Legislative Session
Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 168, H.R. 5371.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Mr. President, we are now in day 29 of the Democrat government shutdown, and I say that because it is a Democrat shutdown. Now, the Democrats are out there publicly saying: Well, these are the Republicans who are responsible for shutting down the government, notwithstanding the fact that the House of Representatives has passed a bill sitting right here; that with five more Democrats, we could pick up and pass, put on the President's desk, he would sign it into law, and we could reopen the government.
Those are the simple facts. Those are the indisputable facts.
What it suggests to me, however, when they say that it is the Republicans' fault or somehow the Republicans are responsible for shutting the government down, it really defies facts. It defies history. It defies reality because as everybody who has been around here knows, we have now voted 13 times--13 times--on that bill sitting at the desk that would open up the government, put everybody back to work, and all the pain that is being caused on the American people would go away. Thirteen times we had that vote.
Interestingly enough, that matches the number of times the Democrats passed a clean CR when they had the majority the last 4 years under President Biden. On 13 different occasions--13 different occasions-- they voted for a clean continuing resolution to fund the government.
At the time, they talked about how terrible it is, you know, that the government should be taken hostage when you have a dispute over other issues. You have tons of statements. I could spend all day just repeating the statements the Democrats made over and over and over again about the importance of funding the government and not taking it hostage to discuss other issues. The Record is replete with statements like that coming out of the Democrats.
So 13 times they have voted against funding the government right here. Thirteen times while they were in the majority, they voted for a clean continuing resolution. Now, explain that logic to the American people who are the ones that are experiencing the pain and the consequence of their shutdown.
I think the American people understand what is going on here. And we consistently see that, so much so that you even have the organizations--the unions around the country have come out now. You have the American Federation of Government Employees, you have the Teamsters, part of the Air Traffic Controllers Union all have endorsed a clean funding resolution. That, to me, suggests that it is resonating with the American people about who is responsible for this government shutdown.
But don't take my word for who it is, take the Democrats' own words. If you look at what has been said by some of the Democrat leadership here just in the last few days since the government actually shut down, that, of course, is the Democrat leader Senator Schumer, who said: ``Every day gets better for us,'' commenting about the government shutdown.
My simple observation is, better for whom? For you because you think you are winning politically? What about the air traffic controllers? What about the TSA agents? What about the American troops? What about our Border Patrol agents? What about the people who work in this building? What about the 40 million Americans who are not going to get SNAP benefits starting Saturday if the government doesn't open up?
But ``every day gets better,'' according to Senator Schumer.
Then, of course, this last week there was the House Democrat whip who said:
Of course there are families that are going to suffer. Yes, true, but it doesn't matter because we have leverage.
Then, of course, we have a third one here, one of our colleagues here in the Senate, the Senator from Delaware, who said this in an interview:
Yes, it is unpleasant, unless you are a Democrat who thinks that this gives you a moment of leverage.
So lest there be any question about who is responsible for shutting the government down, make no mistake about it, these guys are the ones who are out there bragging about it ``getting better for us every single day,'' or ``we have more leverage now.''
This has gone on long enough. We made it abundantly clear that this is not about what the Democrats say it is about. It is about the President in the White House. This is TDS. This is Trump derangement syndrome on steroids. And they are asking the American people to pay the price for that.
Thirteen times when Biden was President, they had no issues with funding the Federal Government with a clean CR. Now, we bring a clean, nonpartisan CR--no partisan riders, no Republican policies attached, just funds the government, comes over from the House a month ago now, we put it here just asking a handful of Democrats to join us because, as we know, it takes 60 in the Senate. I think most people understand that.
I mean, they are trying to ignore the fact now that Republicans have control of Washington. They have the House, the Senate, the White House. Anybody who follows this knows that in the U.S. Senate, the rules, the procedures in the Senate by which we operate and are governed, require a 60-vote threshold. So it takes more than 51. Meaning, since we have 53 Republicans, it is going to taking take a handful of Democrats. We have been able to generate 55 votes consistently now 13 different times for funding the government, opening up the government, but we need five more.
The question is, Are there five people over there with a backbone, five courageous Democrats, five Democrats who don't buy this, who don't believe that they ought to be using the American people as leverage--as leverage--to try to win a political battle? Are there five Democrats over there who believe we ought to do what is in the interest of the American people, the best interest of the air traffic controllers and the TSA agents and the men and women in uniform and the SNAP recipients that, starting on Saturday, are going to go without food assistance? This is not a game. You are playing with real people's lives.
In the Washington world, in the political world, they may think that they are winning this debate because it gives them leverage, but in the real world where real people live, people are hurting. People aren't getting paid. Federal workers aren't getting paid. As of Friday, last paycheck. Air traffic controllers' paychecks started going away yesterday.
I am still hopeful. I remain hopeful that there are enough sane Democrats who are not so afflicted with Trump derangement syndrome because that is what this is about, fundamentally, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. This is about Trump derangement syndrome. And it has broken out here in a way unlike anything I have seen in my time here. Disagree with the President, that is fine. Come down here, make statements, cast votes. Don't take the American people hostage and make them pay the price because you think that every day this is getting better for us.
Mr. President, the Democrat leader was on the floor yesterday morning claiming, once again, Republicans don't want to talk about fixing healthcare. Let me just say, for the 1,282nd time, that Republicans are more than happy to have a discussion about healthcare. We should have a discussion about healthcare because Democrats' signature healthcare law has done exactly nothing to address the problem of rising healthcare costs.
We were promised, of course, that it would. We were, in fact, promised the Democrats' signature law would fix our entire healthcare system.
This is a quote:
That is from the senior Democrat Senator from Washington speaking of ObamaCare back in 2009.
Or to quote President Obama himself:
``Cut costs and make coverage more affordable for families and small businesses''--except, of course, it didn't.
And what has been very striking about the last few weeks is that Democrats are, at least, now admitting that. Oh, yes, they are not saying it straight out. But every time they talk about Americans facing a healthcare crisis, they are admitting that their signature healthcare law failed, that it did not address the problem of high healthcare costs, and that it did not make healthcare more affordable for hard- working Americans.
Now, I could go down the list of ObamaCare's broken promises:
If you like your health insurance, you can keep it--not true.
If you like your doctor, you can keep him or her--not true.
Premium costs will go down--not true. It is exactly the opposite. If you look at 2013 to today, what premium costs have done in the individual marketplaces and on the exchanges is a line like this.
Suffice it to say, as Democrats are now implicitly admitting, ObamaCare massively failed in its aims.
Democrats, of course, now want to put a bandaid on a gaping wound by extending the Biden COVID bonuses. But, of course, extending those credits will do nothing to fix the underlying problem, which is that healthcare costs will continue to spiral under ObamaCare. Throwing $350 billion--taxpayer dollars--at the problem in the form of enhanced tax credits will do nothing to stop ObamaCare premiums from going up by double digits, because that is what they have been doing. And it will do nothing to improve healthcare for the majority of Americans, who are not--not--on ObamaCare health plans, like our seniors, our most vulnerable citizens, and those who get their coverage through their employers.
While Democrats are, shall we say, shaky on the facts when it comes to their dramatic healthcare speeches--while ObamaCare premiums are increasing, the median plan premium is not, in fact, going to double next year--it is absolutely true that Democrats have created real healthcare problems. And as I have said more times than I can count, Republicans are ready and willing to have a discussion about those problems and about how we lower costs for hard-working Americans. We are, in fact, eager to have that discussion.
The President is willing to have Democrats over to discuss it next week, if they vote to reopen the government, because in the words of the Democrat leader, back in 2013, ``we are not going to negotiate with a gun to our heads.'' That is what he said.
This is a serious matter. I know Democrats think you can solve any problem simply by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it--the record is pretty clear on that--but you can't. Genuine remedies for the problem of soaring healthcare costs are not going to be arrived at with a brief, late-night session, behind closed doors, in the Democrat leader's office. We need extended, serious bipartisan work, with input from all Senators, and we need Democrats to reopen the government so that work can start.
Republicans are brimming over with healthcare ideas, from cost- sharing reductions to actually lowering health plan costs, to association health plans, to ways to stopping ObamaCare's spiral of enriching insurers at the expense of everyday Americans. In fact, we already took steps to make healthcare more affordable and accessible when we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill this summer, which expanded health savings accounts and telehealth for Americans, to say nothing of investing heavily in rural healthcare and ensuring that our healthcare entitlement programs were focused on those most in need.
So I say, we are looking forward to having a real discussion with Democrats. But to quote another Democrat Senator, the junior Democrat from Connecticut:
There are a lot of Americans suffering right now because of the Democrats' monthlong shutdown, and the suffering increases every day. It is time--it is past time--for Democrats to reopen the government. Once they do, Republicans look forward to having some serious discussions about how to address rising healthcare costs and the failures of the Democrats' signature healthcare law.
Mr. President, before I close, I would like to mention a bill that Democrats are reportedly going to attempt to move by unanimous consent today.
I would just say that, after a month of steadily increasing pain thanks to the Democrats' shutdown, the Democrats have, apparently, woken up to the fact that, in 3 days--in 3 days--they are going to be responsible for SNAP recipients starting to go without food stamps.
So what are the Democrats doing? Are they making plans to end their shutdown and reopen the government?
Nope. They are going to propose a bill to fund food stamps during their shutdown.
That is right. The Democrats don't want the bad press of hungry Americans, but they are also, apparently, unwilling to even contemplate ending their monthlong shutdown. So they are trying to insulate themselves with this bill.
Do you know what is not in this bill? Paychecks for our troops, paychecks for law enforcement officers and Federal firefighters, paychecks for air traffic controllers, paychecks for other government workers, funding for rental and housing assistance, funding for small business loan programs, funding for farm loan programs, funding for Tribal programs, funding for Head Start, funding for rural development programs, funding for National Guard training, funding for telehealth services.
Shall I go on? Because I am happy to.
Every one of those programs I mentioned has either run out of money, is running out of money, or is otherwise in jeopardy because of the Democrats' government shutdown. The Democrats' bill would do nothing to support even one of those programs. Thanks to Democrats, Federal workers are lining up at food banks. The Democrats' bill is certainly not going to help them as they struggle to pay the rent or the electric bill or to make the car payment.
Enough is enough. This bill is a cynical attempt to buy political cover for Democrats to allow them to carry on their government shutdown even longer. We are not going to let them pick winners and losers. It is time to fund everybody, and the bill sitting at the desk right there does that. We just need five brave Democrats.
If Democrats really want to fund SNAP and WIC, we have a bill for them--a clean, nonpartisan CR to fund SNAP, WIC, and the entire Federal Government--or we can pass the Agricultural appropriations bill the Democrats have been resisting behind closed doors. That would fund SNAP, WIC, and our farm and conservation programs, not to mention ensuring salaries for the people who inspect our food and support our farmers. I am happy to bring that up right now.
The Democrats have spent a month--a month now--playing with people's livelihoods because the far-left wing of their party won't let them accept a clean, nonpartisan CR.
Enough is enough. We are not giving Democrats political cover. If they want to prevent damage from their shutdown, then they can end their shutdown. The bill is right there at the desk, and I will call a vote the minute the Democrats tell me they have enough votes to fund the government. The ball is really in their court.
Is this what you want the American people to think--that you are willing
It is time to end it.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.
Mr. President, we are just 3 days--3 days--away from open enrollment and 3 days away from the biggest healthcare crisis America has seen in a generation.
Right now, at this moment, all day today, millions of Americans are getting sticker shock as the so-called window-shopping period has begun. American families, as they window shop, are seeing that due to Republican obstruction, they will end up having to pay tens of thousands of dollars more each year for healthcare, seeing their premiums triple, quadruple, or more just to afford a basic need like health insurance. And what is Donald Trump doing? He is ignoring one colossal healthcare crisis while manufacturing another: a hunger crisis.
In a matter of days, SNAP benefits will run out for 42 million Americans. And let's be very clear. This does not need to happen. This is on Donald Trump's shoulders. He can immediately provide SNAP benefits, as every President has done in the past. Every single President was not so cruel and heartless to hold those hungry children, hungry elderly, hungry veterans as hostages, but Donald Trump, who is a cold, heartless individual, only advancing himself, is doing it for the first time in American history. Never, never before in American history--not once under a Democratic President or a Republican President--has SNAP funding lapsed during a shutdown--not even in 2019, during Trump's last shutdown. In fact, Trump himself funded SNAP throughout that shutdown.
So this argument that he can't do it, that he doesn't have the money, that it is not legal is just bull--self-serving, nasty, vicious bull-- to try to take the most needy people in our society, who don't have food right now--who could be a middle-class person who lost a job, could be an elderly person who has healthcare costs--and he is saying: The hell with you. I need you to be my hostage for political purposes because I don't want to provide healthcare for the American people.
Just weeks ago, Trump's own U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed in writing that contingency funds--about $6 billion in emergency reserves--were ``available to fund participant benefits.'' That is not Democrats saying it; that is the Republican-appointed U.S. Department of Agriculture saying that $6 billion in emergency reserves were ``available to fund participant benefits.''
But then, suddenly, after USDA said it, Trump ordered the Department of Agriculture to rip up the contingency plan, literally delete it from their website--the big lie that they can't do it--and told them not to use emergency funds--no explanation, no justification; just plain cruelty from the man who only serves himself.
Donald Trump is picking politics over the lives of hungry kids. He is weaponizing hunger, turning millions of children, seniors, and veterans into political pawns to score points in his shutdown fight. Donald Trump is a vindictive politician and a heartless man, and that is why he doesn't care about cutting off food aid to hungry kids.
Of course, what he is doing is totally unprecedented. Let's not forget who it affects. Two-thirds of SNAP recipients are children, seniors, or people with disabilities. That is who Trump is cutting off--kids who rely on school meals, seniors on fixed incomes, and veterans trying to get by. That is why every single President in history continued SNAP benefits during a shutdown. Instead, what does Trump do? He is focused on $40 million to bail out Argentina rather than how to keep SNAP benefits flowing for Americans here at home.
And don't give me the lie that this can't be done legally. Every single President--Republican, Democrat, and Trump himself in 2019--has used these funds during shutdowns to keep SNAP running.
Trump's own administration asserted that these emergency funds could be used to keep SNAP benefits flowing in a shutdown, and the Government Accountability Office, which is nonpartisan, confirmed it. The USDA can also use the same transfer authority they used to keep WIC afloat in October to move money over to SNAP for November. To claim otherwise is a bald-faced lie.
