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42Senate Resolution 322: Expressing Support for the Designation of the Month of June 2025 as "National Post-Traumatic Stress Awareness Month" and June 27, 2025, as "National Post-Traumatic Stress...
Twenty-three bills and two resolutions were introduced, as follows: S. 2274-2296, and S. Res. 321-322.
Pages S4368-69
Measures Reported
S. 2296, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2026 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year. (S. Rept. No. 119-39)
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Measures Passed
National Post-Traumatic Stress Awareness: Senate agreed to S. Res. 322, expressing support for the designation of the month of June 2025 as ``National Post-Traumatic Stress Awareness Month'' and June 27, 2025, as ``National Post-Traumatic Stress Awareness Day''.
Page S4373
VA Home Loan Program Reform Act
Committee on Veterans' Affairs was discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1815, to amend title 38, United States Code, to authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to take certain actions in the case of a default on a home loan guaranteed by the Secretary, and the bill was then passed.
Pages S4373-74
Measures Considered
Rescissions Act--Agreement: Senate began consideration of H.R. 4, to rescind certain budget authority proposed to be rescinded in special messages transmitted to the Congress by the President on June 3, 2025, in accordance with section 1012(a) of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, after agreeing to the motion to proceed, and taking action on the following amendment proposed thereto:
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Pending
Thune (for Schmitt) Amendment No. 2853, in the nature of a substitute.
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During consideration of this measure today, Senate also took the following action
By 51 yeas to 50 nays, Vice President voting yea (Vote No. 391), Senate agreed to the motion to discharge the Committees on Appropriations and on the Budget of further consideration of the bill in accordance with Title 10 of the Congressional Budget and Impound Control Act of 1974.
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By 51 yeas to 50 nays, Vice President voting yea (Vote No. 392), Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to consideration of the bill.
Page S4364
A unanimous-consent agreement was reached providing for further consideration of the bill at approximately 10 a.m., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025; and that the debate time be equally divided between the two Leaders, or their designees, and that all debate time be expired at 1:30 p.m., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.
Page S4374
Message from the President
Senate received the following message from the President of the United States: Transmitting, pursuant to law, a report of the continuation of the national emergency that was originally declared in Executive Order 14078 of July 19, 2022, with respect to hostage-taking and the wrongful detention of United States nationals abroad; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. (PM-32)
Pages S4366-67
Divine Nomination: Cloture
Senate began consideration of the nomination of Joshua M. Divine, of Missouri, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri.
Page S4357
A motion was entered to close further debate on the nomination, and, in accordance with the provisions of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a vote on cloture will occur on Thursday, July 17, 2025.
Page S4357
Prior to the consideration of this nomination, Senate took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Legislative Session.
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Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Executive Session to consider the nomination.
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Stevens Nomination: Cloture
Senate began consideration of the nomination of Cristian M. Stevens, of Missouri, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Page S4357
A motion was entered to close further debate on the nomination, and, in accordance with the provisions of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a vote on cloture will occur upon disposition of the nomination of Joshua M. Divine, of Missouri, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri.
Page S4357
Prior to the consideration of this nomination, Senate took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Legislative Session.
Page S4357
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Executive Session to consider the nomination.
Page S4357
Lukas Nomination: Cloture
Senate began consideration of the nomination of Aaron Lukas, of Arkansas, to be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.
Page S4357
A motion was entered to close further debate on the nomination, and, in accordance with the provisions of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a vote on cloture will occur upon disposition of the nomination of Cristian M. Stevens, of Missouri, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Page S4357
Prior to the consideration of this nomination, Senate took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Legislative Session.
Page S4357
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Executive Session to consider the nomination.
Page S4357
Hansell Nomination: Cloture
Senate began consideration of the nomination of Bradley Hansell, of Virginia, to be Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
Page S4357
A motion was entered to close further debate on the nomination, and, in accordance with the provisions of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a vote on cloture will occur upon disposition of the nomination of Aaron Lukas, of Arkansas, to be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.
Page S4357
Prior to the consideration of this nomination, Senate took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Legislative Session.
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Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Executive Session to consider the nomination.
Page S4357
Roth Nomination: Cloture
Senate began consideration of the nomination of Arielle Roth, of the District of Columbia, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information.
Page S4358
A motion was entered to close further debate on the nomination, and, in accordance with the provisions of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a vote on cloture will occur upon disposition of the nomination of Bradley Hansell, of Virginia, to be Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
Page S4358
Prior to the consideration of this nomination, Senate took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Legislative Session.
Page S4357
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Executive Session to consider the nomination.
Page S4358
Hurley Nomination: Cloture
Senate began consideration of the nomination of John Hurley, of California, to be Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes.
Page S4358
A motion was entered to close further debate on the nomination, and, in accordance with the provisions of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, a vote on cloture will occur upon disposition of the nomination of Arielle Roth, of the District of Columbia, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information.
Page S4358
Prior to the consideration of this nomination, Senate took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Legislative Session.
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Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Executive Session to consider the nomination.
Page S4358
Nominations Confirmed
Senate confirmed the following nominations: By 69 yeas to 30 nays (Vote No. EX. 386), Luke Pettit, of the District of Columbia, to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
Pages S4345-51, S4380
By 52 yeas to 46 nays (Vote No. EX. 388), Anthony Tata, of Florida, to be Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.
Pages S4351-52, S4380
During consideration of this nomination today, Senate also took the following action
By 52 yeas to 47 nays (Vote No. EX. 387), Senate agreed to the motion to close further debate on the nomination.
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By 52 yeas to 47 nays (Vote No. EX. 390), Joseph Edlow, of Maryland, to be Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security.
Pages S4352-57, S4380
During consideration of this nomination today, Senate also took the following action
By 50 yeas to 46 nays (Vote No. EX. 389), Senate agreed to the motion to close further debate on the nomination.
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Nominations Received
Senate received the following nominations: Joshua D. Dunlap, of Maine, to be United States Circuit Judge for the First Circuit. William W. Mercer, of Montana, to be United States District Judge for the District of Montana. Eric Chunyee Tung, of California, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit. 43 Air Force nominations in the rank of general. 8 Army nominations in the rank of general. 2 Marine Corps nominations in the rank of colonel. 3 Navy nominations in the rank of admiral. 1 Space Force nomination in the rank of general. Routine lists in the Coast Guard, Foreign Service.
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Statements on Introduced Bills/Resolutions:
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=========================== NOTE =========================== On page D722, July 15, 2025, the following language appears
Messages from the House:
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Statements on Introduced Bills/Resolutions:
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The online Record has been corrected to read
Messages from the House:
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Statements on Introduced Bills/Resolutions:
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========================= END NOTE ========================= Record Votes
Seven record votes were taken today. (Total-- 392) 30Adjournment: Senate convened at 10:00 a.m. and adjourned at 10:45 p.m., until 10:00 a.m. onned a Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (For Senate's program, see the remarks of the Majority Leader in today's Record on page S4374.)
Every speech and line is the Congressional Record's own text, read from GovInfo. Speakers are matched to members by GPO's own metadata. Referandom places each turn on the Clerk's video by matching its words: 62 of 177 spoken turns were found. Turns without a time are still listed; they just can't seek.
Mr. President, July 4 is supposed to be a day of celebration and patriotism, but earlier this month, leftwing domestic extremists tried to turn that day into a day of tragedy and a day of terrorism.
On the evening of Independence Day, a group of antifa terrorists carried out an ambush attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Alvarado, TX.
They drew immigration agents outside by shooting fireworks at the building and vandalizing cars in the parking lot. Unarmed ICE officials came outside. They came outside thinking they were just dealing with hooligans and not realizing that there were snipers hiding in the trees.
The gunmen opened fire, but, thankfully, these leftwing terrorists weren't your typical Texas straight shooters. Though they fired 20 to 30 rounds, they failed to kill or critically injure any law enforcement officers.
When a shooter's gun jammed, he didn't know how to clear it so he dropped his weapon and fled the scene. The terrorists tried to hide in a nearby trailer park, endangering residents who were celebrating our Nation's founding.
Thankfully, the local police were able to detain these violent radicals without harm to any bystanders.
This assault on the ICE facility is a direct result of inflammatory rhetoric aimed at our immigration enforcement officers. As you see every day on TV, leftwing street mobs constantly chant that ICE employees and ICE, generally, is a modern-day KKK.
A Democrat Congressman recently compared ICE agents to Nazis. I call on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to condemn these outrageous attacks and to condemn the left's hateful rhetoric toward the men and women who enforce our immigration laws.
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, since day one, the Trump administration has been focused on identifying waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government--something on which, I believe, the American people agree with him on. And last month, the administration submitted a rescissions package to Congress that would cut somewhere around $9 billion in wasteful spending, with a focus on woke and wasteful foreign aid dollars.
We are going to consider that commonsense legislation this week. I would love to report that I expect strong support from Senators from both parties, but, incredibly, Democrats are melting down at the prospect of even the most minor cuts to Federal spending. You would think we were proposing to defund the entire government, from the way they are talking, instead of proposing cuts amounting to approximately one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget. That is right--one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget.
This bill that is inspiring such hysteria in Democrats would cut just one-tenth of 1 percent, or one one-thousandth of the Federal budget.
Now, back in the day, Democrat President Bill Clinton signed into law a rescissions package that was 10 times larger as a percentage of total government spending. Yet today's Democrats can't bring themselves to even contemplate cutting just one one-thousandth of the Federal budget.
And let's remember what kind of cuts that we are talking about here. We are not talking about making difficult decisions about essential Federal programs or gutting foreign aid. We are talking about modest cuts to funding that has been used for things like promoting vegan food in Zambia, funding a pride parade in Lesotho, teaching children how to make environmentally friendly ``reproductive health'' decisions, making aid more considerate of ``sexual orientation and gender identity,'' and funding a ``One Health Workforce,'' curriculum, which includes material on ``environmental racism'' and the importance of DEI. The list goes on and on.
Thankfully, the Trump administration has stopped these ridiculous wastes of taxpayer money. Now, it is time for those of us in Congress to do our part and make sure that the budget reflects these commonsense moves, something that every Member of this body should be able to agree on.
The United States is facing serious budget issues. We saw an incredible growth in spending under the Biden administration, which took what should have been a temporary elevation in spending under COVID and essentially made that the government's new baseline-- permanent spending.
In 2024, Federal spending was a staggering 54 percent higher than 2019. My Democratic colleagues may not want to acknowledge it, but we have a serious spending problem in this country. And the very least we can do, in response, is to target some of the egregious misuses of taxpayer dollars that we are addressing today in this bill.
In his recent ``Dear Colleague'' letter, the Democrat leader claimed--in defiance of abundant evidence to the contrary--that Democrats ``support ridding our federal [government] of waste, fraud, and abuse.''
Well, here is a chance for the Democrat leader and his caucus to put their money where their mouth is. If they really support eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, they can join Republicans and pass this legislation.
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.
Now, Mr. President, Americans woke up this morning to a troubling headline: ``U.S. Inflation Accelerated in June as Trump's Tariffs Pushed Up Prices.'' That is what the New York Times said this morning.
We have said from the start that Donald Trump's tariffs are a national sales tax on working- and middle-class families, and now these tariffs are causing inflation to rise, as many of us feared. And there is too large a chance that this tariff increase is just the beginning as increased chaos on tariffs rise.
Tariffs raise the price of groceries, add thousands of dollars in additional cost to the average household, and Trump's chaotic approach does nothing--nothing--to make our economy stronger.
Even worse, real wages are down for June as Americans pay more for groceries, electricity, healthcare costs, and that is before the ``Big Ugly Betrayal,'' which will steal people's Medicaid, kill jobs, and jack up people's electricity bills.
Remember what Donald Trump said on the campaign trail? He said that if elected, he would bring costs down on day one. It is now the middle of July, and inflation is going up. That is the definition of a broken promise.
Mr. President, it is astonishing, as I come to the floor, to listen to the Democrat minority leader. We just heard his comments about foreign aid keeping ``Russia and China at bay.'' If it were only the case.
The minority leader has a long and spirited history of wasting American taxpayer dollars. Now he wants to send taxpayer dollars overseas to pay for climate projects and vegan food programs. Apparently, that is what he means when he talks about foreign aid keeping Russia and China at bay. He forgot to mention that he wants to spend half a million dollars to put electric vehicles--electric buses-- on the streets of Rwanda. He forgot to mention that he wants to spend $6 million on net zero cities in Mexico. He forgot to mention he wants to continue to spend over $100,000 for media training in Liberia.
Mr. President, I ask, how does that keep Russia and China at bay? He failed to mention that he wants to continue to spend $3.3 million on civic engagement in Zimbabwe. He didn't say any of that because there is no good reason at all for that kind of wasteful Washington spending. None of that spending helps farmers or ranchers in my home State of Wyoming. None of this spending helps struggling families.
In November, Americans voted to end this wasteful Washington spending. Voters got it right. Chuck Schumer gets it wrong. How many people went to the polls and told politicians to spend $7.4 million of their hard-earned money on teaching foreign countries about environmental racism? No one.
Democrats love to hide behind fearmongering, and that is what the minority leader has done again today. Democrats never stand up and defend their spending on the merits. I don't see Democrats coming to the floor and talking about those projects that they want to see continued because they know it doesn't hold up to the least amount of public scrutiny. The American people look at this, and for them, the issue is quite simple. Their taxpayer dollars are being wasted and have been wasted for a long time. The Democrats in this body want to continue wasting them.
We still have families digging out from the worst inflation in 40 years. We have cities overwhelmed by illegal immigrants and the crime that they are bringing to these communities. People deserve to have their taxpayer dollars spent on issues that are focused on their priorities. President Trump sent Congress a proposal to rein in some of the worst wasteful spending.
How do the Democrats respond? Well, they are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States. Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to protect programs most Americans didn't know even existed and they wouldn't support if they knew they existed. That is what we are doing today: exposing some of these terrible programs and wasteful Washington spending.
It is indefensible what has happened with spending in the past with the last administration. If we have another Schumer shutdown--we have had one before--if we have another one, the American people will pay a heavy price. Seniors who rely on Social Security, military families living paycheck to paycheck, and border patrol agents will be forced to work without pay. Why? So the Democrats can continue to send Americans' taxpayer dollars to foreign countries for very questionable projects.
I heard the minority leader lecture us before about bipartisanship and regular order. Well, look at what has happened. When Senator Schumer was the majority leader of the U.S. Senate a year ago, the Senate Appropriations Committee--the committee itself--passed 11 of 12 appropriations bills. They did it by December of 2024, 1 year ago from now.
Many of those bills that came through the committee received unanimous support by the Republicans and the Democrats on the committee. So what happened? Well, Republicans supported getting all these bills done on time through the committee on a bipartisan basis. What did Senator Schumer do with these bills? He was the majority leader. He had control of the agenda of the floor of the U.S. Senate. He sat on them for 225 days. He didn't bring them to the floor of the U.S. Senate. Oh, no. He refused to bring a single bill to the floor of the U.S. Senate for a single vote not because he couldn't, because he refused to.
The American voters revolted, changed parties of the President, Senate, and the House. Now he wants to be the one to blame Republicans for gridlock. This is the height of hypocrisy.
That is what we are dealing with, Mr. President. I am all for regular order. That is why I want to commend Senator Susan Collins for her leadership now as the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the Senate. She is working in good faith. She is committed to getting the job done.
This debate is about more than dollars and cents. It is about priorities and about how we spend American taxpayer dollars. Americans didn't vote to continue the Green New Deal or even try to force it on the rest of the world. The American people voted to fix what is broken here at home. Republicans have our priorities straight. Republicans are focusing on making our Nation safer and more prosperous. Republicans are getting this country back on track.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. President, I would like to talk today about the rescission bill that will be coming before us in the next couple of days, and I want to really cover two points: what is being done in this bill and how it is being done. I think they are equally important. In fact, I think, perhaps, how it is being done is more significant in the long run.
The rescission bill talks about, essentially, two areas: public broadcasting and USAID. In my view, the rescission--the total rescission--of those two Agencies--and, by the way, it is a total rescission. It is not a selective cutting of certain programs or partially. It is the whole thing, both in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and USAID. The rescissions range from bad policy to downright dangerous, and I want to talk about that for a minute.
Public broadcasting: Public broadcasting has a unique place in the United States in our media environment in that it is the only media form that is not driven by advertising and advertising dollars. It cannot be driven by ratings. It, therefore, is able to provide programming to the American people that they probably, almost certainly, would not have access to otherwise. It wouldn't simply find a home on commercial broadcasting because the ratings wouldn't be there, but that doesn't mean that the programming isn't important.
My kids were raised on ``Sesame Street.'' It made a huge difference in their readiness to go to school, in their understanding of language and numbers, and in the whole basis of our education system. ``Sesame Street'' is a program that wouldn't find a home on commercial broadcasting. This is likely also with ``NOVA''--with nature--and, yes, with the ``PBS NewsHour.''
