in jails and in the community--they are not sure they are going to get them.
The compounding of confusion and fear is sharp and unnecessary and illegal. These are appropriated funds. I don't need to repeat everything that Senator Whitehouse said. Congress has appropriated these funds. A Democrat and Republican House reached budgets together, signed by the President. The President is under an obligation to implement those funds. There is no legal authority for him to hold them back. Why is he holding them back? What did the patients at the health clinic in Hampton Roads do to get punished?
One of the health clinics is called the Capital Area Health clinic in Richmond. They have six clinics around the Richmond metropolitan area. They have closed three of them. They have closed three of the six. Other of the health clinics around the State are reducing the services, trying to keep the doors open but reducing services.
There is a court order that says they are supposed to be paid, but they are shutting the doors of their clinics, and they are reducing services because the administration won't even follow a court order. It is my hope that they will.
I don't think this is a glitch. I think this is an intentional effort to thwart a court order in order to hurt people who don't deserve to be hurt.
So under these circumstances, there is no way that I or any of my colleagues can stand here and cast a ``yes'' vote for somebody who has declared their intention is to traumatize Federal employees.
I will finish as I started: Who talks like that? Who talks like that? That is the professed goal of this individual who has been nominated for this most important post, and there is no circumstance under which I could cast a ``yes'' vote for someone harboring that kind of resentment.
Finally, I asked Mr. Vought in the confirmation hearing to tell me who his favorite Presidents are. He is a Republican, so I felt like I had a pretty good sense of it. I asked him, Do you admire Abraham Lincoln? He said very much. I said, I do too. I do too.
``With malice toward none, with charity toward all''--that is what Lincoln said to a divided nation during the Civil War. He spoke to the South. He spoke to Confederates. He spoke to those who were waging war to try to destroy the Union.
What he said to them was:
Mr. Vought told me he admires Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln would never have thought to say: I want to traumatize you. I want you to not want to go to work because you are viewed as the villain.
How far this Grand Old Party has come from the lofty and noble sentiments of its founder when it is putting at the head of the Federal workforce somebody whose desire is to traumatize Federal workers.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. President, like my colleague Senator Kaine, I will be uplifting the words of some of my constituents who have been contacting me in a panic, really, over the last several days. But I want to remind folks why we come here at this hour to speak on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
We are here today to consider President Trump's nominee for the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought. Many Americans may not be familiar with Mr. Vought; however, you may be familiar with his most infamous work: Project 2025. That is right. President Trump's nominee for the Office of Management and Budget was one of the lead authors of Project 2025. It is a document which President Trump repeatedly denied having anything to do with during his campaign.
First, I think it is important to break down the responsibilities of the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB. What does it really do? OMB oversees the preparation of the President's budget request. This is a budget proposal that they send to Congress. OMB evaluates the effectiveness of Agency programs, policies, and procedures. OMB oversees and implements the appropriations bills and mandatory spending programs enacted by laws we pass in Congress.
The Office does not have a magic wand that allows it to create new laws, fund only programs they want and slash others that they don't, except through specific authorities that Congress provides. The Director of OMB is not, in fact, the 101st Senator, nor the 436th Member of the House of Representatives or even a second President. The operative word here is ``implement.''
A second stated mission of OMB is called the open government directive, which emphasizes the importance of disclosing information that the public can readily find and use.
Folks, the good news about Mr. Vought is that he has been clear from the start on his goals. Case in point: Project 2025. For those who didn't read that 922-page document, I can share some of the lowlights.
For economic policy, Project 2025 further shifts the tax burden from the wealthy onto the middle class, while giving American households with $10 million in annual income an average tax cut of $1.5 million per year.
It seeks to raise the retirement age, when Americans can receive Social Security benefits, from 67 to 69.
It also proposes limits or lifetime caps on Medicaid benefits. In Wisconsin, 595,300 Medicaid enrollees would be at risk of losing coverage because they are low-income and lack access to alternative affordable coverage.
Project 2025 aims to further impede on a woman's right to make her own decisions about her body, calling to eliminate emergency contraception and safe, effective abortion medications like mifepristone. Mr. Vought himself called on Congress to outlaw that medication.
The document also calls for the Department of Education to be abolished, which can only, by the way, be done by the Congress of the United States. But
Important for our discussion here today with regard to education is that Project 2025 outlined a plan to take a hacksaw to the services and programs that families rely on the Federal Government to provide, slashing essential programs like title I grants that go to more than 80 percent of public school districts around the Nation. That includes sending about $227 million to Wisconsin in the current school year.
These chapters in Project 2025 were primarily authored by none other than OMB nominee Russell Vought.
Now, I would be the last to say that our Federal Government is perfect. It is not. But the career civil servants who have served under Republicans and Democrats are essential to ensuring that services Americans rely on run smoothly--from Medicare and Social Security, to Head Start and childcare, to making sure that folks get their tax refunds from the IRS. These are essential services that hundreds of millions of Americans rely on every year.
Getting rid of the people who are working for working families will not fix our Federal Government. The doctors of the VA and staff sending out Social Security checks--they are not the enemy.
By confirming Russell Vought as Director of OMB, we would be putting one of the chief architects of Project 2025 in charge of an Agency that is tasked with getting critical funding out the door that our communities depend upon. And I hate to use this idiom, but we are, in fact, asking the fox to guard the henhouse.
We don't need to guess whether Russell Vought will turn to his Project 2025 playbook if confirmed as OMB Director. We are already seeing the destruction of his extreme views and how they are causing problems with allocation of Federal funding.
Before last week, I am sure that most Americans had never heard of the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, let alone what role it played in their lives, but all that changed last Monday night when OMB sent a 2-page memo on the President's plan to cut virtually all Federal grants and loans. This is tantamount to stopping Wisconsin taxpayer money from going back into the very services they rely on. The Trump administration is trying to steal from Wisconsinites to implement its own agenda. More on that later.
This messy, haphazard, and frankly illegal action immediately started causing chaos and confusion in my home State. Our phones were ringing off the hook from constituents and organizations worried about what this would mean for them. Was the funding for childcare centers impacted? Was the Medicaid coverage they relied on in jeopardy? What about nutrition programs that keep food on the table? What about rental assistance or funding to help pay for heat in the winter?
Sadly, my office didn't have answers for these folks due to the chaos that President Trump has created. All these essential programs that they rely on for healthcare, safety, and food on the table--they were all on the chopping block.
I even had a constituent write in asking these exact questions. She wrote to my office:
With a 2-page memo, the Trump White House unleashed a wave of chaos as folks in my State and across the country worried whether this freeze would impact the programs that they rely on. I would like to share some of the stories I have heard from folks in my State about how these cuts impact real people in a very real way.
I heard from a single mom who lives paycheck to paycheck. She was laid off because Federal funding was paused for the National Science Foundation, a grant that pays her salary. She wrote to me to say:
I also heard from a deputy fire chief in Central Wisconsin. Without Federal grant funding, he would have to lay off as many as nine officers--nine firefighters. Would this mean a longer wait for a resident if their house was on fire?
Another fire chief in Northern Wisconsin called me to ask whether his volunteer department could go ahead with needed upgrades for their equipment. Without their Federal grant, which was more than half of their operating budget, they would not be able to purchase new equipment that the department desperately needed.
From Western Wisconsin, a local mayor reached out to share that a pause in Federal funding would be catastrophic for their ability to make timely payments on a loan they took out to make necessary renovations to their fire department.
I heard from an administrator at a women's shelter for survivors of domestic abuse based in Southwest Wisconsin. Without Federal funding, they would have to turn away women looking for a safe place away from their abusers for themselves and sometimes their children too.
As communities across Wisconsin continue to battle the opioid and fentanyl crisis, a community organization specializing in drug prevention told me that they would not be able to pay their staff and continue their vital work if funding was cut.
Another organization that provides supervised visitation and safe exchange services between kids and parents who are separated due to court orders reached out, worried about whether they would be able to continue to serve their community. They employ a staff of therapists who supervise the visitations and ensure that kids are able to safely see their parents again.
I heard from a community dental center in Southeastern Wisconsin that serves thousands of patients every year, the vast majority of whom are children. They told me that without their Federal funding, they would be at ``significant risk of closing within a matter of a few short months, and as a result, thousands of children would have nowhere to go to receive dental care, and 45 individuals would be out of employment.''
They wrote to me:
I have heard from so many Wisconsinites confused by this chaos, wondering whether their childcare center is about to close, their Head Start--many did close.
So, Mr. Vought, will you be willing to fill in as a mentor for all the kids who lose their mentors from Big Brothers Big Sisters or will you help pitch in as a firefighter at some stations in Wisconsin that might have to lay people off? Will you be a substitute Head Start teacher in a classroom to ensure that parents have the childcare and early education they are counting on?
If there is one word we can use to describe the first 2 weeks of this administration, it would certainly be ``chaos.'' While the White House seems to be contradicting itself and putting out mixed signals on these drastic cuts, the level of panic and chaos it has created should be upsetting to every American.
There are so many other programs where Americans are unsure if they should anticipate cuts.
Community health centers, which I am a proud champion of, were awarded $48 million grants across Wisconsin in the year 2023, largely in the form of Federal grants designed to help these health centers provide medical care and other services to communities traditionally located in healthcare deserts.
Wisconsin has 17 federally qualified healthcare centers located around the State, whose funding could be in jeopardy. There is also funding for law enforcement that could face cuts, including community- oriented police grants that go towards Tribal law enforcement assistance, hiring mental health
Wisconsin receives $17.5 million in funding for counties, Tribes, and cities across the State to fund community-oriented policing practices.
You know, small businesses could also be harmed if loans for entrepreneurs are impacted. In fiscal year 2024, small businesses received nearly $237 million in small business loans for projects in Wisconsin. These are businesses that just need a little support to get their idea off the ground, or maybe they are loans for those impacted by a national disaster. Cutting off this funding would mean fewer businesses and fewer jobs.
President Trump's egregious overreach of his Presidential power is plainly unconstitutional and a power grab. It is illegal to withhold this funding from the American people. This is their money, and these are the programs they rely on. Period.
This funding was provided in bipartisan laws, and I remind my colleagues of that. On a bipartisan basis, we passed the laws and budgets and appropriation bills. And I hope my Republican colleagues are just as angry at President Trump for this confusion his administration has created as I am. But I fear they are not.
This directive has put real people in real distress, and it begs the question of why. I will tell you why: They want to claw back taxpayer money supporting programs that serve taxpayers to ensure that they can give their tax breaks to the biggest corporations and billionaire friends.
This is not the first time the Trump administration has done this. And this is their plan: cut programs Wisconsinites rely on and give tax breaks to billionaires and multinational corporations. It certainly doesn't help that while my constituents were wondering if they would be able to put food on the table, keep a roof over their heads, and drop their kids off at childcare, the richest man in the world--worth nearly $500 billion--was handed access to our Nation's checkbook and to Americans' most sensitive information.
First, it was shutting the doors, literally, to the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, an Agency that keeps Americans safe, protects people worldwide from disease and famine, and stands up to our adversaries like China and Russia.
But their next target is reported to be a shutdown of the Department of Education, the very Agency that ensures all kids across America get a good public education and young people are set up with the skills to land a good-paying job. It ensures that schools serving low-income students receive the high-quality education they deserve and students with disabilities get the services that they are required to receive and have the opportunity to thrive.
And we are watching, before our very eyes, Russell Vought and Elon Musk illegally trying to shut it down. And if that wasn't enough, reporting today shows that the DOGE is coming after the Department of Labor, the Agency that supports apprenticeship programs so people can earn while they learn and land good- paying jobs. It is the Agency that makes sure that big corporations are held accountable for stealing wages from workers. It is the Agency that ensures workers on factory floors are safe on the job.
Again, this is what we are watching Russell Vought and his billionaire pals put in jeopardy.
Donald Trump has, apparently, given an unelected billionaire, Elon Musk, who is, again, literally the richest man in the world, free reign to run roughshod through Americans' most sensitive information. He has the ability to put programs people need on the chopping block with absolutely no transparency or accountability for what he is doing, much less any legal authority.
The President claimed he would lower prices for families on day one, if elected. But how does taking childcare away lower prices for families? Does taking away people's treatment for opioid use disorder help their lives? How about cutting firefighters, will that lower costs for families and keep them safe?
Raising costs on families all while Republicans work to jam through big tax breaks for billionaires is not what Wisconsinites want. Billions in tax cuts for the ultrawealthy in exchange for programs that my constituents need to feed their families, pay their rent, and stay healthy is not a good deal.
I have always said that I will work with anyone to deliver for Wisconsin and invest in the programs that my constituents rely on. But bipartisanship is a two-way street. We have to be able to trust one another that what gets signed into law is actually going to get implemented.
And right now, we are watching Elon Musk, Trump's billionaire Cabinet, and Donald Trump himself flout the law and cut funding from bipartisan programs that my constituents rely on.
And all this brings us back to President Trump's nominee to run OMB who has openly called for the President to defy Congress and take control of Federal funding decisions that are constitutionally vested in the legislative branch.
He said he supports the illegal practice of impoundment, a strategy to circumvent the checks and balances that are baked into the fabric of our Constitution. Mr. Vought even said during his confirmation hearing last week that President Trump believes the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. And he agrees with that assessment.
What that means is he thinks the President is free to withhold appropriated funding without limitation. And let me be clear, everything that we have seen in the last two weeks, including examples that I provided about the chaos and confusion across Wisconsin--this is just the first step. It is the tip of the iceberg. But in the future, Russell Vought will just withhold funding at the beginning for anything that he doesn't like or that Elon Musk posts about on X.
What this means is Congress could pass an annual funding bill that, maybe, increases funding for Head Start, which we actually pretty routinely do. Russell Vought thinks he can say to Congress: Thanks, but no thanks. I am going to eliminate Head Start and not allow any future grants to Head Start programs. Maybe Russell Vought will ignore Congress and the laws we pass and eliminate or significantly reduce funding for opioid treatment programs or the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or whatever he feels like opposing that day.
Even setting aside the very real impact I think cutting funding for programs like these would have on families and communities across the country, I hope my Republican colleagues will stand up against this blatant disregard for this body. How are we supposed to negotiate annual appropriations bills when an administration is saying it can just ignore what we do?
If confirmed, Russell Vought would be the tip of the spear in his fight to take away funding for programs families rely on and give it to billionaires as a tax cut.
We know that this administration intends to make every effort to override Congress's power of the purse. We have already seen Mr. Vought do it. During Mr. Vought's time as OMB director during President Trump's first term, the Agency withheld roughly $214 million in security assistance to Ukraine, which the Government Accountability Office later found violated the Impoundment Control Act.
I know it can be difficult to flout the party line, but we are not just talking about party politics anymore; we are talking about our Constitution. So many of my Republican colleagues declare themselves to be originalists when it comes to our Constitution, sworn supporters of interpreting this document as our Founders intended when it was written.
Well, I can tell you, if there is one thing that was crystal clear when our Founders conceived this Nation, it is that no one person should have absolute power. The repeated brazen power grabs that we have seen by this administration could not be more out of step with the foundational checks and balances laid out in our Constitution.
And while my words might not matter to you, I hope the voices of your constituents, who I know are being adversely impacted by this administration's actions, will.
I, for one, will not sit idly by as President Trump forfeits control of our government to billionaires. I will stand up for Wisconsin workers and families,
Otherwise, we could be running headlong towards a constitutional crisis. And it is up to all of us to make sure that the people come out on top in that fight. In times of conflict and hardship, the Senate has served as the conscience of this Nation. Now is our chance to stand up to this administration and show that we are here to represent the American people and not billionaires.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. President, it is getting late, too late for some of the people we serve to even be awake--though I imagine many are. Not by choice, a mother in the Central Valley is awake, staring at her kitchen table, trying to work out where her sick child can receive the medical care that child needs now that a Federal grant supporting the only rural healthcare center in her community is in limbo.
A Federal employee is awake trying to figure out how they will make the rent next month if they are laid off. Maybe they spent a few decades serving this country overseas and were just called back home. Now what?
People around the world are awake watching humanitarian help that means their next meal or safe harbor from disease has disappeared, wondering why, in their time of most need, their longtime ally has decided to abandon them, because the Trump administration has turned their lives, turned so many of our lives, into a series of question marks, because this President and his cronies like Elon Musk and Russ Vought are putting politics and profits over people's lives, over people's livelihoods, over lives.
They are creating chaos, and then, somehow, worst of all, they are gloating about it. Imagine gloating about acts so callous. ``Chaos'' seems to be the watchword of this administration, but the chaos is not a consequence of this. The chaos is the goal. The chaos is the purpose. By throwing everything at the wall, they can create confusion. They hope to muddy the waters while opening the floodgates: unconstitutional Executive orders, illegal memos, illegally accessing private citizens' data. The scope and the speed of these actions are almost impossible to comprehend, and the impact is incalculable.
This is all part of a larger effort to consolidate power, every possible power, in the control of one man--well, maybe two men--so they can plunder the country to benefit themselves and their billionaire buddies.
What is this all about, what we have witnessed in the first couple weeks of this administration? What do these disparate acts have in common? What is the through line? What is it that the seizure of data belonging to millions and millions of Americans by Elon Musk--what does that have in common with the efforts to shutter American development assistance around the world through USAID? What does that have in common with efforts to fire top prosecutors at the Justice Department and purge FBI agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation? What does this have in common, too, with pardoning violent criminals who attacked this building? What does it have in common with a funding freeze and then a memorandum to implement the funding freeze and then the repeal of the memorandum and all the confusion that has caused? What does the mass deportation order have in common with all of this? What is the story of what they are doing here? How does this all fit together?
It fits together in this way: This is an effort to try to consolidate power--all of the power of this government--in the hands of Donald Trump and a few of his handpicked, very wealthy, billionaire friends. It is designed to consolidate that power to essentially take the resources of this country and enrich themselves and their friends--an effort to enrich themselves which would not be possible, will not be possible, if our system of checks and balances work. But if they can somehow take apart these institutions; if they can somehow persuade or demand or cow the people in this institution and the House of Representatives and the courts and the Supreme Court; if they can prevent us from playing our institutional role as a check and balance, then what is left between them and the Treasury? Nothing. Nothing.
So this is the goal: Discredit the government, dismember the government, dismember checks and balances so they can raid the till. Make government purposefully dysfunctional, discredit every institution so that all that is left is the power of the strongman, and the wealth of this country can be stripped away.
Checks and balances be damned. Congressional authority be damned. The President wants to steamroll all of that, and at the moment, it appears he is succeeding. But Donald Trump can't do this on his own. He needs enablers--enablers to subvert our laws, enablers to divert congressionally approved funds.
Sure, everyone knows Elon Musk, but it is not just Elon Musk. And today, we consider the nomination of the system's engineer to lead the Office of Management and Budget--probably the most important Agency no one has heard of. That engineer, that architect of this effort to strip the country of its resources so they can be plundered by the President and his wealthy friends; the architect, the engineer of this, the one who will make the trains run on time, the guy that stops the train to allow the highway robbery of that train, is a man named Russ Vought.
We all recall Project 2025. Project 2025--Russ Vought helped to write it. That funding freeze? Vought helped orchestrate the plan for it. And the slew of outrageous, dangerous actions taken by this administration over the past several weeks were in many ways a direct result of Vought and his plan to dismantle and destroy the government in the service of Donald Trump and his wealthy friends.
One analysis found that two-thirds of the Executive orders that Trump has signed come from--that is right--Project 2025.
Russ Vought doesn't believe in government except as a vehicle to take from the poor and take from the middle class and give to the wealthy people, who should be running everything. He doesn't believe in the simple idea that we the people compose our institutions; we the people are the government--a government that is supposed to be for the people, not for a handful of very wealthy people. No, Russ Vought believes in dismantling that government of the people piece by piece, brick by brick, until what remains is a hollowed-out bureaucracy that serves the interests of the wealthy and abandons everyone else, to make it so small they can drown it in a bathtub, because that is what this is all about.
This is all about taking the Nation's resources for themselves. It is about using the infrastructure, the architecture of the government to enrich themselves. This is about plunder. That is what they are trying to do.
The last few weeks are not incompetence. It isn't mismanagement, although there is plenty of that. No. This is a deliberate effort to break the Federal Government so completely that people lose faith in its ability to function at all. When people lose faith in the government of the people, when they stop believing it is for the people, that is when the real damage begins. That is when they can dismantle the safety net program by program. That is when they can make the people beholden to the strongman. That is when Federal workers-- scientists, economists, social workers, public health experts--are replaced by unqualified ideologues or driven out entirely. Turn the Federal workforce--or what is left of it--into an arm of the President, beholden only to the President. No more oath to the Constitution but an oath to the person of the President, a loyalty oath demanded of our Federal employees.
That is when the next disaster--whether it is a pandemic, a financial collapse, or a natural disaster--becomes unmanageable, because the very institutions designed to respond have been gutted, because that is their end goal--not just to shrink the government of the people but to sabotage it, to make it dysfunctional, to make it ineffective, to paralyze it, and then to turn around and say ``Hey, see, it doesn't work. The government of the people doesn't work'' because of course they don't want it to work except to
This is why they are elevating Russ Vought, because when you need someone to dismantle the very machinery of governance, to turn the government of the people into an engine of destruction rather than an agency of stewardship, Russ Vought is your guy. And now he has a second chance--a second chance to make sure that when that mother in the Central Valley reaches for help, there is nothing there.
We are seeing, of course, Head Starts around the country--the Head Start Program--wonder whether they are going to be able to open their doors the next day, wondering what is going to happen to--if they are supported. Of course, all the parents that have their kids in Head Start are wondering what the future holds for their kids. But the view of this administration is, hey, that Head Start is getting valuable money they would rather give to themselves and to their wealthy friends. If it means the sacrifice of those kids in the Head Start, well, that is just the price you have to pay for oligarchy.
Russ Vought is your guy.
A second chance--he has a second chance now to turn Social Security and Medicare into bargaining chips in a political game that none of us have agreed to play, keeping seniors up at night worrying whether a Social Security check might not make it to them after all.
He has a second chance to rewrite the rules in a way that ensures that the wealthy and well connected are taken care of while everyone else is left behind.
We should be clear about what this nomination represents. Russ Vought wants to oversee the erosion of the very services that millions of Americans rely on every day--every single day; to lead the charge to remake the United States into a country where people are left to fend for themselves, where the government doesn't work because they don't mean it to. They don't want it to. They don't want a government of the people or a government by the people or government for the people; they want a government of them, they want a government by them, and they want a government for them.
But let's be very clear. It does not have to be this way. We can reject this vision. We can reject this nominee. We can reject the idea that our government exists only to serve the powerful or to punish the vulnerable. And we will reject it because if we do nothing, if we simply sit back and let Russ Vought take the reins of OMB once again, then we will be complicit in the destruction that follows.
So let's take a closer look at the last few weeks. Let's take a closer look at Donald Trump and Elon Musk's hostile takeover of the Federal Government and the targeting of our institutions one after another, over and over again. Let's take a closer look at this effort to gut critical programs to pay for their enormous tax breaks and what that means for all of us. Let's start with access to your personal data.
As of today, Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire--I think maybe the wealthiest man in the world--with a vested financial interest in this administration's success--you would think that being the wealthiest man in the world or one of the top wealthiest people in the world would be enough, but no. He has a vested interest in the administration's success and billions in government contracts--because apparently the billions he has already are not enough.
He has deployed a team of loyalists who infiltrate government Agencies to help with the plunder of the public fisc. So let's think about that for a moment. Let's try to take this in. The world's richest man has brought in his loyalists--some of them apparently just teenagers--to breach Federal Departments to access sensitive data, classified information, and who knows what. Are we supposed to think that is OK? Are we supposed to pretend this is normal, to have the wealthiest man in the world run roughshod over private data, over our Agencies? Are we supposed to act like this is anything other than what it is--a blatant and unconstitutional grab of power and our personal data, a takeover of government by a billionaire who has decided that the rules and laws don't apply to him and our national security doesn't matter?
But why? Why go to these lengths? Again, we have to follow the money. Trump's 2017 billionaire tax cuts--the ones that handed corporations and the ultrawealthy an unfathomable windfall while exploding the deficit--are set to expire this year, and Elon Musk and his buddies want to keep these tax cuts in place. If they are going to do that, then Donald Trump and Elon Musk--Donald and Elon--have to find $4 trillion somewhere. So where do they look? Not to the billionaires who profited from these tax cuts, not to the corporations that benefited the most--no. They are going to go after money where the cuts will hurt the most. They are going to go after what they consider low-hanging fruit. After all, what is the power of the poor, what is the power of even the middle class compared to the power of the oligarchs?
They are going to go after where the money is easiest to grab. So they are going to go after Medicaid.
They are going to go after Medicaid.
After all, it is just seniors or folks who are disabled or folks who are working class or struggling to get by and reliant on it for their healthcare. What is that weighed against more money for Elon Musk and his friends? What is that in the balance with Donald Trump and his desire to enrich himself?
There was a press conference about a week and a half ago. It kind of got lost in the blizzard of everything happening. But I found it very striking at this press conference. The President was asked by a reporter whether he was going to stop trading in his own personal interests and his meme coin.
What followed was this discussion between the President and this reporter while the cameras were rolling where the reporter says: You are making a lot of money.
And the President asked: How much money am I making from this meme coin?
Well, a lot.
I don't know what the exact language of this dialogue was, but it was blatant. It was so out in the open. I mean, it takes your breath away.
I remember, because it seems quaint, the beginning of the first Trump administration, when you remember he had that press conference and he was talking about how he was--I don't know--going to make sure that his business interests were somehow separated from his interest as President or the country's interest. And he had those stacks of--I don't know--binders or white paper. I don't think anybody knew what was in those stacks of paper or whether it was blank paper. But at least there was a superficial effort to suggest that he was going to have some walling off of his personal financial interests.
Of course, what we saw of those 4 years was there was none of that walling off. There were Gulf nations that were essentially paying tribute by staying in his hotels and all kinds of other graft going on.
But now, there is no effort to even hide the profit-taking with this meme coin or the distribution from his social media platform to people like Kash Patel. I mean, the grift is out there right in the open.
But that is really still small potatoes compared to the ability to raid the Treasury, compared to the ability to take all the money that goes into providing healthcare for sick people and Medicaid and using that to enrich yourself. Now, that is where the money is.
Part of what they are targeting is also USAID, and they are targeting Federal workers. They want Federal workers to resign. They sent Federal workers a letter that says, basically: Hey, you can reply to this message and say you quit and have basically a paid vacation until September.
Of course, there is no money to pay for that. It is unlawful what they are offering. But if people respond to that message, then they are on a list.
Why do Elon Musk and Donald Trump want all these Federal workers to quit? That is more money for them. That is more money for those tax cuts. They have to find those trillions somewhere. Let's see if we can push people who work for the government out the door.
Education of our kids--let's close down the Department of Education. OK, comparatively, you look at the Department of Education and you look at the Department of Defense. There is not a whole lot of money already in the Department of Education, but, hey, if it helps to pay for one more of those tax cuts, let's do away with the Department of Education.
Essential public services. OK, Federal grants for firefighters or firefighting equipment--what is that in the scale of things when we are talking about another tax cut for very wealthy folks? Take it from those who need it to fund giveaways for those who need it least.
It is kind of your reverse Robin Hood.
And who is leading the charge? A billionaire with billions in government contracts who stands to benefit financially if this administration stays in power and these cuts go through. That is what is happening.
That is what they are trying to do. That is what this is about. This is about consolidating power, doing away with the checks and the balances, consolidating power so that you can raid the Treasury. If we saw it during the financial collapse, banks that were too big to fail, this is a caper too big to stop--but only if we don't do our jobs in this building.
Strip government to the bone, funnel money to people who already have more than they could ever spend--how many lifetimes would it take to spend all those billions--and use the Federal Government as an instrument of personal gain, without accountability and without justice.
And, tragically, one of the things that makes this whole caper so possible now was something that took place in the building just across the street from here, when the Supreme Court of the United States said to the President of the United States: You can commit criminal acts while you are President and they can't touch you. If you use the Justice Department, you have absolute immunity. If you use other Departments, your immunity is so strong, you can argue the presumption is pretty much irrebuttable. They gave the President immunity to commit crimes.
His pardoning of all these violent criminals that attacked this building is a message that says: Hey, can't hold the President accountable--not anymore, not after this Supreme Court gave him that ``get out of jail free'' card. You do things for me that are unlawful; you do things for me that are unethical--I have your back. There is a pardon waiting for you at the end of all this.
Let's turn to USAID. What is the deal with USAID? USAID has been kind of a favorite issue Agency--idea, theme--that conservatives have loved to attack for a long time. And why? Because I think, reflexively, the idea of providing assistance around the world isn't the highest priority for many people. I totally get that. Of course, what we don't realize, unless we dig into what that money goes for, is a couple of things.
One, the money we invest in development around the world ultimately helps the United States a great deal. If we are looking at this just from a fairly selfish point of view, the money we invest in USAID helps us a great deal. Why is that? Well, if there are diseases halfway around the world like Ebola, like other potential dangers to the United States if they were to get to our shores, if we can work with our friends overseas and we can stop these viruses where they are, it means we don't have to deal with them here. If we can stop the instability in places around the world, it means less fertile soil for terrorism and terrorists who might attack us here. It improves our security. It improves our health. It wins friends for the United States around the world.
Now, I realize the administration has an America-first policy, which I think the way they are executing it means everyone else last. Of course, not a policy ``everyone else last'' that is doubly endearing to your allies, but this administration doesn't seem to think we need any friends around the world.
But even as we, through this administration, decide, well, we are done with development around the world, guess who stands to benefit. Certainly not the people around the world, not the people fighting HIV/ AIDS, not the people fighting malaria, not the people fighting poverty, not the people fighting starvation. No, our adversaries benefit. Probably the biggest beneficiary is China.
Why does China benefit from our abandoning the field? Because it opens the field for China. China is already around the world investing in other countries and doing so with strings attached. It is making debtor nations of other countries. It is making them obligated to China--countries that are rich in rare minerals. It is giving China the foothold or, even more explicitly, giving China military bases and naval bases. And they are using development systems to leverage other countries.
These other countries, so many of them will tell us: We don't want to work with China. They are not doing this for altruistic reasons. We know what China is all about. But if America is going to abandon the field, if we have no choice but to seek friends elsewhere, we will do what is necessary to feed our people. We will go to where we need to go to get help when we confront disease. And if America abandons the field, we will go to China.
China is winning so much in these last 2 weeks, it is getting tired of winning.
Just today, we learned that, apparently, some list, according to public reports, of officers at the CIA was sent to the White House in an unclassified email. Now, I remember a time that seems very quaint, when Donald Trump was always talking about Hillary's emails. What about this email that potentially exposes the identity of people who are working at the CIA, who want to work at the CIA, and according to public reports, the administration response is: Don't worry. That unclassified email only contained their first name and the first initial of their last name.
Well, I am sure that China, with all of its big data analytics will have no trouble with that at all. With an answer like that, the administration may think they can pull the wool over our eyes, but they can't. What is more, they cannot pull the wool over the prying eyes of our competitors, our adversaries around the world.
So USAID. First of all, let's start with a rather mundane point, it would appear, in this administration. What they are doing is illegal. I guess if you have absolute immunity, you don't worry about those things. But we in this body should worry about that. We should worry about whether the President and some wealthy billionaire are violating the law. We are in the business of making laws. We used to cherish our institutional prerogative. We used to think it was valuable in the scheme of things. We used to believe the Founders were quite brilliant in how they established each institution as a check on the other so none would have absolute power. But here we are faced with something which I think we have to acknowledge is plainly unlawful, and not a peep--not a peep--about that by those who could most strongly resist this.
It is harder for us in the minority. We don't control anything in the Senate. We don't control anything in the House. If this administration succeeds in neutering the Congress of the United States, there is little we in the minority alone can do without the help of others who cherish this institution. We just cannot do that alone.
We will do all that we can. We are here all night. We will be here as many nights as it takes. We will raise public awareness of this unlawful scheme. We will use litigation, and we are. We will use every tool at our disposal. But it shouldn't be just us. It shouldn't be just us.
I think a lot of Americans are wondering now whether the Constitution is so brilliant after all, whether it is adequate to meet this moment-- a moment that our Founders really anticipated when we would have a demagogue who would ride the whirlwind of the confusion that he sows. Well, I think it is a brilliant Constitution. I think it is the best in the world, but it is not self-effectuating; it depends on all of us. To work, it depends on all of us.
The genius of the Constitution is not that we are today where we are, where we have a Supreme Court that said the President is above the law; where we have a President acting like he is above the law; where we have the administration bringing in unelected billionaires to take data and who knows what else; where we have terrible national security breaches and not a murmur of dissent about them. The genius
Even if you don't care about what USAID does, even if you are content to let China take over development around the world and win over friends and mineral rights and turn our allies into debtor nations, even if you are OK ceding global leadership to China--which I am most certainly not--the moment you say it is OK for them to violate the law--to shut down this one Agency--you have said it is OK for them to violate the law and shut down anything--anything.
If they can do this with USAID, they can do this with the Department of Ed. If they can do it with the Department of Ed, they can do it with Head Start. If they can do it with Head Start, they can do it with Medicaid. If they can do it with Medicaid, they can do it with Social Security. They can do anything.
The USAID was established by the U.S. Congress. It cannot and should not be eliminated on the whims of a President or his unelected billionaire friend. Shutting down USAID or pausing its work will have devastating global and potentially irreversible consequences, but the biggest consequence will be to us. It is the world's largest provider of humanitarian aid, and through it, the United States saves countless lives every year.
I have to say, as I have had the opportunity as chair of the Intelligence Committee, and even prior to that position in the House, to travel to some of the most dangerous parts of the world--to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Pakistan, to Yemen--you name it--I have met these USAID employees, the ones who just got this order: You need to get on a plane and come back. You are on leave whether you like it or not. I have met these folks. They are so patriotic and passionate about their work and such dedicated public servants.
I remember being in Afghanistan fairly early in the war, and I met this young man with USAID. He looked to me to be in his early twenties. His deployment was for 1 year in Afghanistan. He had only been there for a few months. These folks were operating without much of a safety net, and in order to be effective, they needed to be out in the villages. They couldn't just stay on their base. They had to be out, exposed. This USAID worker--this young man--had been there only for a few months of a 1-year deployment, and he told me he had already signed up for his second year.
I remember saying: Wow, that is pretty impressive. You like it here? You like your work that much where you have only been here for a few months and you have already decided you are going to re-up for another year?
And he said: No. It is not that. We are in the development business. You really can't see the fruits of your labor in a single year. I want to be here long enough where I can see the results of the projects that I am working on, where I can see them come to fruition.
This was the kind of public servant who populates USAID all over the world. This is the kind of public servant--I don't know if this young man is still with the USAID, but if he is--wherever he is in whatever part of the world where he is doing God's work--he just got an email saying: You are on involuntary leave. Thank you for nothing. Don't let the door hit you on the backside on the way out. Sincerely, Uncle Sam.
What a hell of a way to treat people.
These folks at USAID are stopping diseases from spreading. They are helping to feed communities that are starving. They are showing the United States cares about people around the world; that it cares about others; that the most powerful Nation in the world hasn't forgotten about the most powerless communities in the world. USAID represents decades of soft power that the United States has built. It has shown allies in developing nations that we stand by them in crises; building partnerships that last; protecting our national security.
I remember visiting Pakistan. Now, Pakistan probably doesn't have a lot of great things to say about the United States much of the time, which I think and I recognize is frustrating--when you are trying to help and it doesn't seem like anything you do is enough. I get that. I totally get that. But I remember when an earthquake struck northwest Pakistan, and American helicopters were helicoptering in relief, and a toy became very popular in Pakistan. It was a replica of an American helicopter because we suddenly became associated with helping people in their time of need. It was probably the single most valuable diplomacy we had done in years. I guess we are not going to do that anymore.
All of that--all of that effort--to show that the United States is concerned about the well-being not just of ourselves but of others all over the world--all of that is at risk. Well, there are champagne bottles being popped right now in Beijing--and probably quite a few in Moscow--at the idea tonight that we are abandoning the field and that we are poised to confirm the architect of that abandonment--an otherwise obscure man named Russ Vought.
Alliances and decades of work are going out the window. Russia's and China's influence are on the rise. And for what? USAID represents less than 1 percent of the Federal budget, but that 1 percent gets Elon Musk and Donald Trump closer to the $4 trillion hole they need to fill to give another tax cut to the wealthy; so it is on the chopping block, plain and simple.
Let's look at some of the other events of the last couple of weeks and put them in perspective. Let's look at the firing of these top Department of Justice officials.
Within hours of Donald Trump's order, the Justice Department fired more than a dozen prosecutors--many career public servants--who had worked on criminal cases involving the people who attacked this building or maybe they worked on criminal cases involving the one who incited the attack on this building. They weren't removed for incompetence, and they weren't removed for corruption. They were removed because they did their jobs patriotically. They were removed because they had the audacity to try to hold a powerful man accountable.
The official justification for their firing was that these prosecutors--many of whom had worked under Special Counsel Jack Smith-- could not be trusted to implement Trump's agenda.
Let's think about that.
A President of the United States who spent years railing against the so-called weaponization of the government, which is the expression he would use for holding him accountable for law-breaking--that President who railed against the Department for weaponizing government has now purged his own Justice Department of the very people who investigated his many crimes. This purge was a product of the White House. The order came from Donald Trump himself. The firings were executed by his appointed allies in the Justice Department.
When it was done, his administration made the end game clear: The Justice Department no longer represents the American people. It no longer enforces the law. It enforces Donald Trump's will. This is not a Department that can be counted on anymore to investigate corruption but to defend Donald Trump. It is a Justice Department that doesn't prosecute certain criminals. It protects them as long as they serve the President's interests or are the President himself. This is the new normal in Donald Trump's second term--a government that exists not as a check on his power but as an extension of it.
The message was unmistakable to prosecutors, to judges, and to anyone working in law enforcement who still believes in the rule of law or an idea now which seems quaint--that no one is above the law. Do your job. Protect the person of the President, not the people of the country or you and your job may be next because, in Trump's America, there is only loyalty--not to Constitution, not to country, but to the person of the President.
Now with the firings complete, the vacancies will be filled not with independent prosecutors but with loyalists; with lawyers who will spend the next 4 years reshaping the very foundation of the Justice Department, ensuring that
We are not inevitably headed toward authoritarianism or one-man rule, but firing these top prosecutors takes us one step closer. If we don't stop it now, if we don't draw a line here, there will be little justice left in the Department to save.
I spent almost 6 years with that Department. I was an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles--one of the best jobs I ever had. I worked with a cadre of prosecutors who was just top notch, some of the brightest lawyers in Los Angeles. They gravitated to that office. They were some of the most capable and idealistic young lawyers who wanted to do justice. The office was completely apolitical. I had no idea whether my fellow prosecutors were Democrats or Republicans. And, yes, when U.S. attorneys changed and Presidents changed, there might be different priorities in the office, but they were broad policy priorities. There might be more of an emphasis on drug cases or there might be more of an emphasis on white-collar crime cases, but it was a difference of policy; it was never about the politics of vengeance or retribution. No one in that office had any misunderstanding or misapprehension of what their role was, and their role was to do justice.
Now, I think the Department made a mistake after this building was attacked, after our police officers were savagely beaten, after our President--this President--sat in that White House dining room and watched that violence occur, I think the Department of Justice made a mistake--not by investigating that massive crime on this building, on our police, on the peaceful transfer of power, on our democracy, but in taking so long. I think they made a mistake in focusing on the foot soldiers of that attack who broke into this building rather than those who incited it and organized it.
But I understand why that mistake was made. That mistake was made because there was a desire, after the first 4 years of Donald Trump and the terrible politicization of that Department by Bill Barr, there was a desire to restore the independence of the Department. There was a reluctance to follow the evidence where it would lead. That reluctance, that desire to insulate the Department from criticism resulted in justice being delayed and ultimately justice being denied.
One of the biggest culprits in that failure of the justice system was that building across the street and, indeed, the entire court system because that court system, and most particularly the High Court, understood what was happening, understood the endless delays in bringing to justice the ones who incited those attacks. They understood exactly what was happening, and they permitted it to happen.
More than that, the High Court not only permitted it to happen, but by countenancing these endless delays by letting the President play rope-a-dope in the courts, they ensured that justice would be delayed so that justice might be denied. And in fact, it was denied. That was the mistake of the Department: excessive caution. And that mistake means that a court that has become a partisan court could use delay as a weapon to defeat justice, and it did.
But in this Alice in Wonderland world in which we live, Donald Trump would make that desire to move the Department away from the politicization of Bill Barr, restore a reputation for independence, that laudable goal, would turn that in some Alice in Wonderland way into a weaponization of the government.
Why? Because it believed that the rule of law applies to everyone, even the most powerful man in the world.
So why get rid of these prosecutors? Why purge the FBI agents? Why after promising in their nominees--Pam Bondi, Kash Patel--we have learned how much we can rely on the promises, the commitments they made in their confirmation: zero.
But why is this firing the FBI agents such an important piece of this whole effort by Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their enablers? Because if they are going to take money from the public fisc, if they are going to enrich themselves with their meme coins, if they are going to raid the Treasury, if they are going to take people's private data, if they are going to try to illegally shut down Agencies, they don't want a Department, God forbid, to say no, that violates the law. They don't want an FBI that is going to examine anything they are doing. So stripping the Department of its independence, instilling fear in thousands and thousands of FBI agents, telling them you are just one wrong step away from being fired, this is the way to ensure that when they raid the Treasury, there is no one there to call out what they are doing.
This is also part and parcel of what these pardons were all about. What role did these pardons play in this effort to bring about one-man rule and to enable that one man to raid the public fisc?
So on his first day and with the stroke of a pen pardoning 1,550 people--people who violently beat law enforcement--the President wished to make something abundantly clear: If you use violence in my service, I will have your back.
So people who came in through these doors and bear-sprayed police officers and beat them with flagpoles, took apart metal barricades and beat them with that, crushed them in the doors--Officer Daniel Hodges, I will never forget the images of him being crushed in that revolving door.
The people who did that, they got a pardon. He pardoned the ring leaders or gave them clemency, leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, violent, unrepentant White nationalists who conspired to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power. I mean, how did we get here, where a President of the United States would pardon people for doing that?
Some were convicted of seditious conspiracy, one of the most serious crimes in our legal system. Others were convicted of dragging police officers into violent crowds and of beating them, of bear-spraying them, of crushing them. We witnessed it. We were here. I was here, not on this side of the Capitol, but on the other side. I was here. I was here when they were breaking windows to get in. I was here on the House floor with one of the floor managers that day, opposing the efforts to overturn the election. I was here when the Speaker was whisked out of her chair. I was here when the Capitol Police first informed us there were rioters in the building.
I was here when the Capitol Police told us that we needed to get our gas masks out. I was here when we struggled to open the damn things that were in these steel plastic pouches. I was here when those masks were deployed. It was a polyurethane bag you were supposed to pull over your head with an elastic band around your neck. I was here when the fan that circulates the air in those masks so that you don't asphyxiate, when the sound of those fans was everywhere on the House floor and in the Gallery.
I was here when the Capitol Police told us that we needed to get out, that they cleared an exit route and we needed to get out. I was here when some of my Republican colleagues in the House--as I waited on the House floor, we could really hear those people banging on the doors to get in--said: You can't let them see you.
One of them said: I know these people. I can talk to these people. I can talk my way through these people. You are in a whole different category.
I have to say, at first, I was oddly touched by their evident concern for my safety. But my next impression was, if they hadn't been lying about the election, I wouldn't need to worry about my safety. None of us would.
Donald Trump pardoning the folks who were attacking police officers that day, this wasn't about mercy. This wasn't about justice. These people hadn't made restitution or shown any--far from it. This was about power. This was about a hope to erase the crimes that they committed in his name. This was a message to his supporters that the violence and illegal acts aren't just to be tolerated; they are to be rewarded because that is what this was.
This was a message--a message that if you fight for him, if you storm the Capitol, if you brutalize police officers, if you try to overthrow an election, you will be protected; you will be hailed, even. They will make choirs with you, like Kash Patel. You will be absolved because he, the President, so desperately wants to be absolved. He
So what has happened to some of these criminals since they have been pardoned by Donald Trump? One of those pardoned was killed in a shootout with police in Indiana--a model citizen, I am sure.
One of them was arrested four times between storming the Capitol and being pardoned by Donald Trump. Another was rearrested for unlawfully possessing a gun as a felon. That was for his 2017 conviction for a domestic violence battery by strangulation. Seems like a worthy candidate for a pardon by Donald Trump.
One rioter who attacked police with bear spray and a metal whip on January 6 is now grappling with unresolved charges of soliciting a minor--a third-degree felony carrying up to 10 years in prison. Maybe he will be pardoned for that.
These are the people whom Donald Trump pardoned, that he celebrated because they showed loyalty to him; and in Trump's world, nothing else matters.
In order to carry out this plunder of the Treasury, to make the whole of government the vehicle for his self-enrichment and self- aggrandizement, he must have a loyal cadre willing to do even the most violent acts in his service.
``Stand back and stand by.''
So let's turn quickly to the funding freeze. How does that fit into this effort?
There was a memo, as we know, to freeze all Federal funding, Federal loans, and assistance. We saw the reports, the days of chaos. We saw hospitals wondering whether they would get funding to keep their clinic doors open. We saw parents wondering whether their childcare would be available, seniors wondering whether they would have the services that they needed. And for what?
Once again, this is an effort to prepare to raid the Treasury, to take the resources that belong to the American people and use them to fund a massive tax cut for those who don't need it.
I represent a State that has been battered by natural disaster, so I take this very personally, this freeze on Federal funding, because my constituents need the help of FEMA. They need the help of the SBA. They need to know that as the government has been there for every other State in a natural disaster, it will be there for us.
The idea of freezing that funding and inhibiting that recovery so that there can be just a bit more money for Donald Trump and Elon Musk and his allies is anathema to my constituents, and it should be unacceptable for all the rest of us.
I yield the floor.
Executive Calendar: Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, along with my colleague from California and so many others tonight, I rise in opposition to the President's nomination of Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
My colleagues and I are here--it is now shortly before midnight--to go through the night to make this case because this nominee has already demonstrated exactly how dangerous he would be if confirmed. We know that from the last time he worked in the Office of Management and Budget, and we know it because of his work in the last few years. And despite not even being in the office yet, he has already, through his work on Project 2025, driven a reckless budget decision that created immediate chaos and uncertainty across the country.
The duty of the Office of Management and Budget Director is to assist the President of the United States in faithfully executing the laws passed by Congress. Notably, this does not include singlehandedly turning off Federal funding.
It was just a few weeks ago that Donald Trump was inaugurated. And that day, as chair of the yearlong Inaugural Committee, I made the point that there are three branches of government. Otherwise, we would have had the inauguration--as in some countries--in a Presidential palace or in some gilded executive office building. In fact, that inauguration was in the Capitol for a reason, and that is because in our country we have three branches of government--three equal branches of government. And article I of the Constitution makes it clear that the Congress makes decisions about funding--the Congress.
And in this case, on a bipartisan basis, year after year after year-- and it is not easy, and it can be a mess to the end, but we come together, Democrats and Republicans, and make a decision about funding. And it is the job of the executive branch--in addition, of course, to the President of the United States, signing off on this--but the executive branch then implements it.
But in this case, things are backward and upside down when the Office of Management and Budget comes in with a plan that had actually been devised by this nominee to freeze the funds. Millions of Americans awoke to find that vital Federal funding had been frozen--not by Congress, not by a confirmed official in an administration, but by an unelected adviser acting from the shadows. And, yes, it was chaos--big surprise.
People lost access to essential services. Agencies scrambled to interpret conflicting statements. It was in, and 24 hours later, it was rescinded. And then the Press Secretary to the President of the United States put out a post that--no, no, no--all the funds were still frozen. Even the administration itself had to walk back its decision after a Federal judge ruled it unconstitutional, this whole mess that hurt regular people.
And I still wake up every day and say to myself: Has Donald Trump brought down costs for housing or childcare? Has he created more housing or childcare that a number of people who voted for him thought they were going to get? Has he brought down the cost of prescription drugs?
Instead, what do we see? We see this chaos. This wasn't an accident. It wasn't even a decision made by an official with legal authority. Let's be clear about exactly what happened. Russell Vought was not in the administration. He is before the Senate right now. That is why we are here tonight. He was not in the administration, but his fingerprints were all over this scheme.
According to reports, he was a driving force behind the administration's decision to freeze Federal funding. Stephen Miller, someone very close to Donald Trump, even publicly credited Vought with coming up with the idea. It was Vought's plan that led the administration to take an action that hurt millions of Americans.
Now, I have heard from constituent after constituent, terrified about: Is this Federal funding freeze, that clearly the administration wanted to do and then a court stepped in--and it is only temporarily paused. But I have heard from my constituents because, for some of them, their funding is still in trouble. Others don't know what is going to happen next.
So here are some Minnesotans, regular people, and what they had to say following the decision to unilaterally, unconstitutionally cut off support that families across the country rely on. One wrote to me saying:
She continued:
That is right. There is a budget coming up. There are decisions to be made about taxes. There is time to debate this and decide, even if I don't agree with what the President wants to do. But there is a very clear way that this should happen, and this is for the upcoming budget. But instead, they want to make a big scene; they want to hurt a lot of people. That is what happened.
Another constituent wrote in, concerned about her client, someone who works in the area of mental health, and she talked about how her clients rely on some of this funding. She said:
I will say, there is a silver lining here. Regular people are actually looking at the Constitution. They are saying: How can this happen? How can someone--an unelected billionaire--come in and try to get data? How can you just stop funding in the middle of one day, with one single memo from someone who is not even elected?
So they are like: Hmm, maybe I should go look at the Constitution. What does it say in article I? What is my role in this as a citizen in electing people?
Another Minnesotan wrote:
She explained--
She asks:
But then again, acting in this way does seem to be a pattern, and people are figuring it out. And believe me, there are a number of people in my State who voted for Donald Trump and voted for me. OK? And why did they vote for Donald Trump? Well, they wanted change. They were worried about their costs. They thought: OK, maybe he is going to do what he says he is going to do. Maybe, he is actually going to do something and work with people to try to bring costs down.
And now they are seeing this chaos, in my mind, which we will be leading to, which we have already seen with the firing of the inspector general--just corruption, these constitutional grabs at power-- unconstitutional.
One constituent who teaches a class on cancer research at the University of Minnesota wrote about this research funding. Our State has a lot of research, between Mayo and the University of Minnesota-- cutting-edge research. She says:
Another cancer patient:
They are referring, of course, to this memo that was sent out with the blessing of the Trump administration, under their administration, sat out there for 24 hours, and then gets repealed. But then the White House says: No, no, no. We still want to freeze all the funding.
And then a Federal judge has to come in. But, of course, that is only temporary.
A different Minnesotan worried about her niece, who is being treated for triple-negative breast cancer in an NIH-funded trial:
She wrote:
Someone else from my State:
She continued:
Again, my constituents--I do see this as a silver lining--are looking at what is the role of Congress? What did our Founding Fathers want? What is the role of the courts? Can the Executive just stand in there and do anything he wants?
And, of course, the answer is no, which is why you have seen litigation, which is why I have urged my constituents to write emails to me with these stories because, actually, we will create a record of exactly what is going on as these court cases continue in States all over the country, because, right now, we have an administration, a President, that took the oath to follow the Constitution, to support and defend the Constitution, but doesn't seem to be reading it.
So she writes this:
She says:
Another constituent, like many others, is worried about what this freeze will mean for seniors.
She continued:
She concluded:
More on seniors from another woman:
Another constituent, a senior herself, wrote:
Another Minnesota senior:
He went on to say:
And, you know, this is part of a pattern. When the President ran for office this time, he talked about bringing healthcare costs down. He told us how beautiful it would be. Yet what do we see when they come into office? One of the first Executive orders--different than this funding freeze--was stopping one of the key programs, a pilot for generic drugs at $2 a pop, to try to encourage more generic drugs.
And when the nominee for HHS Secretary was before our Senate committees, he would not commit to actually implementing the prescription drug negotiation bill that I had spent years trying to get passed. And we finally passed it. We finally ended the sweetheart deal that Big Pharma had because of congressional action that locked them into high prices and high profits at the expense of regular people, where Americans were paying, in many cases, twice as much as people in other countries.
It is part of the reasons why there were bus trips from Minnesota to Canada to get less expensive drugs.
My colleagues here all know that bringing down the cost of prescription
Taking on these big drug companies was not easy, they had three lobbyists--and still have three lobbyists--for every Member of Congress and spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to stop us. AARP with us in the fight; so many seniors with us in the fight. What they didn't have was the power of 50 million American seniors who came together to say: Enough is enough.
We passed our bill. There is a $35 cap on insulin per month, which the companies now, because of competitive pressures, have had to offer to nonseniors. There is a $2,000 cap for Medicare for people that are paying for services, a $2,000 cap on prescription drugs, and then we have the first 10 drugs that have been negotiated with the prices taking effect in a bit over a year.
Those first 10 drugs are done, but this administration--as the torch was handed over by the American people--this new administration is going to have to implement it. What was the result of the drug negotiations in the last administration? They picked the first 10 drugs, and they picked blockbusters. I would have done a lot more than 10, but that was the compromise that had been reached.
What are the first 10 drugs? They are drugs like Eliquis and Xarelto and Jardiance and Januvia--blockbuster drugs. The negotiated prices for those drugs, the Pharma companies agreed, even though they were suing in court--and still are and losing every single case they have brought to question the underpinnings of this bill. Republican-appointed judges, Democratic-appointed judges said: No, Congress has the right to make that change.
Those 10 drugs, the prices down 60, 70 percent--and this is my favorite number--it is going to save 9 million seniors in one year in out-of-pocket $1.5 billion--$1.5 billion, with a B. That is not even counting what it saves for taxpayers.
But now this program, this change in the law is in the hands of this new administration. This new administration is going to have to make sure those 10 drugs, with the negotiated prices, that that happens. But now the Biden administration, at the end of this year, as they were on schedule for 15 drugs--that is what our law that was passed in this Chamber says, 15 new drugs--they are going to have to now negotiate that with the Pharma companies.
Well, that is going to go real well when they are already talking about getting rid of some of the other drug programs that take on pharma when their nominee for HHS won't even commit to doing it. And those drugs are blockbusters too: diabetes, weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Rybelsus, Wegovy, all those drugs, they are on the line for negotiation. Mr. President, 2.3 million Medicare part D enrollees take those drugs alone.
In his confirmation hearings, as I noted, the President's Health and Human Service Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., did not give a clear answer on whether or not he would uphold drug price negotiations. That is unacceptable.
Make no mistake, these actions aren't going to lower costs. They are going to raise costs. And, instead, what do we see? The chaos and confusion of all of these reasons.
So what else? Talked about healthcare; next on to education. Here is what a Minnesotan wrote me after the memo came out that was later rescinded, but then the White House said: No, no, no, we want to freeze all these funds.
A Minnesotan wrote:
He went on to say:
Another Minnesotan called the funding freeze ``extremely upsetting for me as I am someone who works in this field and spends my time working to help students, to help those less privileged than me.''
He said:
``I write to you,'' he says, ``as a frustrated citizen and instructor to air my grievances as I am no longer sure what to do or how to proceed.''
Yeah, I don't really blame him, because one bureaucrat can just write a memo with a plan that was laid out by Russell Vought, laid out by that guy, laid out and consistent with what was in Project 2025, and now we are actually debating him, putting him back in the Office of Management and Budget again.
One, again, of the things that I am quite astounded by is how much American citizens are looking at the Constitution.
Listen to this letter--all these in just the last few days:
So let's look at that sentence. Very clear this constituent understands that it is Congress--Democrats and Republicans--that agreed on the funding, that agreed on the funding amount, and that, unilaterally, this administration thinks they can just come in, they can just come in and take it away. That is not true. That is illegal.
``This action,'' the writer says, ``not only disrupts essential services and institutions that rely on Federal grants and loans but also represents a troubling overreach of Executive power that directly violates our Constitution. This practice is an abuse of power that must be met with swift congressional action.''
So that is why we asked our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to listen to this constituent from the State of Minnesota, who is not a constitutional law professor, but all you have to do is open up the Constitution, and this constituent is wondering, why won't everyone stand up and say: No, we are willing to work with you, Donald Trump, on efficiency measures, on making government work better, but we are willing to do it only if it is consistent with the Constitution.
She continues:
A different Minnesotan:
She continued:
Now, they are even watching the confirmation hearings. I think this is good for democracy when people realize this is serious, that it is not just a campaign commercial; it is not just something you say at a rally; it is not just something you put on X. This is real.