Republicans are on a crusade to kill SNAP. They tried to do it in their Big Beautiful Bill. They don't like funding hungry children. They say to the most needy in society: We don't give a damn about you. In fact, we will use you as political pawns. Trump and Republicans spent their entire summer slashing SNAP by a historic $200 billion. Why? To pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Now they are doubling down, using the shutdown to further devastate families and leave kids hungry.
But Democrats will not stand by while Trump manufacturers a hunger crisis. We are ready to work in whatever way to solve this issue. There is a bill right now from Senator Hawley--a Republican, a conservative Republican--that could ensure SNAP is funded. It has Republican and Democratic support. It is a bill I would happily support and vote for. As soon as Thune lets Hawley put it on the Senate floor, it will pass, plain and simple.
But that is not the only option, of course. This week, Senate Democrats, led by my friend Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, will introduce legislation to fully fund SNAP and WIC--and WIC, going better than Hawley's bill--to protect hungry kids, pregnant women, veterans, and working parents.
The bill is simple; it is moral; it is urgent. Ask John Thune why he won't put it on the floor. He decries the fact that SNAP benefits are cut off. He knows the money is available. He knows there is broad Republican support for it. And he doesn't put it on the floor. He is afraid of Trump. That is it. He knows better.
We Democrats are ready to act. We will push to pass the Lujan bill. We will vote for the Hawley bill if Thune does the right thing and puts it on the floor before the weekend, before families lose their benefits, before holidays turn into a hunger crisis. We are ready to act.
We are ready to work with anyone, Republicans or Democrats, who is willing to stop this cruelty, but Senate Republicans--especially Leader Thune--have to find the courage to stand up to Trump. Right now, they are frozen, paralyzed by fear, by cynicism, while millions of Americans wonder how they will feed their families.
So I say to my Republican colleagues: Don't block the Hawley bill.
Put it on the floor, Senator Thune.
Don't block the Lujan bill, which is even better. Don't let politics outweigh compassion. Let's stop this hunger shutdown. Let's stop this shutdown. Let's stop the shutdown Republicans caused, using hungry people as pawns. Let's feed our people, and let's end this hunger crisis before it begins.
Mr. President, now on Trump's Asian trip and tariffs, as we enter the 29th day of the government shutdown, where is Donald Trump? Gallivanting in Asia. Dancing in Malaysia.
He is preparing now to meet with President Xi of China to strike a trade deal that will sell out the American people, give away vital national security tools in exchange for little more than a photo op.
President Trump is about to congratulate himself--patting himself hard on the back--for cleaning up a mess that he created. Again, President Trump is about to congratulate himself for cleaning up a mess that he created. It is amazing what this guy does.
It is the same story with his so-called deal with South Korea. We are actually worse off because tariffs on Korean imports went from 2 percent now to 15 percent. But Donald Trump created a mess and now wants credit for pretending like he fixed it.
On China, Donald Trump's trade negotiations with China have been a failure. His actions have decimated soybean farmers. He has hurt small businesses. Has he revived any of American manufacturing? No. China is still flooding global markets with subsidized goods, still stealing American technologies to undercut U.S. firms and workers. Meanwhile, we have lost tens of thousands of American manufacturing jobs.
This is Trump's MO in foreign policy: He creates a giant mess, and then he
In anticipation of today's meeting with Trump and President Xi, Senate Democrats are demanding that President Trump not negotiate away America and our allies' national security.
He is using the most advanced semiconductor chips, which China doesn't have, as a bargaining chip. China is desperate to get these chips. If Trump gives it away, China will dominate the world of AI in a few short years, and Americans will pay an awful price.
Where are our China hawks on the Republican side decrying this? Where are they? Because these chips are vital, and it is American technology that has produced them, American companies that make them. China is desperate to get them because it will make them the leader in AI in a few years--AI, the most dominant technology in the world. And Trump is willing to give away those crown jewels so he can say he has ``a deal'' and undo the mess that he created with tariffs.
Donald Trump's chip deal is not ``America First'' but China first, putting China first over the next decade in what is the most crucial technology facing the world. Americans will regret that move for generations. Historians will note it as one of the turning points where America became not the primary power in the world but secondary to China--all because Trump wants an immediate press hit to say, ``Hey, I have a deal,'' even though that deal doesn't move us forward at all, and it cleans up the mess he created.
Now, President Trump's trip to the Asian Continent could have been an opportunity to make progress with America's vital partners. He could have used this trip to end his reckless trade war, to stop alienating our allies, to show strength and unite our allies against the Chinese Communist Party, and, most importantly, to help Americans struggling with high costs here at home. But so far, his trip has been a total dud.
By the end of his trip to Asia, it could be the case that we somehow have higher tariffs on our neighbor Canada than we do on our biggest rival China. How on earth does that make sense?
In fact, the biggest news out of this trip is that Donald Trump seems to finally realize that he can't run for a third term. That just goes to show you how fruitless this trip has been.
American families are facing enough problems right now, with the nightmare of open enrollment, the pain of higher groceries, the prices of everything, from cars, to home appliances, to electricity, skyrocketing. The last thing they want is to turn on the TV and see Trump being gifted with a golden crown and then signing a deal with China that royally screws over Americans.
Trump's trade war has been an utter disaster from the start. It has been a nightmare for our allies, for our economy, and for our families who are paying more because of the Trump tariff tax.
I am proud the Senate came together yesterday in a bipartisan vote, 52 to 48, to end Trump's tariffs on Brazil yesterday--the tariffs he put on Brazil simply because he is angry that the Brazilian Government is prosecuting a friend of his, a guy who is MAGA just like him. Isn't that amazing? That is why he put Trump tariffs on Brazil. That is why Americans are paying more for their cup of coffee in the morning-- because Trump wants to embrace and help a MAGA, rightwing guy who is being prosecuted by the legitimate Brazilian Government. It is amazing.
This week we will have more resolutions to push back on Trump's trade war and help stop the bleeding. Our Republican colleagues will have a choice--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.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
Mr. President, today I would like to start with a quote. Here it is:
It goes on to say:
Those are the words from the American Federation of Government Employees--not FOX News, not the National Review, not the Wall Street Journal--no. These are the words of the American Federation of Government Employees.
Let me tell you about the organization. They are the largest union in America for Federal workers. They were proud promoters, a couple of weeks ago, of the far left's radical rally. They are a very liberal group that has sued the Trump administration now more than a dozen times in the past year. This is a group that endorsed Kamala Harris for President, and 100 percent of their 2024 campaign war chest went to Democrats.
Even my friend and colleague who is on the floor right now, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, admits:
This labor union is one of the Democrats' biggest cheerleaders, and today they are calling out Democrats for playing politics and holding hostage the paychecks of over 800,000 Federal workers. If that doesn't push the Democrats to wake up and reopen the government, it is hard to tell what will.
We are now in day 29 of the Schumer shutdown, and Democrats have set a record for the longest full government shutdown in American history. Union after union are begging the Democrats to open the government. It is not only this American Federation of Government Employees--oh, no, it is the head of the Capitol Police union. The head of the Capitol Police union warns:
The President of the Teamsters Union says:
The head of the National Air Traffic Controllers, their union, warns:
The union leader says--
These are working Americans, and their paychecks are missing. And at the same time their paychecks are missing, their bills are mounting, and the stress that they are suffering is multiplying. The message is clear: Reopen the government today.
Democrats refuse to listen. Instead, they freely admit it is all about politics. They are playing a big and dangerous game of politics, and it is a politics of pain. The minority leader, Schumer, gloated--he gloated--this month to the press in a sitdown interview with Punchbowl News. He says:
I am not sure who the ``us'' is, but it is not the American people.
Then you have the whip in the House on the Democrat side of the aisle. What did she say? She admitted to FOX News--she said:
That is not somebody that is serious about taking care of people and making sure we get the government open.
And even my friend and colleague Chris Coons of Delaware, just last Thursday, told a national television audience on C-SPAN:
And he called this shutdown an ``unpleasant tool.'' He has voted 13 times to keep using this ``unpleasant tool'' to keep the government closed.
Now, those are the words of high-ranking Democrats in both the House and the Senate, and at the same time, vulnerable mothers and children are being described as leverage so that Democrats can give free healthcare to illegal immigrants. That is what they are doing: using the American people as leverage, as pawns in their big game of politics. And what are their demands? Healthcare for illegal immigrants. It is reckless; it is radical; and it is wrong.
This suffering, the unpleasantness, is going to get worse as the weeks go on
Lines at food banks are already swelling. The New York Times reports food banks are anticipating an even greater surge in demand. What do the Democrats call that? Unpleasantness, so they can have leverage.
Families from New Hampshire to Georgia are going to go hungry because Democrats choose to close the government and refuse to open it. What do the Democrats call that? Unpleasantness.
Democrats know the President can't legally use emergency funds, to the tune of $9 billion per month, for food assistance. Democrats have an option: Vote for a clean continuing resolution and reopen the government.
Of course, the Schumer shutdown is not only a financial issue; it is also causing a crisis in national security. This past weekend, one in six air traffic controllers nationwide--in terms of the locations, the centers--were understaffed. Since Sunday, nearly 20,000 flights have been delayed.
What do the Democrats call that? Unpleasantness.
Some Democrats privately say they are not going to budge unless planes are falling out of the sky. That is their definition of unpleasantness.
Democrats continue to embrace the politics of pain. Democrats have chosen leverage over the lives of people in this country. They have chosen leverage because they want to fight Trump. They should be feeding our families. They are choosing politics over paychecks.
The American people deserve better. We are not getting it from the Democrats in this body. Senate Republicans have voted 13 times for a clean, short-term continuing resolution to reopen the government and pay every Federal worker, and 13 times Senate Democrats have voted no. Under Joe Biden, they voted 13 times for the exact same kind of clean continuing resolution. They voted yes all of those times.
Here is the math everybody in this Chamber understands. It takes 60 votes to reopen the government. Fifty-five Senators have voted to reopen the government time and time again. That means we need five more Democrats to end the shutdown.
Republicans are absolutely ready to pay our Nation's workers, to feed our Nation's families, and to reopen the government. Democrats continue to vote against this. They seem to be committed to what the House Democrat whip admits is suffering and what Senator Coons continues to call unpleasantness.
Democrats need to stop playing this dangerous game of the politics of pain. They need to reopen the government, and they need to do it today.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority whip.
Mr. President, I would like to clarify several points raised by my friend and colleague from Wyoming Dr. John Barrasso, my Senate colleague--and he is my friend. I disagree with him, and I think several things that he said were incorrect and need to be clarified on the record.
First, the notion that we are providing health insurance for illegal immigrants is wrong. Let me tell you why it is wrong. You go back almost 20 years, I believe, to the Reagan Presidency when we had a phenomena in the United States that needed to be addressed. People were showing up at the emergency rooms of hospitals and being turned away. Some of them were bleeding out in the driveways of hospitals across America.
We changed the law under President Reagan, and we changed the law to say that you must admit people coming through the door who need emergency medical assistance--women who were in labor to deliver a child, people who were literally bleeding to death.
Do I hear the Senator from Wyoming say that we should be turning those people away? I hope not. I don't think that is what he really believes. He understands, as I do, that there are compelling human situations where you provide assistance. And I thank our hospitals for doing that.
But to say that we are trying to make sure that we manufacture some coverage for illegal aliens is to overlook the obvious. We don't want these hospitals turning away people who are literally in an extreme situation. I will defend that to the death.
I will just tell you, when President Reagan and others supported that, it was considered to be bipartisan, common sense, and still is today.
When it comes to the SNAP program, it is true that one out of eight Americans counts on SNAP to provide $6 a day for food. A third of those Americans are children. Another third are disabled. And the other third are senior citizens. It is a valuable program in my State, where almost 2 million people receive this kind of assistance.
Why are we stopping the decision to fund SNAP?
It is a decision by the White House and the President and the Republicans in Congress. They have decided that, even though they posted on the website for this program, just a few weeks ago, that they had the money to cover it in case of a shutdown, they removed that language and now say they won't provide food for hungry Americans.
That is not necessary. In fact, there is a way around it. It has been used before by this President and others, in a shutdown crisis situation, and should be used again. Let's not bargain this political decision we are making in Washington on the tables and health of Americans who receive the SNAP program.
Now, let me say a word about the core issue that is at stake here. We have a problem we face that we need to correct, and we need to correct it now because the decision was made in the ``Big Beautiful Trump Budget Bill'' not to provide tax credits to millions of Americans who qualify under the Affordable Care Act. Many of them are seeing increased health insurance premiums that they never anticipated.
Let me give you an example. In my State of Illinois, Cook County is the largest county and includes the city of Chicago. The average monthly premium on the Affordable Care Act now is $226--$226 a month. The projected increase, because of the Republicans' Big Beautiful Bill, goes from $226 a month to $441 a month--in other words, about $2,500 the individual would pay for health insurance, over and above what they paid this year. That is an increase of 95 percent.
How is this affecting other States? Let's take one for example, South Dakota, with a population of about a million people, and 53,000 of them are covered by the Affordable Care Act. They are facing this kind of increase to their premiums. I am sure the Senators from South Dakota, both of them, want to protect their families from health insurance premiums they can't afford. They don't want people to drop coverage.
In order to protect them, they have to change the law--the ``Big Beautiful Law,'' as they call it--and provide assistance for people to pay these health insurance premiums. That is at issue.
Across the United States, some 24 million people are facing this reality. It is a hardship for them and can be taken care of, and should be, on a bipartisan basis. The problem is that it isn't just tinkering at edges that is at stake here with many Republicans. They want to do away with the Affordable Care Act.
Under the first Trump term, I can still remember when Senator McCain came through those doors at 2 in the morning and voted no to save the Affordable Care Act. Trump, in his first Presidency, wanted to get rid of it, and many Republicans still do.
What is their alternative? They have none. They have no alternative. They just are angry over this notion of Obamacare and want to see some other approach to it but can't put it on paper because it won't do the basics that Obamacare has done, which provides health insurance across the board to more Americans than ever in our history.
So here is the bottom line. We can take care of the issues that face us--the government shutdown, as well as making sure that the Affordable Care Act premiums don't go through the roof--on a bipartisan basis-- that people of good will will agree to do that.
