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23Senate Resolution 470: Condemning Any Financial Compensation From the Department of Justice to President Donald Trump Tied to Previous Federal Investigations Into His Unlawful Actions
24Senate Resolution 471: Calling on Congress, Schools, and State and Local Educational Agencies to Recognize the Significant Educational Implications of Dyslexia That Must Be Addressed, And...
Nine bills and five resolutions were introduced, as follows: S. 3060-3068, S.J. Res. 91-93, and S. Res. 470-471.
Page S7785
Measures Reported
S. 673, to amend the Miccosukee Reserved Area Act to authorize the expansion of the Miccosukee Reserved Area and to carry out activities to protect structures within the Osceola Camp from flooding. (S. Rept. No. 119-90).
Page S7783
Measures Passed
Brazil Tariffs: By 52 yeas to 48 nays (Vote No. 594), Senate passed S.J. Res. 81, terminating the national emergency declared to impose duties on articles imported from Brazil, after Committee on Finance was discharged from further consideration.
Pages S7766-79
Bat Week
Committee on Environment and Public Works was discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 454, expressing support for the designation of the week of October 24, 2025, to October 31, 2025, as ``Bat Week'', and the resolution was then agreed to.
Page S7787
National Dyslexia Awareness Month
Senate agreed to S. Res. 471, calling on Congress, schools, and State and local educational agencies to recognize the significant educational implications of dyslexia that must be addressed, and designating October 2025 as ``National Dyslexia Awareness Month''.
Pages S7787-88
Measures Considered
Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act: Senate continued consideration of the motion to proceed to consideration of H.R. 5371, making continuing appropriations and extensions for fiscal year 2026.
Pages S7757-64
During consideration of this measure today, Senate also took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked on October 14, 2025.
Page S7763
Senate agreed to the motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked on October 14, 2025.
Page S7763
=========================== NOTE =========================== On page D1084, October 28, 2025, the following language appears
Measures Considered: Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act: Senate continued consideration of the motion to proceed to consideration of H.R. 5371, making continuing appropriations and extensions for fiscal year 2026.Pages S7757-64 During consideration of this measure today, Senate also took the following action: Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked on October 23, 2025.Page S7763 Senate agreed to the motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked on October 23, 2025.
Page S7763
The online Record has been corrected to read
Measures Considered: Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act: Senate continued consideration of the motion to proceed to consideration of H.R. 5371, making continuing appropriations and extensions for fiscal year 2026.
Pages S7757-64
During consideration of this measure today, Senate also took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked on October 14, 2025.
Page S7763
Senate agreed to the motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked on October 14, 2025.
Page S7763
========================= END NOTE ========================= By 54 yeas to 45 nays (Vote No. 590), three-fifths of those Senators duly chosen and sworn, not having voted in the affirmative, Senate upon reconsideration rejected the motion to close further debate on the motion to proceed to consideration of the bill. National Petroleum Reserve In Alaska Integrated Activity Plan Record Of Decision, Record Of Decision For The Barred Owl Management Strategy, LaCour, Jr.
Pages S7763-64
Nomination: Agreement
A unanimous-consent agreement was reached providing that on Wednesday, October 29, 2025, if Senator Sullivan makes a motion to proceed to consideration of S.J. Res. 80, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to ``National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Integrated Activity Plan Record of Decision'', Senate vote on the motion at 11:30 a.m.; and if agreed to, all time be deemed expired and Senate vote on passage no earlier than Thursday, October 30, 2025, and following the vote on the motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 80, Senate execute the order of October 28, 2025, in relation to the nomination of Edmund G. LaCour, Jr., of Alabama, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama; and that if Senator Kennedy makes a motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 69, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service relating to ``Record of Decision for the Barred Owl Management Strategy; Washington, Oregon, and California'', Senate vote on the motion at 2:15 p.m. 30LaCour, Jr. Nomination--Agreement: Senate resumed consideration of theur, J nomination of Edmund G. LaCour, Jr., of Alabama, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama. 90[D28OC5- 9]{D1084}During con During consideration of this nomination today, Senate also took the following action: By 53 yeas to 46 nays (Vote No. EX. 593), Senate agreed to the motion to close further debate on the nomination.
Page S7766
A unanimous-consent agreement was reached providing that notwithstanding Rule XXII, all post-cloture time be expired and Senate vote on confirmation of the nomination at a time to be determined by the Majority Leader, in consultation with the Democratic Leader, no earlier that Wednesday, October 29, 2025.
Page S7766
Dunlap Nomination: Cloture
Senate began consideration of the nomination of Joshua D. Dunlap, of Maine, to be United States Circuit Judge for the First Circuit.
Page S7779
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, October 30, 2025.
Page S7779
Prior to the consideration of this nomination, Senate took the following action
Senate agreed to the motion to proceed to Executive Session to consider the nomination.
Page S7779
Nomination Confirmed
Senate confirmed the following nomination: By 52 yeas to 47 nays (Vote No. EX. 592), Jordan Emery Pratt, of Florida, to be United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida.
Pages S7764-65, S7789
During consideration of this nomination today, Senate also took the following action
By 52 yeas to 47 nays (Vote No. 591), Senate agreed to the motion to close further debate on the nomination.
Page S7764
Nomination Discharged
The following nomination was discharged from further committee consideration and placed on the Executive Calendar: William Kirk, of Maryland, to be Inspector General, Small Business Administration, which was sent to the Senate on May 06, 2025, from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Page S7789
Measures Placed on the Calendar
Executive Communications:
Page S7783
Statements on Introduced Bills/Resolutions:
Pages S7786-87
Record Votes
Five record votes were taken today. (Total--594)
Pages S7764-66, S7778
Adjournment
Senate convened at 10 a.m. and adjourned at 7:17 p.m., until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, October 29, 2025. (For Senate's program, see the remarks of the Majority Leader in today's Record on page S7788.)
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: 50 of 158 spoken turns were found. Turns without a time are still listed; they just can't seek.
Mr. President, October is National Audiology Awareness Month. It also happens to be the 3-year anniversary of the bipartisan Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act regulations going into effect. You see this on television now--advertisements for the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act. Before this legislation was passed, there was a whole bunch of redtape you had to go through to buy very expensive hearing aids. Now they are more affordable.
While it took too many years for the Food and Drug Administration to issue these regulations following my bipartisan 2017 law, I am glad Americans now have access to safe, effective, and affordable hearing aids over the counter.
While we have known for years that hearing loss is a major factor in a person getting dementia, it wasn't until recently that we found out that accessing hearing aids can decrease the risk of cognitive decline by nearly half.
For many, purchasing hearing aids presents many questions. That is why accessing audiology services can be helpful.
To access audiology services, like a diagnostic test, under Medicare, a physician's order is required. That requires more time and a great number of hoops to jump through. I want people to know that I support cutting this unnecessary redtape. That is why I partnered with my colleagues to introduce legislation called the Medicare Audiology Access Improvement Act. Our bill will let seniors access a full range of hearing health services provided by licensed audiologists without the redtape.
During Audiology Awareness Month, Americans should be aware that they can access hearing aids over the counter, and Congress is working hard to improve access to those audiology services.
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.
That is from the president of the American Federation of Government Employees--a labor union, I would add, most often aligned with Democrats. But this is what AFGE's president says:
I couldn't have said it better myself, and actually I have been saying that for about a month now.
The far-left activists wanted a showdown with President Trump, and so Democrats have shut down the government and have forced hard-working Americans to live in uncertainty for 4 weeks--4 weeks and counting.
Even as nutrition programs are running out of money and Federal workers are lining up at food banks, Democrats continue--continue--to reject every opportunity to end the shutdown or mitigate its pain. They now blocked a clean, nonpartisan continuing resolution 12 times--12 times. A clean resolution is sitting right there to open up the government, get everybody paid, get Federal employees back to work. That thing sitting at the desk that funds the government doesn't have a single new Republican policy in it. It doesn't have a single partisan policy rider. It simply extends current government funding.
But Democrats have said no to that now 12 times. We offered them a chance to continue the bipartisan appropriations process starting with the Defense appropriations bill, a bill that passed out of the committee by a big bipartisan vote of 26 to 3. But Democrats said no to that too. They didn't want to lose leverage in a shutdown. Then, last week, we offered up a bill to pay any Federal employee who is working during the shutdown, including everybody here. Once again, Democrats said no.
I don't know what Democrats are holding out for. Do Democrats think that we are suddenly going to vote for their partisan CR, which, by the way, would spend an additional $1.5 trillion to keep the government open until the end of this week. That is their alternative--$1.5 trillion to keep the government open until Friday. That is their alternative. It wouldn't pass here; it can't pass in the House; and it wouldn't be signed into law by the President.
Our bill, on the other hand, passed the House a month ago. It has been sitting here for an entire month and would be signed by the President immediately to reopen the government.
I have to say, this wasn't my plan for the month of October. A government shutdown may have been what Democrats had in mind to show the far left that they are fighting President Trump and get some cheers at the No Kings rally. That wasn't my plan. My plan was to get the government funded with as little drama as possible. That is why Republicans put forward a clean continuing resolution, no partisan policies, nothing new. Who could possibly have a problem with that? It would give us more time to continue progress on full-year appropriations bills, the way we are supposed to fund the government.
I realize that would be out of the ordinary, given the past few years under the Democratic majority and Leader Schumer. But I was clear from the day I took office, I want to do things differently around here. My goal was to have an open process conducted through regular order, something that I think is in the best interest of this institution and of all Senators, both sides of the aisle. I know I was not alone in wanting an open process.
Until Democrats derailed everything, we had actually made a lot of progress on restoring regular order this year. We passed three bipartisan appropriations bills before the August recess, the first time the Senate had done that since 2018. Now we are trying to go to conference on those three bills to reach a final agreement with the House, and the Democrats are blocking that. That includes the Agriculture bill that funds farm programs and nutritional assistance, the Military Construction and VA bill that funds programs that veterans rely on.
As I said, we tried to bring up the Defense appropriations bill this month in hopes that if Democrats wouldn't agree to fund the entire government, we could, at least, make some progress on this critical aspect of it.
I told my Democrat colleagues at the time, if we got on that bill, we would work to add other bipartisan bills, the same way we did it just a few months ago. But once again, Democrats said no--no to funding programs they claim they support, no to an open process, no to bipartisanship. Time and again, we heard the Democratic leader lecture about bipartisanship. So why is his caucus blocking progress on bipartisan appropriations bills? Why are Democrats blocking bills that they helped write in the Appropriations Committee where these bills are passing with overwhelming bipartisan margins, as I said, 26 to 3? Why are they upending a bipartisan process that benefits all Senators on both sides of the aisle?
The senior Senator from Hawaii said recently:
All I can say in response is if Democrats still have hope for the appropriations process, they need to start acting like it. We are running out of time. Every day Democrats say no to reopening the government is another day lost.
We have given Democrats a lot of opportunities to work in the best interest of the American people. But Democrats seem more interested in getting the upper hand in their partisan games. The No. 2 Democrat in the House said last week:
``Of course there will be families that are going to suffer . . . but it is one of the few leverage times we have.'' That from the second ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives. I think it describes where we are at. Sure, people are suffering, but Democrats need their leverage.
Are they serious?
Mr. President, I end as I began, quoting the president of a major labor union and a Democrat ally:
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, open enrollment is now 4 days away, and Republicans do not even want to talk about fixing healthcare.
Americans are on the brink of a healthcare crisis unlike we have seen in our lifetimes. Never before have we been in a situation where more than 20 million Americans can see their insurance premiums more than double, on average, in the blink of an eye. That is just the average because for many people it is worse.
Yesterday, the State of New Jersey also announced the average New Jersey family would see premium hikes of 175 percent--175 percent. In Upstate New York, the average family with a plan costing $280 a month today is about to pay $1,700 a month for the same plan next year, a 500-percent hike, and that starts this Saturday with open enrollment.
This crisis will be felt in every community and by nearly every single household, red, blue, purple, and everything in between. So tonight, Senate Democrats will come to the floor and warn our Republican colleagues and the Nation of the devastation Republicans are causing by doing nothing--nothing--on healthcare. We will highlight the impacts of surging premiums on families. We will share the stories we are hearing right now from people scared of premium hikes. I thank my colleagues for coming to the floor and speaking on this urgent-- urgent--issue.
We are in a healthcare crisis, and Republicans don't even want to talk about how to fix it. The President isn't even in town as Americans are about to be devastated by the bills they will receive on healthcare. The President is on the other side of the world instead of being here in Washington working with Congress to lower healthcare premiums. When the President is in town, what is he focused on? Instead of being focused on fixing healthcare, Donald Trump is sending $40 billion to Argentina, spending $300 million on his ballroom, and giving Kristi Noem $170 million for two big private luxury jets.
Meanwhile, millions of hungry kids and working families are about to lose SNAP benefits to buy food because Donald Trump has ordered the Department of Agriculture to rip up its own
Let's be clear about the facts. There is somewhere around $5 billion in emergency funds that could be used right now to ensure parents and kids don't go hungry when SNAP runs out this Saturday. The USDA said weeks ago that contingency funds were ``available to fund participant benefits.'' That is the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Trump's own Cabinet position. But now, they reversed course and literally wiped their plan from their own website because Donald Trump has ordered them not to use this funding. Donald Trump should reverse course immediately and allow these emergency funds to go through to spare working families from hunger and needless suffering.
What the administration is doing in ordering the U.S. Department of Agriculture not to use emergency funds to keep SNAP afloat is an act of cruelty--cruelty. The same administration that gifted Argentina a $40 billion bailout and cut taxes for billionaires by $1 trillion is now telling hungry kids: You are on your own.
And what about Republicans in Congress? Today, Leader Thune will force yet another vote on a Republican CR that has zero bipartisan input. It is a partisan bill, and most importantly, it does nothing to solve the ACA crisis.
Just now, here on the floor, the Republican leader seemed perplexed about what precisely it is that Democrats are pushing for. He knows damned well what Democrats want. It is the very same thing that a vast majority of Americans want, including nearly 60 percent of MAGA voters. We want lower healthcare costs now. We want to solve the ACA premium crisis now. Open enrollment is just days away. We want lower costs, better healthcare, and to reopen the government.
Let me repeat again what Democrats want so that the Republican leader can hear it. We want lower healthcare costs, to fix the ACA premium crisis, and to reopen the government.
We Democrats have been calling on Republican leaders to sit down with us and negotiate and address this crisis since the summer, but even now, Leader Thune insists we should fix ACA premiums later, not right away. This is not good enough for the American people because Americans know that when it comes to healthcare, when Republicans say ``later,'' they mean ``never.''
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has become a ghost town. It has been 39 days since Members of Congress have shown up for work. We all know what is going on here: Speaker Johnson is simply afraid to bring the House back because the minute he does, a good number of House Republicans will start saying exactly what many of us are calling for-- that we need to address the ACA premium crisis as soon as we can. The Speaker is so afraid of exposing divisions within his own conference that he has unilaterally shut down one half of the legislative branch of government.
To sum it all up, we are just days away from a healthcare crisis unlike any we have ever seen, and Republicans from the Senate, to the House, to the White House are dithering about. Republicans are the party in charge. They hold the White House and both Chambers in Congress. Americans know that. They know the onus is on the majority party to govern and to work with the other side to get things done. But today, Americans look at this Republican Party and see a majority refusing to do its job. It is no surprise that Americans primarily hold the Republicans responsible for this disastrous shutdown.
So I will say it once again: Republicans need to get serious about ending this shutdown and ending the ACA crisis that has now become a reality for millions of people. They need to get serious. If Donald Trump continues to ignore the ticking time bomb that is ACA premiums, the American people will hold him responsible when disaster strikes.
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, today marks day 28 of the Schumer shutdown of the U.S. Government. Democrats continue to block a clean continuing resolution that would reopen the government. For them, it is a big game, and for the American people, they continue to suffer.
So listen to his own words. Listen to what Senator Schumer said, what he gloated to the press. He said:
I have got to wonder who the ``us'' is because it is not the American people.
Then, just last week, the Democrat whip in the House of Representatives said to the press, in an interview that was broadcast on television--proudly proclaimed, it looked like:
Leverage?
The Democrats are playing the politics of pain, and the American people are the ones who are suffering. It is wrong. It is heartless. It is mean.