She says:
I actually couldn't write it better, I like that, ``brazen disrespect.'' And what I want to see is people understanding that this is brazen disrespect. It is brazen disrespect of the people that work in the U.S. Senate and in the House. But, OK, put that aside--it is brazen disrespect of the people who sent us here.
As I said on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration, in that beautiful Rotunda, when he brought that inauguration inside, that there was some pretty powerful people in that room. I think people saw the photos of the oligarchs and the like. But when it comes to the elected officials in that room--whether they are Representatives, Senators, or the President or the Vice President--their power actually
So when this constituent says that this was brazen disrespect in freezing the funds or devising this plan that Russell Vought had, she gets it, she gets it; this is brazen disrespect of our democracy, no matter what party you are in.
She goes on to say:
I am trying to do it tonight. Hopefully, some people are watching on C-SPAN.
I think that is true. Most people don't understand it. That is why we are here tonight.
So this chaos and corruption and this just assault on our constitutional powers, we have been seeing this since day one. Chaos is up, corruption is up, and, yes, egg prices are up. Because none of this is going to help people with their bills.
One great example of this when you look at everything that has been going and say how do I tie this together, we know it is distraction, talking about things that aren't really going to help people, one of the things that was also hard to understand, but is all connected when you connect the dots was the firing--the illegal firings--of the nonpartisan inspectors general.
This was, remember--it was just about 10 days ago--the middle-of-the- night purge of government watchdogs, and it was a serious abuse of power. These are the people that are watching over the taxpayer money. These are the ones, no matter if the President is a Democrat or Republican, they go in, they look at what is going on in the Agency, they often discover things like fraud. They discover things like paybacks. They discover things like bribes, because they are looking at all the books, and they are not just people sitting inside the Agency. Those were the people who were purged; those were the people who were fired; those are the people who have been appointed during both Democratic and Republican administrations.
What is it that Shakespeare said?
Well, with this administration, the first thing they did was kill off the inspectors general. Congress passed the Inspector General Act in 1978 to establish independent, nonpartisan inspectors general in each Agency to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse, and prevent improper political influence and favoritism.
Inspectors general also save taxpayer money. They investigate corruption--as I just mentioned--and waste under administrations, regardless of party.
And studies have shown that for every dollar invested in Federal inspectors general, Americans saved approximately $13. That is what they discover; they discover problems. To protect inspectors general from political interference, Congress has passed safeguards into law, including specific requirements that must be followed if they are going to be removed from their positions by a President.
The law, which can be found--I am doing this for my very informed constituents who have been writing the office. Now they can look at a new law. We care about the laws; that is what we are supposed to do here, we pass laws.
The law, which can be found at title V, section 403(b), states:
Congress wrote these requirements into law to provide inspectors general protection from political interference, to let Congress know what was going on.
The President's decision, in which he just completely ignored these requirements and fired them in the middle of the night, is a violation of law.
Firing these critical watchdogs, just like freezing the funding from an unnamed bureaucrat with a plan that was put in place from Russell Vought, just like as my colleagues have been talking about tonight, firing Justice Department officials or asking for a list of people who work at the FBI just because they were assigned to a certain case--this is not consistent with democracy.
I am a former prosecutor. I always believed that my job was to do my job without fear or favor. No matter who we were prosecuting, no matter who was working with me, we followed the law. That is what has gone amok here.
And that is why Americans are reading the Constitution. That is why they are calling this Senate so much that they shut the phone lines down the other day. That is why they are writing e-mails--and, by the way, the benefit of that is we also have a record of the harm that is being caused.
More than ever, the responsibility will fall on Congress and the people that elect us to conduct oversight and to ensure that the people in our government are working for the American people--not their unelected billionaire friends.
More, Federal aid, now foreign aid. Why would people in my State care about that? Well, we actually do a lot with the world around us. We have a number of businesses that do business all around the world. We have one of the highest rates of adoption from foreign countries. We have a number of refugees that have come to our State--Somali, Liberian, Hmong--that are a big part of the fabric of the State of Minnesota. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the Nation. We are a successful economy in our State, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that we didn't close down our doors, that we brought in people to work in the jobs, to work in the farms, to work in our manufacturing companies.
So that is one of the reasons we care about the world around us, but there is another. My constituents actually see that if you just shut off foreign aid--as what is happening right now in our country--in the world around you, you are going to have a less secure America. You are going to create this huge opening for countries like Russia and China-- which have been expending money in developing nations--to come in and fill the void.
One Minnesotan wrote: The freeze on U.S. foreign aid will prevent many vulnerable people from accessing critical resources, including clean water for infants, help for farmers, to feed their families, medications for kids. People will needlessly suffer and die.
He continued: The freeze also risks irreparably damaging our country's reputation and credibility and gives opening to malign governments and terrorist groups. Further, it may increase irregular migration both in the Western Hemisphere and beyond. In short, a halt of programs will create instability, undermining the administration's important foreign policy goals to make the U.S. safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
And I should say a number of leading Republicans in my State have come out very strongly against what is going on with USAID for two reasons: One, they care about the world around them--maybe three--two, they understand the impact it has on America; and, three, they figure if he is going to start cherry-picking one Agency and just decide to shut it down in violation of article I and all of these things I have talked about of Congress's right to have the decision of funding, if he can do that, what Agency is he going to pick next? He can just cherry- pick anything.
Someone else said: I am deeply concerned that any cuts to U.S. foreign assistance programs that save lives, promote global stability, and keep Americans safe will be a bad thing.
She continued: U.S. foreign assistance is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. At less than 1 percent of the Federal budget, it is a cheap and effective tool for improving global stability, gaining U.S. allies, and reducing the need for more U.S. aid in the future. Without this support, millions of people will face devastating and, in some cases, deadly consequences.
She is exactly right.
Yet yesterday, as our colleagues know, the administration announced its intent to end USAID. The decision to abruptly end this when it counters extremism, fights diseases, and creates more markets for U.S. exports--my State, for instance, is the fourth biggest ag exporting State in the Nation--that decision was reckless, and it was dangerous, just like the decision to suddenly assess our allies--our allies--of Canada and Mexico, 25 percent on tariffs--25 percent tariffs. It is just not good for our economy.
When I think about the importance of USAID, I always think about a story that former President Bill Clinton used to tell about how, at one point, he went to an African nation, and he toured some new factories that America had helped invest in, and they were making shirts, and he got a shirt, and he put that shirt in front of the closet so that every single time he opened the closet, he saw that shirt, and he thought, They don't hate us. They actually like us. They like our country.
And when they grow, as we have seen around the world, they are going to want to do business with America. They are going to want to buy American goods. They are going to stand with us when we have foreign enemies that attack us.
All that, just pluck all that out of there. That is exactly what the Trump administration is doing right now. When we turn our backs on our friends across the globe, they will look elsewhere for support when they need it, including countries like China and Russia. It isn't only about being there for countries in need. It is also about our national security.
Then other constituents--of thousands and thousands and thousands of emails and calls that we have gotten in just the last few days--are concerned about what this is going to do for jobs.
One Minnesotan wrote: I had a meeting with a nonprofit canceled this morning that is working on energy projects in southwest Minnesota. It was funded by a Department of Energy grant. At least half a dozen people will stop working on a project because of this. Due to the freeze on approvals, I could be laid off with thousands of other people I work with.
A different constituent who runs another nonprofit was shocked: This grant was only a drop in the budget bucket, but this is just a tiny example of the ripple effect that this pause in funding will have throughout Minnesota where no doubt hundreds, if not thousands, rely on some funding. This pause will not harm us as an organization, but I can imagine how services will be impacted.
Other Minnesotans fear that the freeze could upend their entire family's livelihood just to have this happen so suddenly.
As of today, they write: My wife and I will both lose our jobs. I will be unable to make phone calls as a deaf person using the video relay phone systems. We will lose our house and be unable to care for our disabled son. It will also affect the hundreds of thousands of disabled people my small U.S. Department of Education grant serves.
Another constituent, a reverend, wrote: We are a family that has a disabled son. He is 15 years old, a freshman in high school, and is active in the community.
She continued: We urge all leaders to protect programs essential to individuals who are often excluded. We especially want people with Down's Syndrome, autism, or other developmental disabilities and their families to be recognized as valuable and important for their role in the world.
So what this is, is chaos, and people are starting to think of, How will this work in my own family? Just today, we had a hearing of the Agriculture Committee. As you think about jobs and you think about the effect on people, we had the witnesses of the head of the National Farm Bureau and the head of the National Farmers Union there as our first witnesses. Both of them had submitted pretty pointed letters that completely set out the alarms on this administration's plan to put in these tariffs.
And I am a fan of targeted tariffs. I think you can do it. I have seen it with steel dumping from China. I have seen that once we did that and fought back, we were able to keep the iron ore mines in northern Minnesota, and I have supported other tariffs as well. But that is not what this is. This is an across the board--across the board--tariff.
The day after imposing these tariffs--again, more chaos just like we saw with the funding freeze--the administration decided to delay them. It created more uncertainty for Americans. But one thing is certain: These tariffs aren't going to lower the price of groceries, like the President promised in his campaign. They are going to raise the price of groceries.
They are not going to lower the price of gas; they are going to raise it. They are not going to lower the price of housing; in fact, the Builders Association came out against them. They are going to raise it. Tariffs are taxes, and the new tariffs would be a tax increase on families of over $1,000 a year.
Beyond the higher costs, these tariffs would threaten our critical trade partnerships with our neighbors, Canada and Mexico. The U.S.- Canada relationship is particularly important for my State. President Harry Truman once said Canada's relationship with the United States was ``compounded of one part proximity and nine parts good will and common sense.''
I couldn't agree more. Our two countries share the world's largest, longest land border, more than 5,500 miles; and almost 400,000 people and about $3 billion in goods and services cross it every day.
Minnesota exports more goods to Canada--ranging from ag products to machinery to medical devices--than we sell to our second and third largest markets combined. Minnesota exports about $7 billion worth of goods to Canada each year, and overall, Canada imported over $354 billion in American goods in 2023 alone.
That trade relationship with an ally--an ally that at one point on their Embassy draped their Embassy with banners that said ``friend, ally, partner''--that strengthens our economy and our national security, it supports our manufacturers, farmers, and ranchers. It creates jobs. But the administration's announcement unravels these ties.
When you look at the groups that came out against the new tariffs within 24 hours of the announcement, you can see why the President had to scramble back and hit a pause. But again, damage done. Because if you are a business in another country and you think, I don't know if I am going to--there might be a tariff on that. If you are in Canada, you are like: Maybe I should get my next shipment from somewhere else because I don't know if I am going to be able to depend on the United States as a trading partner.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the tariffs will only raise prices for American families and upend supply chains. Then you have both the National Association of Manufacturers and the International Association of Machinists saying they will put American manufacturing jobs at risk.
The American Farm Bureau, as just noted, warns that these tariffs threaten to deliver another blow to the finances of farm families. And the National Association of Home Builders said they would increase the cost of construction and consumers will end up paying in the form of higher home prices.
So you have complaints from the workers' side; you have complaints from the business side, and you have complaints from the farm side. I would say you are in trouble.
And it is not only these groups, which do represent thousands and thousands and thousands of businesses and workers; it is people right in this building.
And it is not just the Democrats who are here speaking tonight about what this chaos is doing to American families. Senator McConnell put it pretty well when he talked today about this at the Agriculture hearing, but he said, ``It will be paid for by American consumers.'' He is absolutely right.
Slapping new taxes on American families while planning more massive tax cuts for billionaires is not how you strengthen our economy. Lives and livelihoods are at stake.
When I look at these constituent letters--and I literally have only read a fraction of them--I see that people are waking up. They are energized. They are starting to see that, you know, I don't feel like I have much control over my life, and maybe that is why I voted
But what they didn't vote for, what they didn't vote for was chaos. What they didn't vote for was corruption. What they didn't vote for was an unelected billionaire deciding he is just going to come in and run the government.
They actually said, OK, I want to tip the scales a little. I want to see what can happen. Someone else in there.
And then they thought we were going to work it out. They thought we were going to work on how to make government more efficient. They thought we were going to work on how to get more housing with all these things that are incredible around my State with incentives for private entities to work to do things like expand childcare.
Or a bunch of businesses get together, we can do some things to create more incentives to make that happen, to expand existing private childcare or this idea of creating more smaller childcare facilities so that they are all ones in a row, apartment after apartment, so that they can bring in kids in the smaller businesses.
Or they thought maybe they are going to do something about consolidation, or maybe they are going to do something so my kids, when they look at the internet, they don't see pornography and they don't get fentanyl dealers online.
But instead, what do they see? Well, I guess talk about Panama and Greenland and talk about all kinds of things that really aren't relevant to their lives. They want us to do things that are relevant to their lives, and they do not want some unelected guy to come in and make all these decisions for them.
These Minnesotans are only some, but not all, of the lives that this administration is playing with. They deserve better. The people of this country deserve competence, not chaos. We have already seen what happens when Russell Vought's vision for the Office of Management and Budget is put into action. It leads to disorder. It leads to uncertainty. It leads to unconstitutional power grabs that hurt Americans. And that was even before he had the job because, you see, this was his plan from the very beginning.
I implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to vote no on this nomination; to stand up as our constituents have asked us to stand up, whether they are Democrats or Republicans--no to chaos, no to corruption. Uphold the values of our Constitution.
When you look at these nominees, fulfill your duties of advice and consent. Why rubberstamp every single one of these nominees? Why would you do that? Instead, look at what they plan to do. Are they truly qualified or do they actually have the interests of the Agency they are supposed to run and the interests of the American people at heart? Then make your decision.
We cannot put someone in charge of the Office of Management and Budget--which, by the way, has now become a household word--an Agency that many people had never heard of in my State, but they are now writing letters in droves about the fact that they don't understand why an unelected bureaucrat could issue that memo and why we would put someone in place that devised this strategy, someone who has already demonstrated that he will abuse his power.
Article I of our Constitution, which so many of my constituents are now reading up on, makes it clear that decisions about Federal funding belong to Congress, not the President, and certainly not the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Russell Vought has shown blatant disrespect for the Constitution and the American people. He is not the man for this job.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. President, I rise today because we have a crisis of confidence in our government. It is a crisis that is being driven by the Trump administration with one goal in mind: to let the well-off and the well-connected play by their own set of rules while you, the American people, continue to scrape by.
It is a crisis that puts us at a crossroads. Will we take the steps necessary to address the corruption and restore trust or will we break our institutions even further and usher in a golden age of corruption?
In order to answer those questions, we need to have a real understanding of a few things. One, how deep is this crisis in confidence? Two, in what way is the Trump administration putting their thumb on the scale for the well-off and the well-connected? Three, how is that impacting the rest of us and how will it impact America's future? Four, and finally, how can we fight back?
Now, let's start with the crisis that we are in. When I talk about this crisis in confidence, what we are talking about is the belief that your government is working for you; that it is working for the American people--all of its people--a belief that, no matter the challenge you face or the ambitions that you have, that your government has your best interests at heart. That is the fundamental credence of our democracy. It is of, by, and for the people. And that belief is always important. But when times are tough, it is even more critical than ever.
Let's be clear: These are tough times. I don't think there is a single person in America that would disagree with that. We have challenges before us. We have challenges with the high cost of living and affordability problems. It is a top issue that I hear about in my home State of New Jersey.
We have a lot of crises of confidence in this moment about whether or not we can step up as a nation and be able to rise through the challenges that we face. And the challenges we face are significant. We have to acknowledge that.
Over the past couple of years, as we recover from a generationally defining pandemic, I have heard from so many families who just don't believe that they can get ahead. They don't believe or think that they will do better than their parents and that their kids won't do better than them.
I think about that in my own family situation--my parents coming here, emigrating to this Nation 50 years ago. And I remember asking them why they did it. And my parents said to me just one simple line. They said: We did it because we felt that here in America, we could guarantee that the family that we raise--that you and your sister-- would have a better life and more opportunities than we do. That was it. It was that simple.
They weren't driven by greed. They weren't trying to take it all for themselves, as if this was some zero-sum, survival of the fittest. It was a sense of America and a sense of the opportunity that it can bring for everyone, including two immigrants from South Korea who were born during the Korean war into poverty and came to this Nation.
And now, as they get older, there are challenges that they face as being seniors, the elderly--the healthcare and other challenges that they face with their budget fixed. And now myself, as a father of a 7- year-old and 9-year-old, I wonder: What kind of America are my kids going to grow up in?
I know it is not just my family that worries about this. When the costs of basic goods go up, it makes it harder to save for everybody. And when families can't save, it makes it harder to achieve that crown jewel of the American dream--owning a home, something that my family has struggled with over the years, something that so many other families are facing right now as we see the cost of owning a home skyrocket. It puts that dream even more out of reach. And for those that can't own, even the cost of rental prices are going through the roof, demoralizing people.
I remember hearing from this young man, a recent college graduate, and he just came to me just feeling so deflated. He said: I don't think I am ever going to own a home. That is how he put it. I have to tell you, just hearing that from him, just how pessimistic he was, just how demoralized he was about his place in our society--but it wasn't just about his place. It was about this moment for this country and the fact that he doesn't see us moving in a trajectory where someone like himself and people in his generation are going to be able to have that opportunity and that chance that generations before had.
So you throw in that rising cost of higher education that he is struggling with, trying to pay off the bills, trying to keep up with student debt, and you have that general sense that we are losing that sense that we are part of something bigger than all of us.
It is easy to understand why people just don't think the system that should be working for them is working for them. That is the place that we are in right now--that in this moment we find ourselves living through the moment of the greatest amount of inequality in our Nation's history, even worse than the Robber Baron Age that we studied about in history books; that somehow we see just such extraordinary wealth but for just a few, whereas the vast majority of Americans are struggling paycheck to paycheck and won't be able to step up if they face some type of crisis, a car accident or something else that could just lead them into catastrophe.
That lack of trust is very clear in the numbers that we see from the American people. A Pew study from last summer showed that public trust in the Federal Government is at approximately 22 percent. And in 2023, only 16 percent said the government always or most of the time is something that you can trust. According to Pew, that was among the lowest tally in nearly 70 years.
That number was reflected in a survey conducted by the Partnership for Public Service in the spring of 2024. Their research shows that only 23 percent of Americans trust the Federal Government. That is down from 35 percent the year before. We are just seeing it go down and down. Only 15 percent think the government is transparent, down from 21 percent the year before.
This erosion that we are continuing to see in our country and in the public trust has to be at top of line, because how can a government function, how can a democracy function, with that much distrust?
Alarming in that group is trust among people age 18 to 34--that age group of that young man I told you about who had such pessimism about his future. And in that group, we saw trust decline by half of 30 percent to 15 percent.
Now, you might think this is just maybe a red State problem. But let me tell you, it is a massive issue in my home State of New Jersey, as well. In May of 2023, a poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University showed that over 80 percent of New Jersey residents--that is over 80 percent-- believe that their State's politicians are corrupt. That shows you just such a devastating number, the distrust that is out there and how widespread it is.
We certainly have had our challenges of late in New Jersey. When you see the corruption, when you hear about the news of indictments and convictions--I remember one time I went to a neighbor of mine, asked him what he thought about the state of corruption in New Jersey, and he just said: That is New Jersey. He threw up his hands.
This sense of helplessness, this sense of apathy, the sense that that is just how things are now; there is nothing we can do about it--there are a variety of reasons why this is a case in New Jersey, but it all comes back to the same thing, a singular question: Are the people in your government working for you or are they working for themselves? Are they trying to lift up their own personal wealth or to look out for their friends or their associates or their families or for special interests?
I always often felt like one of the most important questions you can get a sense from the people is this question of: Do your elected officials, do your government officials care about you? Because sometimes it just feels like we are in this moment in this country where we have this crisis of empathy right now; that we are losing touch with that idea that we are part of something bigger than all of us. We are having trouble. We are struggling to see the world through someone else's eyes and walk in their shoes.
In this Nation of over 330 million people, how can we continue if we continue to only think about ourselves and lose sight of that which is around us?
Obviously, this is all the more important in times like these when we need our government working to solve the problems that we face. As we said, we face significant challenges.
So what happens when we have a government where the people aren't working in the public interests, when those that are charged by the people to take up the public common good are not following through? What happens when we have a government where those people working to protect the public interests are fired or pushed out or marginalized?
Luckily for us, history may not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. The Founding Fathers established the Federal workforce to be one built on merit. It was something that they took quite seriously--so seriously, in fact, that during debate in the weeks after Washington's first inauguration, James Madison stated:
George Washington himself wrote that appointments into public service would be the most difficult and delicate part of his work.
In the history of the Federal service, in a report published by the Office of Personnel Management, the evolution of this debate from one of merit first to one of political gain becomes very apparent. As political parties grew, so did the pendulum swing over retaliation and actions that further politicized public servant positions, but the dam broke just a generation after the founding of the Republic.
The Tenure of Office Act of 1820--not exactly a household name--was one of the first dominoes to fall. It led to what was eventually called the spoils system. By limiting the terms of many officials to 4 years, in corresponding to the President, it basically meant that public servants would come in and out with the tides of the Presidency and not be based on need or qualifications--just a pendulum swing of partisanship--the qualification being that of loyalty rather than skill or merit. The impact of the spoils system became very apparent, which was of wholesale patronage and corruption and a rejection of the status quo that looks very familiar to what we see today.
Senator Henry Clay, on the Senate floor, called it a ``detestable system''--a ``detestable system.''
George William Curtis, one of the leaders in the fight to reform the civil service, said that the spoils system ``presents a most ridiculous, revolting, and disheartening spectacle.'' He said that, through it, the United States seethes with intrigue and corruption.''
Over time, the pushback against the system and the damage it did to the U.S. Government and its people built a reform movement that eventually resulted in the passage and enactment of the Pendleton Act in 1883. In many ways, the Pendleton Act brought our public service back to its original roots--codifying it, protecting it--by calling for an open selection of government employees and creating a Civil Service Commission--our modern civil service--and it required that the applicants pass a civil service exam. The bill was the first domino of several to help to restore trust in government by ensuring that those who serve will serve the people and not themselves--will serve the people and not just some loyalty test.
In so many ways, the battle that led to the passage of the Pendleton Act continues today and answers the first question I posed: How deep does our crisis and confidence in our government go?
In short, it goes back to a friction we have seen for most of our history. It is a friction between those who want to use power for their gain--to enrich themselves and their party--at the expense of other Americans. On the other side are those who seek only to swear an oath to the Constitution and to deliver on the promise of making the next American generation more prosperous and secure. To have that sense of progress as a nation, which we know we cannot take for granted, we have to work for it.
So, when you look at Donald Trump or look at Elon Musk, you are not seeing something new. You are not seeing the disruptors they tell you that they are. You are not seeing an innovator. You are seeing something that is very old, just another power-hungry politician--an elite figure--seeking to hoard power at the expense of real American families--in this moment right now, as I said, that is a moment of the greatest amount of inequality in our Nation's history--and doing that by attacking
Another person leading the charge to bring us back to the golden age of corruption of the 1800s is a man named Russell Vought.
Now, Russell Vought was born to make corruption safe again. As a staffer in the House and the Senate, he worked for Members of both Chambers who attacked and demeaned civil servants in order to get them out of the way and let big corporate interests through. He worked for nearly a decade at the Heritage Foundation, taking dark corporate money and translating it into a systematic takedown of the same protections those corporations were lobbying against.
When the Trump administration came into office in 2017, Mr. Vought was one of the first in the building at the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB. Then, like now, Senators had serious concerns when he was nominated then for Deputy Director and, eventually, for Director of OMB.
Now this brings me to my second question: In what ways is the Trump administration putting the thumb on the scale for the well-off and well-connected?
Well, let's look at it. Let's look at Project 2025, Mr. Vought's guidebook for attacking the core of the very principles our Founders wrote into the Constitution.
Our Founding Fathers wanted to ensure checks and balances. They wanted to make sure we didn't swap one monarch for another. Vought believes that the President has a right to stop funds that Congress has approved from getting to the places we approved them to go. That means that, even if your elected officials approve of money to go toward building a road or investing in a school in your community or trying to get your kids childcare, Russell Vought believes that Donald Trump should be able to just stop it from getting to them--just because.
Now, I say ``Donald Trump'' because Russell Vought is a champion of something called the unitary executive theory. I know that may sound like a half-baked physics idea, but Vought believes that all of the power in the executive branch belongs to the President and to the President alone.
Mr. Vought even said in an interview, just a few months ago, that there are ``no independent Agencies''--warping the power of the Presidency to supersede Congress and the independence of Agencies that have massive authorities--given to them, by the way, by Congress, to protect the American people. This is core in clearing the field for the well-off and the well-connected by warping that and trying to change the fundamental balance of our government across three branches.
Finally, by weakening the ability to fund the work that they do and to operate independently, it is Mr. Vought's attacks on civil servants--the very positions put into place more than 140 years ago to stop rampant corruption and patronage--it is his attacks that threaten to take us back in time.
In a speech last year, Mr. Vought said he wants civil servants to be ``traumatically affected.''
He said:
He went on to say:
our public servants--
Trauma. He used that word ``trauma.'' I want you to think about that for a second. This is an American--an American--who is asking for our vote here in the U.S. Senate to be confirmed as a senior government official, as someone who will lead an incredibly important part of our executive branch, and be a top adviser to the President; an American who will take an oath to support and defend the Constitution; an American who is actively saying he wants to traumatize his fellow Americans--other Americans--who have also sworn that oath to our Constitution.
Now, I may disagree with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but I don't wish to traumatize them. I don't wish them harm. How is it that we have found ourselves in this place where Americans call and see other Americans as the enemy? I talk with Democrats and Republicans across New Jersey. They may have disagreements, but they don't want to traumatize each other.
This is not who we are as Americans, but it is what Mr. Vought wants to inflict on the people who show up to work each and every day to serve you, the American people. These are people who are trying to serve you, not themselves, but they are being demonized; they are being attacked, disrespected. And for those he can't traumatize out of a job, he is going to try to change their status as employees of the Federal Government so that he can push them out.
Maybe you have heard of something called Schedule F. If you haven't, let me put it into simple terms: Russell Vought wants to, basically, bring back the same policies that started the chain of events that led to the spoils system. He wants to make it so that civil servants have their protections removed, giving partisan leaders the ability to fire them and put in their own political staff.
We are already hearing and seeing this. There are reports that those at the White House and elsewhere are asking civil servants--asking those in jobs or who are seeking jobs--who they voted for in the last election, about campaign donations, and about party affiliation rather than just their commitment to the Constitution.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle would say that a President should have the ability to appoint their own staff, and I have agreement with that in broad strokes, but there is a reason we have different kinds of government workers. It is because the government is meant to do the work of the people, not be completely bent to the will of a particular political party.
I speak from personal experience. I was proud to be a civil servant. I believe I am actually one of only a handful of the Members of Congress who currently serves who worked as a civil servant. I worked under President Bush and President Obama. I served a nation, not a party or a specific President, and that is the way it should be. Frankly, the oath that I swore as a civil servant is the same as what I recite here in this Chamber, and we could all be better off if we would take the mindset and approach of our civil servants.
If we just let President Trump fire civil servants and replace them with people like Mr. Vought or with people who Mr. Vought deems loyal enough to the President to bring on board, the protections our Founders envisioned to prevent the corrupting influence of power and the corrupting power of that influence will completely override any ability to make change for the rest of us, and we are seeing this in realtime right now.
(Mr. CASSIDY assumed the Chair.)
This leads me to my third question: What is the impact of this corruption and these attacks on our neighbors and our national security?
The number of calls and emails and visits to my office I have gotten over the past weeks has been overwhelming. First of all, I want to thank everybody who has reached out to express their opinions and their concerns. We would be better off if we had that kind of consistent engagement from the American people, paying attention to the work that is being done in government and having their voices heard. And I want to thank my team for their service in being responsive to those concerns.
Now, starting with a memo from OMB freezing Federal funding, there has been panic across New Jersey and, frankly, the country about the funds that we approve as Congress--funds that are your funds as taxpayers. And they have been taken away from you by the Trump administration.
I want to share a couple examples of the notes I have gotten from people in my State who are being hurt by the systematic attempt to fire civil servants and strip away programs that help working families to clear the way for the Trump administration to let the well-off and the well-connected take control, as they get ready to plan for their big tax giveaway to the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations, taking that away from the rest of the American people.
I got a letter from Julia, a community leader who runs an organization in central Jersey that helps kids and seniors and people just trying to get by. She said:
She went on to say:
That these programs would struggle.
That this would be on the chopping block.
That that would be a detriment.
And that that is something they won't be able to count on.
This is one organization helping tens of thousands in our State. And I want to share one quick figure that stuck out to me. Of the approximately $13 million in grants they received, they estimate an economic benefit to New Jersey of around $52 million saved.
So for my colleagues not convinced by our attempts to feed children and provide healthcare to seniors, you might be interested to hear that providing these services is the fiscally responsible thing to do as well.
Let's look at the other impacts these draconian cuts could have on New Jersey families. We should work to keep our communities safe. If these cuts persist, grants to law enforcement and homeland security activities will be cut off, putting us in danger.
We should work to be prepared for disasters like wildfires and hurricanes. Public assistance and hazard mitigation grants from the Disaster Relief Fund help communities quickly respond to, recover from, and prepare for major disasters that might not go to the many communities that are struggling after severe natural disasters.
As our neighbors in New Jersey continue to recover from storms from even more than a decade ago--as Superstorm Sandy shattered so many lives, continues to wreak havoc, and many of those families are still not back in their homes--our government should never abandon them.
We should work to build the best infrastructure--roads and bridges and public transit and more--take it into the next generation with universal broadband and connectivity on so many fronts that are necessary for all families. We should be able to work together to build that infrastructure so that your families can get to work and your kids can get to school and our businesses can thrive. But that funding is at risk.
We should work to combat the fentanyl crisis and the mental health crisis by investing in proven programs that save lives, programs that could be on the chopping block if these cuts persist.
We should invest in lifesaving medical research so that this is the last generation that will have to suffer through cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes. Cutting this funding means cutting clinical trials at NIH Clinical Centers all across the country. The American people deserve better than that.
We should work to provide the best education for our next generation. As a father of a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old, I see every day the impacts a good education has on them. I myself am a public school kid from New Jersey, something that we are proud of in New Jersey, but knowing that we still have so much more work to do to make that available to everyone. This is a process we have to continue. You cannot take it for granted.
Right now, Head Start programs that provide comprehensive early childhood education for more than 800,000 kids are being frozen. With teachers and staff not getting paid, programs may not be able to stay open. Childcare programs could also be next to close without funding being delivered. And our K-12 schools will lose critical funding from title I, IDEA, Impact Aid, and other programs that can keep their doors open and lights on in the middle of the school year.
From healthcare to small business support, to protecting our veterans and providing support to those suffering through hunger, the examples of the kinds of impacts and the people impacted by these cuts are almost endless, and they are a reminder of who is on the losing side when corruption and corporate greed win out.
And beyond the impacts on our communities, the impact on our national security is real. And these stories of Mr. Musk and his band of 20- somethings raiding government Agencies and making threats to workers isn't some example of brave tech disrupters innovating their way to efficiency and better results. In fact, what we are seeing from this administration is quite the opposite: stories of dangerous incompetence.
Late yesterday, the New York Times reported that the White House ordered the CIA to send an unclassified email listing all the employees hired over the past 2 years. Many of these new employees were hired to help us deal with the rising challenges of China and Russia and of other threats that we face out there. Now, they are effectively being exposed, made vulnerable to our adversaries, because the Trump administration simply wants to traumatize public servants.
We are doing the work of our adversaries for them. One example of this is the attacks that we see against USAID. And as I have seen what has unfolded this week at USAID, it actually reminded me of my first moments in public service. A little over 20 years ago, I started my very first day working for the U.S. Government. I remember walking up to the doors of the Ronald Reagan building because I was starting my first day at USAID.
I had just graduated college, and I was proud to have a chance to serve this Nation and proud to serve at a place like USAID. And it was the public servants there that showed me what community meant, showed me that someone like me has every bit as much right to represent and to work and serve our country--because it was something I wasn't sure about when I first showed up to this town.
I remember stepping out at Union Station and seeing the beautiful dome of the Capitol, and I was simultaneously inspired but also terrified. I felt imposter syndrome: Who am I to be able to represent and serve this country? I am a son of immigrants, from a family of political nobodies, and I thought serving this country, working in government wasn't for me.
I worked alongside public servants at USAID who helped with the rehabilitation of ex-child soldiers in Uganda, others that worked on combating malaria and helping save millions of lives. I was working at USAID around the time of the Indian Ocean tsunami, if you remember that catastrophe, a 9.1-magnitude earthquake killing an estimated 240,000 people in 14 nations across two continents.
And USAID stepped up, helping support those families living in dire conditions, having faced a catastrophe unlike anything we had seen in generations--but also building toward the future, creating early warning systems across the world. It was USAID that helped deliver that to countries all across this world to help better prepare for the next disaster.
Later in my career, I worked at the White House National Security Council. I was working on helping coordinate the counter-ISIS fight about a decade ago. I remember one particular moment in August 2014 where we saw ISIS going and attacking a religious minority of a people called the Yazidi people. And the Yazidis were forced out from their communities. And they fled up on top of a mountain called Sinjar Mountain, tried to take refuge there, while they were surrounded by ISIS terrorists who were hell-bent on committing genocide and a mass atrocity.
And we in the U.S. Government were trying to figure out: What can we do? What can we do to try to help save these people, tens of thousands of people, trapped on a mountain, deep in enemy territory on the other side of the world? Can we help them with humanitarian airdrops? Is there a way we can build a humanitarian corridor off that mountain? Are there ways in which we can try to protect them from being annihilated?
And you want to know who the first Americans were that went there under dangerous circumstances, deep in enemy territory? It was a USAID DART team, a disaster assistance response team, there alongside our military, that helped the President of the United States make decisions in the Situation Room about what to do next, about whether or not we were going to decide to protect these people or not.
And the President, based off of the information provided by USAID, made the decision to conduct humanitarian airdrops and be able to provide overflight coverage and be able to provide support and security to those people. And we were able to get them off that mountain, and it was one of the finest moments I had ever seen in government. On those days, I saw the best of us, and I saw a government that can inspire.
We see USAID working on disease eradication, on agriculture, global health, humanitarian aid and economic growth, food security, clean water; helping with the eradication of smallpox; saving countless lives through simple oral rehydration therapies--things like that--that have had immeasurable, countless benefits. It was a legacy that excited me when I walked up on my first day at work as a recent college grad.
And then, just this past Monday, I walked through those same doors at the Reagan building yet again, only to find it empty, apart from a security guard who I went up to, and he told me that he had instructions to bar and prevent any USAID employee from entering the building that day, to bar public servants from going to the office to do the work that they are entrusted by the American people to do.
It was just despicable, the demonization of public servants.
Now, let's remember why USAID exists. American global leadership has always been hand in hand with our foreign assistance, from the Marshall Plan forward, under both Democrats and Republicans.
Kennedy, in 1961, said:
He went on to say:
Of the previous system--
And he said:
So Kennedy went on and called for an effort to--he said, ``unified administration and operation--a single agency in Washington and the field, equipped with a flexible set of tools.'' And this was going to be drawing upon ``the most competent and dedicated career servants now in the field, and attracting the highest quality from every part of the nation.''
He went on to say that he wanted to ensure that this was separate from our military assistance, for instance, because, he said, ``our program of aid to social and economic development must be seen on its own merits, and judged in the light of its vital and distinctive contribution to our basic security needs.''
He was clear in saying this was a bipartisan legacy, one that had ``moved forward under the leadership of two great Presidents--Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower--and drawn its support from forward- looking members of both political parties in the Congress and throughout the nation.''
He said:
Now, there is a reason why the USAID headquarters is at the Reagan Building. Reagan continued that emphasis on development and humanitarian aid.
He said:
Here is another quote that is actually quite apt for this moment. He said:
Reagan said:
Now we have a Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, saying USAID takes taxpayer funds and ``spends it as a global charity irrespective of whether it is in the national interest or not the national interest.''
But do you know who else said that the work of USAID isn't charity, like Kennedy, like Reagan? It was Marco Rubio just a few years ago. ``Foreign aid is not charity,'' he said. ``We must make sure it is well spent but it is less than 1 percent of budget and critical to our national security.''
Rubio went on to say:
He said:
Look, there can always be space to review our foreign assistance. I worked in these organizations. I know there are places that we can try to fine-tune, make more efficient, make more effective.
If there are programs that Congress and Members of Congress have questions about, that is ripe for our oversight role. But to undermine USAID as a whole is flat wrong.
We see this with Secretary Rubio's first trip this past weekend. He went to Panama and complained about Panama accepting support from China through the Belt and Road Initiative. Yet he then goes on to help Trump and Musk gut USAID--a critical tool that we have to counter Chinese influence. It very much exposes that this ``America First'' foreign policy really means ``America Only.'' If we continue down this path, we will find ourselves alone.
Over the years of our global power, our strategic advantage has always been in building coalitions. In this dangerous global environment, this ``America First'' approach leaves us distracted from the real threats and challenges. This is about American global leadership.
I think about my own family. My parents were born during the Korean war. They grew up--the very first Americans they ever met were American servicemembers and other Americans that were there to try to help Korea rebuild.
It wasn't just America's resolve in the war; it was about what happened afterwards in terms of helping provide assistance, Americans taking action to feed kids like my parents.
As I said earlier, 50 years ago, my parents decided to come to America. They knew nobody here--not a single person. They didn't know anybody in the entire Western Hemisphere of planet Earth, but my parents moved here to America because America meant something to them. It is because they met the best of us--Americans abroad, willing to work in dangerous places, in tough circumstances, wanting to try to live out the values of our country.
We learn it is not just the GDP of our Nation that makes us a leader; it is the projection of our values, and ultimately it is our people.
Now we are pulling back our foreign assistance. We are closing the door to immigrants like my parents. This is unfortunately a moment of American withdrawal. That is not what the American people want. They wanted a government that was focused on them instead of billionaires and the biggest corporations, but they understand the importance of American leadership.
When I talk to leaders and officials in other countries--I remember there was one situation where I talked to one,
He asked that question knowing full well what the answer is, and we know what the answer is, which is we are not the reliable partner we should be.
This isn't just about USAID. We know USAID--that these attacks are only just the beginning. It is the canary in the coal mine. Next, it will be the Department of Education or Justice or FBI or elsewhere, schedule F, an effort to kill the civil service, return to the spoils systems of 200 years ago, and it goes back to Russell Vought.
I want to emphasize that quote I said earlier because it is worth emphasizing in this moment. He said:
When you listen to those words, doesn't that sound like exactly what happened over the last week? I get these phone calls and texts from people at USAID, people that I worked with, texting me and telling me ``Things are very grave,'' talking about how disrespected they feel.
It saddens me greatly to think that Trump and Musk and Mr. Vought and others are relishing in that anxiety, fear, and pain that they are purposefully--purposefully--trying to create.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Vought said Trump ``has to move executively as fast and as aggressively as possible with a radical constitutional perspective to be able to dismantle that bureaucracy and their power centers.''
Now, why do you think they need to move so fast? It is because when you want to grab as much power as you can, you want to do it before the American people understand and see what is happening. They feed off the apathy and the helplessness. They want people to be disengaged. They are intentionally using terms like ``shock and awe''--a term of war that we had used, and now they are using that against the American people.
I have been saying this line a lot lately where I say: I believe that the opposite of democracy is apathy.
We have to stay engaged. There is a massive division in our country, no doubt about that. It is not just between Democrats and Republicans; it is between those who are engaged and those who aren't. And these actions are built to paralyze you with anger, fueled by disinformation and distraction to make you disengage, but don't let them.
So what comes next? All we have to do is look at Mr. Vought's past statements to know exactly what is coming.
He said:
When he was talking about the Federal Reserve, he went on to say:
That quote of his led me to ask him directly in a confirmation hearing if he believed that the President has the right to set interest rates in our country, and Mr. Vought refused to answer. He couldn't answer something as simple as that. The answer should be very easy. It should be, clearly no.
I talked to a number of leaders at the Fed recently, and they really emphasize the longstanding bipartisan agreement that we do not want someone approaching critical decisions about fiscal stability in America based off of what is best for the next election for that leader. We don't want to see that kind of politicization. The goal always needs to be towards the stability of our economy and the responsibility towards growth and prosperity.
Vought--he just believes in power and not just any kind of power. He believes in an all-powerful President--something our Founding Fathers specifically avoided. We don't want a monarch. We have coequal branches of government. But is that what the American people have seen since January 20? No. We have seen blatant power grabs, illegal actions, disregard of laws passed by Congress, chaos.
But, remember, as you see this, chaos is their plan. It is Trump's plan. It is Mr. Vought's plan. It is the reason why they are going after public servants, and it is the same reason that happened 200 years ago, because public service is about serving the people, while corruption, we see, is about serving themselves.
Public service was the answer to countering corruption in the 1800s, and it is my belief that it is the answer to the current threat to our democracy.
When you see these attacks on public servants, when you see what is unfolding before our eyes, that is not the golden age that Trump tried to talk about in his inaugural address. It is not the ``Make America Great Again'' slogan that he has been using. It goes back to another phrase that he used over the campaign where he talked about ``the enemy from within''--those three words, ``the enemy from within.'' That is what this is all about. Painting our public servants who swear an oath to protect our Constitution as the enemy.
Earlier, I talked about my parents coming to the United States 50 years ago. Now my family--we think about the next 50 years. I am now a parent of a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old, two little boys. I will be honest with you, I worry about what kind of America my boys are going to grow up in. What will it look like? What will this country look like when they are my age? So that is why I am here. That is why I stand here on the floor of the Senate. I am here because I refuse to believe that my kids and their generation are doomed to grow up in a broken America. I still believe in the America that inspired my parents 50 years ago to travel halfway around the world, and I know we are not the only family out there that believes in this.
There is a hunger in this country for reform and change. People don't want to see the status quo, but that doesn't mean they want to hand over our country to corruption, hand it over to patronage, hand it over for another generation of the worst inequality our Nation has ever seen, where every day it gets worse.
As I mentioned before, we just took on and fought against machine politics in New Jersey. I heard it straight from the people; they don't want to see that kind of rise of broken machine politics across our Nation. Corruption is the quickest way to take the strongest, most powerful nation in the world and send it into decline.
In just a little over a year, we will have our 250th anniversary as a nation. And as I close here, I want us to reflect on that--250 years. I hope we can commit, as a nation, to have that more than just about fireworks; that we use that as a moment to try to rededicate ourselves to the mission of this country, to the purpose of this Nation, and why it began.
After the January 6 riots, the way I framed it is I said I was going to dedicate the rest of my life to try to solve one singular question, which is: How do we heal this country? I believe the answer to that question is ``service.'' That we need a new ``ask not what your country can do for you'' moment, a reminder that we are part of something bigger than all of us. Instead of attacking public servants, we should be promoting and encouraging them.
And I hope on our 250th anniversary, we rededicate ourselves to this project, build a national service program, invest in civics education. We need to reject divisiveness that is infecting our Nation and restore a sense of trust.
We start by rejecting this dangerous nomination to do just that.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. President, I just want to say how much I have come to admire, in a short period of time, the junior Senator from New Jersey. That was a--that was a real speech, you know. We are, obviously, spending 30 hours on the floor to oppose Russ Vought's nomination, and, you know, a lot of people have to come here and speak for 60 minutes or 30 minutes or 90 minutes, and we will take anything, right? Some people just read whatever they have got, and we appreciate all of it because we have to take the floor, and we have to maintain presence on this floor.
But that was a beautiful, well-crafted speech about American democracy,
Last week, without any advanced notice, OMB issued a memo freezing all Federal funding in order to end wokeness, ``Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies.'' Like, I just want to--we can pause right here, right?
This is not the kind of thing that the OMB is supposed to say, right? It is the Office of Management and Budget. They are not supposed to have an opinion about wokeness or not wokeness or anything like that. It is just a very odd way to view what is otherwise a kind of technocratic position, and that is what is very important about this particular OMB and this particular OMB Director. He does not view it as merely administering the budgets and the spending bills within the government. He views it as a power center through which all of his ideology and all of Project 2025 is going to be implemented.
Like, to think of the Office of Management and Budget as a place to fight wokeness and Marxist equity--I don't even know what any of that means, but I think a lot of us know the previous OMB Director. She was really well-regarded by both sides of the aisle. I think the Presiding Officer actually knew her from Louisiana. And, you know, like, she was left of center, but she would never say anything other than what is sort of straight down the middle as it relates to the Office of Management and Budget.
And that is--why would we take the floor for the OMB Director? Well, because he is the author of 2025. He is essentially the architect behind the Federal funds freeze. And in Project 2025, among all the things that they talk about, they also, like, devote a huge passage to how important OMB is and how powerful the next OMB Director should be.
Just so happens that the author of that section saying the OMB Director should be, like, pretty close to all-powerful and, essentially, representing the President in all things policy and budget, so happens that the guy that wrote that passage is the guy that is going to be in the job to do that. So, I mean, that seems kind of neat. I think OMB should be all powerful; also, I think I should run OMB. So that is what we are talking about.
But just understand what happened last week was not some attack on wokeness--whatever the hell that actually means. It was an attack on all of us. It really was an attack on all of us. All Federal funding was suspended. Millions of Americans around the country were in the dark, how they would access basic things--healthcare, education, childcare, small business loans, VA loans, disaster relief, opioid treatment. Everything from road repairs to cancer research was shut down across the country.
And you have to ask, aside from the very obvious fact that withholding funding from Congress that has already appropriated funding is plainly illegal, you have to ask: What on earth does so-called wokeness have to do with repairing a road? Or letting people refill their prescriptions at a community center? Or helping survivors of a flood or wildfire to try to rebuild their lives?
Is a child having a healthy meal wokeness? Is that DEI? Is that, I don't know, gender ideology, or is that the Green New Deal? Like, seriously, what the hell are we doing here?
A President is allowed to make policy. A President is expected to make policy. But they can't take a law and repeal it by Executive order, and especially as it relates to a spending law. Those laws are not actually optional, right?
And there is a very simple way for a President to get his way in the spending context. The Republicans control both Chambers of the Congress, the House and the Senate and the Presidency. They had a big victory--I didn't love it, but they had a big victory. So if they want changes in spending policy, they can just do it the American way. And so this is like a combination of laziness, impatience, a not- inconsiderable splash of illegality.
But, I mean, this is amateur hour. You want to change something. You want to fight wokeness--again, whatever the hell that actually means. If we have gotten to the point where shutting down a construction project is, like, attacking wokeness, then the actual word has ceased to mean anything. And DEI is this other, like, epithet they throw at things, but it is--the dragnet has caught all of Indian country, most Native people everywhere. Do you know what they did? They literally ``control F'' searched for keywords and then pulled those things out. They don't know anything about these programs. They pulled these things out if it said ``gender'' in it, or if it said ``equity,'' or if it said ``inclusive,'' or if it said ``climate,'' and they just, like, pulled it out and said: We are not funding that.
First of all, what a goofy way to make policy. Seriously, what a goofy, like, childish way to make policy.
Second of all, just to reiterate, you don't get to do that. If you want to make a change in a law, you have to make a change in a law. You can't just write a memo saying: I don't like the law; therefore, it no longer exists because I won.
It is true that the President won a free and fair election, absolutely a free and fair election. I didn't like the result, but I was absolutely prepared to tolerate policy outcomes that I didn't like.
But this is not that. This is them, like, skipping a step. And by skipping a step, I mean literally skipping the legislative branch.
And so there has been a lot of consternation on the Republican side; I mean, a lot of consternation. Rightwing Republicans, moderate Republicans--all of them are a little, like, I don't know about this.
But you can't stand up for the legislative branch in secret. You can't uphold the Constitution privately. At some point, you have to stand up for your prerogatives. And, listen, there is a lot of very talented people here, actually. I don't agree with them. Some of them I don't even like, but supertalented people, high-achieving human beings who could be doing something else.
And my view is, like, if you are going to forfeit your constitutional prerogatives, like, go be--I don't know, whatever. Do something else. Do something more interesting. Do something more lucrative. Do something more easy. But if you are going to be here and you are going to go through all the pain of running for election, of getting beat up by everybody left, right, and center, of people complaining about you, of putting your family through challenges--I am serious. Why would you do that and then forfeit, like, I would say two-thirds of the power that you are in possession of. You ran, presumably, to achieve some measure of influence so that you could actually change things. And now there is just a collective shrug of the shoulders.
So the problem with Mr. Vought is twofold: One, we have a government with three coequal branches, and Congress is the article I branch that holds the power of the purse, and we decide what to fund and at what levels. And in the face of an illegal action, the courts can step in and strike it down, as several judges did with the original funding freeze memo.
And this is one of the things, to the extent that there are at least 20 or 30 people still watching, Donald Trump and his team are running a huge bluff. It is not that they are not causing damage. I know they are causing damage. But understand that what they want to do is multiple illegal things and then see if they can get a few of these things to stick.
They have articulated that pretty clearly. Mr. Vought has said that. JD Vance has said a version of that. And just say: We are going to defy the Federal law and see whether we can come up with some judges who will give us a different interpretation.
And so the reason that that is an important thing to say is not just for me to be another Democrat saying: I can't believe he did this--but to understand Donald Trump is not the only person in the world who is not constrained by Federal law.
We saw last week the Federal funding freeze was found to be illegal and it was suspended and there is an injunction against it.
Last week--or maybe it was 2 weeks ago--the birthright citizenship nonsense was rejected by a Federal judge. Even what is happening with the access to the Treasury payments is being constrained in the court system. So I am
But these are not close calls. These are clear violations of Federal statutory law, and so we don't want to give up in advance. The roots of democracy are still strong. And, like, my old now-friend, one-time adversary, the Former Speaker of the House in the State of Hawaii Calvin Say, he used to say:
So we all have to understand that Donald Trump is a disrupter, and it is going to be rocky. But this idea that he is just going to rack up wins and there is nothing anybody can do about it is a dangerous premise because it can become self-fulfilling--people out on the streets, people in the courts, people in the legislature. We are out of power, but we are not powerless.
So everybody needs to understand that Russ Vought represents a very specific view of Presidential power, which is essentially unitarian, executive--whatever you want to call it. But it is a view that once you win, you are basically a monarch and that all those niceties--rules--I mean literally rules, right? You make a law, and usually the Agency has to make rules to kind of explain specifically how to implement any law. They view that as just an impediment to the inherent constitutional power of one man.
This is also consistent with the way that the tech bros view government. They view government as unnecessarily slow, too many checks and balances.
Why doesn't the government run like a business? Let me tell you why. Because if you ran government like a business, you would shut down every rural hospital. If you ran government like a business, you would actually not have a national transportation network; you wouldn't have a library in Kai. If you ran government like a business, by the way, most of the money would be spent in the cities. So we have a system of government that we all have to be committed to defending.
I want to spend a little bit of time with some letters that I received from constituents last week.
I just wasn't expecting it all to go sideways so quickly. After the OMB memo came out that said Federal Agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to the obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance--what a crazy--can you imagine being a person who previously was at OMB--this person is not new to this--issuing a memo saying: Pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of funds. I knew immediately--I was like, oh, my God.
There are these portals, and they are basically websites. If you are the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands or the Hawaii Department of Transportation, almost daily, you are doing draws. You have your little code words. You have to send your little invoice, and then there is an electronic transfer of money to a clinic or a construction project or the Veterans' Administration or whatever it is. Those portals were shut down, and everybody was in an actual panic. I am not exaggerating.
People voted for Trump for all sorts of reasons, but one of the reasons that kept coming up over and over: They thought he would bring down the price of eggs, the price of groceries, the price at the pump. What they did not vote for was to lose their ability to get a home loan or healthcare or childcare or a healthy meal or a good education for their children.
I want to read a couple of letters from constituents:
Is this program woke? Is it DEI? Is it Marxist? What the hell are we doing here? What the hell are we doing here? Why would we cause this amount of pain? Some sense of like fiscal discipline? We are not saving the money.
On top of everything else, thousands and thousands and thousands of employees--not just at USAID but at the Small Business Administration and at the CIA--were sent home. By the way, because of civil service law, we can't lay them off. It is not a private sector situation. You can't lay them off as a matter of law. So we sent them home to not work. We are shutting people out of their emails to not deliver service to the public. Awesome. Let's run the government like the worst business ever where we are just going to pay people not to work.
I guess it was too woke.
Is that woke, Marxist ideology?
You see, what is happening is they want to dismantle the public services that we all rely upon. Can you imagine a week ago--I guess it was a little more than a week ago--air traffic controllers were told to quit? And we have--I think it is a 30-percent vacancy rate. We are short of air traffic controllers.
I understand. I have been in politics, I have been an appropriator for a while. Sometimes people cry wolf: If you don't give us this money, it is going to be dire. But the air traffic controller situation is quite dire, and we saw the impact of being understaffed last week.
So the language about woke and Marxism and all that stuff is a smoke screen. What they truly want to do is dismantle whatever the Federal Government does--if it is firefighting, if it is the CIA, if it is the National Weather Service, if it is VA home loans.
Their Project 2025 is to--they call it dismantle the administrative state, but really what they want to do is provide less service to people. The reason they want to do that is they have a yawning $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion gap that they have to fill because they want to provide a $1 trillion to $2 trillion tax cut
They really are cutting the stuff that matters to regular people, and then they are going to book that as savings, and then they are going to shove it in the direction of billionaires and billionaire corporations.
I see my friend Senator Murphy is here. It is a little bit like old times to see you on the floor at 2 a.m. It used to be easier when I was on Hawaii time, but I have been here for a couple of weeks, so this is actually late for me.
I just want to recognize that we have most Democratic Senators speaking at some point through this 30-hour period, but Murph decided to take the 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. shift.
I hope you haven't had too much Mountain Dew at this point.
I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Connecticut.
With the permission of the Chair, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy without having to go through the Chair every time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Just for the record, Senator Schatz, it is Diet Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew is disgusting. Diet Mountain Dew is acceptable.
Can I say one thing about--I did not know that this whole Senate is powered on Celsius. I never had Celsius before. I was walking around offering people coffee, and everyone had a Celsius.
I think it is two or three times the amount of caffeine that a Red Bull has. There is a reason why the conversion is happening--not that I have an intimate understanding of which beverages have which amounts of caffeine.
But I am motivated to get up at this point because I think you hit on something really, really important. There are a number of different lanes that the policy we are talking about and the agenda of Russ Vought occupy, but I thought you just talked about a really important one, which is the effort to take anything left in the common space and shift it off to the private sector to become a commodity.
Much of what we are discussing today is an effort to raid services that help poor people and kids and middle-class families and just bank that money so that they can afford this giant tax cut that is going to go primarily to the very, very wealthy and the corporations.
Because Mr. Vought and the other folks who wrote Project 2025 and the other people that are populating the administration still believe in this long-discredited theory of trickle-down economics--which is that if you just give a ton of money to the very, very richest, then eventually that money will trickle its way down to everybody else. That is not how economics work. It was a fraud from the beginning. It is just intellectual window dressing for the rich and the powerful to get more rich and powerful.
But there is this other lane you were talking about, which is finding the last remaining elements of public services that we decide to do together not for profit and turn it into a source of profit. TSA is one of those targets.
So Project 2025, written in part by Russ Vought, says TSA--this is the Transportation Security Administration; this is the Agency responsible for the security at our airports--should just be outsourced to the private sector; that some private equity firm should be running security at our airports.
To a lot of Americans, that idea is frightening--the idea that we would just turn security at the airports over to an entity that is doing it only for profit. It seems like we should have a public mission at the heart of airport protection. But you were reading this letter from, it sounded like, a student who may not see what is coming for our school system. This is--I was going to talk about this later, but I will bring it up now.
This is a pretty long article on a massive play being made by private equity into education and, in particular, into elementary education. It is kind of hard to think about this--but it may be coming--and that is a private equity firm or a hedge fund or an investment firm owning your child's elementary school.
Right now, private equity investors are lining up to put money in funds because they believe they are going to have a chance to bid on your child's elementary school or to bid on your child's middle school. We are literally going to outsource the education of our kids to investment firms.
If you read this article, it is absolutely chilling because the folks who cover the private equity industry are kind of, you know, used to being unapologetic about the fact that the only thing that matters is money, right? So, if you read this article, there is not a single word in here about quality or about making sure that, you know, there aren't 50 kids in a classroom. It is just about the private equity industry realizing that ``Oh, my gosh, there is a ton of money that we can pull out of our elementary schools and our middle schools. This is a wonderful source of profit for us.''