We have spent now a month or longer at this impasse, and it is time to break
This can be done and should be done quickly, as soon as the President returns from his overseas trip and the House of Representatives can reconvene, which could be tomorrow. Let's get down to business to do that.
Mr. President, it is hard to explain what is going on in the city of Chicago and the State of Illinois that I represent. We have a President who insisted on sending National Guard troops in from Texas--from Texas. The Governor of Illinois said they are not needed; we have our own National Guard if we need one.
And, instead, he is sending these troops and waiting for court approval to spread out across the city of Chicago. At the same time, ICE--the Department of Homeland Security--is creating a reign of terror on the city of Chicago. I do not exaggerate.
Why are they in force in Chicago? Because the President has said, over and over again, that the immigrants are the problem in America. You have heard the speeches, waving his arms at these rallies, saying: We have got to stop the rapists, the murderers, the terrorists, the criminally insane, and the criminal predators who come across our border from committing all these crimes. So we are going to crack down on them, in cities who just happened to vote against me in the last election.
What they have done--what President Trump has done--is send in these ICE agents who have created this reign of terror. It is hard to describe what is going on in this great city, when it comes down to these ICE agents. They have people afraid to leave their homes to go shopping, to go to church, to go to a restaurant, to meet with their family, to bring their kids to school. The stories come in, over and over, of what these ICE agents are doing.
Do you know what happened last Saturday? In their effort to get the worst of the worst--the criminal elements of the immigrants--these ICE agents raided a Halloween parade for kids in Old Irving Park. Well, that is where you are going to find a lot of terrorists, I am sure. I jest, of course.
We know what happened: Harassment, fear--and they left.
They gathered on the sidewalk outside of the Lutheran church in Albany Park in Chicago and dropped tier gas canisters. The neighbors came out, blowing their whistles, and finally they left.
These are men who are wearing masks so they can't be identified. Some of them are wearing uniforms that have no identification whatsoever. They travel about in vans with no markings on them, and they are harassing people in all sorts of ways.
This is not America, and this is not how we fight crime in this country. Unfortunately, it is the reality of what is happening. But sometimes, in the worst of times, things emerge which are nothing short of incredible. It happened yesterday in Chicago.
There is a section of the city of Chicago called Little Village in Lawndale. Yesterday, several hundred high school students from the local high school marched down 26th Street in Little Village, in the east section of Chicago. They were doing that to protest the treatment that they faced with these ICE agents.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article from the Chicago Sun Times be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
It says:
That was yesterday--
Mr. President, this was a peaceful demonstration. I see the photograph of the parade of these high school students, several hundred of them. Two of them are carrying a large copy of the wording of the U.S. Constitution. Others are carrying American flags, some carrying Mexican flags.
And here I am quoting her:
These students walked peacefully through the community.
This is what she told fellow students.
Still, fear did not stop these students yesterday. They were accompanied by Chicago police officers as they moved along the road.
And then she said:
She said:
That was an extraordinary amount of courage from a high school student in the city of Chicago. She knows her parents and many other families are afraid of what might happen because of the ICE agents that are roaming through, showing their strength to bust up Halloween parades, showing their strength to drop tear gas canisters in front of churches when people come out after services.
This extraordinary show of courage and commitment to our country is nothing new.
I, 20 years ago, introduced a bill called the DREAM Act. And as I described this act, it said, if you were brought to this country as a small child, you should have a chance for a path to citizenship.
I used to tell that story, and then I would wait afterward. And when I would go out to my car, outside of the hall, there would be young people waiting for me in the dark, looking in both directions, afraid that someone would see them, and say: Senator, I am a Dreamer. Thank you for this legislation.
Though I have never been able to make it law, I am happy to say that President Obama used his Executive power to create DACA to protect 800,000 of these young people around the country.
Now, this generation of young people is doing what happened next in the story of the Dream Act. After DACA was created, most of these young people--despite the advice and warnings of their parents--came out publicly and said: I am a Dreamer. I want to be part of America's future.
It was extraordinary courage on their part. Now this generation is doing the same, marching down 26th Street to say they want an end to this harassment by ICE officials.
This is not what America is all about. If you are engaged in stopping the worst of the worst--criminal elements among immigrants--count me in. But harassing innocent families that have not violated the law is not the way to do it.
So far, 70 percent or more of those who have been detained by ICE as part of this venture have no criminal record whatsoever. It is harassment and terror, plain and simple.
I salute these students in Little Village for the courage that they showed. I hope that the students across the Chicago area and beyond will stand in solidarity with them in peaceful protest of the intimidation that is taking place in Little Village.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes prior to the scheduled rollcall vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Legislative Session
Mr. President, I move to proceed to legislative session.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. President, earlier this month, we discovered one of the worst abuses of government power in our Nation's history: The FBI, under President Biden, spied on eight U.S. Senators. I was one of those eight.
Now, what we have learned so far is this: The Agency, the FBI, tracked whom we were calling on our cell phones, where we were physically located when we made or received the calls, and how long each call lasted. We still don't know the predicate for the subpoena, but they did go into a court, and they got a subpoena.
Now, by all appearances, the spying was politically motivated. The lawmakers who were spied on are all Republicans, each one of us supports President Trump, and we had valid questions about the outcome of the 2020 election.
What we also know is that no American should be spied on by their government because of their political beliefs whether they are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent. This should not happen.
We are all duly-elected Members of Congress, and Jack Smith and the CR-15 unit at the FBI that did his dirty work for him violated our First and Fourth Amendment rights, the separation of powers, the speech and debate clause, and the Stored Communications Act.
If they are willing to do this to us, just imagine what they are willing to do to private citizens who have a different political point of view. What were they doing to the moms and dads that went to school board meetings? What were they doing to pro-lifers?
We already know that through the same probe, which was termed ``Arctic Frost,'' the FBI investigated nearly 100 Republican and conservative groups, including the Republican National Committee, the Republican Attorneys General Association, and Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA. We are hearing they may have surveilled as many as 150 different individuals.
We are learning that this weaponization of government was approved by those at the very top of Joe Biden's Justice Department. Late last week, Chairman Grassley, who chairs our Judiciary Committee, released an FBI memo drafted on April 4, 2022, that authorized the Arctic Frost probe. Among the people whose signatures appear on that document are then-Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland. Oh, by the way, the memo was written by FBI Director Christopher Wray.
We are only learning about this abuse of power and this weaponization of the FBI because the Trump administration and Republicans are committed to complete transparency and accountability. They are committed to a single tier of justice, not two different tiers of justice.
Thankfully, FBI Director Kash Patel has fired all the individuals that were involved in the spying operation.
Now it is time to find out how else they have weaponized our Nation's justice system, so we will begin to have some hearings, and we are going to put these individuals under oath and ask them to explain how they allowed this to happen.
What we have heard so far is that Jack Smith, who was the ringleader of this, wants ``assurances''--his choice of words--that he won't be punished in exchange for testifying about his spying scheme before Congress. He is absolutely out of his mind if he thinks he is going to get off with this scot-free. This is a scandal bigger than Watergate. It is a scandal where the FBI and the DOJ have been weaponized, politicized. And, no, he will not get off scot-free. The American people want to see that people are going to be held to account. So if we need to subpoena him, that is exactly what we will do.
We are also going to determine why exactly Verizon Wireless complied with the FBI's groundless subpoena request.
Just last week, we learned that AT&T also received a subpoena request from Jack Smith for two other Members of Congress's phone records. Yet, when AT&T questioned Smith's team about the legality of the subpoena, they apparently backed down, and they abandoned the effort altogether.
So it is very curious why Verizon just rolled over and went along with this lawless request and didn't move to question and didn't move to quash the subpoena. So we will get to the bottom of that.
It is important to realize that Lady Justice is blindfolded. The American people want that one tier of justice--equal treatment under the law, equal access. We are not going to stop fighting until we can ensure that the weaponization of government that occurred under Joe Biden does not ever happen again.
Mr. President, late last month, I had the honor of joining President Trump in the Oval Office as he signed an order establishing the Memphis Safe Task Force. This is a coordinated effort by the Justice Department, the FBI, and 11 other Federal Agencies to work with local and State officials, support the Memphis Police Department, and get violent criminals off the streets.
This support has been desperately needed. Last year, Memphis saw the highest crime rate in the country. In many parts of the city, residents have told us they could not walk out their front door without fear of being robbed, shot, or murdered.
Now, with the task force, we are seeing violent, repeat criminals get locked up after terrorizing Memphians for far too long. In just 1 month of operations, there have been some just astounding, remarkable results. The authorities are working together as a team. They have made more than 1,700 arrests, including 114 warrant arrests for aggravated assault, 116 arrests for domestic violence, 23 arrests for robbery, 12 for sexual assault, and 10 for homicide. At the same time, the task force has recovered more than 370 illegal weapons and more than 230 stolen vehicles, and they have found more than 80 missing children.
This is a huge step forward for Memphis. Already, Memphians are doing things they could not do before, and they are enjoying this wonderful, historic, iconic city. For the opening night for the Memphis Grizzlies, fans came out to the game in huge numbers, knowing that law enforcement was there to keep the peace.
As one fan said outside the FedExForum:
This is something that all Americans should celebrate.
We will not stop fighting to make Memphis safer. We are going to make certain it is the safest city in the United States, not the most dangerous.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. President, a couple of weeks ago, I came to the floor to talk about where the Republicans are, and this is now--effectively, the House of Representatives has adjourned. The national legislature has adjourned.
I want everyone to understand what is going on here. These are work periods. These yellow days are work periods. So August is off; everyone is supposed to be home. But what they did was they left early, so here, all these are crossed out. They didn't show up. And then they didn't show up for any of these days. That is fine. But then they decided to unexpectedly cancel this week and then this week and then this week and then this week. Now we are at the point where, if you are a Member of the House of Representatives, over the last 3 months, for every day that you show up for work, you get 7 days off. The rest of the Federal workforce is either furloughed at home and not getting their paycheck or they are considered an excepted employee, which is essentially a designation you get if the work you do is so essential for safety that you have to work anyway.
So here you have the Members of the House of Representatives getting paid not to show up, and then you have the rest of the Federal workforce having to show up and not get paid.
I have lived through several shutdowns, unfortunately, but none like this. Usually, both parties are in town, for a start. Usually, both parties are in town.
I get the play that Speaker Johnson made at the outset. It is a pretty common play. It is considered a jam-job, which is essentially: Here is this bill. Now we are out of town. It is the only thing you can pass or not pass, so you are now under pressure to either pass it or not pass it.
It is a very common thing to do. They jammed us. They did the same thing in March, and it worked, but it didn't work this time, and then the Speaker of the House, instead of saying ``Gosh, we should probably start a negotiation, try to figure out how to keep the lights on in the U.S. Government, keep people from losing their paychecks,'' he just said ``Well, tough. I am going to adjourn the House of Representatives.''
I want everyone to understand how ahistorical this is. This is already a very light schedule, right? Just objectively speaking, people don't get schedules like this before you do all the cross-offs, right? This is even a light schedule compared to normal House schedules.
This guy is not that interested in legislating.
And I also want to make one other specific point: It is not as though there is nothing else to do.
We haven't passed a national defense authorization. We haven't passed the rest of the appropriations bills. We haven't passed a Water Resources Development Act. We haven't done oversight.
And what happens is, when you stop doing your work, it is just like homework. It piles up. It piles up, and then you run out of time at the end of the year.
And the House of Representatives--these people who spend so much money and time and put their family and their friends and coworkers through a bunch of pain to achieve being a Member of Congress and having this little pin and having ``The Honorable'' in front of your name, and then they just said: Do you know what? I don't think I need to show up at all.
Sometimes, it can be hard for people to understand what politicians in Washington are arguing about. But this is actually pretty simple. Open enrollment starts on Saturday, and about 24 million Americans--it just so happens that most of them are in States that supported Donald Trump--are about to face roughly a doubling of their healthcare costs.
And for some people, it will be like a 30-percent increase, and for some people, it will be a 70-percent increase, and for some people it will be like a threefold increase in their healthcare costs.
And in raw dollars--percentage is a big deal. But the raw dollars are kind of what matters, right, because people don't have an extra $600 or $700 that they can kind of like wring savings out of.
You don't get to go: You know what; I would like a $12,000 raise to cover this.
That is not available to them, not in this economy. And there is not $12,000 less that you can spend somewhere.
And in the middle of this, even though the U.S. Department of Agriculture in their initial shutdown guidance said specifically: We have got $5 billion in contingency funds, and those resources are available to keep people getting their nutritional assistance, their SNAP benefits--and then abruptly, like four or five days ago, they just like changed their guidance. This is something that Trump did in his first term, during a shutdown, to use those contingency funds to prevent Americans from starving--to prevent Americans from starving.
And I guess I just don't understand why anybody thinks this should be a point of leverage. Like, half of the roughly 40 million people who receive SNAP benefits are working poor because we have decided nationally we are not going to raise the minimum wage, and we are not going to support the labor movement enough so that when people work 40 hours a week or 60 hours a week or 100 hours a week, they still can't even afford to put food on their table.
And so we have these SNAP benefits to make up for our policy failure, and 40 million people need it. About 20 million of them actually have jobs, and most of the rest of them are the elderly or the disabled. And I don't know what the hell has come of this country when the President of the United States, who is in charge of this particular question has said: As a point of leverage against Democrats, I am going to cause millions of Americans to not have enough food on their table.
I remain flabbergasted that the national legislature has basically adjourned under Mike Johnson's leadership. He is not even trying anymore because he thinks it increases his leverage.
Costs are about to double for tens of millions of Americans on the healthcare side. Electricity is going up at double the inflation rate. Vegetables are up 39 percent. Coffee is up 30 to 40 percent. And now there won't be enough food.
I implore everyone on every side of the aisle to just sit down and negotiate this. Under Biden and under Leader Schumer, we just didn't have shutdowns. We just didn't. And you could actually make a valid criticism that under Democratic leadership we conceded too much. We conceded too many policies to the minority party. But we did because we understood that in order to enact an appropriations bill, even a continuing resolution, you need four corners.
What does that mean? The Speaker, minority leader in the House, majority leader and minority leader in the Senate.
So let's get the House back in town. Let's turn on these SNAP benefits. Let's fix this ACA problem. And let's turn the Federal Government's lights on.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a matter that transcends party lines and goes to the very heart of what makes America's military the most trusted institution in our country.