Leverage for what--taxpayer giveaways of healthcare, funded by the taxpayers, to illegal immigrants who stormed into this country in the last administration? Is that why they are shutting down the government?
Leverage for that? Leverage for $1.5 trillion in new spending?
Leverage so they can eliminate the one thing that we passed this summer to help our rural hospitals--$50 billion for rural hospitals, remote hospitals like those that we have all across the country? They want to get rid of that? Leverage for that?
Leverage so they can continue to suck up to the far-left, radical wing of their party they are trying to impress? That is not good for our country. It is not good for healthcare. It is not good for anything.
I am a doctor. I have practiced medicine in Wyoming for 24 years. I want Americans to have high-quality, affordable healthcare. That is what we want for American citizens, but right now, that is impossible because American healthcare is broken. The Democrats broke it. They broke it when they passed ObamaCare. The day they passed ObamaCare, they broke healthcare in America.
The headline in the Sunday New York Times proves the point in its first three words: ``ObamaCare is pricey.''
That is what they have done.
They said: Oh, we want to lower the cost of care.
They didn't. They misnamed it and put the word ``affordable'' in it, but there is nothing affordable about it. ObamaCare has been pricey from the beginning, and it is getting worse.
The Washington Post's editorial page agrees. They wrote recently:
That is the Washington Post. They are right.
ObamaCare is a failed program. It has failed financially. The Democrats created it, and they continue to defend the failure today.
The Democrats tried to prop up ObamaCare with very juicy subsidies to try to hold down out-of-pocket costs. Then, when Joe Biden became President, the Democrats added Biden COVID bonus payments on top of all of the subsidies. These payments are an admission that ObamaCare's flaws have only gotten worse.
Democrats voted twice to make these Biden COVID bonus payments temporary. The first was scheduled to end in 2022, but they noted that ObamaCare was still failing miserably, so they extended the payments again. They extended them to the end of this year. Democrats set the expiration date. Democrats created the cliff. Democrats created what they are now referring to as a ``crisis.''
Remember, Democrats created ObamaCare, and they created these Biden COVID bonus payments, and they did it without a single Republican vote--not in the House, not in the Senate--not a single one.
These payments were always intended to be temporary--or so they claimed. Democrats' own report that they wrote back then when they passed it said they were to be applied ``during the public health emergency.''
Today, Democrats are now demanding $350 billion in permanent, new spending. Why? Because they need to prop up ObamaCare once again because it has failed. When the Democrats say ``Fix it now,'' what they are really saying is ``Prop up ObamaCare forever.'' It is wrong. COVID is over. Democrats probably didn't see the memo. Maybe they don't realize it is over. They are still trying to go after money for COVID.
Look, even after the Biden COVID bonus payments expire, the Federal Government is still going to pay for 80 percent of the average ObamaCare enrollee's premium because ObamaCare is pricey. That is what the New York Times tells us. What is expiring now is this added cash that Democrats paid insurers during the pandemic. Money didn't go to private individuals. It didn't go to the citizens. It went to the insurance companies. They won't tell you that either.
These Biden COVID bonus payments are riddled with waste, fraud, abuse, and actual corruption. Democrats removed every income limit on the subsidies, with no means testing whatsoever.
You hear Bernie Sanders come out to the floor and say: Oh, we can't do this for millionaires and billionaires.
They did it for millionaires and billionaires. They removed the upper limit. It is for anybody. The sky is the limit. No matter how much money you make, no matter what is going on in your life, you get these bonus payments for COVID through the Democrats, and they want to make it permanent. It is absolutely wrong. It is ridiculous.
In 2024, 12 million people whom they enrolled in this program got insurance that they never used. Since the subsidies flowed directly to the insurance companies from the government, the insurers pocketed tens of billions of dollars even though the enrollees did not make a single claim. How does that happen?
Let me talk about some of the waste and some of the actual fraud and manipulation that is going on, because in 29 States of our 50, more people are claiming full benefits than are eligible for those benefits in the State.
How did the Democrats allow that for the last 4 years? That is what we are trying to take a look at and are saying: Mr. President, this is wrong.
There were 6.4 million people under the Biden administration who were improperly enrolled that year, and $27 billion was paid by hard-working taxpayers for all of these people who were improperly enrolled. At least 1.6 million people were doubly enrolled--enrolled in both Medicaid and in ObamaCare--which, of course, is not allowed. It is illegal. You can't do it. Democrats allowed it to happen anyway because they don't care.
They have never shown they care. It is all a political game for them. You heard it. You heard the whip in the House say: Oh, no; this gives us leverage. You heard the minority leader here, Chuck Schumer, say that every day gets better for them. Well, it doesn't get better for the American people.
This isn't about making healthcare more affordable; this is a direct theft of taxpayer money, and it is all to prop up a program that they named after President Obama--ObamaCare--and it is a program that never worked. Healthcare costs continue to go up, and ObamaCare has failed to address that. As even the New York Times said on Sunday, ObamaCare is pricey.
So what caused those prices to go up? Well, Democrats did, of course. When the government pays any price, insurers can charge any price. It is exactly what is happening today, and now it is the American families who are paying their taxes who are paying the price.
Republicans will not allow Democrats to paper over the inadequacies of ObamaCare. We want to get to the root cause of the cost of medical care.
Democrats are protecting waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption. At the same time, Federal workers are going unpaid. Enough is enough.
Even liberal labor unions are fed up with the Democrats' politics of pain, and we have seen it. Finally, yesterday, the American Federation of Government Employees urged Democrats to join Republicans and reopen the government.
What exactly did they say?
They said:
And then they went on to say:
That is from the union that has, for years and years and years, supported Democrat candidates across the board. They are saying: Do what Republicans have been saying from the beginning. Pass a clean continuing resolution.
Remember, they did it 13 times when Joe Biden was President, and now they voted against it 13 times with Donald Trump in the White House.
It is a big political game for the Democrats. It is a dangerous game, and the American people are suffering.
So are the Democrats going to listen to the union that represented and worked with the Democrats to get them elected in the first place?
Well, we are going to find out.
Let me echo what Leader Thune said: Republicans are happy to address ObamaCare's many failures, but, first, we need to reopen the government.
There are not going to be negotiations while the government is closed. We are not going to negotiate with hostage takers. We need to reopen the government and then talk about all the things that people want to talk about, because, right now, our troops and women, infants, and children in the Women, Infants, and Children Program--they shouldn't be used as leverage for Democrats to try to save their failed programs.
Air traffic controllers, TSA agents, whom I talked to yesterday coming from Wyoming to come back to Washington--they don't want to be used as pawns. They don't want to be thought of as chips on the table in a political game of leverage.
Chuck Schumer saying ``Every day gets better for us''--that is wrong. The American people deserve better.
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, the President of the United States says that the United States is at war. In the past 7 weeks, President Trump has ordered U.S. forces to take military action to destroy 10 boats in international waters. That has resulted in the death of more than 40 possible drug couriers.
President Trump has also told Congress he is determined that the United States is at war with what he calls ``narcoterrorists.'' He has also said that he is taking steps to escalate military action against Venezuela and Colombia. And, of course, he is sending U.S. warships, fighter planes, and special forces to their coasts. And he is also openly tossing around threats of airstrikes against targets in the sea and on land.
The questions before us, as the U.S. Senate, are clear, and they are urgent: Are the President's actions steering the American people into yet another undeclared war, and would it be legal for the President to expand this war to the sovereign territories of countries in South America, as he is now threatening to do?
The clear answer is no, that this President--no President--has the legal authority, without congressional authorization, to take America into military conflict.
There have been no credible legal experts who have defended the President's actions, with one exception, and, of course, that is the Attorney General, who has provided an opinion to the President--we are told, but we have not seen--that what he is doing is legal.
That is without precedent. It is without precedent for the top legal official in this country to give an opinion that it is legal to go to war without congressional authorization. But it is
The President, of course, seems to be basing the legality of these actions on the declaration that drug traffickers are terrorists. We all hate what the drug traffickers do, but it is also based on that legal opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, that we are told gives legal cover for the President to do what is clearly beyond the authority of the Chief Executive. We know nothing about that opinion in this body, and all who have called for it to be released are doing the right thing.
We know that under the U.S. Constitution, the President does not have authority to start a war without congressional authorization. It is an article I responsibility of the Congress of the United States, and there is a reason for that, that is so very important.
If we are going to ask--with the authority of Congress and the Executive--men and women to go to war on behalf of defending our country, that profoundly important decision that is being made by Congress but is putting in harm's way the men and women who serve in the military, there should be a debate, and there should be a vote; there should be responsibility, and there should be accountability.
And simply determination by the President that he is attacking a group of what he calls terrorists--``narco-terrorists''--does not, by itself, make it legal under the Constitution.
You know, some people may say: What is the big deal? These are bad folks. Drugs are terrible.
We all agree with that, but it is not up to the President to determine whether we go to war. It is up to Congress: Should we be going to war with Venezuela?
All of us are on board, Republicans and Democrats, with the fight against narcotics, illegal drugs, fentanyl, in particular, which mostly enter the United States through Mexico and on the Pacific Ocean, and are wreaking havoc on our communities.
It has happened in Vermont as well as West Virginia, Idaho, Florida, Montana, and every other State. Our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers are struggling with addiction and dying from overdose.
So yes, this is a very serious problem, and we should be doing far more to deal with treating addiction in our own country, bolstering our local police forces, our mental health resources, and working with source countries to stop the production and transshipment of these dangerous drugs.
This has not been a partisan issue. In fact, it was an issue where, when I served in the House, there was a Republican and Democratic collective action to provide treatment that is providing real-world help in realtime to folks in your State and in mine.
But laws matter, and the Constitution matters. If the President does want to start a war, if he wants to put America's troops in harm's way, he needs to seek authorization from Congress.
As my colleagues and I know too well, the United States has a very unfortunate history of wars--forever wars--started by Presidents who misrepresented the facts; from the USS Maine incident used to justify the war against Spain to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution incident to justify the Vietnam war--60,000 young Americans killed--to President Bush's stretching of the facts about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction to launch a disastrous forever war.
In each of these cases, majorities of our predecessors on this very Senate floor abdicated their responsibility to question the President's intentions and justifications for war.
That is why I hope that each of my colleagues--each of us here--will join me in questioning the President's legal basis to carry out these killings and to potentially launch attacks against one or more South American countries. We should demand that Congress assert its constitutional obligation to determine where and why the United States goes to war.
You know, as I mentioned, we all hate the scourge of drugs. But why are we spending billions of dollars in this effort in Venezuela while at the same time taking funding away for treatment programs here at home that actually have been proven effective to help the most vulnerable Americans that are actually struggling with addiction to fentanyl and other drugs?
The Department of Justice has also diverted thousands of Drug Enforcement Administration funds and other law enforcement personnel from their critical missions to carry out the President's immigration agenda. Yet the Department has inexplicably shut down the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force, which has been effective in dismantling thousands of criminal organizations, and, unilaterally, the administration has terminated hundreds of grants that do provide critical funding to State and local law enforcement, folks on the ground in the community helping folks who are struggling with addiction and helping law enforcement get to the sellers of those terrible drugs.
In fact, the administration's fiscal year 2026 budget would slash the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program by more than a third from $298 million to $196 million. And under the direction of Attorney General Bondi, Federal drug prosecutions--I have no idea how this happened--but Federal drug prosecutions have dropped to the lowest level in decades, a fact I find shocking.
So when the President claims his new war is about protecting America from drugs, it is a fair question: Why are we doing so little? Why are we taking money away from treatment? Why are we taking money away from high intensity drug enforcement? Why are we not prosecuting more, instead prosecuting so much less?
It is up to the Senate to do its job. We have seen from history that our failure to assert our constitutional responsibility to decide whether to send our military to war has resulted in grievous suffering for the American people and a weakening of our national security.
In asserting our responsibility, at the bare minimum, this U.S. Senate should demand--should demand--to see Attorney General Bondi's legal analysis that the President has used to justify his use of the U.S. military to engage in these attacks.
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about two bills I recently introduced to shut down Sharia law in this country. I ruffled some feathers a few weeks ago when I came to the Senate floor to talk about what I believe is the greatest national security threat facing the United States of America: radical Islam and Sharia law.
The Democrats and the mainstream media, they have been coming after me ever since I started talking about this subject. But after spending 40 years coaching, I don't really care what people think about me. I love this country, and I want to save this country for our kids and our grandkids.
I was back in Alabama, and I heard from countless Alabamans who told me they are 100 percent behind what I am talking about. At the end of the day, I work for the great people of Alabama and the great people of this country, not the pearl-clutching media that is out there hammering me every day.
Speaking of Alabama, I am proud that the Yellowhammer State banned Sharia law a long time ago. For too long, people have been afraid to call out radical Islam for what it is because if you dare--if you dare to speak out--the left will come after you, your family, your reputation, and your job. They will try to ruin your life just because they disagree with you. That is how they play the game.
One of the radical left's go-to tactics is to accuse anyone--anyone-- who disagrees with them of being a racist, a bigot, or intolerant. They tried that with me, calling me an Islamophobe for calling out the evils of Islam. But there is only one problem with that strategy--one. Radical Islam isn't a race; it is an ideology. It is a choice, and I would argue it is a cult.
So, no, I am not an Islamophobe. If you want to peacefully practice your religion, that is fine with me. That is what our Constitution gives you the right to do. Our Constitution gives you that right, and that is why we have millions--millions--of Christians, Jews, Mormons, Hindus, Buddhists, and peaceful Muslims, who worship freely
But if you come here, you are expected to assimilate into our country and our values.
I recently saw a stat that absolutely shocked me. We have 42 million people in this country that are on food stamps--42 million. You would think these people are just Americans who have fallen on hard times, which is whom the program is for. But a disproportionate amount of these 42 million people are immigrants; 45 percent of Afghanistan immigrants are on food stamps; 42 of the Somalian immigrants are on food stamps; and 59 percent of all illegal aliens are collecting food stamps--59 percent.
So, clearly, these people are not coming here and assimilating into our American way of life by working hard and taking care of your family--what an idea. They are coming here to mooch off the American taxpayer. It is wrong, and we need to call it out.
But beyond the taxpayer concerns, this religion is also fundamentally incompatible with our Western values, so wake up America.
The Quran instructs Islamists to fight Jews and Christians, along with anyone else who doesn't believe in Allah. Simply put, radical Islam teaches that it is righteous to kill Christians. It is righteous. There is no peaceful coexistence with this type of people, none.
Just look at the Middle East and North Africa, where Christians and Jews are being slaughtered by the thousands.
Where is our media? Where are they at?
More than 7,000 Christians have been slaughtered by radical Muslims in Nigeria so far this year--7,000. That is 35 people that have been killed every day this year.
Where is the mainstream media? How come they are not talking about that?
Radical Islam demands complete obedience--complete, 100 percent--and will kill you if you dare to speak out against their beliefs and ideologies.
This isn't anything new. Muslims have been fighting to wipe out Christians and Jews for centuries. But now the problem isn't just confined to the faraway Middle East. It is happening right here in our backyard, in the 50 States.
We are already seeing cities in Michigan and Minnesota being taken over by Sharia law. In Dearborn, MI, a Christian pastor recently protested after a street was named after a radical Islamic terrorist. The pastor just complained about it. In response, the Muslim mayor of Dearborn told the pastor that he is no longer welcome in the town and will celebrate the day he leaves.
Think about that. A Christian pastor is being silenced here in America for objecting to a taxpayer-funded road being named after a terrorist.
We are losing.
Or take what has been happening in Minneapolis, MN, which has seen a massive influx of Somalians moving into their neighborhoods.
I recently saw a story that absolutely shocked me. More than 75 Somalians have been arrested in a massive scheme where they stole $300 million from an American taxpayer-funded child nutrition program--$300 million.
So these Somalian criminals came to Minneapolis, they took advantage of our free schools and our free healthcare, and then they stole $300 million from American taxpayers, right under our noses. Where is the media? Where is the outrage?
And where did this money go? Where do you think it went? You guessed it: It went back to Somalia.
It is disgusting, and these people should be deported, if not jailed for life.