They are not mission-oriented; they are profit-oriented.
So in addition to this agenda about stripping bare services in order to create the illusion that you are saving money so that you can pass along a tax cut to the very wealthy, this is also just a simple play to take every element of public services that haven't been commoditized and turn them into a commodity so that somebody can get rich.
I don't know. I just--I get sick at the idea of my kid's middle school becoming a source of profit. I am a capitalist. I believe this country is great because we allow people to get fabulously rich off of entrepreneurship and great ideas--but man, I just think there should be, like, a couple of things that we don't do for profit. I just think there should be a few things that we do because it is just the right thing to do, whether it is police protection or fire protection or building a road or educating our kids or protecting our airports. Like, not everything has to be for profit.
So I just wanted to pick up on this really important element of the 2025 plan and the Trump administration's agenda.
I just want to drill down on why the profit motive is so dangerous to public service.
If you are in the business of trying to figure out where to drop a Starbucks or whatever, you have got to figure out where the people are, right? You would not drop a Starbucks in a place where it is, you know, a 300-person town. Fair enough. You don't have to drop a Starbucks there, but you do need a health clinic somewhere around there, and you do need a public library somewhere around there, and you are going to want a fire station somewhere around there. And if everything becomes a question of profitability and arithmetic and ROI, what is going to happen is that rural communities are not going to get what they need because, if you do that arithmetic as if you were a private sector investor, I promise you that the only place anything makes any sense to do it is in the cities, and that is what they are going to do. They are going to eviscerate public service across rural America.
You know, I think the Senator from Connecticut knows this:
I care very much about NOAA, the National Weather Service. Part of Project 2025 is this idea that we should privatize NOAA. Like, these people launch satellites; provide us with data; and then people can make, I mean, basic plans of what they are going to do that day. But aviation depends on it; farming depends on it; shipping depends on it. And the backbone of this is, like, a pretty expensive data collection enterprise and satellite-launching and maintenance enterprise. Then, in the back of that--right?--like, there is AccuWeather and these private sector companies, and they will put a skin on it and give you an app that tells you what the weather is, but they are all using the NOAA data. They are using the National Weather Service data. What they want is to be able to monetize this public service. It is always that--it is socializing the losses and privatizing the gains.
I think that is what these folks want to do, but--they have always kind of wanted to do this. They have always had this point of view, and some of our Republican colleagues, like, have a
Yes.
And, to your point, when profit is the only motive, somebody loses out as in your example about, you know, a health clinic in a rural area. It is true also of education, right? I mean, it is pretty costly. It is not monetizable to have a school in a very rural area where teachers have to drive long distances; where there, you know, isn't a high volume of kids. So, if you live in a world in which the private sector gets to run our schools, then you are just going to have the haves and have-nots. You might have in-person education in the cities or in the suburbs, but those private equity firms will figure out pretty fast that it just doesn't make a lot of sense to run a bricks- and-mortar school in a rural area, and those kids will just be constantly telelearning. Those kids will just be staring at their screens all day long.
If there is any internet.
If there is any internet.
So there are places, when it comes to government and government services, for which there is a proper role for the private sector. We have long had public-private partnerships. Inside the Department of Defense, I think we have very well married together a fundamental public mission, right? We don't privatize the Army--right?--with the private sector mission. The technology for the Army gets developed a little bit faster if the private sector has a role to play; but what we have realized is that there are limits to the degree to which the private sector wants to own unprofitable services.
One of the grants that got turned off before the court injunction was issued was a grant to community health centers. Community health centers, which are not-for-profit healthcare centers that are primarily funded by the Federal Government, often exist in the places where there is not a profit motivation to run healthcare, either in rural areas or in very low-income areas of cities. They run on very, very thin profit--excuse me--on very thin margins at all. They don't make profit. They are on very thin margins. So when they miss one payment from the Federal Government, they are talking about immediately laying off workers.
I used to run a social services agency. We had a couple hundred employees, and we delivered mental health services, and we were a Medicaid provider. It was back in the day when we weren't yet receiving electronic payments, and I would go to--like, I would wait for the mail every Wednesday and Thursday to see if we had to dip into our line of credit to make payroll. We ran a successful agency, and we were one of the bigger social services agencies on the island of Oahu-- the most populous island in Hawaii.
But that is what this is like. Even if you are a pretty solid social services agency or health clinic, it is always hand to mouth. You don't have some, like, cash reserves. So when they turned off that spigot, it was instantaneous, right?
I think part of what is happening with 2025--and excuse me for, you know, maybe diverting our conversation slightly--is that there is just a lot of very ideological people in cubicles who haven't been outside of Washington, DC, and are actually thinking in abstractions, and they truly believe in their heart of hearts--it is the billionaires, first of all, but it is also some other people who wrote the document who believe--I mean, deeply--that no one is going to miss the Federal Government if it doesn't deliver these services.
I think one of the things that has given me some comfort in the last couple of weeks--and, you know, it has been a rough couple of weeks--is that, boy, it was instantaneous, right? People were freaked out across the country--red States, blue States, rural, urban, suburban, exurban. Like, everyone was, like, what the hell, right? Like, I might have voted for Donald Trump or I might not have, but, like, nobody wants this. You are at the helm of the Federal Government, and then you just, like, within the first 2 weeks, go, like: I am going to destroy this place. Isn't that what you wanted?
No. People didn't vote for Donald Trump so he could destroy the Federal Government. They like that he is a disruptor. They like that he, you know, doesn't talk like the rest of us. They were pissed about the cost of eggs and groceries and gasoline and all the rest of it. I understand all of that, but I don't think this is what people signed up for. Like, I would like this guy to shut down the Medicaid portal. I would like for Head Start to have difficulty making payroll. I would like for construction projects to be staged and then send everybody home because there is no money to pay them. Like, this is not the kind of disruption that people thought they were getting.
They thought it was going to be like, I am going to make those Democrats uncomfortable or I need a businessman to, like, not--you know, to ``think outside of the box.'' But this is not that. This is arson, and people see it for what it is. It wasn't one of those things where we are arguing about the impacts, and then 3 years from now everybody figures out what the impacts were. It was instantaneous, and it was pretty violent, right? I don't mean physically violent, but I do mean, like, Whoa! What are you doing to us across society--right?--and all under this, like, Marxist ideology, woke, DEI? Like, it is just like you put a bunch of--like, ``Please say cliche stuff about Democrats'' into ChatGPT and then, like, spit out an Executive order.
Listen, if not for lawyers who brought lawsuits, if not for judges who issued injunctions, we would be in a different kind of crisis today. So we are talking about public outrage at an executive action--that was midwived, in part, by the nominee--that only existed for about a day before it was enjoined, before it was stayed. But if that Executive order had actually been fully implemented, there literally would be, today, rural health clinics that would be shut down. There would be hundreds of thousands of children who would not be in preschool tomorrow morning. There would be a national catastrophe. Whether or not these billionaires don't need many government services unless their houses catch on fire and even though they don't understand that people actually rely on government-funded services sometimes, this would have been an absolute nightmare and disaster.
(Mr. SHEEHY assumed the Chair.)
So we need to remember that while we feel like we are in a constitutional crisis right now, that crisis would be fundamentally different if not for the court's stepping in at this moment.
Let me just raise another issue because I think you started by talking about the assumption that the young men in these cubicles made when they were writing Project 2025, when they were implementing these orders. I mean, there is this wild assumption about people who do public jobs. The contempt that this administration, these billionaires, and the authors of Project 2025 have for public employees is just extraordinary.
Who are public employees? OK, you can envision somebody sitting in a cubicle at a desk in Washington, DC, pushing papers. That is a public employee. But so are teachers, so are police officers, and so are firefighters.
Here is what Russ Vought said about the Federal workforce, he said:
He is talking about researchers at NIH who are trying to cure cancer. He is talking about people who are trying to just get special education funds to our schools to make sure that our kids get a fair shot at learning. He is talking about the people at NOAA who are just showing up to work every day, trying to make sure we are prepared for natural disasters.
The contempt they have for people that get up every day and don't go to work for a bank or a hedge fund or private equity company but instead go to work because they just want to make the world better or their community better or their country better is absolutely extraordinary. It is as if these folks have never actually spent any time with a teacher or a firefighter or an NIH researcher.
I think about my constituents in the IFPTE who work at
They have, in the great tradition, by the way, of--after Pearl Harbor was bombed and they quickly built a fuel storage facility and rebuilt ships in, like, months when it was expected that it would take a couple of years, what they did was literally miraculous and caused us to win the war. Without it, we wouldn't have won the war. Those guys dug in, understood there was a need for improvement, and now it is the best performing naval shipyard.
Are they woke? Are they DEI? What are we doing here?
I want every American to share our sense of outrage on behalf of the nurses and the firefighters and the technical workers and the welders and the boilermakers and the TSA agents and the Coast Guard men and women. These are patriots. By the way, some are also in a cubicle pushing paper. That paper probably matters. It might be your VA benefits. It might be your Social Security benefits. It might be your ACA subsidy.
Nobody likes a big bureaucracy. I am a Kaiser member. God bless everybody who works there, but I have my frustrations getting through to someone, navigating the system. So it is easy to hate anything that is big, whether it is Verizon or Comcast or Kaiser or the Federal Government. You don't have to love everything that happens in any big organization, and you don't have to think it is perfect. It is not perfect.
The Federal Government needs reform. I actually think there are some really interesting opportunities to provide better service using AI. I am all in if you want to make the government work better. But DOGE is kind of dressing up what they are doing as some sort of effort at efficiency and a better delivery of service. That is actually not what they are doing.
You don't terrorize your employees. Anybody who has run an organization larger than two people knows that if you are going to get stuff out of someone, then you can be tough, but you can't actually terrorize them.
``We want to put them in trauma.'' What CEO says that about their workers?
They would get--I was about to swear. It is the Senate floor. I will not. But they would get canned. They would get immediately sacked.
Their board of directors would get rid of them.
Like, this guy is nuts. Get rid of him.
Even in the private sector, just so we are clear--because there are also differences between the public and the private sector in terms of civil service protections and unions and all that. I am happy with that because, by the way, the unions are some of the people who are standing up not just for the rights of the workers but the services they provide.
I think this is a little bit of a--look, I know not everybody is paying super close attention to all aspects of this, but I think in the abstract, people might have gone, like, yeah, maybe you should cut the Federal workforce by X, and there is probably a lot waste, fraud, and abuse. Conceptually thinking, yeah, who cares? Then suddenly you realize, oh, no, that is a VA home loan. Oh, I actually don't want a shortage of air traffic controllers. No, I don't want a private company collecting my biometric data as I go through the airport.
So there is kind of a broad recognition, there is a waking up to the idea that destroying the Federal Government is doing damage to the United States of America. It is not doing damage to woke something. It is not doing damage to the left. It is just that the Federal Government has an important role in society whether you like it or not.
We can argue about the size and the scope of that Federal Government, but that is not what we are arguing about anymore. They are out to destroy it. They don't want to make it 4 percent smaller over a period of time or 20 percent smaller; they want to commit arson.
I want to talk about USAID. I understand USAID is not an animating issue for, like, most voters. Fair enough. You have got your own problems, and imagining money going elsewhere is sometimes hard to swallow. But I want to set that aside, whatever your view is of foreign aid, which you and I both strongly support because instability elsewhere is dangerous to the United States of America.
But setting all of that aside, they literally just shut everybody out of their email and told them all to go home. We were standing there trying to enter USAID to just conduct some oversight and ask what is happening, and we were told by the security guard that no one was there. No one was there. So this isn't, like, some efficiency effort; they are sacking everyone.
Now I think it is 1,400--it might be more--Foreign Service officers across the planet who got an email. They are everywhere. They are at the Embassies in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in Central America-- everywhere--and they just got an email saying: Come home. You have 30 days. If you want an exception for any health reason or any specific circumstances, you can submit it to us, but otherwise, you are out.
These people have their kids in school. These people are there to respond to disasters. These people are there to build relationships on behalf of the United States of America.
Imagine the kind of person who takes the Foreign Service exam and then says ``I want to work in Ghana'' or ``I want to work in Ecuador on behalf of this country.'' Those are legit patriots, and they get deployed wherever they get deployed or sent--I shouldn't say ``deployed''--they get sent wherever they get sent, and they try to dig in. Their kids are going to the American school in whatever city it is. It is challenging, but it is exciting, and it is important. Then they just get an email saying: We are recalling you, and there is no choice.
That is not an efficient way to do anything; that is just arson.
And they dressed that up for, like, 2 days, suggesting that they were reviewing USAID for efficiencies. For 1 day, they said they were folding it into the State Department because it would be more efficiently run inside the State Department. That was never the plan.
I mean, I would just sort of have to call out the fabrication. The plan clearly from the start was to eliminate USAID, and they willfully pretended for a handful of days that the agenda was efficiency when the agenda was, in fact, the wholesale elimination of the Agency. The stated on-the-record reason for the elimination of the Agency is bananas--bananas. They are calling USAID a ``criminal organization.'' I mean, it is extraordinary.
I was on a radio program the other day, and the interviewer wanted to talk to me about the constitutional crisis and whether legally the President can dismantle USAID. The answer is no, he cannot. But the interviewer was like: You know, they say it is a criminal organization, and let's just set that aside for a minute.
I was like: No, no, wait a second. Don't let them get away with the idea that USAID has to be shuttered because it is a criminal organization.
Apparently, the conclusion that they have come to--the allegation that they are making is that because many of the USAID employees in their free time may support Democratic candidates for office, that it is a criminal enterprise, because you are apparently not allowed to have any political views.
There are certainly many other Agencies and Departments and public functions in which the majority of employees support Republicans. Public services are staffed by people who have a variety of views.
But the rationale on its face for getting rid of the Agency is just absolutely--
Is that it has too many Democrats.
Mr. MURPHY.--is absolutely absurd, that there are too many Democrats.
So I guess we are going to shut down any Agencies that have 50 percent plus 1 Democratic affiliation, and we are going to hold on to Agencies in which the employees are 50 percent plus 1 Republican.
It shouldn't matter. I don't care whether a Republican or a Democrat is
But this war that has been waged--I mean, that is what ``woke'' means, right? ``Woke'' really just means that a service is being provided by somebody who has views or a lifestyle that I don't agree with.
We have never approached public service like that. We have decided as a country that we are going to have these people called civil servants who get up every day to serve the country no matter what their background is, their ethnicity, their race, or their political views, or their religion; that their reason for getting up in the morning and going to work is to just serve everybody--to serve everybody.
We are now retreating to this world in which, no, the only legitimate people to work for the Federal Government are people who share the political views of the President.
The purge is happening in so many different ways.
Well, I want to just sort of pause on that because, Chris, you are right. This is a purge.
I was sort of yelling in the Press Gallery--maybe not the best idea, but it was at a press conference--and I just basically pointed at all these people whom I have a lot of respect for in the media, but I am getting quite frustrated because this is actually not that hard to see if this were happening somewhere else.
We are both on the Foreign Relations Committee. We do a lot of travel. A lot of times, you sit down with some foreign leader--a Minister or a Prime Minister or another legislator from another country--and if you can see autocratic behavior like that, then it is literally on your talking points to encourage them to not engage in purges, to maintain a free media, the importance of an independent judiciary, blah, blah, blah. But when it happens to our own country, we just can't see it. If this were happening in Belarus, we would be like, ah, creeping autocracy. If this were happening in a Middle Eastern country, we would know what this was.
So I think you are really, you know, hitting the right point as it relates to public service.
I think about the U.S. military, which has been always, always a bastion for integration.
All sorts of integration.
All sorts of integration. And now we are deciding that some people are not eligible to serve, not because they can't meet the requirements but because somebody finds it weird.
We are going back not 5 years but 20 or 30 in terms of--by the way, this anti-DEI and anti-woke thing, I just want to drill down on it just for a moment.
If what you don't like about DEI is the whole consultancy where someone comes into your workplace with a PowerPoint or whatever and makes you feel guilty for your personal ethnic background, I have been in some of those meetings, and there is a lot of eye-rolling in there, and they are very ineffective, and they do not increase diversity, equity, or inclusion. I am sure there is good versions of it.
But there is a lot of people who got frustrated with DEI because when they think of DEI, they think of a kind of goofy consultant guy telling everybody how to divide everybody in the workplace and how to be sensitive in the workplace, and a lot of people are thinking, I am fine, I am nice to people, I don't harass anyone, I don't discriminate, why are you hectoring me about this issue?
But what DEI has become is anything that is related to civil rights, right? And so as these people, mostly kids, are getting access to the Federal payment system, they are clearly just looking for words like ``gender,'' right?
So I think in the NSF, National Science Foundation, or CDC, I forgot, research, they are no longer allowed to say gender and--
The kids say they can't use the word ``female.''
Yeah. So the problem is though, you have to do research on females in order to understand what is happening with females.
Yeah, yeah. This is the crazy thing.
By the way, different, I am an Ashkenazi Jew, right, I do actually have--there is a thing called--I think it is called Tay-Sachs or something that I have a proclivity to having it, so we have to have a special check. And the reason we know that is we actually do the kind of medical research to know how people of different ethnic extractions and different sexes will respond to medicine and what they may need.
African Americans need certain things that Jewish Americans don't need. And this isn't some woke DEI thing; it is like a biological fact. But now because these guys are, I mean, childish, right? They are not just saying: Hey, we should have a colorblind workplace; they are saying: You can't say sex--the word ``sex''--in medical research.
You can't say female; you can't say gender.
I have the list here. It is absolutely patently absurd, right? Do you remember, OK, so that is an element of DEI, but there is another element of DEI.
So when that tragic plane crash happened, within hours, Donald Trump was hustling to organize a press conference for one purpose and one purpose only, to blame the crash on DEI.
Now, what did he mean in that context? It is crystal clear what he meant. He meant that if you employ women or Black people or Latinos or Asian Americans, the country is maybe in jeopardy, maybe, maybe the country is not safe if White men aren't in charge.
And so sometimes, DEI means the consultancy that legitimately some people think has gone a little bit overblown. And sometimes, it means we just can't discuss the differences that we actually have with each other, but sometimes, it just means real old-fashioned misogyny and discrimination and prejudice, right? It stands for a lot of things, most of which are pretty sick and creepy and outdated.
And we have the Fair Housing Law, we have equal employment law, like you are not allowed to discriminate in housing. And so just to understand, they are not trying to just like cancel these programs related to DEI; they are trying to cancel the civil rights movement, like in statutory law, and defund anything that mentions a woman or mentions gender or mentions civil rights, right? And these are like long-settled questions.
And so everybody needs--we don't need to spend all night talking about this, but we do need to--like to me, when I saw that thing where it was maybe DEI was the cause of a plane crash, I thought, this is when the DEI thing jumped the shark. And as I see these pages, you can Google ``jumping the shark'' later on.
I don't think they know jumping the shark.
Don't Google it. Google doesn't work anymore.
But anyway, this is the end of this as a useful way to understand something. It is now just an epithet that you hurl when you are not sure what else to say, right?
And so, look, back to Russell Vought for a moment, he is part of a crew, right? And it is Homan, it is Brendan Carr of the FCC, who is now trying to intimidate the media.
The Project 2025 crew is--I mean, they are really rolling. They are populating the Cabinet of the President. And the President was clever enough during the campaign to disassociate himself with Project 2025, but that did not last long because about two-thirds of his senior staffers are closely affiliated with 2025. This isn't some like ancillary thing; they are like in it.
Let me read to you something from my local FOX affiliate:
Without the housing grant, ``That's over $1 million of our housing subsidies right there.''
People are going to be homeless.
And by the way, this has been the case, I am sure, Chris, you have seen this in Connecticut, Russell Vought has already done it; he is not even confirmed. He is not even a government employee, but he is clearly already at the helm, and he has clearly already achieved his objective, which is to terrify and terrorize public employees.
And so one of the things I have been saying--and it is easy for me to say, I understand that, but I will tell you that the Federal employees I have talked to who got that e-mail saying, ``fork in the road,'' were like, now I am not going anywhere, right?
And I know 20,000 people say they signed up for it, but I was thinking about this, 20,000 people out of 2 million--first of all, I don't know if that is true. And certainly, it is unclear to me whether that would be honored, but that is actually 1 percent of the workforce.
It is pretty normal attrition.
That seems like normal attrition in a 9-month period, so I think what we just did, is of the people who were planning on retiring anyway, we just gave them like a 6-month payout. So we get nothing because they get paid through September--if this thing sticks, very unclear. But if this thing sticks, they get paid through September but just retire early, and we don't achieve any sort of turnover savings. So I just think these people are trying to terrorize the workforce.
And all the Federal employees who have been furloughed from the USAID employees to all the folks who are doing DEI to the FBI agents, they are still getting paid right now, right?
So for the last week, all those USAID employees were sent home, they were doing nothing to protect America, and they were still getting paychecks.
Well, and just to be clear, they don't even have their e- mail accounts working, so think about that.
First of all, it is a little weird to send people home and say, We are still operational, and then they can't even get their dot-aid, dot- gov e-mail to work, and they are not permitted to use their private e- mail to conduct public business.
And so I know someone who said: I am reading spy novels, like, I am just killing time. And we are paying them.
It is almost like the agenda isn't efficiency.
It is like if you read about all the people who were going to quit anyway, but quit and got a payout and the people who are at home locked out of their e-mail but still getting paid, it is almost like there is a different agenda.
And listen, you are right that the agenda is to terrorize public employees, they have made it absolutely clear, to try to keep them silenced and to try to make everybody decide that there is a different line of work that would be better for them.
But you know what, I know the folks that work at Prudence Crandall domestic violence shelter, and they didn't go into that line of work because it is lucrative, right? They didn't go into that line of work because it is an easy job. And when they get home every night at 5, it is just really easy to unplug. That is like the hardest work in the world to show up every day and work in a domestic violence shelter, dealing with women, mostly, at the worst moment in their entire life, having just fled a home in which they were regularly abused, often to the brink of death, by their spouse or their boyfriend.
And so, yes, they are scared today because they got told a week ago that their funds were being cut off. And that domestic violence shelter in New Britain, CT, it can't run for more than a week or so without Federal dollars.
Guess what? Our domestic violence shelters in America do not make any profits. They do not make a profit.
News flash: Your taxpayer dollars actually do pay for domestic violence shelters. We need to actually fund that publicly because that is not something that you can make a big profit on.
The women who are fleeing violence don't show up at the door with a check to pay for the shelter that they need for a couple days. Those people are scared. They are feeling harassed. They don't know whether the doors will remain open, but they are not going home. They are not going home because they have decided to live their life in a way devoted to a mission--to a mission.
And so this is a moment to just say thank you, frankly, to all of the folks who work, either for not-for-profits that rely on government funding, who are public employees doing the good work, who are staying on the job.
I don't begrudge anybody who decides that, listen, I am better off if I just go do something else amidst this harassment campaign, but I am thankful, on behalf of abused women in Connecticut, that there are people who are deciding to stay on the job, despite the fact that they are getting threatened and harassed by the Trump administration and, in particular, the nominee that we are discussing today.
Well, I think I have been, on one level, trying not to overreact, but I also think there is a little danger of underreacting. And I have been talking about this a little bit with my brother, who is a professor with an expertise in former Soviet Union countries, Kazakhstan in particular. And so in this town--and you know this, Chris--in this town, the worst thing is to be overreacting, like that is just very not cool for the cocktail party and pundit circuit.
Everything is always going to be fine, and if you are alarmed, you are shrill; that means you are not savvy. And the savvy thing is always that this will land fine. And I feel like we are sleepwalking into a very dangerous place.
And so as I think of my theory of change, just mine, I don't presume to know exactly what we should do, all of us, I know in the legislative context, we have got to do a couple of things: We have got to find opportunities--we only have 47 of us, so we have to find opportunities to find three or four Republicans.
And I have had some very constructive conversations with Republican appropriators who are super uncomfortable with what is going on. Now, they might not be quite ready to go public, but they are certainly trying to figure out how they are going to exert their authorities and reestablish that it is coequal branches here.
So part of our strategy has to include: Find Republican support where we can. I think part of our strategy has to be, where we can't, to not make it easy for our Republican colleagues as they try to march to the beat of Donald Trump's drum.
I think we also have an obligation to just speak out and explain to the public, especially when we are powerless to stop things, what exactly is happening and why it is bad. But the rest of society has a role here too. I think the media has an obligation to stop underreacting, to stop treating super unconstitutional, illegal, ``thuggy'' acts as if it is just, like, the President proposed there be an AI commission or something. The way these things are talked about, it is like: President attempts to reform USAID.
It is, like, no, that is not what happened. They stormed in, and they took over the servers. They stand over people and tell them what to do. And if those people don't do exactly what the DOGE folks say--or, yeah, say--they are relieved of their duty on the spot.
And then they sent everybody home, and then they got into the secure conference facility, the SCIF. Like, this is not to be characterized as something kind of mundane and, oh, this week there is a markup on the social media bill. Like, this is different, and we have got to treat it differently.
And there also is a role for the Federal employee--and, to your point, where they can, because I don't presume to know anybody's personal situation, and a lot of people have other personal stuff going on, and I can't ask for them to be brave on my behalf.
But there are some people who are deeply committed and deeply patriotic
And then the other thing--and, Chris, you and I have talked about this. You are the one that pointed it out to me. The difference between this week and last week is that individual citizens are physically showing up to protest what is happening all across the country.
I mean, we have been here in Washington, DC, and we have seen it at the Treasury building and at the Senate--they call it the Senate swamp--and elsewhere. It has been a minute since people have shown up in person this organically, and I think that is a really important aspect of any mass movement to preserve democracy.
It can't just be your legislators fighting in the legislative context. We only get credibility if there are people behind us.
And now I think--look, I think we were in a bit of a slumber, frankly, and I think the American public was in a bit of a slumber. There was this sense that some people were excited about the election; some people were sad about the election. But everybody was kind of not animated in the same way that they were prior to the first Trump term.
And over the last week, people said: Oh, my goodness, this is real. And by the way, even Republicans who were sort of imaging that this was all going to be manageable and that you are just going to get your conservative outcomes with some mean tweets. That is what people thought they were going to get. I really believe that. Good people that I know thought: This guy is going to be good for the economy. He is going to be provocative on line, and that will be that.
And, listen, you had Trump's first term as evidence, right? Obviously, President Trump says a lot of things that he has no intent of doing. News flash: We aren't going to invade and occupy Gaza. But he says a lot of things
I would say 98, 99 percent of Americans are a no on that.
In his first term, he said a lot of things that he never even tried to do. He said a lot of reckless things that he never actually followed up on.
And during the campaign, he said many things that sounded a little crazy to folks. He said: I am going to be a dictator on day one. He said the No. 1 enemy of the people are Democrats, and I am going to use the military to take care of the enemy within, which he referenced as his political opposition.
And I think many Americans said: Do you know what? I heard him say a lot of stuff like that in his first term. He is not going to really do it.
So you are right. After the election--we had an election; he won. And people assumed that things were going to be different. There was going to be a little bit more topsy-turvy. Maybe this country needed to be shaken up a little bit. But they actually didn't believe he was going to act like a dictator. They actually didn't believe he was going to violate the Constitution so brazenly in the first month. They didn't believe he was going to shut down funding for preschools and for medical research.
Or pardon everyone in the January 6 event. You know this, and you have talked about this on the floor.
They recommend that he pardon, essentially, the people who improperly entered the building.
Now, I would have opposed that.
But then he just said: You know what? Pardon them all.
Because it was too hard, as he explained, to try to pick out the really violent ones from the nonviolent ones.
Later tonight, I am going to read through some of the very easily accessible stories of the really violent protestors. It wasn't that hard to just pick out a handful of people who literally beat police officers over the head with poles, that stuck Tasers into the necks of police officers until they had a heart attack. Like, it wasn't hard to identify those people and say: You know what? Those people should stay in jail. Those people should complete their term.
The American public didn't think that he was really going to absolve everyone who invaded the Capitol and beat the hell out of police officers that day.
And so the reason that it has taken a minute for the people to rise up--and, by the way, we have seen big crowds in DC, but, you know, that doesn't really mean much if there is nobody out there in the American public. Today, there were pretty big rallies in all 50 States. This weekend, there are going to be many more.
It is because people, even many who voted for him--but many who didn't and just wanted to sort of respect the choice of the electorate--are now realizing that this is so much more dystopian than the first term was and a crisis that is going to immediately impact them in a real way. It is not somebody else's problem. It now seems to be my problem when a billionaire has access to my Social Security, Medicare, and tax refund data. That sounds like something that actually potentially hurts me.
Yes, I think you are exactly right that we are--look, every day I try to sort out, of the 20 outrages, how many can I even focus on? And to your point, the Gaza thing was deeply offensive, right? Deeply offensive. But also probably not worth devoting a ton of bandwidth to because, by some accounts from people I think who do know, it is pretty clear to me he does not have a plan. He was just literally talking.
And so sometimes we are going to have to not quite pull a punch, but not ``hair on fire'' freak out because that is not--to your point, that is not happening, right? That is not happening.
They would need an appropriation. They would probably need a war authorization. And, by the way, occupying a country in the Middle East, it doesn't usually work.
It often doesn't go well.
But here is the difference, though, getting back to the nominee, right? Russ Vought is a serious person with the ability to execute on plans.
And so his plan, which is to destroy elements of the Federal Government and State governments and the nonprofit sector that help regular people; his plan to try to intimidate and harass Federal workers; his plan to try to make folks who work in government pass a loyalty test to the administration; his plan to destroy access to reproductive healthcare--I mean, all of that is being put into place as we speak.
So, you know, what makes this moment so dangerous is that they kind of learned their lessons. They wanted to do a lot of these things in the first term, but it all kind of snuck up on them really fast. They had 4 years to put into place a plan called Project 2025 so that they could, starting on day one, destroy services for the middle class and poor people, root out of government anybody that doesn't swear a loyalty test, and endorse violence in a way that hopefully suppresses political dissent.
That is not working right now, and I don't think it will work. But Russ Vought is dangerous because he has got radical ideas, and he actually has the means to implement them.
He is a smart dude. He is a smart dude, and he is a serious guy and actually knows the government. I mean part of the problem with the DOGE folks is they don't really know what they are even looking for. So they literally just, like, ``Control F.'' Oh, does it say ``gender''? Maybe this is bad; maybe this is woke. That is terrible and irresponsible, but it is also incompetent.
But Russ Vought is not incompetent. He has an actual project, not just Project 2025. But he has been like this for a while. He has a view of the government, which is that the bigger the government is, the less freedom you have.
And Ben Sasse, our old friend and colleague who is now retired from the Senate, he had that sincere view, right? And it was a kind of radical view. But it was sincerely held that--I
What about Federal firefighters?
Counties can take care of that, right?
I don't want to characterize all of Ben's views, but--what about the Federal Emergency Management Agency?
Nope, we have got to get rid of that.
And FEMA is a really good example of--there are just some things that, if you are going to have a country, that your Federal Government has to do, because I think of two examples: When the town of Lahaina burned down, the County of Maui is kind of small. It is a couple hundred thousand people. It is not a poor county. It has some tax base and all the rest of it, but it is not capable to respond to a disaster where a whole town burned down, was incinerated to the ground in like 3 hours--2,200 structures. So 2,200 structures, basically, between 6 and midnight, all of them gone--110, 109 lives lost.
And so the Federal Government comes in when--you know, this is how a disaster declaration works. The county or the State submits something to the President of the United States and basically says: We can't handle this. This disaster is bigger than our ability to handle it, right?
And then the President signs the disaster declaration, and then that releases FEMA to go and be on the scene.
And if there is no FEMA, there is no recovery. FEMA prevented--I got into some fights with FEMA about the way they were doing it, but they are good humans. They are trying their very best to alleviate suffering.
And in the immediate wake of those wildfires, nobody went hungry, nobody lacked a place to live. And it is going to be a long recovery, but people's most basic needs were met.
And when I think about Western North Carolina, in particular, on some level it is worse. It was bigger. It was more structures. It was actually more property damage, and it was so vast. I mean, just the portion that got flooded is like the size of small States. And these little towns are not even as big as Maui County, right? These are 500 people, 700 people, 2,000 people, 75 people.
If the Federal Government doesn't come in and help folks like that through FEMA, then you are just leaving people, I mean, really to fend for themselves.
And over the last year, these disasters keep getting worse and worse. I suppose we can pretend it is not climate change. Even if you want to pretend it is not climate change, you have to concede that something is out there that is causing us to have more frequent and more severe disasters.
So let's set aside the question of climate and what we ought to do about it. Everybody knows my view about it, and everybody knows yours. But the fact is we had about $150 billion worth of damage last year.
And so I am not prepared to tell small States, small counties, little towns that they are on their own. But that is what Project 2025 wants to do.
So one of the things that is confusing for everybody, including us, about this moment is that it is not clear whether there is consistency or inconsistency.
So you may be right that they are going to try to just destroy FEMA writ large and erase from existence the ability for our country to come together in a patriotic way to try to help out our neighbors when a natural disaster hits.
But it can't be coincidental that they launched the idea to destroy FEMA in California, when a very blue State was responding to a terrible disaster, right? That doesn't seem coincidental.
It doesn't, also, seem coincidental that the first big infrastructure project that the President came out and said that he would be defunding was also in California, while an equally big city-to-city, high-speed infrastructure project in Florida is on no one's radar screen. And so this may be a consistent nationwide assault on public services, but it also may be--or in addition may be--simply a grift in order to provide services and grants in States that are loyal to the President--meaning they voted for him--and to deny services to States that are not loyal.
We have not, historically, cared at all whether a natural disaster hit a State that sends Democrats or Republicans to the U.S. Senate. We have sometimes had fights over how much money and when we are going to authorize disaster assistance, but we have never fought over whether a blue State or a red State should get it if the other party is in charge of the U.S. Senate. All of a sudden, that seems very relevant. That seems very relevant.
And part of the reason why the Constitution does not allow the President to have power over spending decisions is because that leads to a fundamental potential for corruption.
Before you came on, Senator Kim talked about taking on the New Jersey political machine. Political machines everywhere work pretty much the same. If you behave well, you get your stuff. And pork is distributed based on political alliances. I think you are right to notice that the President of the United States wants to sort of create a Tammany Hall vibe nationwide.
I will say, just to take your own advice, that on, say, withholding disaster aid from California, that feels like just--like he is just ranting, and he is not actually in a position to do that because the Stafford Act provides that this is a disaster and that once we fund it, they have to help, and they will help. They are not permitted not to help. Now, he may stretch the boundaries of the law, but I do not think he is in a position to withhold aid.
Now, do I think Mike Johnson is going to initiate a disaster supplemental for California? No. But the terrible fact of the matter is, there will be disasters going forward, and they hit blue States and red States equally. You just never know.
But what Trump says, whether or not he ends up implementing it, sets the agenda for his party. So what is the Speaker talking about and what are many of our colleagues talking about with respect to aid to California? Yes, they are very worried about setting a precedent in which a State doesn't get aid if they are of the opposite party of the party in charge, but they know that they have to be loyal to the basic premise of the President. And so they are talking about conditions; that California is going to have to change its laws to, I would assume, more align itself with Republican priorities in order for it to get money, which would be a perversion of Federal law and precedent and very dangerous.
It is not changing laws regarding disaster preparedness or infrastructure; it is changing laws on voter ID.
That is one of the things I have noticed about this President is just the unapologetic ``I have leverage, and I am going to use it'' aspect of it and nobody bats an eyelash. If you behaved like that, you would get lit on fire, appropriately.
So I think one of the things that I have noticed over the last couple of weeks is there's--look, Democrats need to understand, this guy is unusually talented. And we used to say ``what a buffoon,'' whatever-- maybe--but he is a very talented politician in a very unconventional way. But he is also not infallible. He is capable of making incompetent decisions. He is capable of being beaten legislatively and in the court of public opinion. Right now, he is in the saddle because he has all these EOs, all these Executive orders. But, eventually, events overtake. And a President, usually, is responding to events rather than creating conditions on the ground.
So part of the thing that I want everybody to kind of understand as they feel their frustration, as they kind of process and try to metabolize the flurry of nonsense coming at the American people, is just to understand it is not always going to be like this.
They don't have 1,200 days' worth of Executive orders ready to go. And as these things are--some of them are like wishes and could have been a tweet. Many of them are illegal and, in some cases, the President does have pretty raw authority. Tariffs, he can do; and there is not much the legislature can do about it.
My favorite EO was--I think it was a Presidential memo, not an EO. But after the plane crash last week, they did a memo that this was Joe Biden's fault.
I was like, now we are cooking. He was like, I want another EO to just say it was Biden's fault. That is like when they admitted that
As happened in 2017. They couldn't even do the things that they promised they were going to do, except for the tax cuts.
So I think they understand the fundamental weakness of their position, which is we have a President who is likely to do very unpopular things. And although he is not unpopular at the moment, he is, relatively speaking, very unpopular for a newly inaugurated President, historically unpopular for a newly inaugurated President. And it is going to get worse because everybody knows the way he conducts himself does not age well. So they are in a hurry.
But it is not always going to feel like this; it is not always going to be like this. They will lose in court. They will lose in the court of public opinion. I am not suggesting we are not about to experience some bad public policy outcomes and that people will not suffer. A lot of bad stuff is about to happen. But the roots of democracy are deep; and like my friend Calvin Say says: ``Bend but don't break.'' I want everybody to understand, ``bend but don't break.''
I am so proud of Chris for coming here and staying from 2 to 5. I may go get a little more coffee and come and join you, or I may take a nap.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Brian, thank you very much for your work in organizing this effort and always great to be with you on the floor today. I will not hold it against you if you go take an actual nap and get some rest. You exerted a lot of effort to make sure we were all here united-- Democrats on the floor, raising the alarm.
I am going to try to go through the case as to why I do think this is a red-alert moment; the reason I was so glad to jump in and join you this evening and why I volunteered for the 2 to 5 shift tonight. I am very grateful for Senator Welch. We had a gap from 5 to 6, and I hear I may not have to go the full 4 hours.
But I certainly have 2 hours of material here because I think something really, really dangerous is happening to this country right now; something that is worthy of an overnight session on the floor of the U.S. Senate; something that every American needs to be talking about.
I first want to just go through all of the events and developments of the last 2 weeks that matter because Senator Schatz was referring to a phenomena that I think is important. Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon and other people who advise him are pretty unapologetic about this strategy. They call it ``flooding the zone.'' The idea is they are going to make so much news, they are going to make so many outrageous statements every day, that it becomes really hard for Americans to understand what is real and what is not real, what is important and what is not important.
I am not saying that the President's comments last night on Gaza won't have deep impacts; they will. I can guarantee you that Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorist groups in the Middle East, right now, are using the President's comments to recruit. The idea that the United States is coming to Gaza to invade, occupy, cleanse, and level Gaza-- that is bulletin-board recruiting material for terrorist groups.
Our country is less safe today than it was yesterday because that is easy recruitment material for the groups that we are fighting. It keeps them alive at a moment when they were on the run. It separates us from our allies, because despite what President Trump said last night that everybody agrees with the plan, that was not true. Not true. Nobody agrees with that plan.
Benyamin Netanyahu doesn't want America coming in invading and occupying Gaza. No Middle Eastern leader wants that. The President said it; it is not true. He says many things that are not true. It makes Americans look like a laughingstock around the world because everybody knows we are not invading Gaza. So when the President announces that he has come up with a brilliant plan that everybody supports and every world leader knows he is not telling the truth and he is never going to do it, it undermines American credibility and reputation around the world.
I am not suggesting that the President's absurd statements last night about Gaza don't hurt America; they do. But he is not going to do it. He won't get support from Congress to do it, and nobody in the American public wants him to do it.
I can't get into the President's brain, but I suspect it was part of this strategy, this articulated purposeful strategy to try to confuse people about what is real and what is not real. I don't think it was coincidental that the President was making this outrageous, outlandish statement about Gaza last night on the first day that you really felt like the American people had figured out the game. The people turning out to protest were big--bigger than they had been since the election. All of a sudden the President comes up with a new plan to invade and occupy Gaza.
I think one of the exercises that I want to go through in my time today is just to tell you the pieces of the agenda--an agenda set by Russ Vought--that matter; that are the most dangerous; that are the ones that you should pay attention to.
I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about the drama over the Panama Canal or Greenland, just like I wouldn't worry too much about the President's statements on Gaza.
But here is what I would worry about. I am clearly going to cover ground that has been covered here today. But I just want to lay it out because I have more time to do it than anybody else, so I will be a little more thoughtful and comprehensive about it.
At the top of my list is the President's decision to seize control of Federal spending. So this was his Executive order from a few days ago that suspended all Federal spending. For that day, everything seemed to be turned off. Even the Medicaid program was not open for reimbursement. Head Start programs were not getting money. No State in the country could access dollars for different projects that they run. Not-for-profits weren't receiving funding.
Now, the order was for 90 days, but if you believe that, I have some bridges to sell you. Even if it was for 90 days, that is patently illegal. That is patently illegal. The Founding Fathers spent a lot of time wrestling with a foundational question: How to preserve democracy in America and prevent what, up until that point, had been an inexorable retreat to despotism in countries that had tried to engage in some kind of self-determination. The Founding Fathers thought relentlessly about the kind of tools that would be available to a President that could allow him to take control and rule as a king or as a monarch.
Now, some of the things they spent a lot of time thinking about feel, today, a little anachronistic. The Founding Fathers, for instance, were really focused on not giving the President a standing army. Now, we have moved beyond that belief that a standing army is a threat to our liberty, but that was one of the things the Founding Fathers worried greatly about. They didn't necessarily write that protection into the Constitution, but they thought a lot about it.
The protection they did write into the Constitution was the protection to reserve spending power for the branch of government most directly connected to the people. That is Congress--the branch that gets elected every 2 years, the branch that has different factions, different geographies represented. They wanted the spending power to be invested in the most democratic body so as to make sure that the compromise on spending ended up benefiting the whole country--every geography but also every political affiliation. So they said: Congress has the power to spend. Congress has the power to decide how money is spent.
So, for 240 years, courts and the Supreme Court have broadly recognized that a President cannot decide by himself what money to spend and what money not to spend. A President also cannot decide for himself to apply new conditions to spending beyond what the democratically elected Congress selected.
The reason for that--the reason why that power is vested in Congress--is primarily a check on despotism because if a President has the ability to unilaterally decide how to spend money, then, of course, the natural temptation will be to only spend money in a way that benefits and preserves and advances your political power. Spend money on people who support you, and deny money to people who don't support you in order to pressure more people to support you.
I wasn't here for Senator Kim's speech, but it sounded like he laid out the corollary that still exists, unfortunately, in some closed political systems in this country wherein you have party machines that give out favors and money and privilege based upon loyalty. OK. We decided, in this country, the President is not going to get to do that because it is inherently subject to fraud and abuse and corruption.
As we have talked about--as Senator Schatz and I talked about--this President has been pretty unapologetic and Russ Vought has been pretty unapologetic in their insistence that, yes, in fact, people who are loyal to the President should be treated differently.
It isn't as if we don't understand what the President is trying to do by capturing Federal spending power. He is criticizing projects in Democratic States. He is saying: We may not fund disasters in Democratic States. They are targeting Agencies that they believe are populated by people with different political affiliations than the President's. They are firing FBI agents who engaged in any kind of law enforcement action against Republicans.
Maybe this conversation would be a little bit less frantic--the moment would feel a little bit less urgent--if you thought the President was seizing control of Federal spending for some halfway legitimate reason, but, in fact, it looks as if President Trump is trying to seize control of Federal spending for the exact reason that worried the Founding Fathers so much that they were explicit in the Constitution: No, the President cannot seize control of Federal spending. It will lead to fraud, corruption, and ultimately the erosion and perhaps destruction of our democracy.
The Founding Fathers worried every single day about writing a document that prevented a slide to despotism. You can laugh that off as hyperbole. You can say: Democrats are crying wolf. Of course, America is always going to be a democracy.
Every democracy dies. It does. Every democracy has an expiration date just like every civilization has an expiration date. There is an end, and there is a series of events that leads to that end. Maybe this isn't it, but, boy, when you package the list that I will give you together, it looks suspiciously like the roadmaps that caused other democracies to fall, and it looks suspiciously like the set of things that our Founding Fathers were clear about protecting against.
The second thing that matters is the President's decision to shutter certain Departments. It has started with USAID, and we spent some time talking tonight about what has happened at USAID. It is absolutely extraordinary. This is the nonpartisan Agency that fights for the United States abroad.
Our military leaders--I suspect most of whom are Republicans; I don't really care--are fond of saying: If you get rid of USAID, if you were ever to stop paying for foreign aid, you would have to double the number of bullets you buy us.
Our military leaders consistently, consistently make the case for USAID because USAID is a partner with our military in preventing chaos and instability that ultimately lead to war and threats to U.S. troops.
The Army and the Navy and the Air Force--they chase Chinese influence. They try to protect us from Russia. But so does USAID. China's power in the world is not just military power. Every nation's power is multifaceted. China, frankly, gets more influence in the world through its nonmilitary tools than it gets through its military tools. China doesn't have the number of military partnerships that the United States does. In fact, it has very few. Its partnerships are information partnerships, technology partnerships, economic development partnerships. Those are the kinds of tools that USAID has. So when USAID just vanishes from the playing field, China wins; Russia wins; nonstate terrorist groups win.
One of the things USAID was doing in Lebanon was running a bunch of programming, trying to depress Hezbollah's influence and trying to help stand up a government that was independent and free of terrorist influence.
What was USAID doing in Mexico? It was trying to build up the capability of law enforcement so the drug gangs that send fentanyl to the United States didn't control areas of Mexico which allow them, without interruption or harassment, to be able to send fatal drugs like fentanyl to the United States.
So there are things our military can do to advance U.S. power, but they can't do everything, so USAID was doing those other things. Now that they are off the playing field, America is fundamentally weaker. That is the merit-based case for why it is a disaster for the United States and a gift to China and Russia and terrorist groups that USAID has disappeared.
But there is a clear legal and constitutional case. USAID is an Agency established by statute. We passed a law establishing USAID. We pass a budget every year funding not just USAID but specific accounts in USAID. A President of the United States cannot by fiat eliminate a statutorily authorized Agency. That is what a monarch does. And you are already hearing that the Elon Musk crowd that so happily got rid of USAID is now talking about ``USAID'' as a verb. They are going to ``USAID'' the Department of Labor. They are going to ``USAID'' the Department of Education. They can't eliminate those Departments from the statutes, but they could just send everybody home. That would be illegal, but they could just send everybody home.
What a disaster it would be if the people who make sure that our factories are safe and that workers aren't abused by greedy corporations all of a sudden don't show up to work. That is great for the companies and the corporations, but that is terrible for workers.
Pay attention to this effort to shut down Agencies because these Agencies, while certainly you can have a conversation about making them more efficient, provide essential services.
The Department of Education provides essential services. Two-thirds of our schools run on funds from the Department of Education. Disabled kids are protected because of laws administered by the Department of Education. The Department of Labor protects workers to make sure they don't get run over and abused by companies. USAID protects America all over the world. There is a cost to Americans' pocketbooks, to the quality of life, to the defense of America when these Agencies get shuttered, so you should pay attention to that.
The third thing that you should pay attention to is the corruption that is happening inside the Department of the Treasury as we speak.
The Department of the Treasury pays the bills of this country, and those bills range from contracts we have with companies and not-for- profits to, you know, your tax refund or your Social Security check or your Medicare benefit. That is really sensitive stuff, so we historically have had totally nonpolitical people running that payment system.
Congress decides how that money is spent and what the level of your benefit is, but a bunch of civil servants--people who are not loyal to Democrats or Republicans, who just want to make the payments--run that system.
What really caused this public tempest in the last few days was the disclosure that Elon Musk--a billionaire with all sorts of interests when it comes to the Federal Government; he became a billionaire based off of Federal policy and Federal contracts--has been given access to the Treasury's payment system, not just him but a bunch of kids who work for him. So a bunch of twenty-somethings fresh out of college, with absolutely no expertise in payment systems, have gotten access to these payment systems. They are apparently inside these payment systems right now, fiddling around with them. They broke one payment system as soon as they got access to it in the Medicaid system.
Now, I will be honest with you, we don't know why they want access to the payment systems. We don't know what they are doing inside the payment systems. But there aren't a lot of benign possibilities. Are they getting ready to turn off payments to individuals and entities that they don't like? Are they just sort of looking under the hood so that they can get your tax information or get the tax information about Elon Musk's competitors? I mean, this is unheard of. This is a private sector individual--an individual who actually cannot get a security clearance because he is deemed to be a security risk--who is inside the most sensitive part of the Department of the Treasury, with access to every single American's personal data. That is a corruption. That is a perversion of norms and rules, and it matters. That matters. You should pay attention to it.
The fourth thing that matters is the darkness that is descending over the Federal Government. A few hours--maybe it was a day, 2 days--after President Trump was inaugurated, he fired I believe every single inspector general.
What is an inspector general? An inspector general, again, is an independent, nonpartisan individual who has got an office and staff that work for them that sit inside each of our Agencies. Our Federal Agencies are big. They are. They spend billions of dollars. They do really good work, but there is always the chance for fraud and abuse. So we historically--Congress historically has authorized a little bit of money inside of every Department to have a watchdog. We call them inspectors general because they are inspecting how taxpayer dollars are being spent and make sure that the dollars are being spent in accordance with the law.
The inspectors general normally have the power to intervene when something has gone wrong, at the very least, the power to issue a report to tell the public and Congress: Hey, guys, you know, the money was supposed to be spent on trying to fight wildfires, and instead, it is being spent on something else. Those inspectors general are gone.
Donald Trump didn't get rid of them because he thought they were doing a bad job and he wanted to replace them with somebody else; he just got rid of them illegally. You can't do that. You have to, at the very least, give notice to Congress.
At the same time, they have begun issuing what we call gag orders to Federal employees. The most notorious one happened at USAID. As the purge started beginning at USAID when they started to, first, just sending all the supervisors home, when they suspended all USAID programming all around the world, a corresponding order went out to employees saying: Do not talk to anybody about what is happening.
Now, I can understand being sensitive about rank-and-file employees talking to the press. But they didn't just say the press. They said don't talk to Members of Congress. Don't talk to elected Members of Congress who are in charge of spending the taxpayers' money. Don't even talk to them about the purge that is happening.
That all sounds a little suspicious, right? That is a little worrying when, with intention, all the watchdogs are fired; with intention, an order goes out to employees: Shut your mouth. Don't say anything.
That probably doesn't mean that good legal stuff is happening inside these Departments. That probably doesn't mean that this administration is really focused on rooting out fraud and corruption and tackling inefficiency. When you get rid of the watchdogs, that normally means that you are preparing to engage in some pretty bad stuff. Pay attention to the fact that the watchdogs are no longer there.
The fifth thing that matters--and I wrote it on my list here as the fifth thing, but it probably matters the most, and I will spend some time later talking more about this--is the legitimization of political violence in this country.
There is something special about force. The thing that matters most to us in life is the physical safety of ourselves and our kids and our family. I talk about this a lot because I do a lot of work on gun violence. And I try to explain to people that this is the issue that matters the most to people, the physical safety of their family.
I mean, you would give up anything in life to defend your family from physical harm. You would give up your house. You would give up your savings. You might even give up your life to protect the life of somebody that you love.
Physical harm is really, really scary. And because physical harm is so traumatic, the threat of physical harm is impactful. It makes people do things and change behaviors if they think there is a chance that they are going to be hurt. Every single person knows this because, at some point in your life, you were threatened with physical harm.
And, yes, maybe once or twice, or maybe for some people more often than once or twice, you stood up to that bully or you fought back. But for most people, there are plenty of other times in which you just changed your behavior. If the bully was on this street, you went the other block. I stood up to bullies a handful of times in my life, but I also changed my route home a bunch of times as well.
There can be no place for physical violence in politics, there just can't, because it does change behavior. When somebody is subject to the threat of physical violence, you are no longer making a decision based on what is best for the country or for your constituents. You are instead making a decision based on what keeps you physically safe and what keeps your family physically safe.
Democracies do not exist when the party in power, when the individual in power, gets to use the threat of physical violence as a tool to try to influence behavior. That is, by definition, not a democracy.
I am pretty confident none of my colleagues really thought that Donald Trump was going to pardon every single January 6 protester, but he did. But he did.
I will just tell you, subsequent to that decision, the threats of violence to my office--and I suspect the same is true for Democrats-- have risen. Republicans have been subject to threats of violence before. They will continue to be. But this is different because Donald Trump has not immunized violence writ large, neither has he immunized political violence writ large. What Donald Trump did by pardoning all the January 6 protesters is say: If you commit violence in my name against people who are trying to stop me from advancing my power, it is cool. It is cool.
What were the police officers doing? They were defending the Capitol from an attack that was designed to keep Donald Trump in power. Those people were storming the Capitol because they believed that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump. They were coming here to install him in power permanently.
The police officers who were defending the Capitol, they weren't political. They weren't Democrats. They were engaged in an effort to try to stop the seizure of power by Donald Trump's supporters. And when every single one of those rioters got pardoned, the message was clear: If you commit violence against people who are trying to stop Donald Trump's political agenda, it is cool. Do it. There will be no consequence.
So it is not shocking that threats of violence have increased to me and my Democratic colleagues because, right now, we are trying to frustrate or stymie President Trump's political agenda. And Donald Trump has said: If you beat the hell out of people who are trying to stop my political agenda, I will let you off the hook. The legitimatization of political violence, the endorsement of political violence, that matters.
The final thing that has happened over the course of the last 2 weeks--really, it has been happening since the election--that matters is the effort by Donald Trump to try to co-opt and control the media.
Obviously, the Founding Fathers thought a lot about the independence of the free press. They knew that one of the bulwarks against despotism was a free and independent press. So even though they didn't get around to it until a little bit later, in the Bill of Rights, they guaranteed the freedom of the press.
As we have watched other democracies fall in the last 240 years all around the world, as we have watched countries like Hungary slide away from
It is obvious why you would want to do that because, if you can control information, then you can make sure that the dominant narrative is your spin and you can suppress any criticism.
Already, one of the Nation's biggest information platforms, Twitter, is effectively an organ of the White House. Donald Trump announced that he wanted to take a 50-percent ownership stake--using taxpayer dollars--in TikTok, maybe the most influential of platforms today.
He has apparently cut deals with the owners of other platforms. Most notably, the CEO of Facebook, right after the election, came down to Mar-a-Lago, and Trump openly bragged that Facebook had decided to do what he wanted, which was to stop fact-checking all of the lies that get put online by Trump's supporters.
Trump said: Yeah, he probably did that because I threatened him. He was probably worried that I was going to do something to hurt him.
Maybe not coincidental is the fact that there is an FTC lawsuit pending against Facebook. We will see what happens with that lawsuit. But would it be surprising that that lawsuit disappears after the owner of Facebook said: Yeah, Mr. President, I will do what you want. I will take down my fact-checking to make sure that your misinformation--and all misinformation, frankly, because the misinformation doesn't only come from the right--misinformation gets to exist freely online platform.
So pay attention to the hard work that Donald Trump is engaged in to try to control, to the best he can, the information infrastructure in this country.
I mean, it wasn't a coincidence that not every billionaire was sitting up there on the dais with Trump during the inauguration. It was primarily the billionaires who control information companies. Facebook is an information company. Apple is an information company. Amazon is an information company. They have other business lines as well, but they are controlling huge amounts of information in this country. It is not a coincidence that those are the companies that Donald Trump is trying to gain the most influence over.
Those are the five things that I have identified as the things that should matter: the seizing of control of Federal spending; the illegal shutdowns of Departments--and, by the way, I mentioned USAID. But, as I said, Labor and Education seems next on the chopping block--the infiltration of Treasury's payment system by Elon Musk, a private sector individual who can't get a security clearance; the firing of the IGs and the gag orders, shedding darkness on our Agencies; the legitimization of political violence, the endorsement of political violence; and the attempts to put the President in a position to control the flow of information in this country.
Why this matters tonight is that Russ Vought is going to occupy a space at the nerve center of all of those policies.
That is what OMB is. The Office of Management and Budget is essentially the government's nerve center. It is the place where all the Departments of the Federal Government and all the accounts and all the policies, they all connect.
In many ways, the Director of OMB is the most powerful person in government, often one of the least well-known. The job tends to exist behind the scenes. But OMB is the place where all the pipes connect, where all the regulations and policies and Executive orders have to be vetted, the place where all the Department heads have to get a sign-off before moving forward with policies.
So none of this can happen or will happen--the seizure of Federal spending, the shuttering of the Departments, the infiltration of the Treasury payment system, the firing of the IGs, the legitimization of political violence, or the influence of information platforms--without the Director of OMB being in charge.