The news business today has become more entertainment because it is based upon advertising and attracting viewers and, therefore, is more inciteful--and I mean that as C-I-T-E, not S-I-G-H-T. It is more inciting to people's anger and unrest in order to keep them viewing, whereas the ``PBS NewsHour'' is pretty much straight news. It wouldn't get the ratings on MSNBC or on FOX News, but it provides a source of news both in terms of nationally but also in each State. The local National Public Radio's kind of programming--all things considered--is essential to providing information. Now, some people may think it is biased. I don't think anything done by a human is going to be free of any and all bias, but it is pretty much straight news, and it is an asset to our communities, particularly to our rural communities.
By the way, this isn't where we have Federal dollars that are supporting all of these initiatives. In fact, the majority of the support for public broadcasting, both television and radio, comes from the public, from contributions. So, in effect, our Federal dollars are matched to a very high degree by the public making their own contributions. That is an indication of how much the public values these wonderful assets to our information environment here in the country, and to cut off Federal funding is just an essential piece of the funding. A lot of it goes to the local stations. We talk about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and we think of PBS and the national programs, but a lot of this funding ends up going to the local stations all over the country that provide essential sources of information to their public.
By the way, the costs we are talking about are ridiculously low. I did the calculation. The relationship between the cost of the public broadcasting to the Federal budget is--let's see--7 cents to $10,000. That is the ratio: 7 cents out of $10,000. That is what we are talking about here, which is an almost immeasurable part of the Federal budget, but the return on investment is enormous. It is enormous. If this were a gigantic, $100 billion program, then we would be having a different kind of discussion; but this is a relatively small program in the context of the Federal budget, with a very high return on investment to the American people.
Now let's talk about USAID. The majority whip was just talking about that, and he listed a number of projects that, I think, are questionable and that I don't necessarily support. USAID is an essential part of our foreign policy to help to stabilize unstable parts of the world; to extend America's soft power; to build America's brand; and, yes, to do some very essential projects.
For example, in PEPFAR, which is an initiative of the George W. Bush administration involving AIDS, the estimate is that that initiative, since its beginning in 2005, has saved 25 million lives; 25 million lives were saved by that program that will be destroyed by this bill. You can't tell me that having that level of benefit to the people of the world does not redound to the benefit of the United States--the sponsor of the initiative.
It is the same thing with malaria. The estimates are that the malaria program, which goes back to, I believe it was, the Obama administration, has prevented 1.5 billion cases of malaria--which is a real plague in many parts of the world--and has saved 11 million lives.
Just those two programs together--those two USAID projects--have saved 36 million lives. We are talking about cutting them off. That is not only bad policy, it is cruel--it is cruel--and it undermines the credibility of this country.
Of course, foreign aid has a lot of benefits aside from the ones that I have just outlined. By the way, if Congress and the administration want to cull the programs and say, ``We don't think this one is necessary. This is not a good expenditure of the people's money,'' that is fine, but that is not what this bill does. This bill throws out the beneficial baby with the questionable bath water. It is a total abdication of America's engagement with the world. Vaccination campaigns, food security, nutrition programs, disaster response, refugee support--these align with our American values. As I say, it is a relatively small part of the budget. It helps to stabilize fragile states, and it cuts the risk of extremism and terrorism and conflict.
James Mattis put it best. Gen. James Mattis--one of the most distinguished military officers of our time--said: If you don't fund the State Department fully, then you are going to have to buy me more bullets. That puts it most succinctly. You are going to have to buy me more bullets because the programs of USAID tend to stabilize the world and mitigate the tendency toward extremism and violence.
Since we have started to gut USAID, which was one of the first acts of this administration back in January and February, China has stepped into our shoes. I am on the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, and I have seen and heard testimony that China is basically stepping in where we are walking away. We are handing Africa and Latin America to the Chinese--in some cases, to the very programs that we were sponsoring. They are the ones who are now engaging with local governments, with local leadership, and getting the credit for helping with these kinds of problems across the world.
We are giving away the goodwill that is part of the American brand. We are giving away the opportunity to build alliances, to strengthen our influence, especially in competition with regimes like China and Russia. It also creates markets for U.S. goods and the U.S. economy. A significant share of the foreign aid ends up going back to businesses and NGOs here in the United States. So it actually contributes to our economic development. Countries that are receiving this U.S. aid end up being partners and customers of U.S. goods, products, and services.
I mentioned it saves lives, and it aligns with our values. There is nothing wrong with talking about values. That is a part of what we should be doing.
USAID is doing important work all over the world. I met with USAID people in Kabul, Afghanistan. I met with them in Jordan, where they are working on a water desalinization project that will literally save Jordan. Jordan is a country that has no water. They are facing a tremendous crisis, so one
Again, I would not say that every single project they have sponsored is what I would have agreed upon. That is our job as oversight bodies-- to take a look at the projects that are being sponsored. The administration can also do that, and they can then cull the projects that we don't think are a useful expenditure of the government's money, of the people's money, but not the wholesale destruction of an Agency that is critical, I believe, to the foreign policy of the United States. So that is the picture on these rescissions.
I believe the more important question, though, as I mentioned, is how this is being done. The question is, Who has the power in our government over appropriations? That is the fundamental question: Where is the power over appropriations as to where Federal dollars go?
The answer to that question, of course, is the Congress. Article I, section 8: The Congress has the power of the purse.
The President can submit his budget, and he can submit a budget that zeroes out USAID and that zeroes out the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but then the way the process works is that we have hearings; that we have meetings with the Appropriations Committee; the appropriators meet and decide and discuss and debate and come to the floor with a bill that represents the consensus of those on the Appropriations Committee, and then we consider it here.
This process that we are talking about here, this rescission process, turns the whole thing upside down. It basically says the administration can decide programs that are going to go away, and ``you can take it or leave it, Congress.'' I believe that it shreds the appropriations process. The Appropriations Committee and, indeed, this body becomes a rubberstamp for whatever the administration wants.
The deeper problem is, I believe this is another step in Congress's abdication--abdication--of its constitutional authority, which has dramatically accelerated since January.
The war power, which is article I, section 8, is an express power of the Constitution. We barely could have a debate about that, and the President attacked another sovereign country, which may have been the right thing to do. But there was no consultation, there was no attempt whatsoever to engage Congress, which has the power over declaring war, before that step was taken.
Foreign trade: Again, foreign trade--``trade among nations'' is the term in the Constitution--is expressly delegated by the Constitution to the Congress. The Congress has delegated some of that authority to the President--to a President, to any President--under emergency circumstances, but this President has expanded ``emergency'' to mean just about anything. We learned this week that he is talking about a 50-percent tariff against Brazil because he doesn't like the way the current government is treating the prior President. It has nothing to do with trade. It has nothing to do with the trade deficit. It has nothing to do with tariffs. It has to do with something that the President individually doesn't like. That is not the way the system is supposed to work.
The up-and-down roller coaster that we have been on with regard to tariffs is a perfect example of why one person shouldn't have this authority. This should be something that is done thoughtfully and systematically here in the Congress under article I, section 8, to debate and decide what appropriate tariff levels there are across the world and not this helter-skelter, up and down, changing every other day that has not only already--we have reports today--affected inflation in this country and brought it up, but it has also created enormous uncertainty both in our markets and across the world.
Then, finally, we see the power of the purse--Congress's fundamental responsibility.
By the way, as I have talked to my colleagues--particularly my Republican colleagues--about this issue over the last several months, one of the common refrains is: Don't worry. We don't have to buck the President because the courts will take care of it. The courts will take care of us. They will protect us.
Well, that ain't happening. The ridiculous decision of the Supreme Court yesterday on the Department of Education is an indication that we cannot count on the courts to protect us from the depredations of a proto-authoritarian regime. They basically said: The President can continue to gut the Department of Education because we are going to hear the case later, and maybe we will decide it when it comes.
They did the same thing with birthright citizenship. They punted on the issue and allowed the authoritarian-like activities to continue before they get to the case in their own good time.
So we can't count on the courts. That means we are it. The Congress, the Senate, has to stand up for the Constitution.
What this bill is, is another building block in the edifice of authoritarianism that we are seeing built before our eyes--a building block in the edifice of authoritarianism.
Why is this important? Is this just a dispute between the Congress and the President; politics as usual; Democrats attacking and undermining a Republican President; and it is just going to be all about the midterms and the elections of 2028? No. This is much deeper than that. This is much deeper than that.
The fundamental premise of the Constitution is the separation of power, and the reason it is there is because history tells us that if power is concentrated, it is dangerous.
Madison put it absolutely bluntly in the 47th Federalist:
He used the word ``tyranny.'' Madison wasn't mincing words.
History tells us that if you concentrate power in one set of hands, it is dangerous. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We know that from a thousand years of human nature. That was exactly what the Framers of the Constitution were trying to prevent by this complicated, difficult structure where there is power in the Congress, power in the States, power in the Executive, power in the courts, two Houses of Congress, vetoes, overrides. All of those checks and balances, which have become a kind of cliche, are there for a fundamental reason, and that is to protect our liberty, to protect us from the danger of power being concentrated in one set of hands.
The Framers thought that they didn't have to worry about this, having set up the Constitution the way they did, because they said: Never will the Congress give up its power.
The phrase they used was ``Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,'' that there would be institutional rivalry and we would never give up. Well, they didn't reckon on parties. They didn't reckon on party primaries. They didn't reckon on the Executive having such sway with the legislative branch that the checks and balances essentially have melted away.
This bill is important because of the merits, as I talked about, about the danger of wiping out USAID and all the good it does in the world and the good it does for our country and also wiping out public broadcasting and all the good that it does--the irreplaceable good that it does--for the people in the United States. But it is also more dangerous than ever because it is one more step, as I mentioned, in the breakdown of the fundamental constitutional structure that says power must be divided because if it is concentrated in one set of hands--and I don't care whether it is Donald Trump or the Archangel Gabriel, it is dangerous to have the power in one set of hands. That is how we lose our liberty.
Again, Madison:
We must listen. We must listen to history, to the people who brought us here, the people who brought us this government, the geniuses who formed this structure to protect the liberty of the American people.
It may seem like a small thing--this is one more bill, one more item--but it is one more step, in my view, toward empowering the Executive at the expense not of the Congress but of the
I don't know what it is going to take, but I hope this debate, this discussion, will lead us to finally say: This is a line too far. We are going to draw a line here, and we will establish a relationship with the President that is cooperative, collaborative, bipartisan, and sharing the power that the Constitution gives to each of us. There is nothing less than the liberty of our people that is at stake.
I therefore urge my colleagues to vote against this bill and begin a discussion in the appropriations process as to these two elements and how they should be structured and funded. That is the way it should be done--not by the dictate of a President, of one who is trying to collapse the authority in our Constitution into his own hands.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to carefully consider their vote on the nomination of Mr. Anthony Tata to be Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.
The position is absolutely critical and crucial. The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is responsible for all personnel matters in the Department of Defense, including military families, childcare, family and financial readiness, the military school system, and working with the military services to ensure the health and welfare of the force. It requires a leader of the highest quality of judgment, expertise, and character.
There is no question that President Trump has the right to choose whom he wants in this critical role, but the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness should be someone who is capable, without question, to meet the demands of the job and the expectations of those he will lead.
Mr. Tata was nominated 5 years ago for a position of similar importance in the Defense Department. However, the Armed Services Committee considered his nomination carefully and, on a bipartisan basis, declined to even bring his nomination to a vote. President Trump ultimately withdrew his nomination. I fail to understand why he now would be qualified to oversee millions of servicemembers and their families as the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.
I respect and I appreciate his military service, but his record of public statements and behavior toward individuals with whom he disagrees politically is disqualifying for a position of this significance.
Mr. Tata's history of controversial and divisive statements is well- documented. Prior to his last nomination, he publicly called President Obama, the Commander in Chief, ``a terrorist leader.'' And he said that then-CIA Director John Brennan deserved to be executed. More recently, he made unsubstantiated claims that there are ``mutinous discussions'' within the military ranks to sabotage President Trump, and he called for a complete purge of Pentagon leadership, including firing all four- star generals and senior career civilian employees.
I am concerned that Mr. Tata has a misguided and discriminatory view of the military and civilian workforces he would oversee. Our servicemembers and their families and the civilian employees who support them come from all backgrounds and political persuasions. They come from every State and territory in the Union--red States and blue States. Mr. Tata, to be effective, would need to serve all members of the Department of Defense and their families, not just those with whom he agrees politically. His public record and past performance at the Pentagon do not inspire confidence in this great regard.
Mr. Tata failed to alleviate any of these concerns during his hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In fact, he doubled down on his goal of removing leadership seen as not loyal to this administration and gave no indication he would exercise measured and independent judgment and seems intent on furthering this administration's political weaponization of the military.
The worst thing that could happen to our military is it becomes a political arm of the President of the United States--any President. Military men and women take an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, not to serve a President. That has kept our military not only above the political fray but the most expert, the most credible, and the most dominant military force in history. If we have personnel in key positions that are evaluating people on their political beliefs rather than their merit, talent, and commitment to the Constitution, we are making a profound mistake.
As I hope my colleagues know, my top priority has been national security and avoiding partisanship as much as one can do. I am ready and able to pick up the phone and talk to people in the Department of Defense, regardless of political party. We look consciously--I look consciously--for common ground in which we can work together because, ultimately, it is not about Republican Presidents, Democratic Presidents, Republican priorities; it is about the welfare and effectiveness of men and women who wear the uniform of the United States. They deserve more than partisanship. They serve cooperation, consideration, and respect for their views.
The American people also deserve that because they are the ones who ultimately are supporting these men and women and not just in a financial sense but in a very, very strong, profound, emotional sense of lending their support, of saluting these brave men and women. I am extraordinarily proud of that.
Having reviewed twice and very carefully Mr. Tata's record, particularly his political--indeed, naked political assertions of going after his enemies, placing him in this position would, I think, put him at a point where he would do more harm than good. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to vote against his nomination.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to confirm the confirmation of my teammate and friend Luke Pettit, President Trump's nominee to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions.
Luke has served on my staff for more than 3 years. In that time, he has become a vital part of my team, but more than that, Luke has become a leader, an indispensable adviser, and, in fact, a close friend.
Luke is exceptionally qualified. He came to the Senate with an already impressive resume. He has sterling academic credentials. Luke has years of experience at the Federal Reserve and in the private sector. His background has given him a deep understanding of how our Nation's financial system works, not just in theory but also in practice.
Luke is a true rarity here in Washington, DC. While possessing a deep understanding of complex technical matters, Luke has never lost sight of the true aim of economic policy, which is very simply to expand opportunity and to deliver prosperity to Americans from every walk of life.
Here in the Senate, Luke worked arm in arm with many of your staffers to write the GENIUS Act, landmark legislation to regulate stablecoins and promote innovation. Many of you and your staff will recall the long hours it took to move this measure forward.
This bill's passage was never guaranteed. It passed, in great part, thanks to Luke's tireless efforts to overcome obstacles and to bring people together across the aisle. In fact, without Luke's leadership and perseverance, the GENIUS Act, as we know it, would not have been possible.
Beyond his many qualifications, Luke is a leader in the truest sense. He is admired not merely for what he knows but how he carries himself, with humility and with selfless dedication to the task at hand.
Luke is beloved and respected by my entire team, and he mentors countless young men and women in the Halls of the Senate and beyond, including my own children.
To Senate staffers gathered here today, I hope you will see Luke's confirmation as an inspiration and an acknowledgment of the vital role that all of you play in shaping policy and serving this country. The strength and stability of the financial system are vital to our Nation's prosperity, to our global competitiveness, and, frankly, to the American way of life.
At the highest levels of government, we need leaders who understand the weight of that responsibility, leaders who will approach their duties with wisdom, humility, and an unshakable commitment to do what is right.
Luke Pettit is just that kind of leader.
Mr. President, I can think of no one more qualified, no one more committed, and, frankly, no one more ready to serve than Luke Pettit. Therefore, I urge all of my colleagues to support the confirmation of Luke Pettit, which is about to occur.
The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. McCormick).
The result was announced--yeas 69, nays 30, as follows:
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the nomination of Anthony Tata, of Florida, to be Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, shall be brought to a close?
I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 52, nays 46, as follows:
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the mandatory quorum call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the nomination of Joseph Edlow, of Maryland, to be Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. McCormick), and the Senator from Arkansas (Ms. Murkowski).
Mr. President, also, with me today is Mr. Will McCarthy, one of my colleagues from my Senate office.
Today, we are going to start talking about and voting on the rescission package, and I want to talk about that for a few minutes.
As the Presiding Officer knows, under our Constitution, Congress passes a budget. We send that budget to the President of the United States, whoever that might be, and the President executes, or implements, our budget.
On occasion, under Federal statute, the President has the authority, after we have passed a budget in Congress, to look at the budget and say: You know, I don't need all this money to accomplish the goals that Congress established and instructed me to accomplish.