In case you are still unclear about the dangers we are facing, here are a few reasons why Sharia law does not work in a Western society like the United States. In America, we value free speech. The U.S. Constitution gives us that right. The First Amendment is what makes this country, America, great. You are allowed to express your opinions publicly, without fear of the government arresting you or killing you.
But under Sharia law--under Sharia law--any criticism that goes against what Muhammad or the Quran says can be punishable by death.
Further, under the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment, equal rights for people of all faiths are protected. Western culture treats everyone equal, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Under Sharia Law, if you are not a Muslim, you are treated as the enemy. Radical Islam says you can discriminate against and even be violent toward non-Muslims. We see that happening now in Europe, where non-Muslims are being violently attacked every day, all over Europe. It is because Sharia law not only accepts but encourages this type of disgusting behavior.
Another major difference between Islam and our Western culture is the way we treat women. In the United States, marriage happens when a man and woman mutually decide that they want to get married and be with each other. But under Sharia law, older men are allowed to marry 6- year-old girls, which is unbelievable. Six years old--that is not marriage. In America, we call that pedophilia.
But that is just scraping the surface.
In Sharia Law, women are sold, raped, trafficked. It is no problem to them. That is their way of life.
Women are not allowed to get an education or have a job. They aren't even allowed to leave home without a man escorting them. And women are forced to wear burqas, which cover basically everything but their eyes.
Meanwhile, men are allowed to have multiple wives, marry children, and do not have to cover their heads.
It makes your blood boil, not to mention the horrible way that minorities are treated in countries that follow Sharia law. There is no tolerance in these countries. If you live in a country that practices Sharia law and are not Muslim, you are lucky if you aren't thrown in jail or killed. That is because Islam and Sharia law teach that you must hate non-Muslims and should wage jihad, which literally means holy war, against people who do not believe.
One thing I find particularly ironic is how the left turns a blind eye to the horrible ways LGBT people are treated in countries that follow Sharia law. In countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, gay people are often given the death penalty.
Does that sound like a peaceful, tolerant religion to you? Not me.
Unfortunately, this religion, which I think is closer to a cult, is rapidly growing in this country. Wake up, America.
Look no further than New York, where radical Islamist Zohran Mamdani is the frontrunner to become the next mayor. Mamdani has tried everything he can do to hide his radical Islamic beliefs, ever since he started campaigning. But he was recently seen in a photo with a coconspirator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Think about that. And they are getting ready to elect him mayor. The leading candidate for mayor of New York City is cozying up with an openly jihadist terrorist sympathizer. Where are we going?
If New Yorkers are stupid enough to elect a radical Islamist as their mayor, then they deserve what they get next. And it is coming.
I truly believe we are at a crossroads in this country. The time for political correctness is over, that is why I have introduced two bills in the Senate to end Sharia law in this country--end it.
The first one is the No Sharia Act, which makes it illegal to practice Sharia law when it conflicts with our constitution.
As I have repeatedly said, the radical Islam cult is the opposite of everything--I mean everything--that we stand for in America.
The second bill I introduced, the Preserving a Sharia Free America Act, prevents all foreign nationals who advocate for Sharia law from entering this country--no more. If you want to practice that, stay where you are at or go to one of the other 50 countries that practices this.
The Trump administration banned people from nearly 50 Muslim countries during the first administration. And thanks to Joe Biden's 4 years of open borders, we now have thousands--I mean thousands--of terrorists and their sympathizers who entered our country unchecked-- how stupid was that.
We have to shut off the spigot before it is too late. This is a major national security threat. Radical Islamists have proven, over and over again, that they
So now is the time to act, because if we don't, we are going to lose this country as we know it. Open your eyes, America. The values this country was built on cannot coexist with radical Islam. It doesn't work.
It is one, our Constitution, or the other. You can't mix it. This isn't a Republican or Democrat issue. This is an American issue. Just look at Europe. We are headed down the same dark path as what Europe is going through now if we don't wake up.
We need to permanently shut down Sharia law in this country before it is too late. Wake up, America.
Mr. President, Nevadans work hard for their money--really hard--especially right now, when they are being squeezed by rising costs as a result of Trump's chaos and his reckless economic policies.
Nevadans pay taxes with the expectation that the Federal Government is going to work for them and provide critical services when they need it--services that are shamefully being disrupted by the Republican government shutdown. Instead, their taxpayer dollars are being wasted on gold-plated dinners at the White House, two--count them, two-- private jets for Kristi Noem, and, unbelievably, a potentially multimillion-dollar illegal payment to Donald Trump.
So you heard that right. In the middle of a government shutdown that he caused because he refuses to take action to prevent a spike in your healthcare costs, Donald Trump is seeking $230 million in payment from the Department of Justice. For whom? Well, for himself.
He is going to use your money to pad his own pockets, instead of working with Democrats to take action to make sure that you and your family can go to the doctor without breaking the bank.
Trump has even acknowledged that ``it's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself.''
And I want to go one step further. It is not just ``strange.'' It is outrageous.
Mr. President, $230 million--all while families are worried about paying their bills, putting food on the table, and wondering if they will be able to afford their health insurance for next year.
Instead of paying himself, why doesn't Trump put that money toward SNAP benefits, since his administration has decided to renege on its promise to provide the funding to prevent Americans from going hungry? The President has the power to do this.
So, today, I am introducing a resolution condemning Donald Trump's decision to pay and enrich himself with your tax dollars. You got that right. He is going to pay to enrich himself nearly a quarter of a million dollars--from Donald Trump to Donald Trump--off the backs of the American taxpayer.
And if my Republican colleagues--who like to stand up here and talk all about cutting costs, cutting wasteful spending--if they want to practice what they preach, they will support my resolution. They will stand up to Donald Trump and say, finally--finally--with the gold- plated dinners and the ballrooms, et cetera, that enough is enough, and it is time to put the American people first.
So let's show the American people that at least this Chamber still knows the difference between serving the public and serving yourself.
So let's pass my resolution right now, today. We can do it.
So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 470, which is at the desk. Further, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object, today is day 28 of the Democrat shutdown--a shutdown caused by the Democrats' complete blind hatred--complete hatred--of Donald Trump. They are spending more time attacking President Trump than fighting for the American people, who are harmed by their shutdown.
Democrats have voted for weeks to deprive our men and women in the military of getting their paychecks. They are stopping Capitol Police, Federal law enforcement, air traffic controllers, and essential Federal employees from getting paid.
In just a few days, 42 million people receiving SNAP benefits may not get the benefits they rely on because the Democrats will not support the continuing resolution that most of us don't like.
It is the Biden funding.
Further, my Democrat colleagues are willing to do anything they can to attack President Trump instead of voting to reopen the government and stop this recklessness.
The American people are sick of the political games at their expense, and so am I; therefore, I object.
This is extremely disappointing. By blocking my resolution, Washington Republicans are saying that they approve of Donald Trump paying himself a multimillion-dollar settlement using taxpayer dollars.
Millions of Americans are missing their paychecks, worrying about paying their bills, losing their SNAP benefits, and wondering if they are going to be able to afford their health insurance next year.
My Republican colleagues have lost their way and should be ashamed of themselves for standing up and allowing this lawlessness to happen. Like I said, my Republican colleagues like to stand up here and talk about cutting wasteful spending. This $230 million, I would argue, is exactly that. So if they wanted to practice what they preach, they would actually support my resolution, stand up to this wasteful spending of the President, again, approving himself to pay himself nearly a quarter of a million dollars, and we can show the American people that all of us know the difference between serving the public and serving just one individual--President Trump.
If my Democrat colleagues want to make sure people are not being harmed by losing SNAP benefits or going without paychecks while they show up to work day after day, then they would vote to reopen government. Unfortunately, they have elected to not do that.
So I hope my Democrat colleagues will come to their senses and vote this week to reopen the government.
Mr. President, I move to reconsider the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 5371.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative 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 motion to proceed to H.R. 5371, a bill making continuing appropriations and extensions for fiscal year 2026, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close, upon reconsideration?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The bill 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 Jordan Emery Pratt, of Florida, to be United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida, shall be brought to a close?
Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Jordan Pratt to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Judge Pratt has repeatedly demonstrated his partisanship and extreme views over the course of his career. While working in the Florida Department of Legal Affairs, he argued in support of restrictions on abortion rights and voting rights.
He later worked for the first Trump administration and a far-right legal organization, First Liberty Institute. In his role at First Liberty, Judge Pratt belittled abortion rights, opposed transgender rights, and argued against firearms restrictions. During his tenure with First Liberty, the organization was a member of the advisory board of Project 2025. Judge Pratt participated in meetings regarding Project 2025 and provided research as part of that effort.
My colleagues may claim that Judge Pratt did these things during his time as an advocate and that he understands the difference between the role of an advocate and the role of a judge.
However, following his appointment to the State bench in 2023, Judge Pratt continued to act in a fashion more befitting a political activist than an even-handed arbiter of the law. Earlier this year, he wrote an opinion in which he held that a Florida law allowing minors to seek abortions without parental consent was unconstitutional. In commenting on Judge Pratt's opinion, one lawyer said that ``[j]udicial overreach doesn't even begin to describe it.''
We do not need to wonder how this nominee will rule if he is confirmed to the Federal bench. We already know. Like other judicial nominees put forth by President Trump, Judge Pratt has strong ties to rightwing organizations. He is an active member of the Federalist Society, and he has stated his intention to remain affiliated with the Federalist Society if he is confirmed to the Federal bench.
Judge Pratt's record clearly reflects a level of partisan ideology and judicial activism that is inappropriate for someone nominated to a lifetime position on the Federal bench.
I will oppose Judge Pratt's nomination, and I urge my colleagues to join me.
Madam President, on October 1, critical cyber security protections expired, and, as a result of that, our Nation is now more vulnerable to cyber attacks than ever before. For nearly a decade, businesses and government Agencies have been able to rely on these authorities to share information about cyber attacks and help prevent them from becoming more widespread.
That is why I introduced the bipartisan Protecting America from Cyber Threats Act with Senator Rounds to restore these vital protections. A broad coalition of nearly 80 stakeholders, from healthcare and financial services to energy and utilities, to transportation and technology, support passing this legislation to ensure that they can continue voluntarily sharing information about cyber security threats with the Federal Government.
Here is what a few of them had to say.
The Business Software Alliance said we need to pass this legislation quickly, arguing that ``further delays in renewing this program will only serve to entrench information-sharing silos between government and industry and needlessly set back United States' over all cybersecurity posture.''
The Connected Health Initiative said:
The CEO of USTelecom said:
The American Bankers Association said:
Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has weighed in and said:
The Alliance of Automotive Information has said:
The National Association of Manufacturers said:
Bottom line: These are just a few of the leaders across key industries who are calling for us to pass this legislation immediately--today. This is about protecting the systems that power our homes and connect our families and keep our economy running. It is about giving our cyber defenders the tools that they need to act fast and to act smart.
Our adversaries are not going to stop their attacks. But without this law in place, many of our Nation's companies and critical infrastructure will be in the dark as they try to defend themselves.
I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation today so we can protect our economy and our entire Nation from the threats of cyber attacks.
As if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 182, S. 2983; that the Peters substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Iowa (Ms. Ernst).
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 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. 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 Edmund G. LaCour, Jr., of Alabama, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, 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.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that, notwithstanding rule XXII, all postcloture time be expired and the Senate vote on the confirmation of the LaCour nomination at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader, no earlier than Wednesday, October 29; further, that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
I ask the Chair to execute the order of October 7 with respect to S.J. Res. 81.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will resume legislative session, and the Committee on Finance is discharged of S.J. Res. 81, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Thereupon, the committee was discharged and the Senate proceeded to consideration of the joint resolution.
Mr. President, I rise today to talk about my Sunshine Protection Act--a bipartisan, bicameral bill that returns power to each State and its citizens and that will end the twice-yearly time change and make daylight saving time the national, year-round standard.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the Sunshine Protection Act, which is at the desk; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
Mr. President, I do object to the legislation, and I will outline my reasons a bit more later. But I defer to my good friends from Florida, Alabama, and Rhode Island to speak on behalf of that bill before I explain my opposition.
Mr. President, each November, we fall back into darkness very literally. If we pass my Sunshine Protection Act and make daylight saving time permanent, we would gain an hour of afternoon sunlight in the winter months for families to soak up after work and after school.
This measure has been so bipartisan that it has previously passed this body by unanimous consent.
Here is what President Trump said about it:
My cosponsor before Senator Scott came here was his predecessor from Florida, Senator Rubio, who is now our Secretary of State, who said that we should ``stop enduring the ridiculous and antiquated practice of switching our clocks back and forth. Let's . . . end the need to `fall back' and `spring forward' for good.''
I don't always agree with President Trump and with former-Senator, now-Secretary Rubio, but I sure do agree about this.
Mr. President, I come to the floor today to once again talk about the outdated practice of changing our clocks twice a year.
This weekend, my constituents back home in Alabama and across America will be forced to change their clocks. As a result, it will be dark in Washington, DC, at 5 p.m. next week. In the 5 years I have served here in the Senate, making daylight saving time permanent is the No. 1 issue that I hear about back home.
I am proud to have joined my colleague Rick Scott earlier this year in reintroducing the Sunshine Protection Act to make daylight saving time permanent on the Federal level. Unfortunately, it hasn't been brought to the floor for a vote. So here I am advocating once again to make the outdated practice of changing our clock a thing of the past.
For nearly 60 years, Americans have changed their clocks back and forth twice a year, but the roots of daylight saving time trace back much further. Daylight saving time was introduced during World War I and then reused again during World War II as a temporary way to help conserve fuel and energy. Following the ends of both wars, the decision to spring forward and fall back was returned to individual States. It wasn't until 1966 that the system of changing our clocks twice a year that we use now was made permanent.
Changing our clocks twice a year might have made sense in the 1960s, but it doesn't make sense anymore. The twice-a-year time change doesn't make sense today.
We know the devastating impact the disruption from so-called standard time has on Americans' health. Studies have suggested that disruption of sleep patterns due to time changes increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and physical injury. Northwestern Medicine found that ``fall back'' and ``spring forward'' are connected to a 6-percent spike in fatal car accidents and a 24-percent higher risk of heart attacks. Think about that. Additionally, the long-term health effects linked to changing our clocks include weight gain, cluster headaches, and depression. You would think we would listen to all of that.
The bottom line is that shifting our clocks disrupts sleep patterns, and it has been proven time and time again to be harmful to our health.
Thanks to R.F.K., Jr.'s, great work at HHS, a lot of Americans are taking
For that reason, I push back and try to get this on the floor sooner rather than later.
I want to thank Senators Whitehouse and Tuberville for their support.
Our Sunshine Protection Act is a bipartisan, bicameral bill that will allow States to end the twice-yearly time change and make daylight saving time the national, year-round standard.
In 2018, when I was Governor of Florida, I signed legislation that would allow the State of Florida to stop the practice of changing the clocks. I have been working to get this passed since I have been in the Senate so the people of Florida, not the Federal Government, can make this choice for the families of Florida.
Nearly two dozen other States have joined Florida in choosing to lock the clock, pending the Federal approval that will come by passing the Sunshine Protection Act, while still allowing other States to opt out if they wish.
This bill is about States' rights. It allows the people of each State to choose what best fits their needs and the needs of their families. In Florida, that is permanent daylight saving time. I hear from Floridians on this constantly. I am sure many of you have heard from your constituents as well. The American people are sick and tired of changing their clocks twice a year. It is confusing, unnecessary, and completely outdated.
It is an understatement to say that our Nation has changed since the United States began changing the clocks over a century ago.
For example, American households have electricity now. We also have self-driving cars, computers, and cell phones. Now, changing the clocks twice a year proves more of an annoyance to families than a benefit to them. The American people love having an extra hour of sunlight, especially in my State of Florida. That means more time to enjoy the outdoors and activities with families.
Studies also show the potential for reduced cardiac issues, stroke, seasonal depression, reduced robberies, and benefits to the agricultural and general economies with an extra hour of sunlight.
With President Trump committed to finally ``lock the clock,'' we can finally get this done for the American people. This bill is completely about individual States having the right to make their own decisions. I ask my colleagues to support the passage of the Sunshine Protection Act to make a commonsense change that will simply benefit the lives of Americans and allow people of each State to choose what is best for themselves and their families.