By the way, it isn't coincidence that that comprehensive document that Trump swore he had nothing to do with--Project 2025--was authored in part by Russ Vought. Russ Vought was one of the primary authors, one of the primary organizers, of Project 2025, which was this document that explained exactly how you would do many of these things to push American democracy toward autocracy. It isn't a coincidence that one of the authors--one of the primary authors of the Project 2025 document is now the nominee to run the Agency that perhaps has more influence than any other Agency in the Federal Government: the Office of Management and Budget.
OK. So having talked about the things that matter versus the things that don't matter, I want to talk about the why and I want to talk about how all of the six developments that matter fit together because this isn't a random set of priorities, events, or developments. All those things that I mentioned serve two major purposes, and this is what I want to spend the remaining time that I have on.
The first goal is to enact a massive, massive transfer of both money and power from poor people and the middle class to the corporations and the billionaires and the millionaires.
Senator Schatz and I talked about this long-discredited economic theory called trickle-down economics in which, if you just cut taxes for the very, very wealthy, the economic elites, the masters of the economic universe, eventually all that money will spill down to everybody else. That was a fraud as a theory. It was a fraud. It was essentially made up in order for rich people to just pretend like there was some intellectual underpinning to their greed.
When people get really, really wealthy, they tend to just want to get more and more wealthy. For many people, being a billionaire is not good enough; you have to have $2 billion and $3 billion. So they came up with this idea that ``If you just continue to give us money, it will eventually find its way down to everybody else.''
But everybody knows that that is not how it has worked because people in this country in the middle of the economy are miserable--they are miserable--because they are working harder and harder, and they are not getting anything back in return.
Wages have gone up a little bit, especially over the last 4 years, but they are not keeping pace with prices; they have not for decades. Even though this country is becoming much more productive--every worker is way more productive than they were 10, 20, 30 years ago, in part because of technology--the gains from that productivity are not accruing to workers; they are accruing to the owner class, to the capital class.
So there is this separation happening in this country whereby everybody in the middle is just kind of like treading water, and then you have this set of superelites--people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, the people who were on that inauguration platform--that have more money than they know what to do with, and very little of it is actually ending up trickling down. They are hoarding much of the money that they are collecting.
So this theory has never ever worked, but greed is powerful. It is powerful. So that crowd, that economic elite crowd--there aren't any poor people walking around Mar-a-Lago. Everybody that Trump hangs out with at Mar-a-Lago--those are really, really rich people--really, really rich people. Trump is not playing golf with, you know, his cleaner. The people that Trump is talking to are people who are immensely wealthy, and they see a real opportunity. It is not just good enough to have low taxes; they want them lower. They also want the ability to squeeze as much as they can out of the Federal Treasury for themselves.
So what Project 2025 is all about and what the Trump agenda is all about is, first and foremost, about a massive transfer of wealth and power from the middle of America to a very handful of elites. I want to try to walk you through that for a second.
The first thing they are doing is trying to set up another round of massive tax cuts for the billionaires and for the corporations. They are going to try to get money other ways, but the most important thing to them is for their taxes to be much lower; for the corporate taxes to be low or nonexistent; for them to be able to pass along all
Now, when Republicans did this bill in 2017, they made no attempt to try to pay for it. It was almost all borrowed money, and it was one of the reasons the piece of legislation was really unpopular. People hated that tax cut because, fully enacted, that tax cut would have sent about 80 percent of the benefit to the very, very wealthy, but it also was just all put on the American credit card.
There was again this argument that, A, if we cut taxes for the wealthy, it will trickle down to everybody else and it will result in a magical increase in tax revenue because of all the economic activity caused by the tax cut, and that magical economic activity and the tax revenue from it will pay for the fact that we are now collecting less in taxes from the very, very wealthy.
That didn't happen. It just didn't happen. We lost a ton of revenue because the rich and the corporations were paying much less. The economic activity that they predicted did not happen, and the deficit grew. The deficit grew. It was a massive explosion in our deficit. No President up until Donald Trump had added more to our deficit than he did during those 4 years.
So this time, knowing that that tax cut was really unpopular--for a lot of reasons but not the least of which the fact that it wasn't paid for; it was all borrowed--Republicans are trying to create the illusion that they are serious about savings. So part of what is happening with the cuts at USAID--the evisceration, the elimination of USAID--and the next round of cuts at the Department of Education or the Department of Labor is about gutting a series of programs or at least creating the illusion of cuts that then create a pretext that ``Hey, we have saved a lot of money. We have cut a lot of government services. We can afford that massive tax cut for the rich and for the corporations.''
Now, as I talked about with Senator Schatz, a lot of those cuts are illusory. All those USAID employees that have been sent home, they are still getting paid. I mean, it is insane. We have thousands of Federal employees right now who are home or are about to be recalled, many of whom have lost access to their email, so they can't even work from home, that are getting paid to do nothing. So some of these cuts are illusory. They don't exist. It looks like you are saving money, but you are not really saving money.
But eventually, if you do shutter the Department of Education and you do shutter the Department of Labor and you keep USAID illegally closed, then, yeah, some savings will appear. But where do they come from? They come from a retreat of American power. They come from our decision to stop contesting the rise of China. They come because we have decided to hand Ukraine to the Russians. They come from our decision to stop fighting terrorists.
If you close the Department of Education, you will get some savings, but it will only be because we have abandoned children with disabilities, we have stopped trying to fight bias and discrimination in our schools, and we are no longer helping kids afford college.
If you destroy the Department of Labor, yeah, you will get some savings that you can apply to the billionaire tax cut, but it is because you have shut down OSHA, which makes sure that our factories and our workplaces are safe; it is because you are no longer helping workers collectively bargain so that they can get better wages and better benefits.
USAID protects this country. The Department of Education and the Department of Labor help regular people. It is easy for the billionaire class to say: Let's shut down the Department of Education. All their kids go to private schools. They don't need the Department of Education. And even if their kids are discriminated against, they can hire fancy teams of lawyers.
So some of the savings are illusory, some of them are fake, but many of the savings, if you shut down USAID and the Department of Labor and the Department of Education, they are real, but those savings are gleaned by hurting real people.
Shutting down schools or withdrawing from a fight for civil rights and protections for kids with disabilities or stopping trying to protect workers from harm done to them by corporations or a retreat from the world, a decision to just pack up and let China own the world--there is a cost to all of that, and the cost is borne not by the wealthy and the billionaires but by regular people.
(Mrs. MOODY assumed the Chair.)
Military leaders say routinely--I will say this again; I mentioned it earlier--that if you eliminate USAID, if you stop soft power, right, you have to buy us twice as many bullets, because they know that USAID helps keep really dangerous places--places that matter to the United States, like the Middle East--stable. And if you stop focusing on stability in parts of the world that matter to the United States, conflict breaks out, and the United States often gets dragged into that conflict. When the United States gets dragged into that conflict, it is not the billionaires' kids that are fighting. By and large--we all know this--the people that sign up for our military are middle-class families, are often poor families.
So the billionaires and the corporations won't have much to lose if the evisceration of USAID leads to American troops being sent into conflict around the world. It will be regular folks--the nonbillionaire class--that will get impacted by that when their kids are sent overseas, when their kids don't come home.
So this attack on Agencies, this illegal shuttering of Departments, it is all in service of trying to make it seem as if there are savings happening so that we can afford that tax cut for the very, very wealthy.
But then there is this other thing that is happening. Again, we don't know what it is yet, but, man, it looks really worried.
So why is Elon Musk inside the Department of the Treasury? Why has Donald Trump given him access to this incredibly sensitive payment system?
I am going to admit to you: We don't know yet. It just is unprecedented. And you saw the long-time Treasury employee. I mean, this is a nonpolitical guy. This is just a guy who shows up to work every day trying to make sure that you get your Medicare benefits and you get your refund check. He left. He left because he had never seen anything like this. He had never seen a billionaire with a political agenda come in and take control of this payment system.
And so what is the agenda there? I don't know. But could it be in the same service as the elimination of USAID and the potential elimination of other Departments? Could it be that they want to take control of the payment system so that they can strip benefits--admittedly expensive benefits--for the middle class so they can afford their tax cut? If you have control of the payment system and you don't care about the law and you don't care about the Constitution, you can decide to reduce payments or shut down payments.
For a day, they stopped paying Medicaid claims. So it is not like this is beyond them. For a day, they shut down the Medicaid system.
If Elon Musk has control of the Treasury payment system and there is a need to save some big money so that you can claim that you passed along the big tax cuts to the billionaires and the corporations and you didn't increase the deficit, then maybe those Social Security benefits get turned off for a day. Maybe those Medicare benefits get turned off for a day.
I don't know what the hell he is doing inside that payment system. And you can say: Well, you shouldn't believe the worst, or you shouldn't hypothesize. You shouldn't guess. But we haven't been given a good explanation for something that looks like a fundamental perversion of precedent and the law.
Remember, Elon Musk can't get a security clearance. He can't. But apparently, he can have access to all of our most sensitive information and data. And maybe it is in service of trying to rearrange payments to save money for that tax cut.
I mean, it is stunning the number of programs that he has access to: Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for all Federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, tax refunds. The system holds a lot of sensitive information, including Social Security numbers--all of our Social Security numbers, all of our names, all of our addresses, much of our private banking information, much of our private tax information.
News broke today that Musk now has access to even more. He didn't just get access to the Treasury payment system, but now, he has access to CMS's payment system. CMS runs Medicare and Medicaid. So now, Elon Musk has access to all of the payment and contracting systems that run Medicare and Medicaid--literally has control of hundreds of billions of dollars in payments to healthcare providers. They got access to that payment system.
Today, they also showed up at the Atlanta headquarters of the CDC. They met with Labor Department leaders to begin the process of getting access to those payment systems as well. Why is this happening? Why is this happening?
Well, it could be that they are trying to save money so that they can afford the billionaires' tax cut, but it also may be so that they can direct payments to the companies and the individuals that have pledged support to Donald Trump and they can deny payment to people who have not pledged loyalty.
And, again, I understand that that sounds a little fanciful, but just look at what is happening right now at the White House. The President is saying he is going to shut down a high-speed rail system in California, while saying nothing about a high-speed rail system in Florida. He is proposing eliminating FEMA because there was a series of devastating, deadly wildfires in California, but he wasn't--and Republicans weren't talking about eliminating FEMA when there were disasters in Republican States. It seems as if there is a pretty unapologetic preference for political friends.
And if Elon Musk has control over the payment system, then why should we assume that he wouldn't use that control to turn on money to people he likes or maybe even entities that he is affiliated with and turn off money to entities that he is not affiliated with or to his competitors. That is why you don't allow a billionaire, that is why you don't allow somebody with massive financial interests, to be in charge of the Treasury's payment system. That is bananas. We don't do that because it opens up the opportunity for fundamental corruption.
But if you understand one of the key reasons for all of these early actions to be a transfer of power and wealth away from regular people to the billionaire class, then it makes sense, because you can either use your control of that payment system to bank money that you can use to cut your own taxes or you can just use control of that payment system to pay people that are affiliated with you or help your business and deny money to your competitors.
This is where the firing of the IGs matters because, if we had inspectors general in these Departments, then we would actually be able to have a view as to whether the access to these information systems are being used for corrupt purposes.
Here is the list of the inspectors general: the inspector general at the State Department, the inspector general at the Department of Energy, the inspector general at the Interior Department, the inspector general at the Defense Department, the inspector general at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the inspector general at the Department of Transportation, the inspector general at the Environmental Protection Agency, the inspector general at the Small Business Administration, the inspector general over Social Security, the inspector general at the Department of Labor, the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, the inspector general of the Department of Agriculture, and the inspector general at the Department of Housing and Urban and Development.
All of those watchdogs are gone, and they are being replaced with no one--because the complaint wasn't that these inspectors general weren't good enough watchdogs of the Federal taxpayer dollars. The complaint was that they were watchdogs. The complaint was that somebody was looking and watching. All of these inspectors general were fired and replaced with no one for the purpose of darkness descending.
Elon Musk got access today to the entire Medicare and Medicaid payment system. Why? We do not know, but it is certainly plausible to believe that there are nefarious purposes afoot, that his access to that system is part of a design to harm our democracy or enhance his economic interests, but we will have a really hard time figuring it out because the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, coincidentally, was fired days before Elon Musk was given unprecedented access.
An unaccountable, unelected billionaire with tons of business interests inside this government was given access to the most sensitive payment systems in our government. It is not a coincidence. I was being facetious. It was not a coincidence that all the inspectors general were fired right before Elon Musk got access to these payment systems.
The intent is darkness. And if your intent is to steal from the American people, if your intent is to use that access to be able to divert money from legal purposes to illegal purposes, if your intent is to transfer resources that are supposed to be due to the taxpayer instead to the millionaire, billionaire, and corporate class, then you can't have sunlight. You can't have pesky inspectors general because the public would hate that if they knew it was happening.
There are thousands of people showing up to riots, but there would be hundreds of thousands showing up to protests. But there would be hundreds of thousands of people showing to protests if they knew, through the reports of these inspectors general, that there was thievery happening. We don't know what is happening because darkness has descended upon these Agencies.
The other part of this plan related to the shutdown of these Departments and the infiltration of these Departments by people like Elon Musk is that another way for the billionaires to get richer, beyond cutting services, influencing the economy by giving themselves payments and denying payments to their competitors, is to just privatize more and more of the Federal Government so that they get to take it--to privatize more and more State and local services, so they get to take it.
Project 2025, written by Russ Vought, amongst others, is very clear about that intention. They sort of look at the remaining parts of the Federal Government--in our government writ large, that are still done just for the common good, not done for profit. And they say: To hell with that. We want every public service to be a source of profit.
Now, I think that is a disaster. I think there is an important public-private sector partnership in a lot of parts of our government. I think it actually does work pretty well, for instance, the Department of Defense, to have the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, to have our military servicemembers be a public service, right? We don't have a mercenary army, right? Our Army is run by the government, by generals, by officers who work for the government.
But they are supplied with equipment that comes out of the private sector because, in the private sector, you are maybe going to get some more innovation than you would in the public sector. I think that is a very legitimate public-private partnership.
Same with healthcare, I don't like how much of our healthcare system has gone to the for-profit sector, but I understand that it is important to have a profit motive, for instance, in drug discovery, that private companies probably push a little bit harder to commercialize a breakthrough therapy than might a government laboratory.
So I think there are plenty of places in government where public- private partnerships work. There are plenty of places in government where maybe it should all be in the private sector, and we just flow money from the public sector to the private sector.
But I don't think that works for law enforcement. I don't think that that works for protection services. I don't think that works for our public schools. I do not want a private equity
And does that mean that there might be a little redundancy built in? Does that mean there might be a little inefficiency built in? Yeah, but I just want the mission to be doing good for my kids.
But that is not how Russ Vought sees it. That is not how the Trump administration sees it. They see every existing remaining public service, from the security at our airports to the administration of our schools, as a lost opportunity for the rich to get even richer.
I referenced this article earlier, but I will do it again. This is from the publication called ``Buyout Insider.'' It is a pretty long article entitled ``Back to school''--cute little heading--``Back to School: Investors are bullish again on education.''
``Private equity's appetite for the sector is strong'' is the subheadline. While a lot of this article is, admittedly, about private equity's interest in ed tech, the technology that surrounds schools and is used by teachers, it also talks about private equity's interest in just buying schools--buying and running schools.
It talks about some of the schools that are already being bought and run by private equity. Remember Betsy DeVos, the first Secretary of Education during Trump's first term? She ran for-profit schools, schools where the goal every day was not to educate kids but to make money for Betsy DeVos and her family.
So part of the agenda here is not just to pass along a tax cut to the billionaires and the millionaires and the corporations, but also to ship big parts of our public service infrastructure into the private sector.
I am a capitalist. We are all capitalists here. I believe in the genius of the private sector. I just do think there are some things that we should just do for the common good. There are some things that shouldn't be about how much money can I make. Billionaires and the corporations, the private equity firms, they are doing fine. They don't need our schools. They don't need our schools.
Frankly, there is plenty of evidence to show that when they get their hands on fundamental public services, they do it worse. For instance, if you look at nursing homes that are owned by private equity firms versus nursing homes that are not-for-profit, the not-for-profit homes are better quality homes--are better quality homes. Less people die in nursing homes owned by not-for-profit organizations than die in nursing homes that are owned by private equity. Why? Because private equity exists not to keep patients alive--I am not saying the owners of these companies aren't moral human beings. I am not saying they are indifferent to life. But their bottom line is: How much money do we make? How much money do we make?
There are certain sectors of public life--like the end of life, like my kids' education, like whether I am safe at the airport--that I just don't want profit to be the motivating factor. So it is important to understand the why. The effort to shutter these Agencies is, in part, an effort to send their services into the private sector.
The agenda at the Department of Education is not just to destroy the bureaucracy at the Department, it is also to outsource the education of our kids to the private sector. They want to destroy these Agencies so, in part, they can move the services into the for-profit realm so that the billionaires and the millionaires and the corporations can get even richer. I think it is important to understand that element.
There is another piece of this story, specifically, the story about USAID that is relevant to this effort to transfer power into the hands of the elites. You have to ask: Why was USAID first? Why was there such a fervor to shut down USAID?
I don't know the answer. But what I know is we traditionally don't allow people like Elon Musk to be this involved in foreign policy because they are conflicted. I understand that is probably the reason why Elon Musk can't get a security clearance because he has these massive business interests outside the United States--in particular, in China.
So you have to ask yourself: Why is USAID being shuttered? Why does Elon Musk care so much about USAID? And I hate that we are searching for explanations, but the explanation that we have been given on the record is a lie. It is not true.
What Elon Musk and others have said is that they had to shut down USAID because it is a criminal organization. I mean, there is not a single U.S. Senator--even the U.S. Senators who don't like the fact that we spend money addressing famine overseas--who thinks USAID is a criminal organization. That is ridiculous. It is not true. Nobody who has spent a day looking at USAID thinks it is a criminal organization.
This is just normal public service, committed people who show up to work every day trying to solve problems for America abroad. We just have to accept that their on-the-record explanation that they are shutting down USAID because it is a criminal organization is not true. It is not true.
So we have to search for what the answer is. Who benefits most by USAID shutting down? I would argue it is China. China's influence in the world is primarily nonmilitary. China has a big growing military. We have to worry about that.
But China doesn't have military partnerships with countries like the United States does. China has economic development partnerships, technology partnerships, mineral resource extraction partnerships, pork ownership, and administration partnerships. China's influence in the world right now is primarily nonmilitary. They don't do as much relief aid as we do, but they do a lot of it as well. They do help countries invest in public health infrastructure. They do show up and help with disasters. That is how they get influence.
The defining contest in the world right now is between the United States and China for who is going to control the piping of the international economy. When I say ``piping,'' I mean the navigation of the seas, the information infrastructure, the AI data sets, the flow of critical minerals that are so key to making all the technologies, the chips, et cetera, for the future.
China is trying to buy up that piping. And they do that by creating relationships with governments overseas based upon their nonmilitary relationship, the economic development partnerships, the investments that they make. USAID competes with China when it comes to those nonmilitary investments so that China won't command that competition over who controls the economic piping of the world. So when USAID disappears, China cheers.
They are cheering because now they have the run of the place. They are able to gain more influence when the United States is withdrawn. I say that because Elon Musk has a lot on the line with China.
Here is a recent article describing the extent of Elon Musk's business relationships in China:
It goes on to explain all the different ways in which Elon Musk has real interests in China and real reason to curry favor with the Chinese Government. We can't know for certain whether there is a connection between Elon Musk's ferocity in eliminating USAID, a daily thorn in the side of China, and his business interests, but we certainly haven't seen any more credible explanation.
And we got more evidence today of how Elon Musk's business interests seem to be dictating American foreign policy. One of the places that decisions get made about the rules of the world--rules that matter to the United States and U.S. companies--is the G20, the 20 biggest economies. We are there every
Well, the Secretary of State today announced that we would be boycotting the G20 this year. Why? Because we just don't like the place that it is being held. Guess where that place is? South Africa. And guess what Elon Musk has been doing over the course of the last several months and years--running a PR campaign against the government of South Africa for a host of reasons, but one of them is that the South African Government refused to sign a contract with Starlink. He is very mad that the South African Government refuses to sign a contract with him on Starlink because, whether he likes it or not, the South African Government has certain rules about diversity and inclusion and equality that he can't meet.
And so what did Secretary Rubio announce today? We will not be attending the G20 in South Africa because we don't like their rules on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The very rules that are preventing Elon Musk from getting a contract in South Africa are now the reasons why the United States is not showing up at the G20.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but, man, this seems a little weird that our foreign policy seems to be impacted by the billionaire's interests, the billionaire that has such close connection to the policy of this administration.
One of the other ways that American policy and American law can be perverted to serve the billionaires and the corporations is if there is an integration between the interests of the billionaires and American foreign policy. It is just something we have to have our eyes wide open to.
And the last thing I want to talk about is just what is coming with this reconciliation bill because it could be that what is happening inside Treasury or what is happening in USAID is largely an effort to create savings--or the illusion of savings--to be able to afford this big tax cut for billionaires and millionaires.
But there is also a plan that is put down on paper by a Congressman in the House who is very influential in budget circles that lists out a series of cuts that they intend to carry out or want to have on the table in order to afford that big tax cut for billionaires and millionaires.
On that list is $479 billion of cuts to Medicare, $2.3 trillion worth of cuts for Medicaid. Medicare insures all seniors in this country. Medicaid insures seniors and pays for many senior services, but also pays for many services for the poorest families and kids in this country. And 40 percent of births in this country are paid for in part by Medicaid--$2.3 trillion. I understand nobody understands how much money that is. But that is a lot of freaking money. That is a lot of really hurt people if you cut $2.3 trillion out of the Medicaid system. And $151 billion in cuts to the Affordable Care Act--that means kicking people off of their insurance; $347 billion of cuts to things like TANF, which is assistance for the very, very poor kids in this country, food programs that keep kids and families alive who can't afford food.
I mean, this is a draconian list of cuts--Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care Act, food programs, emergency assistance programs.
None of these programs that are laid out in the Arrington memo--this is Representative Arrington. None of the programs laid out in Representative Arrington's memo impact billionaires in a meaningful way or millionaires in a meaningful way. There is not a cut here that impacts a corporation in a meaningful way. Every single cut listed in his memo--Medicare, Medicaid, food programs, TANF, the Affordable Care Act--impacts middle-class people, poor people, regular people. It is just like USAID benefits regular people, making sure that their sons and daughters don't have to go off and fight a war. It is just like the Department of Labor and the Department of Education protect regular people.
Are you seeing the story here?
This agenda is about stealing money from the middle class and poor people and rerouting it to the billionaires, the millionaires, and corporations.
Every part of this story--the shuttering of these Agencies, the removal of the IGs, the infiltration of the payment system, the requisition of American foreign policy by the billionaires, the reconciliation bill--is all in service of the same thing: taking power and money from people in the middle and delivering it to the very, very wealthy.
For what? What else does Elon Musk need? What more does somebody who makes $500 million need? Why do they need another giant tax cut? Why do they need to run our schools or the TSA--just to be able to pad their pockets?
I mean, I don't begrudge anybody for making money in this country. That is the genius of America, that you get to get rich if you have a good idea and you work hard. But I don't support the wholesale, rapid transfer of money and resources from folks in need in the middle class to folks who are already rich and don't need any more help.
All we are talking about here is just a realtime shift--cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, shutting down Agencies that help normal people, corrupting our foreign policy--in order to deliver more money to people who are already billionaires? Nobody wants that.
So let me talk about the second goal here that I think is actually, in some ways, much more urgent.
The second goal is to try to either suppress or shutter public dissent because they know what they are doing is really unpopular-- cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthy. That is not popular. That is very, very unpopular. Repealing the Affordable Care Act was and still is really unpopular.
So how do you get away with that? How do you stay in power and win elections if you do things that are really unpopular?
Well, you rig the rules. You rig the rules. The before and after moment is January 6, 2021. I am still flabbergasted by the fact that the majority of Republicans between the House and the Senate endorsed the idea that Donald Trump should still be President of the United States after he lost the election. That was the majority's position for Republicans in Congress--that Donald Trump had lost the election. No. They said he really won the election. They claimed there was fraud. Obviously, there was not fraud. Obviously, there is no evidence that he won the election. He lost it by a landslide. He lost it by a landslide. It wasn't like a million votes--it wasn't like 1,000 votes. He lost the election by a landslide.
But the Republicans said: No, I don't care that he lost the election. I want President Trump to stay in power.
In many ways, it is the most dangerous day in American politics since the end of the Civil War because it was an admission by one major political party that they care more about power and keeping power permanently than they care about observing the will of the people. The people elected Joe Biden. The majority of Republicans here said: I don't care. I want Donald Trump to stay in power, and I am willing to do whatever it takes, including endorsing and condoning violence, in order to keep Donald Trump in power.
That effort to try to destroy public dissent--to try to eradicate democracy as we know it so as to keep Republicans and the Trump family in power permanently--has not disappeared, and I think it is important to talk about that.
So, as I mentioned before, the most significant thing that has happened in many ways in the last 2 weeks--something that was supported by this incoming Director of OMB--is the endorsement of political violence in the pardoning of the January 6 protesters. It is unforgivable what happened. It is unforgivable because the people who assaulted the Capitol that day engaged in unspeakable violence.
You know these stories: the rioters who came here with metal poles and beat police officers over the head; the rioter who dragged a Capitol Police officer by the neck into the crowd and held him down while his fellow rioters stomped on the Capitol Police officer's body; the rioter who posted the night before, ``The revolution is coming. There will be blood''; the scaffolding that was erected outside the Capitol in the chance of hanging Mike Pence; the rioter who went to the scaffolding after
I was here inside this Chamber. For my Republican colleagues who remember that day as a day of wayward tourists, none of my Republican colleagues stayed here to welcome the tourists when they were beating down those doors. The Republicans ran just like the Democrats ran.
I covered this before; so I won't belabor it. But Russ Vought is really dangerous, in part because he has been part of this effort to endorse political violence. And I don't know that we ever repair our Nation from that transition away from a universal belief that only peaceful protest is acceptable in this country to the world today in which, as long as you are engaged in political violence on behalf of the President, you can get away with it.
I mentioned this before, as well, but the other component of this attempt to seize power and hold power permanently for Republicans and the Trump family is this attempt to try to control information.
It is wild to me that this major information platform Twitter is now essentially being run out of the White House. It is amazing to me that President Trump is proposing to spend taxpayer dollars to take a 50- percent ownership stake in TikTok. It is amazing to me that people like Mark Zuckerberg are making deals with the President in which apparently the company will get some favorable treatment from the administration in exchange for Facebook's stopping patrolling false content being posted by everybody but including supporters of the President's.
The bullying of the media, the deals that seem to be being cut, you know, are not unfamiliar to those of us who study the ways that democracies die, and democracies vanish often because the information systems get co-opted or controlled by the regime.
We are not all the way there yet today.
I admit, even though Twitter is run by an ally of the President's, I still post on Twitter, and there are still people who see my criticisms of the President and Elon Musk. But all it takes is one tweak of those algorithms, and, all of a sudden, content that opposes the President is depressed, and content that spreads his narrative is accelerated. And it just isn't a coincidence that all the CEOs who were on stage at the inauguration--or the majority of the CEOs who were on stage at the inauguration--run information companies.
Again, I have covered this before, but another way in which they oppress dissent is just by stopping information from ever getting out to the public. So the effort to fire the inspectors general, the effort to place gag orders on people who work at these Agencies--that is just an effort to try to hide the bad behavior, to hide the potential fraud so that folks who are organizing out there to oppose the President's agenda never get access to the information.
Second to the endorsement of political violence in, I think, the order of urgency for us to talk about is the seizure of government funding.
I talked about the seizure of government funding in the context of how it allows for corruption and how it allows for somebody like Elon Musk to send money to people he likes and to deny money to people he doesn't like; how it allows them to unilaterally violate the laws that we have passed to hold back funding so that they can bank dollars to afford a tax cut or a tax cut for a set of individuals or a corporation.
It also suppresses political dissent and speech, and we saw this happen in realtime. When those grants were all shut down, we had a hard time during that day to get information from grant recipients because they were afraid that, if they went public, the grant would never be turned back on, and that fear has not completely dissipated. It is very hard to get information from grant recipients even when their money has been turned back on because, again, they fear, if they collaborate with Democrats, they will be a target to have their dollars turned back off.
Again, this is exactly why the Founding Fathers said a unitary executive--a single executive--cannot and should not be in charge of who gets money and who doesn't because they can use that money to reward friends and to punish enemies.
So we are still trying to understand the full scope of the President's compliance or violation with the court orders, but it seems clear to us that there is an agenda here to protest money when it goes to places that don't align with the President's political priorities and let money go through when it goes to places that are lined up with the President's political priorities. I mentioned the most obvious example of that being the President's threat to shut down a high-speed rail grant to California but his disinterest in that grant when it is going to another State that supports him, like Florida.
The last very, very worrying development is what is happening inside our Justice Department right now. There is a rolling purge that is happening right now. You are watching the FBI squeeze out anyone who was affiliated with the prosecution of the January 6 rioters. You are watching the firing of anybody who was associated with law enforcement actions against the President.
So the message is clear: If you are in law enforcement and you go after Republicans or you go after Donald Trump's political interests, you are not going to have a job. That would be worrying in and of itself.
But there is something else that is happening, and that is early threats of law enforcement against opponents of the President. The new acting U.S. attorney in Washington, DC, sent a really interesting letter directly to Elon Musk. Again, Elon Musk is a private citizen. He can't pass a security clearance. But Ed Martin, the acting U.S. attorney for Washington, DC, sent a letter saying: It was good to work with the DOGE team this weekend. We must keep all our American Government employees safe. We must protect the American people's property. I recognize that some of the staff at DOGE have been targeted publicly.
That is true. DOGE is apparently a public Agency. If you are working for DOGE, you have accountability to the American public. It is true that we are having a public conversation about DOGE, about Elon Musk, and about the people who work for him.
He said: At this time, I ask that you utilize me and my staff to assist in protecting the DOGE's work and the DOGE's workers. Let me assure you of this: We will pursue any legal action against anyone who impedes your work and threatens your people.
Let me read that again. Let me assure you of this: We will pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work and threatens your people.
That is extraordinary. The political opposition in this country is allowed to try to impede the work of the majority party. We are allowed to publicly criticize the work of the majority ruling party. We are allowed to protest outside of buildings. We are allowed to name individual government officials and criticize them for the actions that they have taken. But this letter from the U.S. attorney says: Be assured, we will pursue legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.
Online, there are many critics of Elon Musk. The other night, one of these MAGA trolls targeted a critic of Elon Musk, and he tagged Ed Martin, the U.S. attorney, in his tweet.
He said: I found one right here, EagleEdMartin. Lots of stuff in his Bluesky account as well. I would look into him if I were you. He was threatening to hurt Elon Musk. Very unstable figure.
This is a pretty mainstream critic of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. He is not threatening to hurt anybody, but he is a pretty regular critic of Elon Musk.
That critic responds to this troll, and then guess who comes up posting. The U.S. attorney for Washington, DC.
He responds to this MAGA troll: Thank you for the information. Noted.
That is extraordinary. That is law enforcement, with the power of arrest and imprisonment, posting on a thread that includes a very loud, visible critic
Even if this critic doesn't end up getting arrested, because there is no claim that there is anything he has done, as far as I have seen, that would ever rise to the level of an arrestable offense--he is just a critic of Elon Musk and Donald Trump--even if he never gets arrested, the chilling effect of a U.S. attorney telling critics online that ``I am watching you'' is authoritarian stuff, and it has impact because this particular individual is not going to stop criticizing.
But plenty of other people, faced with a vague threat of Federal investigation for their criticism of DOGE, will stop doing it, and I wouldn't blame them for it. If I get threatened with imprisonment because I criticize the President, I won't stop. This particular activist will not stop. But it would be reasonable for many Americans, if they were trolled by a U.S. attorney on their Twitter feed, being told ``I am watching you''--it would be as logical for them to just stop criticizing as it would be for the recipient of Federal grants to stop criticizing the President because they worry that if they do, their funding will be shut off, as it might be for any ordinary American, knowing now that Elon Musk has the ability to control whether they get a tax refund or not.
Democracies don't die in an instance. There isn't this minute when dissent has been crushed so badly that we don't have fair contests in this country. It is a slow-rolling death.
Why Russ Vought, to me, is so dangerous is that he helped write the document that is the foundation of all of this attack on democracy that is happening. Put it all together: information platforms; agreeing to the terms laid down by the President because they fear retribution by the President; political violence being endorsed and mainstreamed; people being told that if you engage in violence to support the President's power, you won't be held accountable; the message being sent inside law enforcement that you will lose your job if you pursue any law enforcement action against allies of the President; and the message being sent to critics that you will be subject potentially to arrest, at the very least to harassment, if you impede the work of the administration.
Some people will not stand out. Faced with potential political violence, faced with the cutoff of funds to their State or their agency or their organization, faced with the potential action from an unhinged prosecutor, some people will not be silent.
In Hungary today, there are still people who show up for protests but never enough to topple the regime because lots of other people just stay home because they don't want to get on the wrong side of the government because the government decides where the money goes and where it doesn't go and because they don't want to be subject to an arrest warrant.
We are not there yet. We aren't. We aren't. But we have never had a series of developments like we have had over the last 2 weeks that pose such a significant threat to our democracy and to democratic norms.
The reason we are on the floor tonight, the reason you feel this urgency from our side of the aisle and from the American public, is that we used to think we were in this together, Republicans and Democrats. Yes, we have always had a difference on this philosophy of where wealth and power should accumulate. I think Republicans broadly have believed in this idea of trickle-down. They have not believed as much as we have in supporting the middle class with programs like Medicare and Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.
That is a legitimate political disagreement. If that is what is going on, then the country will survive, but if there is a seizure of spending power by the President, if the President gets to decide by himself which Agencies exist and which don't, well, our democracy doesn't recover from that because what goes around comes around. Today, it is a Republican President seizing spending power. A Democratic President will do it as well. And then all of a sudden, the people aren't in charge; one person is in charge.
I thought we all were in that exercise together--the defense of the Constitution, the defense of Congress's rightful prerogative to decide how money is spent on behalf of our constituents. What Donald Trump is doing is putting Congress out of business.
I think I heard Senator Schatz saying something like this as I walked in: I don't know why you work so hard to get a job like this if you are just going to outsource all of your power to one man.
It is not easy to become a U.S. Senator. Most people spend their entire career fighting to get this job. You have to do kind of ugly, distasteful things, like sitting in a room raising money for hours on end, in order to become a U.S. Senator. You have to give up all your weekends. You spend less time with your family. Why go through all of that if you are comfortable with not being in charge of spending, with endorsing the violation of the Constitution and the enshrinement of spending power in the hands of one person? There is really nothing left to do here. There is a lot less to do here if we don't decide how the taxpayer dollars are spent.
But even more worrying to me is that it seems like we are getting out of the bipartisan business of caring about democratic norms.
I am heartbroken--heartbroken--that a lot of people I like and respect on the Republican side didn't stand up to the President when he pardoned the guys who entered this building and beat police officers over the head with poles. I am even more heartbroken that many of my Republican colleagues endorsed it.
I don't understand why my Republican colleagues don't see the ways in which this seizure of power could be used for corruption, could be used so that the executive branch gets to shower favor on individuals and entities that are loyal to the administration while punishing individuals and entities that are not loyal to the administration.
I am heartbroken that my Republican colleagues don't have a problem with what is happening at the DOJ and the FBI. If you are an FBI agent and you investigated the people who attacked the Capitol, you shouldn't lose your job. We should all be outraged over that, not just because they were doing their job but also because they were investigating a legitimately illegal action. Come on. We can't agree that the storming of the Capitol and the destruction of the Capitol and the attacks on police officers are out of bounds?
Political violence is a real thing. We have had colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have been irreparably injured by would-be assassins, from Steve Scalise to Gabby Giffords. I am just telling you, the temperature rose in this country when all of those rioters were let off the hook.
So this is really important, that we raise the alarm as to what is happening in this country. You need to pay attention to the things that matter. You need to understand the story. That story is about the wholesale transfer of power and wealth from average people to the billionaires and the millionaires. That story is about the destruction of democratic norms in a way that may be irreversible if not abated in the next few weeks or months.
Russ Vought is the architect of those plans to erode our democracy and to transfer wealth to the very powerful. He does not deserve to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and I am very glad and proud of my colleagues for being on the floor all night to raise these concerns.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer. I want to thank all the folks on the floor from the Parliamentarian's office, the floor clerks for spending the night on this important effort. I want to thank the Presiding Officer and your colleagues for occupying the Chair, something I had the privilege of doing for the last 2 years. I want to thank my colleagues, particularly Senator Murphy, who is working the night shift along with Senator Schatz.
And I share the concerns that I have heard Senator Murphy express about the peril of our democracy and the
And I didn't have a sense of dread or anticipation of what ultimately happened that day. There were lots of people here who were supporters of President Trump. I was looking at them as just American citizens. I was nervous a little bit about the signs that were so aggressive-- ``Hang Mike Pence''--seeing a gallows that was put up outside the Capitol, seeing the signs about killing Nancy Pelosi.
But I had an assumption that I think all of us had that it would be peaceful and orderly, and I never ever anticipated that there would be a direct attack by a mob on the Capitol. And I don't think any of us did.
On the other hand, my walk had ended before then-President Trump, in his last days of office--he had 14 more days--had his rally at the Ellipse and encouraged people, invited them to come here and go wild. He said that he won the election, feverish activity in a number of States to try to assert that it was false electors. He filed--I don't know--60 or 70 lawsuits, and they were all set aside, I think, except one on a minor technicality. The courts defended the outcome of the election. There was never any evidence that there was significant fraud that in any way affected the outcome of the election. And that is not me saying it. That was then-Attorney General Barr coming to the conclusion that there was no evidence whatsoever that there was widespread fraud or any kind of fraud that was substantial enough to affect the outcome of the election.
So you had 67, maybe 70, courts that rejected all the arguments that the Trump team made. You had his own Attorney General reject it. But despite that, you had intense efforts on the part of President Trump to convince people that he won when he lost. And it got so extreme that he got on the phone with the secretary of state of Georgia and asked him to find him 11,000-plus votes to reverse the outcome of the election. He actually asked a secretary of state to completely violate his oath of office and ``find me the votes.'' You just don't do that when your job, more than anything else, as the President of the United States is to respect the process of the citizens voting for who the next President will be.
And that didn't stop after January 6. When he got feverish calls from highly respected leaders here in the Capitol--``Mr. President, you have got to do something''--that was after the invasion of the Senate when Vice President Pence was actually in quite a bit of danger. And the stories are told that when the President was told that at the White House, he said, basically, ``Why do I care?''
And that attitude persisted. It just went on and on and on. And while the President was in the White House watching TV, watching things unfold--and there was incredible violence here. Many of us were in the building--and I was. I can tell the story. I was in the House, and I was in the Gallery. And the reason I was in the Gallery as opposed to on the floor is, of course, that was COVID, so there was social distancing, so we were doing our business both on the floor and in the Gallery. The Gallery was probably the worst place to be in some ways because you couldn't get in and out with any kind of ease.
And what I so vividly remember was a couple of things. One, we had the Speaker in the Chair, and we had no idea what was going on outside. It was on TV, apparently, but we didn't have--we weren't watching it. We were watching the floor activities.
And, suddenly, the Speaker was interrupted when a Capitol Police officer came out on the floor and interrupted and shouted that the Capitol was under siege and we were to stay in place and that we were to take out the gas masks, breathing apparatus, that were under the chairs and get ready to put those on.
Now, one of the things we still have in the Senate and we had in the House was a sense of decorum. And there might be, in a fierce debate, some talking over one another on occasion, but the Chair was always the person who was in charge. And suddenly we had a police officer literally interrupting the proceedings of the House of Representatives. And I just thought to myself: How is this happening? And, of course, he told us that we were under attack. We didn't know what that meant.
I had taken that walk, a couple-of-hour walk, earlier in the morning, and I saw a lot of very aggressive activity, but I thought it was peaceful. By the way, the one thing I did see that didn't mean all that much to me in the moment but meant a lot to me after all the events unfolded was there were about three groups of people that were marching in military formation, and they were singing anthems, which were pretty vulgar, about what to do to Nancy Pelosi. But they were in a military lockstep. It was all civilians, or so I thought. But it was a formation that I later, in the videos, saw was used to overwhelm the Capitol Police who were at the gates, the racks that were surrounding the Capitol--all very, very premeditated and practiced. It was a military kind of formation.
So going back to the Gallery, we were all mystified what to do. We were apprehensive, obviously. And right after that officer spoke, I saw a couple of other Capitol Police come to the leaders. Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer--I was watching that side of the room--and I think Leader McCarthy as well were just whisked out. They were just taken out.
And then it was just silence because the mob that ultimately attacked the House side had to get from this side of the Capitol, the Senate side, over there. And we watched and waited.
And one of the things--and then we tried to go back in session, and Congressman McGovern took the Chair and tried to proceed. And I think part of it was that, even though the police officer had told us that the Capitol was under attack, we wanted to get our job done. It was January 6. We had to certify the election. It is a pretty easy job because our job is not to have a debate about who won the election; it is just to validate the vote of the citizens of the State we represent so that their will will be officially recorded and the person that the people of this country, in all our 50 States, elected will be certified. Very, very simple.
And as Mr. McGovern was attempting to proceed, there was more and more alarm, and I watched as our security staff began taking heavy furniture and putting it up as a barricade against the doors. And the doors I am talking about were the ones that--the iconic doors where, when the President of the United States is escorted to the well of the House to give an address to a Joint Session of Congress, with the great ceremony and tradition that we have, is escorted over by the Sergeant at Arms, who announces with great fanfare: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.
Well, those doors were barricaded. And at this point we all began to hear battering at the doors, those very doors--banging and banging and battering. And then I saw something else I had never seen. I saw our security staff with guns out. I had never seen that. And the banging on the door and then, eventually, the shattering of glass on these doors on the House side that are right over there, the comparable ones. And I saw this pole coming through the door itself, where the person with the pole had managed to shatter that glass.
And there were a number of us up there in the House. And all of us had different levels of fear, and one of the fears that I think a lot of us had is that this is possibly a mass shooting event. All of us know that the tragedy of modern life in this country is that mass shooting events are all too common.
But this is one of the most vivid memories I have. I was standing there and having no idea what was going to happen, but seeing that the police had their firearms out and hearing the glass shatter.
And as I was looking at this, and I was feeling actually personally fearful, as we all were, I had another feeling. It was even more dominant than my apprehension about our safety. It was disbelief.
Even as I was watching, even as I was experiencing this attack--the breaking
And the reason I didn't believe it is that this is the United States of America. We have been able to enjoy something, that apparently we took for granted, for nearly 250 years, and that is the peaceful transfer of power. That is the renunciation of violence as a means of affecting the outcome of an election. That was shattered that day on January 6.
So, of course, later we found out that there was a huge mob outside, and they did an immense amount of damage. I know they came over here and ransacked the Senate and some of the offices, including the Parliamentarian's.
We had police officers who died. We had many of our Capitol Police injured, and I want to just talk about one police officer who was in the Capitol with me. It was a young man. He was probably about 35. I had been talking to him a little bit. He had two kids. He commuted into work. As many of the folks who work here, they can't live close by. It is too expensive. And they work hard, but it is a tough grind. You have got to commute maybe an hour in heavy traffic to come in and out, especially folks with a young family.
And he was literally standing over me when I was on the floor, with his gun out. And as you know, in the Gallery, it is like in the Senate Chambers. There are all these doors around the Gallery, and they were not all secure, although we did have some Capitol Police up there. And the apprehension all of us had at that point was there was going to be a mob coming through those doors and attacking us directly.
And this officer, a young man, had his weapon out, and he was intently surveilling. And I could just see--or maybe I am imagining what was going through his mind--the last thing in the world he wanted to do, the last thing, was to have to use that weapon on a fellow citizen who was in the Capitol, and, I am sure, for all kinds of reasons.
I mean, just think of the responsibility one has if their job is to protect Members of Congress and the staff, and in the doing of that job, you actually have to make a decision to use your sidearm; and how traumatic that would be for the officer if he, in fact, had to do it-- this person who has a family, who is working hard, whose partner is expecting him home in a matter of hours. Maybe he is going to pick up the milk or pick up his kid at school on the way home. All the activities of everyday life--that is what is important to all of us.
But what I could see is that, as horrible as it would be for him to have to take that action, if that was what was required--and, in my case, I was the one he was really protecting--he did not want to do it, but I could just see he was determined to do whatever was required to protect us.
You know, that is the point where I really got disgusted with the people who were attacking, because I was wondering how is it? You know, I get it. You think your guy won, and you are over the top here. You have actually shown up at the Capitol. And, you know, some were violent. A lot were really violent. Others were less so, but they obviously were part of the mob scene here.
But what disturbed me was the lack of capacity on the part of the folks attacking the Capitol to experience or empathize or see the impact that their actions were having on everyday Americans. Not us in Congress. They don't like us. They don't think we represent them. I get that.
But what I don't understand is how a grievance you may have against Members of Congress on that day or the Vice President or on the actors who were going to actually do the certification--how you would allow yourself to be part of a group that did such harm, in this case, to that officer who was standing over me--to put him in such jeopardy, to cause him such anguish and trauma. You know, there is just no justification.
We have an obligation to one another. As passionate as we may be about the political concerns that we have, it doesn't justify just treating with enormous disrespect, with physical violence, people who just aren't involved in it? They are just collateral damage.
And then to think that while this was going on, President Trump was watching TV, and he was getting frantic calls from people like Kevin McCarthy, the leader, and others: Stop this. It is out of hand. You have got to call them off.
He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it.
So that was a dark day, and it is not over. January 6 was the first time in our history where there was a mob attack like that on the Capitol by a group inspired by the President of the United States, where the purpose was to stop the really clerical administrative process of certifying--not electing, but certifying--the victor of the election for President of the United States.
And what the President's team had done is cooked up a bunch of theories, all of which were dismissed by the courts, to make a case that the electors should be rejected and substitute electors provided to get an outcome that the person who lost the election wanted in order to claim that he won the election.
But there is the fact that the President of the United States, who is the custodian, really, and the one most representative of the whole people of the United States--and the need and importance of us having additional commitment to the peaceful transfer of power--was rejecting that and encouraging people to act against that tradition.
And he did an effective job in persuading a lot of people who supported him. And, in fact, many of the folks who came on January 6 later testified that they thought the President wanted them here and that they believed the President when he said the election was stolen. There is an immense amount of power in that office and in the person of Donald Trump. So a lot of people who came here thought they were doing patriotic work.
And then, of course, the Senate and the House reconvened, and we did certify the election. But the dispute continued, and many in the House and many in the Senate voted against certification, in my view, without any justification whatsoever. But there was enormous turmoil among people of our country because a lot of folks did believe--inspired by President Trump's assertions--that the election was ``rigged.''
And then, of course, after the certification and even the swearing in of President Biden, the continuing assertion by President Trump was that the election was stolen. He never stopped that narrative.
And I am not enough of a historian to know if what happened on January 20 with respect to the inauguration was unique, but President Trump did not show up. He did not sit on the dais. And the tradition that we have had, of course, in this country as part of the peaceful transfer of power is that the outgoing President does sit on the dais and acknowledges the arrival of the new President elected by the people.
And it is a wonderful ceremony because it reminds us that the power that a President has is derived from the will of the people, and it is temporary. It is while that person is in office that they hold the power of that office until they don't.
So I have been to a few inaugurations, and the only one I have been to where the outgoing President wasn't there was that one. You know, another thing so incredible, the first inauguration I went to was in 2008, and it was George Bush, a transfer of power to Barack Obama. And the ceremony that I remember most vividly was not what happened on the dais in the taking of the oath by President Obama. It was after.
You know, the President takes his oath. Following that, he comes into the building, the Capitol, and there is a dinner with legislative leaders and others, the guests of the President. And there is a lot of fanfare, a lot of people around. But after all that happens, on the East steps, the President and First Lady and the Vice President and the Second Lady, at that time, walked down the steps just themselves. And on each step is a uniformed military person from each one of the service branches.
And there are not people out there. There is some press far away so they can record this. But my wife Margaret and I were out there watching, and I got a pretty good view because I was a Member of Congress then. And they have a ceremony where the branches of the military, each of them, wears a
And each branch comes by, and as they get right across from the President, who may be 100 feet away, they all turn and salute.
And I just thought: This is a miracle that we have a country where at 11:59 a.m., all of those people who just marched by, their allegiance was to the then President, President Bush. And at 12:01, their allegiance is to the newly elected President, at that time President Obama.
And what is so moving to me is the power of this democracy that we have, where these magnificent, wonderful people, who serve in the military and make this choice to serve, respect the constitutional order that ultimately the power belongs to the people. The person they elected is the Commander in Chief, and their allegiance is not just to that person, that newly elected President. It is to the constitutional right that the people are in charge, not the military. You know, we take it for granted here because it has been there since George Washington.
That is not the way it works in so many parts of the world. If there is turmoil that is political in many parts of the world, the military steps in, and they take over. But this incredibly durable strength of our democracy where it is civilian control in the military is a testament.
And I witnessed that then, and I witnessed it again in the inauguration of President Trump, although that parade because of the weather had to be downstairs in the Capitol Visitors Center.
But what made that happen? What made that happen is not just that the military has that respect for the Constitution that they certainly do, but because all of our leaders--all of our elected Presidents-- understood that there was a tradition we had here that was absolutely vital to maintain and preserve, and that is the peaceful transfer of power, and that is to accept the outcome of an election.
And we have had close elections. That one wasn't a particularly close election. Just think of Bush v. Gore. It all came down to a few votes, hanging chads in Florida, and ultimately, a Supreme Court decision. A lot of us disagree with that decision, but Vice President Gore then accepted the outcome of the election, including the role that the Court played in that.
And there is enormous heartache for the losing side. But what all of us have experienced is the pain of defeat--maybe not all of us, but most of us. And if you haven't experienced it yet, it is waiting for you. Sometimes, it can be an ambition that is thwarted. Sometimes, it can be your health that is compromised. But if we are fortunate, then we understand if you get set back, you lose, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and you get back in, and you fight again.
In my political life, I lost two elections. It is a big deal when you put yourself out there--whether it is running for office or trying to get a job--and you get set back. But it is universal. It is always there. But in politics, it is not so much about you losing an election. What is really critical is that we don't lose our democracy.
Each of us has an obligation when we win or when we lose to move on. And if we lost, we get a chance to fight another day. That is what we all knew. You lose an election--the Democrats lose, Republicans lose-- you come back, run again. Your party runs again, and you have a shot to get the support of the American people.
January 6 shattered that, and the lingering effects of January 6 are still here. As we know, President Trump never acknowledged that he lost that election and Joe Biden won. And a big part of his comeback was a continuation of the ``Big Steal.'' And it is really a danger to our democracy that now, emboldened by his win--and he won, OK--he won the popular vote this time; he won the electoral vote.
His boast that it was a landslide is totally false. It is about a point and a half margin of victory. We are a divided country. A Lincolnesque kind of President, but acknowledged the obvious, that it was a close call for the American people, but he won. But his job is to represent everybody, whether they voted for him or not.
I think all of us in the Senate, we won, we are here, we are really happy we got the approval of the people we represent. But I think all of us know, whether people voted for us or not--I have an obligation to everybody in Vermont, as you do to everybody in Wyoming, they have a right to be heard.
What we are getting, I think, is a version of leadership at this point that rejects that. Where we are now, and it is very regrettable, we have an administration that is talking about going after people that they perceive as political adversaries, and that will have real effects.
We had hearings about it in the Judiciary and in the Finance Committee. In the Judiciary Committee, we heard from Pam Bondi, the nominee, now Attorney General, and Kash Patel, whom we have not voted on yet, for FBI Director.
In the case of Pam Bondi, I was very impressed with her. She is quite an accomplished person--attorney general in the county that she grew up in Florida, then she had the gumption to run a statewide race in the third biggest State of our country, and she won that to be attorney general. By all accounts, she did a really good job.
But one of the questions that she was asked, Mr. Patel was asked, and others have been asked is the simple question: Who won the election in 2020? President Trump cannot tolerate anyone acknowledging that Biden won. So the standard answer now that they go through in their preparation for the hearings is that President Biden was the President or he was certified. But they can't say--because it would infuriate President Trump--that he lost or the other guy won.
Now, why is that so worrisome to me? Because it is a continuation of the denial of the decision the American people made. And it is an indication of a demand of fealty that the President is imposing on people who are going to be in very important positions.
Law enforcement, where an Attorney General and FBI Director have enormous power to prosecute and where aggression is a good quality, you want to be ambitious and work hard for the American people, bring law breakers to justice.
But restraint is also extraordinarily important in those positions because the power you have by bringing in prosecution is the power to ruin the life of a person. So there has to be great caution and reservation and restraint in folks who have that awesome power.
And my take on the insistence by the President that an individual is going to serve him, not acknowledge who won the 2020 election, is an indication that first and foremost, the President is demanding fealty to him, as opposed to fealty to the Constitution.
We are in the first whirlwind weeks of a new Presidency, and I am alarmed. I am alarmed at what appears to be a disregard for the law on the part of President Trump.
No. 1, the order the President sent out impounding money that was appropriated by Congress is a direct challenge to the institutional responsibility authority of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress. Under our Constitution, article I, the Congress has the power of the purse, the Congress decides how to raise money, the Congress decides how to spend money.
We have a President in the past who tried to end run that and take away the power that the Congress has. And that, of course, is President Nixon. And the Court found what he did illegal, and Congress passed the Impoundment Act to prohibit the President from doing that, although allowing a President to come before Congress to seek a revision in the appropriations we made. That is the way to do it. This Impoundment Act cut across all levels of government and completely rejected the authority of Congress.
Now, some people may not care about that; let the President decide. So why is it really important? Just as the peaceful transfer of power has been the hallmark of our democracy and served us well, the system of checks and balances of three branches of government--coequal--where ambition is challenged by ambition, in the words of one of our great legal philosophers--
So we have the three branches. And there is a tug of war oftentimes. But the last thing in the world any of us can do, in my view, as U.S. Senators, is to abdicate our responsibility under the Constitution to be a separate branch of government. For me, that would be a violation of my oath.
And where you have a direct challenge by the executive, as you do with the Impoundment Act--the memo the President sent out basically picking and choosing which appropriations he is OK with and which he isn't, that is a direct challenge to the authority of the Congress.
As I say, this is not about us individually needing authority. It is about good governance. It is about the constitutional principles of how, as a large and diverse country, we navigate the political questions that have to be addressed in every generation--questions about war and peace, that we do everything that is within our power to protect that separation of powers and stand up for the institutional responsibilities of the U.S. Senate.
The other aspect of this that is very disturbing to me is reminiscent of my experience when I was in the Gallery with a police officer, the young man who wanted to go home to his family and who is now in enormous jeopardy, if not physically, the trauma of what he had to experience and what may have been required of him to do.
There is a kind of callousness to that on the part of the attackers where he is just erased. His feelings don't matter. Whether he gets home with the milk he promised to bring, whether he gets there to pick up his child at soccer doesn't matter to them.
What reminds me of that is the impact of this impoundment and what it did to everyday people. Of course, I am talking the impoundment, but also, I am talking about the letter that went out telling people who are working in countries like Malawi. They are working with us with USAID. They are working in Rwanda. They are working in Ethiopia. They are providing food to people who are starving, providing vaccines to people who may be sick. They are teaching young girls.
I was in Malawi with Senator Murray and this beautiful young girl-- really, she is probably 12 years old--went to school at USAID. She came up to Senator Murray and just threw her arms around her and thanked her that there was this school. She could go to school. But this letter went out in an email. You wake up and open up your inbox, and it says: You no longer work. You are done.
How cruel is that? It is cruel to this person, a USAID worker, whose life is to serve. That is why they are in USAID. They get gratification from serving, and you take that away from them.
But then think about that young girl who threw her arms around Senator Murray and is thrilled. Here she is in Malawi. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, and she is thrilled that she is reading. She is thinking: Maybe I could be a doctor. She is thinking that she could have a big life and be independent, and the teacher who has been showing up for the past several months doesn't appear, and there is no explanation to her.
That has happened in country after country after country and AID project after AID project after AID project. There is a cruelty here that is just bad for us. I mean, that is not how we treat one another no matter how much we disagree on politics. So that actually makes me sad about what is happening.