So the President can contact us and say: Congress, I would like you to rescind some of the spending in the budget that you sent to me.
It is called a rescission bill or a rescission package.
President Trump has sent us a rescission bill, or a rescission package, asking the U.S. Congress to cut the budget by roughly $9 billion, and that is what we are going to start voting on today.
Now, $9 billion is a lot of money--except when you compare it to the overall Federal budget. Nine billion dollars, despite the fact that it is a bucketload of money, is one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget--one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget. It gives you an idea of how big the Federal budget is.
I think most people--most adults, anyway--understand that in life, what you say doesn't really matter. What you say doesn't really matter. It is what you do that demonstrates what you believe. That is certainly true in politics, and that is certainly true in Washington, DC. Ignore what anybody in Washington, DC, says. Ignore it. If you want to understand their behavior, look at their behavior. In Washington, DC, as in life, what you do is what you believe, not what you say. What you do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage cheese.
Now, President Trump--whether you voted for him or not and whether you like him or not--ran on a platform of reducing the size of government, and the people elected him. Since day one, the President, if you have paid attention to the news, has been working very hard to reduce government spending, and he has reduced a lot. He started out with the DOGE program, with Mr. Elon Musk. Mr. Musk, of course, has left, but the quest to reduce government spending--wasteful government spending, which I call spending porn--continues.
Every Republican in the U.S. Senate has voiced approval of what the President has done. Every Republican--every one of my colleagues, myself included--has said to the President: Attaboy, Mr. President. Go get `em. Keep issuing those Executive orders. Reduce the spending. We are spending too much money. We have got a $37 trillion debt. Keep going, Mr. President.
The President has, but he has been doing it through Executive order. There is only so much you can do through Executive order. An Executive order, issued by a President, expires when the President is no longer in office. The only way to permanently reduce spending is to have Congress act, and that is what the President is asking us to do in this rescission bill.
What you do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage cheese.
The rescission package that the President has sent over--we are going to start considering it today. And after listening in some cases for years but certainly for the last 100-plus days since President Trump has been in office--after listening to my Republican colleagues talk about the importance of reducing spending, it is gut check
Now, I don't know if this bill is going to pass. I do not know if it is going to pass. I mean, I have heard a lot of wailing and the gnashing of teeth and whining and that civilization is going to melt if we cut one-tenth of 1 percent of the budget. That is coming from some of my Democratic colleagues, and they are entitled to their point of view, but I want to put this in context.
After all of us on my side of the aisle have told the world that we need to reduce spending, if we vote against this rescission package and refuse to reduce spending by one-tenth of 1 percent of the budget, we ought to hide our heads in a bag. We ought to hide our heads in a bag.
What kind of spending is the President asking us to reduce, to eliminate? That is important because not all government spending is wasteful, but a lot of it is. That is why I call it spending porn. I am going to read you some of the appropriations that the President is asking us to eliminate from the current budget, and you be the judge. Let the American people decide.
The President is asking us to eliminate $5.1 million of taxpayer money in the American budget, the Federal budget, that is there to ``strengthen the resilience of queer global movements.''
The President is asking us to rescind $6 million for media organizations and civic life for Palestinians.
The President, in light of our $37 trillion budget deficit, is asking us to reduce spending--to reduce a program--in the amount of $3.9 million for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex population in the Western Balkans.
The President is suggesting that we eliminate a program of $1 million for voter ID programs in Haiti.
This is your money, folks.
The President is asking us to reduce the budget by $3 million which is appropriated for ``sexual reproductive health in Venezuela''; $3 million for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia.
I didn't make this stuff up; it is in the budget.
There is $3 million for ``Sesame Street'' in Iraq; $833,000 for transgender people, sex workers, and their clients in Nepal; $882,000 for social media mentorship in Serbia and Belarus; $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes, cyber cafes, and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti.
How many Americans do you know think we should be spending their money to fund male prostitutes in Haiti? But there it is in our budget--bigger than Dallas--and the President is saying: Cut it out.
We have $6.2 million for Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and $500,000 to buy Rwanda electric buses.
I love Rwanda. If they want electric buses, they have got a budget.
There is $300,000 for a pride parade in Lesotho; $300,000 for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex advocacy in Uganda; $500,000 for biodiversity in Peru.
I could keep going. I could go the rest of the day and night.
I know what you are thinking: How in God's name--on God's green Earth--did this spending porn get in the Federal Government's budget? Why would Congress put it there?
Well, I am going to tell you why: We didn't. When we pass a budget, we pass budgets based on programs or agendas or line items. We don't put in there that we would like to spend $5.1 million on strengthening the resilience of queer global movements. We appropriate money by Agency or line item. For example, we might appropriate money for the Economic Support Fund or, if you look at our budget, you will see money appropriated for the United States Institute of Peace. If you look at our budget, you will see money that Congress has appropriated for migration and refugee assistance. Then this money goes to the bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy takes the money that we have appropriated, for example, to the Economic Support Fund, and they decide to give it to their friends--usually nongovernmental organizations--to fund these nonsensical items that I just spent a few minutes reading.
Congress didn't vote to spend $3 million on sexual reproductive health in Venezuela; we voted for a program that the bureaucrats took and spent on sexual health, reproductive health, in Venezuela. That is not an excuse, but I get that question all the time: Why did Congress vote to do this? We didn't. The bureaucracy did. It is a giant, rogue beast.
The point is, Trump caught it, and his people caught it, and the President is saying: Get rid of it.
With all of these programs, this spending porn, we would be better off taking this money and spending it on scratch tickets and blackjack. We would be better off taking all of this money that I just talked about and spending it on scratch tickets and blackjack. At least taxpayers might have a chance of getting a return. That is how out of control this is. But if you listen to some of my colleagues, they say: Oh, my God. If we cut $9 billion--if we cut this spending porn-- civilization is going to melt.
There is one other thing in our budget that the President is asking us to cut. He is asking us to cut a little over $1 billion for what I will call public broadcasting. When I say ``public broadcasting,'' I am talking about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I am talking about the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS. I am talking about National Public Radio--NPR, as we call it.
We spend anywhere from $500 to $600 million a year on public broadcasting. Why do we do that? Well, we started doing it years ago-- at least 50 years ago--at a time when there were only three television stations and a few radio stations and newspapers. A lot of folks in rural areas didn't get the television stations. They didn't get any news at all. They might live far enough away from a major city that they didn't even have a daily newspaper.
So Congress said: You know, we want everybody to know what is going on in the world. We are going to start public broadcasting, and we are going to give them money every year, and they won't have to run ads because we are going to spend taxpayer money to give to these radio stations and television stations. That was 50 years ago.
Today, American people have access to all forms of media: streaming, cable TV, network TV, TikTok, Twitter, newspapers--those that are left. No one is in a news desert anymore. So why are we spending money on public broadcasting, $500 million a year?
The other factor is, it is undeniable that Public Broadcasting has become political. Unless you have been a huge disappointment to your parents, you understand if you listen to Public Broadcasting, that it is representing today one political point of view.
The president of NPR--no one would mistake her for Walter Cronkite, I can assure you--her name is Kathleen Maher. This is her position. She is supposed to be delivering the news objectively, but this is what she has said:
The president and CEO of NPR thinks that America is ``addicted to white supremacy.'' She has denounced the use of words ``boy'' and ``girl.'' She says that is ``erasing language for non-binary people.'' She contends that the United States was founded on the basis of ``black plunder and white democracy.'' That is who is running the show over there.
She is entitled to her beliefs. This is America. You are entitled to believe what you want.
NPR and PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are entitled to publish and broadcast what they publish, but not on the taxpayers' dime. When we owe $37 trillion--and we really owe that money--we have no business spending half a billion dollars a year, giving it to any form of media. We don't fund CNN. We don't fund FOX News. We don't fund newspapers. Why are we funding PBS and NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?
All the President is saying: I don't want you to do that anymore, Congress. I don't want you to fund any form of media. PBS, for example, is right to publish what they want, but Congress shouldn't give them taxpayer money to do it. Let them go raise money in the private sector.
The President is right. The President is absolutely right.
That is all this rescission bill is going to do. It is going to bring a little bit of sanity back to our appropriations process.
I am going to end on this note. I am going to end as I began: What you do is what you believe, and everything else is just cottage cheese.
I have been here 10 years. Every one of those 10 years, but especially in the last 100 days since President Trump was reelected and started talking about reducing spending, I have listened to all of my Republican colleagues encourage the President and say: That is great. We have got to reduce spending. We have got to reduce spending.
Well, here is your chance. Here is your chance. It is gut-check time. You either believe in reducing spending, or you don't. You either support spending porn, or you don't. We are going to find out who does and who doesn't here in about 3 or 4 hours.
Mr. President, the Department of Homeland Security has an extremely important mission: to keep Americans safe. Under that mission, the Department is tasked with two critical jobs: border security and disaster response.
Our current Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, has failed both. In her short tenure, Secretary Noem has overstepped, underperformed, and endangered the lives of countless Americans. I believe it is time for Secretary Noem to resign or for her to be fired.
Secretary Noem has undermined FEMA's work and, in so doing, endangered disaster victims. Just a few months ago, Secretary Noem said in a Cabinet meeting:
And she meant it. She meant it. We saw evidence of that in what happened not just in Texas but in North Carolina, New Mexico, California, Kentucky, Hawaii, and Vermont, where FEMA is absolutely crucial to helping people in communities and businesses recover from disaster.
We need FEMA. It is only the resources of the Federal Government that can surge resources into affected communities. We can't lose that function and that capacity. When you need safety from a flood, when you need to start the long road to recovery, you need the support of the Federal Government. No State, no community can do this alone.
I have seen from our experience in Vermont that FEMA, in fact, must be reformed. It must not be destroyed, as Secretary Noem has suggested.
In my view, we cannot have a leader in charge of FEMA who is committed to its destruction. We must have one who is energetically committed to its reform.
We have seen the result of Secretary Noem's indifference to FEMA as the catastrophe in Texas unfolded. As the waters rose along the Guadalupe River in Hill Country, it was the people of Hill Country, as my colleague Representative Chip Roy of Texas said, who responded heroically. They were saving lives; they were rescuing stranded children; they were comforting those who lost loved ones; and they provided material assistance and constant support.
As for FEMA, it didn't answer the phone. Secretary Noem had instituted a policy to micromanage FEMA to death. Under Secretary Noem's watch, FEMA instituted a new policy that required the Secretary's signature on any expense more than $100,000, which, at the time of a major catastrophe, is a very small amount.
Secretary Noem had an ``eyes wide open'' awareness that this policy would mean it would take ``a minimum of five days for front office review.'' In a disaster, you do not have 5 days.
Contractors for FEMA answered the vast majority of calls--about 3,000--from flood victims on July 5. But according to news reports, after contracts with those companies were allowed to lapse, that response rate fell to 36 percent on July 6 and then only 16 percent on July 7. When people needed someone to answer the phone, FEMA left 13,793 calls unanswered.
In the aftermath of disaster, people cannot wait for help. Many are homeless or living in very dangerous conditions. Search and rescue teams were waiting to be deployed. Disaster recovery centers were slow to open. Current and former FEMA employees have raised the alarm about how slow the Federal Government was to respond and support Texas. We can reform FEMA in very commonsense ways--and we must--but we cannot risk the lives of countless Americans under the mismanagement of a Secretary who has called for its elimination.
There is a second reason Secretary Noem must resign. She is failing our country on immigration. We have three fundamental issues on immigration: border security, the deportation of criminals, and the status of people who are here without legal status but are working, are paying taxes, in many cases have families, and have no criminal record.
I want to step back for a minute and acknowledge something that too many Democrats have been too slow to state: The United States does need a secure border, and President Trump has largely accomplished that.
In December 2023, there were 249,740 illegal crossing arrests between official ports of entry. That was an alltime high. Last month, that number dwindled to 6,070 illegal border crossing arrests. I give President Trump credit for that change.
The second issue is that undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes should be held accountable. They should be prosecuted, punished, and deported. There is widespread consensus on that.
Yet on the third issue, those who are here without committing crimes, who in many cases were brought here as young people, we are seeing under the leadership of Secretary Noem that her response is an across- the-board embarkation on a massive and far-reaching deportation plan. There is no distinction in her policy among those who were brought here as children, who have families, who have jobs, who pay taxes, and who serve their communities.
But there is a big difference between deporting known criminals and rounding up immigrants--some of whom have status to be here, in fact, are here legally--from work sites, from schools, and from churches. This mass deportation policy is not about serving America and doing what our country needs to be strong and safe. It is, instead, about Secretary Noem accumulating the highest possible head count of deportees. It is hurting those folks, their families, and their communities, of course, but it is also hurting America and, particularly, rural America.
Our farmers depend on labor to milk their cows and to pick their crops. It is weakening our construction industry, where workplace raids are shutting down construction sites, including for low-income housing, which we so desperately need. It is decimating our healthcare workforce, in the hospitality industry in every State of the Union.
We need a Homeland Security Secretary who will help us develop a sensible policy for folks who are here without status but have no criminal record, who work, who have families, and are taxpayers.
There is no restraint. There is no nuance. There is no judgment being applied by the Department leader, the Secretary of Homeland Security, to develop a policy that makes sense, a policy that balances security and our economy, a policy that makes a distinction between law-abiding people who know no country other than the United States of America versus criminals who should not be allowed to remain in the country.
And finally, I have significant concerns about Secretary Noem's fiscal mismanagement and self-aggrandizement as DHS Secretary. This fiscal issue is particularly important in light of the billions of dollars that were allocated to that Department in the recent legislation.
Secretary Noem awarded as much as $200 million for an ad campaign that she started, thanking President Trump for his immigration policy and warning migrants in the United States to leave, a campaign that was reportedly awarded to a Republican campaign consultant.
Secretary Noem spent $21 million to transport 400 migrants to Guantanamo Bay--$55,500 per person.
Do we really need to spend that much?
And several of those migrants were quickly transferred out of the facility.
There are also too many instances of Secretary Noem putting her personal
And while in Vermont at the Haskell Free Library and Opera House--it is a library that sits directly on the Vermont-Canadian border--the Secretary jumped from one side of the line in the middle of the library and parroted terrible things about Canada; ``51st State''--and then she jumped back, ``United States''; ``51st State, United States.''
That was deeply offensive to Vermonters who have an enormous amount of affection for our Canadian neighbors, and we have suffered the consequences of dramatic downsizing of our tourism industry--totally unnecessary, totally provocative and wrong.
We have an obligation to protect the safety of the families that all of us represent, and I urge every one of my colleagues to demand better for our constituents and for every American. We need a Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security who puts public safety and preparedness before her personal image or political aspirations.
Secretary Noem must resign.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. President, I am so pleased that we are going to move forward today on the rescission package that has come over to us from the House.
As I talk to Tennesseeans, one of the No. 1 things they talk about is the debt; what are we doing to stop the out-of-control spending and to get this national debt under control.
After you look at what happened with COVID and with the Joe Biden years, we are sitting at $37 trillion in debt. So last November, the American people voted to make a change on how this country is running. One of the things they wanted to see changed was out-of-control, reckless spending.
Now, if you look at this debt and where it stands right now and you say: How much am I, as an American citizen, responsible for, each and every citizen in this country would be holding $108,000 in debt. Think about that. All of our citizens, each and every one of us--whether you are the dad, the mom, the children--each and every citizen bears the burden of $108,000 in our Nation's debt.
One of the things that came up this weekend when I was at home and somebody was asking about the rescission package and when we were going to get this done and start making some of the cuts, start making the DOGE cuts--this was a veteran, and they pointed out that they were aware that we are spending more money to pay the interest on our debt than we are spending to fund the U.S. military.
Think about that. Think about what that message is that goes to other countries as they are looking at what we are spending on national defense compared to what we are spending on our debt.
What does that say about the priorities that we have as a nation?
So Tennesseeans know that the path we are on with this spending is not sustainable. We can't continue this.
When you look at where we were with our debt when George Bush was President and we were at about $10.5 trillion when he left the Oval Office and Barack Obama and Joe Biden come in, and they doubled that number; you had President Trump's first term and COVID hit; and then the out-of-control spending by the Biden White House, that is how you end up at $37 trillion, and it should concern everyone.
I guess we are learning the autopen was signing a lot of those sales receipts over at the White House. The point is, we have this debt.
Now, the good thing is, that when the American people voted to get this spending under control last November, they sent President Donald Trump back to the White House, back to the Oval Office. And, yes, indeed, he has gotten busy looking at how we spend the taxpayers' money.
He has spent time looking at the resources that we have and how we utilize those resources. And indeed, they have targeted $190 billion in this year's budget documents for waste, fraud, and abuse and for removing those programs to yield that savings to the American people.
And I think the American people see this as a victory for them and for their pocketbook. Hard-working taxpayers want to keep more of their money. They don't want to be sending it to DC for programs that outlived their usefulness, programs they have never heard of, programs that they don't want.