In January of 1974, billions of Americans traveled to work and school in darkness. Commuter trains were delayed, schoolchildren carried flash lights. Tragically, some of these kids were struck by cars and killed while walking to school in the dark.
One woman from Long Island, speaking to the New York Times, summed up the black mood of the Nation: ``It's the end,'' she said. ``I can't cope any more . . . I'm just staying in bed.''
What calamity had befallen our Nation? Had Soviet Russia finally attacked America? Had we suffered a nationwide power outage? Were the heavens conspiring to plunge our Nation into darkness?
No. As it turns out, the answer was more mundane and foolish. A few months earlier, Congress, in its eternal wisdom, had imposed a top-down change on every Americans' daily life, eliminating standard time and adopting daylight saving time year-round. Such a change to the Nation's clocks had never happened before, except as an emergency rationing measure during wartime.
While briefly popular, it proved deeply unpopular when reality set in. According to opinion polls, support for permanent daylight saving time fell by 30 percentage points in just 3 months. Only a few weeks after it was implemented, it was underwater. Congress beat a hasty retreat, repealing the law and changing the clocks back in October. What was supposed to be a 2-year experiment ended in abject failure after less than 1 year.
It is said that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That is what would happen if Congress passes the so-called Sunshine Protection Act, once again ending standard time and imposing daylight saving time year-round.
If permanent, daylight saving time becomes the law of the land. It will again make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans. By moving the clock back an hour in winter, permanent daylight saving time would push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour, depriving Americans of morning sunshine that is essential for our safety and well-being.
For many Arkansans, permanent daylight saving time would mean the Sun wouldn't rise until after 8 o'clock or even 8:30 a.m. during the dead of winter. Three months out of the year, kids in towns like Bentonville, Fayetteville, and Fort Smith would start school ahead of the Sun.
Americans in northern States and on the western side of time zones would be even worse off. For instance, the Sun wouldn't rise until nearly 9 o'clock during winter in Seattle. In Grand Rapids, the Sun would rise as late as 9:15 a.m., and in Williston, ND, they would not see the Sun until almost 9:45 a.m.
The darkness of permanent daylight saving time would be especially harmful for schoolchildren and working Americans. As we saw in 1974, kids would either walk to school in the pitch black or schools would have to push back start times. The choice would be between danger on the one hand and disruption on the other.
Meanwhile, construction workers, farmers, and others who rise before the Sun or who need the Sun to work would be penalized. These workers might go 3, 4 or even 5 hours in morning without seeing the Sun, which would hurt their quality of life and, potentially, their safety in the workplace.
Then, of course, there are the health consequences of permanent daylight saving time. The Senators from Alabama and Florida correctly indicated that clock changes can be bad for health. But the best evidence suggests that the natural rhythms of our internal body clocks align more closely with standard time than daylight saving time. A shift to permanent daylight saving time would make it harder to go to sleep at night and harder to wake up in the morning.
Some of the Nation's top medical associations, including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Neurology, and the American College of Chest Physicians have called for daylight saving time to be abolished, not extended. As one sleep scientist put it, of all the options available to us, ``permanent [daylight saving time] is the worst solution.''
Of course, the advocates for permanent daylight saving time try to put, well, a sunny face on this bill. Back in 2022, the Senator from Massachusetts argued that it would be mean ``more daylight hours'' and ``more smiles.''
By the way, since the Senator from Rhode Island mentioned it, let me say a word about what happened in 2022. We heard from him that the Senate ``unanimously passed'' this bill. It is true, as far as it goes, but the story is a little more complicated than that. To let you in on how things operate, when Senators want to seek unanimous consent to pass a bill without a recorded vote, as my friends are doing today, an email goes out to all other Senate offices asking if a Senator objects. I didn't personally object in 2022 for two reasons. First, I hadn't adequately communicated to the staff the depth of my opposition to this bill. Second, because of a miscommunication, I expected another Senator who also opposed the bill to object. I take full responsibility for this mistake--though the search for someone else to blame is actively ongoing. A chief suspect, as usual, may be the Republican floor Secretary.
In any case, it is only a mistake if you don't have time to fix it. Fortunately, I fixed it later that year with like-minded friends in the House.
Despite that setback, the proponents of permanent daylight saving time refused to, if you will, let the Sun set on this bill. They allege, as we heard, that the change would stimulate the economy and even save the environment by reducing energy use. On the contrary, permanent daylight saving time would have negligible effects on energy use, as indicated by most studies and plain common sense. Any reduction in electricity use in the afternoon will be counterbalanced, of course, by increased uses in the morning. It is, largely, six in one hand and half a dozen in the other.
As to the supposed economic benefits, no doubt that a handful of industries would gain from the bill. That is why they lobbied so hard for it over the years. This bill would benefit, for example, outdoor entertainment venues, seaside resorts, and bars. My good friends from Alabama and Florida sponsor this legislation, and they are representing their States well by doing so. An extra hour in the winter for the resorts in South Florida, the beautiful golf courses in southern Alabama and across the State of Florida, or deep-sea fishing in the Gulf of America or the Atlantic would be welcome by many of the residents of those communities.
As for my friends in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, have you ever spent a winter in Boston or Providence? The Sun disappears there barely after 4 p.m. Little wonder they have joined the effort. These Senators represent States that overwhelmingly benefit from year-round daylight saving time because of their latitude and longitude. I understand, and I respect their positions.
But as is often the case, these highly concentrated benefits for a few industries and a few regions are offset by widely distributed costs across many more industries throughout the entire country, that is to say nothing of moms sending their kids to school in the dark of night.
So why should we repeat history? It is probably because we have forgotten it. Most people don't remember the permanent daylight saving time debacle of 1974. Just about everyone hates to ``spring forward and fall back,'' as the saying goes. I don't like the biannual clock changes any more than the rest of you do. But unless we are willing to adopt permanent standard time and sacrifice the extra hour of evening light in the spring and summer for Little League ball games and summer vacations across the country, there is just not much to be done, which is, when you think about it, a fundamentally conservative outlook.
Not every human problem has a legislative solution. Sometimes we have to live with an uneasy compromise between competing priorities and interests. That is doubly true when considering how the movement of the stars and the planets affects the lives of 350 million souls spread across our vast continental Nation.
It brings to mind the story of King Cnut, who wanted to teach sycophants a lesson about the limits of mankind's power. He famously set his throne on the seashore and forbade the tide from coming in. Of course, the tide, nonetheless, came in and, as one historian recounted, ``disrespectfully drenched the King's feet and shins.''
The moral of the story, the King reminded his fawning court, is that ``the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthy of name save Him by whose will heaven, earth, and sea obey eternal laws.''
Good King Cnut's wise words are as true now as they were then. No earthy ruler--not even this Congress--can alter the movements of the heavens, not today, not 1974, not ever.
Therefore, I oppose the Sunshine Protection Act and will always oppose any effort to adopt daylight saving time year-round.
Mr. President, for the last 2 months, the people of Illinois have been living under President Trump's so-called Operation Midway Blitz. I have watched it up close. I have seen its victims, and I have seen its methods. I want to tell you that this Operation Midway Blitz is trampling over Illinois residents' constitutional rights and civil liberties. This reckless campaign is not aimed at public safety; it is a calculated show of political theater and force that is designed to spread fear and terror in our communities.
Every weekend since this operation began, I have returned to Chicago to visit these communities and to meet with members and leaders who have been targeted by Donald Trump with Federal, militarized agents. I have reported back on what I have seen and heard on this floor for weeks now.
What I see time and time again are good people whose only desire is to raise their children, go to work, and contribute to their communities. These same people are now afraid to leave their homes, to walk to school, to church, to the grocery store, or to a restaurant out of fear of being caught in one of these cruel raids.
The President insists his immigrant enforcement operations focus on the worst of the worst. Oh, you have heard him over and over again. At his rallies, he would give the speeches, and he would rail about the rapists, the murderers, the terrorists, the criminally insane: These immigrants, we have got to stop them.
Well, I can tell you this: More than 70 percent of the people who have been detained have no criminal records whatsoever. They are American citizens--some--and they are workers and parents with clean records. They are peaceful protesters and community members who are carrying whistles. They are even children.
Federal agents have been sweeping up anyone they encounter, including bystanders who pause to record their activities. Then they scramble later to justify the detentions.
When you ask what happens to an individual who disappears from one of these scenes, you wait--sometimes for hours, sometimes for days--to find out where they have been taken. These actions violate due process--full stop. A democracy cannot survive with a law enforcement strategy of ``arrest now and ask questions later.''
The reach of these actions is only growing more brazen. Federal agents have confronted people outside of childcare centers and schools. Some Head Start Programs have moved online to protect families. Children have been zip-tied and yanked away from their families. In many cases, peaceful protesters have been met with tear gas. At Funston Elementary School near Logan Square, an entire playground had to be evacuated. Residents who locked arms to protect their neighbors were gassed in their own streets.
U.S. district court judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order earlier this month that prohibits agents from using tear gas indiscriminately on peaceful protesters, journalists, or anyone else not posing an immediate threat to law enforcement.
The orders of the court for these people--for these law enforcement agents sent in by President Trump--to wear video cameras, like so many police do every day, routinely, have been largely ignored. It is time for this court order to be enforced.
Just this weekend, chemical canisters were thrown into a crowd of residents who had gathered in the Old Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago. For what reason? Was it a terrorist meeting? No. It was a children's Halloween block party, and they threw in tear gas canisters.
Concerned onlookers and their children watched as Border Patrol agents tackled a landscaper to the ground and arrested him on a resident's front lawn. Agents then deployed multiple tear gas canisters at the neighbors without warning and even arrested one unsuspecting resident in his late sixties who had just returned from a morning run. The video footage shows the agents' recklessness, their seemingly disregard for the court order, and their ongoing violations of due process.
It is hard to describe what is happening here, but I don't have to; it is all captured on videotape.
Our Armed Forces are banned from using tear gas on the battlefield, but ICE and the CBP have no problem using it on Main Street in Chicago, IL. Recent footage even shows Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander-at-large, who has been tasked with leading Operation Midway Blitz, deploying a tear gas canister on a crowd
DHS was quick to publish statements on social media regarding the incident. They stated that a ``mob of rioters'' provoked the attack, but the video shows that was a lie.
Judge Ellis called Mr. Bovino to court this morning to answer for the Federal agents' continued indiscriminate use of tear gas in the streets of Chicago, pepper spray, and other excessive force. She opened the hearing by reading her previous order out loud. Given recent events, she wondered whether her order wasn't clear. Immigration agents didn't bother to read it, or if they read it and understood it, they decided to ignore it and challenge the authority of the court.
Judge Ellis said:
At the hearing, she instructed Bovino to appear before the court to provide daily reports moving forward. Bovino also agreed to undergo training for body cameras and begin wearing one as soon as Friday.
In light of these alarming abuses, I am working to fulfill my role under the Constitution as a Member of Congress with the authority to conduct oversight of the executive branch. The Trump administration claims to be the most transparent in American history, but when Senator Duckworth and I recently arrived at the Broadview ICE processing center to provide oversight, we were barred from viewing it.
If this were truly a lawful operation targeted on public safety threats--the rapists, the murderers, the terrorists, and the criminally insane--they wouldn't stop us from seeing who was being held. DHS would welcome the oversight. Instead, they hide. What do they not want us, the American people, to see?
The Trump administration has turned Federal Agencies into tools of political intimidation. They have targeted cities and States run by Democrats who didn't vote for the President in the last election.
Operation Midway Blitz is a desecration of all the basic liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. But Chicagoans and Illinoisans are not backing down. We have survived a flood; we have survived a fire; we have survived disco night in Comiskey Park, and we will survive this as well. They are linking arms and demanding accountability, and they are refusing to be silent in the face of intimidation and injustice. I am going to continue to be part of that effort.
There is a guarantee under this Constitution of freedom of speech. As long as we are engaged in nonviolent activity, that Constitution protects us. The people of Chicago and Illinois deserve so much better. They deserve a Federal Government that honors one of its highest duties, the duties to defend the rights and freedoms of all people.
I will continue to do everything I can to try and ensure our government once again lives up to their promise, and I hope my colleagues will join me.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. President, American families are struggling to pay for groceries and rent. Federal workers are missing paychecks. Americans across the country are watching as their health insurance premiums skyrocket.
But what is President Donald Trump focused on? He has pardoned a convicted crypto billionaire who helped the Trump family get even richer.
Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, founded Binance--a giant crypto exchange that became a home for terrorists, child abusers, and other criminals. Both Republican and Democratic policymakers have been ringing the alarm on Binance for years. Two years ago, several of my Republican colleagues warned that this crypto platform was facilitating ``significant illicit finance activity'' and that it could ``be providing material support to entities engaged in terrorism under Federal law, or being willfully blind to the fact that it may be doing so.'' Another one of my Republican colleagues warned that CZ was misleading the public about Binance's operations in China.
Republicans and Democrats were right to be worried. Binance facilitated financing for terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and al-Qaida. It opened the spigot for Iran. Binance made it easier to finance child sexual abuse. One Binance employee even wrote that they needed a banner that said:
Binance put its profits ahead of following the law and ahead of America's national security. This was criminal activity. Binance pleaded guilty to multiple criminal charges and was required to pay a penalty of more than $4 billion. CZ pleaded guilty to criminal charges and went to prison for willfully failing to maintain an effective anti- money laundering program that could have prevented financing these terrorist and drug traffickers.
Oh, but CZ got a lucky break. A month after he was released from prison, Donald Trump was elected President, and CZ had bet on the right horse. Remember, CZ is still the biggest shareholder in Binance, and right before the election, Binance reportedly offered to strike a crypto business deal with the Trump family. When Trump launched his own crypto venture, Binance allegedly wrote the code. And now, all of this is paying off big time for CZ, Binance, and the Trump family.
In May, a United Arab Emirates investment firm used the Trump family's stablecoin to buy a $2 billion stake in Binance, and President Trump and his family will make millions of dollars in fees and interest off just that one deal. In the middle of all of this, CZ applies for a pardon. And last Friday, Donald Trump gave it to him.
When asked about his pardon of CZ, the President said that ``a lot of people say he wasn't guilty of anything.'' But one of my Republican colleagues rightly said:
Once again, President Trump has shown the American people that he is willing to turn a blind eye to money flowing to terrorists and child abusers so long as it lines his own pockets. Pardoning convicted crypto billionaires sends a message: If you have money and the right connections, you don't have to follow the law. You get a special deal after you have broken the law.
Congress needs to stop this kind of corruption. Today, we can send a message, a message that President Trump's pardon is wrong. We also have an opportunity to head off more corruption as Congress considers crypto market structure legislation. If Senate Republicans don't let us fix this, then the Senate Republicans own this corruption and lawlessness.
I yield the floor to my colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. President, I rise today in support of Senator Warren's resolution condemning President Trump's decision to pardon Changpeng Zhao.
Last week, President Trump once again put his wealthy allies, family members, and business partners ahead of the public trust when he granted a pardon to the founder of Binance.
In 2023, Mr. Zhao was sentenced to prison after his company pleaded guilty to serious crimes, including failing to prevent money laundering and letting billions of dollars flow through Binance to sanctioned regimes and criminals, to facilitate child sex abuse, drug trafficking, and terrorism.
At the time, the Treasury Department estimated that Binance had allowed over 1\1/2\ million currency trades that violated American sanctions, including hundreds of millions of dollars that shirked sanctions against Iran, against Syria, against Cuba, and against Russia. For these crimes, Binance paid one of the largest fines in U.S. history: $4.3 billion in fines. Yet, after serving only a fraction of his sentence, President Trump stepped in to grant Zhao a pardon and wiped his slate clean.
Why? Why do such a thing? Because Mr. Zhao is part of a wide web of financial interests tied to the President and his allies--that is why-- including a crypto venture that poured billions into Binance.
The President's pardon came after a stablecoin from World Liberty Financial--the Trump family crypto venture--was used to purchase a $2 billion stake in Binance, marking the most
That is not the use of a pardon to correct an injustice; that is the use of a pardon to commit an injustice. That is corruption of the most blatant kind, and it is illustrative of the same message Donald Trump continues to send donors and friends: If you have got enough money or the right political connections, the law simply doesn't apply to you.