You know, there are really large issues here that affect us. I was listening to Senator Murphy, and I thought he made some really terrific points, you know, about our democracy, about what dynamic is happening here with this new administration, about the wealth transfer that is happening.
You know, I will give President Trump this: He did tap into a lot of heartache and a lot of anxiety and a lot of concern that people around the country had. They didn't like the way things were going, and they felt, I think, economically, that they weren't getting ahead despite working really hard. I think that is something that he tapped into, and I think, to some extent, we Democrats did not do the job on the securing of the southern border inasmuch as we did with many of the initiatives, economic initiatives, of the last administration.
There is a reality that confronts all of us, Republicans and Democrats, that if you are a young family and you are trying to buy a house, that is out of reach. Healthcare that we used to be able to count on is getting incredibly expensive. The cost of childcare for young families is like going to college. I mean, these things are really tough on people, and we have got to address them, but those challenges that I just mentioned are in all of America. It is not like that is just red America or blue America. You could talk to a family in Vermont. You could talk to a family, probably, in Wyoming or in Idaho or in Ohio. The challenges they face are very similar.
What that suggests to me is that the problems that we face and that the people we represent face are real. In a campaign, we can argue about who has the better prescription to address them. You won that campaign the last time. You did. By the way, I can say, ``Donald Trump won the election.'' I don't like to say it, but I can say it, and I should say it because he did. But now is the time where the focus we have together should be to try to solve those problems and make life better for everyday people in the Presiding Officer's State and in mine.
But do you know? If you listen to the inaugural speech of President Trump, I didn't hear any words about housing. I didn't hear any words about childcare. I didn't hear any words about clean air. I didn't hear any words about strengthening rural hospitals. All of those things that we share in common and that are real challenges weren't talked about. The big emphasis was on these tax cuts. You know, those tax cuts will help some everyday people--some of them--but an immense amount of the allocation of those tax cuts is going to go to folks who are doing really well and to our corporations that are doing really well. Those tax cuts are going to come and be paid for by cutting into some of the services the government provides through the private sector, oftentimes to the citizens in every one of our States, and Senator Murphy went through a lot of those.
The House has now taken the lead on his tax bill. They are trying to come up with ways to cut the spending in order to pay for the tax cuts. Medicare is in jeopardy. Medicaid is in jeopardy. Childcare, to the extent we help, is in jeopardy. So there is a real wealth transfer that has been built into this major agenda item.
The other aspect of this that is disturbing to me is just the impact it has on people in Vermont. There is a lot of turmoil for our businesses and for our service providers. Let me just talk about some of the effects of these across-the-board cuts that the President is talking about and how it would affect Vermont.
It would freeze funding for Head Start. As the Presiding Officer knows, that affects, like, 1,200 kids in Vermont. It really makes a difference to their getting off to a decent start. It is the poor kids who oftentimes don't get the nutrition that they need, and a lot of these kids with the benefit of Head Start go on to become very successful people.
A freeze in funding for community health centers: You know, when the administration sent out that directive just, really, freezing funding-- one of the community health centers that we have is the Wells River health center, a community health center. I was talking to the director. They provide healthcare for people in what we call the Northeast Kingdom--it is a very low-income part of our State with very, very hard-working and proud people--and they have an operating cash margin of, like, 0 to 5 days.
So, when the funding was cut off and, of course, the website too-- where you can get payments and find out what is going on--it was closed down just unilaterally, which is something Mr. Vought thinks is a good idea. When that happened, the director was in an incredible bind. He had workers who were showing up. He had moms who were bringing their kids in for a dental appointment they had been trying to
Why would you do that? You know, if you have a plan where you are saying, ``Hey, we are spending too much money. We have got to figure out how to tighten our belts,'' then you take some time to have a plan, and there is some consultation with the Agency and the people who are affected. That is a responsible way to proceed but not to have just a bolt out of the blue, when you open up your inbox and you are told you are shutting down. There are the ripple effects that that has on a community. Then, of course, people who work there have to make their plans because they can't wait indefinitely to get the decision as to whether they will or won't have a job, whether it be a community health center will stay open or it will close. There is a lot of destruction that goes into an action that the administration took with that.
You know, we had a couple of roundtables because people were really, really stressed and calling all of our offices. We are a small State like the Presiding Officer is, and, you know, one of the privileges that I think he and I both have is that of being a Senator in a small State, we really get to know an awful lot of the people we represent. I know I have talked to the Presiding Officer about this: The great joy we get is in that interaction with the folks we represent, and that is whether we agree with them or not, whether they voted for us or not. It also makes it a little more painful because it is very real; it is not abstract.
So I will just tell a few stories about some of the Vermonters who got affected.
Sarah Robinson is with the Vermont Network Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. She said:
If they get a call in the middle of the night that a woman is getting battered, they respond. They have a network of volunteers who goes out. They will bring that woman to safety, and they will have a safe house for her. That is a pretty amazing service--and, suddenly, that is cut off.
Andy Barter is from the Little Rivers Health Care Center. That is the one I was talking about earlier up in Wells River.
He said:
You know, you get these local institutions, and they are so important to everyday people. You count on being able to bring your daughter or your son to the doctor, and it is somebody you know.
I mean, again, I have such respect for the Presiding Officer and admiration in his career as a physician and in the healing he does. I know, you know, the joy he gets in that service; but, suddenly, we have got doctors who end up having that same ethic that you have in Vermont, and, suddenly, the people who depended on them can't go there.
Vermont State Representative Kate Logan, who works at Elevate, said, ``Our agencies are currently serving 78 [young people]--youth,'' and if they don't get the resources, they are not going to be able to continue their services. This is about housing and homelessness. Of course, that problem in Vermont, like in all of our States, has increased very, very significantly.
Sonali Samarasinghe, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, said:
So this is not new funds they are seeking. These are the funds that have been authorized and have been committed and--boom--out of nowhere, they are told they are out of business.
Karen Price, the Vermont Family Network. She said:
Steve Schmida from Resonance: They do a lot of work with USAID.
He told me: ``Seventy percent of our work is with the [USAID] and the State Department. Before the Secretary of State's and Secretary Marco Rubio's foreign assistance stop work order . . . 62 of those have now been laid off.
This is in the inbox: You are not working anymore.
It is no different than if we went home tonight--each one of us--had a nice meal with our families, went to bed, looking forward to resting and getting up and facing today, getting up and--boom--in the inbox, we are told: Don't show up for work.
The two features that I have seen so far in this administration, it really is a continuation of the January 6 ethic, is a willingness to disregard the law--the shattering of norms--and a casual infliction of cruelty for no reason on everyday Americans who just want to keep doing the job that they have and do the work that needs to be done.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Nomination of Russell Vought (Executive Calendar)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. President, since the beginning of the Trump administration a little over 2 weeks ago, my office has heard directly from Arizonans about how the cronies of this President are impacting their day-to-day lives.
In one his first acts, the President and the Office of Management and Budget moved to freeze the grants and loans to Arizona organizations that work tirelessly each day to better the lives of Arizona families. These are not people who do the work because they are chasing a high salary. They are not doing it out of a drive to be millionaires or billionaires. They are doing it to help their fellow Arizonans.
The programs impacted by the Federal freeze include Assistance to Firefighters Grants so our firefighters can purchase equipment; Staffing for Adequate Fire Emergency Response--better known as SAFER-- Grants, which fund the hiring of firefighters; sexual assault services, which provide rape kits to sexual assault survivors; and Preventing the Trafficking of Girls, which supports the prevention and early intervention services for girls who are at risk of or are victims of sex and/or labor trafficking; the Rural Violent Crime Initiative, which supports the implementation of violent crime reduction strategies, improves investigations, improves services to victims, and enhances collaboration between local stakeholders; Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program, which provides death and education benefits for survivors of fallen officers and firefighters; violence against women formula grants, which improves our capacity to reduce domestic violence; the Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, which are used to purchase critical technology, infrastructure, et cetera, for police departments and other public safety entities; and the CHIPS Research and Development Programs to grow Arizona's semiconductor industry and the country's.
These lifesaving programs and economic drivers were canceled not because they were ineffective, not because Congress voted to cut them, but because they were in the way of one man's crusade to tear down the Federal Government, and that man is OMB nominee Russell Vought.
Russell Vought is a danger to the United States. He has been a staunch advocate for drastically eliminating or cutting our safety net programs, such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. He helped design Trump-era budgets that sought to cut trillions from these programs, while simultaneously advocating for tax cuts that would only benefit the wealthiest of Americans.
So let's make sure we understand what is happening here. He wants to cut help for the poorest Americans to make sure that there is enough money left over to give it to the richest Americans. His vision for America is one where billionaires thrive while the families of Arizona and America struggle to get ahead.
Vought has showed complete disregard for our democratic institutions. He was a key architect of efforts to politicize the Federal bureaucracy and push for policies that would replace career civil servants with partisan loyalists.
He played a significant role in enabling the Trump administration's refusal to cooperate with congressional
The Office of Management and Budget is one of the most powerful Agencies in the country. It is responsible for crafting the President's budget, overseeing regulatory policies, and ensuring the efficient operation of government programs.
The OMB Director must believe in the fundamental mission of government, which is to serve the people. Vought, by contrast, has spent his career trying to dismantle government institutions and push an extreme agenda that benefits only a select few.
If confirmed to lead OMB, Vought would have the ability to impose cuts on essential programs, further politicize the Federal workforce, and continue his assaults on democratic institutions. His leadership would result in policies that worsen economic inequality, weaken national security by defunding key Agencies, and eroding public confidence in government.
The confirmation of Vought would not only be a step backward, but it would also embolden extremists seeking to undermine the role of government. His approach to governance is not about responsible budgeting or efficiency; it is about dismantling the Federal Government from within. The stakes are too high to allow such a dangerous individual to return to a position of power.
Russell Vought is a major threat to our democratic institutions. His track record makes it abundantly clear that he is unfit for any leadership management role in budget, in government, especially one as powerful as the Office of Management and Budget.
Confirming Vought would allow an individual with a history of extremism, obstructionism, and divisiveness to control the country's budget and regulatory framework. His vision for America is one where government serves only the wealthy and the powerful, while ordinary citizens are left without support and the services they need.
In the face of such a threat, it is crucial that we reject any attempt to put Vought in any position of power. The future of the country depends on leaders who believe in governance, transparency, and fairness, not those who seek to destroy it and the institutions that make this all work.
The Senate and the American people must stand firm against this confirmation, ensuring that those who wield power do so in service of this Nation, understand why they are doing it, understand that it is not just for the sake of ideologic crusades that we should be putting Vought in power but to make sure that we have a government that answers for the people and by the people.
In conclusion, we must remember at the core what is going to happen and what is happening.
Just yesterday, I met with many of my local healthcare centers in Arizona--more than 50 of them--and I asked them: What is going on in your communities? What is happening right now?
Many of them were telling me about the fear that they are hearing in the communities. What many of them also told me--these are very critical community health centers, some of the health centers that are the frontlines of taking care of some of the poorest communities in the country with some of the largest health disparities in the country, people that are chronically ill and going to these places because it is the last place that will see them since they do not have doctors, they don't have access to hospitals, and they don't have access to insurance.
These community health centers were telling me that right now, most of them still cannot access payment. The organizations that are essentially taking care of the poorest of this country cannot get payments for services they are giving to these poor communities, for the contracts that we signed with them as the Federal Government, because people like Vought want to freeze those grants. They want to freeze out those types of groups that are taking care of the poor in order to save as much money so that they can give this money and these tax cuts to the richest of Americans. It is the most cynical thing we could be doing, the most cynical thing this Trump administration could be doing, and certainly it is a very dangerous thing that OMB nominee Vought will be doing.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
I want to thank my colleague from Arizona, originally from Chicago, for taking time to come this morning to the floor of the Senate.
Let me also thank the Presiding Officer and the staff who have weathered this experience as we consider the nomination of Russell Vought for the Office of Management and Budget. I know it has been a personal and demanding sacrifice on their part, and I thank them for being here.
Why are we doing this? We are hoping to call attention to this nomination. Most people in America, if asked, would not be able to identify the initials of OMB, Office of Management and Budget, and if they could identify it as a Federal Agency, they would be hard-pressed to know what it does.
I have been in politics in the congressional government for a number of years, and I have insight into what the Agency can do. I want to tell you, the head of the OMB, although not a very known figure across America, has more power than almost anyone in the President's Cabinet. This person decides policy and spending supports across the Federal Government and can make a serious, serious difference.
Russell Vought has had a chance to show America what he will do if given another chance to head the OMB. You see, in the final 2 years of the first Trump administration, he had the same job, so we saw him in action, and we saw what his philosophy might be.
I want to read you something which sounds incredible, but I am afraid it is true, from the press release by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Here is what they wrote in their position paper branding Russell Vought as a ``dangerous choice to head OMB'':
Under President Trump's first term--
I am now quoting Russell Vought--
Russell Vought, what he would do if head of the OMB. Honest to God, is that what we want in America--a person who takes a look at Federal employees that do a myriad of responsible tasks in our Federal Government and treats them as villains, traumatizes them?
For Mr. Vought, this sounds like a political game, but for many of these people, first, it is their lives and their careers that they have dedicated to their country and their government to do the best they can, and some critical jobs, which we may take for granted on a regular basis until that moment when we realize how important they will be.
It was just a few weeks ago when we had a horrible plane crash near Washington National Airport. I followed that closely because I will tell you, literally, I have flown that flight pattern a thousand times--a thousand. I returned home to Illinois every week that I served in the House for 14 years and then in the U.S. Senate now 28 years, so I know that piece of real estate pretty well.
Planes come down the Potomac River to avoid noise in the city of Washington, and some have to make a rather abrupt turn into the runway 33 that is available to them.
The evening of the accident, an American Airlines plane made the turn and came into contact with an Army helicopter. Sixty-seven people died.
We checked to see what was going on with air traffic control, and we realized that the air traffic controller was doing double-duty that night. He had to do not only the civilian side but the military side. It is not beyond a person's capacity, but it is not preferable. There should have been more air traffic controllers on the job.
Air traffic controllers are Federal employees, Mr. Vought. Want to traumatize our air traffic controllers? I don't. I want to feel safe in an airplane. I want to be able to travel with my family with the comfort of knowing that a professional who works for the Federal Government is doing his or her job well.
Of course, if you are going to traumatize and call them villains and make them the object of your political fantasies, that is what you get with Mr. Vought and the OMB. It is not fair. It is not fair to them, and it is not fair to the American people. These people who work in our Federal Government do responsible, important jobs day in and day out.
My staff advised me yesterday that this is reaching a point where no one seems to be in control.
They have decided to save money by eliminating the publication of public health brochures that are put out regularly on a weekly basis to notify people all around the United States and the world of outbreaks of illnesses and diseases that could be dangerous.
For the first time since 1961, we have stopped publishing those in the last 2 weeks. The Trump administration has decided to ``save money'' by reducing the information available to medical professionals all over the world.
They used to look to us, count on us every single week to put out this publication. We stopped doing it ``to save money.'' I am afraid the day is going to come when we regret that decision and a lot of things that flow from it. I want to say a word, too, about the Department of Justice. Yesterday, I had an individual come to see me who is seeking to be the Deputy Attorney General--a good fellow. I had never met him before. And he talked about his career in the law and what he had done as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney. His resume is certainly strong.
I asked him a question: When he worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office, was he given assignments, or did he choose his caseload?
Oh, when you are brand new, you take what they send you. They put me to work on files and cases as they wish, and I did them willingly. That was my job as a member of the Department of Justice.
So I said: So you have had no, really, personal decision over these cases? You just did what you were given by your superiors?
And he said: That is exactly right, and that is how it works.
And I said: Would it be fair to say that when it came to the assignment of these cases, some hierarchy made that decision, not yourself.
He said: Of course.
I said: Do you know what is going on in the Department of Justice now? They are asking the employees of the Department of Justice to fill out a questionnaire. The Trump administration wants to know: Did you play any role in the prosecution of those accused of violence here in the Capitol on January 6, 2021?
And clearly this is being done to separate out those who prosecuted those thugs who came into this building and attacked us. And I don't know where this is going to lead. We are going to have to watch it closely. It has not been done before.
If they are dismissed, terminated, it is fundamentally unfair.
As this individual who wants to be part of the Trump administration told me, he had nothing to say about the assignment. He did what he was told, and he did the best job he could. And now to fire these individuals because of the January 6 rioters is just fundamentally unfair.
Mr. President, you are new to this Chamber, and I have been here a while. And I will tell you that day, January 6, 2021, is one that I will remember for the rest of my life. I was sitting at this seat on the floor of the Senate. Vice President Pence was the Presiding Officer. We were going about our responsibility under the Constitution to count the electoral votes and to announce who won the Presidential election.
It was a rather routine assignment in the past, and people haven't noticed. But it has taken on new importance and attracted more attention now because of disputes over votes in various States. And 2020 was one of the most graphic examples of that, when President Trump announced afterward that he did not lose the election; that it was stolen. And he gathered together his supporters who believed that point of view into a rally on January 6 on the Capital Mall.
Thousands of people showed up at the President's invitation, and he invited them to come to the Capitol and go wild. They sure did. They went wild by beating down the doors, breaking the windows, crashing through the doors, coming into the U.S. Capitol Building while we were meeting here.
Vice President Pence, at about 2:10 p.m.--I saw him turn to one of the Secret Service agents who was protecting him, and the agent grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the chair you are sitting in right now and took him off the floor. And we were sitting here with no one presiding.
Chuck Grassley, President pro tempore, was going to take the Chair, and a member of the Capitol Hill police, instead, walked up to where you are sitting and announced to all the Senators in the Chamber and the staff people to stay in this room. This was going to be a protected room, a safe room, and that other people were going to join us.
Meanwhile, outside, you could hear the roar of the crowd as they were crashing through the doors and beating up on Capitol Hill policemen. We were here for about 10 minutes when the same Capitol Hill policeman came up and said: Change of plans. We can't keep this room safe. Grab your belongings and leave quickly through that door, which we did.
We went to a building nearby and waited to see what would happen next. I was part of the leadership that was called to a secure location, and I was with Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
As we followed the proceedings of what was happening on the floor, it was a horrible scene. We were able to see the Senate Chamber through C- SPAN and realize that the thugs who were taking over the building were sitting in your chair, going through my desk, posing for pictures, jumping off the balconies. It was a scene you couldn't image.
It was sickening to me. This building means something to me. It has been an important part of my life. I went to college here in Washington. I used to come up for my assignments in my part-time job and get a chance to steal away for a few minutes and sit in the Gallery and follow what was going on, on the Senate floor. Just to be in this building, I considered a privilege, and I still do. And here were people doing horrible things in the building and beating up on the Capitol Hill policemen and the DC policemen who were trying to keep us safe.
That was the reality of what happened. These people who work for the Senate and the House are Federal employees. In Russell Vought's view, the villains--the villains--that is what he calls them. Risking their lives to keep us safe and being called villains by Russell Vought, for goodness sake--has he no sense of responsibility for the men and women and their families who risk their lives for this building.
Those who were prosecuted for this ended up being in the hundreds of individuals--some for misdemeanors, for trespass; others for more serious crimes, assaulting police officers.
One of them already has been released by a pardon from President Trump. He went on to defy a policeman in Indiana, and there was a gunfight that followed, and this individual was shot dead on the scene just a few days after he was released by the President's pardon.
The point I am trying to make is that there are important and serious jobs taking place here in Washington and around the Nation. We count on Federal employees, and we count on people to be held accountable if they violate the law. I am sickened by the fact that these men and women in uniform, whom I have come to know over the years, are considered to be disposable, dispensable. In my mind, they are not. Their lives are worth something, and those who attacked them should be held responsible.
So when the wheels of justice turned, and these individuals were held responsible, it was through the Department of Justice. Now, there is a hunt on in the Department to find out each and every one of their names. If they are going on a list to be terminated, I would just say to the Trump administration, you are in for a fight. These men and
I am sad to report that Kash Patel, who is President Trump's nominee to head up the Federal Bureau of Investigation, does not agree with me, and I will tell you why.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has 28,000 Federal agents around the world, 400 different field offices. These individuals are the premiere law enforcement Agency of the United States of America and have an international reputation. Mr. Patel wants to be the person to head that Agency.
And yet what he decided to do--this is Kash Patel--was to make a project out of music from those who were convicted of crimes on January 6, 2021. He gathered together a number of them--he swears he doesn't even know their names--and created a recording, a song that he wrote and proudly played at President Trump's rallies, a song to be sung by the prisoners, and they call them the J6 Choir.
We asked Mr. Patel to tell us more. He said: Well, all the proceeds of the album go to the families of the prisoners.
I said: Did you ever consider the proceeds going to the families of the men and women in uniform who were risking their lives to keep this building safe?
No, he said. He focused on the families of the prisoners. He called them political prisoners.
Of course, they were convicted under the court of law. Many of them pled guilty. They couldn't deny the fact of what the videotape showed of their conduct.
So Mr. Patel was raising money through this recording being played at the Trump rallies of these individuals. He said he just didn't know their names or who they might be. And we are considering this individual to head up the FBI.
What would morale be like at the FBI if a person is put in charge who was entertaining America with the songs by the prisoners in jail who raided this Capitol?
I often think--I wonder what we would have thought if the tables were turned a little bit on January 6, and it didn't happen here in Washington, but happened in London. If we heard that a mob had crashed down the doors of Parliament and taken control of the House of Commons. My reaction would have been: It is impossible. I have been there. I have seen that. It is carefully guarded and watched, and it is a venerable institution when it comes to parliamentary law. I can't imagine that a mob would take over the House of Commons in London.
Well, think about America, and think about the impression of what happened on January 6 to other people around the world, and that this happened in our time, in this building. We have to go back to the War of 1812 to find an invasion of an enemy force.
And now we come to January 6, 2021, so-called political prisoners-- some call them tourists--who came in and desecrated this building. That was the reality.
I am only making that point because I think it is a serious, historic event, and one that we will think about many times again.
Individuals who were involved in that were Federal employees, and they were doing their job and risking their lives in the process for doing it.
So what is going on through the Office of Management and Budget? There is a man named Matthew Vaeth, V-A-E-T-H, who issued an order. He called for a freeze on Federal spending not that long ago, 2 weeks or so. I don't know if he thought through what he was doing, but he said he was doing it to make sure that there would be no Federal spending which would support transgenderism--that was one of them--or what he called Marxian--capital M--Marxian equity or some Green New Deal. So he wanted to make sure there was no political investment in those causes across America.
Do you know what he shut down? He shut down a Head Start Program in Chicago, IL. It is called El Valor. It has been in business for many years. Families of moderate income who live in the neighborhood send their kids to the Head Start Program, and they are very proud of the results. These kids are learning how to read. They are learning how to socialize. They are going to be ready for kindergarten and ready for school as a result of it.
Well, Mr. Vaeth at OMB decided to shut it down and cut off their funds. And at least overnight, there was a fear that that was exactly what would happen.
It was only when there was a national response in opposition to that, that they reversed their position and decided to keep some of the things open.
Head Start is open in Chicago, which I just mentioned, but there are others that are questioning whether they are open as well.
I got a phone call, as well, from some doctors in Chicago during this shutdown--this OMB shutdown under President Trump. And I said: What impact has this had on you?
They said: We are researchers for the National Institutes of Health. We work in laboratories looking for cures for diseases--heart disease, cancer, all sorts of different challenges. And we, frankly, were told at 5 p.m. on the day of his order to stop working on what we were doing. Most of the projects that we are involved in are long-term projects involving a lot of work that goes beyond regular work hours. But we were told to stop--stop medical research--because of this order from the Federal Government that came out of the OMB.
So when we consider what happened, just a few days ago--and it is still reverberating around country--and consider the nomination of Russell Vought, you have to ask yourself, honest to goodness, do you consider that to be a villain who is working at that laboratory in Chicago for a National Institutes of Health project?
I consider that person to be a great professional, and I wish them all the success and luck in the world. To characterize them as villains, as Mr. Vought has done, is unfair to them and an indication of his values.
So we are trying to appeal to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us with a few votes to stop Mr. Russell Vought from taking over the Office of Management and Budget.
This is an important responsibility, and it is one that needs to be left in the hands of those who will accept that responsibility personally.
I see that my colleague has joined me from Maryland. I am glad she is here. I am going to wrap up by just saying: We are going to rue the day if we put Russell Vought in this job as to what he is going to do.
When he characterizes our Federal employees as villains and says we will put them in trauma--do you want our air traffic controllers to be in trauma? Do you want the men and women who are responsible at the FBI for keeping our country safe from terrorism to be in trauma?
I want them working for America's future, as they have in the past, and to characterize them as the enemy is unfair.
I will be voting against Russell Vought, and I hope other colleagues will join me.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. President, Democrats have been here all night-- and guess what? We are not letting up, because, right now, in Maryland and across this country, the administration is conducting a witch hunt for Federal workers.
See, when the President said ``I am your retribution,'' he meant that he will scapegoat, bully, and attempt to silence the Federal workforce. It is a retribution that they do not deserve.
I really want to paint a picture of who these Federal workers are and who they are not. They are not partisan hacks, hell-bent on pursuing some kind of political agenda. They are not part of some deep state conspiracy that, apparently, keeps this President awake at night.
In fact, to the contrary, these people are hard-working Americans who believe in this government regardless of who the President is. As a matter of fact, they are my friends; many of them are my neighbors; and they are my constituents. They are Marylanders.
See, I represent over 150,000 Federal workers. In Maryland, we are proud to have the highest number of Federal workers per capita in the country.
How shameless. How reckless. How callous. How depraved.
There have been so many actions that this administration has taken to villainize and hurt our civil servants, and I want to be explicit about exactly what they are up to.
They have fired inspectors general--the people who conduct independent audits and investigations within government Agencies to detect and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. It is to replace independent watchdogs--this is the plan--with loyalists. Now you want to talk about making government efficient? Might I suggest not firing the very people who are committed to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse of our taxpayer dollars.
Next, we have the whole Federal buyout scheme--yes, a scheme--and today marks the last day of the so-called ``Fork in the Road'' buyout, but the administration continues to suggest that should enough people not take the buyout, they will begin mass layoffs. Hard-working Americans who have done their jobs dutifully--some for decades; I have spoken with them--fired for no reason whatsoever.
This week, USAID missions overseas have also been ordered to shut down. I have heard from Marylanders abroad who are doing critical work to prevent wars, who don't know if they will even have a job anymore.
We have learned that FBI agents and employees were asked by Justice Department leadership to fill out a 12-question survey detailing their roles in investigations stemming from the January 6 attack on this Capitol. This led to the FBI turning over details of 5,000 employees who worked on January 6 cases to the Trump Justice Department.
We know the administration has issued a freeze on Federal hiring. Dozens of employees at the Education Department have been put on leave, and more are expected. Rumors continue to circulate that this administration wants to shut down the Department itself. At multiple government Agencies, Agency heads were asked to identify employees on probationary periods or who have served less than 2 years, likely because these employees are easier to fire.
The administration issued a memo pausing, potentially, trillions of dollars in Federal aid, sowing chaos throughout the government. Thankfully, this directive has been partially halted, thanks to legal challenges.
They have issued a stop-work order in the U.S. State Department for all existing foreign aid. And 160 National Security Council staff members have been sent home while the administration reviews staffing.
They ordered a review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, as the administration considers whether to close the country's lead disaster response.
How reckless. How callous.
We have gotten reports of more than 40 Head Start providers still unable to draw funds after last week's funding freeze. This is, of course, despite a court order, because this administration not only sows chaos but also has set the example of what lawlessness looks like. These are illegal actions, and these providers who help make sure that our vulnerable kids get what they need to thrive have all been put into a position of being insecure and uncertain. They provide for our children food, education, and so much more, and these are the very people who have been targeted by this administration.
Our veterans haven't been spared either. The administration froze Federal aid for critical programs serving veterans and their families and then fired the VA's top watchdog official in charge of protecting veterans from waste and wrongdoing. They are firing the very people charged with making the Veterans Health Administration more efficient to better serve the great men and women who serve this Nation.
How callous. How reckless.
Each and every one of these moves inflicts pain, and they all have a ripple effect--pain on the civil servants who do the work these programs and Agencies fund and pain on the people who rely on the work of these programs and Agencies. It is a raw deal for Americans, period.
What is clear is this witch hunt has only just begun because, today, this very body is going to be voting on a nominee who wants nothing more than to see the Federal workforce burned at the stake. He said it himself. About civil servants, he said:
That is unbelievable. It is absolutely unbelievable.
I will repeat. He said:
What man or a person speaks in that way? But those are the words of Russell Vought, the man whom this President has chosen to lead the Office of Management and Budget. So when Russell says he wants to put them in trauma, I am going to take him at his word, because this isn't one of those situations where we need to see what Vought is going to do. History has already shown us.
In the President's first administration, Russell Vought was the lead author of his budget requests for fiscal years 2020 and 2021. Each plan contained a blueprint for robbing the American public of the services that their tax dollars are supposed to fund. He called for $500 billion to be cut from Medicare, and I will note, very significantly, that over 1 million Marylanders are enrolled in Medicare. Two of them are my parents--77 years old--who worked their whole lives. These are the kinds of people this President and his administration have determined that they will target.
He called for $900 billion cut from Medicaid. I will note nearly 2 million Marylanders rely on Medicaid.
He called for up to $71 billion cut from Social Security. And I will note 1 in 7 Marylanders receives Social Security benefits. By the way, it is so important to note: These benefits are not ones that have been given to these Marylanders; these are benefits they have earned over a lifetime.
He called for $170 billion in cuts to college affordability initiatives.
This flies in the face of everything that Americans say that they desire. It has never been said that Americans want us to cut benefits to our elders. It has never been said that they want to cut benefits to those who are disabled, who rely on Medicaid and others.
And it sure has not been the case for so many of our young people who came out and voted in this last election cycle, hoping to get a government that would make their lives better, and, instead, they are making it worse. I will note that 25 percent of Maryland's undergraduates receive student loans, and over 100,000 Maryland college students received Federal grants in the fiscal year 2023-2024 academic year.
How shameful it is to target these students who will be the next leaders of our country.
And this isn't just the classic case of the past becoming prologue. In the interim, between administrations, Russell Vought has continued on this anti-worker crusade because, yes, Federal workers are workers, no matter what Russell Vought or anyone in this administration says. They are hard workers, dedicated workers--Maryland-strong workers.
The crusade continued when Russell Vought raised his hand to help write Project 2025. In particular, I want to hone in on the goal to deploy Schedule F.
Here is what the American Postal Workers Union had to say about it:
Russell Vought isn't concerned with making the government more efficient. All of us recognize this. No one is confused about this. I highly doubt that he cares anything whatsoever at all about whether government works or not. What he cares about is making sure that every single Federal employee supports President Trump.
This isn't a blue State or a red State issue. This is a United States issue. If this man is allowed to enact the President's revenge, there will be a collective and uniting pain that courses across our country. People, whether they voted for this President or not, will feel the devastating impact of not only a less efficient government, but a government unable to deliver on the services that it promises to provide.
That is what this administration refuses to understand. When you target Federal workers, you are also targeting the people who they serve. Do you know who Federal workers serve? The American people.
When Russell Vought says ``We want to put them in trauma,'' let's talk about who he is talking about.
A woman I spoke with who has worked at the Department of Health and Human Services for over 35 years has been put on leave as a part of this President's Executive orders. What has she done? Nothing to deserve this. Yet her family is a family that has been targeted, a person who has served 35 years.
Another woman I spoke with has worked for 37 years at the Department of Agriculture. Believe it or not, she was placed in her current position under the President's first administration. And guess what. As a result of this crazy and callous and corrupt witch hunt, now she is being let go as well.
Remember, of course, that these two women are women who have worked now for several administrations, both Democratic and Republican Presidents, and they have done so honorably.
There are the Marylanders at the FDA who make sure that the water we drink is safe and that the food we eat is safe.
Let's talk about scientists and doctors who are actively researching cures for cancer at the National Institutes of Health.
They are targeting civil servants at the Pentagon working every day to protect our national security.
When I think about the Pentagon, I can't help but think about my own grandmother. Her name was Sarah Daisy. Sarah Daisy was a person who was a housekeeper, but it was her greatest dream to work in the Federal Government.
Many will remember that there was a time, however, when you went to work in the government, you would take a civil servant's exam and take a typing test. Well, my grandmother Sarah couldn't afford a typewriter, so she went into the family's kitchen and put a white piece of paper up on the refrigerator, and she drew a keyboard on that white piece of paper.
My father told me that in the one-bedroom apartment that they all shared--my grandmother, her three children, and another family member-- she stood in front of her refrigerator every single night and taught herself the keystrokes so that she could take the typing test to get herself a job in the Federal Government.
Well, she went on and took that typing test. She passed it. She got herself a job in the Federal Government, and she was so proud of the work that she did as a civil servant. She showed up every single day, took buses to get to her job at the Pentagon.
She would often tell me she was so proud. She couldn't wait to tell me: I passed General So-and-So. I passed General So-and-So in the hallway.
She was very proud to have served her country.
But Sarah Daisy isn't the only one of her sort--civil servants who show up every day just to serve the American people. Those are the kinds of civil servants who are being targeted by this administration.
We think as well about FBI agents. Look, I am a former prosecutor. I spent 13 years working in courtrooms. I worked alongside many of our best and brightest in the law enforcement community, including the FBI. Never once did I ever wonder if they had voted for me. What mattered is that they were honed in on the same mission that I was: building safer communities for the people we collectively serve and people like my grandma, whom I spoke about.
Again, these are all people who serve every day doing the very best they can.
She never came home and told me whether the people she served at the Pentagon were Republicans or Democrats because, guess what, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. This is who we are talking about here.
There have been so many calls to my office.
You know, the question we should be asking ourselves about people like my grandmother and about the other agents whom I worked with as a prosecutor who have given their whole lives to civil service--what we should be asking is, how can we repay them? Is it by villainizing them, taking away their jobs? It is ludicrous. It is outrageous.
There have been so many calls to my office. Some people have even shown up to my office in person looking for support.
I stepped out the other day, and there were three women who had driven here from their homes. They were exasperated, couldn't even bear the thought of calling or emailing. They needed to come in person to let me know about their displeasure about the actions they are seeing from this government.
We received a call from a Federal employee as well who has worked in an Agency for 17 years and is now furloughed. On the verge of tears, she was afraid not just for her own livelihood but for the fate of those losing their title II food aid. She was thinking of malnourished children who will stop receiving food because of this administration's callous actions.
We received a call from a Federal employee concerned about Elon Musk and his access to confidential information. He said he feels helpless, and after 22 years of service to our Nation, he is afraid that he will lose his job. He said: ``It feels like a bad movie.''
A former Federal employee of 10 years called my office, scared about how this is impacting her neighbors and her community, how it will hurt all her friends who work in the Federal Government.
There was one call from a woman in her sixties. She was debating whether or not to take this buyout. She is close to retiring. In the end, she told us that she wanted to continue this work.
When I learned of this particular call, I immediately thought of my grandmother yet again and the pride that she had in her work at the Pentagon, the joy that she carried with her, knowing that her job had purpose, that her service was meaningful. The North Star she always looked to was helping her fellow Americans.
It came as no surprise to me that this Marylander wanted to continue her work. I don't think it would come as a surprise to any Marylander who has answered the call to serve their government in this way.
We take great pride in this work. We believe in the power of the Federal Government to do good things for the people of this country.
If you ask any civil servant ``Could the government use improvement?'' well, you would hear a resounding ``Yes.'' I think every Democrat and every Republican believes that we can make the government more efficient. But firing a bunch of hard-working Marylanders because you think they may not agree with your policy, gutting Agencies that work on behalf of the American people--well, this isn't going to make the government more efficient. In fact, dismissing experienced workers who care deeply about the mission is only going to weaken government functions. It is going to hinder the government's ability to do its job--everything from Medicare to Medicaid, to veterans' benefits, to law enforcement, to cancer research, to--I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
In this brazen and callous mass firing, President Trump is going to end
Let me say this painfully clear to anyone considering supporting this nominee: The trauma that Mr. Vought describes won't just be exacted on the Federal workers that he despises; it will extend to the people in this country who utilize the programs of the Federal Government--the exhausted mother of that child who calls the 9-8-8 lifeline for support on the darkest of days; the single dad who has to call out of work because his daughter's Head Start classroom closed its doors; the family business that didn't get their disaster relief check to rebuild after the floodwaters receded; the grandmother stretching her fixed income to feed a nourishing meal to her grandkids, turned away at the checkout line when her SNAP EBT card was declined; the woman seeking refuge from an abusive partner--the kind of women that I represented for many years as a domestic violence prosecutor--just to be turned away from the local family violence shelter; the first-generation college student who loses their Pell grant and Federal work-study and can't afford to stay in school; the veteran whose appointment at the Veterans' Administration gets canceled, delaying his screening and treatment from his battlefield exposure.
When Russell Vought talks about inflicting trauma, none of us should forget these people.
In these times of chaos, we must remain vigilant. We must not only acknowledge the deep pain being felt by so many American workers now but transform that pain into action. The tools at our disposal may be limited, but our resolve must remain limitless. And my promise to the people of Maryland is that it shall.
I would like to just end my comments because I see my colleague has joined us on the floor and say that there is a Prayer Breakfast happening this morning. It is my understanding that the President is there to attend and many others. It is my greatest desire that their prayers today will be for the American people and for our country.
There is a Scripture that is so clear in the Bible, and it reminds us--and the President professes that he is a person of faith. It reminds us of one fact, irrefutable fact: The Bible tells us that they will know us by our love. In fact, it says, ``They will know you are my disciples if you show love,'' that we should love one another. I believe that ought to be the guiding principle that guides us in all that we do--the only thing that will last is what we have done--and that we will exude the light of God, and in so doing, we will have love one for each other.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. President, I rise today in the strongest terms to oppose the nomination of Russell Vought to serve as Director of the Office of Management and Budget. I do so not just for his poor performance and lack of transparency before the Senate Budget Committee during his confirmation hearing but because of his truly dangerous and damaging vision for the future of our country.
I will be very clear. If Russell Vought is confirmed to lead the Office of Management and Budget, it will be working families in America that pay the price. If he is confirmed, he will work to slash the social safety net, threaten Medicaid and SNAP benefits, and to balance the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable neighbors--all in service of cutting taxes for billionaires and for large corporations.
Let me start this morning by saying that if we were hoping for some sort of clarity or some commitment, some reassurance from Russell Vought during his confirmation process, we certainly weren't given much to work with.
During the confirmation hearing--and, yes, I am a member of the Budget Committee--at best, he was not responsive to our questions and inquiries. In fact, he was actually pretty evasive when asked some of the more pointed questions.
As I reflected on his testimony, I observed that it was what he didn't say that spoke volumes. It told us everything that we needed to know about the dangers of reinstating him to this hugely important and consequential position.
Other Trump nominees at other confirmation hearings in other committees that I have been a part of, at a minimum, they committed--at least they uttered the words--that they would respect the Constitution and abide by the law. That should be the bare minimum for someone seeking Senate confirmation for any position that is to serve the American people. That is the minimum. But Mr. Vought couldn't even do that. He refused to commit to follow the law as it pertains to implementing the spending plan and priorities established by Congress-- including us, colleagues. We are the U.S. Senate.
Why would he refuse to commit to that fundamental premise? Because if he were to do that, he would be lying under oath. He made it abundantly clear that, as Director of OMB, he has every intention of ignoring the laws passed by Congress, including the spending plans. He has been very explicit about that.
Now, if this was any other nominee by any other President and he refused to make such a commitment, we might be left wondering about what his true priorities are, what his true agenda is. But, for better and for worse, Russell Vought has already shown us exactly what he intends to do. We don't need to deal in hypothetical scenarios when it comes to him.
For starters, he has served as head of the Office of Management and Budget before, you will recall, during the first Trump administration. In that time, in that capacity, on multiple occasions, he illegally froze congressionally appropriated funds and withheld taxpayer dollars in order to obey President Trump's political demands.
And, even today, Russell Vought has already restarted this effort, as unlawful as it is--restarted this effort even though he hasn't even yet been confirmed by the Senate. He has already played a central role in OMB's attempt to withhold funding these last couple of weeks--funding for programs including Head Start that so many families across the country rely on, withhold funding for job assistance programs for our veterans--yes, veterans, the very women and men that we honor for their willingness to serve, their willingness to pay the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our country, who need our assistance. And when they return home from service, that is who he is going after?
He has withheld funds from countless other programs that working families across the country rely on. His actions in these last couple of weeks have plunged not just the Federal Government but, frankly, the country and our financial markets into chaos and confusion. And like I said, he hasn't even been confirmed yet, and this is what is already happening.
But, colleagues, if these early signals weren't enough for you to grasp what he is capable of, what he is hell-bent on doing, if you are wondering what else he may have in mind and in store for the OMB, I guess you are in luck because he literally wrote a playbook for what he intends to do. I invite you all and folks watching at home, if you haven't done so already, to go to project2025.org. And as you call up this playbook, as you call up this agenda, you will see that he is one of the key authors.
And while President Trump claims he hasn't had a chance to review his Budget Director's vision for the administration, and while many Members of this body might have been a little too busy these last several months to read it for themselves, let me try to help by giving you just a very, very brief summary, some of the key points, because when you boil it down, the main goals of Project 2025--as the authors, including Mr. Vought, have expressed--are this: No. 1, give the office of the President of the United States unprecedented power; No. 2: to use that power to slash the rest of government in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and large corporations.
It is that simple. That is their goal. That is their objective. That is their agenda. They want an unchecked President to gut investments-- investments that Congress directs to help working families--in order to give even bigger tax breaks for big corporations and billionaires-- billionaires, by the way, just like the ones he surrounded himself with in his inauguration.
It is not a secret. It is not a veiled attempt. It is blatant. It is out in the open. They are literally working to steal from the poor to give more to the rich. That is the Trump agenda, and that is all that Russell Vought is working toward.
But again, colleagues, don't just take my word for it. Let's look at the record. It is easy to chalk up these first couple of weeks of the second Trump administration just to chaos. That is how they operate. We have known this. We have seen it coming.
Well, it certainly has been chaotic. Some of that chaos may be due to incompetence. I think a lot of it is very, very intentional, and clearly a lot of it is due to an utter lack of empathy. But what is intentional is chaos by design. You have heard these terms. They are proud of it: Flood the zone. Traumatize Federal workers.
Yes, they said it. I will come back to that in a couple of minutes. But they have sought distractions from the scale of what they are trying to do. So, through it all, to my colleagues and to the Nation, I urge us all to keep our eyes on the ball. See the Trump administration exactly for what it is and who they are. To understand this administration, you simply have to understand their single biggest objective: huge handouts to the largest corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
President Trump is trying to one-up his first term. His signature legislative accomplishment wasn't infrastructure improvements, as much as he tried to talk about that. It wasn't increasing access to healthcare or quality of healthcare. In fact, they worked so hard to try to take it away. The single biggest accomplishment of President Trump's first administration was record deficits brought to you by record tax breaks for the wealthy and by cutting the corporate tax rate by 14 percent, from 35 percent down to 21 percent. That is right; he was giving huge tax breaks to corporations to increase their profit margins. And it is not that they weren't making money. They were making plenty of money. Who wasn't making plenty of money were the workers who made those profits possible. The wage growth wasn't what American workers deserved it to be.
Now, that was the first Trump administration. We have just begun the second Trump administration, where you would think that maybe, just maybe, they would work hard on making good on their campaign theme or campaign pledge--whatever you want to call it--of putting ``America first.''
I would love to see it. They could put America first if they chose to invest in our education system and to help educate and train our future workforce in ways that would grow our economy in the years and decades ahead. Or they could put America first by tackling the high cost of housing and grocery prices.
But no, that is not what they are doing. They are right back to focusing on tax breaks for corporations by hundreds of billions of dollars. It is the only thing that President Trump is about, frankly. Look at his record. Look at his life. He wants to make life even easier for himself, for his family, for his wealthy friends, for the top not just 1 percent but the top 0.1 percent of America.
But you can't just give these tax breaks away for free. You have got to pay for them somehow. Somebody has got to fund them. So in order to pay for these tax breaks, the administration is determined to cut as much spending from our communities and our most vulnerable as they can. Like I said, they are not even hiding it anymore.
On the campaign trail, President Trump enjoyed playing dress-up at McDonald's and staging photo ops with garbage trucks, but on day one of his administration, who did he surround himself with? Not a fast-food worker, not a sanitation worker, not an autoworker, whom he claimed to reach out to in recent years, or a steelworker, as much as he wants to champion blue-collar workers in the Midwest. No, he chose to surround himself with the richest men in the country--some of the richest men in the world.
Remember his inauguration? They were right there in the front row. You recognize the names: Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk.
To hard-working Americans who may have voted for him in November, I am sorry to tell you, he used you. He used you for your votes. He got what he needed from you, and now he and Russell Vought are about to make you pay.
For an idea of what the next 4 years with Russell Vought and Donald Trump in charge will mean, let's review again these last couple of weeks. It has been decision after decision after decision following Russell Vought and Project 2025's playbook: Empower the President, and then enrich themselves and their wealthy friends.
Now, we have long known that this President could not care less about the guardrails put in place in our Constitution. Since when has he cared about what is constitutional or not?
But after the Supreme Court granted him blanket immunity, he is using his newfound powers to eliminate any opposition or dissent around him.
From day one in the second administration, President Trump has used his powers to seek retribution against anyone he perceives as a political enemy. And he sought to undermine and threaten any potential opposition. On day one, he issued 1,500 pardons for the January 6 rioters, if you want to call them that. Insurrectionists is what I call them. Folks who desecrated this U.S. Capitol, who attacked law enforcement officers in an attempt to overthrow an election.
The last couple of weeks, he has begun to investigate and fire professional career prosecutors at the Department of Justice who did their duty when asked to investigate the crimes committed on January 6 of 2021, prosecutors who were required--when assigned to--required to investigate insurrection, sedition, violence against law enforcement personnel. Serious crimes, folks, serious crimes.
President Trump's team even sent out a survey to members of the FBI regarding their involvement in January 6 investigations. Now, just this week, CNN reported:
And:
It is still early in the second administration, but the message is already crystal clear. President Trump will threaten anyone who might show a willingness to hold him accountable for his actions. It is the same reason why he is not just firing folks, but he is installing loyalists at the Department of Justice, especially at the FBI, so that no one will dare tell him no.
Now, how do we know these are loyalists? The newly sworn in Attorney General of the United States has served as President Trump's personal attorney. Well, people say there is a conflict there, just delegate it to the Deputy Attorney General. So who might that be? Oh, surprise, surprise, another former personal attorney. Where will the conflicts end?
But, of course, there is still dedicated public servants out there willing to do what is right, even if that means standing up to Trump. But it is, indeed, getting harder and harder.
Now, earlier this week, the New York Times reported that the head of the FBI's New York office wrote to his colleagues and vowed to dig in-- that is what he wrote, ``dig in,'' in the face of this assault. Not just on law enforcement personnel but Justice.
He wrote:
That is what is happening, retribution for folks who were doing their job, just because President Trump doesn't like it, fears the consequences and accountability. And even if it was just at the FBI, even if it was just at the Department of Justice, it would be cause for alarm; but a similar trend is happening across Departments and Agencies not involved in our Nation's law enforcement.
When President Nixon fired just a fraction of these numbers, it was called the Saturday Night Massacre, and it led to his resignation. In comparison, I can't help but note that what President Trump is doing is not a Saturday Night Massacre; it was a January massacre.
And as astonished as I am, about what President Trump is trying to do, I am equally astonished at Senate Republicans who are standing by and watching it happen, letting it happen--letting it unfold as if you have no choice, as if you have no power.
They are unlike their Republican predecessors who had the courage and the moral compass to recognize the harm that a President could do to the country and to tell President Nixon that enough was enough.
The Trump administration is hoping to force out thousands of experienced career Federal workers who have served both Democratic and Republican administrations, so that he can replace them with people whose only qualification is blind loyalty.
We have heard about the loyalty tests, right, that he required of folks who wanted to be considered for appointments. President Trump is attempting to twist the U.S. Code to redefine what nonpolitical career workers are, to give him even more power to fire and torment our Federal Government workforce. One of the ways he has initiated this effort is by trying to offer a buyout or a severance to nearly all Federal workers, hoping that nonloyalists would choose to leave rather than stay and be tormented.
He is doing this, by the way, with absolutely no authority to do so. I focus on this point because it truly hits home for us in California. For Federal firefighters who have spent the first month of this year working 24-hour shifts battling life-threatening fires in Los Angeles County, they returned home--not just Federal firefighters from California, but from a number of States. They returned home to find a message from President Trump.
Now, you would think after weeks of 24-hour shifts fighting these life-threatening fires, that they would come home to a thank you message from the President of their country.
That wasn't the case. The message they came home to was a request for their resignation. How outrageous. How insulting. How offensive. So much so that I think it is worth repeating just a couple of the messages that I received from Federal firefighters who reached out after these buyout offers went out.
The first:
Another reads:
Can't help but see it the way they see it. This is a slap in the face to Federal firefighters, and it is a gut punch to the confidence and the pride that so many dedicated Federal workers have in the job that they do.
But I will remind us again that that is exactly what Russell Vought wants. He has said--and I will quote him:
And:
Let me repeat that last sentence.
This is Russell Vought, on behalf of President Trump, speaking:
Let that sink in. What kind of person says that about the people that they are preparing to work with and about the workers who they will be responsible for?
What kind of person wants to inflict trauma on anybody else? Is that really the kind of person you put in charge of the Office of Management and Budget, the nerve center of our Federal Government?
Now, clearly, in Russell Vought and Donald Trump's governments, you are not rewarded for your love of country and service to country or for standing up for the Constitution; in fact, you are punished, and you will be made to suffer. And by purging the Federal Government to make way for loyalists, the Trump administration is trying to further protect a reckless President from any accountability for his actions.
President Trump's goal remains clear. He wants to destroy the founding principles of our country. He wants to eliminate the separation of powers, the checks and balances enshrined in our Constitution, and to strip Congress--yes, one of the three coequal branches of government--of its power. That is not an exaggeration. Congress, particularly those involved with the appropriations process, know and respect the power of the purse. Congress, of course, has the power to create laws. And Congress has an important power to conduct meaningful oversight to serve as a check on a Presidency and an administration, just as the Founding Fathers intended.
After all, the United States was created fleeing a dictatorship. We chose better: a democracy where the power lies in the people and the Congress representatives of the people. And between the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary, checks and balances. Let's not let power become overly concentrated.
Well, despite President Trump's attempts and Russell Vought's enabling of further concentration of power, no matter what President Trump wants to believe, Congress, the President, and the courts are coequal branches of government.
Yet at the start of the President's second term, once again, we have also received calls from officials in our Nation's health Agencies because they had to abruptly cancel meetings. Now with every new administration, we might expect a temporary pause on some external communication, right? There is often some legitimate transition activity. So if there is a pause or a momentary stop to social media communications--FaceBook and Twitter, maybe--that is one thing. But to deny Congress and the American people important information on public health? That is truly dangerous.
But, sadly, again, it seems that our Republican colleagues are simply unwilling to exercise their constitutional authority.
I am 51. Now that may not be considered old by Senate standards, but I am old enough to remember when Republicans used to be concerned about Presidential overreach. And it wasn't that long ago. Like in 2017, when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions called former President Obama an emperor for his use of Executive actions--Jeff Sessions, former Member of this body, as attorney general using the word ``emperor'' in describing President Obama's use of Executive actions. Or when former Speaker Paul Ryan referred to President Obama's Executive orders on gun safety as ``a dangerous level of executive overreach.'' The Republican leader in the House, Speaker at the time, saying it was Executive overreach.
It wasn't that long ago. And so I can't help but ask: What has changed? What has changed?
Just 8 years later, in 2025, the Republican party is clearly the party of Donald Trump. And with more power in the hands of the President to gut the Federal Government, are Republicans willing to serve as accomplices in selling out hard-working Americans in order to pay for this big tax break for billionaires and large corporations? That is the question.
Now let's take a minute to look at who is running point for Donald Trump these days. Now, before he was sworn in for a second term as President, Trump happily handed over the keys to the government to the richest man in the world. Elon Musk paid nearly $300 million to help elect Donald Trump, and now that wager is paying off in spades. The richest President in history is now allowing the richest man in the world to find ways to cut funding from the American people. And they will lie to your face when they claim they are returning power to the people. Because if you were to ask ``Which people?'' they certainly don't mean average, everyday, hard-working Americans. They are putting power and wealth further and further into the billionaire class.
That is right. Trump has now handed shadow President Elon Musk control of
And now Elon Musk has access to the sensitive data for hundreds of millions of Americans. He has your bank account information. He has your tax data. He has your Social Security number. He has your home address.
To be clear, no law has passed to create this so-called Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, and no law was passed, certainly, to give it any authority to make spending decisions, to shut down programs, or ignore Federal law. So we should all be concerned as Musk gives recent college graduates who now work for him full rein over Treasury's servers and payment programs.
If Treasury payments were ever intentionally or even unintentionally stopped, it could paralyze our economy, and it would stop people's Social Security benefits. Now, most people that I know truly rely on their Social Security to get by.
So let's be clear. For Donald Trump and Elon Musk, this has never really been about government efficiency. It is about a government takeover to steal from the American people and further enrich themselves and their friends.
It is the very same reason, by the way, that they are attacking USAID, illegally dismantling an Agency that Congress created, working to end humanitarian assistance. Dictators around the world are celebrating. China, opening its arms, as Trump forces our allies to look somewhere else for partnership and support.
Colleagues, USAID was created by Congress, has been annually invested in by Congress--including your votes.
President Trump, Russell Vought's philosophy: Who cares what they did. We are going to do what we want. Keep telling us over and over and over again. They are standing by, letting him do it.
Now we hear that the Department of Education might be in Elon Musk's crosshairs next, with Donald Trump promising to abolish the Department as a whole. Think about that. Threatening support for millions of our students and further holding back a generation of children who have already suffered interruptions through a pandemic and who can't afford more instability?
It all begs the question: Who is really in control here? Who is calling the shots? Is it Donald Trump? Or is it Elon Musk?
Well, today, I say to you that to working families, it doesn't matter. Neither one of them is looking out for them.
And, again, this is exactly what Russell Vought has envisioned: billionaires cutting support for American families to make room for even more benefits for the rich. And his fingerprints are already all over Donald Trump's earliest steps to cut funding.
Now, as I mentioned, even before he was confirmed--and he is still not confirmed--Vought had a hand in a constitutional crisis just last week when President Trump issued a governmentwide funding freeze. He hoped to withhold hundreds of billions of dollars from social safety net programs that Americans have paid into, all to lay the groundwork for his billionaire tax cuts.
These Federal programs might not mean much to the wealthiest people in the country, but they mean a lot--a lot--to hard-working families across the country.
In California alone, State agencies and local governments were blocked from accessing Medicaid and housing assistance grant portals. The director of a grant-funded program, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, supporting victims of violent crime--is that who we are trying to look out for? The local prosecutors working to protect victims of violent crime were concerned about the future of their work because Federal funding had been frozen--who knew for how long.
Funding for research on cures for childhood cancer was threatened. Colleagues, childhood cancer. We are trying to find a cure, not freeze them out of hope.
Local commuter rail officials in Sonoma raised concerns about their ability to continue to service the community if outstanding Federal funding was frozen. This is the kind of service that people rely on to get to work, keep our economy going. Funding freezes make it difficult to do that.
The city of Vacaville was worried about potential impacts to their housing authority and vouchers. Head Start grantees were frozen out of their Federal payment management systems. Health centers in San Francisco met to assess their ability to provide services if grant funding and Medicare reimbursements were frozen.
The Oakland Fire Department raised alarm bells about having to cut staff if an outstanding FEMA grant to support pay for 35 firefighters was paused. Northern California, Central California has seen what fires have done to Southern California. They don't want the same. Yet we are going to jeopardize firefighter staffing? Really?
Not to mention President Trump is still holding up hundreds of billions of dollars that were promised for key infrastructure projects in California, and communities are losing confidence that they will ever see that money. And I will cite just two examples: The city of Tracy was awarded $41 million for a key infrastructure grant that would create good-paying jobs, but now they may never see that money. The LOSSAN rail corridor that connects San Diego to Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo--I know you all love that part of the California coastline. The LOSSAN rail corridor was promised $27 million to help improve service along that route. Now that is in jeopardy. I know this one well, this corridor. There are great plans in the works, not just for efficiency, improved service, but improved safety. Imagine that--improving the safety of the rail lines in America. But no. You all are OK with stopping that work.