I speak from a lifetime of devotion to the Army and our armed services. I joined the Army at 17 when I took the oath to defend and protect the Constitution as a new cadet at West Point.
I served 12 years on Active Duty. I earned my Ranger tab and my senior jump wings. I had the privilege of commanding an infantry company in the 82nd Airborne Division. I taught at West Point, but I want to make it clear, I am not a combat veteran.
I have spent, in addition, nearly three decades on the Senate Armed Services Committee, with the great
My connection to the military is neither transient nor incidental. That is precisely why I must speak out today about what President Trump is doing to our Armed Forces. He is attempting to politicize an institution that has remained steadfastly apolitical for nearly 250 years. He is disrespecting the professionalism and sacrifice of our servicemembers. And if we in Congress do not reject his actions--and very soon--the damage could take generations to repair.
America's apolitical military was constructed deliberately by leaders who understood that republics die when generals and soldiers become political pawns or political powers.
George Washington set the standard. When he resigned his commission in 1783, he established a principle that military leaders serve the Nation, not a party or a President or anything else. He made clear that military leadership is not a pathway to personal political power. Washington could have made himself King. He refused, and that refusal created a tradition we inherit today.
The Founders enshrined a nonpolitical military in our Constitution, giving Congress--not the President--the sole power to raise armies, establish laws governing the military, and, importantly, to declare war.
The Founders built checks and balances precisely to prevent the situation we now face: a President who views the military as his personal political instrument.
This tradition is maintained in the United States through deliberate policy. The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits Active-Duty personnel from partisan political activities. Military bases do not host campaign rallies. Servicemembers do not appear in uniform at political events.
Indeed, the Supreme Court itself has affirmed this principle. In the case of Greer v. Spock in 1976, the Court upheld military regulations strictly prohibiting partisan political activities on military bases. The Court's conclusion was unequivocal. The majority opinion explained that the military has a special responsibility to avoid ``both the reality and the appearance of acting as handmaiden for partisan political causes or candidates.''
Justice Powell went on to warn that ``it is the lesson of ancient and modern history that the major socially destabilizing influence in many European and South American countries has been a highly politicized military. . . . Complete and effective civilian control of the military would be compromised by participation of the military in the political process.''
The Supreme Court understood what we must remember: Once the military appears political, civilian control itself is compromised; public confidence evaporates; and history shows where that leads.
And these are not bureaucratic niceties. Once the military becomes politicized, it loses the trust of the American people. A military seen as serving a political party cannot claim to serve the Nation. For nearly 250 years, this principle has held. The American military has remained the most trusted institution precisely because it has stayed out of politics.
Now, President Trump is systematically dismantling this bedrock principle, brazenly, repeatedly, and with apparent pride.
On May 24, he addressed West Point's graduating class while wearing a red MAGA hat--a political campaign symbol at a military ceremony. This was not an accident. It was a statement. He told our Nation's future Army officers that this election victory gave him the right to ``do what we wanna do.'' He told cadets about to take their oath to the Constitution that winning an election means you can do whatever you want.
In June, at an event at Fort Bragg, President Trump made this politicization even more explicit. Soldiers attending the event were apparently screened for physical appearance and enthusiasm and were positioned in the bleachers as background props for what Trump boasted was a political rally. The troops were encouraged to boo his opponents, cheer his applause lines, and jeer the press.
Almost as disturbing, President Trump's team brought vendors on to Fort Bragg to sell campaign merchandise to everyone, including soldiers in uniform. This was an explicit violation of longstanding Army regulations and Department of Defense policy. It exploited soldiers and the prestige of their service for the President's partisan and personal gain.
And, again, just last month at Quantico, Trump spoke to a hall of hundreds of generals and admirals to make explicit what had previously been unspoken. He complained about ``an enemy within'' and told the assembled officers that dealing with this domestic enemy ``is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That's a war, too. It's a war from within.''
Let us be clear about who Trump means when he says ``the enemy within.'' He does not mean terrorists or foreign agents. He means his political opponents. He means Americans exercising their constitutional rights to disagree with him.
Indeed, any doubt about whom he considers ``the enemy within'' was erased when he pardoned more than 1,500 people convicted of attacking Congress and Capitol Police on January 6, 2021.
These are people who attacked the Capitol, at President Trump's urging, who savagely beat police officers, who forced Members of Congress to flee the Chamber for their own lives.
The vast majority of my colleagues were there that day and know exactly what they saw.
These criminals who supported President Trump were rewarded with pardons while those who he believes are opposed to him are being targeted for retribution.
This is not a theoretical concern. The President went further in his remarks at Quantico, suggesting that he wants to use ``some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.'' He proposed to deploy American troops in American cities to train for operations against American citizens--all without the consent of State and local leaders and in very apparent violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Already, we have seen him order deployments in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Chicago, Portland, and elsewhere.
The pattern is unmistakable. Trump is attempting to transform the military from an apolitical institution that serves the Constitution into a political tool that serves him. He stages political rallies on military bases. He sells campaign merchandise to troops in uniform. He fires generals who give him professional military advice he doesn't like. He tells military leaders that their mission includes waging war on his domestic political opponents.
This is not normal, this is not acceptable, and if my Republican colleagues don't publicly reject this behavior, the President will fundamentally alter the character of American civil-military relations.
Beyond politicalization, President Trump has shown consistent disrespect for the military leaders and the values they hold.
At his West Point graduation speech, he claimed he defeated ISIS ``in three weeks.'' There is just one problem: It is not true. General Caine himself has refuted the story that President Trump repeatedly tells about that campaign--that he defeated ISIS. In fact, according to the 2025 intelligence community threat assessment, which was prepared by the Trump administration itself, ISIS ``remains the world's largest Islamic terrorist organization.'' But the President stood before America's future military leaders and essentially lied to inflate his ego and his reputation.
Trump also told West Point graduates that ``we do not need an officer corps of yes-men.'' Yet he fired General Kruse, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, because the DIA's expert analysts contradicted Trump's claims about his military strike on Iran. He fired Gen. CQ Brown, ADM Lisa Franchetti, Gen. Timothy Haugh, and many others in a purge of flag officers that appears motivated by race, gender, and political loyalty rather than merit. The message is clear: Give the President the advice he wants to hear or lose your job.
President Trump disrespects not just military leaders but also military customs and traditions.
At the West Point graduation, he left before the diplomas were presented. He declined the opportunity to present the
Earlier this month at Norfolk, at the Navy's 250th anniversary celebration, Trump dispensed with any pretense. He declared:
He closed the ceremony by dancing to his campaign song ``Y.M.C.A.'' by the Village People.
The Navy's 250th anniversary became about Trump, not about the history of sacrifice of sailors and the service they represent.
To my Republican colleagues who have served in uniform: You understand that service requires honesty, humility, and respect for those who came before you. You know that officers must give their best professional advice even if it is not what the Commander in Chief wants to hear. You know that when officers fear giving honest answers, people die, missions fail, wars are lost.
So when the President lies about military operations, he disrespects every soldier who was told the truth about the battlefield. When he fires officers for honest advice, he disrespects every officer who has had the courage to speak truth to power. When he turns military ceremonies into political rallies, he disrespects every servicemember who has kept politics out of their professional life. You know this. The question is what you--and all of us--will do about it.
We are at a crossroads. The damage Trump is inflicting is not theoretical; it is happening now. If we don't act, it will accelerate. America's civil-military relationship took 250 years to build, but it can be destroyed in a fraction of that time. Once the military is seen as a partisan instrument serving one party, once it is deployed domestically against political opponents, the trust that sustains it will evaporate, and that trust, once lost, can take generations to rebuild.
Consider the dangers if this continues. Will military officers refuse to serve under future administrations, depending on the party in power? Will they resist civilian authority over policy disagreements? Will the military itself fracture along partisan lines?
Consider what happens if Trump continues to deploy the National Guard against his political opponents. What happens when citizens see soldiers in the street to suppress constitutionally permitted dissent? What happens to recruiting when young Americans view the military as a partisan tool? What happens to military cohesion when soldiers treat fellow citizens as enemies?
These are not hypothetical questions. President Trump told our most senior military leaders that fighting the ``enemy within'' is their mission. He suggested using American cities as training grounds. The precedent he sets will outlast his administration and be available to every President after him.
Congress has the constitutional authority and moral obligation to stop this. We are not powerless. We control the purse--although it appears so many times recently that we want to surrender that control. We have oversight authority; we are not exercising it properly. We can pass legislation, and we must act.
After 9 months of this Presidency, it is clear that my Republican colleagues must do more than recognize the problem; they must act. Republicans must work with us to call out the President and take concrete legislative action.
First, we must codify prohibitions on political activities at military installations and block Federal funds from supporting such activities. No more campaign rallies on military bases. No more merchandise sales to troops in uniform or civilian dependents or anyone else who wanders up.
Second, we must pass legislation--already in the Senate National Defense Authorization Act--to require explanations and notifications for senior general and flag officer dismissals. If these decisions are based on merit, the administration should have no problem explaining them publicly.
Third, we must strengthen the Hatch Act as it applies to political leaders interacting with military personnel. The rules that constrain servicemembers from politics must also constrain politicians from exploiting servicemembers for political purposes.
Fourth, we must establish clear standards requiring congressional approval for domestic military deployments except in genuine emergencies. The Founders gave Congress the power over the military for exactly this reason--to prevent any President from deploying troops as a personal force.
I recognize the political pressure that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle face, but we all took the same oath either in uniform or in elected office to support and defend the Constitution, not a President or party.
The American military is trusted by the American people because it has earned that trust by remaining apolitical, professional, and devoted to defending the Constitution of the United States.
I will close with this: Yesterday in Japan, President Trump boarded an aircraft carrier to address American sailors and marines. For a full hour, standing before hundreds of young men and women deployed thousands of miles from home, the Commander in Chief lectured them on his political grievances. He complained that the 2020 election was stolen. He mocked reporters. He whined about the Nobel Peace Prize. He boasted about deploying the National Guard domestically. He invented false stories about President Biden and jeered him. The sailors and marines, for their part, remained silent and respectful, like the professionals they are.
But the name of that aircraft carrier is worth noting: The USS George Washington. How fitting that our first President set the standard for the military we inherit today and how shameful that President Trump so badly fails that standard.
Washington recognized that the Presidency and the military are grander than any one person, and he recognized the danger of any man who believes otherwise. As he warned in his Farewell Address:
President Trump, I fear that Washington's warning has come to bear.
Simply put, President Trump is politicizing the military for his benefit. He is disrespecting our servicemembers, and he is setting precedents that will haunt us for generations.
Every day that passes, every political rally on a military base, every firing of an officer for honest advice, every statement about deploying troops against domestic opponents--each inflicts damage that becomes harder to repair.
To my Republican colleagues: This is your moment. You can help defend the military you cherish--and, indeed, you do cherish it. You have served in it with distinction, honor, and courage. You can exercise your constitutional authority as the majority power, or you can stand by and concede to an Executive who recognizes no limits.
I suspect history will not forgive this body--all of us--for remaining silent while the President transforms this military into his personal political tool. The military I served in and my colleagues served in deserves better. The country we all swore to defend deserves better. The young men and women taking the oath today deserve the apolitical, professional military our Founders fought and died to establish.
Let us together reassert Congress's power and preserve the military tradition we inherited.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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...
Mr. President, in a few minutes, we are going to vote on
This is a barred owl, spelled B-A-R-R-E-D. This is a spotted owl. They are both magnificent animals. If you ever studied them, they both have very soulful eyes. They have incredibly--you probably never had an opportunity to pet one, but they have incredibly soft feathers. They are not enemies; they are cousins.
There are 19 species of owls in the United States. These two have been around about 11,000 years. They are not enemies. They both hunt mice and lizards and snakes and insects and mosquitoes. The barred owl is slightly bigger than the spotted owl. The barred owl is a better hunter. That is just the way God made them.
Now, the Department of the Interior--this started under President Biden, but I don't want to mislead anyone. Secretary Burgum, our current Secretary of the Interior, very much opposes my CRA and supports this regulation I am trying to overturn.
What would the regulation do? Here is what it would do. The Federal Government, as I said yesterday--it was true then and is true now-- which can't even deliver the mail when the stuff has an address right on the front of it and, in particular, the Department of the Interior, under President Biden and now under President Trump--as an aside, it is very hard to piss off both the Biden administration and the Trump administration, but I have managed to do that. That is OK. I think I am right. The Department of the Interior is proposing to kill 453,000 barred owls. Kill them--mamas, daddies, babies. Why? To protect, they say, the spotted owl.
You go: Whoa, why does a spotted owl need protecting from the barred owl? They are cousins. They share the same habitat. Sometimes they have sex. It is not unknown that a barred owl will marry a spotted owl. A barred owl marries another barred owl for life, in fact, and sometimes a barred owl will marry a spotted owl.
The barred owl doesn't eat the spotted owl. The barred owl doesn't kill the spotted owl. But the barred owl is a better hunter. And the Department of the Interior says because of that, they have to kill 453,000 barred owls to help the spotted owls. That is what the Federal Government has come down to.
We now have DEI for owls. According to the Department of the Interior: Bad owl; good owl. But we are not talking about an admission to college. If you are on the wrong end of this DEI proposal, you don't just not get--the owl doesn't not get admitted to college; the owl gets killed.
I have been around a little while. I have seen a few vampire movies. This isn't the first one of these, but this is one of the worst examples I have ever seen of the arrogance and the hubris of the Federal Government.
This is bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid. Let me tell you why. First of all, it is not going to work. The Federal Government is going to send out a bunch of hunters. Here is one of their hunters. That is what they will probably look like. They are going to send out a bunch of hunters at night with flashlights and shotguns. Because the owls are nocturnal, they live at night; they come out at night. They hide during the day.
Both barred owls and spotted owls live about 40 feet up in the trees. So they are going to send these cowboys out there with their little lights and they are going to point up and they are supposed to shoot the barred owl and not shoot the spotted owl.
Dream weaver. Dream weaver.
So to kill the barred owls, it is inevitable they are going to kill some spotted owls.
No. 2, I have been all through the regulation. I see no indication where using lead shot is prohibited. We changed the rules about using lead versus steel shot because we realize how dangerous lead is. So they are going to kill--if they use a lead shot, which is a lot cheaper than steel shot--yes, they will kill some barred owls, and they will also kill some spotted owls. They will also kill some eagles. They are also going to kill a bunch of hawks, and they are going to kill a bunch of other wildlife because they eat the lead and the lead kills them.