The President isn't using the power of his office to ensure hungry families have access to food next month. He is not using the power of his office to make sure that Americans can afford to pay for their healthcare. He is using the power of his office to pardon a convicted billionaire and one who just happens to be doing business with the Trump family crypto platform, World Liberty Financial.
We have seen this story before. And this is just the latest example of the President's use, abuse of the pardon power as a means of rewarding wealthy donors, family members, allies, and benefiting himself personally.
We saw it when Trump pardoned corporate executives convicted of bribery and campaign finance crimes as a thank-you for donating millions to his campaign. We saw it in his first term when he pardoned operatives like Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Steve Bannon who helped him or his allies evade accountability. And we saw it when he issued sweeping ``unconditional'' pardons for 1,500 individuals involved in the January 6 attack on this Capitol, including many who were convicted of violent crimes, violent acts, against law enforcement.
In fact, the President even stacked the offices tasked with reviewing pardon applications with his allies, installing Ed Martin as pardon attorney at the Justice Department after his failed nomination to be U.S. attorney for DC.
In case after case after case, the message has been clear: Loyalty to Donald Trump is more important than the rule of law; it is more important than anything in the public interest.
This is not what the Framers intended when they gave the President the authority to grant clemency. And they certainly never envisioned it as a ``get out of jail free'' card for political allies, campaign donors, and business partners.
But this administration has turned the pardon power into a tool for corruption and self-dealing, which is why Senator Warren and I have introduced this resolution to shine a light on the rampant corruption of this administration and to hold those responsible accountable.
I urge my colleagues to join us in sending a clear, bipartisan message that the U.S. Government should act in the public interest, not the financial interest of the President, and that the pardon power must not be for sale.
With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 466; further, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object, article II, section 2, clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives the President complete discretion to issue executive clemency. In Ex parte Garland in 1866, the Supreme Court even said that the President has ``unlimited powers in respect to pardons, extending to every offense under the law.''
Congress must be mindful of its proper role as part of our constitutional separation of powers. For those constitutional reasons alone, I cannot support this resolution.
With respect to Binance in particular and the individual who was the subject of this pardon specifically, I continue to have concerns with their past activity that may have facilitated illicit finance. In October 2023, House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill and I wrote a letter to the Department of Justice urging that prosecutors take a close look at whether Binance was willfully blind to bad actors using their digital asset exchange for illicit purposes and whether Binance may have facilitated fundraising relating to the October 7 attacks on Israel. I continue to stand by my letter today.
This is why I am working day and night on bipartisan digital asset market structure legislation which will ensure that commonsense illicit finance rules apply to digital asset exchanges and that bad actors that use digital assets are rooted out.
There is a renewed sense of optimism and energy around market structure talks today, and I am hopeful that we will have legislation on the Senate floor before the end of this year.
I want to make one final note, the hypocrisy that is patently obvious here. Where was the outrage from my colleagues when President Biden brazenly pardoned his own son for crimes he absolutely committed? And don't forget, President Biden repeatedly told the American people before an election that he would not use his constitutional pardon power to pardon his son.
That hypocrisy is staggering. The American people delivered a decisive mandate for President Trump, and that includes his constitutional authority to issue pardons. Democrats need to accept the election results and stop their partisan theatrics every time this President exercises his legitimate powers.
Mr. President, I am noticing that the Senator, rightly, points out that the President has the power to pardon. There is nothing in our proposed resolution that tries to take that away from the President. We understand that.
But we do think it is time for Congress to use its voice for this U.S. Senate to stand up and say: Pardoning a convicted criminal who has facilitated child trafficking, who has facilitated drug trafficking, who has facilitated terrorism around the world is a really bad idea.
That is what this resolution is all about. So I understand that the Senator has concerns, but those concerns could be registered by the Republicans by simply signing on to a resolution that says we do not believe it is right to pardon someone under these circumstances.
I am glad to hear that the Senator is working on a market structure bill that will presumably avert this kind of problem and deal with the corruption of the Trump family as it relates to cryptocurrency. So I look forward to seeing that and just can't wait to see what the provisions are that stop Donald Trump from this kind of self-dealing and from what appears to be bribery right out in the open for the entire world to see.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mr. President, I just want to join in raising a few points in response to our colleague. First, the pardon power is not absolute. If the pardon power were absolute, a President could order vast branches of the U.S. Government to break an infinite number of laws and then simply pardon all of the offenders.
The Constitution is not interpreted as a matter of constitutional law so as to negate all other sections of the Constitution. If it were absolute, it would negate all other sections of the Constitution. It is not absolute.
But we are not contesting whether the President has the power to grant this particular pardon. What we are contesting is the morality of doing it. What we are contesting is whether we should sit blindly while the pardon is used in such a corrupt fashion toward friends and allies and to enrich the President's family.
The fact that he may have the power to do it doesn't make it right to do and the fact that he may have the power to do it doesn't prevent us from condemning it.
And by the way, vis-a-vis President Biden, I did condemn the use of his pardon, but that certainly does not justify the use of the pardon here.
It simply cannot be, should not be the case that a President gives a pardon to a convicted criminal who has helped launder money to avoid sanctions on our adversaries and that we
We should condemn it. And the absence of condemnation, I think, will only be an encouragement for the President to continue abusing the pardon power.
Mr. President, I urge support for the resolution, and I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for offering it.
Mr. President, I renew my objection as someone who was spied on by the Biden Justice Department--one of eight Senators to be spied on--in violation of the separation of powers.
I respect the separation of powers. And in this case, the separation of powers protects the President of the United States' pardon power. We need to protect it as well.
Mr. President, I rise to speak about a vote that we will cast in a few hours with respect to President Trump's imposition of a 50-percent tariff on all goods coming from Brazil.
President Trump's tariff regime--global tariffs, Brazilian tariffs, Canadian tariffs, tariff deals announced then paused, tariff deals negotiated, exceptions granted and, in some cases, not granted--has created huge chaos in the national economy.
Three universities looked at the Virginia economy in the last month, and a summary of those three universities' reports was published in a Virginia publication last week titled ``Virginia's GDP Growth Drops 6.2% to 1.7%.''
And the analysis of this precipitous decline--a 75-percent decline, nearly--in the Virginia GDP in the first year of Donald Trump's Presidency cited a number of factors: mass layoffs of Federal employees and contractors, cancelation of highly valued economic development projects, clawback of research funding and other programmatic funding.
But, importantly, a key component affecting the Virginia economy and the national economy right now is the President's chaotic tariff regime.
Tariffs are attacks on American consumers; tariffs are attacks on American businesses; and they are attacks that are imposed by a single person: Donald J. Trump.
In Virginia, we are seeing it nationally. We are seeing the effects of the Trump economy, and it is well-summarized in the reports I referenced: fewer jobs, jobs declining; higher prices, whether it is food, building supplies, energy, healthcare higher prices; and slower growth.
I want to talk about one aspect of this economic malpractice, the imposition of tariffs, and, in particular, the imposition of tariffs on Brazil.
The President has imposed a tariff on Brazil of 50 percent on all the products that the United States imports from Brazil. I want to get to Brazil and the tariffs and the effect it is having on American consumers in a minute, but first, what is the power that the President cites enabling him to put such a sizable tariff on Brazilian products?
What he cites is a statute called IEEPA dealing with international economic emergencies. And that is a statute that was passed by Congress, signed into law decades ago, allowing the President, under some circumstances, to take actions following the declaration of an international emergency.
What is an international emergency?
The IEEPA statute 50 U.S.C. section 1701 says that the emergency that a President must declare is ``any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States''--the threat being to the ``national security foreign policy or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat.''
So the 50-percent tariff on all products from Brazil is justified by President Trump declaring that Brazil represents a national security threat.
The 50-percent tariff was imposed in two actions: The President imposed global tariffs on most nations in the world in April and imposed a 10-percent tariff on Brazil in that action, but then added an additional 40 percent in a ruling from the White House at the end of July, combining to be a 50-percent tariff.
Now, Mr. President, you have followed President Trump's logic on tariffs. The global tariffs that were imposed were imposed because he claims other nations are ripping America off in trade--other nations are ripping America off in trade.
They are selling us more of their stuff and not buying enough of our stuff, and the President says that is a rip-off.
I disagree with him on whether or not that is a rip-off, but you would have a hard time making a case that Brazil is ripping off the United States in trade. We have a trade surplus with Brazil. Many of the other nations that the President has imposed tariffs on, there is a trade deficit as measured by goods. The President usually doesn't look at the deficit in goods and services. If you look at both, the picture actually looks much better for the United States.
But Brazil, we have a trade surplus with Brazil of nearly $7 billion in goods and nearly $23 billion in services annually. Last year, the trade surplus we had with Brazil was $30 billion. They buy 30 billion more of our stuff than we buy of their stuff.
So that makes Brazil a very unusual--a very unusual--subject or target of a tariff regime designed to stop other nations from ripping us off.
So if that is not the emergency--if we are in trade surplus with Brazil, if that is not the emergency--why is the President declaring that there is an emergency with Brazil that warrants taxing American consumers by raising the price of any goods brought in from Brazil by 50 percent?
This has got to be the most unusual use of IEEPA in American history. It is the most extreme and illogical declaration of an emergency in American history, and that is saying a lot because President Trump declared an energy emergency on day one of his tenure, even though America was producing more energy than at any time in the history of the United States. Oil, gas, wind, solar, battery storage, we are the leaders in the world in energy production, but President Trump declared an energy emergency so he could get an E-ZPass lane around environmental regulations to oil, gas, and coal projects.
So I thought that emergency declaration was pretty extreme, but I have a more extreme one: President Trump is unhappy that Brazil is prosecuting a friend of his.
The former President of Brazil, on his way out the door, inspired a lot of people to try to protest and even overturn the peaceful transfer of power when he lost an election. So Brazil is prosecuting him under Brazilian laws. When the President heard that former President Bolsonaro was being prosecuted, he threatened 50-percent tariffs if you don't stop the Bolsonaro ``witch hunt'' trial.
How is that trial an emergency for the United States? How is that trial a threat to American national security or our economy?
The President is mad that a friend of his is being prosecuted. How is that an emergency?
We went on. As the trial got underway in the middle of July, FOX News: ``Trump calls for immediate end to `unjust' trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.''
``Unjust trial.''
I don't think President Trump is a lawyer, and I know he is not a Brazilian lawyer. I doubt he has an expertise in Brazilian law. By what right would he call that trial unjust? By what right would he claim that the trial of this President for trying to inspire the overturn of power--by what right would he claim that that is an emergency for the United States?
President Trump wasn't done. By making these demands and threatening tariffs, he had his administration take another step--highly unusual: ``US sanctions Brazilian judge for prosecuting Trump ally Bolsonaro'' until the end of July.
I am threatening tariffs; I am claiming that the prosecution is unjust. The United States even used sanctions power that Donald Trump has the unilateral ability to use to sanction the judge presiding over the case.
Go back to the definition that I read you earlier.
How is a prosecution of a potential Brazilian lawbreaker an ``unusual [or] extraordinary threat . . . to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States''?
I would assert, if we allow President Trump to declare this prosecution an emergency, we will have given any President a completely blank check to invent an emergency and do whatever they want and bypass Congress for doing so.
This is not an emergency, and that is why I have filed, with other Senators, a resolution to terminate President Trump's emergency.
But this isn't just about a misuse of Executive power. It has real- life consequences. Let me just bring up one that, I have to admit, I am really biased about, which is coffee.
Like a lot of people in this Chamber, I drink too much coffee. Americans drink just about more coffee per capita than any country in the world, and coffee imports are the most significant agricultural import we bring into the United States.
I lived in a great coffee-producing country when I was a missionary, in Honduras. They produce a lot of coffee. The United States doesn't produce so much. I think the President knows that in the United States the only places where coffee is grown are Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Nowhere else in the United States are there conditions that allow for the growth of coffee.
Sometimes, we put tariffs on products coming in from other nations to grow and inspire a domestic industry. If we make Brazilian steel more expensive, maybe we will make more steel in the United States.
I am here to tell you there is no amount of tariff that would turn the United States into a nation that could produce a lot of coffee. And if every bit of coffee that could be produced in Puerto Rico and Hawaii were produced, it would meet precisely 1 percent of the coffee that Americans drink.
So we bring in coffee, and our single largest source of coffee is Brazil. And 35 percent of American coffee comes from Brazil. The next source is Colombia, at 27 percent, and then other nations. Vietnam produces a good bit of coffee, and other nations in Central America produce a good bit of coffee. But the real powerhouse--and I can be sure that in my office's supply of ground coffee that we use to make coffee every morning, there is a lot of Brazilian coffee in there. The real powerhouse is Brazil.
After the President announced that he was going to do these tariffs, the news started up right away. The prediction: U.S. coffee drinkers and businesses will pay the price for Trump's Brazil tariffs.
Sometimes, the President likes to say that other nations pay them. No, this is a sales tax directly on those that consume the product, and that was the prediction.
And the prediction turned out to be true. The tariffs went into effect at the end of July. By September 12, 6 weeks later, CNN Business reported:
``Haven't surged this much in decades''--and the surging is very, very noticeable.
By the end of July, coffee prices kept surging, and it is likely to get worse. By the end of July--remember, at the end of July, there was only the 10 percent imposed on Brazil in April. The extra 40 percent didn't kick in until the end of July. But coffee had already surged 14 percent at the end of July, from July a year before.
I don't have the chart to show you today. The statistics just came out about September. The price of coffee, a staple in virtually every American household, has increased by 40 percent between September 2024 and September 2025. And every American experiences it at the grocery store when they are buying coffee, and every American experiences it when they are in coffee shops purchasing coffee.
I held a roundtable with small businesses in Northern Virginia, two Fridays ago, at a tea shop out near Reston called Eldon Street Tea Shop. And I had tea shops--they are getting hit by tariffs because tea comes from nations like India, China, and Vietnam. And I had coffee shops, and I had chocolate shops. All of these are products that are being imported, and they are all being dramatically affected.
And these small businesses said: If you have a chance, Senator, please do something. Please do something to stop this tariff madness.
And so that is why I am on the floor today. I have used coffee as an example because I didn't want to bring a side of beef in and put it on the desk. We get a lot of beef from Brazil. Fifty percent tariffs have dramatically driven up the price of ground beef in supermarkets all over this country.
People are paying more for coffee. They are paying more for beef. They are paying more for fruits and vegetables that come from nations that have been socked by Trump tariffs.
People are paying more for building supplies. People are paying more for energy. People are paying more for healthcare.
That is why the economist who looked at the Virginia economy said the Trump economy is one of higher prices, fewer jobs, and slower growth.
It is my hope that my colleagues will stand up for their constituents and say: Enough is enough.
No President, Democrat or Republican, should be able to declare a national emergency, justifying the imposition of 50 percent tariffs, because a friend of theirs is being prosecuted for breaking the law in another country. If this body allows that, this body will be opening the door for untold mischief committed by future Presidents who will decide: I can declare anything an emergency, and the Senate will just lay down and let me walk over them and not speak out against it.
And it also is important for us to acknowledge that this isn't just about an abuse of Presidential power. It is about abuse of Presidential power that people are feeling every time they walk down a grocery store aisle to buy coffee for their families, to buy ground beef for their families.
I hope my colleagues will join me in an effort to reverse the declaration of a national emergency and save everyday people and businesses some money.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mr. President, you know, President Trump has singlehandedly raised taxes more than any President in my lifetime. He has, without any consultation or approval from Congress, imposed billions of dollars in new tariffs.
These are taxes. They are paid for by the American people. They hurt small business owners who need raw materials that just aren't available here in the United States.
They cut off crucial export markets for our farmers when other nations inevitably retaliate, and they are sending prices soaring across the board, from big things like cars to everyday essentials like groceries.
Trump's tariffs have already raised retail prices for families by 5 percent--5 percent--and this year alone, his tariffs are expected to cost American households an average of $1,800. That is staggering.
Still, nearly every Senate Republican has refused to vote with us to end this chaos. I will say it another way: Republicans are refusing to stop President Trump from raising taxes on working families.
Now, we all saw Republicans move Heaven and Earth this year to shovel more tax breaks at billionaires. But you know, when it comes to taxes on working families, well, they are downright eager to force families to pay more every time they go to the supermarket.