Now, although President Trump has threatened to block hundreds of billions of dollars to support families recovering from catastrophic fires, law enforcement agencies that we rely on to keep us safe, and the children and families who depend on Federal childcare and nutrition programs--that is what they are doing.
I know some of you have said: Well, that order has been frozen, so we shouldn't worry.
Technically, the OMB funding freeze order has been halted by the courts--not by choice, by the courts--for now. We know that the fight is far from over. This is just their first attempt in this administration, not their final attempt. And we know because this is exactly what President Trump and Russell Vought want--a constitutional crisis to give the President more power and to make way for those billionaire tax breaks that you guys are so hell-bent on. That is their plan for our families, for our Constitution, for our country.
Here is another tool they have. They will use immigration and other culture wars to divide us because if we are fighting amongst ourselves, Trump and his ultrawealthy friends will just be helping themselves to tax breaks. They will try to overwhelm the system to enrich themselves, whether it is legal or not, because they are banking on us being distracted by culture wars.
In fact, look at just how much has been struck down by Federal judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans. This isn't a partisan deal. How much has been struck down already just weeks into this administration? One judge has already enjoined President Trump's blatantly unconstitutional Executive order on birthright citizenship. Not one but two judges have enjoined the OMB spending freeze. Two Federal judges also enjoined his Executive order on transgender prison inmates. And that is just in the last week. Multiple suits have also been brought challenging his illegal purge of the Federal workforce and his attempts to interfere with USAID.
So we know that President Trump and his billionaire friends are only in it for themselves. That has been well established. They have shown us exactly who they are for years now.
But colleagues, I have to admit that what surprises me most--what surprises me most--is that what I hear from my Republican colleagues one on one is: Well, we agree on more than you think. Let's just keep talking. Let's work to try to find this common ground. Let's do what is right for our country.
Call me an optimist, but I believe my Republican colleagues when they say they came to Washington to help their constituents.
Now, while I disagree with it, I understand that some of our colleagues are choosing to make political decisions with some of President Trump's nominees. You may be thinking about a potential reelection in 2026. Maybe you think it is just easier to stand up to Trump on an issue somewhere further down the road than right now.
But here is what surprises me: What is different with Russell Vought is that this is a nominee who embodies a larger vision about the Presidency and about the country that would fundamentally hurt your constituents too--not just our constituents, not just my constituents, all of our constituents. And it already has. This short-lived OMB funding freeze alone gave us a look at just some of the backlash from cutting a wildly popular social safety net.
So to my Republican colleagues, respectfully, I know you are getting the same calls as I am. I know you are hearing about the constituents whose lives have been made harder because of this. I know you are not blind to the real-world effects of Donald Trump and Russell Vought.
This week, I have had Californians come out in droves to my office encouraging me to oppose this nomination. They are demanding that the services they rely on be protected, and they are refusing to let Russell Vought pillage programs like Head Start, like Meals on Wheels, like so many others just so that the wealthiest Americans can get a bigger tax break.
So today, I will end with this: a question to my colleagues across the aisle. Who are you more loyal to--your own constituents or a reckless President? What are we doing in Washington if we are afraid to stand up for our States and for our constituents? Did any of you run for Senate to cut veterans' housing assistance? Did any of you run for Senate to slash school lunch programs and force kids to go hungry? Did any of you run for Senate to make it harder for communities to get support after a natural disaster and rebuild their home, to rebuild communities?
I may sound crazy when I suggest this, but I don't believe it is any political risk at all to stand up for your constituents. Even if you hesitate to speak out publicly against Trump's unprecedented power grab, at least join me in voting against Russell Vought and his dangerous world view. Don't let Trump's allegiance to billionaires crush your hard-working constituents because I won't stand for it as he attempts to crush mine.
I invite you, I encourage you, I implore you to do the right thing.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Before he leaves the floor, let me thank my colleague from California, my southern neighbor, for his excellent comments that so eloquently put in perspective what the choices are all about.
You and I want everybody in America to have a chance to get ahead-- everybody. That has not been the case with what we have seen with Mr. Vought and the Trump administration. The breaks are going to go to the people at the top, and we are going to offer a very different approach.
I am going to spend a few minutes following up your good remarks and then yield to my colleague, who has been a wonderful addition to the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Smith.
Mr. President, Russell Vought is the lead architect of the Trump economic bait-and-switch. It is a pretty clear approach to follow. Donald Trump spent months and months on the campaign trail promising that workers and working families were going to be his focus. You might recall that he promised he was going to lower grocery prices. He went into grocery stores and he said: Prices are going to go down under my Presidency.
It took just a few weeks before that one was dropped. Anybody who wonders about grocery prices today, just go to the market and try to figure out how to get through buying some eggs because it is the same kind of problem.
All these kinds of efforts to tell working-class people that they would come first have really given way to something that I call the bait-and-switch. Instead of the relief being targeted to workers, people for whom the big issues have the second word as ``bill''--it might be medical bill, it might be rent bill, it might be gas bill, but that is what is going on in their lives--they are hurting.
The reality is, Trump doesn't care about that, so he is going to cut programs that they depend on, like housing and healthcare and affordable energy, in order to take that money and move it over to supercharge the 2017 tax cuts and give even more benefits to the people at the top.
We are going to, on the Finance Committee--and I have my colleague here, Senator Smith, who I know shares this view--we are going to push back against that kind of economic bait-and-switch because we know how unfair it is. Right now in America, if you are a firefighter or a nurse, you pay taxes with every single paycheck, no question about it. It is a responsibility of citizenship. You pay taxes with every paycheck.
If you are one of the high-fliers though, Mr. President, it doesn't work that way. You can, to a great extent, pay what you want, when you want to, and sometimes go for years on end paying virtually nothing. In fact, on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal, it was described some time ago as ``Buy, Borrow, and Die.'' Buy lots of assets, maybe houses you don't use at all; borrow against them for your very opulent lifestyle; and then you pass. Buy, borrow, and die--the glidepath that ensures that if you are at the very top, you will pay little or nothing for years on end while working people get clobbered.
You can be sure this is going to be something that Mr. Vought and President Trump are going to pursue very vigorously because this is what they had in mind when they were making plans to do the bait-and- switch and take from people of the working class and transfer those benefits to the people at the top.
Mr. Vought was a coauthor of the infamous Project 2025. This has been particularly curious because when Donald Trump heard about this, he acted like he had nothing to do with it: Project 2025? What is that? Who knows anything about that?
Well, it is pretty clear that he knew everything about it, that he was working with Mr. Vought, and what started off as a rightwing wish list quickly became the guiding policy agenda for Donald Trump and his administration. It is the blueprint for Republicans to unravel the Federal Government as we know it.
There are some highlights of Project 2025 that certainly deserve some discussion here this morning.
A nationwide abortion ban is on the agenda; slashing food assistance programs; eliminating Head Start early education; yet more goodies for Big Pharma; a green light for various types of discrimination; and then, to top it all off--the real essence of the agenda--take a sledgehammer to checks and balances and give the President the power to throw the Constitution in the trash can and defy congressional authority--a pretty graphic parade of horrors.
Over the last few days, the American people have witnessed the reality of one of the mainstays of Project 2025 play out right before their eyes.
Last Friday, just 6 days ago, whistleblowers told me about something that has turned out to be more alarming than I thought. We were told that the Treasury Secretary was going to give the keys to the Treasury payments program to Mr. Musk, and that has played out now before our eyes.
I say to my colleague from the Finance Committee, we got this letter a day or so ago saying: What is everybody worried about? Nothing to see here. No big deal.
And you slap your forehead or something and you say: Are you kidding me? Look at what Musk is announcing every single day that he is doing.
I have said it before, and I say it again: Elon Musk, take your hands off the people's money. You are seizing control of the Treasury Department's highly sensitive payment system containing home addresses, bank account numbers, private Social Security and tax information of hundreds of millions of Americans.
My colleague from Minnesota and I spent a lot of time advocating for privacy rights. When Musk is done with
Even more concerning, Musk has shown that he is willing to use control of these payment systems to target nonprofits that he disagrees with. He starts with religious nonprofits, providing crucial community services.
So the whole point of this, as Senator Smith and I have watched this, was supposed to be going after fraud and abuse. What did he do? He went after religious nonprofits, providing crucial community services.
This DOGE takeover is the type of thing Mr. Vought and his far-right buddies were dreaming about. It probably goes all the way back to their dorm rooms.
Just last week, the Office of Management and Budget--the office Mr. Vought would be tasked with overseeing--put in place a funding freeze that would cut off Federal funding for any organization or group across the country that relies on it.
Law enforcement, schools, small businesses, and firefighters--these are services that are lifelines to small communities. All of them--all of them--are being punished.
Within hours of that freeze going into effect, our staff received word that the Medicaid payment system had gone completely dark in all 50 States.
I remember what this was all about from my days as director of the Gray Panthers. This kind of program was a lifeline in terms of giving people information about their medicine, and nursing home benefits, and the services of Medicaid. So when I heard about this, I put something up online: All 50 States--all of them--had Medicaid portals that were backed up, maybe not working at all.
For several hours, States were locked out, leaving the fate of Medicaid and healthcare coverage for tens and millions of vulnerable Americans unknown and leaving patients, States, and providers scrambling.
Because of the tremendous outcry from senior citizens advocates, disability rights folks, community leaders of all political philosophies, that portal got up and running. But it is a sobering reminder that Republicans have their sights set--particularly Mr. Vought--on doing everything they can to unravel Medicaid and rip away health coverage for millions of Americans in the process.
While OMB seemingly tried to walk back parts of the funding freeze just a day later, confusion and chaos has had lasting impacts and likely will for weeks and months to come.
To continue in that vein, my office is still hearing from Head Start providers back in Oregon that are locked out of their payment systems. Unless those funds are turned back on soon, these schools that serve the rural parts of Oregon will have to start closing their doors because they can't afford to keep operating.
All of this makes sense if you understand that one of the main goals of Project 2025 and its key author, Mr. Vought, is taking away Congress's power of the purse and giving it directly to the President. That means giving the President the authority to redirect or cut off Federal funds to programs they don't like or that didn't align with their personal agenda, because the painful truth is Donald Trump doesn't care if the economy crashes and these communities I am talking about suffer.
He and Mr. Vought want hungry kids and seniors to just try to get by on their own. They want domestic violence survivors to have nowhere to turn for shelter. They want to deny law enforcement the resources they need to keep our communities safe.
I just had groups of law enforcement people come to see me pleading for help with resources. They didn't come as Democrats and Republicans. They came as folks from Oregon and the Pacific North West to say: We want to make sure that our communities have that added measure of safety.
Unfortunately, the Trump people want to end lifesaving research that is going to be so important to dealing with cancer and other diseases. They don't seem to be at all concerned about patients being turned away from basic healthcare.
It is clear to me that with this array of challenges that I have described, the Trump people--particularly the President--have walked back the pledge that was made in the campaign to put working families first, and to give everybody a chance to get ahead. Those campaign promises from the vault have vanished. Poof, they are gone.
What is taking place now is a very different agenda, the bait-and- switch agenda, where instead of following through on those promises to working families, they are going to make sure that the people who get the fruits of the economic reforms that are coming are going to be the people at the top.
America can do better. We always do better when we give everybody in our country a chance to get ahead, and we come together to pursue that in a united way.
I am voting no against Russell Vought because that kind of economics is not on his agenda.
I yield to my colleague from Minnesota.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague from Oregon for his remarks. As he serves as ranking member of the Finance Committee, I know that he is always thinking about how our tax system is working for regular people in this country and how we make sure that it is fair, that it is funding the critical services that we have, and that we are not putting the burden on regular people and letting billionaires and big corporations off the hook.
So I just want to thank you for your words. I was listening closely to what you were saying, and I think it is very important in this moment that we hear this.
Colleagues, we have been up all night long. It is a quarter to 9, I think, in Washington, DC. It is 7:30 or a quarter to 8 in Minnesota, where my family is. My grandchildren are just about getting up and getting ready for school. I think we are going to get some snow in Minnesota this morning. And in New Mexico, where my 95-year-old father lives, it is only about 6:45 in the morning, and he is probably thinking about getting up.
Senator Wyden, in your home State of Oregon, it is only about a quarter to 6.
Every place around this country, people are getting up, and they may be noticing that we have kept the Senate in session all night long. They may be wondering what this is all about and why we are doing this and what impact this has on their lives.
Because, after all, we are talking about the nomination of a man-- Russell Vought--to lead something called the OMB. I would guess that a lot of people in this country don't even really know what the OMB is.
The Office of Management and Budget oversees Federal Agencies' performance and administers the Federal budget. It sounds pretty innocuous, right? It is not anything that you should be too worried about. It seems like the role of this Agency would be to make sure that the laws that are passed by Congress are implemented; that the Federal budget, which is the purview of Congress, is implemented in a way that reflects what the representatives of the people of this country asked and expected.
So, colleagues and those who are listening, we are here today because what is happening with this nomination of Russell Vought, this confirmation that we are going to be taking up at some point, later today, kind of masked in this innocuous OMB, is actually one of the biggest power grabs that I think we have ever seen in the history of our country--a massive power grab by the executive to seize power that rightly, as described in the Constitution, belongs to Congress, because what Mr. Vought and Donald Trump and Elon Musk have proposed is that, with Russell Vought leading the Office of Management and Budget, they can just pretty much ignore what Congress has said we should do with the Federal budget.
So I want to just spend a little bit of time talking about what that means and talking about what it means for you if you are here on the east coast or if you are in the Midwest, where my family is, or in the Southwest, where my father is, or any place in this country. What does that mean to you as you are getting up this morning? Because
I say this to my colleague from Oregon, I was just looking at the latest news just to give us an idea of what this really means. Here is a quote from a lawyer in the Washington Post. This is part of a Washington Post story that posted this morning. This is not some radical, progressive lawyer who said this. This is Ty Cobb, who served in the first Trump administration. He says what is going on here today with this vote nomination, especially with Elon Musk, he says:
Now, this is Ty Cobb, who has served as White House lawyer during Trump's first term.
I offer that up as sort of a preamble to my remarks because I think it shows that even Republican lawyers can identify that what is happening here with the Trump administration and with this nomination of Russell Vought is a naked power grab, to seize power from the representatives elected by the people of this country and Congress and to concentrate it in the White House in the hands of Elon Musk and Russell Vought in order for them just to run rampant over our constitutional system.
As I said, you don't have to just believe me when you hear what I am telling you because we can see them already start this process.
Last week, in the Trump administration, we could see that they hurt real people in my State, in the State of Oregon, in the State of Florida, by creating this unprecedented chaos in Federal Agencies and programs, all based on the blueprint of Project 2025. And Russell Vought, whose nomination the Senate is considering today, is the architect of that blueprint.
I think you could see that his ideas are dangerous; they are unconstitutional; and they are already causing real harm to people.
In just the 2 weeks since President Trump has been in office--I guess it is 2\1/2\ weeks at this point--what he has done is he has attempted to freeze Federal funding that was authorized and appropriated by Congress. That is our job.
Whether this freeze right now--whether it is still frozen, whether it has been enjoined or temporarily blocked by the courts, whether the administration has turned on the funding spigots in some places and not in others, as my colleague from Oregon has said, it has created massive confusion.
I know in Minnesota, some people say the money is coming again, as it should be, constitutionally. Others are saying it isn't. None of that really matters in this moment, as we consider this nomination, because I do believe, as Ty Cobb said, that the chaos is the point--creating the chaos is the point. Hurting people right now, that is the impact of that.
So what we are doing is we are seeing what Russell Vought's extreme and dangerous ideas mean and how far they are willing to take this.
Think about this for a minute. In Minnesota, my home State, where a Federal funding freeze is truly life or death, the administration's list of programs that they have frozen or want to freeze covers most basic needs for a lot of people: food, shelter, medicine, and safe drinking water.
I have heard from thousands of Minnesotans who are terrified about what this means. The Senate phone lines, the phone lines into my office, over this last week--and I suspect that this has been the case for many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--have been overwhelmed by people calling in and basically saying: What is happening here? How could this be happening? I am worried that I am not going to get my Social Security check. I am worried that the organization that I run to provide domestic shelter for women who are the victims of domestic violence is going to have to shut down. I am worried that the services that we provide to people who are resettling in Minnesota--often, this is done by faith organizations in my home State--I am worried that we are not going to be able to do those things.
Our phone lines have been overwhelmed with stories like that.
I would have to say, colleagues, there is just a level of outrage and just furiousness that I haven't seen for a long time because people can see that this is having an impact.
People call my office who voted for Vice President Harris. People call my office who voted for Donald Trump. But I am not seeing here a distinction. What I am seeing is even people who voted for President Trump are saying: This is not what I voted for. This is not the vision that I had for my country. This is not the campaign that I voted for to lower the cost of groceries--or, you know, even many of the things that I completely disagree with with the President.
This is actually having an impact on real families and people and hurting them. And where is this going to lead from here?
I think the scope of the Trump and Vought Project 2025 and the funding freeze that it has inspired is so broad that I don't think there is a single person in this country who wouldn't be impacted in some way, either directly or indirectly, and I don't think it will be good for anyone.
I also just detect, colleagues--from the calls that I am getting in, it is easy to see--easy to see from all the calls coming into my office that Americans are feeling a lot less safe and a lot less secure than they did last Monday before this all unfolded, before this funding freeze that was described and is now being implemented--was described by Project 2025 and Russell Vought and now is being implemented, is happening. People do not feel as safe today. And they know the reason why is that this freeze has put our most fundamental and essential services in limbo.
In Minnesota, cities have been notified that their Federal funds to help pay law enforcement salaries are subject to the freeze. To give you an idea of what impact this has, counterterrorism coordination programs, programs to combat human and sex and drug trafficking, and programs to fight child sex trafficking have all been covered by this-- it is really a funding cut, to be honest. It is like suddenly you had the money, and now you don't have the money anymore to do these things. That feels like a cut if you are looking at your organization and what you are trying to accomplish.
So what does that mean if you are the victim of a violent crime? The Federal program that helps you to recover from that, to get restitution--those services have been frozen. If you are the survivor of sexual violence or domestic violence, you don't have the same access to a safe place to be. You are less safe because of Russell Vought and Donald Trump and Elon Musk. This should be worrying to every single one of us Americans, whether or not you are in that specific situation or whether you just have some compassion and care for folks that are in that terrible situation.
Vought and Trump's funding freeze has also endangered, as I said, the survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Without these services, which are supported by Federal tax dollars, survivors will have no place to go. Domestic violence shelters truly save lives, and any delay or freeze in Federal grant funding means that those services--provided, for example, by Alexandra House or the Southern Valley Alliance in Minnesota--will have huge impacts. The survivors who count on those places to go--sometimes with their children--to be safe will be much, much less safe.
Colleagues, I have heard from one domestic violence organization in Minnesota which gets 70 percent of their funding from Federal grants. Think about that organization. Even a short delay in reimbursements will mean that they have to lay off their counselors and other folks that work there and stop services. These are not organizations that have millions of dollars in their bank account; they live hand to mouth. They are providing services as they are able to get the funds to do it.
If we allow Russell Vought and Donald Trump and Elon Musk to continue
I can see from what is happening in Minnesota that the freeze is also creating serious strain on our healthcare system. Even if you don't use a community health center yourself, the freeze of their funding could make it harder for you to get access to timely care.
Throughout the country, there is an incredible network of community health centers that provide primary care to moms and children. Many of these facilities are providing not only physical healthcare but mental health care, which I think we all know is lifesaving.
People count on this network of community health centers to get their basic care. That might be you or it might be somebody who lives in your community or it might be--you never may know somebody who goes there. But here is why this affects you if you are waking up in Minneapolis or New Mexico, where my dad is, or Oregon, where Senator Wyden is from, or New Jersey, where Senator Booker is from. If folks don't have those community health centers to go to, where are they going to go when they get sick? The funding freeze is not going to freeze sickness. A funding freeze is not going to freeze injury. It only freezes the places where people who are experiencing those things can go to get help. So what are they going to do instead? They are going to go to emergency rooms. Right now in Minnesota, emergency rooms are packed full of people who have the flu, who have RSV, who have norovirus.
Community health centers are a source of huge relief to emergency rooms because it creates a place for people to go who need urgent care. If they are not there, what is going to happen is that those individuals are going to do the only thing they can do, which is to flood emergency rooms.
So if you get your primary health insurance through Medicaid, for example--just remember, colleagues, that is about 45 percent of all moms who are delivering babies; it is maybe roughly 40 percent of all children in this country who get their health insurance through Medicaid. If you can't go to one of those community health centers, then you are going to end up in the ER.
In Minnesota, there are 170,000 people who could lose, with these funding freezes, their access to healthcare. That means 170,000 people who are going to end up in emergency rooms, and that is going to affect all of us. That is going to affect the health and safety of all of us. It is going to put huge stress on hospitals and be, again, another example of how Russell Vought and Donald Trump and Elon Musk are actually, in their actions, right now, today, making all of us less safe, less secure.
Last Tuesday, I heard from community health centers that were preparing to furlough workers by the end of the day as these funding freezes were sifting through the news and getting to them directly.
I think it is important to understand that, yes, the courts did issue sort of a short-term reprieve or rescission to stop that, but those organizations are still trying to decide in real time what they can do and how they can move forward.
This morning, I was listening on the radio to organizations that said they had to furlough people when those freezes came into place and even when they were temporarily lifted. Now they are in the process of trying to figure out how to bring those people back, and every minute that goes by, that is wasted energy and effort and time.
I think about my Republican colleagues who say that they want to see efficiency, that they want to see government run like a business. Yet these kinds of just outrageous, unpredictable, chaotic funding freezes and then unfrozen and back and forth are the epitome of inefficiency. And who bears the price of that? Who bears the price of this Russell Vought strategy to try to do this big power grab away from Congress and not following the laws that Congress passed? The organizations that are serving Minnesotans and Americans are paying the price, and ultimately Americans are paying the price for that every single day. Every minute that goes by in which the threat of rescinded or withheld funding is still out there, there are real consequences for people.
Across the country, we are facing a very real health threat, public health threat, when it comes to avian flu. This is another example of how Russell Vought and Donald Trump and Elon Musk are, in real time, hurting the health and safety of Minnesotans and Americans.
In Minnesota, farmers and producers understand the impacts of avian flu better than anyone else. Minnesota is the largest Turkey producer in the State. We also have large dairy herds, big food processing facilities. It is very important to our economy, important to tens and tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity in Minnesota.
Right now, Minnesota farmers and producers are grappling with the avian influenza. Last year, the bird flu jumped from poultry to livestock, and then it jumped from livestock to humans. So this is something we have to pay a lot of attention to. It is something that could be extremely concerning. This is something that the Federal Government has to take seriously to prevent a real crisis--an economic crisis and a public health crisis.
By the way, colleagues, if you are wondering why the price of eggs has gone up so much in the last month or so, several months or so, this is why. It is because over 100 million birds have been culled from flocks all across the country because of avian influenza. Yet what has Russell Vought done? What would Russell Vought do? What has Donald Trump done? What is Elon Musk doing to address this problem? Well, the programs that support my State's and your States' public health infrastructure, those programs were included in this freeze.
On top of that, the communications blackout that also happened in the very early days of the Trump administration as part of this Russell Vought-Project 2025 agenda--there was a communications blackout from all Federal health Agencies, which also applies, by the way, to their communications with Congress. All of the work that was happening-- nonpartisan work, nonpolitical work, all of that work that was happening--communications about this really concerning public health threat of avian influenza, that was all stopped.
Now what I am hearing reports of from my friends and colleagues back home in Minnesota is that they are seeing this public health data, which is very important to fighting the avian flu--some of that data has been removed from government websites. It is like they are trying to erase it. Who knows why this is. Maybe there was some mention of the word ``inclusion'' in what was in those public health reports, and so they got scrubbed. Who knows. Who knows why that is. But that is another example, colleagues, of how this sort of strategy of Russell Vought and Project 2025 and Donald Trump is hurting our health, because, I can tell you, we would all be better off if we had access to that public health data so that we could understand what was going on and what is happening.
We are supposed to be doing surveillance on the avian flu so that we know where it is going, what other flocks it might be infecting, whether we are seeing additional jumps to humans, what humans are infected. Yet Russell Vought's plans are putting all of us at risk. He is making all of us less safe in this circumstance.
I know my colleague from New Jersey is going to be ready to speak in just a few minutes, and so I will just touch on maybe one or two other examples of what is happening in Minnesota as a result of the Project 2025 plan, Donald Trump's plans, and why opposing Russell Vought's nomination is so important.
Minnesota is in the far north part of this country, as many of you know. It can get cold in Minnesota, and yesterday it got down to minus 12 degrees in International Falls. We are in the dead of winter in Minnesota.
There is a great effort that we have long had--often has had bipartisan support--which helps keep the heat on for low-income families when it gets really cold outside. The idea, which is so obvious to me, is that if it is in the wintertime and you are having trouble paying your heating bill, you ought to be able
This program is called LIHEAP. I won't tell you what the acronyms are because I never remember the acronyms myself. But it is a very important way to make sure that people can stay in their homes and can stay warm when it gets really cold outside in places like International Falls in Minnesota. Yet this program, LIHEAP, was subject to the funding freeze that was put into place a couple of weeks ago by Donald Trump, part of Russell Vought's Project 2025 plan.
I will close with this. This funding freeze also has put Minnesotans at risk of going hungry. Food is already expensive. I was talking about the price of eggs and the avian flu and the dangers to our public safety with the funding freeze getting at putting out public health information. But what about bringing down the price of groceries, which, I think, if you voted for Donald Trump, that might have been what was in your mind as you decided you were going to vote for him.
Well, in this country today, more than 47 million people experience hunger. They don't always know where their next meal is going to come from. They are not sure how they are going to be able to feed their children dinner as well as breakfast. One in five children live in families where that is their circumstance.
And some of the most, you know--the people that we care about the most, seniors, children, folks that are working hard and working in low-income--have low-wage jobs, so they depend on Federal nutrition assistance to meet their basic needs. And, of course, these programs don't just provide food, they are a real lifeline for families as they are working to get ahead, to work their way up, to get to where they want to be.
A great example of this is Meals on Wheels, which is about making sure that seniors have a warm meal, but it also is about more than that. It is about social connection and dealing with issues of loneliness and isolation, which so sadly afflicts so many of our elders in our country.
And this is something that works really well; it has been in place for a long time. It is not a red issue or a blue issue; it is not a rural issue or an urban issue. It is something that makes a huge, huge difference.
And so what is happening, Colleagues, is that every community in this country has members who need help, have people who need help feeding their families, and Russell Vought is working to take that help away.
So I started out by talking about how people in this country are waking up in the morning and wondering why they should care about who runs the Office of Management and Budget, the somewhat innocuous- sounding Agency which oversees Federal Agency performance and administers the Federal budget.
And I hope that in these comments, I have laid out just a few of the ways that this nomination of Russell Vought could have a clear impact on your life, on your safety, on your security, because his extreme agenda is anathema to how we should be running this country, and it is anathema to the basic belief that this country is founded on, the basic structure that we have, which is that Congress, the elected representatives of the people of this country, make decisions about how we are going to spend your precious tax dollars. And then it is the job of the office of OMB to make sure that those intentions are followed through in the Federal Government.
And what Russell Vought wants to do is to turn that on its head. He says: I don't care what Congress said. I don't care what your representatives voted for in Congress. I am going to do it my way.
And that is the most blatant power grab counter to your interests that I have ever seen.
And this is why, Colleagues, it is so important that we oppose the nomination of Russell Vought.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
I am grateful not only that you recognized me, but with the respect which you said the State of New Jersey. I know that you love my State. Many of my State residents are moving to Florida, so you are a very Jerseyified State yourself, so thank you very much for recognizing me.
I want to say to my incredible colleague Tina Smith, the incredible stance that you just made, the facts you laid plain, the reality she has exposed, it is so important.
The exercise going on this floor for the last 24 hours has been extraordinary and unusual. And one of the reasons why leader after leader came to the Senate floor was to show that this is not usual times. These are not usual times.
It is extraordinary to me that all through the night at the 2:00 hour, the 3 a.m. hour, the 4 a.m. hour, the 5 a.m. hour, Senator after Senator came down here to speak up, to talk about the unusual things that are going on in America and, in truth, the things that we believe unequivocally are violative of not just our democratic norms, but violative of the separation of powers.
Now, much of this is taken up in the courts already. You have State attorneys general suing right now because powers that were given to Congress are being taken by the Executive.
We know in the United States of America that we do not have a king. We are not an authoritarian government. And the debates of our Founding Fathers were central to this point that we should have three branches of government, coequal branches, with clearly laid out--in article I, article II, article III, clearly laid out rules and responsibilities, obligations under the Constitution.
Now, this whole process, one could say, we are doing one of our article I obligations to advise and consent on the President over his nominations to key positions like OMB. But this is so much more than that.
This is not just us advising and giving consent; it is standing up for what was the bipartisan norms of our Nation. In fact, it was the democratic norms of our Nation from the very beginning that Congress has certain roles. And I often say, we are the article I branch of government. The article II branch of government has their roles.
But our role, perhaps very importantly, is the power of the purse. Spending decisions, spending priorities, spending allocations are made in this body. And the people have a say in that through our elections.
Every 2 years, a third of this body is up. Every 2 years, all of the House of Representatives are up, and the people elect people to carry out the Constitution. We swear an oath--I have done it a number of times now--to protect and defend the Constitution.
And so why are we doing this unusual thing of talking all through the night about a nominee for something that many Americans don't know much about--the Office of Management and Budget?
That is because what has been going on in the first three weeks of the Trump administration is a reckless violation of our separation of powers.
This body has differences, but there is one thing I know my colleagues and I agree on is that the powers assigned to Congress by the Constitution are sacrosanct, and we cannot allow a President to step over their powers and begin to do things that are more akin to dictatorships or authoritarian governments.
We have seen that erosion of democracy from Europe to Africa, where executives elected begin to try to take powers away from the other branches of government.
Let me give you a specific example. Agencies within the Federal Government are set up by Congress, funded by Congress, given directives and a mission by Congress, and then Congress provides oversight for those Agencies and how the Executive is conducting those congressional mandates.
What we saw over the last week or so was a direct assault on a bipartisan congressional intent: USAID, the United States Agency for International Development.
The President of the United States decided that he didn't want that Agency to exist. Without any thought, without any strategy, without any understanding of the Agency's vital functions, the President of the United
Suddenly, the workers we have around the globe--so everything freezes. They were told to stop what they were doing. They were denied access to their e-mails, to critical files. Many of them were put into volatile situations because a lot of our great USAID government officials work in unstable environments; and, suddenly, their cell phones are not working, and they can't access their e-mail.
Resources that we allocated in a bipartisan way that were being spent for critical missions of the United States were so abruptly frozen that food aid, perishables, were left sitting on docks, medicines were stopped in their tracks--many of them that are perishable as well.
You want to talk about government waste? Food that could keep people alive, medicines that can keep people alive were left, basically, to spoil.
And this all ripples. Most people don't know this. There are 50,000 private sector jobs here in the United States, people who contract with the government, that are connected to this Agency USAID, created by Congress in a bipartisan fashion, year after year funded in a bipartisan agreement, bicameral. The President of the United States--by fiat, the President of the United States decides we are going to kill this Agency, stop it in its tracks. That is a violation of the separation of powers. Plain and simple.
Congress created the Agency. If the President wants to get rid of it, he should come to Congress. This Presidential action didn't show Donald Trump's strength; it showed his weakness, because a strong President makes his case to the American people, makes his case to Congress, lays out a vision, lays out a strategy, comes before Congress and proposes the legislation to do what they are saying. But, no, not this President.
Instead of following our constitutional dictates, instead of doing what a strong leader would have done, instead of doing what FDR did when he did sweeping things in the government, he came to Congress to fight to pass the laws to support his agenda.
LBJ, Ronald Reagan, strong Presidents who have a vision for this country that might be a little revolutionary, that might create great changes--they respect our Constitution. And they come to Congress with their vision to pass the laws necessary to support that vision.
I have watched it over my lifetime. I haven't always agreed with what the Presidents did, from Bush to Reagan, didn't agree with all their decisions, but they showed strength. They came to Congress and got Congress to pass laws to execute their bold vision.
I think a lot of bad decisions were made that way, but it went through Congress. Congress had a vote on the Iraq War. Congress had a vote on the authorization to use military force. Congress had a vote on welfare reform. Congress voted on Bill Clinton's vision for public safety to put 100,000 police officers on the street. Congress voted for the war on drugs. These are things I might not have always agreed with, but strong Presidents come before Congress, in alignment with the Constitution, with a respect for the separation of powers, abiding by the law, strong Presidents stand in the well of the House of Representatives and give a vision for this country.
As it says in my faith: Without vision, the people will perish. God bless the visionary Presidents we have had. John F. Kennedy pointing to the skies and saying, ``We will go to the moon.''
And then what did he do? He came to Congress with a vision to increase funding for science, math, for STEM education. What did he do? He came to Congress with a vision for making NASA something that would be the envy of the world. What did he do? He inspired a nation with a vision that was so compelling Democrats and Republicans joined together and followed him. What does this President do? What does Donald Trump-- who is no Reagan, who is no JFK--what does he do? In the dark of night, he sends in unelected individuals to access computer systems in a way that is so violative of the privacy of Americans and without congressional approval, without a legal basis. They go in and upend Agency after Agency after Agency. And for USAID, they shut it down.
That is not a visionary Presidency. That is reckless, undercover vandalism, illegal action, and the hurting of Americans.
And so why--why--has Senator after Senator come down here to speak up? Why? Because to treat this as normal would be to normalize these constitutional violations. And to allow someone like Vought, who has been saying over and over again: I don't respect the Constitution. I don't respect the courts. I don't respect the rule of law. We are going to take over.
If you don't believe me, listen to what Vought says in his own words. He believes that Congress should do what it wants to do. We knew that Vought published this memo and basically said: I have no regard for the Federal law or for Congress's power of the purse.
In 2018, Vought was instrumental in the Trump administration's attempt--they weren't successful; attempt--to use the Impoundment Control Act to withhold appropriated funds beyond their period of availability. This was a backdoor way to try to go around the law. This idea of impoundment is a theory that a President--despite Congress in a bipartisan, bicameral way passing a funding bill--this is the idea that the President of the United States, despite all of that, can just say: Nah, forget Congress. Forget the will of the people. Forget the people's representatives. Forget the U.S. Senate. I decide what we spend as a country.
And so he tried this attempt, but the attempt was determined by our processes to be illegal.
The GAO, the Government Accountability Office, said: You can't do that.
But Vought kept pushing to employ the same strategy the following year, to try to freeze foreign aid--this is 2018; the past is prologue, folks--and in doing so, he wanted to do it again, ignoring the 2018 GAO legal decision.
And in response to a 2020 prehearing question--this is how flagrantly defiant Vought is--in a response to a 2020 prehearing question, Vought wrote this: I will not abide by the 2018 decision, claiming it was wrongly decided.
Think about this. He is in the administrative branch and deciding that a legal decision was wrongly decided. So perhaps Vought not only wants to do the job of Congress, but now he wants to do the job of the article III branch of government and the courts as well.
What does that sound like? Does that sound like a patriot to our democratic traditions? No.
Does that sound like somebody who is willing to follow the rule of law? No.
Does that sound like somebody who is in the spirit of 1776--the spirit of compromise, the spirit of patriotism, the spirit of adherence to the democratic ideals of the United States of America? No.
It sounds like someone that believes that they have the power to act in an authoritarian manner and declare themselves the executive, the legislature, and the courts.
It is a deliberate misreading. And the GAO, in its earlier decision, previously signaled that the consequence of an unenacted rescission proposal should be the full prudent obligation of budget authority. In other words, I am king.
In his response following his nomination hearing, on GAO's legal decision, writing in a response to our Homeland Security Committee, he said: I do not agree with the GAO's report. OMB did not violate the IPA, as I set forth in my January 19, 2020, letter to John Yarmuth, chairman of the House Committee on the Budget. In other words, he is still standing strong during his confirmation hearing that he is doing the right thing. He stands by his defiance. He stands by this violation of the separation of powers.
And here is what a former employee who worked at USDA wrote about how dangerous this position is: For 30 years, across both Republican and Democratic administrations--decades of constitutional norms, decades of bipartisan commitment. This is what this employee said: I argue Russ Vought is the most dangerous person in the Trump administration, even over Trump, given his ideological bent and belief. He believes that the President does not spend congressional appropriations.
We can't normalize this. And this is what I know, being here for over a decade now. If this was being done by the Barack Obama administration, there would be hair on fire on the other side of the aisle. Every Member, every Republican, would look like me as a bald man; they would have no more hair.
If Barack Obama decided to ignore the dictates of Congress, to say: Your funding decisions have no hold on my actions. I am going to ignore congressional mandate. I am going to ignore congressional rules--my Republican colleagues would be apoplectic.
If he decided with foreign policy that, hey, there is this thing called the Hyde amendment; I am going to ignore it--if Barack Obama did that, not one of them would normalize it or excuse it or look the other way.
It is that complicity that bothers me. We are at a constitutional crossroads here. We do have someone in power now who is showing weakness.
It is a weakness that other authoritarians in democratic nations have tried to do: I am not going to work through the system as designed by that nation's founders. I am not going to work in adherence to the spirit of the Constitution. I am going to do as much as I possibly can to take power for myself, to violate norms, to violate the Constitution, to indeed violate the law, and then challenge you to stop me.
And the question is: Who will speak up? Silence is complicity.
And there might be some people who are just sitting and saying: Oh, this is politics as usual. Oh, this is right-left fighting. Oh, this is not really that important. What does this have to do with me? Well, let me lay it plain, giving you one example of what has happened.
Stopping USAID's work without any plan or strategy has now endangered every American because there are things we get to go to bed at night and not have to think about because we have a government full of officials, scientists, hard-working people who, every day, make it their life mission to focus on things so that we, the people, do not have to think about them.
Think about that for a second. We know it in our own towns and communities. We have firefighters. We have police officers that stand on the frontline. They stand in the breech to protect us, to get dangerous things and conditions and people off the streets so that we are safe and we don't have to think about it every night.
(Mr. MARSHALL assumed the Chair.)
Well, that goes for USAID too. They are a national security organization. How do I know that? I am a spiritualist. I really am. I believe there are universal spiritual principles. One of them was spoken by this great American, one of the few people who is not a President of the United States whose statue sits under the dome. He was a spiritualist. He was, in fact, a person of faith. He was a minister. And he spoke to us about a scientific truth using spiritual language.
It was in this great body of work called ``Letters from a Birmingham Jail.'' And if he only knew that his words would resound in history, these spiritual words would speak to a scientific truth.
He said this: ``We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality''--that we are tied in a common garment of destiny, that ``injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.''
Powerful words, right? But what do they have to do with science, Cory? What do they have to do with our present political crisis, our present constitutional crisis? What do they have to do with that?
Well, here is what they have to do with that. You see, in the wisdom of this body, as I have worked in a bipartisan way on the Foreign Relations Committee, we fund the USAID to do things to protect us. But we are not doing them at home. USAID officials are around the globe.
And one of the reasons why we, in the wisdom of Congress that this President is trying to violate--one of the things that we know, because we have got engineers in this place, we have got doctors in this place, we have got dedicated public servants in this place, we have got a few big, bald nerds like me in this place--what we know is that the USAID does work that is vital to keep Americans who are sleeping at night safe.
Let me be specific. Right now in Uganda, there is an Ebola outbreak in the capital. Ebola is a vicious disease that is highly infectious. I remember this because back under the Presidency of Barack Obama, it was dominating the headlines. I saw one of the most courageous things done, that Chris Coons here flew to Africa to support the efforts that the United States of America through USAID was doing to stop Ebola in its tracks in Africa so it didn't visit us here.
But because of the global interconnected transportation systems, it was getting closer and closer to threatening American lives.
This was a crisis that dominated the headlines during the Obama administration. And who was then there to fight the spread of Ebola, to arrest it in that African nation? Who was it? USAID, American people. Who was in Uganda right now up until the Trump administration stopped their work? Who was there? Americans working for USAID. In the midst of a nasty, horrific infection, they were like our first responders, they were like our soldiers because they understand that spiritual truth that King spoke: ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'' An infectious disease anywhere is a threat to public health everywhere.
What was the administration's plans to deal with global infectious outbreaks? Did they come to Congress and put forth a vision? No. What was the administration's strategy to stop the growing threat of global pandemics and global threats? Did they share that plan with Congress? No. What was this administration going to do? Well, they didn't seem to care. There wasn't one hearing about this. There wasn't one conversation. There wasn't a consultation with Congress where leaders from the HELP Committee or leaders from the Foreign Relations Committee were invited to the White House to discuss their strategy in making sure that the vital functions of this Agency are preserved.
They were pursuing a radical, ideological agenda, ignoring the truth of science and the power of the spiritual truth that America's interests and national security demand Americans--be they soldiers or scientists--sometimes standing away from our country in Africa, in Asia, in Europe, protecting us from infectious diseases that are so nightmarish that--most Americans would be happy to continue to send taxpayer dollars to stop Ebola in Africa so that someone doesn't get on a plane not knowing they are infected and come to visit our country and begin an outbreak of disastrous proportions.
But here is something that USAID has been working on that is terrifying to me--truly is, and I have been talking about it for a long time in Congress--we are beginning to see bugs around this planet that are resistant to antibiotics. I talked about this in my work because I think we are these overusers of antibiotics.
Almost 50 percent of our antibiotics will be used prophylactically-- not because we are treating diseases but because of the way we raise animals in America. We have to inject them over and over again to try to stop them from getting sick and end up with these horrible things where farmers have to cull their whole herd of pigs or chickens because of some kind of outbreak.
This threat of antibiotic-resistant diseases--well, thousands of American die of them all the time.
So here is a particularly infectious, nasty disease. It is called tuberculosis. Right now--I shouldn't say that because Trump has stopped it, but there were some of the best scientists in the world that happened to be ours, Americans, working for USAID on the frontlines of treatment-resistant tuberculosis, not just Ebola, in Uganda. USAID workers were trying to figure out what kind of treatments and regimes could be put into place to stop the spread of resistant tuberculosis because of the virulently viral nature of that awful disease.
How irresponsible for a President whose No. 1 responsibility is to protect Americans to tear down the Agency, stop the Agency workers--cut off their cell phones, cut off their emails, cut off their access to files, leave them not even knowing how they would get
This is not just a violation of our Constitution. This is not just a violation of separation of powers. This is not just a violation of the law. This is a violation of common sense. This is a violation of pragmatism. This is a violation of a sacred oath to protect the American people.
I heard, folks--you did as well--the promises that were being made to America in the campaign of this President: I will keep you safe. I will drive down your costs.
Well, in 3 weeks in office, we are less safe to infectious diseases than we were under the past two Presidents. Biden and Trump 1 didn't tear down USAID infectious disease work. Obama, Republicans and Democrats--I have worked with many of my colleagues across the aisle on making sure that we are funding the important global work to fight infectious diseases. Heck, I passed bipartisan legislation to stop wet markets, which is one of the places that these zoonotic diseases can lead to human beings.
I saw momentum after COVID that we should be working together to stop infectious diseases that might start in China, in Africa, in Europe from coming to America. There seemed to be a bipartisan commitment to that idea in Congress, and it is one of the reasons why, with past Presidents, we have funded USAID to do this vital work with some of the best scientists on the globe who are willing to put their lives at risk, to step into an Ebola outbreak, a tuberculosis outbreak, an avian flu outbreak, and say ``I will do what I can to protect my country,'' like firefighters do and soldiers do and police officers do.
They are great Americans, but what happened to them? What happened to these great Americans risking their lives to stop infectious diseases? The President of the United States, in an act of cowardice, did not come to Congress to give a vision for how we would protect our Nation from infectious diseases, how we would do the vital work of USAID--no. In the cover of night, countermanding our laws, violating the Constitution, and an affront to the wisdom on both sides of the aisle, he just went ahead and did it. He just went ahead and did it.
The world is a complex and dangerous place. As much as government workers are being maligned and attacked and vilified and beat upon, most Americans take for granted what these patriotic Americans do every day. You shop in your supermarket and don't think about ``Does this food have some disease or worm in it?'' because these government workers at USAID are inspecting that food and are making it safe.
A lot of government workers got flashed on the TV with our first major aviation accident in 16 years. Well, I get on planes a lot, and I have gone and talked to air traffic controllers. I fought for them and their contracts because I know that during those 16 years, no accident happened. You had incredible government workers working very hard, pouring their hearts out in one of the most stressful jobs, to keep us safe. So when I jump on a plane, I don't think about the air traffic around me. I know that I am on an aviation system that is safer than me getting in my car because of government workers.
We, in a bipartisan way--and this is what I am saying--there is so much goodness on both sides of the aisle. We have government workers that are doing suicide prevention work for our veterans, when we were seeing veteran after veteran die day after day after day. There are government workers, some of them I met, that make it their mission to be there for veterans that come home with invisible wounds.
I am going to make a statement that may sound braggadocios or hyperbolic, but it is actually true. In this body, there are former Governors, there are former county executives, and there are former mayors. None of them, when they were an executive, cut government more than I did.
I cut the size of Newark, New Jersey's government by 25 percent. Think about that--cutting a governmental body by a quarter. I did it. It was painful, it was hard, and it was difficult. It was during the great recession, and I had no choice.
But I had a city council. There were rules in the way I did it. There were civil service protections which I abided by.
Oh, but not this President.
We actually used what people called buyouts. We offered packages to people. But all of this we did in accordance to the laws of our State and my city in conjunction with our legislative body. We presented a vision for Newark, put a plan forward that, hey, these departments may be losing personnel, but we are going to make them more efficient.
To this day, I remember some of the data. We had like half the inspectors but did almost twice as many inspections because we had a thoughtful plan that we executed in consultation and coordination with our legislative branch.
I am the first person to tell you, as the No. 1 government-cutter in this place, that there are a lot of ways to cut waste. Just the procurement process alone in the Department of Defense is still being done in ways that are antiquated, that are being corrupted by people that leave the Pentagon and go work for the big contracting agents--a circle that is corrupting. There are ways to create more transparency on that. There are ways to bring new technology on that. There are so many ways to improve that system.
How do I know this? Because the first person to tell me this out at his ranch in Arizona was the former Secretary of the Navy, in a late- night conversation where I just sat there and learned at the foot of some wise men, was John McCain. He went on and on and on about the corruption in our U.S. military that is undermining our fighting forces. He said we could be spending less and have higher capabilities if we only started to root out the wasteful spending and the corruption in that institution.
We should be doing this in a bipartisan way. There are so many things that many of us see that don't make sense. And there is a process we could follow to do it.
A President that is a strong President would come to Washington, would come to Congress, would give a bold address like Kennedy did when he said we were going to go to the Moon; like LBJ did when he said we are going to be a great society; like Ronald Reagan did when he said it was going to be morning in America again. This is my vision. This is my plan. I am bringing it to Congress, and we are going to get it done.
But, no, this President didn't come here to push our government to a higher level, to inspire and engage, to be thoughtful about how we were going to be safer, stronger, and more prosperous--no. He brought in an unelected billionaire that everybody in this body knows is so conflicted, a guy who has so many government contracts, a guy whose net worth has been deeply affected by this government. He brought him in, and he and his agents have gone into systems that, to me, violate privacy.
They have no transparency of what they are doing until we wake up in the middle of the night or wake up the next day and find out that the people on the frontlines fighting against infectious diseases that threaten the United States--they are gone, cut off.
We just saw this last week when Donald Trump froze funding to everything--from veterans to first responders. He froze funding for daycare that had everybody in the station--I had calls from mayors who were Republicans, Democrats, Independents who couldn't access certain key portals; that had acted in contracting, relying upon a government stream of money; that had made plans and hiring decisions that suddenly were cut off in a lurch.
The powerful thing about that is the outrage across America took this President, who was violating the law, violating bipartisan spending decisions, violating the separation of powers--the fact that Americans from all over this country spoke up and spoke out stopped him in his tracks because that is how you deal with injustice. You don't normalize it. You call it out. And God bless America. This man who thought he was going to bully and steamroll and cut critical streams of funding all across this country was stopped in his tracks.
Now, he said: Oh, I am just pulling back temporarily because I am going to come back at this.
But the sigh of relief.
I have met with prosecutors this week. I have met with police officers this week. I have met with people who voted for him, voted against him, and didn't vote in my State, and all of them said that that was an outrageous move. Thank God we stopped him. Well, how did we stop him? By speaking up, by not normalizing this, by not thinking this is just politics as usual.
So that is what this all-night speak-out has been about. It is about raising voices. It is about not being silent. It is about the gifts of this democracy: the right to protest, the right to petition your government, the freedom of speech. You see, we believe in this democracy--that the power of the people is greater than the people in power. We believe in this democracy in that every voice matters.
Donald Trump is creating chaos, confusion. People like Vought have said on the record they don't care about constitutional norms, that they don't care about legal proceedings and the outcomes because that is wrongly decided. ``I have decided that that is not binding on me.'' Vought doesn't believe that we make spending decisions, that it is the President of the United States--despite the budget that was negotiated and passed by two Chambers in a bipartisan way--that the President can then decide ``I don't like this. Congress decided a spending priority. I don't care. I am not spending that money.'' That is Vought.
So some people say: Well, they have the votes. Cory, can't you count?
Well, I know I am here because I stand on the shoulders of my ancestors, like all of us do. We are all the beneficiaries of the struggles and the sacrifices that came before us. We are all the beneficiaries of moments in American history where democracy was in the balance, and the majority of our people chose the right way.
We are all here because in the Depression, when a general of the United States was calling for a military takeover, people stood up and spoke out.
We are all here because, during World War II but before America joined and there was a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden full to the rafters, more Americans here said that we were going to resist fascist impulses.
We are all here because, on the left, there was a Senator named Huey Long, who said: Oh, the people should take over the Capitol. They are going to storm the Capitol, and I am going to be with the people.
Well, the people weren't listening to that extremist at the time.
We are all here because, moment after moment in American history, when democracy was at a crossroads, when our Constitution was at a crossroads, people of good faith stood up.
I remember one of the earliest women Senators that stood up against McCarthyism right here on the floor, criticizing someone of her own party--a profile in courage. I was taught a lot about that courage. In a chapter many people may not remember, there is a little panel to it right there. If you are in the Galleries and walk out, there is a panel to this wonderful moment in American history when we were at a crossroads.
It was the election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden. It was hotly contested. You see, in that, one person--Tilden-- won the popular vote, but Hayes seemed to have won the electoral college. Now, the Democrat, Tilden--there was a lot of controversy because this was post-Reconstruction--excuse me--post-Civil War, and the South had lots of African Americans participating, and this left a bit of a constitutional crisis and what became the Compromise of 1877. Hayes was declared the winner, but the compromise that was made was that the Republican, Hayes, would win and be the President as he was in exchange for what the Democrats wanted, which was to pull Federal troops out of the South who were protecting African Americans. An outcome of an election not just upended Reconstruction and upended the progress that was being made, but it upended something that was incredible, which was, I am the fourth Black person ever elected to the U.S. Senate, but during the Reconstruction era, the first one appointed--there were two.
Black folks, from the end of the Civil War until about 1901, when the last African American, Congressman White, left this place because of the fall of Reconstruction--because as soon as Federal troops were pulled out, reigns of terror began in the South. All kinds of laws were being passed to stop Blacks from voting because, in America, voting is power. Black elected officials were being beaten. Black judges were being pulled out in the streets--whipped. The Klan rose. Lynching in America--hundreds and hundreds of African Americans were being lynched with regularity who were standing up for their power. There were massacres going on to cut down Black political power.
Here we had had an election, and the results in terms of our constitutional norms--the power to vote, the idea that we secure the rule of law and protect citizens--all of that was being upended in flames and terror and violence and lynching in the South that took an early wave of Black participation in Congress. And the last one, Congressman White, in 1901, gave a phoenix speech. He knew it would be the last time. He predicted that Blacks would disappear from Congress but that, one day, they would rise like a phoenix.
Now, interestingly, in his State, a Black person didn't come from North Carolina's congressional delegation. That was 1901. Not until 1992 was another African American elected from North Carolina.
His prediction was right: Blacks would disappear because of the terror in the South, but because of the power of the civil rights movement, Blacks and Whites and Asians and Latinos--it was a rainbow coalition of people--would not be silent amongst tyranny and amongst violence and oppression. American citizens from all backgrounds, all religions, all races, bound together and were not silent. They spoke up.
One of my great heroes in this time--I have seen her spirit today. I had seen her spirit yesterday at a rally. I had seen her spirit across this country of people who know they can't necessarily stop, right now, what is going on but are saying: I am going to speak up anyway. This person was named Ida B. Wells.
Now, Ida B. Wells was a journalist in the South, and she was documenting the lynching of African Americans, documenting the injustices being done, documenting how the abuses of political power and electoral power were being used in a fascist way to stop the people from being heard. And the lynchings--the gruesome lynchings, which she was documenting and putting out there as her pamphlets were becoming nationally known, so upset people that her offices were attacked and ransacked. She had to flee for her life because Ida B. Wells was not being silent. She was telling the truth. She was letting folks know what was happening.
I think about her courage, to know that what you are doing and what you are saying against an authoritarian-style leadership can endanger your life, and yet you still tell the truth; how you are getting threats that you, too, will be lynched if you don't stop, but you keep telling the truth--the ugly truth. You put the stories out there again and again and again. Ida B. Wells could not be stopped.
There were all of these common lies that were being said about the lynchings: Oh, these were African Americans who did horrible things. These were African Americans who were guilty of crimes. These were African Americans who raped. They should have been lynched. They should have been killed.
Ida B. Wells would write detailed stories about the injustices that were even being upheld in courts of law, but she told the truth that so shocked the consciousness of our country that she, in many ways--may have been a journalist, but she was a farmer--every day relentlessly sowing seeds of truth that would one day reap a harvest of consciousness in our country, where good folks--Black folks and White folks and people of all backgrounds--would finally say: Enough is enough.
Congress here tried to pass antilynching bills way back around the time that Ida B. Wells was trying to show this horrific crime, and this body failed over 100 times over the course of a century--failed to make lynching a violation of Federal law. I am really proud that I got to lead the legislation in a bipartisan manner to finally correct this injustice; to finally bring full
I bring up Ida B. Wells today because it is my concluding message-- this defiant refusal in the face of injustice, this strength of character in the face of powerful people--Governors of States, a President of the United States, and others--making decisions on the Federal level that wreaked utter havoc for millions of Americans when you didn't have the numbers, when you didn't have the votes, but what you had was the truth: to not let things happen, not just to be a bystander but to be an upsetter. This was what Ida B. Wells did.
We study American history with an obligation to let it be not just our past, but we study American history to let it be our calling in the present so that we can try, as humble as we are, to live up to those who came before us; that but for them, our entire way of being would have collapsed.
Ida B. Wells said this:
Let me repeat. Ida B. Wells--this documenter of savage injustices, this truthteller about lynchings in America, this sower of seeds of truth that, generations later, even in this body, we honor her by passing anti-lynching legislation after a century of trying--Ida B. Wells said the first thing we must do ``to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.''
For all those people in America right now, whether you are a worker in Uganda who can't even access your emails or you are an American who wants to stop Ebola; whether you are a worker here in the United States who has spent your entire professional life working to protect Americans from threats to our food or our air quality; whether you are someone who is just seeing what is going on in America right now, and you are afraid; whether you are someone who is worried that Vought will come in and upend educational funding that your disabled child relies upon every day; whether you are an American who is struggling right now and had hoped for promises that your cost of living would get better but are now seeing that, indeed, whether it is a tax on streams of revenue for middle-class families or the police in my community; or whether it is threats of tariffs with our neighbors that directly affected your small business that is barely staying afloat--whatever the challenge is, whatever the fear is, what I want to tell you right now is don't normalize a President who is violating the separation of powers. Don't normalize a President who is violating civil service laws. Don't normalize a President who is ignoring the dictates of Congress in establishing Agencies.
This is the time to summon the spirit of Ida B. Wells and ``to turn the light of truth upon what is going on'' because you may be witnessing defeats, but the democracy is not defeated. You may say what is going on is wrong, but that does not stop the power of right.
As the great poet said:
This mighty Nation stands on the shoulders of truthtellers, of defiant, dedicated patriots of grit and gumption. It is we the people. No matter if you are a billionaire or a President, if you are a teacher, if you are a cop, if you are a plumber, this Nation says that our voices matter.
In the words of that Negro spiritual, as we have tried to do here all through the night, I hope everyone in America understands that this is the time for us to ``lift every voice.''