It is not going to work.
The third reason it is not going to work and what the Department of the Interior won't tell you is that the barred owl, which is native to the Eastern United States, started moving west into the jurisdiction of the spotted owl about 100 years ago. It has been steadily moving west because the old-growth forests, where the barred owl lived in the Eastern United States, in northeastern Canada, was cut to make room for people. So the barred owl started moving west, and now the barred owl is in Washington and Oregon and Northern California and British Columbia.
Once again, they don't eat each other. They don't kill each other. But the spotted owl that the Department of the Interior says it has to save was losing population well before the barred owl moved in. Do you know why that is? Because what is happening in the West is the same thing that was happening in the East. Because we gained population and people moved to the suburbs, we reduced old-growth forests, which reduces the habitat for both owls. I am not saying that we shouldn't harvest trees appropriately. I am not saying that. We have also had wildfires. That is what is damaging the spotted owl. It is not the barred owl.
The final point is that this isn't going to work in that, unlike some of the employees in the Department of the Interior, the barred owl isn't stupid. Once you start shooting the barred owl, the barred owl is just going to move on up to Canada. Then, as soon as the coast is clear, the barred owl is going to come back, OK? So you are not going to do anything to help the spotted owl.
The second reason that this regulation is bone-deep, down-to-the- marrow stupid is that it is going to be expensive. In, I think, 2024, the Department of the Interior issued a contract to kill, I think it was, 1,500 barred owls. I don't know how they could do it. I don't know how they had the authority, but they did it. That is the way the bureaucracy works. They hired hunters. They paid them $3,000 a bird-- $3,000 a bird. So, if they went out at night with their little flashlights, looking 40 feet up in the trees, and they killed a daddy barred owl, they got $3,000. If they killed a mama barred owl, they got $3,000. And if they killed a baby barred owl, they got another $3,000.
Do you know how they really hit the jackpot? It was when they would catch a mama barred owl in her nest, protecting her baby chicks. With one shotgun shell, you hit all three baby chicks. That is $9,000. That is what we are going to use taxpayer money for.
Now, the Department of the Interior wants to send out these folks to kill 453,000 barred owls at $3,000 a pop. That is $1.3 billion--not million but billion dollars--to try to protect the spotted owl, not because the spotted owl is hurting anybody, not because the barred owl is hurting anybody. The barred owl is just a better hunter, and the Department of the Interior will tell you that. The barred owl is better. They both eat the same thing. They are better at catching prey, and they think that is putting pressure on the spotted owl.
The spotted owl isn't on the endangered species list. If the spotted owl is in such bad shape, why hasn't the Department of the Interior moved to put the spotted owl on the endangered species list?
Do you know why? Because they can't, because they are not in danger.
The Department of the Interior likes to use the word ``threatened''-- ``threatened,'' ``threatened.'' Well, hell, the zebras are threatened by lions, but the Interior Department--at least not yet--isn't suggesting we go kill all the lions because they eat zebras.
I don't want to mislead anyone. This regulation was promulgated under President Biden, but Secretary Burgum, with whom I have spoken--I have great respect for him--is adamant that this is a good rule and a good regulation. In fact, he told me, as I mentioned yesterday, that by opposing his idea, I was slandering the Trump administration. I am slandering the Trump administration. No, sir, I am trying to help the Trump administration. I am trying to save the Department of the Interior and the Secretary from himself.
In a rare moment of candor, let me tell you what one employee from the Department of the Interior said to a reporter. He probably got fired for it, but this is what he said, and he was--and is--a Fish and Wildlife employee and expert.
He said:
The final point I will make, and what aggravates me the most about this, is I know the employees at the Department of the Interior are smart and virtuous. I know they are smarter and more virtuous than me. But who appointed them God? Who appointed them Pope?
Animals migrate all the time. It happens all the time, not just mammals but all animals. They move location.
So we are going to be in the business of telling animals: Well, you can live here, but you can't live there.
We are also going to be in the business of choosing which owls can live and which owls can die.
I am going to end like I ended yesterday. This is my advice to my friends at the Department of the Interior, and I don't mean any disrespect in saying it: Life is hard. Life is very, very hard, but it is a lot harder when you are stupid. This regulation is stupid, and we will live to regret it, just like China, back when Mao, during the Great Leap Forward, issued a decree--in his arrogance and in his hubris--to kill all the sparrows in China. And they did, just like we are going to kill all the owls. Two million of the Chinese people died. That is what happens when you mess with God and Mother Nature. As a result, they had to import sparrows. We will end up, someday, if they do this, having to import barred owls. We will regret it.
I don't know, Mr. President, what I am supposed to say next to start the vote, but I am ready.
Here it is.
Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 190, S.J. Res. 69.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the joint resolution by title.
The bill clerk read as follows:
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the rollcall vote begin immediately.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The question is on agreeing to the motion.
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-Smith) and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 25, nays 72, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. President, in a few minutes, my good colleague from New Mexico Senator Lujan will be offering a unanimous consent request, and I want to thank him for his extraordinary leadership on the issue of SNAP, leading the way on an urgent issue for millions of Americans.
Now, right now, we are facing down two crises at once: a healthcare crisis and a hunger crisis, and both are caused by and intensified by one man and one man only: Donald Trump.
We are now 3 days away from open enrollment, and now, for the first time in history, a President is refusing to fund SNAP during a shutdown; 42 million Americans--young children who need food, veterans who might have PTSD and need help, senior citizens who rely on SNAP to help feed themselves, and so many others--people who are out of work because they lost their jobs through no fault of their own--need SNAP.
Why are we not doing it? Not because the money is gone; it is there. Not because it is not permitted; it is legal. But because Donald Trump ordered it stopped. It falls on his shoulders.
Let's be clear: This does not need to happen. Never before under any President, Republican or Democrat, has SNAP been cut off during a shutdown. We are not talking about--we are talking, with the shutdown, we all know our position. We need a negotiation, but this SNAP doesn't have to happen in any case and only because Donald Trump is doing it, and the Republican leadership goes along with Donald Trump to let SNAP expire.
Trump did this once before. In 2019, he funded SNAP during his last shutdown. Back then, Trump kept SNAP funded. This time, he is deliberately pulling the plug, even though in September he said he would fund it and could fund it, independent of any shutdown.
Trump is weaponizing hunger. He is using kids and parents as pawns. Donald Trump is a vindictive politician and a heartless man.
Just a few weeks ago, Trump's own USDA confirmed it had $6 billion in emergency funds to keep food and aid following. When asked about SNAP, Trump assured everyone it will be fine; he said it.
Then suddenly, last Friday, Trump ordered USDA to delete the plan, take it off their website, and refuse to use the money. No reason. No explanation. Just cruelty. Two-thirds of SNAP recipients are kids, seniors, or people with disabilities. That is whom Trump is cutting off: kids who rely on school meals, seniors on fixed incomes, veterans trying to get by, families trying to get groceries. That is the real- world consequence of Trump's decision.
And while he is manufacturing two crises here at home, where is his focus? Overseas, on a ballroom, on sending $40 billion to Argentina.
There is money for Argentina but not for SNAP? And the Argentina money far exceeds the money needed for SNAP by at least a whole month.
Every President before, Democrat and Republican, has used the same funds to keep families fed. Trump could fix this today with one stroke of his pen. We don't have to wait; we don't have to discuss; we don't have to deliberate.
Let's be clear: Republicans have been on a crusade against SNAP all year. They have slashed it by a historic $200 billion this summer in their so-called Big Beautiful Bill to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. And now they are doubling down, using the shutdown to devastate families and leave kids hungry.
It is heartless; it is cynical; and it is wrong. Well, Senate Democrats are not waiting, and that is why I am so grateful for Senator Lujan.
In a few minutes, we will force a vote to avert this avoidable crisis. I thank Senator Lujan. I thank him for championing the Keep SNAP and WIC Funded Act, which will make sure that 42 million Americans don't lose their benefits. It will make sure 7 million moms
If the other side wouldn't block it, I bet you it would pass overwhelmingly.
There is another bill by Senator Hawley a Republican, conservative. I believe it has 11 Republican cosponsors already. It is another bill that could pass. It doesn't have WIC, but it does have SNAP.
Democrats are ready to do what every President in American history has done except for Trump; avert this problem. We are willing to work with anyone to get this bill on the floor and stop this cruelty.
But right now, unfortunately, Senate Republicans are frozen, paralyzed by fear or cynicism, while enabling Trump to use millions of hungry Americans as political hostages. Senate Republicans should let this bill pass.
Mr. President, I yield to Senator Lujan for the unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. President, I rise today to ask my colleagues to pass my Keep SNAP and WIC Funded Act of 2025, which has the backing of the entire Democratic caucus--the Democratic Members of this Senate.
Now, we all know access to food is a human right. It is that simple. And we are all fortunate enough to live in the United States of America, a nation that is rich; it is abundant. A nation that is rich in agricultural tradition can be abundant in harvest.
Now, in a nation blessed with such abundance, allowing our fellow Americans to go hungry is, sadly, right now, a policy decision--I would argue a political decision, not a financial necessity.
Now, the Trump administration has yet again made the decision--made the choice--to allow our fellow Americans to go hungry. Now, let's be clear: The only way to ensure the SNAP benefits are issued by November 1 is for the Trump administration to release the billions of dollars it has sitting in an account in USDA that Congress appropriated, Democrats and Republicans working together to appropriate, to use for this purpose.
As a matter of fact, never in the history of the United States has SNAP been allowed to lapse like this. As a matter a fact, during President Trump's first term, Secretary Purdue, President Trump, they tapped the same fund to allow SNAP benefits to continue to roll.
Now, President Trump says that the use of SNAP contingency funds is illegal. Well, here is the document that was taken down from the USDA website that was up just days ago. He decided to take this down and now even the Speaker of the House is lying to the American people saying that it is not allowed.
President Trump found $40 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars to send to his political allies in Argentina just last week. But when it comes to feeding our own--our own people here in the United States of America-- he refuses to act.
Back home in New Mexico, one in five people rely on SNAP. They aren't strangers. They are neighbors, coworkers, friends, children, people I go to church with. They are the folks we say hello to at the grocery store or at a Little League game.
President Trump's refusal to release SNAP funding doesn't just impact New Mexico. States like Louisiana, where Speaker Johnson is from, are facing the same crisis. Louisiana is third on the list of constituents that will be negatively impacted.
Now, I have been fortunate enough to visit several food banks across New Mexico and meet with community members who are working around the clock to make sure neighbors have something to eat.
To every one of our community members who have stepped up, I want to say thank you--not just across New Mexico but across America. I am proud to represent a community that takes care of each other when times are tough.
It shouldn't have to be this way.
Since the creation of SNAP, there has never been a lapse--there has never been a lapse in SNAP funding during a government shutdown. The Trump administration has the authority and the funds to keep SNAP running during this shutdown. Don't take my word for it. Look at the USDA's own guidance that they removed from their website that justifies this.
Any failure to do so right now falls squarely on the Trump administration and Republicans. We could vote on this today, on this bill or one that Senator Hawley has authored as well that has many Republican colleagues that are cosponsors, to prevent a hunger crisis.
This pain does not need to happen. President Trump is choosing to inflict pain on American families by holding meals hostage. That is why I am leading this legislation to ensure that no child, parent, or veteran misses a meal because of the Republican shutdown.
It also says that if States or Tribal governments are in a position right now to fund SNAP programs, that they do get reimbursed, unlike what President Trump has been threatening them--that they will not. We cannot stand by and let our neighbors go hungry.
So I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and I appreciate everyone that has reached out to my office to have a conversation about this piece of legislation. I hope we can work together and find a path forward.
I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together to pass this bill now and fund SNAP and fund WIC before this hunger crisis hits our communities.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of S. 3071, introduced earlier today; that the bill be considered read three times and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
The majority leader.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me just point out, if I might, that we are 29 days into a Democrat shutdown. And the Senator from New Mexico is absolutely right--SNAP recipients shouldn't go without food. People should be getting paid in this country. We have tried to do that 13 times, and you voted no 13 times.
This isn't a political game. These are real people's lives that we are talking about. And you all just figured out 29 days in that, oh, there might be some consequences. There are people running out of money. Yeah, we are 29 days in, and they have done their best to make sure that a lot of these programs are funded, but at some point, the government runs out of money.
Thirteen times people over here voted to fund SNAP. Thirteen times they voted to fund WIC. My aching back. Finally realized this thing has consequences.
Well, you know what, what Democrats are doing here--they are making plans to keep the shutdown going, and they realize all of a sudden, 29 days in, that this is a real consequence, real-life pain for American families--something that results from their shutdown.
So are they making plans to end the shutdown and reopen the government? Nope. They are going to propose a bill to fund food stamps during their shutdown. This request is a transparent admission that Democrats want to keep the shutdown--for what? Another month? Longer? This bill is a cynical attempt to buy political cover for Democrats to allow them to carry on their government shutdown for the long term.
Now, I will point out that we did 13 short-term, clean CRs when they had the majority, and President Biden was in the White House--13. They have now voted 13 times against a clean CR.
I have no idea where you are coming from.
The Democrat leader said that President Trump could end this with a stroke of his pen, and he is right. We pass that bill, and with a stroke of his pen, he will sign it into law, and the government opens up, and SNAP beneficiaries, SNAP recipients get food assistance. But do you know what else? TSA workers get paid, air traffic controllers get paid, Border Patrol agents get paid, and troops get paid. These people here get paid who are working without pay. Do you want to extend that and keep that going? Give me a break.
So the people who aren't going to get the benefit of what they are trying to do today are all the other programs that are affected: Head Start; grants to law enforcement to fight fentanyl and hire more cops to protect communities;
Programs that are at risk: rental and housing assistance; delays in processing FHA-insured loans; delays in aircraft inspections and maintenance for air traffic control equipment.
People that are currently not getting paid: I mentioned some of them but air traffic controllers; TSA officers; Capitol Police; the people who protect us in this building; NOAA employees who are tracking hurricanes and other potential weather disruptions and disasters; food inspectors; other food and drug safety officials; mine safety inspectors.
People who don't have pay certainty right now: troops; Coast Guard; ICE; Border Patrol; Federal law enforcement; Federal wildland firefighters.