I am not going to let this get swept under the rug, especially not when Trump shows us every day that his tariffs are not about any sort of economic strategy or any real emergency. Trump's tariff policy is as strategic as a toddler who plays with a light switch.
Last week, we saw Trump raise taxes on Americans. Why? Because he was mad that Canada ran an ad quoting Ronald Reagan. That is about as ridiculous as it gets.
My State shares a border with Canada. There are countless families and businesses that span our northern border, people who have built businesses that rely on strong trade relationships, from farmers who send their crops north to shops that bring in products, to towns that serve tourists and visitors that come down from our neighbors. And these Washington business
And, again, let's be clear. All Canada did to unleash more blind fury and boneheaded tariffs from President Trump was quote President Ronald Reagan.
Now, for all the policies I disagree with, Reagan at least had enough sense to understand that we, the American people, are the ones who pay those tariffs.
For my colleagues, these are the words that Donald Trump does not want you to hear. This is what Reagan had to say about tariffs, verbatim:
But do you know what? If Republicans don't want to listen to Reagan this time, well, then how about they start listening to American families and farmers and small businesses back in their own home States, because as someone who has had countless discussions about tariffs with the people that I represent back home, I have no doubt Republicans' own constituents will tell them firsthand just how painful Trump's trade war has been for them.
I have heard from businesses across my home State of Washington that are getting crushed by Trump's tariffs: an Asian grocery store that sells goods you simply have to source from abroad, like green tea; coffee shops that are getting hit, as the Senator just talked about, since most of our country can't grow coffee beans; clothing stores that tell me they are struggling with higher prices for cotton canvas, or zippers, threads, and buckles.
And then there are farmers--across my State and, really, across the country--that are getting boxed out of key markets by these trade wars Trump is starting left and right for no reason.
And there are the jobs at our ports that are threatened as every new chaotic tariff Trump decides to tweet out whittles away at imports and exports alike. It grinds our really busy, bustling ports to an absolute standstill, and that puts thousands of jobs in jeopardy.
Foreign imports are now down by a third at our ports in Seattle and Tacoma--a third. The reality of Trump's tariffs is painfully obvious to families and business owners who are bearing the brunt of this ham- fisted trade war.
You can't just ``make it in America'' when the ``it'' in question is fruits and vegetables we can't grow at scale here in the United States. You can't just ``make it in America'' when even making something here requires parts and raw materials from across the globe. There are just higher prices for working families, tighter margins for our struggling businesses, and even more worry for our families and our businesses who are being pushed to the edge.
Families are feeling those price hikes every single day. Small businesses in my State and across the country are facing very difficult decisions right now in trying to decide whether they can even keep their doors open. Right now, people across America, across party lines, across economic backgrounds, and across nearly every divide imaginable are now speaking out.
The time has come now for Republicans to actually listen. The time has come to hold President Trump accountable for raising prices on families across the board. The time has come to end President Trump's new taxes on everything. And the time has come for Congress, us, to start asserting our authority on tariffs, instead of ceding every single part of our jobs to a President who is joking he is the Speaker of the House.
Is he going to start calling himself majority leader too?
I urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting for this resolution so we can start rolling back Trump's taxes on Americans and take some pressure off our families and small businesses in the States that we are all here to represent.
Mr. President, I rise to support my colleagues Senator Kaine and Senator Paul on their joint resolution to terminate Donald Trump's order placing blanket tariffs on products Americans buy from Brazil. I am going to start with the impact on Americans.
Donald Trump's unilateral tariff spree is an unprecedented tax on American families who are already struggling. The tariffs on Brazil are no different. We get lots of coffee from Brazil, and coffee prices are up 21 percent from a year ago. Ground beef is up 13 percent from last year--that is according to FOX News--and Brazil is a major supplier. But instead of getting rid of these tariffs, Donald Trump is sending $40 billion to subsidize ranchers in Argentina.
I recently held townhall meetings at home, and surprisingly not a single Oregonian told me they wanted to pay more for their morning coffee, or more for a hamburger.
In all, Donald Trump's tariffs are going to cost the average American family more than $2,000 this year, according to the Yale Budget Lab.
That, Mr. President, is the what--higher prices on coffee, beef, and building materials Americans get from Brazil. Now I am going to talk about why.
Donald Trump didn't unilaterally slap those 40 percent tariffs on things we buy from Brazil to help the American worker. No, America had a $7 billion trade surplus with Brazil last year. And while food prices in the United States are shooting up, Trump's tariffs have lowered food prices in Mexico and Brazil.
The real reason--and this is what is crucial--the real reason Donald Trump is imposing these tariffs, by his own words, is to settle personal scores, and pressure the Brazilian Government to let their corrupt former President off the hook. In his letter announcing the tariffs, Donald Trump called the prosecution of former President Bolsonaro ``a witch hunt.'' Colleagues, Mr. Bolsonaro was convicted of masterminding a failed coup.
There is no way that taking money out of Americans' wallets to protect one corrupt politician in South America makes even a bit of sense.
This is a brazenly illegal and corrupt effort by Donald Trump that, in my view, is directly hurting the American people. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote yes on the Kaine-Paul resolution to end the Brazil tariffs.
This body is going to vote on more of these resolutions in coming weeks. I see my friend from Kentucky here, who is joining me in a crucial one of those. My legislation with Senator Paul would repeal all of Donald Trump's global tariffs.
I am committed to seizing back Congress's constitutional role over trade, which is spelled out in the Constitution. It is my hope that colleagues on both sides of the aisle will exercise their best judgment on these crucial, key tariff issues, listen to constituents, and vote for Americans instead of for Donald Trump and corrupt foreign strongmen.
I yield and look forward to hearing my colleagues talk further today on this issue.
Mr. President, ``Taxation without representation is tyranny.'' This was the rallying cry of our Founding Fathers. This was the rallying cry of American patriots in the years leading up to the American Revolution. It was the rallying cry of militiamen at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. And it still should be the rallying cry of Congress. ``No taxation without representation'' is embedded in our Constitution. The Constitution forbids any one man or woman from raising taxes.
Revenue is not only a question for Congress, but the Constitution commands that taxation legislation originate in the House of Representatives. This is the only issue that specifically has to originate not only in Congress but in one specific House. Our Founders thought that the House of Representatives, elected every 2 years, was closer to the people, and the things they feared the most were big taxes and big government. They said taxes must originate in the House. Yet these taxes are originating with the White House.
The idea that no one should have taxes imposed on them without their consent is central to the ancient concept of what constitutes a free people. That principle is enshrined in the Magna Carta, that taxation should be
In 1765, the American patriot who helped formulate the grievances against the British crown, James Otis, called for a defense of this principle by popularizing the phrase ``Taxation without representation is tyranny.'' This principle was said by many to have been the principle--the spark--that sparked our Revolution.
Yet, today, the Senate is compelled to act because one person in our country wishes to raise taxes without the approval of the Senate, without the approval of the House, and without the approval of the Constitution.
The idea that one person can raise taxes is contrary to our founding principles. The Constitution forbids it.
As Montesquieu wrote in ``The Spirit of the Laws":
Our Founders took that lesson to heart and embedded that in the Constitution--the principle of the separation of powers as well as a system of checks and balances. They knew that combining the legislative and executive powers would lead the country down a path to tyranny.
Allowing taxes to be levied, doubled, tripled, and then one day perhaps forgiven is a recipe for chaos. The tariffs are implemented. The tariffs are canceled. The tariffs are delayed. The tariff rate changes daily. Just this week, the President added a special 10-percent import tax on Canada because he was mad about the nation's Ronald Reagan ad--an ad, by the way, which was showing Ronald Reagan verbatim speaking.
News flash to the administration: Reagan was a free trader. Reagan believed ``that protectionism costs consumers billions of dollars, damages the overall economy, and destroys jobs.''
Ronald Reagan's vision for America can be seen in our trading relationship with Canada. In 1986, President Reagan said that ``our trade policy rests firmly on the foundation of free and open markets.'' Further, he said, ``I recognize . . . the inescapable conclusion that all of history is taught: The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress and peace among nations.''
It was Bastiat, who wrote: When trade and when goods don't cross borders, armies will.
It is not a guarantee of peace, but one way to achieve peace is to attempt to have good relations and trade with all nations.
No country, no business, no family can plan a budget when the tax rates--the import tax rates--and the costs of every commodity are determined by the whims of one man. There are now tariffs on steel; there are tariffs on aluminum; there are tariffs on lumber, and they change day to day. But not one of these tariffs was voted on by the people's elected representatives in Congress. These tariffs are simply announced by Presidential proclamation.
Perhaps more fundamental than a debate over what these tariffs are, what the rates are, and what they do to our economy is the question of whether Americans ought to perpetually live under emergency rule. This administration has declared emergencies with over 100 nations. With these emergency declarations, the President claims the unilateral right to levy import taxes.
Think about this. What do you think of when you think of an emergency? You think of a war, a tornado, a famine. You don't think of trade policy that all of a sudden we have to give up on all of our constitutional prerogatives, all the separation of powers, all that is embedded in the Constitution because there is an emergency in trade policy. If that were true, imagine what emergencies might come forward; imagine where we would be and what lack of restraint would happen. And for Republicans, imagine what it is going to be like when someone from the other party is elected and they declare an emergency over the climate and ban cars and whatever might happen. We shouldn't be living this way.
People say Congress is messy; Congress goes to gridlock. It is called debate. It is called discussion. The only way we typically get somewhere is we have to agree with some people on the other side. That is one of the things we are trying to overcome now.
Our Founding Fathers anticipated a President might attempt someday to usurp the powers--the constitutional powers--of the legislature. Madison wrote that our constitutional government would pit ambition against ambition; the ambition of a President or ambition of a Congress to usurp power be checked by the other guarding their power; that we would limit the power of any one branch through checks and balances and prevent abuses of power.
Madison, if he were here today, would be aghast to witness today's Congress that seems to lack any ambition to defend the constitutional separation of power.
Emergency rule rejects the premise of a constitutional republic with limited powers and full accountability. Emergency rule is rule by one person.
We will perpetuate emergency rule that provides the President extraordinary powers to tax us without our consent. Is that what we are going to allow or will we restore constitutional government in which taxes are debated and voted on by the people's representatives? I, for one, still believe in the principle of no taxation without representation and will vote to terminate this contrived emergency and end these unconstitutional import taxes.
Mr. President, the United States is stuck in the painful throes of one of the worst, longest government shutdowns in our history. Americans are calling out for leaders in the White House and Congress who will cut through the chaos and begin to restore order.
Last week, our President played his ``Trump'' card. In the middle of the shutdown with healthcare for 35 million Americans on the line, the President gave a green-light to a $40 billion bailout--$40 billion bailout; I had to read that twice--to Argentina. You heard me right. President Trump decided to prop up the far-right agenda in Argentina right before their elections and leave Americans nervous that they are going to be able to afford their healthcare. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
The real gut punch, he did it right as 20 million Americans are bracing for their healthcare costs to, in many cases, double or more when the ACA premium tax credits expire. If you think about that for just a moment, instead of spending $40 billion to lower healthcare costs for 20 million Americans, President Trump decided that $40 billion should go to Argentina. That is certainly not ``America First.''
Instead of spending $40 billion to make sure that seniors can afford their insulin, cancer patients can continue their chemo, sick kids can see a doctor, President Trump is sending $40 billion to Argentina. Twenty billion of that bailout is backed by all of you, the American taxpayer.
Trump promised to lower costs for working families, but food prices are up, electric bills are up, and now healthcare prices are going to be exploding. It is all because of what the MAGA Republicans and the President are doing.
Here is the reality. In July, Republicans passed their budget bill that is going to strip roughly $1 trillion out of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. It is the largest cut to healthcare in the history of this country--the largest cut to healthcare in American history. It is exploding our national debt by trillions, and it gives pretty lavish tax breaks to some of our largest corporations and some of our wealthiest individuals.
As if working families needed another hit, 20 million Americans are going to see their healthcare premiums double when ACA tax credits expire at the start of the year. On this Saturday, every single American can log online and see the new cost of their premium if they are on the exchange. In Colorado, the Denver Post reported today that premiums will double--will double--and for far too many, this is going to be financially devastating. We are trying to get our arms around the increase that we are going to see in medical bankruptcies.
In Colorado, a family of four making a combined $128,000 is going to have to
I am not sure why the President doesn't understand that. Small businesses, some with very tight margins already, are going to be forced to choose between insurance or layoffs. Roughly 225,000 Coloradans are in that group that are going to see their premiums double--double. It is so much more expensive, that an estimated 4 million Americans will be priced out of their healthcare next year, including roughly 75,000 Coloradans.
And for those people with preexisting conditions, boy, that is taking a dangerous hit. If you think you are safe because you receive insurance through your employer, think again. People are going to continue to get sick regardless of whether or not they have healthcare. The fact is, of course, that more Americans get sick when they can't afford basic preventive care. That is why they call it preventive care.
Here is a startling fact that came out of a Harvard study in 2009. Americans without health insurance in any given year have a 40-percent higher risk of death than those with insurance in that same given year. I am going to repeat that. Americans without health insurance have a 40-percent higher possibility of dying than those with insurance in any given year.
The result? Where there are fewer insured Americans in the entire system, insurance companies raise premiums on those who do have insurance to make up the shortfall. That means we are all in the same leaky ship.
A little over a week ago, I spoke with one of the many Americans who will be impacted, a young woman named Mercedes who lives in Commerce City, CO. Mercedes and her family, U.S. citizens, live in a district represented by Congressman Gabe Evans, who has been a vocal advocate of Trump's budget bill, the same budget bill that is going to cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. In Representative Evans' district, one in four Coloradans are on Medicaid, including 86,000 children--86,000 children--one in four people on Medicaid.
Just over 7 weeks ago, Mercedes's family of three became a family of four. She gave birth earlier than expected to a baby girl. Her newborn spent 49 days in the intensive care unit, the NICU, before they were finally able to bring her home last Friday. Doctors diagnosed their baby with a rare disorder that is going to require some level of specialized care for life.
Even now at home, their baby still depends on a home health nurse and a feeding tube. So when Mercedes recently opened a letter informing her that her insurance premiums are going to skyrocket once the ACA tax credits expire, it wasn't a function of being frustrated; for her, it was terrifying. Mercedes's premium is already more than $1,000 a month and is about to jump even higher. In addition to running their business, caring for their newborn with a fragile health condition, and raising their 7-year-old daughter, Mercedes and her husband now have to worry about their ability to be able to afford healthcare, to be able to stay on the healthcare that they have. They have a baby who is fully dependent on expensive hospital care. If their premiums go up, how are they going to afford the NICU bills? What will they have to sacrifice? Will food take a cut? Will rent go into arrears? Will they afford their medications?
Mercedes doesn't have to go through this. No American should have to go through this. Mercedes isn't alone. There are 20 million Americans bracing for these types of cuts--20 million more people just like Mercedes who depend on their healthcare to afford their prescriptions, to keep a roof over their heads, and, importantly, to stay out of the hospital.
It doesn't have to be this way. All the President and MAGA Republicans have to do is extend the healthcare tax credits. If they can find $40 billion to send to Argentina, they can almost assuredly find $40 billion to begin to stop premiums from doubling for Mercedes and 20 million Americans.
I think we have lost our bearings. We lost our North Star in this. Healthcare isn't political. It impacts every single one of us, Republican or Democrat, urban or rural. And it often interrupts our lives when we least expect it, especially when we are most unable to afford it.
This problem is easy to solve. Republicans and Democrats can reopen the government today and fix this healthcare crisis. We need to start talking together and having a discussion, but we can work together and reopen the government.
Working families want us to take leadership on this. They want us to get back to the issues they sent us to Congress to solve to make life better for them and their communities and for us to hold down the costs that are making their lives more difficult. I think we need to listen to Americans. I don't think it is too late, but it is long overdue.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. President, with me today is Mr. James Shea, one of my colleagues from my Senate office.
Mr. President, I want to talk today about the owls. There are 19 species--or kinds of owls--in the United States. Did you know that? There are 19, and I want to talk about two of them: the spotted owl and the barred owl. That is ``barred,'' B-A-R-R-E-D. Both of them are God's creatures.
I also want to talk today--and the Presiding Officer will understand what I mean in a moment--about the Federal Government's proclivity-- repeated proclivity--to do the dumbest thing possible that won't work.