So we have the opportunity now to go in and claw back some of that money, draw a red line right through the middle of those programs in that budget document and make these savings permanent.
Should we do that? Absolutely. We should be doing that.
That is why you are seeing Republicans here in the Senate choose to move forward on the rescission package that will save $9 billion out of this year's budget. And you know, as you think about it, budgets are 10-year windows so you are not going to see those items next year or the next or the next. So you are going to compound those savings.
Nine billion dollars each year in that 10-year budget--those savings mount up, and it is what the American people are wanting to see us do, to get rid of some of this reckless spending.
Now there are some good examples of programs that we are going to draw that red line through those programs and eliminate them from this budget document. There is $1.1 billion for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
Now, this is an organization that funds NPR and PBS. And what we know--think about NPR. They have been pushing a leftwing ideology using the taxpayers' money for years. And my colleague from Louisiana Senator Kennedy talks some about Katherine Maher, who is NPR's CEO, and the things that she has had to say about President Trump.
She has called him all sorts of names. Now, she is not somebody that is neutral, and she is not somebody that wants to give you a point and a counterpoint. She has an opinion, and she is using your tax dollars to spread her opinion far and wide.
One of the things that they did ahead of the 2020 election, NPR refused to cover the revelations about Hunter Biden's laptop and his overseas business deals. And at that time, NPR's leadership had this to say:
Now, that was their opinion. They are entitled to that opinion, but they are not entitled to take the taxpayers hard-earned money and spend it to push their opinion.
As we now know, they were wrong--they were wrong.
Now, the rescissions package that is coming before us also cuts billions of dollars in foreign aid spending that really does nothing to promote American values and interests around the globe. Here are a few of these things.
There is a $4 million item for ``sedentary migrants'' in Colombia. That is their term. That is the line item--$4 million for ``sedentary migrants'' in Colombia.
There is $3 million for an Iraqi version of ``Sesame Street.''
There is $1 million for voter ID efforts in Haiti; $500,000 for electric buses in Rwanda; $6 million for ``Net Zero Cities''--that means no carbon emissions--``Net Zero Cities'' in Mexico; and $2.1 million for ``climate resilience'' in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
I could stand here for hours and go through some of the ridiculous, absurd items that are listed and the amounts of your money that you have earned and you have sent to Washington, DC, to be spent on God knows what.
So it is important that we look at this, and, yes, we are going to make reductions in spending in the appropriations process, but do you know what? Doing these cuts helps to push this forward.
You know, there is also some money in this rescission package that is going to be removed from some of these international organizations that work against our interests.
Now, all during COVID, we heard about the World Health Organization and how the World Health Organization was covering up for China, and they were going to be certain that they covered for China, and we would not know the truth about what happened with COVID.
So in this document, we are going to remove $135 million from the World Health Organization, and from the U.N. Human Rights Council, $8 million. The reason to do this? They support dictators, they support repressive regimes, and they are demonizing our ally Israel.
These are wise decisions to be made about how we spend their money. And do you know what? It is common sense. As I have had Tennesseans say to me, it is about time that we start to make these reductions. We know that Tennesseans support these cuts. The American people support these cuts.
This is about fiscal responsibility. It is about thinking about our kids and our grandkids and what kind of country they are going to inherit. What are we going to leave for them?
You know, running up this kind of debt--I think it is so important to remember what Admiral Mullen, who was then Chief of Staff over at the Pentagon, said in July of 2010.
He was asked: What keeps you up at night? What do you think is the biggest threat?
His reply to that reporter--significant--he said: The greatest threat to our freedom is our Nation's debt.
It is time for us to stop the out-of-control spending. It is time for us to begin to turn this around and reduce what the Federal Government spends.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, all Americans can take great pride in our Nation's generosity that has saved millions of people around the world from starvation and disease, and our government Agencies coordinating aid efforts should be eager to share details about how their use of taxpayer money makes the world a better place. Yet, over the past decade, USAID repeatedly rebuffed my request for information, using intimidation and shell games to hide where money is going, how it is being spent, and why.
As a result of my oversight, I learned that the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is a rogue bureaucracy operating with little accountability and even sometimes at odds with our Nation's best interests.
What warranted such secrecy and stonewalling? Here is just some of USAID's questionable spending that I uncovered: Money intended to alleviate economic distress in war-torn Ukraine was spent sending models and designers on junkets to New York City and fashion weeks in Paris and London at a cost of more than $203,000, $148,000 went to a pickle maker, a dog collar manufacturer fetched $300,000, and a custom carpet manufacturer collected $2 million.
Elsewhere, $20 million was awarded to Sesame Workshop, which produces ``Sesame Street,'' to create content for Iraq. Two million dollars went toward promoting--get this, folks--promoting tourism to Lebanon--a nation that our very own State Department warns against traveling to due to the risks of terrorism and kidnapping.
Yes, folks, 2 million bucks for tourism to Lebanon when we are saying: Don't travel there.
Also, $67,000 was spent to feed edible insects to children in Madagascar, and over $800,000 was sent to China's notorious Wuhan Institute of Virology to collect coronaviruses.
What exactly was our International Development Agency developing at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology? Well, if the CIA, the FBI, and other experts are correct that the COVID virus likely originated from a lab leak, USAID may have had a hand in a once-in-a-century pandemic that claimed the lives of millions.
There is no shortage of other questionable USAID projects, but President Trump is putting an end to this deep state operation.
The foreign assistance programs that do advance American interests are now being administered under the watchful eye of Secretary Marco Rubio. This includes projects previously supported by USAID that were caring for orphans and people living with HIV.
Imagine how much more good work like this could be done with the dollars that instead financed fashion shows, supported ``Sesame Street'' programs in Iraq, or ended up at China's Wuhan Institute.
Overseas projects without merit are being ended, and the tax dollars that were paying for them will be refunded if the Senate passes the rescissions bill.
It also cancels taxpayers' subsidies to public broadcasting. Too often, these programs are partisan propaganda. And you don't have to take my word for it. A National Public Radio senior editor recently confessed, and I will quote this editor's words, not mine:
He admits the organization has zero--zero--Republicans in editorial positions. Come on, folks, even CNN has Scott Jennings to roast the loony liberal lunatics on that failing network.
NPR has the right to say whatever the heck they want, but they don't have a right to force hard-working Americans to pay for their political propaganda being masked as a public service.
Defunding this nonsense is causing a lot of squealing from the big spenders around here. Washington insiders are more upset at this effort to stop wasteful spending than at the misuse of taxpayer dollars. In fact, saving tax money is such a crazy concept in Washington that Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government if this bill passes. It says a lot about the other side's priorities when they are willing to take hostage funding for veterans and senior citizens to prevent $9 billion in unnecessary waste, fraud, and abuse from being trimmed from our $7 trillion annual budget. The interest that we are paying on our debt alone is costing nearly $3 billion every single day--every day.
If we are ever going to get serious about our debt crisis, Congress needs to pass a rescissions bill like this every single week--every week.
Folks, the simple truth is, if you can't find waste in Washington, it is because you simply are not looking. With our national debt now exceeding $37 trillion, the real question we should be asking isn't why is government spending now being scrutinized, but, rather, why did it take so long?
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. McCormick).
The result was announced--yeas 52, nays 47, as follows:
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the President will be immediately notified of the Senate's actions.
Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 260.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Joshua M. Divine, of Missouri, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri.
Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 263.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Cristian M. Stevens, of Missouri, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 108.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Bradley Hansell, of Virginia, to be Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.
Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 91.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Arielle Roth, of the District of Columbia, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information.
Mr. President, in accordance with title X of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, I have a discharge petition at the desk and move that the Senate Committees on Appropriations and Budget be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 4.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that time until 8 p.m., today, be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees and that, at 8 p.m., the Senate vote on the motion to discharge H.R. 4.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, Republicans passed the most expensive bill in the history of the Senate. Why? To cut taxes for billionaires and, at the same time, to cut Medicaid and SNAP for needy families.
But now Republicans are pretending they are concerned about the debt--so concerned that they need to shut down local radio stations, so concerned that they are going to cut off ``Sesame Street.'' They are so concerned that they want to whack away at our global credibility and slash humanitarian aid in the process.
The idea that this is about balancing the debt is laughable. You could cut every dollar ever spent on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting since it was created and it would not cover the cost of the bill that the Republicans just jammed through. You could cut every dollar we have spent on foreign aid since World War II and that total would still fall short compared to the cost of the Republican tax cuts. Or how about this? If Republicans cut the amount in this rescissions bill every single day for a year, it still would not equal their tax cuts to help rich donors.
So I hope I have made the point. Let's stop pretending this move is about the debt, and let's stop pretending there is no alternative to passing a partisan rescissions package that cuts bipartisan funding, because I have declared, over and over, there is an alternative, which is to do what we always do and discuss rescissions as part of our annual funding bills instead of doing Trump's bidding.
Let's talk about what is at stake here, starting with the damage that these cuts would do to our communities by cutting rural areas off from local news and emergency alerts and ending high-quality kids' programming. If Republicans pass this package they are offering, they are going to slash funding for over 1,500 local news stations nationwide. These are stations that provide an enormous community service, especially in rural areas and in our Tribal communities. They cover stories that matter to families but that often get overlooked by national news. These stations and this funding reach 98 percent of all Americans, and let's not forget they also deliver local emergency alerts. Some of these local radio stations are a genuine lifeline for communities when disaster strikes.
Who among us thinks our communities should have less warning when there is an emergency?--because that is what voting for this package means.
It also means cutting off funding for high-quality kids' programming. There is a reason shows like ``Sesame Street'' are beloved by kids and parents. It is not just entertaining, it gets our kids thinking; it teaches them about math and spelling and caring and kindness. If Republicans let shows like this get canceled, they are going to open up the floodgates to a wave of what I call brain-rot TV that is engineered to keep our kids watching.
To my colleagues who think they have short-term temporary fixes to reduce cuts to one or two public radio stations or television stations in their States, that will not solve the problem.
And what do you say to those 120 rural stations that will lose 25 percent or more of their funding? What do you say to the dozens of rural stations that will shut down because of this bill and cut off local news, educational programming, and lifesaving services to the rural communities that we serve?
Let's not forget: The other cuts in this bill would seriously undercut our credibility on the world stage.
I thought American leadership was worth investing in; and when we voted for those funds, so did Republicans. Did Republicans forget why we thought that was important when we voted for them? Did Republicans forget that outbreaks spread if we don't help stop them? Did they forget that humanitarian assistance doesn't just prevent death, but it prevents chaos and conflict and keeps our American troops out of harm's way? Did they forget that these investments bring business to our American companies, and they
Set aside the global strategy for a moment. We should not be voting to let children starve or die from preventable diseases. We shouldn't be voting to go back on our word to the world. Saving a couple of pennies is not worth losing our credibility or causing millions of deaths across the globe. It is not even close.
If Republicans really care about the debt, they can start by revisiting the $4 trillion in tax breaks they just showered on billionaires.
There is a lot more to say about how damaging these cuts would be for our country, but you don't have to take my word for it because even several of my Republican colleagues have said it themselves: They don't like this package. They are already trying to dial it back the tiniest bit, but I do know they have concerns.
Here is a tip: If you don't like it, don't vote for it. Think about who you take orders from--President Trump, Russ Vought, or your own constituents and your own communities?
And let's be honest. For all of his bluster, President Trump will forget about this in a week. He doesn't care about rescissions. He probably doesn't even know what it means.
If you don't like this package but you think you should do more targeted rescissions, do you know what? We can discuss that in a bipartisan way, completely separate from this partisan package.
I have been clear, and I will say it again right now: I stand ready to discuss rescissions as part of the bipartisan spending bills just as we have always done. That is the right way to go about this. How many times have Republicans called for regular order? Well, at no point in our country's history--at no point--have partisan rescissions been regular order. Anytime we have done this in the past, it has been bipartisan. Republicans should join us to make sure this does not become a bad, new first and to ensure that our time on the floor is spent considering important legislation, including our funding bills, rather than one rescissions request after another.
We are working right now to advance fiscal year 2026 bills--right now, at this very moment--and, hopefully, in a bipartisan way. We passed the first two out of committee last week. I want us to continue that work, but I really worry the passage of these bills is going to complicate the road ahead even more because, if Republicans decide it is fine to undo the last bipartisan spending deal with Trump's partisan cuts, then getting these bills across the finish line is going to get really hard. If they keep this kind of thing up, one of these days, Republicans are going to find they have broken the process.
Let me spell out what that looks like, because I think there is a misconception here that wrongly convinces some Members: It is OK; this is the straw that won't break the camel's back.
The reality is that bipartisanship doesn't end with any one line being crossed. It erodes. It breaks down bit by bit until the day there is nothing left.
Don't get me wrong. The negotiating table is always there. And in my experience, there are usually a few Members willing to stick it out and work as hard as they can to get a result.
But here is the thing. The Senate doesn't work off of a few Members. It works off of consensus building and bipartisanship. And the more bridges you burn, the fewer paths you leave to get things done. You can't just keep pushing people away and breaking that basic trust that keeps this place working. Not to mention, if Republicans pass this package of cuts, Russ Vought has made it abundantly clear he will send more. If Republicans pass this package now, we are going to be back here in a month debating whether to rip away funding for, say, after- school programs.
Instead of spending our time doing the hard work and passing laws, instead of considering the bipartisan spending bills we are working on right now, is this floor just going to be drowned in package after package of partisan cuts; fighting over how much of the last deal we are now going to unravel; fighting over whose projects get canceled, whose communities get robbed. I hope not.
I am going to end now with something I talked about during our committee hearing that we held on this package.
When I first came to this Congress, one of the hot-button issues was the line-item veto. President Clinton of my party was asking to have it. Chairman Byrd of my party was organizing against it with Republicans.
I was asked should a Democratic Senate help a Democratic President rip up the bills that we all worked together to pass. I said no. I said no, that is not how this should work. I came here to help my State and my constituents, not to weaken or surrender those responsibilities to any President.
That is as true for me today as it was then.
If my colleagues agree, which I believe many of them do, then the course we have to take here is clear. We need to reject this package outright.
That doesn't mean we can't have a bipartisan conversation about the rescissions as we now write our funding bills. That is the way that we need to do that. That is the way it has always been done. But we have to reject this new precedent of partisan, stand-alone rescissions.
If this place is going to work, if we are going to work together to serve the folks we represent back home, we have to make choices that help us move closer together and bring more people to the table, not choices that push us apart and chip away, bit by bit, at the trust that makes this place work. Otherwise, one day, we will find we have none of that trust left.
I urge my colleagues to protect that trust and join me in voting no.
Mr. President, Republicans don't actually have to do this. I understand, as well as anybody, wanting to go along with your party's President, especially in the early months. But being part of an independent and coequal branch has to mean something. Being part of the article I branch means something very specific, and it means that we are the legislature, and we control the purse strings.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that if the President wants something, you must do it.
What worries me the most about this rescissions package, if it passes, is that it is one thing for the President's signature accomplishment--signature policy priority--to be supported by Republicans in the legislature. I understand that. I understand the inevitable political momentum behind that. But this isn't that.
We have now gone 6 months without a single instance of Republicans and Democrats coming together and establishing that there are some limitations on this President's power.
If you remember the first Trump term, there were a couple of moments when the legislature actually stood up to the President, overrode a veto of his, rejected a rescissions package. They stood up for their prerogatives.
Do you know what happened next? Nothing. Why? Because that is actually how the system is supposed to work.
We are not a parliamentary system. We are not a monarchy, where the President says, by tweet--by tweet: If you don't adopt this exactly how it is written, you will not receive my political support. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
And that set us on a course toward passing this legislation, which I know a dozen--at least a dozen--Republicans hate, hate.
It reduces funding for Jordan. It reduces funding for Ukraine. It reduces funding for global health. It did reduce funding for PEPFAR. It continues to reduce funding for public television and public radio.
By the way, public radio is not just National Public Radio. If you are on a reservation, if you are in a very rural part of your State, it is often not just the only radio station but the only communications infrastructure that exists in a rural area. So it is the only platform for news; that is true. It is also the only emergency communications infrastructure because, still, many places across the United States lack internet.
So Mike Rounds got his deal so that his Tribes will be taken care of. I am glad for him. But there are 49 other States where your emergency communications infrastructure is about to be defunded. Nobody likes that.
Some people are pissed off about NPR's coverage or PBS's coverage. Come on. You defund an Agency because you disagree with their editorial choices? Which country is this? Which country is this?
I want to tell you something a little technical, but I think it gives away the whole game.
So I am the top Democrat on the Foreign Ops Subcommittee. What does that mean? We do funding for USAID, the State Department, and a few other things. When we do the appropriations process, we get letters from every other Member. They are private letters. A lot of people sign them, and they say: Could you please give more money to whatever it is--maternal and child health, or malaria prevention or the PEPFAR Program, the initiative to prevent HIV-AIDS transmission. We get a bunch of letters saying: Please, plus-up this; please plus-up that-- bipartisan letters.