Extenders that have lapsed: telehealth and at-home care; community health centers; teaching health centers; special diabetes programs; payments for ambulances, hospital at-home services.
Other lapsed authorizations: CISA to prevent against cyber attacks; National Flood Insurance Program to prevent closure on homes in flood zones.
That is what you are leaving on the table. The bill at the desk takes care of all of it--funds SNAP, funds WIC. And, yes, with the stroke of the President's pen, he can sign it into law, and everybody starts getting paid again.
This has got to stop. Hostage taking. Now you want some political cover. How long is this going to go on? How much longer do you want to see it go on, just out of curiosity? So you think this buys some time. You want the shutdown to go on for another month, and then we are going to have other people come down here: Well, let's carve this out or carve this out. Why don't we just open the government?
I have never seen anything like this. I have been here a good amount of time. I have seen continuing resolutions and appropriations problems and funding fights and government shutdowns. I have been through a few, but I have never seen anything like this. This just isn't done.
You want to have a discussion about healthcare? Absolutely. Let's do it. Open the government. Let's do it. The President will sit down with Democrats next week if you want to talk about healthcare.
That is not what this is about.
So we are not going to pick winners and losers. It is time to fund everybody who is experiencing the pain from this shutdown. If the Democrats really want to fund SNAP and WIC, I have a bill for them sitting right there at the desk--a clean, nonpartisan CR to fund SNAP, WIC, and the entire government, and all the many programs and people that the Democrat SNAP bill completely ignores.
Democrats have spent a month--a month now--playing with people's livelihoods because the far-left wing of their party won't let them accept a clean, nonpartisan CR. If they want to prevent damage from their shutdown, they can end the shutdown. The bill is right here at the desk.
Mr. President, I ask that the Senator from New Mexico modify his request so that the Senate can proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 168, H.R. 5371; 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.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator so modify his request?
The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I respect the majority leader, the Republican leader. I see some of his staff in the room as well, people that I have worked with. They know when I work with them and when others don't. But I understand the words that were being used today to spin an argument as to why there should be justification for 40 million people to go hungry.
You know, I get in trouble sometimes because I use language from the little farm that I still call home, but I have learned the rules of decorum on the Senate floor, so I won't use them today. But some of the lessons my father taught me early in my life, even after I was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, when he would leave a shovel by the front door when I would go home on the weekends, and he would leave my rubber boots there to make sure I put them on because we were going to go clean the barn.
We raised cattle. We raised sheep. We raised all kinds of animals. After those animals eat, they make something. Some of us use it to fertilize our land; some people call it manure. I won't refer to it as the language that I usually call it when I am not on the Senate floor.
I also thought it was important to tell people the truth and be honest with the American people. What the good leader left out when he was talking about the number of votes that Republicans voted on under a Democratic President, under a Democratic majority in the Senate and in the House, was that there was not a shutdown. We negotiated.
People came to me--as a matter of fact, a lot of my Democratic constituents told me: Democrats gave way too much to those Republicans when you were in the majority.
Well, when you have to negotiate, when you hold power, when you are in the majority, you meet people. You pull them in. You don't tell folks: You know where my office is.
You all have heard me talk about the late Governor Bruce King, cattle farmer out of New Mexico. He used to tell us: When people can't figure out what is going on, you lock them up in a barn, and you don't let them out until they figure out how to get along.
Well, we don't have a barn. Maybe they have an office around here to send some people. There is a White House. It is easy to get in--there is a big hole in it. Invite some people over there to sit down.
President Trump said not long ago that if there is a shutdown, it is up to the President to bring people together to prevent it, and if there is a shutdown, it does not bode well for the President of the United States of America. He is absolutely right.
It is not just a Democratic bill to fund SNAP that is on the floor today; there is a pending bill that has been introduced into the U.S. Senate that has 11 Republicans that are cosigners, including the Republican who authored it, a colleague out of Missouri. He doesn't want his folks to go hungry, and he said: Enough of this nonsense. Let's have a bill on the floor.
Give him a UC. If you don't want to give the Democratic bill a unanimous consent, give the Republican-authored bill a unanimous consent. I am a cosponsor of that one, too, because I am willing to work with folks. You all know that. You all know that.
Look, days before Americans start receiving notices that healthcare premiums are about to skyrocket, as the Trump administration moves to cut off SNAP benefits, this dysfunction is what the American people have come to expect from Republican majorities in the Congress and the White House.
I appreciate my colleague saying the blame is on our side of the aisle, but we are in the majority--oh, not yet. Maybe soon. We are in the minority.
With power comes responsibility. Republicans are in the majority in the Senate--fact. Republicans are in the majority in the House of Representatives--fact. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, is a Republican--fact. It cannot be refuted. They are in charge. The American people know that.
So just as a reminder, SNAP has never not been funded when there have been shutdowns in the past, including in President Donald Trump's first term. And even under President Trump's second term, he tapped a billion of the $6 billion to pay for staff to administer SNAP. They did it.
Now they want to take down policy from a website that says that they can justify doing this, showing the law. That is the nonsense. That is the garbage the American people are tired of--the political this, the political jostling, all of that.
We have got people that are going to go hungry. This has never happened before, you all. There is a better way to do that.
So, Mr. President, in response to the request from the majority leader--the Republican leader--on behalf of constituents from South Dakota, constituents from New Mexico that don't--do not, so that I am clear; sometimes people confuse my New Mexico accent--that do not want to see their health premiums double and triple and bankrupt them--and some people that can't afford to get insurance won't be as lucky as me, where I survived a stroke 3 years ago.
By the way, this is what a stroke survivor looks like, if you get access to a doctor. You don't have to worry about going bankrupt if you can't pay the bills. This is what you can look like. You can get better. And in America, we should strive for that.
So, again, on behalf of constituents from South Dakota that don't--do not--want to see health premiums double and triple, on behalf of my New Mexico constituents that do not want to see health premiums double or triple, I will not modify my request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection to the modification is heard.
Is there an objection to the original request?
The majority leader.
Mr. President, I regret the fact that the Senator from New Mexico and his Democrat colleagues are unwilling to modify his request to include keeping the government open.
And I would say--a rhetorical question to my colleague from New Mexico: If the government reopens, do SNAP beneficiaries get paid? Yeah. Right? So do WIC beneficiaries, veterans, low-income elderly people, people who need this assistance.
It is not like you are doing anything here that isn't accomplished by reopening the government and paying everybody else, and you guys know that.
There are a lot of people, today, who aren't getting paid. Last Friday, Federal employees didn't get paid for the first time. I should say air traffic controllers didn't get paid for the first time. And it only worsens over time.
And so I would be more than willing--and have said this multiple times, as you all know--to sit down, get a group together, and talk about healthcare.
We think that ObamaCare and, particularly, the enhanced subsidies, are in desperate need of reform. There is no income cap. There is no asset test. People are making 500, 600 grand a year and getting subsidies from the Federal Government for their healthcare.
There are zero-dollar premiums. There are millions of Americans who don't even know they have coverage because the way that program is structured, the payments go directly to the insurance companies. Insurance companies are out there auto-enrolling people and making bank. A lot of people don't even know they have insurance coverage.
So this program is desperately in need of reform. The waste, fraud, and abuse in this program has kind of gotten to an epic level, because if you look at what has happened since 2013, when the exchanges went online, insurance premiums in the individual marketplace on the exchanges have gone up 221 percent. I mean, you tell me anyplace else in the economy that goes up 221 percent in that amount of time. It is going up double-digits every year.
In the employer market, it would be 6 to 7 percent.
So it is a program that is fundamentally in need of change and reform. It is unsustainable, and it is unaffordable. And to give you an example of that, doing the very thing you are talking about, which is included in your bill, which was offered as an alternative to the Republican proposal--the clean Republican proposal that simply opens the government--the proposal included in your bill is a $400 billion item, a cost to the taxpayers.
And so we are willing to sit down and see--and I have said, on behalf of the President, as well, that he is willing to sit down--and talk about how we can reform and make healthcare in this country more affordable and less inflationary, because this program is inflationary. It is going up every year.
Now, you all are going to blame the doing away with the Biden bonus payments in that legislation for the increase. But the fact of the matter is, that will be a very small part of that because of the way the program is structured in the first place. There is no incentive to constrain or control costs.
So let's have that conversation. I have said that. We can sit down and do it.
But as many of you have said--and there are quotes out there from all of you--from all of you: In previous shutdowns, or when there are fights over a continuing resolution, you can't negotiate when you have a gun to your head.
The Democrat leader said that.
And so let's just get beyond this silliness and fund the government and make sure that SNAP recipients and WIC recipients and recipients of other government programs, which I mentioned--it is a long list, which isn't covered by your bill, by the way--that those people and those programs also get taken care of. We have a chance to do that.
And we actually have a chance, I think, to have a normal appropriations process, where we move bills across the floor, open them up to the amendment process--something that hasn't been done here in a while. We can do that.
I want to start now, but it starts when we open up the government. So let's just do what normal people would do.
And the Senator from New Mexico is right. I represent a lot of hard- working Americans--farmers, ranchers, small business people, schoolteachers, educators. My dad and mom were educators. And I just think that there are a lot of people out there who look at this and say: This doesn't make any sense to me. If they want to talk about healthcare, then let's do that. But why take the Federal Government hostage and every Federal employee--including everybody in this room that is not getting paid--that isn't covered by the bill that you are putting forward. The bill that does cover everybody is the one right there, which we have now voted on 13 times.
Just a few of you decide to vote differently. Let's get on appropriations bills and start funding the government the old-fashioned way.
I am for that. I think everybody over here is up for that. I know the chair of our Appropriations Committee, Susan Collins, and most of the appropriators have worked together in a constructive way, in a bipartisan way, to get bills to the floor that we can consider. But, so far, everything we have tried to do here, at least in the last few weeks, has been blocked, including getting on the Defense appropriations bill and going to conference on three bills we have already passed.
So as much as I appreciate what the Senator from New Mexico is trying to do here, and he is not--I don't question his intentions. I think he is sincere. But I also think that this is missing the larger point here, and that is, this government is closed. And what you are trying to do and accomplish here is make it harder, not easier, to get the government opened up again and to make sure everybody else gets paid.
So, Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Washington.
Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from New Mexico for coming out here and making it very clear who we are fighting for. And it really is Americans across this country, who are seeing their costs skyrocket across the board. And, as Democrats, we want to make sure that, yes, they are paid, but they also have the ability to get their healthcare.
I heard the majority leader just now say they are not going to operate with a gun to their head. I would say to the majority party that the gun to the head is to all these people who are opening up their healthcare notices this week and are finding out that their costs are skyrocketing. Why? Because what the Republicans have said--and just said again--is that they want to talk about it. Talking about it is going to do absolutely nothing for those people who are getting those bills and those payments today.
So I wanted to come to the floor today and talk about that. And I would say to my Republican colleagues: Yeah, we all want to have bipartisan bills. We want to work on bipartisan appropriations.
But what we have in front of us is a CR that is partisan, that says: Do it my way or the highway, and do not discuss the priorities of the Democrats.
When you are asking us for votes--when you are asking for Democratic votes--you can't just demand whatever you want and say: If you don't do it, then we are going to sit here--which is what the Republicans have done.
I would ask the Republican leader, as I have done so many times: Talk to the Democratic leader. Bring the President in the room.
I have been here many, many times when we have had to find a way out of a challenging situation. And you know who has always been at the table? The President, the majority leader, and the Speaker of the House, and the minority leaders--on both sides of the aisle. And that has not happened yet.
And that is why we are sitting where we are, where, today, my constituents who are hurting are saying to me: Where are the Republicans, and why are they not talking to you about how we solve this issue?
The majority leader said: Well, there are problems with it.
They could have done this months ago. And they say: Oh, now, we can open up the government, and we will talk about it.
What does ``talk about it'' do to my constituents? Because, last week, window shopping for next year's health plans actually started in my home State, and, this week, open enrollment begins nationwide. I am hearing from families in my State today who are panicked.
While Republicans are refusing to act on this and saying they are going to talk about it, their premiums--their family's premiums--are going through the roof, and their healthcare coverage is slipping out of reach.
There are so many stories. I have talked to small business owners. I have talked to patients, and I have talked to parents. And I have lifted up their concerns here on the Senate floor, and I am going to keep doing everything I can to shout out these stories from the rooftops, because, right now, Republicans are doing everything they can to ignore this and to say: Deal with it later.
And what is ``later''? Well, later never comes.
Why do I know that? Because we brought up this issue, time and time again, throughout the summer, when the Republicans were giving away tax breaks to billionaires, and saying: This is an issue that is confronting us.
And it was ``later'' then. It is ``later'' now, and ``later'' is way too late.
There are many stories about this, too awful to ignore, and there are millions of families that are facing absolutely catastrophic price increases. I have heard from seniors whose premiums are increasing eightfold.
So in order to make the scope and scale of the problem that Republicans want to ignore and talk about later, I thought I would share a list--just the top lines--of what I am hearing from my constituents about how their healthcare costs are going to skyrocket if Republicans refuse to work with us, or even talk to us, about this issue and help us find a solution so we can all move on by saving the healthcare tax credits.
I am going to share some of those stores today.
There is Kathleen. She lives in Bellingham. Now, if Republicans refuse to act, she is going to see her monthly premium triple.
Sharon, in Thurston County, in my State--if Republicans refuse to act, her premium is going to double, increasing by over $100 a month.
And we are just getting started, because if Republicans refuse to act, Nanette in Tumwater and Stacya in Seattle are both going to see their premiums increase by $400 a month--not a year, a month.
If Republicans refuse to act, Leslie's husband in Brewster is going to see his premiums increase by $780 a month. Tom will see his premiums increase by over $800 a month. Jennifer will see her premium go up by at least $890 a month.
And, I have to emphasize, we are talking about families, seniors, small business owners, people who cannot afford that kind of increase.
And yet if Republicans refuse to act, Jason in Seattle is going to see his premium increase by over $900 a month; Maya in Woodinville, $1,000 more a month. I can't even imagine that.
But if you think that is outrageous, well, Republicans don't think it is worth talking about--or talk about it later, when it is way too late, or pretend that they are going to do something about it, but not really.
Talk about a gun to their head, if we do not act, Diane in Wenatchee is going to see her premium increase by over $1,400 a month.
Leighann told me $1,500 a month that her premium will increase; Terry, a $1,600-a-month increase; and the Banergee family told me they are going to see their premium go up by more than $1,600 every single month.