Now, the Federal Government, which can't even deliver the mail when it has the address right there on the front, and, more specifically, the Department of the Interior have promulgated a rule. This rule says that unless Congress stops them, they are going to hire hunters--right here--to kill 453,000 barred owls. There are only 4 million in the United States, but the Department of the Interior wants to kill 453,000 mama barred owls, daddy barred owls, and baby barred owls because the Department of the Interior thinks--says--that the barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl.
The Department of the Interior is not saying the barred owl is eating the spotted owl. The Department of the Interior isn't saying that the barred owl is hurting the spotted owl. The Department of the Interior says it wants to kill over 10 percent of the barred owl population because the barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl, and they want to tip the scales of nature in favor of the spotted owl even though the spotted owl is not on the endangered species list.
My resolution, which will be voted on tomorrow, will stop this nonsense.
First, I want to talk a little bit more about the barred owl. In doing so, I will talk a little bit about its cousin, the spotted owl. As I said, they are both God's creatures.
This is a barred owl. It is beautiful. If you have ever seen a barred owl, it has very, very soulful eyes. Their feathers are incredibly soft. It is called barred, B-A-R-R-E-D, because of the bars that run across here, as opposed to a spotted owl.
The barred owl--10 percent of which our brainiacs at the Department of the Interior want to kill--has been around for 11,000 years. Sometimes the barred owl is called a hoot owl. That may be the term you know it by best. The barred owl is about 2 feet long. It has incredible eyes. Man, it can see. It is like superman or superwoman. It has incredible eyes and incredible hearing.
The barred owl, like the spotted owl, is nocturnal. They come out at night. They hide during the day, and they come out at night.
The barred owl is a great hunter--a great hunter. The barred owl eats mice. The barred owl eats squirrels. The
The barred owl lives--as does the spotted owl, for that matter--in old-growth forests. In fact, I have a pair of barred owls that lives in the forest behind my house. They are great. They always come in pairs, about which I will talk in a second. In fact, you can attract barred owls--many people do--by building what is called a nest box, and you can have barred owls come and live if you live near a forest. If you are not handy like me and you want to know how to build a nest box, just go to YouTube.
Barred owls marry for life, and they mate for life. When a male barred owl is courting a female barred owl--I have seen videos; it is really cool--the male barred owl courts a female by bowing. The male barred owl bows, and it opens its wings up a little bit--it doesn't want to be intimidating to the female, so not full out, but it opens its wings up a little bit--and the barred owl wobbles its head back and forth, back and forth, side to side. If the female is impressed, the female says ``I do,'' and they stay married the rest of their lives together. That is why you see them in pairs.
They have babies once a year, generally two to five babies.
These are two of the babies that the Department of the Interior wants to kill. They are going to pay the same price, by the way, to the hunter to kill the babies as they are to kill the mama. They don't care. They just want to kill them all.
When the babies are little, little bitty, when they are born, they are not covered in feathers. Little babies are covered in soft, white down. They don't start getting feathers until about 2 weeks.
The mama barred owl stays with the babies for the first few weeks. Sometimes the babies, like Senators, fall out of the nest as they start exploring around, and the mama or the daddy barred owl--unless the daddy is out hunting for food--has to get them back into the nest.
The babies learn to fly after about 10 weeks.
Now, what does this have to do with the spotted owl, which is also one of God's creatures?
The barred owl is native. It is originally from the Eastern United States and southeastern Canada. It has existed there for 11,000 years. But over the past 100 years--100 years is just the blink of an eye in time--over the past 100 years, the Northeast has gotten more and more crowded, and the old-growth forests that the barred owl lives in have been cut down, and subdivisions have been built. So the barred owl, as happens all the time in nature, has started moving west, and it is moving west, and it is moving west. Now the barred owl is entering Washington State, Oregon, Northern California, and British Columbia in Canada.
Well, that is where the spotted owl lives. The spotted owl also lives in old-growth forests but not exactly in the old-growth forests in the West as the same place as the barred owl. The spotted owl prefers an old-growth forest at a higher elevation.
The barred owl is a better hunter. It is slightly bigger than the spotted owl. The barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl.
Let me say it again because there has been a lot of confusion about this. The barred owl doesn't hunt the spotted owl. In fact, many times, a barred owl and a spotted owl will get married. I know they are cousins, but that doesn't matter as they are distant cousins. Sometimes they get married, and they interbreed. So this isn't a question of one animal killing another. The Department of the Interior is mad at the barred owl because the barred owl is a better hunter. The barred owl is just a better hunter. That is just the way it is.
You know, it is just like the Senate's Presiding Officer. The Presiding Officer is better looking than me. I accept that. That is the way God made us.
God just made the barred owl a better hunter, and the Department of the Interior is all up in arms. They say this is threatening the spotted owl. Now, the spotted owl isn't on the endangered species list, but they say: This isn't fair. The barred owl is a better hunter than the spotted owl, and that is causing the spotted owl's population to decrease.
So the Department of the Interior, in its infinite wisdom, has come up with DEI for owls. They have come up with quotas for owls.
The barred owl, because nature, God--whatever you believe in--made them better hunters, now has to give up its rights--has to give up its life because the spotted owl is not as good of a hunter.
As I mentioned, the spotted owl and the barred owl don't always live in the same place. Out West, the spotted owl prefers higher elevations than the barred owl. But they do--it is undeniable--they compete for food, and they both live in old-growth forests.
Let me tell you something--and the Department of the Interior doesn't like to admit this. The spotted owl population was declining even before the barred owl decided to move. Do you know why? It had nothing to do with food. It had nothing to do with the barred owl. It had to do with the same thing happening on the west coast that has happened on the east coast. Many of the old-growth forests have been cut down to make way for more people. You might have noticed we have had a few forest fires, and they have been causing the population of the spotted owl to be reduced but not to the point of endangerment. The Interior Department just says they are threatened. That is the problem for the spotted owl. It is not the barred owl.
This regulation that I am trying to overturn was promulgated under President Biden's Department of the Interior, OK? Yet the Department of the Interior--I want to make this clear--under President Trump has embraced this rule. They think that this is the greatest rule--this is the greatest idea--they have ever heard of. It tastes like pumpkin pie to them.
In fact, I got a call from Secretary Burgum, whom I love and respect. He was as mad as a mama wasp. ``Pull down that regulation.'' He accused me of slandering the Trump administration.
I am not slandering the Trump administration. This was a President Biden regulation.
Now, I was polite with the Secretary, but I told him that he was confused and that he needed to call somebody. He had the wrong person on the line. The Secretary needed to call somebody who cared what he thought, because I think he is wrong. I think he is wrong. I think he and the other members of the administration and the Department of the Interior have decided to play God, and they are wrong for at least five reasons.
No. 1, their plan--their brainiac plan--which looks like it was designed by a heroin addict with a socket wrench, won't work. It won't work.
Now, let me tell you what they are going to do. They want to hire hunters--they want to hire Elmer here--to go out at night with a flashlight and shoot the barred owls. Now, this is at night, OK? The barred owl lives about 40 feet up off the ground and in a tree. Do you know what else lives about 40 feet up off the ground and in a tree? The spotted owl. Do you think that these cowboys, who are going disco because they have a Federal contract, are going to be able to always tell the difference between a barred owl and a spotted owl? They are going to shoot them both and let God sort them out because they are being paid.
Look, I am a duck hunter. I am not a big hunter, but I like to duck hunt and dove hunt. I eat what I kill. But, a lot of times, when I am duck hunting, there are different points for different species of duck. I can't tell which duck is which. I have passed up shots before because I thought it might be a mallard, when I can't kill any more mallard. Do you think these cowboys that they are going to hire from the private sector are going out there with their little flashlights--old Elmer here, with his little red hat--in the middle of the night with a flashlight are going to tell the difference or care about the difference between a barred owl and a spotted owl? No. They are going to shoot them both.
No. 2, the other reason it won't work is that spotted owls are not stupid. Once you start shooting at them, they are going to move up into Canada. The Canadians aren't dumb enough to do something like this. They are going to move up into Canada. They are going to wait until the shooting stops, and then they are going to come back
No. 3, I have been through this reg stem to stern. I can't find out whether this regulation prohibits Elmer Fudd from going out there and using lead shots. When we hunt ducks, you can't use lead shots. You use steel shots. Do you know why? Because a lot of times other birds and other animals will eat the lead shot and they die from it.
So these cowboys are going to go out, if they are not prohibited from using lead shots. Yes, they are going to kill some barred owls and spotted owls. They are going to end up killing eagles and hawks and other wildlife using their lead shots.
The second reason this won't work--let me say it again--the barred owls aren't the problem. The problem is that we are losing old-growth forests in the West, which is the habitat of the spotted owl. And where it is naturally occurring is where more people have moved--to Washington and North Carolina and Oregon--and we have wildfires that have burned our forests.
Don't go pick on the barred owl. You can kill every barred owl there is, and it is not going to help the spotted owl if you don't maintain the appropriate habitat.
No. 4, this is going to be incredibly expensive. This comes under the theme of ``let's do the dumbest thing possible that won't work.''
Our Department of the Interior has already issued one contract. I don't know how they got the authority to do it. But back in 2004, they issued a contract to a private vendor--Elmer here--to go kill 1,500 barred owls. I guess they wanted to test it out. Do you know what they paid? It was $3,000 a bird--$3,000 for a mama barred owl, $3,000 for a daddy barred owl, and $3,000 for a baby barred owl. Give me a break. And now they are going to go out and kill 453,000, over a billion dollars--over a billion dollars. It is not their money, but it is taxpayer money--on a plan that won't even work.
Here is what one person from the Department of the Interior said, in a rare moment of candor. He might have gotten fired. But he is a Wildlife and Fisheries agent. He told the press:
The final reason this is a bad reg--and then I am going to wrap this up. I know that the bureaucrats at the Department of the Interior--I realize this--they are smarter, and they are more virtuous than you and I. I get that. But who appointed them God? Who appointed them God?
Barred owls are expanding their habitat because the forests in the East have been cut down. That is called adaptive range expansion. And do you know what? Whether you believe in God or nature or whatever, that happens every single day in our ecosystem. It is a naturally occurring ecological phenomenon. It is a core behavioral characteristic of mammals.
All the barred owls are doing--they are not hurting anybody. They are just doing what nature teaches them to do.
We are going to change nature? We are going to control our environment to this extent? We are going to pass DEI for owls? We are going to pass quotas for owls? Spotted owls, good; barred owls bad. But the barred owls won't lose their constitutional rights. They will kill them. They are going to kill 453 of them, dead as Jimmy Hoffa. Give me a break.
This is foolish. This is reckless. This is expensive. It is unsupported by evidence. It is unnecessary, and it won't work. I cannot think--I cannot think--of a better example of the arrogance, the hubris of the Federal administrative state. If we let them go through with this, this will rank right up there with those $10,000 Department of Defense toilet seats, except part of God's creation will already be dead.
Ecosystems are like markets. They regulate themselves. Trying to change nature is like trying to have a Federal Government direct a free enterprise system. It won't work. It never has, and it never will.
I don't mean any disrespect to anybody. I don't. I am not--well, I guess I am calling somebody Elmer Fudd. I don't know who they are going to hire, but I know they hired a bunch of Elmers and gave them $3,000 a bird, and it didn't work. But this, to me, is just bone-deep, down-to- marrow stupid. I have rocks in my driveway that are smarter than this. I do.
Here is my advice to my friends at the Department of the Interior-- and full disclosure: This thing is supported by President Biden's people, and it is supported by President Trump's people. Secretary Burgum loves this thing. He loves this idea like the Devil loves sin. He has a right to his opinion, but here is my advice: Life is hard-- life is hard--but it is a lot harder when you are stupid. Don't do it. Pass my resolution, and let's stop this.
Mr. President, I rise in opposition to S.J. Res. 81, which would terminate the rule of law national emergency declared with respect to Brazil.
I agree with my colleagues that tariffs should be more targeted to avoid harm to Americans. I have made precisely that point at the Finance Committee meeting in May.
We should consider more exemptions, whether for unavailable natural resources, capital equipment, or other key inputs.
It is equally important that enforcement guidance provides the clarity U.S. companies need to comply with tariffs and make critical business decisions.
Similarly, as the administration continues to negotiate with our trading partners, I appreciate that my colleagues, as well as our constituents, may be nervous about what comes next. However, at this juncture, this resolution is counterproductive--counterproductive to helping American families and businesses of all sizes.
The President's historic trade negotiations are bearing fruit. President Trump already announced new deals--trade deals--with major trading partners, including, most recently, Cambodia and Malaysia. Other such announcements may still be forthcoming. I urge other trading partners to reach similar trading deals.
Consequently, S.J. Res. 81 is counterproductive to the progress already made by President Trump and to new gains that he can still achieve in the ongoing negotiations with our trading partners.
On April 30, the Senate rejected the joint resolution of disapproval on IEEPA-based reciprocal tariffs for the same reasons. And for these reasons, I urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Brazilian tariff resolution that is before the body, and I will speak briefly since I spoke about 4:30 about it.
The first point to mention is, this is a Presidential invocation of a very rare emergency power. The IEEPA statute says that it has to be an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security foreign policy or economy of the United States, and the President has to find the existence of such a threat.
What has the President said about the threat posed by Brazil? What is that threat posed to the economy, national security, or foreign policy of the United States?
The President has said it is Brazil's decision to prosecute its former President.
If you surveyed the American public and asked them about the Brazilian prosecution of former President Bolsonaro, 99 percent of the American public wouldn't even know about it.
How can this be a national emergency allowing the President to unilaterally impose a 50-percent tariff on goods from Brazil? We have a trade surplus with Brazil; $7 billion a year in goods; $23 billion in services. We have a trade surplus from Brazil.
This President has said that their prosecution of a disgraced former politician is a national emergency for the United States. How could that be?
If this is a national emergency for the United States, any President of any party could say that anything is a national emergency for the United States. So the first reason that I asked my colleagues to support this resolution is to not allow the President to end-run Congress and create a bogus emergency to unilaterally claim powers--in this case, trade powers--that are given to Congress in the Constitution.
And the second reason that I ask my colleagues to support this is that people are suffering--people are suffering. They are paying more for ground beef. A lot of ground beef comes from Brazil. They are paying more for coffee. Americans are the biggest coffee drinkers in the world. Coffee is the biggest imported product--agricultural--that we bring into this Nation.
Coffee prices have gone up by 40 percent in 1 year from the end of September of 2024 to the end of September of 2025 because of President Trump's tariffs. Thirty-five percent of our coffee comes from Brazil. Twenty-seven percent of our coffee comes from Colombia, being heavily tariffed right now. The third nation that grows coffee that comes to the United States is Vietnam, heavily affected by U.S. tariffs.
People are suffering. They are paying more for food, more for clothes, more for healthcare, more for energy, more for building supplies because of President Trump's tariff policy.
Trade is a power given to Congress in the Constitution that can be delegated to the President, but in statutes like IEEPA, we have retained the right when a President is going the wrong direction and our constituents need someone to stand up for them so they don't pay more than they should for their morning cup of coffee or the hamburger that they are having.
Congress has the power to roll that back and end these tariffs.
So for those two reasons--the fact that this is not an emergency that would have ever been within the contemplation of those who drafted this statute and the second, to save Americans some money, to save them a few bucks when they buy their cup of coffee every day--I ask for support for this resolution.
Mr. President, I thank my friend the Senator from Virginia Senator Kaine for his great work not only on this proposal but on so many. He has been a watchdog for the American people, for the American consumer. And when these willy-nilly proposals that come out of Donald Trump's office and his head--whatever pops into his head-- does such damage to the American people, Senator Kaine is the watchman at the gate trying to preserve some sanity in our tariff policy and some reduced costs for the American people.
Now, this week, the Democrats are forcing, as you can see, a series of votes here in the Senate to put an end--an end--to Donald Trump's reckless tariffs.
Six months ago, Trump promised liberation. Then he started a disastrous trade war that has brought chaos to the economy, confusion for small businesses, and high costs for American families. A recent analysis showed that Americans are eating 90 percent of the total cost of Trump's tariffs. Ninety percent is going right out of the pockets of the American family.