And we are trying to write a bill that accommodates all these needs. A lot of people who are about to vote to cut all this stuff are, on the side, writing me a letter saying: Please, increase these accounts.
And why does this matter? This matters because nobody is voting--I shouldn't say ``nobody.'' Many, many people are not voting their conscience tonight, and that is just a fact.
There is a characterization in poker: When you know you are beat and someone puts money in on the river, and you call anyway, it is called a crying call. You give away your money sort of crying.
This is a crying call. This is a ``I know I am beat; I vote aye.''
And here is the thing: We don't actually have to do this. President Trump's attention is famously divided. If something pops up next week, he will be on that thing next week. He did not wake up every morning thinking: I want to defund UNICEF; I want to defund PEPFAR.
His attention will be divided. And the moment the legislature stands up for itself, usually what he does is--he understands power--he says: OK, those guys were asserting themselves. They are a coequal branch of government, and I am going to have to move on from this.
Why do I know this? We literally did the same thing. There was a rescissions package, which nobody remembers. Why? Because we quietly-- with Dick Shelby and others, appropriators all--said: No, we hold the purse strings here. We write the laws that determine appropriations. We are not going to do this thing on a bipartisan basis--enact a spending plan--and then come in on a partisan basis and say: You know, that wasn't actually the spending plan; that was just the spending cap. And the administration is going to come in and do whatever it wants on a partisan basis.
So what happened? They rejected the rescissions package on the motion to discharge, which is happening in about an hour and 5 minutes.
Then, do you know what happened? Nothing--nothing politically, nothing substantively, except that we kept the appropriations process alive. We kept the filibuster alive. We kept bipartisanship alive.
And in this instance, it is not just about this institution. It is literally about people being kept alive.
For the last 5 months, because of the United States' actions, tens of thousands at least--maybe hundreds of thousands--of babies have gotten HIV-AIDS from their moms because we pulled funding, because Elon Musk had some bug in his ear about USAID, and one weekend he said, ``We are going to feed this thing to the wood chipper,'' and because Democrats, too, and pundits decided: Do you know what? Foreign aid isn't so important to voters.
I don't care if it is important to voters, if it ranks No. 1, No. 2, or No. 3. We are the United States of America, and one of the reasons that we have such a strong reputation is because we do things that are right because they are right, not because our voters are going to reward us immediately, not because we get some geopolitical advantage but because we are the damn good guys. And right now, we are ratifying a bunch of decisions against our will.
We don't have to do this. Donald Trump will move on to the next thing tomorrow. And if it is not on this thing, which has low salience for the voters and is 18 months from the next election--if it is not on this--at what point are my Republican colleagues going to stand up for this branch of government?
I remain ready to work with anybody on anything. I have talked to Chairman Graham about the possibility of literally enacting these rescissions, or at least a portion of them, in the State and Foreign Ops markup, and yet they choose this legislative violence.
We don't have to do this. We don't have to operate under the assumption that this man is uniquely so powerful. He is the most powerful President. He owns the legislature in a way that no President has ever owned the legislature, and we all act like we are just sort of observers, like clicking on the TV and seeing how our fantasy football team is doing this Sunday.
We have agency tonight to reestablish that we are the article I branch of government, and that means something.
Mr. President, now is the time that we should be investing in the future of our country and helping American families get ahead, but what we have in front of us this week does the opposite. It is a bad deal that puts America in retreat at home and abroad. It makes our country poorer and less safe.
When I reviewed what we are about to vote on, I thought about my granddaughter Sage. She is 4 years old, and, like a lot of kids her age, she watches one of the many educational programs that air on PBS. Her favorite is ``Daniel Tiger,'' a show that teaches kids everything from treating others with kindness to brushing their teeth, with Daniel's friend Jodi Platypus. These are lessons every child should grow up learning no matter where they live or how much money their parents make.
But what is in front of us today is a proposal to totally decimate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports local PBS and public radio stations. I don't get this. These are the stations that air children's educational programs like ``Daniel Tiger'' and ``Sesame Street,'' which help kids learn how to count and how to read and how to spell.
In an era where cable is getting more expensive and monthly subscriptions just add up, free educational programming like this is so important. It is how parents in Arizona and all across the country give their children a head start regardless of their ZIP Code or their income.
If anyone thinks this is just about cartoons, then they haven't spent enough time in rural America. In Arizona, my office is hearing from rural and Tribal leaders about how essential public TV and radio are in their communities. These are areas where broadband is still limited and cell phone service can drop out for miles.
In those places, public radio is often the only daily and sometimes even weekly news source, and it is certainly the most reliable way to receive emergency alerts. During wildfire season, which is raging right now in Arizona, those alerts can mean the difference between safety and tragedy. Public radio also delivers severe weather warnings, road closures, and critical public health information.
These cuts will lead to rural public radio stations laying off staff, reducing programming, or even shutting down entirely. Rural public radio stations are twice as dependent on Federal funding as nonrural stations are.
There are dozens of stations that rely on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for more than half of their funding. Three of them are in Arizona, and they are all on Tribal land--KNNB in Whiteriver, KGHR on the Navajo Nation, and KUYI on the Hopi Nation. Why on Earth would Washington take that away?
While this proposal rips investments out of rural America, it also makes us all less safe.
It is the right thing to do. It is also strategic. USAID and our international partners are often the first line of defense against pandemics, wars, and starvation. You can't put a price on
I saw that myself when I was a young midshipman at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy during my second year at sea. It was a voyage through the Red Sea, off the coast of Egypt, and I was carrying a load of grain on a 1,000-foot-long ship. These were taking crops grown by American farmers from the United States of America to feed starving children in North Africa.
Cutting this off doesn't just lead to starvation and disease and suffering, it also creates instability, a vacuum that gets filled by terrorist groups and warlords, a gap for China or Russia to take advantage of.
One way or another, we are going to end up having to pay for it, and tomorrow's price will be higher. In the meantime, America is weaker, and we are less safe.
This is not a serious plan for deficit reduction. What it really says is this: If you live in a rural area, your access to public safety information doesn't matter. If you are a child whose family can't afford streaming services or reliable internet, your education doesn't matter. If you are someone who wants a safer, more stable world, you are out of luck.
I don't accept that. Arizona doesn't accept that. We should be building a country where, no matter where you live, what you earn, or how connected your ZIP Code is, you can get the information and support you need to stay healthy and informed. All of us, Republicans and Democrats, should be able to work together on that.
I urge my colleagues to think about what is really at stake here, what is at stake for families, and what is at stake for our leadership in the world, and please vote no, because this isn't how we move forward, this is how we fall behind.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
What the Chair has just said is that we have--there is a rescission package which has been sent to us by the administration. It is in the committee now. The next vote would discharge the committee and bring that rescission package to the floor. At that point, if I am not mistaken, we would then have another vote to proceed to that bill; is that correct?
I don't want to leave my colleagues in suspense. I intend to vote for the motion to discharge after much contemplation and to vote to then proceed to the bill, and I do so with reservation.
First of all, I applaud the administration for asking for rescission of $9 billion in unnecessary spending. I have made the statement that I would vote for a bill that was twice that size and even larger. I think we can find that much waste. But this is an unusual procedure. It hasn't been done by the Senate and the House. It hasn't been successfully done by an administration since the George W. Bush administration in 1992.
Nine billion dollars is a tiny fraction of what we spend, no question about it--a fraction of a fraction, actually. But there is a big difference that has troubled me, and it is the reason I come to the floor tonight expressing concern in spite of the fact that I will vote in the affirmative on these two motions tonight.
When George W. Bush proposed rescissions back in 1992, he listed specific programs that would receive specific amounts of cuts, and it was a rather thick proposal. But Members on both sides of the aisle in both Houses had exact information about what programs would be targeted and where the cuts would be made and by what amount.
That is not present in the proposal before us tonight, and that troubles me because it concerns me as, perhaps, approaching a disregard for the constitutional responsibilities of the legislative branch under article I. Congress has the power of the purse; the President has the power to enforce.
In this situation, there is a specific amount stated that will be rescinded, and then, basically, we are given a number of areas where the cuts will come from, but this Congress will not be allowed to choose those specific cuts. They will be done by somebody in the Office of Management and Budget in the White House. And in this situation, it will amount to the House and Senate basically saying: We cede that decision voluntarily to the executive branch.
And so I have expressed concern about this. And in meetings that I have been in attendance with our team on this Republican side of the aisle, I am not the only one who has expressed those concerns. There are Members of my party who will vote no tonight--I think a relatively small number--and I don't fault them for voting no. There are also Members who are very concerned, as I am, about this process and who are requesting of the administration: If we do this again, please give us specific information about where the cuts will come. Let's not make a habit of this. Let's not consider this a precedent. But if you come back to us again, Mr. Director of the OMB, if you come back to us again from the executive branch, give us the specific amounts and the specific programs that will be cut. And that has been my concern.
Nevertheless, I choose to be mindful of those concerns, but to answer to a larger imperative at this moment, and that is to realize that we are in a budget crisis and that we have an unsustainable national debt and the amount of this bill is a small step toward addressing that. And so, at this moment, I think that imperative outweighs my concerns about the lack of information that this Senate and our brothers and sisters in the House have about where the cuts will be made.
I hope in conversations with the executive branch today, I hope in conversations over lunch between the OMB Director and Members of the Republican Senate caucus, that the point has been made: Next time give us the specific information.
And so I come tonight to express to my colleagues the reason that I have been so concerned about this, the reason that I understand why some of my colleagues will choose to vote no.
But realizing that we are about something larger and, in this instance, I think the message that we send to our fellow countrymen, to our colleagues in the House, and, yes, to the executive branch, is that the need for the cut in $9 billion overrides the specific objections that I have. And for that reason, I will vote yes.
I expect the first motion to pass, and then we will proceed on. And perhaps, for the information of our staff and our pages, we may be here late tomorrow night.
But I appreciate the opportunity to explain my concerns and my reason for overcoming those concerns in this instance.
Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of President Trump's rescission package. In a time of extraordinary debt, this bill is a first step in a long but necessary fight to put our Nation's fiscal house in order.
But it is about much more than just that. This package isn't just about how much we spend but about what we spend it on. It is about whether or not we are still a sovereign nation of people in command of our own destiny. It is about whether elected representatives can act on behalf of the people they serve or whether or not they just yield to a vast bureaucratic apparatus of permanent Washington.
We cannot accept a system that forces us to fund our own decline. Let me begin with something simple: We are $37 trillion in debt. We are borrowing money from our grandchildren to fund bloated bureaucracies and radical leftwing activists. While the actual American people are working long hours to afford groceries and gas, their government has been writing checks to leftwing propaganda outlets and spending billions overseas on countries that hate us. Enough is enough.
This rescissions package is our opportunity to drain the swamp, not just in theory but in practice. It claws back nearly $10 billion in spending--9 billion--including billions for radical NGOs, hundreds of millions for foreign
And let's talk about that for just a minute because no part of this debate has sparked more hysteria and more outrage from the left than defunding the so-called public broadcasting. Why? Because they know exactly what is at stake. NPR and PBS are not neutral media outlets. They are the closest thing we have ever had in this country to Pravda. They are the arms of the leftwing activist class, taxpayer- funded platforms for political propaganda masquerading as journalism.
Don't take my word for it; take it from Uri Berliner, a veteran NPR editor who recently blew the whistle on what is actually happening behind the scenes there. In a stunning expose, Berliner described how from COVID to Hunter Biden's laptop, to the Russia hoax, NPR simply refused to consider any facts or perspectives that didn't align with the progressive party line. Even asking questions about the company's editorial bias was ``treated as evidence of disloyalty.''
Berliner took a survey of the ideological makeup of NPR's editorial staff in Washington, DC. The final tally was 87 Democrats and 0 Republicans--0 Republicans, not a one.
Then there is the new CEO of NPR, Katherine Maher. Before she took the job, she spent years denouncing America, praising censorship, and advocating for the most extreme and grotesque forms of far-left politics. She described the First Amendment as the ``number one challenge'' to combating disinformation, called President Trump a ``deranged racist sociopath'' and celebrated when he was banned from Twitter saying, it was ``satisfying to deplatform fascists.''
Now she is running America's National Public Radio, funded, in part, by your hard-earned tax dollars. That is nothing short of obscene.
Why are Americans being forced to subsidize institutions that hate them? Why are truckdrivers in Missouri paying for Ivy League grads in DC to tell them they are bigots? Why are we, as conservatives, spending billions of dollars to leftwing radicals that want to run us out of the public square?
There is no good answer to these questions. The fact is, we shouldn't be. And President Trump's rescission package is a huge first step toward ensuring that we never do it again; that NPR and PBS are just the beginning.
This package also takes aim at the insanity of our foreign aid budget. We are sending billions--billions--to every interest under the Sun, except for that of our own country.
Here is a taste of what this package defunds: $18 million for gender diversity in the Mexican street-lighting industry; $2.4 million to make international disaster aid more considerate of sexual orientation and gender identity; $2.2 million to reduce xenophobia toward Venezuelan migrants; $3 million for Iraqi ``Sesame Street''; $4 million for sedentary migrants in Colombia; $6.2 million to address the needs of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia; $33 million for the U.N. Population Fund, including funding for transgender tampons in Bangladesh, LGBTQ campaigns in Rio, and third-gender community centers in Southeast Asia.
And that is not even to mention the $800 million that this package cuts from the Migration and Refugee Assistance Account, which funds the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, a program that has been at the center of the gigantic NGO industrial complex that has been driving the mass migration crisis in this country on taxpayer dime.
Americans never voted for any of this. They were never even asked. But the entire system is bankrolled by their money. Our own citizens are being pushed out of jobs, swamped by Third-World immigration, and told they are racist for complaining about it when people like Katherine Maher say something and criticize them.
We send billions overseas to promote transgenderism and DEI and spend billions here at home to help import millions of illegal immigrants and pay the salaries of people who hate us, all while our own people are told there is no money for safe streets, decent roads, or a secure border.
The people who run these programs see the Federal budget not as a means to serve the American people but as a piggybank for a global leftwing revolution. The administrative state in Washington, DC, is the beating heart of this revolution. It redistributes hundreds of billions of dollars a year from Middle America to a radical ecosystem of NGOs and activists working to undermine our civilization.
For too long, the Federal Government has been hijacked by people with no loyalty to the country they are supposed to serve. Today, we have a chance to change that.
This isn't just about saving money; it is about taking back control. Every single dollar we claw back from the NGOs and the foreign aid swamp is a dollar we take away from the people who are waging war on our country. It is a dollar we can use to secure our border, rebuild our Nation, and restore the promise of America for the next generation.
The left is alarmed by this bill. They should be.
Unlike generations of many who came before us who would talk a big game and then get to DC and do nothing, President Trump is actually serious about ending their taxpayer-dollar gravy train, and this rescissions package is a major part of delivering on that promise. This is just a first step, but it is a big one.
For a long time, Washington has only ever moved in one direction: More spending, more control, and more power for the bureaucrats. And as permanent Washington grows, the citizen shrinks.
This rescissions package reflects President Trump's promise that the American Government will, once again, serve the American people, not the other way around.
It is a time to remind the bureaucrats, the NGOs and the foreign lobbyists and their friends in the media that the American taxpayer does not exist to subsidize their ideological pet projects. We are not a tax farm for global leftism. We are not the world's piggy bank. We are a sovereign nation, and it is time we started acting like one once again.
The American people didn't send us here to protect the status quo. They sent us here because they know the status quo is broken. They sent us here to fight and deliver for them, and that is exactly what this bill does. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting yes on this package.
Mr. President, just days after handing billionaires their largest tax break in modern history and fresh off passing the most devastating cuts to healthcare and jobs ever, Republicans want to keep this going. They want to gut funding for local news stations and radio; they want to reward communist China and Putin and eviscerate foreign aid--all to give tax breaks to billionaires. They say these cuts are necessary in the false guise of eliminating waste, but anyone can see that is not true. It is just to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
Americans are done listening to Republican lectures about wasteful spending after they added $4 trillion to the debt to cut taxes for billionaires.
For Republicans to turn around and slash local news and public radio in the name of fiscal responsibility is a vindictive swipe at rural America, where these stations are needed so badly. It will leave rural communities twisting in the wind.
The Republican credo seems to be, cut and cut and cut now, and ask questions later. Cut healthcare for 16 million Americans. Cut food assistance to hungry kids. Cut good-paying energy jobs. Let the CCP get ahead of us. Never mind the destruction these cuts will have. Never mind the trillions Republicans just added to the debt to finance their billionaire giveaways. Never mind the kids who will go hungry or the families that will lose insurance or the people who will get sick and die. It is all worth it, Republicans seem to think, so long as billionaires and special interests pay less in taxes.