The Republican plan: talk about it; do nothing. For all of us who have been here, we have been waiting for the plan for a long time and have never seen it--have never seen it. It is always just a plan.
Rebecca in Seattle will see her premium increase by more than $1,700 a month.
By the way, that plan is not in writing. It is a thought in somebody's head that has never been told to anybody. What do we have here today? Republican silence.
James and his wife are going to see their premium go up by a completely unreasonable $1,800 a month. Damian said his is going to go up $2,000 a month. Why? Because Republicans are refusing to act. That is whom we are fighting for here today.
I could go on and on, but those cases I just told you about all came from Washington State. That is a drop in the bucket. There are several million more examples just like this in red States across the country.
Bob in Idaho told me his premium will jump by nearly $1,900 a month; Nancy in Florida, $1,000 a month; Cheri in Tennessee will see her monthly costs go from $10 to $1,140.
I mean, we could do this all day. Yet Republicans can't be bothered to do it at all. These are their constituents. Nearly 4 million people in Texas rely on these tax credits. Republicans don't want to save over 4 million in Florida.
The increases they are going to face are unthinkable. In five States--all red States--families who rely on these tax credits are going to see prices more than quadruple. That is on average.
It is unthinkable, it is unconscionable, and totally untethered from reality for Republican leaders to think they can just ignore this tsunami or this price hike.
So I say to my Republican friends: You have to get your heads out of the sand. This is a real problem for families. Later is way too late, and I don't think it exists.
The majority leader just said that families don't know that they get this. There is something wrong with that? They find out that their healthcare--that they are being helped by their neighbors and their friends and the people in this country who say it is important for all of us to make sure our healthcare premiums are lowered? I would say to my Republican colleagues: Listen to your constituents. It is their health. It is their lives. They are telling you that. They want action. Open enrollment for this country starts Saturday. The time to act is now. So I hope they start listening.
Please join us at a negotiating table, not out here on the floor just throwing things around. Join us. The majority leader can call the minority leader and the President and get them in the room, which is what we always do when we have a challenge in front of us. That has not happened. That is unconscionable because people in this country are hurting.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Terminating the National Emergency Declared to Impose Duties on Articles Imported From Canada
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate execute the order of October 7 in relationship to S.J. Res. 77.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Committee on Finance is discharged and the Senate will proceed to the consideration of S.J. Res. 77, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. President, I want to speak on two topics, one after the other, healthcare and then tariffs.
Mr. President, open enrollment will begin across the country on Saturday. Many have already received notice of new sky-high premiums, including, by the way, notices that went out to my fellow Vermonters. Many across the country will log on to the Marketplace on Saturday. It is a scary day for them because they will be checking to see what it will cost them next year to purchase the same healthcare that they have this year. Twenty-four million Americans are going to be doing that this Saturday.
Folks across the country are going to get some bad news; that without the tax credits that are in place now and are set to expire by the end of the year, their healthcare premiums are going to double, triple, and, in some cases, quadruple and even worse.
What Vermonters are finding--our website went up on October 15--is truly a shocking increase in premiums, and it is not affordable. By the way, these are folks, some of whom voted for Trump, some of whom didn't, but all of whom deeply care about their families and their small businesses and their farmers. I will give you an example.
A family of four making $130,000 a year--a very good income in Vermont--would have paid $1,200 a month in 2025. Next year, they are going to have to pay $3,035. That is a $22,000 increase. A family of four making about $64,000 a year is going to pay 920 percent more for healthcare premiums. Obviously, that is going to mean they have to decide whether they are going to go without or somehow, some way, try to find a way to pay that, which they really won't be able to do.
Let me give some starters to make it very concrete about Vermonters. A woman named Sarah is going to see her premium go from $217 a month to $1,200 a month. This is a person who is 63, self-employed, and might have to go without healthcare for the first time in her life.
Cara, also self-employed, has had the same income for 20 years, really scraping by. She pays about $100 a month for healthcare through the Marketplace. Her premium goes up to $1,200.
Erica is paying $1,166 for her family. The deductible for her family of three is $15,000. This is barely insurance. Erica and her family make this premium work somehow, but I am sure it is not easy. Without the tax credits, her monthly premium goes to $2,650.
Maria and her husband run a small food business in Vermont. He spends half the year fishing in Alaska. They pay just under $240 a month, but they are looking at $1,740 per month unless the Senate acts. That is for bronze plan, which you know is the lowest level plan. They will be paying about $21,000 per year with a deductible of $7,700 per person.
The examples I gave of Vermonters are going to be true in Indiana; they are going to be true in Louisiana; they are going to be true all across the country. We have been having this debate about a shutdown, but what we haven't been having is a negotiation about how to protect families from a rate shot that they can't afford that means they are really going to lose healthcare.
I do urge us and I urge the President to act aggressively to resolve this. It will help folks. Whether they are in a red State or a blue State, whether they identify as a Republican or Democrat or Independent, it just doesn't matter. We have a healthcare system that is too, too expensive--beyond reach--and it is crippling to our small businesses, our farmers, and our families.
Mr. President, I want to address another topic, and that is the topic of tariffs. They are doing incredible harm to our economy in Vermont. In my view, they are doing long-term damage to our economy here in the United States.
I want to commend my colleagues Senator Paul, Senator Kaine, and others, Senator Shaheen, Ranking Member Wyden, and Leader Schumer for sponsoring the bipartisan legislation we voted on yesterday suspending the emergency authority on which the President was acting to impose a tariff on Brazil, a country, by the way, with whom we have a trade surplus.
We are 9 months into this trade war with tariffs at the forefront. It is a war with Canada. It sort of started with them. That is a big deal for Vermont. We are a border State. But it is a big deal for all of our States because Vermont is 1 of 34 States whose major trading partner is Canada.
For Vermont, Canada has been our largest export market and the largest source of imports. Trade with Canada accounted for 35 percent of our State exports and 67 percent of Vermont's imports and 56 percent of its total trade.
We have small businesses now that are really struggling to keep their lights on. We have farmers across the country but also farmers in Vermont who are incredibly worried about whether they are going to be able to make it into the next harvest. We had a drought. We had early floods. And now we have these tariffs that are increasing the input costs. I know, Mr. President, as a Senator from Indiana, you are very sensitive to the challenges that our agriculture economy and our farmers face.
Things were bumping along, and then President Trump just recently announced an additional 10-percent tariff on Canada, which already had a 35-percent effective rate. We don't even know what that applies to. Is that 10 percent on top of 35 percent or on specific products? Of course, all of that was done because the President was irritated about an ad that was run, apparently, by the Province of Ontario that was quoting a speech that President Reagan made some years ago about how destructive tariffs are. Maybe that does irritate the President. But the constant changing of what a tariff is from day to day creates havoc for our businesses that are trying to plan and control their expenses and deal with all the other uncertainties that they face.
These tariffs are hurting our farmers. Just think about this. Fertilizers--those costs are up 16 percent and in some cases, 39 percent. The effective rate on tractors and other farming machinery is 16 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
We have also had, as a result of the tariffs that are seen by our trading partner in Canada that was the participant in the U.S.-Mexico- Canada Trade Agreement--negotiated, by the way, by President Trump, an agreement he bragged about as being really effective and the best trade agreement--that is getting ripped up in many ways. And then when you add to it the insults that were hurled at Canada--the ``51st State,'' the ``Governor of Canada''--it has had a catastrophic impact on the tourism Vermont has depended on from our Canadian neighbors with whom we have enormous respect.
That is not just true for Vermont. New Hampshire, Maine, Montana are seeing an incredible drop in tourism that is related to this tariff battle and the rhetoric associated with it.
Also, in Vermont, just as in Indiana, our small businesses are really a big deal. I have been hearing from them. I am hearing from bed and breakfasts, hotels, brewers, distillers--any industry. I will give a few stories, a few quotes.
Simon Perkins at Orvis in Manchester:
Orvis, which was founded in 1856, announced the closure of 31 stores and five outlet locations by 2026. Orvis had to lay off 50 employees, citing tariffs.
Another business, Peter Case of Burrows Sports in Brattleboro:
Jim Hall from Vermont Country Store:
These tariffs are a tax. They are paid for by our businesses. They disrupt our businesses. They are passed on to consumers, and there is nothing but a downside, especially when you add the fact that these tariffs are a tax. They are imposed and implemented in a totally arbitrary way, wherein a person who is running a business has to contend with all the uncertainties of a
I urge all of us in the Senate to reassert our own authority under article I, which gives to the Congress the power to tax, the power to impose tariffs or not, and to not have us continue to relinquish the authority and responsibility to the Executive that we have as the U.S. Senate.
This is our responsibility, and part of the reason is that we are close to people who are affected by these policies. It is a shirking of our responsibility for the U.S. Senate to essentially cede that authority to a President, particularly when we are seeing in every single State the harmful impacts on folks in our States--on the businesses in our States, on the farmers and ranchers in our States-- who are working hard to try to pull things together and keep their businesses going, our economy going, and contributing to the well-being of our country.
I call on the President to reconsider what these tariffs are doing.
I call on our U.S. Senate to reassert its authority and be the decider of what the tariff policy shall be in this country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. President, I have come to the floor to join my colleague from Alaska Senator Sullivan in support of S.J. Res. 80, as Senator Sullivan explained earlier.
This resolution will disapprove the integrated activity planned by the administration, issued back in 2022, to manage the National Petroleum Reserve in northwest Alaska. He sponsored it and I cosponsored it because the Biden administration imposed this management plan over not only our objections but the objections of leaders from across Alaska's North Slope. The third member of our delegation, Congressman Begich, has introduced H.J. Res. 124, which is identical and is pending in the House of Representatives.
I think it is important to outline a little bit of the history on this issue, but I don't want to go into all of it.
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska--we call it NPR-A--is a 23 million-acre tract of land. It is roughly the size of the State of Indiana. It was specifically--specifically--designated for responsible energy development.
The petroleum reserve dates back a century, to President Harding's withdrawal and initial control by the U.S. Navy.
More recently, Congress has come to understand not only the naval value but the national value of the area. They have directed the Department of the Interior to ``conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing of oil and gas in the Reserve'' to help boost our energy security.
What I just shared there is a word-for-word requirement from existing Federal law, so this is what is in law: ``to conduct an expeditious program of competitive leasing of oil and gas in the Reserve.''
The Department is mandated to do that while protecting important values, including sensitive areas, as well as providing for subsistence use for Alaskans. This is generally Alaskan Natives who live in the North Slope area.
Congress really envisioned this as a balance here, where you had responsible exploration and development moving in tandem with strong environmental protection and subsistence rights. The statute is pretty clear. It kind of spells it out. And we are OK with that. We don't have a problem with that. That is kind of the Alaska way.
But, unfortunately, the Biden administration ignored that. Instead of providing for balanced management, the last administration ignored what I think was a good plan that was already in place. They ignored Federal law. They ignored the congressional delegation. They ignored the people who live on the North Slope. I think they also ignored or overlooked our history of responsible production, our energy security, and they instead prioritized conservation over everything else. So that is why we are here.
The 2022 Integrated Activity Plan cut off access, to cut off leasing, to cut off development in our petroleum reserve. That was not an accident. That was the goal here. That was the intent. The 2022 plan admits--they admit--that it will reduce oil and gas activity, which was fine in the eyes of the Biden administration because, right as they were putting sanctions on Alaska, they were taking them off of places like Iran and Venezuela to free up those nations to produce more.
Let me reiterate how the Biden administration went about doing this. The 2022 plan replaced the 2020 plan, which was put in place after an environmental review process that featured public comment and significant consultation with communities and leaders on the North Slope.
Under that 2020 plan, the BLM concluded that 18.6 million acres--this was 82 percent of the NPR-A--should be open for potential leasing, but in the 2022 plan, just 11.8 million acres--52 percent of the petroleum reserve--were left open for that purpose.
Under the 2020 plan, 4.3 million acres were closed to new infrastructure, with development across millions of additional acres subject to requirements for no surface occupancy, seasonal timing, and other sensible protections, but then the 2022 plan rejected that, closing off 8.3 million acres to any new infrastructure.
The 2020 plan was well received by most Alaskans because it was viewed as balanced. BLM crafted a plan that was, as the Agency wrote at the time, ``suitably specific for broad-scale management decisions. . . . Additional site-specific analysis will occur when BLM receives an application to approve an action on the ground. This will be done through subsequent NEPA reviews and analysis, which will be conducted before BLM issues permits or approvals for any ground disturbing activity.''
In other words, what you had was a high-level management framework. No individual projects were approved. Any seeking to advance would still have to go through a separate permitting process before being allowed to do so.
But unfortunately, BLM abandoned that approach after the Biden administration took office. They didn't base their 2022 plan on any new scientific analysis or new environmental review process; they based it on a political agenda and their preference to what they called ``keep it in the ground.'' They issued a ``determination of NEPA adequacy'' and then went into the 2020 plan and selected a far more restrictive alternative from it.
So with virtually no public process, no public comment, no consultation with Alaska Natives who call the North Slope home, the Biden administration unilaterally cut off access to 6.8 million acres of our petroleum reserve. That is an area that is larger than the individual States of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Hawaii. It is clearly not what the delegation wanted. It is not what most Alaskans wanted. And, as I explained when discussing the administrative withdrawals in the Central Yukon plan just a few weeks back, it violates multiple Alaska-specific statutes.
I should add that this was just one plank in the Biden administration's plan to shut down development in our petroleum reserve. In addition to cutting off access, they refused to hold a single lease sale in the NPR-A during their time in office. They dragged the Willow Project through years of additional process, sending a signal that nobody else should dare try to develop there. They issued a management rule that turned the law on its head by establishing a presumption against new development. They initiated another process to expand and designate new special areas where no development would be allowed to occur. Then, just a few days before leaving office, an Acting Deputy Secretary issued a memo with interim management measures to further tilt the balance away from any potential development.
So what you had was an administration that wanted nothing to do with responsible development in Alaska's petroleum reserve, and that was enough to cause some whiplash for those of us who not only know the law but also remember the Obama-Biden administration repeatedly urging companies: Go over there. Go to the National Petroleum Reserve.
This was the big fight over ANWR. They said: Don't go to ANWR; go to NPR-A.