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. President, I would like, first, to recognize the great Senator from New Jersey, Senator Cory Booker. It is never easy or fair to speak after him.
But I take the floor today to urge my colleagues to vote no on President Trump's nominee for the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought.
Some remember Mr. Vought from when he served as the head of the same Agency during President Trump's first term. He is one of the very few repeat appointments--clearly, a reflection of his loyalty.
You may also know him for his leadership, his authoring of Project 2025--that far-right agenda that the President, during the campaign, swore up and down he had no idea about.
I would leave it at that, although, I think he understood many discussions, perhaps, outlined in the framework.
Project 2025 would gut our longstanding and globally admired framework of checks and balances. It would gut them. It would ensure civil servants will be hired and fired on the basis of political loyalty--something that this country has struggled for many decades to get rid of.
It would truly weaponize our system of justice--again, something that almost everyone works toward keeping nonpartisan.
It lays out in detail the plan to dramatically change our American system of government, perhaps for a very long time. It is truly not a question of if anymore. The plan and the people putting it in place are disregarding laws and norms dating back to the Constitution.
They are throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. This means firing or pushing out vast swaths of the Federal workforce of civil servants. These are career civil servants, many of whom have devoted their lives to keeping our government running--from processing Social Security checks; keeping our weather systems afloat; or helping to stop waste, fraud, and abuse.
Some would say our Federal workers don't do anything. But they are honest, hard-working Americans.
Project 2025 is just getting started. If confirmed, Mr. Vought and Project 2025 could have devastating consequences for Colorado.
Deep in Project 2025 are plans to heavily restrict access to contraceptives and abortion medication, denying women and families the freedom to make their own reproductive decisions; plans to make healthcare more expensive by repealing policies that empower Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and drive down the cost for healthcare seniors; plans to make Colorado less resilient to these increasing frequent disasters caused by extreme weather.
They are already reinstating cruel immigration policies and threatening to come after the LGBTQ community.
At a time when grocery prices are rising on everything from eggs to meat, Project 2025 is going to make life harder for Colorado farmers and ranchers and more risky.
Project 2025 would cut safety nets for our ag producers when they have a bad season. It includes plans to gut essential crop insurance. Project 2025 even wants government to get involved in the specific techniques our ranchers use to farm.
Our Colorado farmers know their land better than anyone else. Hanging small farmers out to dry does nothing to lower grocery prices for Americans.
We have been hearing in our offices from producers across the State who are very concerned about what this Project 2025 means to them. We have over 38,000 farm operations in Colorado. Some harvest wheat. Some raise meat or poultry. Some specialize in dairy. All of them support our rural communities and play an essential role in feeding families really all across the country.
We don't have to speculate about what Mr. Vought would do to the Office of Management and Budget. He has really laid it all out in Project 2025. He wrote Project 2025, to a large extent, himself.
One of his finest contributions is a section championing the executive branch's ability to overreach and ``impound funds.''
Let's not mince words. This is, by all historic measures, blatantly unconstitutional. Congress alone has the authority to decide how government spends its money.
This isn't an opinion. It says explicitly in article I, section 9, clause 7:
``Made by Law,'' designated by Congress.
Again, in article I, section 8, clause 1:
We got a taste of how Mr. Vought would attempt to execute something like this last week. In a truly chaotic,
The memo stemmed from an Executive order calling on Federal Agencies to review and eliminate spending on ``woke'' ideologies or the ``Green New Deal''--both things that aren't clearly defined and don't, in any specific way, exist.
In this rush to create chaos and a jumbled policy, the implementers didn't bother to specify which programs would continue and which programs would end.
Our office and our staff were immediately flooded with calls-- hundreds and thousands of calls. We heard from folks in every corner of Colorado--big cities, small towns--asking: What does this mean for them and their families? There was real fear, real worry, and for good reason.
The Trump administration tried to walk back the original memo to clarify that the freeze wouldn't affect individual payments like Social Security or food stamp benefits, but that didn't clear up too much. It certainly didn't help that the White House Press Secretary couldn't answer specific questions, like pertaining to critical government programs like Medicaid, whether they were going to be affected.
Frustrating as it is--and I get how frustrating it is--there are reasons why the government moves slowly.
All of this, if implemented as requested, would have had a devastating impact on Colorado, a devastating impact.
The Federal programs and funds make up roughly 25 percent of our State's effort to build transportation and infrastructure and provide needed services for the most needy in our State.
Head Start, a truly vital service for over 9,000 low-income kids in Colorado, would be forced to shutter its operations that provide these low-income kids of all communities with the early childhood education, health, and nutrition that they need. Even as we speak, there are reports that Head Start providers around the Nation are not able to access funds.
If implemented, it would cut off 83,000 low-income Colorado families from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps heat their homes in a cold winter. These are folks, in many cases, who are unable to pay their heating bill or wouldn't be able to heat their homes without this assistance.
Our public safety and law enforcement would be weakened. The pause would strip funding that helps our local agencies prevent terrorism, helps them crack down on drug trafficking and prevent crimes and provide services for those who have been victimized by crime.
Colorado has one of the largest veteran populations in the country-- something we are very proud of--but this funding would cut resources for those vets. It would cut resources for community-based suicide prevention efforts, organizations that provide care for veterans experiencing homelessness, and services for veterans living with disabilities, many of them taken in the defense of our Nation. It is hard to be cruel to those who have given their country so much.
Before entering public service, I was in the restaurant business. At our brewpub in downtown Denver, we would cook, pack, and donate meals every year to Meals on Wheels to feed seniors throughout the Metro Denver area. I have seen firsthand the difference this makes, the relief it provides to seniors who need it. Many of them don't leave the house and are so grateful to have someone come that they can talk to as they get their meal.
But the Federal funding freeze left Meals on Wheels in Colorado and all across the country unsure of how and whether they would be able to continue serving meals. Over 25,000 Coloradoan seniors every day rely on Meals on Wheels to access food. Why would we leave our seniors hungry and unsure when their next hot lunch is going to come?
Our office also heard directly from a Colorado rural health organization about how this Federal funding freeze would have life-or- death effects on Coloradoans in 47 rural counties. When we are in towns like Cortez or Hugo or Julesburg, we hear all the time about how our rural hospitals, clinics, and community health centers are already strained by workforce shortages and by rising costs. These medical providers are on the frontlines in dealing with our Nation's mental health and opioid crisis, and we are cutting their ability to provide these services?
These folks in rural Colorado and in suburbs around every city in Colorado are watching their friends, family, and neighbors struggle with mental health issues that rose up after the pandemic. This funding freeze wouldn't just strip funding from these programs; it would force our critical rural hospitals to lay off staff or turn away patients at a time when they need it most. We should be fighting to increase access to quality, affordable healthcare no matter where people live, not take it away.
The Federal funding freeze has already been blocked by the courts several times because it is blatantly illegal. It makes no sense. But make no mistake, Mr. Vought and the Trump administration will keep poking and prodding our courts and our Constitution until they get their way.
All of these actions serve a sinister purpose: to completely transform our government into one that gives enormous--enormous--tax cuts, largely directed at those who don't need them and--in many cases in Colorado--don't want them and puts working-class Americans out to pasture.
The Federal funding freeze is just one of many chaotic actions Mr. Vought and the administration are pushing. We see Project 2025 come into clarity in this administration's illegal attempts to dismantle Agencies without congressional approval or their attempts to access Americans' sensitive data.
Look, I am all for cutting government waste. If you want to seriously look at how we spend money and where we can cut actual fraud, waste, and abuse, I am game. A more efficient government will help us all. But that is not what is happening.
I have worked as hard as I could to find ways to work across the aisle. That is not going to change. When I was mayor of Denver, when I was Governor of Colorado, we balanced the budget every year, and we worked hard to try to streamline government processes, just like every mayor and every Governor in this country. You can't just shove working families under the bus or violate the law to do it.
We will fight these attempts in the courts, on the floor of the Senate--like now--and everywhere else we can to defend Colorado and the Constitution. It is time to use every tool at our disposal to disrupt what Mr. Vought and his Project 2025 are trying to do.
We have supported these lawsuits, we have opposed Executive actions, and we have voted against nominees. But if we need to hold the Senate floor, like we are doing now, vote all night, disrupt business as usual, we will do that too.
I will oppose every nominee that poses a genuine threat to Coloradoans. It is why I am here on the floor and will vote no on Mr. Vought today. Coloradoans sent us to Washington to solve problems, not to create more.
Project 2025 is a brutal plan to wreak havoc on our Nation and really change the way our government operates, the way our democracy functions.
I hope people all over the State emulate that old movie ``Net Worth'' and they can shout out on every corner ``I am mad as hell, and I am not going to stand for it.'' Let's hope they get so loud that they can't be drowned out.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. President, Nevadans sent me to the Senate to stand up and fight for hard-working families throughout our State, and that is exactly why I am here today: to sound the alarm about Russell Vought's nomination to lead the Trump administration's Office of Management and Budget. They oversee virtually every Agency and the entire Federal budget.
Mr. Vought would be a disaster if he is put in this role again. Russell Vought is an extremist, will betray working families--betray your family--and there is simply no other way to put it. After all, he was the main architect behind the Project 2025 agenda. You might have heard of it, but for those who don't know, Project 2025 is Russell Vought's far-right playbook for
It is filled with extreme ideas that would hurt families like yours, ideas like putting essential government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security on the chopping block. And he is going to give handouts to billionaires and big corporations on the backs of America's middle class--on your backs.
Seeing how much power this administration has already given to unelected--unelected--billionaire CEOs, it is not hard to imagine what is coming next. Don't just look at Mr. Vought's ideas; take a moment to look at his actions.
When he oversaw Trump's budgets during the first administration, Russell Vought spearheaded efforts to--well, he wanted to try to do this: cut Medicare by more than $500 billion, cut Medicaid by just over $750 billion, and cut Social Security by close to $80 billion. That is your Medicare, your Medicaid, your Social Security on the chopping block. Think about that.
These programs are a lifeline to so many Americans, and they can mean the difference between a person's financial well-being or their financial ruin. And these aren't abstract numbers. These folks are our neighbors; they are our family; they are our friends. That is who we are talking about here. These are not some numbers in a budget; they are people--people we love.
So you have to ask yourself this: How is this helping you? How is this helping the ones you love? How is this helping any of us? It is not. It is not. Instead of reforming and bolstering these programs to help real people--to help you--Mr. Vought wants to give more tax breaks to billionaires, the ultrawealthy, while telling working families, hard-working families, to figure things out for themselves. Families who get up every day and work hard, good community members, they want you to figure it out for yourself.
Under his plans, the richest people in this country would get hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in tax breaks, while regular working Americans would get next to nothing by comparison--next to nothing. And that is who Russell Vought is, and that is what he stands for.
Disturbingly, Mr. Vought has made it abundantly clear he does not care about violating our Federal law or the Constitution to see his terrible mission through. Russell Vought does not care about our Constitution or the law. Just look at the wave of threats to illegally fire career civil servants, many of whom are veterans, by the way-- people who just want to make a difference in other people's lives.
It is all outlined in Mr. Vought's Project 2025, which aims to put as much power as possible in the hands of President Trump and his unelected billionaire buddies. Russell Vought--well, he thinks the rules don't apply to him. In fact, he seems eager to abuse whatever power he gets. It is dangerous. It is undemocratic. It is un-American. It is not how we govern.
This isn't a plan for responsible leadership, Mr. President; it is a recipe for disaster, one that we are seeing play out in real time. Just look at the recent Federal funding freeze that Trump's administration put in place. It has caused chaos. It has caused confusion all across the country. It is reckless. It is cruel. It is illegal. These actions virtually froze all Federal grants and loans and have jeopardized key programs that many Nevadans depend on every single day--key programs for our families, our children, our seniors, our first responders, our veterans. The list goes on and on. All of them have been impacted by Donald Trump's Federal funding freeze, and hundreds of Nevadans have called my office to share how it could negatively impact their lives and the lives of those they care about most.
The decisions that OMB makes can determine whether a child in Las Vegas can get a hot breakfast at school or if a senior citizen in Reno will get meals delivered to their home because they are homebound. This Agency can decide on whether our first responders--those who run in when tragedy is happening, when we are running out, to protect us--our heroic firefighters and police, can get the equipment they need to save lives and keep themselves safe while doing that. OMB can decide whether our communities have access to clean, safe water.
Now we are being asked to vote on handing over the keys to our Nation's budget to Russell Vought, the driving force behind the freeze, a man who has focused almost his entire career on slashing programs that real people--real people, you and everyone that you know--rely on--you and everyone you know and love rely on every single day.
I urge my colleagues who are considering a vote for this nomination to think about what working people in this country are going through at this moment.
I urge my colleagues to think about the moms and the dads who come home from a hard day at work. They have dinner with their family. They put their kids to bed, and then instead of relaxing in front of the TV, they sit at the kitchen table and they worry. And they are worried sick about how they are going to pay the bills, how they are going to keep a roof over their head, how they are going to keep putting food on the table.
They are going back and forth trying to figure out what essentials they can live without just to make ends meet. At the same time, the billionaires that Russell Vought is looking out for, they don't understand the struggle, I can bet you that.
I am going to say here, let's ask those billionaires last time they went grocery shopping and worried about the price of eggs or milk. I bet they don't have an answer for that. That is who Mr. Vought fights for. And these struggles that real families are going through, they are tough choices that far, far too many working families face every single day.
And these are the people who will be hurt most by Russell Vought's extreme--extreme--agenda. And we know that right now, these same families are feeling the squeeze of rising costs. It is everywhere--the grocery store to the gas pump. And with the added price spikes from President Trump's reckless tariff threats, it is going to get even harder to afford food, pay off an energy bill, or make rent. Let alone--let alone--buy a home.
And so it is no wonder people are so frustrated with the way things are; it shouldn't have to be this way.
We should be looking for opportunities to help make their lives better, to make things, well, a little easier. At a time when Americans are already paying an arm and a leg for essentials, when they desperately need the support of critical government programs that make such a meaningful difference, why on earth would we confirm someone who will just make their lives harder? Why on earth would we do this?
So make no mistake, if Russell Vought is allowed to head up the OMB, Vought will work to make sure the ultrawealthy get more, while struggling families get even less than they have now. This is who Russell Vought is, and this is what he will do--what he will do to you.
Nevadans are hurting, and they are looking to Congress for help. If Vought is given the power to shape our Federal budget, we risk seeing critical programs slashed, leaving our seniors, working people, families facing higher costs, fewer services, and with less financial security.
And this isn't just an ideological difference, it is a real threat to millions of people's well-being, to the very core of what is most important to them: their families. And the stakes couldn't be higher. And so I urge my colleagues in the Senate to reject this reckless nomination for the sake of all of our families.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in expressing my opposition to the President's nominee for the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mr. Russell Vought, and to join the millions of Americans who have been gravely alarmed by the President's order to cut off already appropriated Federal funds for communities all across the country, a move which has been a longstanding priority for Mr. Vought.
I can think of few people more dangerous and deeply unsuited for the role of director of the Office of Management
And it is not simply that Mr. Vought has demonstrated a complete lack of regard for the notion of government by consent of the governed-- though, time and again, he has done just that. It is because in the President's order to cut all funding for all Federal grants, a passion project straight from the pages of Mr. Vought, the President's reckless and illegal actions have already thrown communities into chaos, and they have hurt the American people.
Any nomination for a senior post in an administration is, to a degree, an act of faith. We never fully know the manner in which someone will perform their duties until they are in the post. But with Mr. Vought, the situation is different. Not only do we have a clearer picture of how Mr. Vought would approach the job from his last time that he held this post, not only do we have a blueprint from the proposed budget developed by Mr. Vought at his think tank, we need only to look at the events of the last week to see how Mr. Vought would handle his office.
Mr. Vought was the architect of President Trump's order to cut all Federal grants to communities in every corner of the country, including in New Hampshire. This order rightly and deeply alarmed constituents across our land, who have appropriately inundated their Senators' and Governors' offices with calls expressing their opposition to the President's reckless, thoughtless, and uninformed action.
The President, through his order, interrupted cash flow to critical services and left police departments unsure if they were being defunded. He left fire departments wondering if they would get the grants that they depend on to modernize their equipment and hire more firefighters.
He left rural hospitals in turmoil as they tried to plan for the months ahead. He left the staffs of homeless shelters who provide care for veterans uncertain that they would have the resources that they need to be a port in the storm for America's heroes.
And he left addiction treatment centers without any indication of when the next grant might come, grants that are used to keep our kids and communities safe from the deadly dangers of fentanyl. It was chaos.
And it remains chaos. While court orders have brought a temporary pause to the President's funding cutoff, there is no certainty about what will happen next. And in some cases, cash flow is still irregular, leaving everyone from daycare providers to landlords wondering whether or not they will be able to continue to operate.
And so the American people wait in the dark, prisoners to the President and Mr. Vought's political gains. Mr. Vought has had experience managing the Office of Management and Budget. One would think that he would appreciate that any organization with a budget--a police department, a small business, a hospital--needs to have a reliable idea of what funds are going to be available if they are going to make any plans for the future.
They cannot depend on the whims of a President's tweet or on the last-minute salvation of a court order. If a small business is going to add a second location or hire more staff, it can't do it if it has to worry about critical grant money being impounded.
If a fire department wants to modernize its operation, it needs to know if the grant that it is planning to apply for and is supposed to be available in a few months, a grant that has already been approved and signed into law, will exist. If it doesn't, the department's new engine is no longer a reality.
But perhaps Mr. Vought does not understand how to maintain a budget because, of course, during his time as director of the OMB, he helped blow up the budget deficit and never turned in a surplus--an extravagance that most Americans cannot afford.
And make no mistake, this is not an academic discussion; behind every one of these budget lines are people, people who will be hurt if the President and Mr. Vought get their way and cut all Federal grants-- grants that are indispensable to Americans for a wide range of critical activities and indispensable to our way of life.
They are critical to the firefighter who relies on these grants to have the best equipment while keeping our homes safe from smoke and flame; to the police officer walking the beat who deserves to be supported and not defunded; to the teenager struggling with addiction who is finally on the road to recovery but may fall back into despair if the addiction treatment center closes because the President and Mr. Vought decided that political games are more important than serving the people and saving lives.
In short, this chaos, this flurry of orders and memos and counterorders and Washington doublespeak, this playing with the lives of the American people, this is not leadership, and it is no way to govern a country, much less the greatest country on earth.
We have seen Mr. Vought in action. It has already been a chaotic two weeks since the President ordered this self-inflicted catastrophe.
We cannot afford our police departments, our fire departments, our veterans, our children--we can't afford a chaotic and lawless 4 years under Mr. Vought.
Now, what is particularly astonishing about the President and Mr. Vought's reckless order to cut off Federal funding is that it portrays how deeply out of touch they are with the American people, how woefully they have misread our country in this moment. Our country, of course, has partisan divisions, but I have found that often on a more fundamental level, the majority of Americans--not the loud, but the many--want most of the same things. They want costs to come down. They want their rent and groceries to be more affordable. They want to get the care that they need from their doctors without worrying about going into debt.
If they have children, they want what all parents want for their kids: They want their kids to be given the chance to follow their dreams. They want to know that they will get to and from school safely each and every day. They want their streets free from the dangers of fentanyl and other drugs.
And from their leaders, the American people want leadership and results. And they know a good idea can be red or blue. Lower costs, safer streets, and a more hopeful future--that is what most people want.
If the President and Mr. Vought thought it was worthwhile to listen to the American people, then they would know this, because in our great country, there is no great clamor from people asking for a President to seize authority--authority that belongs to Congress--to cut off funds to fire departments, police departments, hospitals, and addiction centers.
The American people want more money in their pockets. They aren't asking the President to seize power to choke off funds to their communities. The American people didn't ask for this. The American people don't want this. The American people do not deserve this.
The President's reckless and extreme order makes one wonder who the President and Mr. Vought believe they are working for. Perhaps, Mr. Vought can show me, tell us all, where this great majority of Americans who want a President to have unilateral power to take away fire department grants, defund police departments, or end special education programs, where that majority is.
How is America better off with a fire department unable to buy a new engine? How are we better off with more Americans struggling with addiction, unable to get on the road to recovery? Who does it serve when a veteran is forced to sleep on a snowy street because the shelter he used to stay in closed after a funding freeze? And why should the architect of such a plan ever be in a position of authority?
But let's say for a moment that the President and Mr. Vought don't get their way and this funding cutoff is permanently blocked, the fact that one of the administration's first acts was to draft this order shows just how deeply out of step they are with most Americans.
This order should never have been given and tells us everything about the President and Mr. Vought's priorities. How does the President's order do anything to actually lower prices, to make
Now, I continue to stand ready to get to work with anyone, including the President, to work on a bipartisan basis to deliver on the priorities of the American people and bring down costs. But the President and Mr. Vought's actions--to put aside efforts to bring relief to American families and instead seize power, to cut off funds to every community in the country--demonstrate that they are, at the present time, unconcerned with what the American people actually want.
Mr. Vought's lack of regard or respect for what the American people want is, unfortunately, not a surprise. Throughout his time in public service, and even in these confirmation proceeding, Mr. Vought has demonstrated a thinly veiled disdain for the principles of self- government--principles which have served America well since we declared our independence.
To my Republican colleagues who are hopeful that the President will restore some or all of the funds that were cut off by this order, I would remind you that the grant money was never the President's to cut, freeze, or restore. It doesn't belong to him or to Mr. Vought. It belongs to the American people.
Congress makes laws and appropriates funds, not the President. At stake is not a legal technicality. At stake is our very notion of self- government, a notion that Mr. Vought appears to disdain.
The right of Congress, the first of the three branches of government provided for in the Constitution, to make laws and appropriate funds was made clear first in our Constitution and then in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Administrations from both parties understood and respected this law.
But Mr. Vought does not. Mr. Vought has said that he disagrees with this law. In his hearings, he refused to commit to follow the law, and has since become the architect of a brazen attack on this very law, the attack launched by the President's order to cut off all Federal grants.
The laws of the United States are not meant to be enjoyed a la carte. It is not Mr. Vought or the President's prerogative to choose which laws to follow, any more than it is their prerogative to choose which Federal grants to cut off after the grants have already been appropriated by law.
But this is simply who Mr. Vought is--not a trusted guardian of taxpayers' funds but a man who believes that both he and the President do not answer to the people.
In the past, Mr. Vought has refused to allow for proper oversight. He has refused to cooperate with inspectors general, the people's watchdogs against corruption. He repeated the lie that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged and supported the President's attempt to overturn the will of the people, a will that was reflected in our free and fair elections.
At the start of the confirmation process, Mr. Vought suggested that the President does not even need the advice and consent of this body, and instead he could just abuse of the power of recess appointments to fill out his Cabinet.
So Mr. Vought has placed us in a remarkable position. He is asking us to vote for him in a confirmation process that he does not even believe needs to exist. He is asking for the support of the people's representatives, while maintaining that he shouldn't even have to answer to the people in the first place.
It is also ironic that we are considering Mr. Vought's nomination because it was 5 years ago this week that this body debated President Trump's attempt to illegally impound funds that were intended for Ukraine, an impoundment attempt that was supported and directed by Mr. Vought. Five years ago, Mr. Vought helped the President cut off legally appropriated funds to America's allies. And 5 years later--5 years later--Mr. Vought has helped the President cut off legally appropriated funds to the American people.
Five years later, it is clear the failure to hold the President and Mr. Vought to account didn't mark the last time that some people in this body surrendered their principles to appease Donald Trump. It was not the end of the indignities that this body would be asked to tolerate; it was barely the beginning. It only encouraged more.
That is, of course, the danger of lawlessness. That is the danger of the winding road toward authoritarianism. Once one act of lawlessness is tolerated, it becomes easier to tolerate another, until we arrive to where we are today, where pointing out illegality from our public officials sometimes seems like little more than an afterthought.
It should not be too much to ask, it should not be too much to expect, that those who have the privilege to help lead the world's greatest democracy follow the laws of our land and respect the consent of the governed.
We know what Mr. Vought has done during the President's term. We know that he was the architect of the President's order to seize the power to cut off Federal funds. And we know that, if given the chance, the budget that he would help author would be the most extreme put forward by any administration in our lifetimes and would be devastating for our country.
Through his think tank, Mr. Vought laid out his priorities in what was a proposed budget in 2023 for a potential Trump administration. And now, the President has nominated him to manage the Office of Management and Budget.
In his budget, Mr. Vought would gut Medicaid by over $2 trillion. He would undo much of the progress States like New Hampshire have made since we expanded Medicaid. He would kick families off of Medicaid, families who are already feeling the pain of high costs and struggling to make ends meet. More people would become sick because they couldn't afford preventive care and be forced to make impossible choices once they fall ill.
These cuts would be especially devastating for families who have children with disabilities, families who rely on Medicaid dollars to get the best support for their children so that the children can thrive and have all the opportunities that any parent wants for their kids, and so the parents can go to work and build a family and a future.
It is not clear precisely when, for Mr. Vought, a child with a disability getting the support that they need became less important than paying for a tax break for a billionaire. But it is not just Medicaid. Mr. Vought's budget would end tax credits through the Affordable Care Act that have helped millions of Americans afford lifesaving care.
His budget would cut back Pell grants and make it harder for families to afford higher education.
His budget would defund much of the FBI, including ending many of the FBI's invaluable counterterrorism efforts.
Mr. Vought's budget would also eviscerate the Department of Homeland Security's cyber security defenses. He is perhaps one of the first people from either party who in today's age thinks we should be spending less on cyber security and not more.
Make no mistake, American families would be hurt by Mr. Vought's budget. America would be less safe with Mr. Vought's budget.
But few provisions in his budget--his proposed budget--are as outrageous as his cuts to veterans' benefits. Mr. Vought has proposed slashing benefits for veterans by tens of billions of dollars. He has proposed narrowing the number of veterans who are even eligible for certain health benefits.
He even proposed banning funding for women's reproductive care for women veterans. These heroes have defended our freedoms abroad, but Mr. Vought would endeavor to deny their freedoms here at home.
We will never fully repay the debt that we owe to those who have served. Indeed, we cannot. But we need to try each and every day. We should be working day in and day out to do more for those who serve, but, instead, Mr. Vought is looking for ways to slash care and benefits for veterans and their families.
It is not clear to me what more veterans would need to do, what further sacrifices they would need to make, for Mr. Vought to agree to not take away the benefits and care that they have earned through their courage and valor.
Let me be clear. There are few things in my mind more deeply un- American than to try to fund the extreme political agenda of a budget by taking money out of the pockets of America's best and bravest.
There has been a quality of make-believe surrounding the debate over Mr. Vought's confirmation. Some of Mr. Vought's defenders have dismissed concerns regarding his proposed budget as alarmist. They assure us that this budget will never be passed. They dismiss our concerns regarding his past statements supporting an expansion of authoritarian power as hyperbolic. They insist that his words do not indicate how he will actually act in his role. They dismiss our arguments regarding his record while at the helm of OMB as rehashing ancient history, and some of my colleagues even dismiss our concerns about the President and Mr. Vought's order to cut off Federal funds as sensationalist and dramatic. They assure us that the court stopped the order and that the President will hopefully restore these funds soon enough.
And maybe, on that last point, they are right. Maybe the courts will fully stop the President's order to cut off these funds. Maybe the President and Mr. Vought will be thwarted by the laws that they seek to circumvent.
But I submit that the President and his nominees should be judged by what they want to do, not simply by what they are able to get away with.
So what kind of America does Mr. Vought want? What would he do if everything that he has proposed in his first term, in his writings, in his hearings, in his budget, and in the President's order to cut off all funds were able to come to pass?
Russell Vought's America is an America where Medicaid has ended as we know it, where more people get sick and fewer people get care, where police departments and fire departments are defunded in the service of political games, where our efforts to fight addiction and get fentanyl off our streets are gutted, and where more people slip from the road of recovery into spirals of despair.
(Mr. SHEEHY assumed the Chair.)
It is an America where the FBI's counterterrorism program is scrapped, and our country is less safe, where cyber criminals from China and Russia are given free rein to gain a leg up. It is an America where families with children with autism are left to fend for themselves, where we even break faith with veterans and take away care that they earned through unimaginable sacrifice. It is an America where even our heroes become dispensable.
It is an America where Presidents decide which laws to obey and disobey, which funds appropriated by Congress to permit and which to take away, where the people's watchdogs can be fired, and the people's representatives ignored.
We would be an America governed not of, by, and for the people, but of, by, and for a President.
I don't know with certainty what the future holds, what the courts will permit and what they will block. But I know that, in this moment, the question before us is whether or not we should confirm to high office a man who has clear disdain for self-government.
Self-government--government of, by, and for the people--it is not simply a patriotic turn of phrase. It is what makes America different. Being a part of this self-government experiment is why all of us are even here serving in this body in the first place.
My dad, a World War II veteran, would always remind me that freedom and democracy are history's exception; they are not the rule. In Iran or in Putin's Russia, there is no debate over impoundment. In autocracies, what the autocrat decrees is law, but in America, we set out to do something different. We created a system of checks and balances. We declared that power was derived from consent of the government. Unlike virtually every nation before us, we did not put our trust in kings or oligarchs. No. Instead, in the words of Lincoln, we dared to ask:
We believed these words once, and most Americans believe these words still. And we believe that even our greatest leaders need to be checked by the people and their elected representatives.
To my Republican colleagues who support the President and who are considering supporting Mr. Vought and who dismiss his words and actions about the need to seize greater Executive power, I remind you that history has shown us that when a leader gains a power, they are inclined to use it, and they certainly are not inclined to give it back. The power of the purse is a power that belongs to Congress and the people. My colleagues need to decide if they are willing to surrender that power on their watch.
To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, even if you imagine that you may agree with the ways in which the President would use his power to ignore Congress and impound Federal funds today, you certainly may disagree with the ways this illegal power is abused tomorrow. You may open the door for further abuses down the road. You may find that a future President of a different party or persuasion is inclined to use this power in ways that leave you deeply alarmed but unable to stop.
That is the danger of surrendering the rule of law to expand Executive power. History has shown that the end result is never more freedom because, to borrow a phrase, those who would seek power by riding the back of the tiger surely end up consumed by it.
I suspect that my Republican colleagues will vote to confirm Mr. Vought, although they shouldn't. I voted for many of the President's nominees, and I believe that the President and our country would be better served by people who encourage his better impulses rather than enable his worse ones, who understand that no leader is above the law, and who respect our system of government of, by, and for the people.
In the end, to confirm Mr. Vought is to confirm him in spite of his record, his words, and his promises.
So, no, I am not alarmed by Mr. Vought because he is not a member of my party. I am alarmed by Mr. Vought because, unlike some of my Republican colleagues, I respect Mr. Vought's intelligence enough to take his words seriously. So when Mr. Vought shows his disdain for self-government, I will take him at his word, and so should this body.
In the end, Mr. Vought, while seeking office in our government, is wrong about a fairly fundamental thing. He is wrong about democracy in America. The people's representatives are not a nuisance to be circumvented. The people's laws are not an obstacle to be surmounted. The people's funds are not a political weapon to be seized. Nor are the people's wills, wants, and, yes, votes idle noise to be discarded or ignored. No. In this country, in this great democracy of ours, the will of the people represents nothing less than a hope without better or equal in this world.
Mr. President, I can keep speaking about the damage that Russell Vought would do as leader of the Office of Management and Budget. I will also appeal to my colleagues here to let me know if any more of them intend to speak.
Mr. Vought's nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget is one we should all reject, not because we disagree with his policies but because he fundamentally disagrees with our form of government. He fundamentally disrespects this body--the body created along with the House of Representatives by article I of the U.S. Constitution. He fundamentally believes that his judgment is better than the people's.
I would also add that Mr. Vought's beliefs are some of the most extreme that I have heard expressed or watched implemented in my lifetime.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in speaking against Russell Vought, who has been nominated to run the most powerful and important Federal organization you never heard of, the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB.
Russell Vought has as much business running OMB as I do being a hair
Vought had this position before, and it was a disaster. President Trump is supposed to be hiring on merit, have the very best people, the world's best people working for him. Why is he bringing back this complete failure for such a critical position?
Last time he was OMB Director, he rolled back critical regulations that keep Americans safe. He illegally withheld funds already appropriated by Congress. Sound familiar?
As bad as he was in the first term, he is already off to a much worse start in the second term as the shadow Director before he is even confirmed. His fingerprints have been all over the last 2 weeks of chaos and dysfunction.
He was the principal architect of Project 2025--a deep, thorough, detailed proposal for what it was that the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action wanted to do if Trump were reelected; a policy blueprint so extreme that on the campaign trail, President Trump pretended he had never heard of it: Who is that? Who is this? No idea what Project 2025 is, who wrote it, or what it would do.
Russell Vought has demonized the folks who help run our Federal Government--the people who keep the VA running; the folks who deliver Social Security checks; the men and women, many of whom live in Delaware, who help keep us safe through air traffic control systems; who predict our weather through NOAA; who help Federal funds flow to school districts and daycares and senior centers.
I know the average American thinks of the Federal workforce as Federal bureaucrats who don't do much for them, but if you get into the details of their actual public service, the reach and scope and impact of what they do is remarkable--as we learned in Delaware just last week when they tried to shut it all down; but more on that in a moment.
Russell Vought has demonized these civil servants--he has called them villains who need to be in trauma--and he wants to radically augment Presidential authority. We are in the middle of a huge power grab by President Trump and his administration. He doesn't know or care whether or not the constitutional appropriations powers of Congress ought to be upheld. Not to get all ``Schoolhouse Rock!'' on you for a moment, but the core power of this body of Congress is the power of the purse--to decide how to spend the money that we collect from the American people to invest in your safety and security.
If you vote for Russell Vought to run OMB and you happen to be an appropriator, as I am, or one of the Members of this body who votes for appropriations every year, you are consigning yourself to irrelevance. You are voting to no longer be relevant to the future of our country, to our place in the world, and how the money we sign off on gets spent.
He has got a lot of bad ideas. I could spend a lot of time on the bad ideas of Russell Vought. Russell Vought has been nominated to run OMB, but I wouldn't trust him to run a Wawa.
His ideas include redirecting all disaster assistance to the States. Well, the point of having FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is when a State gets overwhelmed by a hurricane, a wildfire, a tornado, when a natural disaster is so massive that it overcomes a State's ability to manage the disaster response, we elevate it to a Federal disaster response. That is the point. But he thinks we ought to pull all that back down to the States. Guess what States aren't going to get taken care of.
One of his core ideas in Project 2025 is to take a chain saw to the deep state--by freezing Federal assistance, by impounding Federal spending, and destroying Congress's power of the purse. He is the architect of the Executive orders issued by President Trump on his frenetic first days that produced a Federal spending freeze.
And the results, folks, have been catastrophic: widespread chaos, uncertainty for the nonprofits that provide so much support, whether it is counteracting fentanyl misuse, supporting Head Start, daycares, childcare, monitoring the weather to make sure that folks know when a tornado is coming or when there is a wildfire or a hurricane, supporting State and local law enforcement and our volunteer fire companies. These are all grantees.
To be clear, when President Trump signed an Executive order freezing all Federal grants for the domestic United States, these are all examples of the dozens and dozens of organizations that called me, called my office, called my Governor, and said: What does this mean for us?
Organizations were locked out of the Federal funding portals where they go to get their Federal funding. The Medicaid system went down. A fifth of all people in my State are on Medicaid, and it provides critical public health support for the opioid pandemic.
If President Trump's promise was to bring prices down and keep Americans safe, he has failed on both counts, and what he did with this nationwide Federal freezing ban--dreamed up by Russell Vought--failed to keep us safe.
When FEMA grants went down, when they froze the grants to State and local law enforcement, Russell Vought and President Trump were literally defunding the police.
Let's take a second and look at that again. Lots of my colleagues--I was here on the floor. Lots of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle gave speech after speech about how terrible it would be to ever put at risk law enforcement--Federal, State, local--by defunding the police.
President Trump did two things in his first week that made clear they don't mean this at all. One was pardoning hundreds of individuals who stormed into this Chamber and assaulted Capitol Police officers, pardoning people who assaulted police officers.
The second was freezing all domestic Federal grants with no exception for State and local law enforcement. I am the cochair of the Law Enforcement Caucus. I was responsible for the second largest police department in Delaware. I know what it means to have Federal grants come through what is called the Byrne-JAG grant program. I know what it means to have Federal grants for bulletproof vests. I know what it means to have Federal grants come through the COPS Hiring Program. For State and local law enforcement, this was a moment of ``Hang on a minute. What?'' when those grants were frozen.
There are other ways that Federal grants help our country be safe. It promotes research that keeps us healthier. We just survived a pandemic, made worse by President Trump's mishandling of it, but let's not relitigate that now.
Research hospitals in my State got notification from the NIH and the CDC that their research projects were frozen and were now under review. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distribute billions of dollars in grants. There are teams of folks doing research on the ground, in hospitals, in academia, in medical practices. All of them got notices that these were being frozen.
Domestic violence shelters. Part of my role in my decade in county government was helping advocate for law enforcement and our paramedics and community-based nonprofits that respond to incidents of domestic violence. It was to be as supportive as possible to make sure the victims were not retraumatized by a second, third, and fourth interview; to protect the security and sanctity of the shelters they went to; and to protect, in particular, children who had been abused.
The idea that in order to slash government spending by wasteful Federal bureaucrats, notice would go out to all of the nonprofit shelters and organizations in my State and around the country that keep people safe from domestic violence--how was this a good idea? This was Russell Vought's idea. I wouldn't trust Russell Vought to run a 5K, let alone to run the Federal Government, let alone to run the process by which we distribute funds to the things that keep us safe and healthy and prosperous. Whether it is hospitals, domestic violence shelters, daycares, senior centers, the things that were impacted by the abrupt taking of a chain saw to our Federal system defies description.
But Russell Vought didn't stop with freezing Federal funds. Bluntly, the disorder, the chaos, the alarm is part of the goal. Empowering DOGE--the Department of Government Efficiency, which is neither a Department nor is advancing government efficiency that is affiliated with Elon Musk--has been advanced aggressively in these first 2 weeks by giving them access to reams of data at the center for Medicare and Medicaid at USAID--the foreign aid Agency at the National Institutes of Health at the Department of Education.
Bluntly, the most alarming thing that has happened is access to the entire Treasury payment system. This is part of Russell Vought's Project 2025--to make sure that this unelected, unauthorized DOGE team got into the most important, critical repository of people's personal information--their tax records--and to be able to control which disbursements of Federal funds will happen and which will not.
Before he has even been voted on in this Chamber, Russell Vought as OMB Director, as shadow director, and as author of Project 2025 has been to facilitate some of the most alarming violations of Americans' privacy in our lifetimes, and this must be stopped.
For all of my colleagues on the right who screamed bloody murder about censorship in recent years but are silent when unelected DOGE bureaucrats can turn off your Social Security and Medicare payments if they think you are not supportive enough, who can peer into and malignly share details about payments you received or didn't receive, they now have the access and control to go back and change the master record of your tax filings.
This should be alarming to anyone who cares about privacy, security, individual liberties. They are now threatening to destroy the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Labor--disfavored Federal service Agencies--after taking a sledgehammer to our foreign aid system by shutting down USAID. The stuff they are doing before Russell Vought is even confirmed is breathtaking, and the consequences are real--yes-- to the government workforce but to people in my home State.
So let me take a moment and just share a few examples from Delaware of how this chaos--how this tearing through our system with a chain saw--has impacted the people I represent.
One Delawarean, alarmed, called in to my office and said:
He said--
Those who are exempt from this drive to force folks out of service--
This mistreatment of a veteran, of a civilian employee of the Department of Defense and trying to force them out with a scare tactic identical to what was done at Twitter is beneath us.
I have been on this floor, in my 14 years as a Senator, where I have heard passionate statements about the urgency of supporting our veterans and those who support our veterans--the Department of Defense and the VA. Yet I hear nothing from my colleagues on the other side--no alarm or concern. From my constituents, yes. From my colleagues, no.
Here is another message I got this week from a Delawarean in my office:
These are just two of hundreds of examples. The phones in my office-- in Wilmington, in Dover, and here in Washington--have been ringing off the hook. The number of calls to my colleagues have nearly broken the voice mail system here in Congress. Folks are alarmed and upset either because they have gotten these emails that they have to choose today-- literally, this is the day--whether or not to resign. They are unclear whether it is actually funded. It is not. They are unclear whether this was approved by Congress. It wasn't. They are unclear as to whether, if they fail to accept this ``resign now'' offer, they will instead be fired and lose some part of their pensions.
These are folks who have served us--as has the individual whose story I just read--for decades. Yet where is the concern from my colleagues for our veterans and those who maintain our Department of Defense, our Veterans Health Administration, our intelligence Agencies, and the rest of the important Federal services that are provided to our constituents and our States?
Let me talk for a few minutes about the brutal impact on our global foreign aid system of Mr. Russell Vought's Project 2025.
I am here on the floor as part of an effort by my colleagues to stand up and speak out against what his plan is doing at home and abroad, and I want to take a moment and talk about USAID, which is an Agency founded by President Kennedy that does good work around the world on our behalf--work that keeps us safe, keeps us strong, and protects the American people.
The cuts to AID by Russell Vought and President Trump are just the very first step in a playbook that will next move on to other Agencies--Agencies like the Department of Education, NOAA that predicts the weather, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Veterans' Administration, and the Foreign Aid Administration. USAID is just the rehearsal. The main act is coming very soon--in fact, likely this week or next.
President Trump promised to keep America safe, and foreign aid is a key part of keeping us safe. It is less than 1 percent of the total Federal budget.
In my role on the Foreign Relations Committee, I have traveled with Members of both parties to places around the world where I have seen how our trusted nonprofit partners--partners like Catholic Relief Services, partners like Save the Children, partners like World Vision-- implement programs that fight disease, that counter human trafficking, that push back on extremism, and that stabilize countries devastated by war. All build relationships with other countries and communities to, frankly, push back on Chinese and Russian influence, to push back on extremism and jihadism, and to make the world safer for America and Americans. This is not just soft power; it is smart power. And for years, it has enjoyed bipartisan support.
USAID programs authored by Republican Presidents, like PEPFAR and the President's Malaria Initiative, which I visited with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, show real results for the American people. Right now, there is an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda. Right now, there is an outbreak of Marburg in Tanzania. These are horrific diseases-- diseases that shred your internal systems and cause you to bleed out of every orifice. Marburg, in recent cases, has a 90-percent fatality rate, and there is no approved vaccine.
It is so much smarter for us to invest in local staff in these countries in East Africa, tracking, tracing, and preventing the spread of these diseases than shutting it all down and waiting and hoping that it doesn't spread.
When the Ebola pandemic occurred in West Africa in 2017, 2016, I traveled there and saw what USAID partners--partners like Samaritan's Purse, partners like Catholic Relief Services, partners like Doctors Without Borders--what they were doing on the ground, bravely, to push back on this incredible, horrible pandemic.
When we cut foreign aid, we cut off our nose to spite our face. We impose costs and loss with the suddenness, the sharpness of these freezes, and we will not have anything left.
Some of my Republican colleagues have said: We are just trying to trim out the woke programs. We are just trying to shrink it a little bit, reform
That, I expected. That, I could work with. But here is how this is supposed to work, folks: Next budget year, which is beginning now, we have hearings. We do oversight. We look at these programs, and we figure out how to trim them and make them more efficient and shape them so that they match the policy objectives of the current majority and the current President. That, I expect, but that is not what is happening.
What is happening is that Russell Vought, the nominee to be OMB Director, in carrying out Project 2025, which Trump claimed he knew nothing about on the campaign trail, shut it down cold, issued an Executive order completely shutting off funding.
Now, there have been some attempts at humanitarian waivers. Secretary Rubio had promised his colleagues there will be waivers for things like PEPFAR, but they are not yet working.
So when hundreds of programs around the world get what are called stop-work orders, which means put the tools down; abandon the food supplies on the dock; walk away from the hospital; stop pulling up mines out of the ground in Angola--a place riven by conflict, where we fund, through The HALO Trust, demining--stop training children how to avoid the predation of gangs and human traffickers in Mexico; stop trying to reduce civil conflict in the Philippines by engaging with civil society groups; just walk away from all of this--a stop-work order has caused our USAID workforce and their nonprofit partners around the world to put the tools down.
Just yesterday, an order went out to bring back to the United States the entire workforce around the world of USAID. Don't they have homes? Don't they have families? Don't they have spouses? They do. So what this will effectively mean is, it will force some of the most capable and skilled people, who understand how to deliver humanitarian relief at scale, to choose to resign, to give up a career and a life that they have enjoyed, making a real difference for the American people, or to comply and abruptly sell their home, pull their kids out of school, get their spouse to quit their job, and move back to the United States. Guess what that is. Chaos. That is taking a chain saw to Federal aid, not a scalpel.
That is not reforming. That is not getting rid of the woke. That is not aligning with American values and priorities. That is harming one of the most effective, valued, long-bipartisan Agencies we have. The damage is being done today. While we talk and debate and deliberate, thousands of people's lives are being changed, and millions are being cut off from lifesaving assistance, from critical development support, and from interventions that help make us safe. Who wins? Who is cheering?
I am here on the floor today joining my colleagues in speaking out against the nomination of Russell Vought to run the OMB because his Project 2025 and his plans for what to do with the Federal Government have one clear winner: our adversaries and our opponents.
The complete shutdown of U.S. foreign aid has China and Russia cheering. Russian state media is already celebrating that we are ceding the field, that we are putting down our tools, that we are abandoning our partners.
China has already come to Nepal--a country in the Himalayas, where the United States has long been working with communities to stabilize them after their civil war. China is saying: Oh, the Americans abandoned you. How sad. We will come in and help you.
China has invested massively in expanding their diplomacy and their development, their soft power, and they have won friends and influence around the world. They are getting access to ports and airports, to critical minerals, and to resources that we need, at our expense.
Secretary Rubio, who served as a Senator here with me for 15 years-- no one has been more fierce, more persistent, more focused on standing up to the threat of the People's Republic of China than Senator Marco Rubio. I don't comprehend how he can look at what is happening around the world and say this isn't creating a huge opening for China.
So when my friends across the aisle say that this is all about efficiency, about trimming, about reorganization, don't be fooled. Don't believe them. Don't think that this is about a nip here and a tuck there. This is a chain saw. They are starting with foreign aid, and they are advancing to the Department of Education, and then they are moving to the Veterans' Administration, and then they are taking on programs that millions and millions of Americans rely on day in and day out.
Last week was a rehearsal. The Executive order that froze all domestic grants caused a huge pushback in the United States and brought a Federal court action, an injunction. That is the reason, folks, if you are watching, that you haven't seen daycares shut down, that you haven't seen police and fire departments complaining, that you haven't seen veterans' homes shuttered, that you haven't seen an immediate impact here in the United States. It is only because a Federal court in Rhode Island, at the insistence of my attorney general Kathy Jennings and the attorneys general from New York and two dozen other States filed in a Federal court and said this is illegal. Judge McConnell looked at it and said ``You are right'' and issued an injunction. That is the only reason this hasn't moved forward. But it has moved forward overseas. Our foreign aid has been slashed to the bone, shut down cold. People were called, folks shut out, and security systems infiltrated.
What they have done to USAID is a rehearsal for what they are doing next, and it was all designed by Russell Vought, the nominee to run OMB.
OMB is the most powerful and important Federal Agency you have never heard of, and Russell Vought--seemingly a pleasant man, Christian nationalist, someone who seems to be more interested in academia than in fundamentally reshaping this government and this country--made clear in Project 2025 that that was his goal, has made clear with his actions last week and this week, through President Trump and his Executive orders, what he intends to do.
It is nothing short of a stunning restructuring of the United States, of the role of the Federal Government in the lives of Americans. And when folks wake up--when folks wake up--to the scope and the reach of it, they will be enraged.
The number of calls I got in my offices in Dover and in Wilmington, DE, and here in Washington from people alarmed to hear that DOGE--the Department of Government Efficiency--and Elon Musk and his band of merry men had gotten into the data files that control every Federal disbursement--the amount of alarm about that was appropriate. Wait until they start using it to cut those payments off.
When Elon Musk said he intends to cut $2 trillion out of Federal spending, he wasn't kidding. But, folks, there is no way to do that without impacting veterans' benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, education, environmental work, and healthcare.
The Federal Government only has $1.7 trillion a year in discretionary spending. So you can't cut $2 trillion without cutting deep into our Department of Defense, cutting deep into our treasured and valued programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
You should be asking: What are they coming after, and why are they doing it in such a forceful, determined rush?
There are rules here. There are processes here. There are ways we are supposed to do things. This is not following those rules or those procedures. That is why a Federal court stepped in and offered an injunction to try to slow some of this headlong rush toward restructuring the entire Federal Government.
But, folks, the hour is late, and the moment is pressing. We Democrats have held this floor all night to speak out about why this is important, to help engage, educate, and inform the American public, those who are not yet alarmed about what has been happening and what is going to happen.
One of my colleagues said: Wow, it is almost like they had a plan. They did. Project 2025--massive, clear--was developed and written over several years as President Trump planned his return, and its goals are remarkable, transformational, aggressive, frankly, shocking--not to reasonably reform
One of the heroes of the new Trump administration is the President of Argentina. I bet if you are watching, you have never heard of the President of Argentina, but take a moment and look him up, President Milei--his wild hair. He has an interesting approach to government. His symbol is a chain saw. He campaigned across Argentina saying: If you elect me President, I will take this chain saw to the Argentine Federal Government. And he has. He was here in the Rotunda, cheering on President Trump during his inauguration.
Why did this foreign head of state from South America come here, and why was he welcomed and celebrated? Because his approach to not trimming, not reforming, not improving but slashing the Government of Argentina is exactly the approach that Russell Vought, if confirmed in this body to lead OMB, will take.
You are going to wake up and discover that, by handing the keys to DOGE of the system that controls all of our personally identifying information and all of our Federal payments, we have handed the keys to the architect of a program to take a chain saw to organizations, institutions, to a workforce, and to programs that the American people need, that keep us safe, that keep us healthy, and that keep us strong.
And folks, putting Russell Vought in charge of OMB is like giving a toddler a crayon and a white wall and saying: Let's see what you make of it.
You know what is going to happen. It is going to be a crazy mess. And he has already started before this place has even confirmed him.
Russell Vought running OMB is a terrible idea, and he will run this country into the ground. We should vote to oppose Russell Vought, to oppose Project 2025, to push back on this chaotic and crazy attempt to take a chain saw to the American people and our American government.
Nomination of Russell Vought (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, I rise today to oppose Russell Vought's nomination to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
As the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I have worked hard and across the aisle to strengthen our Federal Government's effectiveness in providing services that Americans rely on every day, to improve transparency in the way government operates, and to make sure taxpayer dollars are always used efficiently.
These are some of the most fundamental roles the Federal Government plays in the daily lives of Americans, and we are duty-bound to ensure that they continue. But if Russell Vought is confirmed to lead the Office of Management and Budget, I am concerned that he will throw these principles out the window and wreak havoc on the services that Americans count on from the Federal Government every day.
Although it may not be the most well-known Agency, the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, is a critical office in the Executive Office of the President, with significant responsibilities ranging from developing and executing the budget approved by Congress to improving Agency performance and reviewing regulations.
The actions carried out at OMB affect the daily lives of millions of Americans, and this little-known Agency controls nearly every action that other Federal Agencies take, directing Agency policies as well as controlling their budgets.
OMB is charged with allocating Federal resources that Congress appropriates to Agencies that protect our national security, help communities
OMB's work matters to every American, and we cannot confirm someone to lead this Office who will not act in the best interest of every American.
As the great American poet Dr. Maya Angelou once said, when people show you who they are, you should believe them the first time.
Russell Vought has repeatedly shown us and told us who he is. He is someone who has and will continue to willfully break the laws passed by Congress, at the direction of the President, to fundamentally alter how the Federal Government works for the American people. Vought's abject disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law and his willingness to pick which Americans are winners and losers under the Trump administration completely disqualify him from serving in this important role.
I want to start by revisiting the illegal and dangerous actions that Russ Vought took when he served as OMB Director during the first Trump administration.
During his previous tenure in leading the Office of Management and Budget, Vought brazenly and willfully flouted the laws passed by Congress that direct how Federal resources should be spent. On multiple occasions, Vought refused to disburse funds that Congress passed on a bipartisan basis to address serious national security concerns and to protect the safety of our country. For example, Vought directed the OMB to withhold vital security assistance to Ukraine--assistance that Congress directed to be spent with bipartisan backing. This action put our country's security at risk by extorting Ukraine--a very valuable ally fighting to stop Putin's illegal actions.
This extortion wasn't to help advance some official U.S. foreign policy or perhaps support our Nation's standing and security around the world, no. It was an action intended to help President Trump politically as he tried to discredit Joe Biden during the 2020 Presidential election. And you don't have to take my word for it; the Government Accountability Office investigated and confirmed that this was a violation of the law.
On top of that, Vought willfully delayed sending vital disaster relief to Puerto Rico as communities were struggling to recover from the devastations of Hurricanes Maria and Irma. Again, Congress passed a law to provide this funding--funding that was desperately needed to help recover from these destructive hurricanes. Then again, Congress passed a law specifically requiring the funds to be disbursed on time to people in desperate need. Mr. Vought delayed it. He delayed those funds. He broke the law, and he prolonged the suffering and the recovery of the communities that needed immediate help.
In 2021, the inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development confirmed that Vought's refusal to send hurricane relief assistance was an inappropriate action and that it caused real harms for the people of Puerto Rico.
The inspector general's report stated:
When asked what he meant by the ``hostage'' statement, Montgomery told the OIG that these demands slowed down the fund of aid that was desperately needed by people in a very desperate situation.
The report also concluded that this violation of the law caused serious delays in getting assistance to victims.
In addition to this devastating delay, the Office of Inspector General also detailed how Vought and OMB, under his leadership, stonewalled and failed to cooperate with their independent oversight investigation.
Again and again, when Russell Vought ran OMB, he ignored laws passed by Congress that directed how taxpayer money should be spent and failed--failed--to cooperate with the independent oversight investigation of his illegal actions.
A 2020 investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that under Mr. Vought's leadership, OMB broke the law eight more times by directing certain Federal Agencies to continue to operate during the 2018 shutdown--eight more times breaking the law. Mr. Vought is on the record.
When he pressed him about these actions during the confirmation hearing, Vought said:
A different view of the law?
While Mr. Vought casts this as just a difference of opinion, what he is really saying--let's be clear--is that he does not need to follow the law. He thinks that he is above the law. Each of these violations underscores his consistent obstruction of oversight and a troubling tendency to prioritize political agendas over following the law, which endangers the safety and the welfare of our citizens.
I have said it multiple times today, but I will repeat it: Russell Vought has shown us who he is. We have a duty and an obligation to take him at his word and believe him.
His repeated violations of the law have far-reaching implications. We are a nation that was built on the rule of law. When leaders and officials break the law with absolute impunity, then the guardrails have fallen off, and our democracy is deeply broken. Mr. Vought's actions have undercut transparent oversight and have caused the most foundational, fundamental tenet of democratic governance--the rule of law--to crumble.
He didn't stop after his time at OMB was up. In the years since, Russell Vought has been hard at work memorializing his playbook to break the law and give the President unilateral power as part of Project 2025. He literally wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the executive Office of the President and how to use the OMB to consolidate even more power with the executive branch.
In his Project 2025 chapter, where he spells out as plain as day how he plans to violate the law again if he is confirmed, he wrote that he will recruit staff who are ``creative and fearless in his or her ability to challenge legal precedent.'' Mr. Vought is saying loud and he is saying it clear: If we confirm him as the Director of OMB, he will use every tool that he has to say what the law is. He--he--gets to decide, not Congress, not the Constitution, and not the courts. That is wrong, and it goes against everything our Founders believed when they wrote our Constitution and created a unique system of checks and balances.
Every Member of the Senate and every Federal employee swears an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States as they execute their duties. I swore that oath when I joined the U.S. Navy Reserve and again as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives and finally here in the U.S. Senate. The Constitution gives Congress the power to determine how Federal resources are to be spent.
Article I of the Constitution specifically gives Congress the power of the purse. This is not some gray area. This is not unsettled law. This is written in our Nation's most critical founding document.
The Constitution also requires that the President faithfully execute the laws that Congress passes--again, faithfully execute, not that the laws should be executed to the President's or Russell Vought's liking or be aligned with the President's policy priorities or campaign promises, but as Congress wrote them.
I would hope that any official confirmed and who swears an oath to uphold the Constitution will do so, but unfortunately, as I laid out previously, Russell Vought has a long history of breaking these very laws the Constitution instructs him to actually uphold.