Now, with this rescissions package, Republicans want to keep going. Cut local radio stations. Cut local TV stations. Cut national security funding. Cut funding for some of the most beloved programs in America. These cuts
If you eliminate the Democrats from the process, there is no discussion, there is no argument, and there are no safeguards that can help the average American. It is just the billionaires running rampant, getting what they want.
If you want to understand the Republican playbook, take a look at how they attacked foreign aid. At the very beginning of this administration, Donald Trump and Elon Musk illegally shut down billions in foreign aid. When they were criticized for it, they hemmed, they hawed, and they lied about their actions. The courts had to step in.
Now that these programs have fiscal 2025 dollars, Republicans are trying to do it all over again, this time through a cynical rescissions package. They are passing this law to get the outcome they wanted in the first place: gutting U.S. foreign aid.
Let me be clear. This is not just about foreign aid, as important as it is, this is the playbook that Republicans will do across the board. They will do it with healthcare. They will do it with the Department of Education. They will do it with our schools, our veterans, our housing. They will do it to research dollars. They are slashing them.
I have heard of more instances of great research projects that could have saved lives that are now on hold and can never be brought back again because of the greed of billionaires and the obeisance of Republicans to go along. It is amazing--cutting medical research, where America has always led the world. But now we are going to give that lead to China with what the Republicans are doing.
They are already using impoundment. They are using rescissions. They are using pocket rescissions to poison the bipartisan appropriations process, to break the law to steal funds that Congress appropriated. They are doing it on a party-line vote. Worse, they are letting Donald Trump decide for himself which programs to defund. That puts everything at risk--healthcare, education, food assistance, public health. Everything--everything--becomes at risk. That is what will happen if a package like this is allowed to become law.
Returning to this week's bill, what do this week's cuts mean for families back home? Well, tens of millions of Americans rely on public broadcast for weather alerts, local news, keeping track of city hall, educational programs, and so much more. This affects most badly rural America, including Native communities.
These cuts couldn't come at a worse time. The floods in Texas remind us that speedy alerts and up-to-the-minute forecasts can mean the difference between life and death. For millions, public radio and local TV are sometimes the only way to stay up to date.
Why the hell is this administration so obsessed with gutting those funds that save lives? It is probably because of some whim of Donald Trump's. And he often governs by whim. But then it has disastrous consequences because Republicans just bow to those whims even though they are without factual basis. They don't look at the facts. They don't care about the facts. Donald Trump wants it; let's do it.
Donald Trump may not appreciate the vital role of public media, but people back home know how public broadcast is indispensable.
It is not just local TV stations and public radio that are in danger. These ill-conceived Republican cuts can threaten our national security. These cuts indiscriminately slash billions in critical aid that prevents the spread of disease, fosters economic development, and expands America's cultural impact on the world stage.
Believe me, when we fight, with foreign aid and programs, diseases in other countries, in Africa or Asia, it benefits us because those diseases--in this world where people fly from one place to the other all the time, it benefits us because it will prevent those diseases from coming here.
Removing PEPFAR from the list of cuts was good but nowhere near enough. We are not fooled by a small tweak to this package. These cuts will still leave America weaker and our adversaries more emboldened. After all, foreign aid isn't just about good will, it us about our security.
Cutting foreign aid will have terrible consequences for our security. It increases the exposure of Americans to global health risks, as I mentioned. The cuts harm funding that directly benefits U.S. farmers and U.S. researchers. It will damage U.S. companies' market access abroad. It will make communities around the world more susceptible to terrorist recruitment efforts. China and Russia, meanwhile, will look on with glee.
I thought Republicans cared about being strong on national security. I thought they understood the role that the United States' soft power has in keeping the world a safer place for our values. This bill gravely undermines Republican commitments to U.S. leadership around the world--something so many people have prized.
If Republicans slash more American aid, it will leave a dangerous vacuum that the Chinese Communist Party will continue to eagerly fill. It is a fact. It is happening already in Myanmar and Sub-Saharan Africa in the race for access to precious minerals. These are places where the CCP is taking advantage of America's absence. And it will have terrible consequences in the long term for our safety, for our security.
These rescissions are only the beginning. We know that Donald Trump and Russell Vought want to send even more rescissions packages down the line, as soon as next month. Remember, Donald Trump and Republican leaders reportedly struck up a crooked bargain. If the hard-right Members of the House Freedom Caucus agreed to support the ``Big Ugly Betrayal,'' Donald Trump would reward them with even deeper cuts to healthcare and other things the hard right despises.
Republicans will pursue these cuts by any means necessary--through rescissions, impoundment, pocket rescissions--even if that means taking a wrecking ball to the bipartisan appropriations process to pave the way for future cuts. It could pave the way for more cuts to Medicaid, to education, to nutrition, to Agencies like the VA and more.
All this translates to working people having to pay more out of pocket while billionaires pay less in taxes. When people's healthcare is taken away, when people's local services are taken away, it adds to a family's expenses. It makes life more expensive for people who live paycheck to paycheck. It makes it harder to see a doctor. It makes it harder to afford medications. It makes it more difficult to choose between providing for healthcare or providing for groceries.
Making things even worse, Donald Trump's tariffs coming in at the worst possible time is making inflation go up--jacking up grocery prices and eating away at family budgets. The tariffs have gone up more than people expected in June, but because so many of those who buy overseas front-loaded their purchases in the first and second quarters, it is very likely the tariffs will go up much more in the next quarter.
Republicans say they fight for the middle class. They say they fight for working people. Then they turn around and take investments away from middle America and rural America and make them pay--pay--more out of pocket. Billionaires, meanwhile, have never had it so good, thanks to Donald Trump and his Republican loyalists.
Madam President, I know we are approaching the hour that was planned for the vote on this motion to discharge this rescissions package. I just want to take a couple of minutes. I am going to be voting to oppose discharging this package from committee.
It is not that I don't think that we should be doing more when it comes to the oversight of our budget. It is not that I don't think that we should be doing more when it comes to ensuring that we are working to get our levels of spending down, but I also think that we need to be doing more as legislators,
We do rescissions. We do rescissions in our annual budget bills, in our own appropriations bills--in fact, bills that we are working on right now as appropriators. We have got a series of markups that are going to be coming up this week. We had some last week. We do this. We look to provisions that have been included in the budgets. We look to reprogram, and we look to rescind. We do that as legislators. There is a good reason, I think, that we haven't seen a successful rescissions package before the Senate in almost 33 years. It is because we have recognized that, hey, that is our role here. That is our role here when it comes to the power of the purse.
So I have several concerns, specific concerns, about this package.
First, it is unclear to me how the specific accounts that are targeted for the rescission are going to be impacted. Neither the administration nor others have been able to provide that very clear, very transparent explanation about the programs and the priorities that are going to be cut as a result of the measure. Some changes have been proposed to protect local health programs--that is great; that is important--but I think it is important that we have those details, including the ones that are going to be absolutely zeroed out.
So how do we determine the implications for lifesaving care, for vital resources for women and children abroad?
We have got big, broad categories, but I haven't been given the comfort, if you will, that we are not impacting maternal and child health; that we are not impacting HIV/AIDS; that we are not impacting nutrition programs and programs related to tuberculosis, malaria, polio, neglected tropical disease, pandemic prevention, family planning. I think that we are entitled to have that level of detail when these funds that we have authorized, that we have appropriated, are now being clawed back. I don't think that that is too much to ask.
When it comes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, my colleagues know I have been a strong supporter, and I will continue to be a strong supporter. If you don't like what is going on within NPR and you think there is too much bias there, we can address that--we can address that--but you don't need to gut the entire Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The entity--the program--that provides for so much support, particularly for those in rural places, is not just your news. It is your tsunami alert; it is your landslide alert; it is your volcano alert; it is the weather to let you know it is safe to go out and get on the fishing grounds; it is your educational programming. I am going to continue to be an advocate for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
So I have got concerns about the contents of the package, yes. I have concerns about the details that we have not been able to fully receive. But more importantly than all of that--more importantly--is our role here. I don't want us to go from one reconciliation bill to a rescissions package to another rescissions package to a reconciliation package to a continuing resolution. We are lawmakers. We should be legislating. What we are getting now is direction from the White House and are being told: This is the priority. We want you to execute on it. We will be back with you with another round.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 50, as follows:
The VICE PRESIDENT. Are there any Senators in the Chamber who wish to vote or change their vote?
If not, on this vote, the yeas are 50, and the nays are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the Vice President votes in the affirmative, and the motion is agreed to.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 50, as follows:
(Mr. WICKER assumed the Chair.)
(Ms. LUMMIS assumed the Chair.)
(Mr. SHEEHY assumed the Chair.)
The VICE PRESIDENT. Are there any Senators in the Chamber who wish to vote or change their vote?
If not, on this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the Vice President votes in the affirmative, and the motion is agreed to.
Mr. President, a June 25 article in the New York Times captured, in a single headline, the disaster that the misguided policies of this White House are inflicting on the world's most vulnerable people. It also illustrates the immense damage this White House is causing to years of hard-won goodwill for the United States around the world.
The title of the article, ``Promise of Victory Over H.I.V. Fades as U.S. Withdraws Support,'' says it all. The headline goes on to describe how, ``a new drug that gives almost complete protection against the virus was to be administered across Africa this year. Now, much of the funding for that effort is gone.''
I remember vividly, as do many of my colleagues, when President George W. Bush announced the PEPFAR program, a program that for the past 22 years has received enthusiastic bipartisan support, a program that has saved countless lives, a program that people and governments around the world have thanked the American people for.
Each year in our appropriations bills we have always, without disagreement, provided the funds to sustain PEPFAR and to fulfill our pledges to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and malaria. The Global Fund works in close collaboration with PEPFAR, as well as in countries where PEPFAR does not, because HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases do not pick and choose who they infect. No country is immune, and no person is safe. Millions of Americans travel, work, and serve overseas, and then they return home. Everyone is at risk if the virus is not contained everywhere.
Now, the Trump administration is proposing drastic cuts to PEPFAR and our contribution to the Global Fund, two programs that by any measure have been wildly successful. This week the Senate will consider President
President Trump is pushing these cuts at the cusp of a potential breakthrough in our fight against the HIV epidemic.
There is a new preventative therapy for HIV; it is called lenacapavir, and it is a twice-yearly injection that protects against infection. This drug was supposed to be getting rolled out in eastern and southern Africa.
Not many years ago, preventing HIV infection altogether would have seemed impossible. Now it is real--and it is being derailed by these reckless cuts.
Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund, put it this way:
We don't even know what the full impact of these cuts will be because funding for collecting the data needed to track infection rates is on the chopping block.
So I can't help but wonder why? Why is the White House walking away from these lifesaving programs that everyone agrees have been a huge success story? It would be one thing if HIV/AIDS had been eradicated. But we are a very long way from that. There are an estimated 1.3 million new HIV infections every year.
We cannot let down our guard. We cannot be so shortsighted to think that we would save money by cutting funding for PEPFAR and the Global Fund. Prevention is far less expensive than treatment. If Congress does not reject these funding cuts there will almost immediately be more infections, not fewer. More Americans will get sick. Mother to child transmission will exponentially increase. Many more people will die needlessly.
A drug developed by an American biopharmaceutical company that can prevent HIV/AIDS finally exists. Let's do again what President Bush did nearly a quarter century ago and show the world that the United States can be the world's leader in saving lives from a deadly disease.
Mr. President, I was unable to vote on Executive Calendar No. 81, Scott Kupor, of California, to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management for a term of four years, due to my participation at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome, Italy, on July 10, 2025. I am working with Senator Graham to build international support to advance our bipartisan Sanctioning Russia Act in an effort to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. I would have opposed confirmation of the nomination had I been present for the vote. The vote was rollcall vote No. 379.
I was unable to vote on Executive Calendar No. 58, William Briggs, of Texas, to be Deputy Administrator of the Small Business Administration, due to my participation at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome, Italy, on July 10, 2025. I am working with Senator Graham to build international support to advance our bipartisan Sanctioning Russia Act in an effort to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. I would have opposed confirmation of the nomination had I been present for the vote. The vote was rollcall vote No. 380.
I was unable to vote on Executive Calendar No. 64, Jonathan Gould, of Virginia, to be Comptroller of the Currency for a term of five years, due to my participation at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome, Italy, on July 10, 2025. I am working with Senator Graham to build international support to advance our bipartisan Sanctioning Russia Act in an effort to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. I would have opposed cloture on the nomination had I been present for the vote. The vote was rollcall vote No. 381.
I was unable to attend the cloture vote for Executive Calendar No. 261, Whitney D. Hermandorfer, of Tennessee, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, due to my participation at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome, Italy, on July 10, 2025. I am working with Senator Graham to build international support to advance our bipartisan Sanctioning Russia Act in an effort to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. I would have opposed cloture had I been present for the vote. The vote was rollcall vote No. 382.
I was unable to vote on Executive Calendar No. 64, Jonathan Gould, of Virginia, to be Comptroller of the Currency for a term of five years, due to my participation at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome, Italy, on July 10, 2025. I am working with Senator Graham to build international support to advance our bipartisan Sanctioning Russia Act in an effort to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. I would have opposed confirmation of the nomination had I been present for the vote. The vote was rollcall vote No. 383.
Mr. President, on July 14, 2025, due to unavoidable travel delays because of the weather, I missed rollcall vote No. 384. Had I been present, I would have voted no on vote No. 384, cloture on the confirmation of Whitney D. Hermandorfer to be United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit.
On July 14, 2025, due to unavoidable travel delays because of the weather, I missed rollcall vote No. 385. Had I been present, I would have voted yes on vote No. 385, cloture on the nomination of Luke Pettit to be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Minnesota Senator Smith to introduce the Kay Hagan Tick Act Reauthorization. I would also like to recognize Senator King, who is joining as an original cosponsor. Our bill is named after our colleague, former Senator Kay Hagan, who passed away in October 2019 due to complications from the tick-borne disease known as the Powassan virus. This bipartisan legislation will reauthorize Federal programs that provide local communities and States with resources for prevention, early detection, and treatment of tick-borne and other vector-borne diseases.
Tick-borne diseases like Lyme have become a significant public health concern, with the incidence exploding over the past 20 years. The number of Americans with tick-borne diseases has been rising at an alarming rate. In 2003, Lyme disease infected around 30,000 Americans. Last year, there were an estimated 500,000 cases, an increase of 1,400 percent. In my Sate of Maine, we recorded a record 3,200 cases of Lyme disease in 2024, and experts predict a increase in tick populations this year after a winter that was not consistently cold enough to reduce their numbers.
Far too many Americans with Lyme disease experience a complex diagnostic odyssey that takes months or even years. One of my constituents, Adina Bercowicz from Yarmouth, shared with me her harrowing journey of diagnosis and treatment after a tick bite during her pregnancy. Prior to getting sick, Adina was working full-time and regularly attended yoga and martial arts classes, had an active social life, and traveled frequently for work. She then began to experience symptoms such as chronic fatigue, sharp joint pain, memory loss, cognitive decline, and migraines. It took several doctors and dozens of tests for Adina to be diagnosed with late-stage, chronic Lyme disease, but at this point, her symptoms were debilitating. She still struggles with daily symptoms, but along with her husband Yan, has worked to found LymeTV, a nonprofit in Maine that seeks to raise awareness about Lyme disease.
In addition to the physical and emotional toll that Lyme disease can impose, it also can be expensive. Medical costs of Lyme disease are estimated at $2 billion per year. When accounting for indirect medical costs, including inability to work, in some cases, the annual costs balloon to $75 billion per year.
A correct and early diagnosis can reduce costs and improve the prognosis. We have a long way to go, but I am encouraged that we have made progress since the original Kay Hagan Tick Act was signed into law in 2019. For example, a clinical trial for a Lyme disease vaccine for people is underway right now at the MaineHealth Institute for Research. Reauthorizing the Tick Act would allow crucial developments such as these to continue.
The Tick Act uses a three-pronged approach to address Lyme and other tick and vector-borne diseases. First, it would require HHS to continue to implement and update as appropriate its National Strategy for Vector-Borne Disease. This strategy was required by the original legislation and released in 2024. I look forward to working with the Department to achieve its target of reducing the number of Lyme disease cases by 25 percent by 2035.
Second, the Tick Act would reauthorize the Regional Centers of Excellence in Vector-Borne Disease, which Congress established in 2017 in response to Zika. Since then, tick-borne diseases have accounted for three in four vector-borne diseases in the U.S., and
Finally, the bill would reauthorize funding for CDC grants, awarded to State Health Departments, to improve data collection and analysis, support early detection and diagnosis, improve treatment, and raise awareness for vector-borne diseases.
The Kay Hagan Tick Act takes a comprehensive approach to address tick-borne diseases. I urge all my colleagues to support this important legislation.
Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Minnesota Senator Smith to introduce the Kay Hagan Tick Act Reauthorization. I would also like to recognize Senator King, who is joining as an original cosponsor. Our bill is named after our colleague, former Senator Kay Hagan, who passed away in October 2019 due to complications from the tick-borne disease known as the Powassan virus. This bipartisan legislation will reauthorize Federal programs that provide local communities and States with resources for prevention, early detection, and treatment of tick-borne and other vector-borne diseases.