That is not liberation. It is a national sales tax. That is what these tariffs are. It is a financial nightmare for working and middle- class households. So today, Democrats will present Republicans with a simple vote: Do you want lower costs for families or tie yourself to Donald Trump as he runs our economy into the dirt with his trade war?
First vote happening tonight is to end Trump's tariffs on Brazil. Once again, I thank Senator Kaine for his leadership on this resolution and for speaking so urgently on the floor today.
In July, Trump declared a national emergency to increase tariffs on Brazil to 50 percent, using a totally bogus and ridiculous justification; the tariffs had nothing to do with improving trade relations with Brazil.
We, in fact, have a trade surplus with Brazil. They had nothing to do with trying to lower costs for the American people. This is Trump. This is the kind of bull that comes out of his administration, led by him. These tariffs were simply an attempt to bully Brazil into dropping corruption charges against Trump's MAGA buddy, former President Bolsonaro, and it has hurt Americans. It has hurt Americans.
The price of coffee--and Brazil is our largest importer of coffee. We import more coffee from Brazil than any other place--40 percent higher. Every American that wakes up in the morning to get a cup of java is paying a price for Donald Trump's reckless, ridiculous, and almost childish tariffs.
While Donald Trump uses his trade war to meddle in another country's politics, families at home are paying more and more for goods as commonplace, as I said, for coffee and lots of other produce as well.
Because of Trump's tariffs, everyone is paying more for their morning cup of coffee. But Trump doesn't care that you are paying more for your coffee. He is more interested in helping corrupt foreign leaders get out of jail than he is in helping lower costs for Americans.
And Americans know Donald Trump is stabbing them in the back. He promised lower costs on day one, and instead costs have continued to go up. It is one of the biggest reasons why his trade war is so unpopular.
A recent CNBC poll showed 56 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's tariffs--56 percent. Today, and through rest of the week, we will give our Republican colleagues a choice: Stand with Trump's idiotic, disastrous, and often juvenilely inspired tariffs or stand with American families and vote to lower costs for people back home because the longer these tariffs are in place, the more damage it will cause for our economy and the more money families back home will pay.
So I urge my colleagues to vote yes on Tim Kaine's fine resolution and end Donald Trump's tariffs on Brazil.
Mr. President, I yield back all time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. All time is yielded back.
Under the previous order, the clerk will read the title of the joint resolution a third time.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading and was read the third time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution having been read the third time, the question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, today, I pay tribute to a tireless civic leader from northwest Iowa who led a remarkable life of service for more than a century, richly steeped in family, faith, and citizenship.
On this very day, my friend Vergene Donovan will be laid to final rest, joining her parents Harry and Minnie Bleeker, her husband Ed, both siblings, and her eldest son who preceded her in life everlasting.
Vergene Edna Bleeker was born on March 4, 1924, on her parents' farm near Spencer, IA. For the next 101 years, this outstanding Iowan pursued life with vim and vigor to make her community and our country a better place. Her birth during a late winter blizzard forecasted a gritty resilience that shaped her decades-long devotion to community service and tenacity to overcome adversity. The loss of her father during childhood shaped her tireless work ethic that she put to extraordinary use on the campaign trail for Presidential, congressional, gubernatorial, and local candidates for more than eight decades.
She met Edward Donovan, the love of her life, while working at a defense plant in California during World War II. It was love at first sight for these two Iowa lovebirds from Spencer and Spirit Lake. After getting married, they returned home to Iowa and celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary on August 24, 2017.
Five months after their wedding day, Ed joined the U.S. Armed Forces and served as a staff sergeant 8th Air Force--European Theater of Operations. He loaded eight missions on D-day. After the war, the Donovans settled down in Spirit Lake and raised a loving family rooted in their Lutheran faith. As an empty nester, Vergene's work ethic and special talents jumped into warp speed. She immersed herself into civic life, getting involved in numerous local boards and committees in Iowa's Great Lakes, from the arts to healthcare and politics. She was a charter member of the Lakes Art Center and served on the Okoboji Summer Theatre, Voluntary Action Center, Spirit Lake Centennial, Homestead Retirement, St. Luke's Lutheran Home, the local and State boards of the American Cancer Society, the Lakes Regional Hospital auxiliary board, Lutheran Women's Mission League, and White House Conference on Families, to name a few.
Vergene blazed a bright trail in grassroots politics and served in various leadership roles at the county and district levels. Serving as district and State board member of the Iowa Federation of Republican Women, Vergene edited its newsletter The Iowa Indicator. She donated these and other personal papers to the University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa Women's Archives.
By the grace of God, I crossed paths with Vergene in 1980, during my first campaign for the U.S. Senate. From that day forward, she was a loyal and indefatigable grassroots leader who became a trusted friend to Barbara and me. She served as my county chair in each of my eight campaigns for U.S. Senate.
While her political resume speaks volumes, her humility and generosity defined her approach to servant leadership. Over the course of countless campaigns, she met nine U.S. Presidents, including Eisenhower, Carter, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Trump and befriended three Iowa Governors: Bob Ray, Terry Branstad, and Kim Reynolds.
Vergene received numerous awards for her life of service, including the State and national Outstanding American Cancer Society Award, 1985 and 1986; Outstanding National Volunteer Award, 1986; Harold Morgan Award, 1985; John McDonald Outstanding Republican in Iowa Award, 1995; honorary colonel in the Iowa Militia; and Republican Service Award in Dickinson County, 2002.
Vergene also was listed in Who's Who in American Politics, 18th Edition. That is an understatement. Candidates wanting to win election in northwest Iowa quickly figured out their campaign needed to have Vergene on speed dial if they wanted a successful turnout for events and votes in her neck of the woods.
Although her passion for politics contributed to her vitality and broadened her horizons across northwest Iowa, as well as the State and national political stage, Vergene's love for family, friends, and the Lord are her true legacy. From her treasured classmates of the Spencer High School Class of 1941 to her cherished book and bridge club members, Vergene's charismatic friendship and generosity will be deeply missed.
Each time I was in Vergene's company, she would greet me with a glowing grin and a big hug. We enjoyed many evenings together on the lakes of Dickinson County. Barbara and I are grateful for our decades of friendship with Vergene and Ed and send our deepest condolences to her family and loved ones, including her surviving children Jim, DeEtte, and Scott and her beloved 17 grandchildren, 22 great- grandchildren, and 8 great-great-grandchildren.
May her memory be a blessing. I have no doubt the members of her family tree will carry forward the seeds of civic stewardship planted by their matriarch and embrace Vergene's devotion to her faith.
To my dear friend, may you rest in peace in the Eternal grace of our Lord and Savior.
Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to James for his hard work as an intern in my Washington, DC, office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office, as well as to the State of Wyoming.
James is from Shillington, PA. James is currently enrolled at Susquehanna University, where he is pursuing a bachelor's degree in political science. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months.
I want to thank James for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all
Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Patrick for his hard work as an intern in my Washington, DC, office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office, as well as to the State of Wyoming.
Patrick is from Jackson, WY. Patrick is currently enrolled at George Washington University, where he is pursuing a bachelor's degree in international business. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months.
I want to thank Patrick for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.
Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Edwin for his hard work as an intern in my Washington, DC, office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office, as well as to the State of Wyoming.
Edwin is from Lewisville, TX. Edwin is currently enrolled at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he is pursuing a bachelor's degree in neuroscience and a minor in public health. After graduation, Edwin plans on attending medical school. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months.
I want to thank Edwin for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.
Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Thomas for his hard work as an intern in my Casper office. I recognize his efforts and contributions to my office, as well as to the State of Wyoming.
Thomas is from Casper, WY. Thomas is currently enrolled at Casper College, where he is pursuing an associate's degree in business administration. He has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made him an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of his work is reflected in his great efforts over the last several months.
I want to thank Thomas for the dedication he has shown while working for me and my staff. It is a pleasure to have him as part of our team. I know he will have continued success with all of his future endeavors. I wish him all my best on his journey.
Mr. President, I rise today to celebrate an extraordinary milestone in the democratization of public information, as the Internet Archive marks their one-trillionth web page archived.
Founded by digital librarian and MIT alumnus Brewster Kahle, the Internet Archive first launched in San Francisco in 1996 with the goal of providing ``Universal Access to All Knowledge'' by creating a ``shared digital library of humanity's online history.'' In 2001, they launched the ``Wayback Machine,'' making their archives easily accessible to the public.
Coordinating with governments, nonprofits, institutions, and individuals to grow their digital collection, for nearly three decades, the Internet Archive has worked to preserve everything from academic research to personal blogs, local news stories to international breaking news, and troves of official government records--including the archival of websites from every Presidential administration since 2008. Information from its archives has even been cited by every Circuit Court in the United States and the Supreme Court.
Working to prevent and repair broken web links, the Internet Archive has become a modern-day, digital Library of Alexandria and given billions of people the tools that once only professional archivists had at their disposal.
On a personal note, earlier this year, it was my honor to help designate the Internet Archive as a Federal depository library, allowing the Internet Archive to digitize and expand public access to Federal Government publications for years to come.
For their outstanding commitment to the public good and tireless preservation of public information, today we celebrate San Francisco's own Internet Archive. Here is to the next trillion.
Mr. President, for the Committee on Armed Services I report favorably the following nomination lists which were printed in the RECORDS on the dates indicated, and ask unanimous consent, to save the expense of reprinting on the Executive Calendar that these nominations lie at the Secretary's desk for the information of Senators .
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
*Nomination was reported with recommendation that it be confirmed subject to the nominee's commitment to respond to requests to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of the Senate.
(Nominations without an asterisk were reported with the recommendation that they be confirmed.)
Mr. President, I have four 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 Armed Services is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on nominations.
The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, at 10 a.m., to conduct a subcommittee hearing.
The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, at 10:15 a.m., to conduct a hearing.
The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of my staff, Henry Wu, for today, October 28, 2025.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following members of my team be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress: Christopher Stille, Madeleine Vea, Meredith Shea, Eric Gitson, Matthew Trone, Ethan Lukas, Christopher Adair, Cara Levy, Steven Kasparek, and Rami Major.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 454.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
There being no objection, the committee was discharged, and the Senate proceeded to consider the resolution.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 454) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
(The resolution, with its preamble, is printed in the Record of October 16, 2025, under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 471) 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 when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, October 29; 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 day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; that if Senator Sullivan makes a motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 80, the Senate vote on the motion at 11:30 a.m. and, if agreed to, that all time be deemed expired and the Senate vote on passage no earlier than Thursday, October 30; that following the vote on the motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 80, the Senate execute the order of October 28 in relation to Executive Calendar No. 457, Edmund G. LaCour, Jr.; further, that if Senator Kennedy makes a motion to proceed to S.J. Res. 69, the Senate vote on the motion at 2:15 p.m.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, for the information of my colleagues, Senators should expect two votes at 11:30 a.m., one vote at 2:15 p.m., and a further vote later in the afternoon.
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 Senator Blumenthal.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. President, as everyone in this Chamber knows and everyone in our great Nation knows, we are in the midst of a healthcare crisis. Now, the word ``crisis'' probably is the most overused term in the political lexicon, but the American people know that this crisis is real and urgent because they know, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. That old saying epitomizes the importance of healthcare when it affects our children, who can't get healthcare for themselves; our seniors, who also depend on others; and everyday Americans across the country, who are at their kitchen tables tonight or at their workplaces or are with their families, wondering: When will it happen? When will I get sick, not just with a virus or the common cold? When will there be a healthcare crisis for me?
And it happens to everybody. Nobody is invincible. Everybody needs healthcare, and it should be regarded as a human right.
We face an imminent and real and present crisis right now for millions of Americans who will no longer be able to afford healthcare insurance, beginning in days or weeks, because premiums are skyrocketing. They will rise by double or triple what they are now. Insurance companies are already raising premium rates. Americans are beginning a period of open enrollment. In Connecticut, it begins on November 1, when they will have to make choices--literally, in effect, writing checks to insurance companies and saying: I am going to afford this plan. But many Americans will find no plan affordable if we fail to provide for them an extension of the healthcare tax credit that has enabled them to afford health insurance up to now under a measure that we passed and the President signed.
My Republican colleagues continue to ignore the needs and interests of the American people by blocking our efforts to fix this imminent, immediate crisis. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is out of town, the President is out of touch in Asia, and we are left with the clock ticking. Time is not on our side.
Let's be very clear. Republicans control the House of Representatives, which hasn't shown up to work in over a month, but they continue to be paid; Republicans control the Senate; and maybe most importantly, the Republicans control the White House. This government shutdown is happening on President Trump's watch. It is on him. These skyrocketing healthcare costs are happening on his watch too.
Instead of fighting for the American people, President Trump and Republicans have spent the past year seeking to strip millions of Americans of healthcare, food assistance, student loan support, and much more that is vital to their quality of life and, for many of them, their very survival.
Democrats have been sounding the alarm over the ongoing threats to healthcare and the impact it will have on every American, but Republicans seemingly--I say ``seemingly''--refuse to listen. I think they are listening but are in denial because instead of working with Democrats to prevent Americans from being crushed by impending medical debt, Republicans have wasted valuable time blocking every single Democratic effort to lower costs for families.
To be clear, if Republicans refuse to join Democrats in protecting the American people from massive increases in their healthcare costs, millions of people will suffer, and healthcare premiums will rise to incomprehensible levels.
Just this week, Connecticut launched a window-shopping tool that allows residents to preview their healthcare options for next year. It allows consumers to see how costs compare to next year's costs. Very frankly, the options are preposterous.
For example, a couple in their sixties living in Hartford, CT--our capital--making $100,000 a year will go from paying $260.38 to $2,614.60. That is for the same plan. It is an Anthem plan. They are going from the cost this year of $260.83 to, next year, $2,614.60. By the way, they are getting nothing more. It is the same plan. There is no additional coverage, and they are paying over $2,500 more each month.
It is, in effect, a Republican healthcare tax on a family in their sixties making $100,000 a year--that is a middle-class family--in Hartford, CT.
Let me give you another example. A family of four living in Hartford and making $159,767, roughly $160,000 a year--the average salary for a family of four in our State--would be forced to pay $1,159.52 more. They go from $796.65 this year to $1,956.17 next year. I don't know how they can afford it. The simple answer is, probably they can't. And that family will be at risk of financial catastrophe without healthcare insurance coverage.
Already--let me just emphasize, already--healthcare debt is the major cause of bankruptcy in this country. It hurts our whole economy. So even if you don't care about a family of four living in Hartford or a couple in their sixties, even if the humanitarian impacts are impervious to you, think about the economic consequences. Think about your pocketbook, not theirs. Bankruptcy will increase along with the suffering.
These price hikes, the taxes on healthcare, are absolutely absurd and abhorrent. It is incomprehensible to expect any American enrolled in one of these plans to have the disposable income necessary to keep their coverage. This added cost is money that could be used to cover weeks' worth of groceries, heat, rent, or mortgage.
This added cost is money that many individuals and families simply don't have. They won't pay these prices because they simply cannot. Instead, many will be forced to go without health insurance, which raises the costs for everyone.
Very bluntly, these rates will not just impact people enrolled in the ACA marketplace. If Republicans have their way, the entire healthcare system will feel the effects, and every individual trying to receive care, regardless of what kind of insurance they have, will be impacted. The ripple effect is coming to you. Even if you don't have an ACA plan, even if you are paying some part of your employer's insurance cost, this rising tide will truly lift everybody's boat in terms of costs.
Republicans are making Connecticut families and Americans across the country choose between affordable healthcare or putting food on the table or heating their homes this winter or buying clothes for their kid. It is cruel. It is unnecessary. It will undoubtedly cost people their health and their lives.
Open enrollment is less than 5 days away now in Connecticut. Time is not on our side. We have no time to waste. If you don't feel this sense of urgency, listen to your constituents.
I choose to stand with them--with small business owners, with working families, with everyday Americans who will be crushed by these costs, and their futures will be crippled--at least financially.
It is paramount in my mind that Republican colleagues listen to those constituents, to those small business owners, to those families and millions of Americans and healthcare professionals who have been speaking truth to power.
This government shutdown can end tonight if we choose the path forward to guarantee an extension of the healthcare tax credits and add it to the government funding measure that is now before this body.
The House of Representatives needs to come back to do its job. President Trump will come back from Asia. The American people deserve a real solution that preserves Americans' healthcare.