We already ran through several key examples of how Mr. Vought routinely broke the law, but I would like to do a little deeper dive into the history of these laws and why Congress thought it was necessary to pass them in the first place.
During the Nixon administration--an administration that routinely
In moments throughout our history, Congress gave the President the specific and limited ability to not spend the full amount of that appropriation. President Nixon, however, took the idea of refusing to spend appropriations to a whole new and disastrous level. Nixon sought to reshape domestic spending and undermine lawful congressional appropriations by broadly withholding Federal funding for a wide variety of programs that communities all across America depended upon-- programs like food assistance, safe drinking water, childcare funding, and programs to promote economic opportunity.
President Nixon just didn't curtail select projects or limit additional funds to larger programs; his administration tried to use impoundment to terminate whole programs that he opposed--programs that thousands of communities depended upon and that Congress legally funded.
In 1970 and 1971, Nixon made deep cuts to the education, housing, and social services programs. In 1973, Nixon withheld more than $400 million from the Federal food stamp program that prevented millions of children and families from living in hunger. Then Nixon tried to withhold $8 billion appropriated for water reclamation, which is used to recycle water for safe drinking, farm irrigation, and restoring local environments.
President Nixon tried to paint his efforts to withhold Federal funding as a way to check inflation when, in fact, this was an attempt to unilaterally reshape government without taking into consideration the priorities and the needs of American communities that are represented by their Members of Congress. That is why--that is why-- Congress came together to take up and pass the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
I think this is an interesting point: As President Nixon was doing this, these laws passed unanimously in the U.S. Congress. All Republicans and all Democrats in the Senate passed them unanimously. Apparently, that was at a time when Republican Members of the Senate had a backbone to stand up to a President who was acting illegally. And even in the House, it was almost unanimous. Apparently, Republican Members of the House had a backbone then to stand up to a President who acted illegally.
The law says that, as a general principle, the President may not refuse to spend funds that Congress has appropriated. The Impoundment Control Act also specifies that the President may request that Congress rescind appropriated funds, but the law makes it clear that if both the House and Senate do not approve a rescission request, Agencies must disburse those funds within 45 days. The President cannot unilaterally decide to withhold funds that Congress has appropriated.
Congress has clearly spoken on how and when the President can propose lawful rescissions. The Impoundment Control Act is the law of the land, and it provides a transparent and democratic process to rescind funds-- procedures that reinforce core constitutional principles of the congressional power of the purse.
In case after case, Federal courts, including the Supreme Court of this country, have found that the President has no unilateral power to cancel appropriations--again because Congress, not the President, holds the power of the purse.
Even conservative judicial figures who you might expect would support broader Executive powers, especially at this trying moment in our Nation's history, have rejected the concept of inherit Presidential impoundment.
In the 1998 Supreme Court case of Clinton v. City of New York, Justice Scalia wrote:
In a 2013 case before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Justice Kavanaugh recognized that ``a President sometimes has policy reasons (as distinct from constitutional reasons) for wanting to spend less than the full amount appropriated by Congress for a particular project or program. But in those circumstances''--
You have got to hear this from Justice Kavanaugh--
These rulings and opinions further solidify the argument that such a power does not exist within our constitutional framework. Over and over, courts and legal scholars have been clear: The President has no constitutional impoundment power.
Again, in 1998, in Clinton v. New York, the Supreme Court struck down a law that allowed the President to unilaterally cancel appropriations, further reinforcing the principle that the President does not have that power.
In 1973 and 1974, in the cases of National Council of Community Mental Health Centers v. Weinberger and Louisiana v. Weinberger, Federal district courts, again, explicitly rejected arguments that the President has the constitutional power to refuse to release grant funding.
The fact is that these decisions emphasize that the President of the United States has a duty and an obligation to execute the laws as passed by Congress, which includes spending appropriated funds.
This well-established legal precedent highlights that Vought's persistent push for impoundment undermines the democratic process by disregarding the will of Congress, the representative body of the American people.
And despite all of this settled law, throughout Vought's confirmation hearing, he doubled down on these plans, professing his decision to continue down the path of his first term by continuing to disregard the rule of law.
I asked Mr. Vought during the confirmation process if he was familiar with these decisions that prohibit impoundment. His response was wholly inadequate when he stated the following:
By advocating for the President's refusal to spend appropriated funds and refusing to tell the committee whether there are any limits to this supposed power, Vought seeks to concentrate power within the executive branch at the expense of Congress and the American people.
Confirming Mr. Vought will erode our Nation's checks and balances and undermines the Constitution we all swore an oath to protect and to defend.
His actions disregard both the letter and the spirit of the law, which is why he is wholly unqualified to serve in a position requiring enormous public trust--a position that will literally be in position to make life-and-death decisions for millions of Americans.
Given his record of undermining democratic processes, eroding the system of checks and balances, and time spent violating the Constitution of the United States, we simply cannot trust him in this role.
And now, even before he is confirmed by the Senate, the Trump administration has begun to implement Russell Vought's playbook--the playbook he has openly talked about and wrote about in Project 2025.
Last week, OMB implemented his playbook by withholding money to communities, families, businesses, and organizations when it froze all new and existing Federal grants and loans.
These actions have resulted in chaos and confusion. And every Member of this Chamber--every Member of this Chamber--has heard from thousands of their constituents who are afraid the resources they are counting on will not be delivered.
These actions not only break the law and wreak chaos and anxiety amongst our constituents, but they also inflict very, very real harm on families in Michigan and all across our country.
In my home State of Michigan, communities and organizations received $31 billion in Federal grants and loans last year, and the freeze has had immediate--immediate--negative impacts.
I heard from a mayor who needs the grant funding they were awarded to pay for police, for firefighters, and public safety personnel; who is worried he
I heard from small businesses who are afraid they won't be able to make payroll because of the freeze.
I have heard from dozens of communities who fear they will have to put their shovels down on construction projects to improve our roads and our bridges, improve street safety, and address chronic flooding issues because of the freeze.
I have heard from Michiganders who are counting on heating assistance during these cold winter months, who are unsure if they are going to be able to pay their energy bills.
I have heard educators who have raised concerns that the freeze would disrupt funding at nearly 17 Head Start centers across Michigan that serve our youngest children.
I heard from veterans who faced disruptions, confusion, and anxiety over critical services.
I have heard from colleges and universities that count on funding to make advances in research, ranging from preventing Alzheimer's disease and dementia, to protecting our Great Lakes.
I have heard from communities who are concerned about how the freeze will affect funding for Homeland Security missions and law enforcement.
Almost immediately, two different judges--one in Rhode Island and one in Washington, DC--put in place temporary restraining orders to start to undo the freeze and deliver needed funding to these organizations and people. But despite this, some funds continue to be held up, and OMB and the Department of Justice continue to insist that they can block funding going to these communities.
This is not what hard-working families across our Nation want and certainly not what they need. Our constituents need to know that the Federal Government can keep its word and stand by its promises.
Americans should feel confident that the services government provides are efficient and they are reliable and that they can count on them to be delivered.
If we confirm Russell Vought to be just another one of President Trump's cronies, the American people will pay the price. Once he is back at OMB, he will only supercharge the Trump administration's effort to unlawfully cancel programs that Congress has authorized on a bipartisan basis and that Americans are counting on.
It is not a stretch to say that Russell Vought would do everything he could to give President Trump even more power, especially when it comes to controlling the Federal budget. If the President wants to block funding to blue States, Russ Vought will do it. If the President wants to defund firefighters, Russ Vought will do it. If the President wants to cancel Medicaid benefits, Russ Vought will do it. If the President wants to deny victims of a disaster assistance that they desperately need, Russ Vought--we have already seen--will do it.
Russ Vought's record on breaking the law and sowing chaos across government is, quite frankly, frightening. If he is confirmed, he will quite literally be in a position to alter the future of our Nation--and not in a good way.
But he will also be charged with managing the Federal workforce. And his record on that front--well, it is just as abysmal.
When he was at OMB before, Mr. Vought pushed to replace nearly 50,000 nonpartisan career professional civil servants with appointees-- political appointees--whose only qualification was that they had political loyalty to the President--no other qualifications, just political. The old spoil system of the last two centuries back again.
He attempted to remove qualified employees who have years of knowledge and experience. And if he had succeeded, he would have posed a grave threat to our national security.
More than 70 percent of the Federal workforce serves at Agencies that are critical to our national defense and to our national security.
Other Federal employees work day in and day out to respond to emergencies and to ensure that Americans can get key services, like Social Security checks and veterans' healthcare.
Mr. Vought called these hard-working, dedicated public servants ``villains.'' He called them ``villains.'' There is no question Mr. Vought has no respect for the professional, hard-working civil servants who work tirelessly each and every day to support the American people.
President Trump took action on day one of his administration to remove qualified, nonpartisan Federal workers and replace them with his cronies by issuing an Executive order.
Under this directive, the President's political appointees can reclassify traditional nonpartisan career civil servants into schedule policy/career positions that are functionally at-will.
All hiring, retention, and firing decisions for schedule policy/ career positions would be at the pleasure of the President's political leadership rather than the individual's qualifications or job performance.
Under Vought's authority as OMB Director during Trump's first term, OMB recommended that anywhere from 68 to 88 percent of its own workforce would be reclassified into this schedule F. And while describing this conversion with OMB staff that he had just reclassified into schedule F positions, he recalls saying of those employees:
All that mattered was ``serving a particular President.''
Vought doesn't believe in civil service law. I believe in those laws, and they are the laws of the land. Congress passed those laws so civil servants are better at their job of serving the American people, rather than their job of serving at the political pleasure of a President.
Civil servants, not the President or his political cronies, are the ones who issue Social Security checks, provide care for our veterans, facilitate loans for small businesses, and safeguard our homeland from security threats.
President Trump took another step last week to remove qualified civil servants when he offered more than 2 million Federal employees deferred resignation offers through a ``Fork in the Road'' email. He may have pitched it to Federal workers as a buyout, but it is likely another illegal plan to scare expert employees into leaving voluntarily out of fear that they would otherwise be fired or retaliated against by the President so he can make way to install his cronies at all levels of the Federal Government.
If this continues to happen, Agencies will lose vast institutional knowledge, and civil servants will lose trust in their colleagues. Whistleblowers will be afraid to come forward to report waste, fraud, and abuse. Taxpayers will foot the bill for government mistakes or corruption among political leaders. Foreign adversaries will take advantage of our unstable government workforce.
In all of these roles, we want to trust the employees who have the right skills, experience, and are informed with accurate, reliable, and complete information. Russell Vought is at the forefront of this effort to politicize our civil workforce.
As I bring my remarks to a close, I just want to underscore that Russ Vought's previous tenure as OMB Director and his contributions to proposals like Project 2025 have demonstrated clearly that he is not merely someone with differing policies views but someone who fundamentally disregards the rules of the game, as outlined in the laws of Congress, those that we have enacted under the Constitution.
Mr. Vought's expansive views of the President's spending authority seek to destroy Congress's constitutional authority. Mr. Vought's disdain for our hard-working civil servants who keep Americans safe--he wants to attempt to turn all of them into political hacks, loyal only to the President. It completely, completely disqualifies him from holding the position of the Director of Office of Management and Budget.
Ultimately, Russ Vought's defiant attitude toward the rule of law is dangerous, and it is deeply, deeply un-American. His lawless actions threaten our national security. They threaten our economy and the well- being of the American people, and they threaten the future of our democracy.
I urge my colleagues to take him at his word. Russ Vought has told us loud and clear who he is and what he will
We cannot give them another chance to inflict further harm on the American people. We must--we must--oppose his nomination, and if we fail to stop his confirmation, there is no question in my mind the American people will end up paying the price.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. President, every single day, millions of hard- working Americans report to work to serve their communities and their country. They are known to our government as civil servants, but I want to be clear about who they really are.
These civil servants are the more than 300 air traffic controllers at the Albuquerque Sunport and airports across New Mexico who keep us safe in the air. They are the wildland firefighters battling catastrophic forest fires each year. They are the FBI agents who are working to get drug cartels out of our communities. They are the rangers taking care of our national parks and the civil engineers who manage and restore our watersheds. They are the Federal customs officers and border agents who enable trade at our southern border and stop fentanyl before it enters our country. They are the inspectors and scientists who ensure the safety of our food and our medicine, and they are the countless workers who ensure our elders receive their Social Security checks on time.
These are the unsung heroes in our Federal civil service. The impact of their work touches every single person in our State and our country. They deserve our respect and our gratitude, not an all-out attack against them. But while these civil servants have done the quiet work of keeping our government working, Donald Trump is singlehandedly forcing a partial government shutdown and throwing the lives of hard- working civil servants into chaos.
We are barely 3 weeks into this new Trump administration, and it is abundantly clear that Donald Trump and his team have taken his narrow victory as a license to run roughshod over all laws, norms, and even the Constitution. Trump and Elon Musk are attempting an unlawful, hostile takeover of the most basic Federal Government operations, functions that so many Americans depend on.
Over the course of the last 2 weeks, Trump has threatened mass layoffs of civil servants and closures of entire Federal Agencies. Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE minions have forced access to the Federal payments system. This system contains Americans' private data as well as classified information and processes government payments that make up more than one-fifth of the U.S. economy.
And I wish I were making this up, but it is true. According to a report in WIRED, a 25-year-old engineer from Musk's DOGE group has gained direct access to the Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the Federal Government. This is someone whose only other experience is working for Musk at other places--at SpaceX and Twitter. This unelected, unvetted member of Musk's DOGE team reportedly has administrator-level privileges. Normally, access privileges to this highly secure system are reserved for high-level professionals with years and years of experience at the Treasury Department.
This breach by Elon Musk's DOGE minions may expose the system to irreversible damage, undermining our individual privacy rights and our country's economic and national security. And many of us will simply not stand for it.
On top of this, Trump triggered a vast and ongoing blockade of congressionally appropriated Federal funds, the impacts of which are still reverberating across the Nation.
The ``masterminds'' behind this whole mess: Trump, Elon Musk, and-- yes--Russell Vought, Trump's nominee to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Let's talk about Mr. Vought and his plans. Mr. Vought was the lead architect at the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump's dismantling of the Federal Government. He has spent years crafting plans to circumvent Congress, our Constitution, and, of course, the law.
Let me read to you directly from Mr. Vought's statements in his own words. In a private speech last year, at his far-right Center for Renewing America think tank, Mr. Vought stated that he would like to put career civil servants ``in trauma.''
Mr. Vought said:
He laid out how he would do this in his chapter of the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 playbook for the incoming Trump administration White House. He wrote there:
He went on to say:
Meaning bending and breaking our career civil servants who carry out laws passed here by Congress.
As the OMB Director at the end of the last Trump administration, Mr. Vought was the lead architect of the President's fiscal year 2021 budget proposal that called for $500 billion cut from Medicare, $900 billion cut from Medicaid, $71 billion cut from Social Security--yes, Social Security--$76 billion cut from disability programs, zeroing out entire Federal programs, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Legal Services Corporation, community development block grants, and community services block grants--all to pave the way for Trump to double down on his tax breaks for billionaires.
At his Center for Renewing America think tank, Mr. Vought drafted a 2023 budget plan entitled ``A Commitment to End Woke and Weaponized Government.'' This is the playbook that Trump and Musk are already running to freeze Federal funding, dismantle and dismember Federal Agencies, and seize the power of the purse from Congress, where the Constitution put it.
That plan called for extending Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy by slashing Medicaid by $2.1 trillion, SNAP by $400 billion, and eliminating the Affordable Care tax credits that help folks afford healthcare coverage. Mr. Vought has also openly admitted his intentions to challenge the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which enforces Congress's constitutional power of the purse.
During his confirmation hearing last month, Mr. Vought said he believes the President can just overrule Congress in deciding how to spend taxpayer dollars, despite constitutional authority and the law to the contrary. Mr. Vought said the President ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. I agree with that. Last time I checked, that was up to the Supreme Court and our court systems.
Mr. Vought has already made clear how he would use his role--or I should say abuse his role--as OMB Director to politicize the Agency and bend it to the whims of the President. In Project 2025, Vought wrongly stated that OMB has the only statutory tools in the White House that are powerful enough to override implementing the Agency's bureaucracies. What this really means is overriding the law, duly enacted here in Congress and signed by the President.
Mr. Vought has also questioned the very ideas of independent Federal Agencies. In fact, in an interview last November with Tucker Carlson, Mr. Vought said:
Mr. Vought has called OMB a President's air traffic control system with the ability and charge to ensure that all policy initiatives are flying in sync and with the authority to let planes take off and at times ground planes that are flying off course.
Do we really trust a man hell-bent on slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, defying Congress, and destroying independent Federal Agencies to be an air traffic controller?
Let me be clear. My constituents in New Mexico did not vote for this. And my office has been fielding thousands of phone calls, letters, and emails from New Mexicans who are upset, angry, and frustrated that President Trump, Elon Musk, and Russell Vought are breaking laws and shredding the Constitution in a bid to upend the basic functions of our government.
Here is a little bit of a taste of what New Mexicans are telling me. Arthur from Rio Rancho called my office to tell me he is concerned about how Trump and Vought's plans to dismantle the Department of Education will impact his son and millions of other students with disabilities.
Arthur said:
A constituent from Albuquerque who requested anonymity is worried about his job as a Federal civil servant because of Vought's agenda. He wrote to me:
Marissa from Santa Fe is hesitant to start a family because of the uncertainty caused by Musk, Trump, and Vought. Marissa wrote to me:
Holly from Albuquerque, a public school teacher, is also deeply worried about Trump and Vought's intentions to dismantle the Department of Education and what this could mean for her students, fellow teachers, and her financial security. She wrote:
Today, I say to the thousands of New Mexicans who have asked me to oppose Mr. Vought's nomination: I agree with you. Mr. Vought is unfit to lead the OMB. We should reject this dangerously unfit nominee before he dismantles the services that New Mexicans rely on. We should reject him before he unilaterally overrides the laws that Americans' elected representatives have passed.
We cannot stand by and allow Mr. Vought, Elon Musk, or even this President to disregard the safety and security of the American people, and the law is on our side.
In the last week, two Federal courts have issued restraining orders on Trump's directives. I want to read a few short words from what the judges have said:
The court continued by dismissing Trump's arguments justifying the funding freeze, declaring:
These court rulings represent battles won, but this war to defend the Constitution and stability in this Nation is far from over.
We won't stop until Trump, Musk, and Vought follow the law and abide by the Constitution. That means respecting Federal workers. It means ending the unilateral and unlawful freeze of appropriated funds for projects from the Eastern New Mexico Rural Water Project to the Red Top Water Development Project.
I have said it before and I will say it again: This is not a game. This is a nation of laws, and just like you, every one of us here in this body swore to defend the Constitution. Mass layoffs of Federal workers, working to disband the Department of Education or the EPA or the National Science Foundation, abusing the FBI, handing over access to more than one-fifth of our economy and the private data of every single American taxpayer without any regard for the risk that you are creating for our national security--that is not defending this Nation of laws; it is not following the Constitution; it is not putting public service or even America first. It looks a lot like tyranny. It needs to stop.
``We the People'' is the first phrase of the U.S. Constitution, and that is exactly who Republicans in charge of the Senate, the House, and the White House--the people who can stop this need to hear from you.
So to all Americans wondering what can be done right now, rise up your voice, call your Member of Congress, call your Senators, call the White House, call the Treasury Department, comment on your Republican representatives' social media channels, write op-eds in your local newspaper telling how you are impacted. Make sure that Republicans know that we the people are paying attention, that we will hold them accountable for following the law, upholding the Constitution. Make sure to let your lawmakers know when you support the work that they are doing so that they continue to do it. And let Federal civil servants know that you support them and that you want them to keep doing their jobs and doing them well.
I will continue to stand up to this chaos, to this lawlessness, and as part of that work, I will vote no on Russell Vought.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. President, I rise tonight in opposition to the nomination of Russell Vought to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget, also known as OMB. My colleagues and I have been holding the Senate floor since yesterday to sound the alarm on this dangerous nomination.
Russell Vought is the architect of Project 2025, the hateful, racist, sexist policy roadmap at the center of Trump's campaign.
Mr. Vought has been working behind the scenes for years on policies to consolidate power, undermine the critical services that the Federal Government provides to the American people, and undermine Congress's power of the purse.
When Vought was at the Office of Management and Budget during the last Trump administration, he demonstrated a complete lack of regard for our branch of government--the Congress. He was responsible for illegally withholding and delaying billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated funding and now is planning to ratchet up this whole destructive power to a new level in 2025.
While Vought was withholding the funding that he and Trump don't like, he revealed a 2021 budget plan that showed us all the terrible things that he did like. That plan, authored by Russell Vought, proposed--listen to this--$500 billion in cuts to Medicare, $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid, $71 billion cuts to Social Security. In those budgets, Vought was able to find $1.4 trillion to continue the tax that Trump gave--that big tax break to the millionaires and billionaires in our country, all paid for out of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Right now, Russell Vought is working behind the scenes and not even waiting to propose a budget. He is directing the Agency to illegally cut billions of dollars in spending from programs that American families rely upon.
Someone else's name may have been on the January 27 memo that came from OMB that froze all government spending, but--make no mistake--it was authored by Russell Vought. Everything we are seeing right now--the
Vought may be the one to have written the blueprint, but now he and everyone else, including the President himself, are taking orders from one man--Elon Musk. All of this chaos is because the richest man in the world spent more than $280 million on buying this election, and he wants to reap the benefits from his investment.
For Donald Trump, DEI seems to only stand for ``defending Elon's interests.'' Now, he and Vought are planning to make OMB stand for ``only Musk's business.''
Elon Musk and his unqualified, unelected government arsonists wants to be able to carry out their attacks on your privacy, your rights, and your friends and neighbors under the cover of darkness. Because with every new day, we are seeing Donald Trump's deep-pocketed puppeteer, Elon Musk, attempt to dismantle the government services that keep our communities clean, healthy, and safe. And they are acting with impunity.
I just came from the Environmental Protection Agency--an Agency created by Congress, authorized by Congress, signed into law by Richard Nixon, and one which the Environmental and Public Works Committee, on which I sit, oversees. I was denied access to the EPA to talk to Musk's DOGE henchmen.
No, you can't come in Senator. You can't talk to these young people rumbling around, interviewing people who majored in physics and biology and chemistry who are protecting the clean air and clean water and clean lands in our country. No, you can't come in.
Musk doesn't just believe he is above the law; he doesn't believe in the law at all. He believes that the U.S. Constitution does not apply to him. Elon Musk is not bound by the Constitution.
Everyone knows that we have three branches of government created in the Constitution as separate articles defining the powers of each. Article I of the Constitution is the Congress, article II of the Constitution is the Presidency, and article III of the Constitution is the judiciary. But Elon Musk doesn't need to answer to any of those branches--not to Congress, not to the courts, and certainly not to his newly bought Presidency.
It makes sense for Trump to make Elon Musk a buddy. The guy who declared bankruptcy six times really needs a rich guy around to bail him out. But it is almost as if Musk believes that he has his own special place in the Constitution separate from the first three articles.
In Musk world, our Constitution contains an article III.V right after article III of the judiciary, and that new article that he believes exists and applies to him is a never-before-used provision in the Constitution with unlimited authority to remake our constitutional order with Musk as the unelected and unaccountable leader.
Now, in Musk world, articles I, II, and III of the Constitution are toothless compared to the power reserved for him and him alone in article III.V, right before article IV. He just slipped it in now. Article III.V.
In Musk world, article III.V goes something like this: Article III.V, the Muskocracy--his own separate provision in the Constitution.
Section 1 of the Muskocracy, establishment of the Elon Musk branch:
The executive, legislative, and judicial branches shall hereby recognize a new and supreme branch of government known as Elon Musk. This branch shall operate independently of the other three branches, unburdened by traditional constraints such as laws, ethics, or the need for congressional approval.
That is section 1.
Section 2, powers and responsibilities for the Muskocracy:
The Elon Musk branch shall wield absolute authority over but not limited to, No. 1, Federal Agency reorganization. ``Abolish the at will clause'' is in that section--whatever he decides.
The Musk branch may at any time eliminate, restructure, or replace any Federal Agency by way of a single tweet.
A lot of power that section 1 is.
Section 2, workforce optimization:
All Federal employees shall be subject to an immediate performance review determined by way of an AI-powered metric called the HyperProductivity Index, trademarked. Any Agency deemed ``inefficient'' shall be replaced by a new office staffed entirely by a mix of X Premium subscribers, Tesla interns, and SpaceX engineers working 120- hour weeks.
This is the Muskocracy, and it just continues.
Data access, part 3:
The Musk branch shall have unrestricted access to all government personnel records, including security clearances, tax filings, and even embarrassing Slack messages.
All goes to Elon Musk under article III.V of the new U.S. Constitution enacted on Inauguration Day in 2024.
Then we have legislative override:
All bills must be reviewed and meme'd upon by the Musk branch before passing. A simple ``haha no'' tweet from the Musk branch shall serve as an automatic veto.
He didn't like it, just tweet it out. Everyone will jump. Make sure that doesn't happen. This is the new Muskocracy in which we are now living--article III.V of the new Constitution of the United States of America.
Judicial review:
The Supreme Court shall be replaced with a single X post where Elon asks ``Should this be legal?''
The most liked reply becomes binding precedent.
This is the only way to govern. You can just see how it is all playing on X. It is the new Constitution of the United States, binding on the U.S. Senate for sure. We can see that in the votes that are being cast out there by the majority.
Then we move on to section 3, Administration and Oversight.
The Musk branch shall be staffed exclusively by engineers, AI-powered bots, and a small staff of interns selected through an online gladiator-style coding competition.
How else would you run America in 2025 but have those superior beings making all decisions for all of us?
Then, section 4, checks and balances--all of them. Checks and balances has always been the key going back to Madison and Jefferson. They thought through the checks and balances, and so did Elon Musk in his article III.V, the Muskocracy, the provision that is now operative in our country in the Donald Trump Presidency.
So checks and balances says: Although the existing three branches may express opinions, all official government actions require verification from the Musk branch, except those initiated by Musk himself, which are self-verifying because he is infallible. No one can question him.
And any opposition to the Musk branch shall be met with immediate ridicule. Come on. You can't question Elon Musk. It is the new Constitution. That is how it is. Everyone should just understand.
And then section 5, succession and perpetuity. How does our country then operate into the future? Well, in the event that the physical Elon Musk ceases to exist, the Musk branch shall be transferred to an AI- trained on/off system for all of his tweets that are gathered together and then Neura-link data and past Rogan podcast appearances and that AI shall rule indefinitely unless overthrown by a more innovative billionaire.
Isn't that really how we want our country to be running under this Muskocracy, article III.V? That is where we are right now. That is the country that we are living in.
And does he have power? Oh, he has power. Because let's not kid ourselves; right now Elon wants us to live in the Muskocracy.
The Trump administration is operating as if article III.V is real, as if Elon Musk has supreme authority to override the will of Congress, seize government property, hire and fire at will, and otherwise bend government to his benefit regardless of the consequences.
So let's not fool ourselves. We can see article III.V in action right now. Musk is obsessed with shutting down USAID, slandering its public service, spreading baseless conspiracy theories about the Agency's work and mission.
If we don't stop him now through legislation and lawsuits, he will not only destroy our ability to address global crises that will eventually impact us at home; he will go after the Agencies that keep our food and water safe, our
Gutting USAID will cause immediate harm to our national security, place our citizens at risk, and disrupt lifesaving work. USAID helps protect children from starvation. It prevents the spread of infectious diseases. It is critical in our global fight against AIDS and HIV.
If we don't hold the line on Elon Musk's abolition of USAID and the Trump administration's illegal actions, nothing will prevent him or Trump from doing the same thing to the CDC, to the Environmental Protection Agency, to the Small Business Administration.
He is bragging that he put USAID in the wood chipper. We wants to do the same thing for every other Agency.
And that is why I am voting no on every Trump nominee while this illegal and unconstitutional power grab continues, while this chaos continues, and this corruption continues.
The fights before us will not be easy, and there will be many. The American people are relying on us to protect their rights, their pocketbooks, and their families. And that starts with protecting them from nominees whose only goal is to dismantle the programs that help feed them, employ them, and keep them warm in the winter, educate them, and help them meet the ends that their families seek to achieve.
We need to say no to the nomination of Russell Vought tonight; no to the illegal, unconstitutional Muskocracy; and no to the costly, sick, or unhealthy future that Donald Trump is creating.
I urge all Members to vote no on Russell Vought as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. President, chaos, corruption, confusion--that is what Russell Vought offers.
For the past 2 weeks, my office has received thousands of calls. Worried New Mexicans are taking time out of their busy days to share their stories and plead for help.
Last Monday, when President Trump and Russell Vought illegally froze Federal programs and grant money allocated by Congress, chaos erupted in New Mexico and across the country.
A single mother of four in Bernalillo wrote to me:
A senior from Albuquerque told me:
Another constituent of mine wrote:
A family doctor shared that if the Federal freeze on grants and programs were to be implemented, it would put a family clinic that serves 50,000 New Mexicans in immediate danger of closing. This would leave thousands of patients without access to primary healthcare.
Another constituent said:
Another young woman in southwest Albuquerque wrote to me saying:
One New Mexican, who works at a school lunch program, called asking:
A farmer in Silver City said he was concerned about the devastation a funding freeze would have on the farmers and ranchers across New Mexico.
A nonprofit that helps people with disabilities find housing and employment said they ``would not be able to function.''
A mother and nurse wrote in to say that stopping his two disabled children's healthcare will destroy their lives.
This is just a handful of the countless stories shared with my office in the past 11 days. New Mexicans were scared and didn't know what to do.
The Trump administration offered a two-page memo that effectively took away assistance for millions of Americans, Republicans and Democrats, who would not be able to put food on the table, afford their prescriptions, or put gas in their cars because of Russell Vought and the Trump Administration.
When asked by reporters in the briefing room if this freeze was going to affect programs that help feed young children, provide veterans with healthcare, or keep the heat on for seniors during cold winters--the White House Press Secretary answered over and over again that this freeze would not affect individual assistance programs. She left it at that, no specific details or plans to share with the American people regarding whether the Trump administration planned to freeze the funding they depend on.
What happened was these programs were frozen. Contrary to the lie the White House told the American people, these programs were frozen. Medicaid and Head Start payment portals were frozen with no explanation. After Democrats and the public demanded answers, the portals began to open up again. No explanation was given to the American people, no accountability.
Let me be clear, Vought's fingerprints are all over Trump's funding freeze despite not being confirmed. What Russell Vought is doing is bad for our country. I don't need to stand here and wonder or make guesses about what his policies will do if he is confirmed to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He has already done this job before, and when he did, he broke the law.
Let me repeat that. Russell Vought broke the law. He decided that he and President Trump get to determine what programs are funded. Not Congress, as the Constitution requires, not the people of this country, just them.
The rule of law still needs to matter in this country, and it needs to matter in this body.
Let me also tell you why I don't need to guess what Mr. Vought is going to do. A chief architect of Project 2025, Russell Vought wants nothing more than to have a chance at cutting funding for Medicaid, healthcare and mental health services for veterans, early childhood education for kids, and so much more.
I am proud to serve New Mexico. I know that I do not just represent the people who voted to put me in this job. And because I serve them, all New Mexicans, I went into the confirmation process with an open mind.
The decisions and the leadership of the person who will take the seat of Director of the Office and Management and Budget will affect all New Mexicans.
Under this Presidency, I know this Cabinet will not agree with me on every issue, but I want these positions to be filled by people who will not just serve the Americans who voted for their boss, but serve everyone. I do not have a problem with a Republican running the Office of Management and Budget. I take issue with a nominee who promises to violate the law and strip funding from the American people.
I take issue with slashing funding for children's health insurance, moms and dads trying to put food on the table, seniors being able to afford their medicine. I take issue with this nominee who has a record of disdain for Federal employees and ``wants federal employees to be traumatized.'' I take issue with a nominee who, when it comes to our Federal workers, wants to clean house and replace them with political loyalists.
Let me end with something personal. Russell Vought believes that kids who attend Head Start ``have worse behavior and academic outcomes than children who do not enroll in the program.'' He signed his name on a document saying exactly this. I am a Head Start graduate standing right now in the well of the U.S. Senate. Early education opens up doors for millions of
My grandparents often told me as a kid to leave things better than you found them. Let me tell you what Vought is going to do. He is going to slash programs that people depend on every day to pay for the Trump tax scam. And Russell Vought is going to leave kids, veterans, and seniors footing the bill. He is going to tell parents they have to make an impossible choice: feed their kids or be able to afford medicine for mom.
Russell Vought has no interest in the advice of my grandparents. He is not going to leave things better than he found them. The best thing for New Mexico right now is to not support a nominee who has already plunged our country into chaos and confusion. Our country and New Mexicans deserve better than this.
I want to thank each and every one of my Democratic colleagues who came to the floor this week to stand up for our constituents and who shared many stories and concerns from across the country over the nomination of Russell Vought.
I urge my Republican colleagues to speak with their constituents who will suffer at the hands of Russell Vought as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, a decision and confirmation that would be damaging to our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. President, now we know this, and this is a conversation I have quite often with individuals to talk about what is happening in my State when they ask me: What is going on in Washington? What is happening with the Executive orders and the change of the administration?
And one thing that we talk about, and I think it is important because sometimes it gets lost in this conversation is that when our system of government was created, about 250 years ago, it was created because the American people at the time decided they wanted a democracy. They didn't want a king.
You know, the United States of America is born out of a revolution against a monarch, a king who sat on a throne and had really no checks on his power.
And our Founding Fathers built this Nation on a foundation of democratic principles, supporting the idea that government is for the people. That is what the American people wanted.
And as part of that creation, they established three coequal branches of government. We all know the executive, the legislative, the judicial. And along with that, they created a system of checks and balances to ensure that no branch had too much control over the other.
Now, as we all know--we work here in Congress--that legislative branch is important. It is the first branch of government, coequal to all the others. But it writes and passes laws, approves Presidential nominations, but also, importantly, the branch of government that we all work in is about passing a budget and controlling the purse.
What does that mean? The money. We are the ones that decide how we spend this money, the budget for the Federal Government; where it is going to go, the appropriations for it. And that really is the power of Congress that our Founding Fathers gave to us.
Now, the executive branch, we all know, the Founders gave the President the authority to veto, to implement, to enforce laws, along with the power to manage and direct government Agencies.
That is what the Founding Fathers envision to ensure that our government puts the American people first and that no branch of government could become too powerful. Those are checks and balances that have been tested throughout our Nation's history.
Let me just give you an example. In 1974, President Richard Nixon refused to release funds approved by Congress for certain programs that he opposed. In response to his unconstitutional abuse of power, Congress passed bipartisan legislation called the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act of 1974. This legislation reaffirms that, once Congress passes bills that deliver funding to the American people, the President can't delay or cancel those funds.
Unfortunately today, we have a nominee for the Office of Management and Budget--we call it OMB--who thinks this critical check on the President's power shouldn't exist.
Now, you have heard this. My Democratic colleagues have been on the Senate floor since 2 p.m. yesterday to oppose Russ Vought.
Why? Because Russ Vought is a coauthor of President Trump's Project 2025 manifesto, and he is the chief architect of Trump's strategy to seize the power of the legislative branch. How? How are they doing that? Well, let's just talk about that.
On January 27, the OMB issued a memo to effectively suspend Congress's power of the purse by announcing a pause on all Federal grants and loans. He shut down funding for practically every State and local program that receives money from the Federal government.
Now, like all of my colleagues, I have heard from Nevadans worried about accessing Medicaid or their VA benefits or funding for law enforcement or housing and energy payments that keep the lights on for low-income Nevadans. I have heard concerns about childcare initiatives like Head Start that have no longer any funding, and programs to support seniors like Meals on Wheels are concerned.
I have heard from Tribes in Nevada. I just got out of my office meeting with one of our Tribes who are still having trouble accessing housing funds and similar funds.
Groups that support Nevada's domestic violence survivors don't know if they will have the money to get critical resources to people in need.
Nevada literacy programs that are helping children learn to read have been threatened with a loss of funding.
Rural communities in Nevada receiving Federal grants, ranging from community development grants to wastewater treatment--several of those grants and that funding have been delayed or cut.
Trump's funding freeze shut down support for safety and security for kids and families in the historic Westside of Las Vegas.
President Trump shut down $156 million in funding for solar energy in Nevada. We were going to install solar power on hundreds of buildings, helping to bring down energy costs for 20,000 hard-working Nevada families. But President Trump illegally stopped these solar grants to Nevada. That has jeopardized thousands of good-paying jobs for laborers and construction crews in my State.
And while the Trump administration claims that Medicaid wasn't affected by the Federal funding freeze, the fact is the Medicaid payment system did go offline in all 50 States.
Now, intentional or not, the OMB order was reckless, causing confusion and chaos for many across the country, including doctors and healthcare staff who didn't know if they were going to get paid for the work they do.
Like my colleagues, my office is being flooded with these calls, including from Nevadans concerned about their future benefits from Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
These are real Americans who are being squeezed by this unconstitutional funding freeze, even though Donald Trump promised to make their lives better.
Americans right now are being hung out to dry by Donald Trump and Russ Vought, whose Project 2025 was clearly--clearly--the inspiration for this dangerous funding freeze.
Russ Vought is unfit to serve at the head of the Agency that oversees our Federal budget.
During his confirmation hearing, he said the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is unconstitutional. One man decides the laws in this State. Wow, that is a lot of power. He is basically saying he thinks the President should be able to withhold any funding that they don't like, even though that goes against the separation of powers our Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution.
Think about this: Under the last administration, we passed the Inflation Reduction Act that created incredible jobs--union jobs--and grew our economy in Nevada and across this country. Now President Trump and Russ Vought are saying the President doesn't have to deliver all that funding to communities in Nevada and across the country. Many of those communities have
Instead of focusing on the working families that Donald Trump said he was fighting for, he is clearly only interested in becoming as powerful as possible, no matter how many laws he breaks.
Listen, you know something is wrong when firefighters who went to Los Angeles to help contain the devastating wildfires received emails from the Trump administration encouraging them to resign. It wasn't an email to say: Thank you. You risked your lives. We couldn't do this without you.
They actually sent a letter to these firefighters saying: Well, it is time to resign.
What kind of President thanks our firefighters by telling them to leave their jobs and leave our communities defenseless? He doesn't care about our safety and security. He only cares about his own.
My question for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is, What is next? What will be the next congressional power we cede to Donald Trump and his billionaire friends? What will be the next crisis we have to clean up when we could be focusing on delivering for Americans?
We are supposed to be representing the people of our States and fighting for them. When I speak to Nevadans every single day, they expect me to get them the Federal support they need. That means working across the aisle. I will work with anyone to get things done on behalf of my State and across the country.
But it also means standing up to anyone who would prefer to sow chaos and ignore the Constitution, violate our laws, usurp our power; anyone who would rather do that and not tackle the real issues that Americans are dealing with right now.
Let me say, I don't know anybody, any one of my colleagues or anyone else, who doesn't support streamlining our Federal Government. I am here because I was so frustrated with the bureaucracy of the Federal Government and support streamlining it and think we should do that, absolutely, every day, work towards how we make it work for Americans. I support it.
But what we need is a thoughtful business strategy to do just that. That is welcome. But burning the Federal Government to the ground, that is not a business strategy; that is just total destruction. And that is not what the American people deserve.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I join my colleagues--I thank the Senator from Nevada for her great comments in articulating why we want to have a budget process here that recognizes the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, and to say that a budget process that tries to exclude us is not what our Forefathers had in mind.
That is one of the reasons I strongly oppose this nomination to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget for Russell Vought. The administration, like every one before it, has had the opportunity to propose a budget, set overall policy principles, and propose spending and policies. This administration does not have the power to wave a wand and erase legally authorized and appropriated funds.
The Constitution is very clear here: Congress and the administration, together, agree on appropriations. They agree together when we pass laws and what we want to do to govern. And people should be able to rely on current laws until those laws are changed.
That is how governing works, and we are here to represent the people who want to see the certainty and predictability of laws that we have passed. Regular review of programs and congressional oversight, as my colleague from Nevada just mentioned, those are valuable things, and we can continue to make reforms in thoughtful and transparent ways.
We should not allow unaccountable political actors, though, to have unfettered access to our constituents' most sensitive data without safeguards on how that data is protected, their rights, and conflicts of interest, or how that data might even be used against them.
I am for a very strong national privacy law to protect our consumers, and one person I don't want a spying on us is the U.S. Government. So I don't take lightly somebody getting access to accounts and information, storing it, moving it around, sharing it with other people. I don't care if they are 22 or 42, I am not for the government doing this kind of thing without oversight.
Taxpayers--I am not even for the government spying on U.S. citizens, just to be clear, I am not for that. But this is just data collection. Data collection. Who is it going to? What are they doing with it? How much are they going to use it?
So taxpayers, they rely on us for service, and they don't want to believe that somebody is looking around in these accounts. Even our own personnel management system got hacked by the Chinese. How do we know that there are safeguards for what these individuals are doing with our most personal information?
But the havoc that has been caused by this nominee's strategy is just absurd. Today, I met with a group of farmers who were talking about how they grow and process export products.
They told me, because USAID operations were shut down, their products were stuck on a dock in Houston, they don't think they are ever going to get delivered, and they sure as heck don't think they are going to get paid.
Is that what we want to do? Tell our farmers that they have a contract to grow a product, to have them delivered, and the shipment is on its way, and now, you are going to leave it on a dock because you think you have a bright idea of way to shortcut Congress?
Over 1.8 million Washingtonians rely on Medicare, and they shouldn't have to be worried at any moment of the day that somehow that that is not going to be paid for. But that is what happened when Washington State Health Care Authority was frozen out of the Medicaid portal and the healthcare payments were not being made.
My colleague also just addressed that. The portal eventually got turned on after the huge volume and outrage. Really, outrage by the public forced the administration to say, ``Stop this silly attitude that you can stop payment yourself.'' They forced them to turn the portal back on and pay the Medicaid bills.
But Washington State is also home to community health centers. They are nonprofit entities that serve the medically underserved population. Part of me is thinking, this is really an attempt to steal money from our constituents, just to pay for a tax bill.
Literally, somebody thought they were going to come in here and make a very fast move and basically turn off payments to people who are really poor and in very challenging situations and turn off payments so they could take the money and put it into a tax break for the rich later on.
That is absurd. It is absurd. It is not even legal. We were told by some of these healthcare centers that they were blocked from transferring Federal funds to those needed in their hospitals. In other words, cutting off funding that would be helpful to saving lives. These health centers provide care to more than 1 million people in our State, over 360,000 of them. And there are children, agriculture workers, and veterans, and the fact that these medical systems work to help all of us provide primary care is exactly why we shouldn't turn off a system.
I got a call from someone in Pierce County to tell me about her son Tobias, who is 36 years old. He was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma and is one of the youngest people who has gotten the diagnosis. They are absolutely terrified about the risk of losing cancer research dollars. She said she couldn't wrap her mind around it:
These are the stories from my constituents, they want to know what is going on in their lives. It is not a parlor game, it is not a think tank exercise. It is their lives.
For one of the hospitals in my State, Island Health in Anacortes, the funding freeze means they couldn't fill a contractual agreement to pay for surgical technology. They were under contract to pay no later than 30 days after the receipt of the equipment, which is currently being shipped to them. So the first time this community was going to realize the benefit of some technology that was going to help them provide better outcomes through less invasive
A Federal funding freeze just exacerbates their ability to deliver care that has been authorized, appropriated and promised--promised to the operation of our healthcare system. How could people be so heartless to try to turn that off?
Andrea Downs, the executive director for Citizens Against Domestic and Sexual Abuse, which is the only domestic violence and sexual assault agency for Whidbey Island, said they operate a center and a shelter. She said the funding freeze impacts about half of their funding. Portals, not getting paid, no processing, no time. She said ``not being able to access our grants for the remainder of this fiscal year would have a crippling impact on our organization.''
One, Walla Walla/Tri Cities based nonprofit, Blue Mountain Heart to Heart, is also concerned about Federal grants that they receive that support housing needs of people who live within the region. And they are also worried about the accountability of care that comes with the Medicaid funds.
But probably nothing said it more clear to me than when I heard that Elon Musk and DOGE wanted to get their hands on the FAA. What should a man who is regulated by the FAA--his launch facilities are under the FAA's authority to keep us safe. They need to know and coordinate launch rocket times and to not have people just launch a rocket whenever they want.
We already know the painful experience of these accidents on the Potomac, of not having a system overseen with enough input by air traffic controllers. But Mr. Musk was fined, and he didn't like the fine. He basically went after the FAA Administrator, who decided to step down instead of serving with this administration. Now, Mr. Musk wants his hands on the FAA to tell them what to do, probably in retribution for the fact that they said it wasn't safe to launch at that moment. This is a clear conflict of interest.
We can do better than this. We are here to work together. We are here to work across the aisle. We are here to pass a budget. We are here to appropriate and, as an authorizer, to set those authorizations and work with our appropriators.
It is not for a nominee to set a game plan of how to take money out of the lives of individual families that are counting on that payment or structural organizations that are charged with serving our communities on something as important as health or law enforcement, and it sure isn't turning the keys over to somebody who has already been fined by the Agency to try to then undo the Agency's oversight of his own personal business. There couldn't be a clearer answer here. Turn down this nomination. Let's get back to working together, working collaboratively.
There are lots of ideas that we have to work on government efficiency, lots of ideas that could produce billions of dollars in savings, produce better care for our constituents, and move our country forward. And, oh, by the way, let's not also continue to cut funding for all the authorized programs that these nominees basically said that they supported. That is why we voted for some of them because they said they supported current funding, whether that is the Department of Transportation or other places. But now, the mastermind of how to short circuit, pull the plug out, pull out the safety blanket, give it to the rich is on the way for a vote here.
Please vote no.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. President, since yesterday afternoon, Democrats have held this floor to ring the alarm bells across the United States of America about the nomination of Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
Russ Vought may not be as famous as Donald Trump's other nominees, but as you have heard from so many Democrats, ``Radical Russ'' is Donald Trump's most dangerous nominee. He is the mastermind behind Project 2025. In following that script, he proudly breaks the law, he proudly violates the Constitution, and he proudly seeks to gut programs for ordinary American families to deliver trillions in tax giveaways to the richest Americans.
Russell Vought's dead-of-night directives to freeze government payments have already sown massive damage across our Nation--programs for healthcare and housing and education and children.
Then, just today, I learned that the Bureau of Land Management is ordering small businesses to cease and desist all work for forest management--that of thinning the forests and doing prescribed burns to prevent massive forest fires from burning down our cities. That is literally Trump and Russ Vought playing with fire.
The American people are angry about this sweeping authoritarian coup. They are calling our offices. Two thousand Oregonians called my office yesterday. Thousands of people showed up to my nine townhalls over the last two weekends.
They are asking tough questions:
How is it possible that Donald Trump could order dead-of-night directives and cut off funding for all of the programs that help families get on their feet and thrive and get to the middle class-- those addressing child nutrition and affordable housing and healthcare?
How is it possible that Trump can break the law to fire 17 inspectors general who protect the American people from executive branch corruption?
How is it possible Trump can break the law to fire a member of the National Labor Relations Board, who protects workers' rights?
How is it possible Trump can dismantle USAID, which provides food and medicine and humanitarian aid around the world?
How is it possible Russ Vought and President Trump can send Elon Musk's groupies to access sensitive programs and access our data regarding Social Security payments and Medicare payments and veterans' benefits and the tax records of every single American?
This breach of privacy by Big Brother government is an extraordinary threat to the security of every single citizen.
``Radical Russ'' has a three-part plan for America: Gut programs for working families, borrow trillions from the Treasury, and give massive tax giveaways to the very richest Americans. This is the robber baron script: Take from ordinary families to give more to the best off.
This is the opposite of what Trump campaigned on. He campaigned on helping families, and now that he is in office, the campaign is giving way to, instead, Project 2025, which is about government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for the billionaires.
That is why the Democratic members of the Budget Committee asked to delay the vote on sending his nomination here to the floor--because we wanted to find out. We asked questions about what he was doing already over at the Office of Management and Budget when he hadn't been confirmed yet, holding meetings and sending out directives. He wouldn't answer those questions, so his file is incomplete. So we said to hold off for 2 weeks, but the Budget Committee chair refused to hold off and make sure that the file was complete.
Then we said: Well, at least hold the meeting in public so we can share our thoughts back and forth, and the public can come in and witness it and see our arguments about why he should or shouldn't be voted to send to the floor. Instead, the meeting was held in private.
So that was why we were so concerned then and, as you have heard from 41 Democrats over the last 30 hours, why we are so concerned now with the philosophy and actions of ``Radical Russ'' Vought. We are working day and night, fighting for working families, fighting for the Constitution, and fighting to stop this sweeping authoritarian takeover.
To my friends across the aisle: ``Radical Russ'' wants to steal the power of
``Radical Russ'' wants to steal the power to write laws given to Congress and the Constitution and give it to Donald Trump to rule by Executive order and Presidential fiat.
``Radical Russ'' has attacked the Constitution before. Remember, he is the force that said ``Let's stop payments to Ukraine'' that got President Trump into trouble in his first administration.
We here have taken an oath to defend the Constitution for working Americans--for all Americans. Join us in voting no because ``Radical Russ'' is dangerously unfit for public office.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. President, Democrats have spent virtually every minute of the last 30 hours sounding the alarm about the dangers of Russell Vought. We feel it a mission to let America know that Russell Vought is a threat to Social Security, to Medicare, to childcare, to veterans' benefits, and so much more.
He is the wrong man--he seems to care little about the needs of American families; at the wrong place--at powerful OMB, where his decisions will be felt in every corner of the country; with the wrong agenda--the horrible Project 2025.
There are three strikes against Russell Vought, and he should be out. He is the wrong man at the wrong place with the wrong agenda.
Mr. Vought's policies will hurt children and seniors, hurt veterans, hurt homeowners, and so many of our other friends and neighbors. The only people who should celebrate Russell Vought are Donald Trump's billionaire friends when they get another tax break.
I caution my Republican colleagues: Voting to place the chief architect of Project 2025 in charge of White House policy will come back to haunt them. If the chaos of the last 2 weeks is any indication of what is to come, Russell Vought will be a massive liability for Donald Trump, for Republicans, and worst of all, for the country.
Tonight, I will vote no fervently, strongly, with complete conviction, and urge my colleagues to do the same.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. President, we are getting now close to the time to vote on the Vought nomination, and it has been a 30-hour discussion, conversation, some of which I think is perhaps instructive.
I mean, I would make an argument, honestly, that through multiple administrations, Congress has bequeathed and given up way too much power to the executive branch. But I think, with the all-night vigil-- and a lot of speeches were made over here--there was a lot of high rhetoric, I would argue, about attacks on democracy, attacks on the Constitution.
I think it is important when you make those arguments that there be at least some amount of self-reflection because, over the last 4 years, there have been a lot of times when the executive branch went around the Congress or tried to rewrite the laws Congress had passed in ways that increased spending, and I can use a good example.
Under the committee of jurisdiction, the Commerce Committee, which is where I spent a lot of my time over the past few years, there was a program called the BEAD Program, which was designed to extend broadband access to people in rural areas of the country, unserved areas of the country, and it passed almost--well, about 3 years ago. I didn't vote for it at the time. But that provision in the bill was designed to deliver broadband services to unserved areas, rural areas of the country. We are now 3 years into that program, and there hasn't been a single dollar spent or a single household connected through that program, and it was a $42 billion funding program--$42 billion and not a single dollar spent.
Why? Because the administration decided to add conditions to it, conditions that made it unusable to a lot of the telecoms--at least certainly to the telecoms in my area, and I think I represent probably as rural of an area as you will ever find.
What were some of those conditions?
Well, they said you had to use union labor. In South Dakota, we are a right-to-work State, so we don't have a lot of that.
You had to meet climate conditions for your subcontractors, your suppliers, and everything else. You had to comply with certain climate requirements.
Then there was an issue about rate regulation. Now, rate regulation, interestingly enough, was specifically banned by the statute. The statute said: no rate regulation. So what the administration did is they added to the law--in all of these ways--in a way that made it virtually impossible for anybody to use.
So here we are, 3 years later, 3 years after that law passed this Congress, and not a single dollar has been spent, and not a single household has been connected. Why? Because the executive branch decided they wanted to do some things with this law that Congress never intended. I didn't hear the complaints about that or all-night vigils.
Another thing I will point out is the student loan program. Now, as we all know, the student loan program, of course, is authorized again, funded by Congress, and that is a subject of ongoing litigation--I think we all know that--but it is hundreds of billions of dollars. It is actually increasing spending. It is not cutting spending but increasing spending--and, again, totally outside the parameters of what Congress intended for the program.
The law is pretty clear, we believe. And I think when you sign agreements--there are a lot of financial agreements that students enter into on the student loan program. Essentially, what has been said by the previous administration, the executive branch, the attack on democracy, was that that is not going to apply and we are just going to forgive them all. We will wipe out all of the agreements. We will go around the law, circumvent the law. And folks on this side of the aisle applauded when that happened--again, action taken by the executive branch outside the parameters of what Congress intended when that law was passed.
I will use one other example, and that is the Thrifty Food Program. I serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee, as does Senator Grassley and a lot of other of our colleagues. In the 2018 farm bill, there was a provision in there that allows the Department of Agriculture to use this program for sort of inflationary increases. The Thrifty Food Program is based on current food prices, food composition data, consumption patterns, and dietary guidance. But, interestingly enough, what the Department of Agriculture decided to do was go around 45 years of precedent and do something that had never been done before and dramatically increase the program by $250 billion--$250 billion.
It wasn't an inflationary increase that was based on the cost of this program over time. It was something that had never been done before, and the Government Accountability Office busted the administration for doing it.
But they used, very cynically, the 2018 farm bill as the basis for USDA's action. But Congress never agreed to permit a quarter-of-a- trillion-dollar increase in spending.
So, again, I mean, these are decisions made by the previous executive branch, which happened to be the executive branch of a different party. And everybody had sort of a different reaction at that time.
So I am certainly somebody who is not deaf to what I am hearing out there about some of the decisions that are being made by this new administration and their willingness to look at and evaluate programs, perhaps reprioritize them based upon their priorities. I think that is something a lot of administrations do.
And I think there is probably a lot of the program spending decisions that you all are concerned about that I would probably agree with. But I just don't think that coming down here and launching what are ``attacks on democracy'' or, you know, trying to seize power from the Congress really matches with the facts of what happened the last 4 years.
And I will just use those three examples, but I think they are three pretty glaring examples of what happened the last 4 years.
Then the final thing I will say, because I think everybody here knows. We have had this conversation a number of times. But it wasn't that long
The legislative filibuster--part of the Senate's heritage as an institution--the way the Founders intended for it to operate. And in 2017, there were 32 Democrat Senators who signed that letter, a number of them who are here today. And I think you probably know who you are.
Well, it didn't take very long when you had a little change in the power, where you had the Democrats, everyone who was here at the time-- some of you weren't; some of you are new--voted to get rid of the filibuster. You voted to change the rules. You know where it was going, and some of you have been very public about it, and you have been very public about what you would do if that happened.
The issue at that time was whether or not to federalize elections, which, again, has constitutional issues, given the prerogatives of the State legislatures to set the conditions under which elections are held.
So if you have got a history of arguing here there are all these attacks on democracy, all I am pointing out is that that was a very different standard in the last 4 years in the last administration, and particularly as it pertains to the legislative filibuster.
That is an issue--I don't think anybody here can argue--that is more connected to this institution than probably anything else. It gives voice to the minority. It requires collaboration and bipartisanship to do anything consequential. And at the time, everybody thought it was a good idea to preserve it.
A couple of years changed, the political winds in Washington changed, and all of a sudden it was time to get rid of it.
So we are going to vote on this nomination, but I think it is important to point out in the debate how many times an argument was made here on the floor by Members on this side about attacks on democracy. And going around and circumventing the authority and the power of the article I branch of the government--the Congress, the Senate of the United States--by an executive branch, and yet here are three pretty, I would say, glaring examples of something done by the previous administration.
Former Mayor Marion Barry once described his political philosophy as situationist. And I think when it comes to politics, we all have our views informed and changed, perhaps, overtime. But these are some pretty striking, I think, and glaring examples of the inconsistency that is being applied to the current administration when, in fact, the previous administration--the administration of a different political party--came to some very aggressive conclusions with respect to how they wanted to modify and change and alter laws passed by this institution, the U.S. Senate.
Madam President, I think it is time to vote. Let's proceed with the vote.