Tick-borne diseases like Lyme have become a significant public health concern, with the incidence exploding over the past 20 years. The number of Americans with tick-borne diseases has been rising at an alarming rate. In 2003, Lyme disease infected around 30,000 Americans. Last year, there were an estimated 500,000 cases, an increase of 1,400 percent. In my Sate of Maine, we recorded a record 3,200 cases of Lyme disease in 2024, and experts predict a increase in tick populations this year after a winter that was not consistently cold enough to reduce their numbers.
Far too many Americans with Lyme disease experience a complex diagnostic odyssey that takes months or even years. One of my constituents, Adina Bercowicz from Yarmouth, shared with me her harrowing journey of diagnosis and treatment after a tick bite during her pregnancy. Prior to getting sick, Adina was working full-time and regularly attended yoga and martial arts classes, had an active social life, and traveled frequently for work. She then began to experience symptoms such as chronic fatigue, sharp joint pain, memory loss, cognitive decline, and migraines. It took several doctors and dozens of tests for Adina to be diagnosed with late-stage, chronic Lyme disease, but at this point, her symptoms were debilitating. She still struggles with daily symptoms, but along with her husband Yan, has worked to found LymeTV, a nonprofit in Maine that seeks to raise awareness about Lyme disease.
In addition to the physical and emotional toll that Lyme disease can impose, it also can be expensive. Medical costs of Lyme disease are estimated at $2 billion per year. When accounting for indirect medical costs, including inability to work, in some cases, the annual costs balloon to $75 billion per year.
A correct and early diagnosis can reduce costs and improve the prognosis. We have a long way to go, but I am encouraged that we have made progress since the original Kay Hagan Tick Act was signed into law in 2019. For example, a clinical trial for a Lyme disease vaccine for people is underway right now at the MaineHealth Institute for Research. Reauthorizing the Tick Act would allow crucial developments such as these to continue.
The Tick Act uses a three-pronged approach to address Lyme and other tick and vector-borne diseases. First, it would require HHS to continue to implement and update as appropriate its National Strategy for Vector-Borne Disease. This strategy was required by the original legislation and released in 2024. I look forward to working with the Department to achieve its target of reducing the number of Lyme disease cases by 25 percent by 2035.
Second, the Tick Act would reauthorize the Regional Centers of Excellence in Vector-Borne Disease, which Congress established in 2017 in response to Zika. Since then, tick-borne diseases have accounted for three in four vector-borne diseases in the U.S., and
Finally, the bill would reauthorize funding for CDC grants, awarded to State Health Departments, to improve data collection and analysis, support early detection and diagnosis, improve treatment, and raise awareness for vector-borne diseases.
The Kay Hagan Tick Act takes a comprehensive approach to address tick-borne diseases. I urge all my colleagues to support this important legislation.
Mr. President, I have five requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.
Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:
The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, at 3:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations.
The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, at 10:15 a.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, at 3 p.m., to conduct a closed business meeting.
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, at 3 p.m., to conduct a hearing.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following interns from my office be granted floor privileges until July 16, 2025: Charles Roemer, Melissa Blomquist, Caroline Garrett, Mackenzie Connaughton, Lindsay Moore, Madeline Champagne, and Mary Quoyeser.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following interns on the Committee on Agriculture be granted floor privileges through August 1, 2025: Amara Jackson, Jodi Robinson, Keeton Dassinger, Patrick Phillips, and Mary Eichenberger.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to grant floor privileges to my intern for her shadow days on the following dates: Malia Perry for July 23, 2025.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Expressing Support for the Designation of the Month of June 2025 as "National Post-Traumatic Stress Awareness Month" and June 27, 2025, as "National Post-Traumatic Stress Awareness Day"
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 322) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
(The resolution, with its preamble, is printed in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1815 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
The bill clerk read as follows:
There being no objection, the committee was discharged, and the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m., Wednesday, July 16; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 114, H.R. 4; finally, that all debate time be expired at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of my Democratic colleagues.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, the rescissions package before us reduces access to educational programming for children and locally produced public radio and television programming. It diminishes America's global leadership while eliminating lifesaving aid from the world's most vulnerable populations.
I want to spend a minute on the impact that this will have on public radio and television, including the disproportionate impact it will have on rural communities.
One in four Wisconsinites lives in a rural community, and many rely on public broadcasting for local news, emergency alerts, and free educational programming, especially for children. Wisconsin Public Radio is the primary broadcast relay for Wisconsin's Emergency Alert System, including AMBER Alerts and lifesaving weather alerts like tornado and flash flood warnings. Look no further than the absolutely devastating news out of Texas. Access to high-quality information can truly be the difference between life and death. Access to local news from reporters and sources that community members trust is more important than ever.
Stripping away this funding would also endanger local news that is already disappearing in so many Wisconsin communities. In 2024--just last year--almost 20 percent of our local newspapers shut down in Wisconsin, according to a study by Northwestern University. That same study found that Wisconsin's northernmost county, Bayfield, had no local news sources at all while 22 counties across Wisconsin had just 1 local news source.
That is where public radio plays a critical role in keeping Wisconsinites connected with their communities. Stations like WXPR in Rhinelander, WI, would be under threat if this package advances--one of the few news sources producing local reporting in Wisconsin's Northwoods and Michigan's Upper Peninsula--or Radio Milwaukee, which, because of public funding, can broadcast local school board meetings for parents and families to stay in touch with what is happening in their communities.
Without Federal support for public media, this critical information could disappear for Wisconsin families. This is what public broadcasting means for Wisconsinites, but it applies to all the States that we represent. That should be reason enough to oppose this bill on the substance of it.
But the other reason is the extraordinary process that is being used to make this change and the impact it would have on the ability of this body to perform its most basic functions. If passed, this bill would represent the first time this rescissions process would be used to pass completely partisan rescissions, and in doing so, we would undo bipartisan agreements.
That is why I oppose this bill, and I hope enough of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will choose to do so as well.
The Senate passes bipartisan appropriations bills every year. They are hard, and they take months to negotiate, and it doesn't always work as well as it should. Senators on both sides of the aisle often discuss wanting to return to something we call regular order. We decry full- year continuing resolutions, or CRs, and government shutdowns. We say we want to bring appropriations bills to the floor. This isn't a pipedream, and I reject the idea that the appropriations process can't work anymore. More often than not, we pass appropriations bills within the first few months of the new fiscal year--not ideal but workable. We certainly need to work to make it better, and the full-year continuing resolution we find ourselves in right now is a prime example of its failing, but throwing in the towel, as this bill does, would make it so much worse.
I want to highlight one example of when the appropriations process worked how it should that is particularly relevant in this exact moment.
It was just a few years ago, in fiscal year 2019, that the Labor- Health and Human Services bill--not the easiest bill--passed the Senate and was signed into law prior to the start of the next fiscal year. At that time, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Shelby, along with other Republicans and in working with Democrats, vowed to return to regular order and committed to it.
In May of 2018, President Trump submitted a rescissions package just like the one we are contending with today. Enough Republicans joined all of the Democrats in opposing it. It failed, and that was the end of it.
Then, 3 months later, a combined Defense and Labor-Health and Human Services bill passed. It passed the Senate; it passed the House; and it was signed into law by President Trump on September 28--just days short of the expiration of fiscal year 2018. It wasn't the only pair of bills. Several other appropriations bills were enacted prior to October 1 also.
My Republican colleagues knew then that passing partisan rescissions packages would make passing bipartisan appropriations bills that much harder, if it would be possible at all. That is what we are debating today. The issue here is really simple: How can any minority party, Democrat or Republican, make concessions as part of these bipartisan appropriations negotiations if the majority just walks back those deals a few months later?
The answer is, it can't, and that is why we have never passed partisan rescissions packages like this before.
Passing this rescissions package will also, very likely, mean that there will be more to come. In fact, OMB Director Russ Vought has said as much. Right now, the Department of Education is withholding $7 billion in funding that normally goes out at this time of year to the States for the upcoming school year to support afterschool programs, STEM education, school counselors, and smaller class sizes, among many other things.
Will the administration put that funding in the next rescissions package?
So, if we pass this bill, we would find ourselves right back here in a couple of months--with the President exerting his influence to pass another partisan rescissions package--or we can end this here, like we did in 2018, and deal with these issues where they should be dealt with and where they frequently are dealt with as part of the appropriations process. We can and should debate the issues raised in this rescissions package as part of the annual appropriations process. We should mark up bills
But you cannot vote for this rescissions package and then argue for regular order or decry brinksmanship over government funding and government shutdowns or full-year continuing resolutions because walking back on bipartisan agreements like this rescissions package does will make future bipartisan agreements that much harder, if not impossible.
As the ranking member on the Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee, I commit to working with my Republican colleagues on their specific concerns with funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but the concerns I have heard raised as part of the debate on this package actually weren't even raised as part of the appropriations process in the last 2 years as I chaired this subcommittee. My colleagues are saying that this is such a grave problem that we have to take the extraordinary step of rescinding funding when these issues weren't even raised when we passed the appropriations bills with this funding in it originally. That is not how this process should work.
To my colleagues, if you are for regular order, if you want this body to work better and want more bipartisanship and less partisanship, I sincerely ask you to deeply reflect on what this vote means for that goal that a majority of our constituents want from us. I urge my colleagues to vote no.
Mr. President, today, we are debating President Trump's disastrous proposal to cut more than $9 billion in funding that Congress has already approved for local public broadcasting and foreign assistance.
Not only is this bill harmful to communities in Michigan, as well as all across the country, but it also risks undermining a key part of our democratic process.
President Trump and his crony--Budget Director Russ Vought--are trying to undercut the voice of everyday Americans in our government through this process.
Americans sent us here to represent them and to act in their best interest. That is why our Constitution gives Congress--not the President--the sole power to make laws, including the power of the purse. And that is why lawmakers routinely come together to decide, on a bipartisan basis, how to allocate Federal funding in a way that best serves the people who live in our States.
I am proud to take part in that important process as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. And I am proud that my Democratic and Republican colleagues in the committee are working hard to advance commonsense, bipartisan funding bills that will meet the needs of all of our communities.
But Donald Trump wants to throw these bills out the window so he can pick which communities win and which communities lose when it comes to Federal resources.
Funding laws are still laws, and Congress passed these laws with bipartisan support to direct resources to these programs. No President gets unilateral say on how any law is implemented, and no President gets to overrule Congress's bipartisan laws.
But the legislation pending before the Senate today would open up a slippery slope that would undercut Congress's authority, rob our communities of important resources, and ultimately erode the voice of the American people who elect their Members of Congress to make these decisions in their best interests.
We have to put our foot down because we know it will not stop here. Today it is funding for local public media, but tomorrow it could be funding for infectious disease research, public education, or weather forecasting--all on the chopping block.
They have made it pretty clear that folks just want to cut rather than leading our government in a way that makes our constituents' lives better.
We saw it at the beginning of this year, when the administration froze funds that Congress passed into law to support local infrastructure upgrades, cancer research, childcare programs, opioid addiction centers, and so many more.
Just a few weeks ago, the administration froze a ton of funding that Congress passed for summer school and afterschool programs. And again with the ``Big Bad Bill'' that our Republican colleagues just passed, President Trump signed into law a bill that gutted funding for critical resources like Medicaid and SNAP, ripping healthcare and food assistance from millions of Americans, all to cover the cost for their massive tax cut for billionaires.
And, now today, Republicans are trying to bypass once again bipartisan laws--laws that many of them voted for themselves--so they can rubberstamp another round of President Trump's harmful cuts.
Let's take a look at the harm that these cuts will do. Take the proposed elimination of funding for public broadcasting. This would eliminate the single most important source of funding for local radio and TV stations that focus on providing high-quality, community- centered content.
When local public media stations from Grand Rapids to Marquette see a huge chunk of their budget eliminated by this bill, they will, at a minimum, be forced to let people go. These are Michiganders who are just trying to keep their friends and neighbors informed on what is happening in their local communities. Families will no longer have 24/7 access to Michigan's Learning Channel, which provides educational math and literacy content for children all across my State.
But the biggest harm that these funding cuts will have on our communities is the impact to emergency response and public safety.
Many of Michigan's public TV and radio stations are responsible for broadcasting emergency alerts during national disasters like tornadoes, wildfires, or severe flooding. When catastrophic ice storms swept through northern Michigan earlier this year, it was local radio stations that literally saved lives by broadcasting emergency warnings to folks after commercial towers went down.
These alerts are critical, particularly in rural communities where these local public stations are often the only ones available to reach people during an emergency.
WNMU out of Marquette is the only source of emergency alert services for over 250,000 residents in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. This singular station covers an area larger than Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Delaware combined. If Republicans pass this disastrous bill, those communities will be left in the dark when the next emergency strikes.
Local public media also plays an important role in supporting national security and law enforcement efforts. In the Thumb region, Delta College Public Media hosts transmitters for the FBI and the Coast Guard to ensure that they can effectively communicate during emergency situations. Eliminating funding for that partnership, as this bill would do, is quite literally putting American lives and the homeland at risk.
And don't get me wrong. I am all for reducing waste and making sure that we are spending taxpayer dollars efficiently, but gutting funding for local stations that communities rely on to keep their families safe is to cut corners that is absolutely detrimental to public safety.
So when President Trump--and his cronies like Russ Vought--say that this bill targets government fraud, waste, and abuse--something that I have spent my entire life fighting against--we know that it is just not true.
Don't forget, they just passed a bill that is going to add $3 trillion to the deficit. They don't care about balancing the budget or limiting waste. They want to cut services that American families depend on so they can afford a bigger tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.
In addition to local broadcasting, this bill also will upend bipartisan investments in foreign assistance that Congress made earlier this year to maintain our global leadership and protect U.S. national security interests.
While foreign assistance represents less than 1 percent of the Federal Government, it provides critical benefits to our Nation. These strategic investments help save American lives, reinforce our global leadership, and support economic growth here in our country. Foreign assistance helps protect global stability and prevent conflict that is
Funding for programs like Feed the Future and efforts to counter Russian and Chinese influence have been cut in this bill. These programs just don't support communities abroad, they actually stimulate local businesses and economies right here at home. Feed the Future, which is a part of the U.S. Agency for International Development, supports local farmers by purchasing their products and distributing them to people in need around the globe. If Republicans pass this bill, those farmers will lose.
Feed the Future also partners with universities and colleges across the United States to operate innovation labs that draw on their expertise to tackle the world's biggest challenges to food security.
Institutions like Michigan State University conduct cutting-edge agricultural research to help farmers grow better products that support Americans. These partnerships also provide training opportunities for the next generation of researchers to help maintain America's competitiveness. If this bill passes, MSU will lose.
But Michigan State University is not alone. Institutions across the country in States like Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and many more will also have their vital research projects canceled.
Foreign assistance is designed to prevent the need for more costly interventions down the line. This bill will undo the success of past generations of Americans and damage our geopolitical standing, all to save just a fraction of our Nation's annual budget while doing serious damage to American leadership across the globe.
But the bigger picture here is that Republicans are allowing Donald Trump to bypass Congress and the bipartisan laws that we pass right here.
Every year Congress tirelessly negotiates bipartisan funding bills, and each side makes compromises. But if one party can simply rip up those bipartisan funding agreements by enacting one-sided decisions like what my Republican colleagues are going to be doing here, the appropriations process will simply break down.
How can we be assured that these bipartisan agreements are being made in good faith if Republicans are just going to turn their backs on them just a few months later? How can we be sure that the funding laws we pass will help all of our communities succeed if our Republican colleagues will simply let President Trump pick who wins and who loses when it comes to Federal support?
President Trump's Budget Director Russ Vought has already made it clear that he won't stop with this rescission effort. He just opened the door to undercutting the bipartisan funding laws that Congress passed, and there is no telling where he and President Trump will stop if they succeed here.
Congress is meant to be an independent branch of the government from the Presidency, with our own unique powers. Making decisions about how the Federal Government should allocate its resources is one of those powers that belongs solely to Congress under the U.S. Constitution.
What we do today will either reaffirm that Congress makes the laws, or it will show how quickly our Republican colleagues will roll over and rubberstamp whatever Donald Trump wants, no matter--no matter--what harm it will do to the people that they represent.
My colleagues from Wisconsin and Michigan have spoken to the destructive nature of this rescission because of the programs that will be canceled midstream.
I have seen, so often, the power of our international aid programs in assisting in nutrition and fighting tuberculosis and malaria and AIDS across the world. But what many may not understand is that the small fraction--less than one-third of 1 percent--that we spend on those programs has an incredible yield not just in doing good works around the world, but have been doing good for America because of relationships that are forged through those programs. The respect that is forged through those programs comes back to benefit us in all kinds of cooperation on a huge range of diplomatic goals--be they economic; be they trade; be they issues of national security.
That is, in fact, what is referred to as ``soft power,'' and soft power is at risk with this strategy of canceling these programs.
I think about rural Oregon, where so often the warnings on floods or fires is broadcast over the public radio system, and all kinds of different channels have different programs that people become quite attached to. So there are simply good humor programs that are fun to listen to, and others are good music programs. But a lot of it is good news programs--things deeply appreciated throughout the State but often harder to access in rural Oregon. So I am concerned about this concerted attack on rural America.
First, my colleagues across the aisle say: We are going to make it very, very hard for people in rural America to get healthcare if they are on Medicaid. And then, without Medicaid financing and paying for services, you lose an entire hospital or you lose an entire clinic. The whole rural community is profoundly damaged because everyone's healthcare is affected. An attack on rural America continues through this bill.
But what I really want to talk about now is to give a sense of how this bill is an attack on the separations of power that we all here in the Senate have taken a constitutional oath to defend.
When I first came to Congress as an intern for Senator Hatfield, we were celebrating our 200th anniversary. That is so long ago, 49 years ago. And Senator Hatfield had a saying about appropriators, and that was that appropriators--that is, those Members of the Senate who served on the spending committee--they were first appropriators, and then they were Republicans or Democrats. That is how strongly they felt about their shared responsibility to manage the power of the purse.
The power of the purse--article I, section 9, of the Constitution says:
And here is the thing. The Congress is vested with that power, but when you decide how to spend money, you are really talking about your values. So those who serve on the Appropriations Committee were doing their best to enact the values of our country, be they investment in healthcare, in housing, in education; investments that created good- paying jobs, investments that helped small communities thrive, investments that helped build infrastructure across the country. That was the responsibility that was so cherished.
And there was a term for those who chaired the 12 subcommittees on Appropriations, and that term--the colloquial term--was that they were the Senate's ``cardinals.'' It was taken from the Catholic Church, where cardinals helped steer the church on the right path. And the cardinals of the Senate had the responsibility of steering our Nation, through our spending decisions, on the right path for the people of America.
This is, in fact, a key part of government by and for the people: that shared responsibility to spend that money wisely. But even in the early years that I was here in the Senate, we were starting to see signs of the breakdown of that relationship.
In the last conversation I had with Senator Hatfield before he passed away, he said: What happened to the Appropriations Committee?
Now, Senator Hatfield was a Republican, and he had been chair of the Appropriations Committee. And he said: I worked so closely with Dan Inouye of Hawaii, and I worked so closely with Patty Murray of Washington. What has happened to that collaboration?
That was several years ago. But as we have watched, over time, some significant things are happening that we should understand as Senators. In the not so distant past, you have tried to have a fair allocation of revenue laws that raised money, and then, as you filled the Treasury, the question became: How shall we spend it?
So the responsibility shifted from the Finance Committee to the Appropriations Committee. But, over time, it has become more and more popular to spend money for programs through tax credits and deductions. So much of the spending that was in the Appropriations Committee has shifted to the Finance Committee. And then it became more and more popular to shift discretionary spending, over which the Appropriations Committee has control, into mandatory spending. If it is mandatory, it is not a decision decided by the appropriators.
And then, on top of all that, we started to build up more and more national debt, and so all the money that went to interest on that debt is money unavailable to be spent on basic programs of healthcare, housing, education, investments that create good-paying jobs across America, infrastructure, security. That money isn't so available because it is tied up paying for interest.
So these trends are changing the role of those Senate cardinals--the chairs and the ranking members of the subcommittees who help guide us in the 12 different sections of spending. And, I will say, that problem of the debt growing, that is very significant.
Back in 1974, Democrats and Republicans came together and said: Let's have an architecture to ensure that we are very responsible and don't run up massive debt. We will have a filibuster-free pathway for one purpose, and that is to reduce deficits--only to reduce deficits.
And then my colleagues, 22 years later, across the aisle--my Republican colleagues--said: Well, you know, we want a filibuster-free pathway to do tax cuts which will increase the deficit. And they brought in a new Parliamentarian in order to get a ruling that they could do the exact opposite of what 100 Senators had agreed to. So more and more payments diverted into interest.
We had that Big Beautiful Bill, as Trump calls it--or as many of us call it, the ``Big Ugly Betrayal Bill.'' You know the one I am talking about, the one where families lose and billionaires win that was passed 2 weeks ago. Well, this rescission bill is a continuation of that vision of families lose--particularly rural families, particularly all Americans, who lose out on the advantages of soft power that we exercise around the world--and billionaires win. But it is a direct attack, as well, on the immediate process of Democrats and Republicans working together on the Appropriations Committee in this really sacred responsibility of exercising the power of the purse.
Let's examine that word ``rescission.'' It is a fancy term. What does it really mean? A rescission is a repeal of a previous spending law.
A law was passed. It spent a certain amount of money on a certain program or on a certain Agency. And a repeal of it--that is all that fancy term means.
And so the spending process is one where those members of the spending committee come together--Democrats and Republicans together-- and they work out a bipartisan bill. And in that bill, last year, for fiscal year 2025, 11 out of 12 bills that came out of the spending committee, out of the Appropriations Committee, were unanimous or nearly unanimous. Where do you look for that type of bipartisan cooperation in Congress anymore? Well, last year, in the Appropriations Committee, 11 out of 12 bills passing unanimously or nearly unanimously out of committee. But what is happening right now is consideration of undoing that bipartisan work with a partisan repeal.
Now, just kind of stick with me here about a normal deal. You make an agreement with a friend: I will do this if you do that.
Well, everyone kind of understands that is a partnership. You have an agreement. But what if one person bails on that agreement later? It is a betrayal. But bailing on the agreement is exactly what this bill is.
Democrats and Republicans together made those spending decisions, and now they are being undone in a purely partisan fashion. They are breaking the deal. They are going back on the agreement. They are breaking their word. That is pretty shameful, and it is why my colleagues have been saying: Don't do it--because it is wrong, and it has a huge impact going forward. Once somebody you have made an agreement with breaks their end of the bargain, are you going to make a second bargain with that same individual, knowing that they bailed on the first deal? The answer is probably not.
So how will we come together and continue what we did a year ago--11 out of 12 bills passing out of the Senate committee in a hugely bipartisan fashion--if one side comes back and breaks the deal? I would invite my Republican colleagues: Come to the floor and explain to me how breaking the deal that you were participating in a year ago is an honorable thing to do, and explain to me how we are going to do future deals if you are breaking the existing deal.
Now, never in the history of the Senate has there been a partisan repeal--never. This is the first time. Why? Because we understood together that a deal is a deal.
That doesn't mean the President doesn't have influence. Hey, that was just about last year's bill. The President lays out a budget for the next year and has a huge influence. The President can veto the next set of spending bills or any one of them.
But once it is locked into law--passed by the House, passed by the Senate, signed by a President--to come back and undo that in this partisan fashion, you are breaking the honor code that has made bipartisan collaboration so successful. That is why you shouldn't do it. That is why you should vote no.
Now, this question of how this affects our Constitution is significant because, as I cited, the Constitution assigns the responsibility of the power of the purse to Congress in article I, section 9. But there have been occasions before when Presidents said: We would like to actually have that power of the purse. And the President who really pursued that aggressively was President Nixon, in the 1970s. President Nixon signed a law about how money would be spent but then decided not to spend it and withheld the money from being spent on housing, on education, on highways, on agriculture, and on pollution prevention programs.
Well, of course, this was appealed on a constitutional basis because the Constitution doesn't give the President the power to impound funds. Congress, by law--and by law signed by a President--had said: Here is what must be spent on these programs. And the President came along, and President Nixon said: I don't want to do it. I am not going to do it. Take me to court.
So they went to court. And it didn't actually make it to the Supreme Court until after President Nixon was out of office, after having resigned because of the Watergate scandal. But, in a way, this was really almost a bigger scandal. This was an attack on the Constitution.
So what did the Court say in Train v. New York? And the piece of spending that made it to the Supreme Court was related to spending on water treatment systems, of all things. And the Court said: You cannot do this. You cannot impound funds. It is unconstitutional because the Constitution assigns that responsibility to Congress.
Now, if the law had been written by Congress to say the President has flexibility between here and here, maybe a modest amount of flexibility may have survived the constitutional test. But the idea that the President could just simply ignore the law? No. The Court said no.
Then there was a second test. The second test had to do, in 1996, with Congress, where Republicans controlled the House and they controlled the Senate. They decided: You know how we will tackle the deficit now--now that we have destroyed the 1974 law that said the fast track can only be used for reducing the deficit and how we switched that and said it could be used for increasing the deficit--now we have destroyed that, and we have a new plan, and we will just simply say to the President: You can line-item veto.
Again, the court weighed in, and the court said: Hell no, no you can't, because the Constitution does not say you can delegate to the President powers the Constitution assigns to you.
It assigns it to us. That is our responsibility.
So, again, the core concept here is that bipartisan work in forging a spending bill should not be done by one partner bailing on the deal that was agreed to the previous year.
Now, there is a formal way to go about doing this in a bipartisan fashion, and that is, each spending bill, in
Maybe the President pointed out that they are not needed.
We will undo it, but we will undo it in a bipartisan fashion in the Appropriations Committee in that same sense of a partnership working together.
So rescissions, yes. We do them all the time. But they are done on a bipartisan basis in the spending committee, not in a partisan special bill, one-sided, basically bailing on the deal struck last year-- because this strategy is a recipe for disaster, destroying the bond of trust on a deal made with each side having its priorities in a bill and then one side bailing on it--because of that, it has never happened before, and it should never happen now.
Mr. President, let's step back from the immediate loyalty test the President of the United States has put forward. The President said: It is a loyalty test. I want you to do this because I want you to bend the knee to me.
That is not the responsibility of a Senator of the United States of America, to bend the knee to the executive branch. The Constitution gives us the responsibility to design how the executive branch functions. It gives us, the Senate, the responsibility to fund the programs and the services.
The way you lose government of, by, and for the people is to have an acquiescent legislature that stops doing its job and just says ``We will respond; we will just do what the President asks'' and a deferential court. Right now, we have both.
But we took an oath to the Constitution, each one of us, to honor that oath. Do not engage for the first time ever in creating this recipe for disaster of our bipartisan responsibilities.
Mr. President, the good news is that I am the last speaker of the day. I wish I could tell you my speech will be short. I don't think it will be long, but I will try to make it interesting.
I want to tell you a story. It is not a story about anything that has happened in this building. It is a story about a very humble Catholic parish in Northside Richmond, VA, called St. Elizabeth of Hungary. It is a humble parish. It is a small parish. It is slightly over 100 years old. It is the church where my wife and I were married more than 40 years ago, where all three of our children were baptized, where we attended Mass just this last Sunday to hear the Gospel reading of the story of the Good Samaritan.
The church was founded more than 100 years ago in an unusual way. There were Italian and German immigrants in Richmond who felt looked down upon because of where they had come from and because of the accents that they spoke with and that their English wasn't so good.
In the aftermath of World War I, people looked at German-Americans and Italian-Americans with some suspicion. German language was being criminalized in some of our States in the aftermath.
These immigrant refugee Catholics decided that they wanted a place where they could feel welcomed, loved, and safe as they worshipped in accord with the American value of freedom of worship. So they set up this little parish in the Highland Park neighborhood of Northside Richmond, VA, where they could go and be together and feel safe. They chose an interesting name, St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
St. Elizabeth of Hungary lived 1,000 years ago. She was a teenager, and she was a queen in a time of great poverty. Against the wishes of her husband and other officials, she would take bread and put the bread inside of her garments and go out and distribute it to the poor.
Once, she was caught, and she was made to open her garment, and when she did open her garment, the bread had turned into roses. That is the miracle that was attributed to her. She lived only a short time and died, but she was made a saint by the Catholic Church.
These immigrants who started my parish chose that name because they felt like that was what was needed in the world--people who would try to serve others in need.
One hundred years later--we celebrated the centennial of my church a couple of years ago, and I was sitting there--I have now been a member of the parish for 40 years--and I was looking around, and I realized that times change and they don't.
Catholic Relief Services, which is one of the largest agencies in the United States that help settle refugees, who are legal immigrants-- refugees are legal immigrants--about 15 years ago settled a Congolese family into my church who had been in a refugee camp after fleeing violence in the Congo. Catholic, French, and Swahili speaking, one Congolese family came to my church. Then, over time, Catholic Relief Services decided ``Well this family likes St. Elizabeth, and they feel welcomed here,'' and other families started to come to my church.
So by now, as we were celebrating our centennial and I was looking around the parish where I go--this small, very humble parish--it is a sizably Congolese refugee population, legal immigrants to the United States who have been settled through the Catholic Relief Services, and they have come to a place where they feel loved and cared for and safe and welcomed. The color of their skin, the accent they use, and the fact that they are unfamiliar with American culture might make them feel not so welcomed in other venues, but in my church, they feel welcomed.
It made me realize as we celebrated that centennial that my church looks really different in some ways than when it was founded 100 years ago, but in other ways, it is exactly the same. It is a haven for people who are legal immigrants to the United States but need a place where they can gather with others and feel welcomed.
Why do I tell that story? How is it connected to the rescission bill that we are going to be voting on tomorrow?
President Trump has sent a bill to Congress, and one of the pillars of that bill is to rescind the funding for refugee resettlement programs in the United States run by churches. Seven of the ten organizations that resettle refugees in the United States are faith- based organizations. The largest two are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, operating through the Catholic Relief Services, and the evangelical organization World Vision.
But it is not just them. There is Church World Service, Lutheran Social Services, the Episcopal Church of the United States, and World Relief. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was founded more than 100 years ago to try to bring Jews at that point from Europe to the United States and make sure that, as legal immigrants--yes, they would be allowed to be here legally, but they needed someone to teach them about American culture and integrating into American life.
The practice of American religious organizations assisting in legal immigration goes back more than a century, and President Trump's rescission package that is before us wipes out funding to a dramatic degree for virtually all of them.
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society has had to lay off hundreds of staff.
World Relief said this:
The Episcopal Church of the United States has had to end its longstanding refugee resettlement program because of President Trump's budget cuts.
Lutheran Social Services has had to--they have struggled to make payroll. They have had to lay off so many people. They reduced the services they are able to provide, especially to Afghan allies who are in the United States because they worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan to protect our troops.
Catholic Charities has laid off all kinds of staff.
The families at my church come up to me after mass on Sunday, and they are so frightened about what might happen because many of them have family still in refugee camps who might want to come here as legal refugees, as legal immigrants.
I don't know of a President who has attacked religious organizations--Catholic, evangelical, Jewish--that have been doing this work in many instances for more than a century, in
Matthew: ``I was a stranger and you welcomed me in. I was sick and you cared for me. I was hungry and you fed me.'' This is a bedrock belief of our Nation's religious organizations: that they will follow the law--legal refugee program--but they will help the person who is accessing legal refugee programs to be able to integrate into a society so they can live with some sense of dignity and have some chance of success.
Why cut these programs? Why look in the face of these religious organizations that, out of a motivation of conscience, for decades, even a century, have decided that they will try to smooth that path to integrate people into American life who are here lawfully? Why cut their funding? Why force them to be laid off? Why debilitate their ability to provide services? It is an attack on the religious organizations so that they cannot do the work that their faith and their Creator compels them to do.
I am not surprised that President Trump would propose this. The language and the rhetoric and the behavior that he has exhibited toward even legal refugees, legal immigrants to this country lead me to not be surprised that this important funding is on the chopping block in the bill that he has sent to the Senate. But I have to admit that I am surprised that it seems to be just moving on a path to being accepted. It was accepted in the House without much drama, including by a whole lot of people who go to churches, just like me, and hear sermons preached about the Good Samaritan, just like I do every Sunday.
We will have an opportunity tomorrow to grapple with it here. I intend to at least offer an amendment to try to strip this piece of the bill out so that the bill will not be an attack on religious organizations doing what they feel compelled by their faith to do.
It is my prayer that the entire rescission bill fail for the reasons my colleagues have said--a deal is a deal, and we shouldn't backtrack on it. But if we can't defeat the entire rescission bill, it is my hope that we will allow organizations like Catholic Relief Services and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the Episcopal Church and World Vision and World Relief and Lutheran Social Services--it is my hope that we will at least allow them to practice the faith they sincerely believe and do it in a way consistent with what their practices have been for decades and in some cases more than a century.
And so that is what I am going to be praying for tonight, that there is a bit of an epiphany in this body, and we realize that the work that these church-based organizations are doing isn't bad. This work isn't something that should be slashed and cut with these valuable faith workers laid off.
My hope is that the Senate will realize this is good work that is really at the core of who we are as Americans--so tiny little parishes like St. Elizabeth of Hungary or synagogues or other churches all over this country who pride themselves on offering a welcoming environment for people who are here lawfully and want to make their way in America will be able to continue to do just that.