I have kind of outlined the history of this, some of the politics of it, but I
In their words:
Despite that, the 2022 plan ``imposed sweeping restrictions that curtail responsible development, undermine congressional intent, and disregard the well-being of the people who depend on these lands for both subsistence and livelihoods.''
The letter then goes on to explain how the impacts of the 2022 plan ``are especially severe for the North Slope. Oil and gas development in the NPR-A funds the Borough's schools, emergency services, and infrastructure. It supports jobs for Inupiaq shareholders and residents. It underwrites the continuation of our communities, even as we maintain our subsistence way of life. By arbitrarily locking away vast portions of the NPR-A, BLM's rule threatens these essential services and imposes disproportionate burdens on our people.''
I think the words from the North Slope trilateral are particularly strong and powerful, and I thank them for their leadership on the issues.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of their letter be added to the Congressional Record immediately following my remarks.
There is a good chance you will see Senator Sullivan and me here on the floor of the Senate seeking to disapprove any administrative action that unreasonably restricts access to public land in our home State. That is exactly what happened in this 2022 plan. Like we saw so much in the Biden administration, it lacked balance, and it failed to adhere to the law.
We feel pretty strongly back home that we don't need Washington, DC, to try to protect Alaska from Alaskans. We need Washington, DC, to understand that no one--no one--cares more about Alaska, our lands, than those who live there and to partner with us on the balanced management of our lands. That is true across our State, and that is true within the NPR-A.
We had a good framework for responsible development in our petroleum reserve back in 2020. Today, we can vote to nullify the 2022 replacement and go back to it.
I would urge my colleagues, when we have this measure before us tomorrow--I would urge support for the resolution.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of our bipartisan resolution, which Senator Kaine and I lead, along with our colleagues Rand Paul, Mark Warner, and Leader Schumer.
Our resolution terminates the President's so-called emergency declaration related to the Canadian border and restores stability and common sense to our trade with our close ally and neighbor to the north, Canada.
The administration has used that declaration as a pretext to impose sweeping tariffs on a friend, on a neighbor, on an ally--which are taxes, paid by American consumers and businesses, on Canadian imports.
Back in April, this same resolution passed the Senate with bipartisan support. Under the National Emergencies Act, Congress must review and, if necessary, vote again every 6 months. Because the administration has refused to lift this so-called emergency and instead doubled down by raising tariffs on Canada to 35 percent as of August 1, with a threat of more, we are back on the floor today, and we will be back on the floor until this passes.
Just this past week, the President announced, as I noted, yet another 10 percent tariff hike on Canada--this time in retaliation for an Ontario ad--Ontario, one province. This would be as if the Governor of Texas put out an ad or if the Governor of California put out an ad. But President Trump used this as a pretext for another threat. And that ad accurately used President Ronald Reagan's 1987 remarks criticizing tariffs.
So that is a good way to begin: with President Reagan's remarks. He said, in 1987, though there are economic and national security circumstances during which tariffs are necessary, that, generally, ``high tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs.''
This new tariff hike isn't about security. It isn't even about our economy. It is just about the President's personal grievances, and Americans are the ones paying the price.
Since these chaotic, on-again, off-again tariffs began in March, cross-border travel and trade have both fallen precipitously. In Minnesota, we say we can see Canada from our porch. Our people go back and forth all the time--sometimes for jobs, sometimes to visit relatives and friends, and sometimes, of course, for vacations. We welcome Canadians all the time.
I was, in fact, at the Minnesota Frost game in which they played the Charge, a Canadian team, a women's professional hockey team. It was a joyous event with our Canadian neighbors.
You see, we know now, the World Series, one of the most exciting World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This isn't just some faraway place to us. These are our friends and neighbors. But yet, despite all of this incredible history of friendship and booming economic gains because of all the back-and-forth and travel, trips from Canada to the United States are down roughly 20 percent from last year. Towns in the United States are having to put up signs that say ``We love you, Canadians'' because they feel so dissed by this administration.
They are saying: What is happening? We were the first ones on the ground after 9/11 from another country.
The Canadians were there.
We were the ones that stood by your side in so many foreign wars. We are the one that, for so many of our States, is the No. 1 trading partner. How can this be happening?
And, frankly, it pisses them off, and so individual families are making decisions--are deciding: Well, we are not going to go to America. Maybe we will go to Mexico. Maybe we will go to another country. Maybe we will stay in Canada. But we are not going to travel there.
The average foreign visitor spends about $4,000 when they come to America.
We are not going to eat their food. We are not going to go to their restaurants. We are not going to stay at their hotels. We are not going to fish in their lakes.
You name it, that is what the people in my State are seeing. And everything from manufactured parts to whiskey have dropped sharply. And small businesses, farmers, and manufacturers are losing business.
This is not how our economy was supposed to work, if you believe in capitalism, if you believe in trade, if you believe you just can't put your head in the sand and think, ``Well, we are just going to be on our own,'' when 95 percent of our potential customers, particularly in the agriculture area, are outside of our borders. We should be exporting more goods, and we should be encouraging more trade.
The President shouldn't be able to just wake up one day and see an ad he
This resolution is about drawing a line in the sand and saying you cannot abuse your emergency powers to start an unjustified trade war; you cannot abuse your emergency powers to hurt one of the finest relationships in the world; and you cannot drive up prices, eliminate jobs, and put in place a national sales tax that experts now predict will altogether--the tariff tax--cost the average family nearly $2,000 per year.
And they are seeing it every day in their grocery bills. They are seeing it when they want to go out and buy tools. They see it when they are going out to buy audio equipment.
Minnesota's No. 1 trading partner, one of our country's top 2 trading partners, and one of our most trusted allies--that is Canada. We export more goods to Canada than we do--in Minnesota--to our second, third, and fourth largest markets combined. In 2024, Minnesota's goods trade with Canada, including ag products, machinery, and medical devices, amounted to roughly $22 billion--$22 billion. That is more than a quarter of all the goods that we export, a major hit for our State.
I chair the Canadian-American Interparliamentary Group. I frequently meet with our partners in Canada. A number of Senators, including Senator Kaine and Senator Shaheen and Senator Welch and Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a Republican--we went up there together to Ottawa a few months back, met with Prime Minister Carney. And as the Prime Minister said recently, the U.S.-Canada relationship has become ``mostly transactional.''
That is not the story of our friendship with Canada. Canada, as I mentioned, fought alongside us in two World Wars. They are our partners in NORAD and NATO. They helped us get our supply chain back in order after the pandemic--and, yes, we helped them. Canada is setting historic new goals to contribute to our collective defense, planning to triple defense spending over the next decade--new equipment, new infrastructure, new technology--to strengthen our NATO alliance, which means strengthening our own national security.
But rather than supporting a thriving Canadian economy that would enable the government to fulfill those goals, the tariffs that the President keeps slapping on this great ally will hinder our potential and Canada's. These tariffs also undercut the very trade deal the President himself once called the most ``modern and balanced agreement in history''--that is, the USMCA, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
I supported that agreement. I was one of the first Democrats--in fact, the first one during that election, the 2020 election--that actually came out and said I supported that trade agreement on the debate stage because I felt it was so important.
So why would the President take this jewel of a trade agreement--that albeit needs to be changed as we go forward and reviewed, which is mandatory this coming year, for things like dairy and other things-- that has been acknowledged. We would like to see some changes to it. But why would he take this incredibly important agreement and just say it doesn't matter?
The kind of uncertainty that we are seeing with these tariffs shakes business confidence across North America. These tariffs are paid by families: groceries, clothes, housing. Homebuilders say higher material costs from tariffs are adding as much as $10,000 to the cost of a new home. Americans looking for a new car are paying more than $3,000 more for an American-made vehicle. And of course it is increasing the cost of cars made in America because parts come from Canada.
And this is an important point: The tariffs are not just about raising the prices on the goods that we import; they are also driving up prices across the board on all types of goods and services-- electricity costs. If we continue down this path, as I noted, the average family will likely see a $2,000 increase per year.
This might not mean a lot to some of the President's friends and family members, billionaires on his Cabinet. They are not going to care about this $2,000 a year. That is true. They are not going to care. But people right now, that are already faced with all these problems with healthcare, which is a fight that is raging right now, about this budget, they can't handle it.
Tariffs, as I noted, can be an important tool for countering other countries' unfair trade practices. I supported some of the steel tariffs that were more narrow from the former Trump administration and the Obama administration and the Biden administration in order to make sure that our iron ore--very key to my past and our future--mined in northern Minnesota--my grandpa was an iron ore miner--that that continue.
But that is not what we are talking about with the President's action here. The broad emergency power statute enacted from 1977 that the President has used to justify these across-the-board tariffs didn't even mention the word ``tariff.''
My colleagues and I have filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court. That case is going to be heard next week. But it is not the only answer. The answer should be that Congress asserts its power, even though I believe that the use of the statute is clearly illegal and I believe, as the underlying court--which was made up of the initial trade court: a Trump judge, an Obama judge, and a Reagan judge--yes, they still exist. They unanimously, the three of them, said that this was an illegal use of the statute.
But this, today, is about something else. It is about us asserting our own power, stopping the chaos with changes over 100 times in these tariffs: small brewers paying for aluminum cans that can't afford them, furniture makers paying more for lumber, and family-owned tourism businesses in my State suffering.
If the Trump administration wants to address trade disputes with Canada--and the Prime Minister is clearly open to that--it should work in good faith with our neighbors to strengthen the USMCA trade agreement that the President himself originally negotiated.
Our bipartisan group of cosponsors understands this. This isn't about politics. It is about jobs, economic stability, and respect for the successful agreement that we committed to in the past. It is why this resolution has support from the United Steelworkers, the International Association of Machinists, North America's Building Trades Unions, and the AFL-CIO. The Chamber of Commerce, the National Taxpayers Union, and the National Retail Federation have all endorsed this resolution.
These are voices from every corner of the political spectrum, every part of our economy. Maybe we should be listening to them and not be a rubberstamp, I say to my colleagues. It is time to stand up. Otherwise, why are you here?
I yield the floor, and I see that my friend from Virginia, who has been such a leader on this, is here.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. President, I rise to thank my colleague from Minnesota Senator Klobuchar for her hard work on this effort and her work over many years in leading the U.S.-Canada interparliamentary dialogue. That is a dialogue that we have with some nations, nations that are longstanding allies of the United States, and I maintain that the U.S.- Canada relationship is really the model for what a relationship between two neighboring nations should be.
I primarily object to the Canada tariffs because I don't think there is an emergency that should trigger the use of this statute, but there are many other reasons I object to them, and the fracturing of this longstanding, powerful relationship is one of them.
I spoke yesterday with respect to the Brazil tariffs, and I talked about the wrecking ball that Donald Trump is
The firing of Federal employees, the cancellation of celebrated economic development projects, the imposition of tariffs in a chaotic on-again, off-again, pause-again, give-you-an-exception, we-will- renegotiate regime--all of these things are deeply hurting the Virginia economy, and I know my colleagues around the country are experiencing the same thing.
That economic wrecking ball composes many elements beyond the tariffs, but the tariffs are really the central item that is causing damage to our economy right now.
The tariffs that have been imposed by President Trump on Canada, like the Brazil tariffs we discussed yesterday or the ``Liberation Day'' tariffs we will talk about tomorrow, are proposed under the statute IEEPA.
Yesterday on the floor, as I talked about the Brazilian tariffs, I told everyone what IEEPA was meant to do. It was meant to give the President power to take action in the event of an international emergency.
An international emergency is defined in a pretty significant way so as to not be used in minor instances. The definition under IEEPA says that a President may take certain actions when there is an extraordinary and unusual threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States--an extraordinary and unusual threat.
Before President Trump, what kind of emergencies have been triggered under IEEPA by Democratic and Republican Presidents? The existence and activities of transnational criminal organizations, malicious cyber- enabled activities that target the United States, human rights violations that affect the United States, corruption that affects the United States, pervasive strategies by foreign nations to evade sanctions imposed by the United States, foreign interference in U.S. elections.
These are the kinds of unusual and extraordinary actions originating in whole or substantially in part outside the United States that have been labeled by Presidents an ``international emergency'' under IEEPA to enable a President to take certain action. President Trump has stretched this notion of emergency far beyond the language of the statute and far beyond what anyone contemplated when this statute was written.
You have heard me talk about the President declaring an energy emergency when the United States is producing more energy than at any time in our history. You have heard us talk about the President declaring the prosecution of a friend of his in Brazil a national security emergency. If President Trump can define anything as an emergency, then so can any President henceforth. That is why my colleagues should be pretty careful in striking down overuse of emergency power.
So what is the emergency with respect to Canada that has inspired the President to impose these tariffs on Canada and then add to the tariffs because he saw a television advertisement he didn't like? The emergency the President has cited is the challenge of fentanyl.
Now, fentanyl is an emergency. I am not standing here on the floor of the Senate to deny that it is so. The President has used the fentanyl emergency to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and I haven't challenged those uses of emergency power. I have questions about whether tariffs are the right solution to the declared emergency. But I would not stand here on the floor of the Senate and claim that fentanyl is not an emergency that had significant origin in China and Mexico. But fentanyl is not an emergency from Canada.
In the most recent year that we had statistics, the United States seized nearly 40,000 pounds of fentanyl on the southern border of the United States coming from Mexico. That is an emergency. How much fentanyl was seized on or near the Canadian border during the same year? The answer is 21 pounds--21 pounds.
Much of that fentanyl was not necessarily seized at the border; it was seized near the border. It may have been coming from Canada, but in all likelihood, it was actually on its way to Canada because more fentanyl goes from the United States into Canada than vice versa.
So this claim that Canada is responsible for a fentanyl emergency and thus we need to punish both Canada but more especially American consumers is completely without factual basis, and it is completely illogical.
What is the emergency? The emergency apparently got augmented in the past weekend. The President saw an advertisement, as my colleague said, with a direct quote from President Ronald Reagan about why tariffs are bad, and he said: We caught the Canadians redhanded, and so we are going to add another 10-percent tariff on top of what I have already done, and we are going to stop any trade negotiations with Canada because I have such thin skin that an ad on television quoting Ronald Reagan hurts my feelings.
How about that as a rationale for trade policy? How about that? There is no emergency in this situation, and that is the reason this resolution should be supported.
But while there is no emergency, there are consequences. There are consequences to what President Trump has done with Canada.
In the economic space, my colleague talked about visitation. ``Canadian Visitors To U.S. Plummet 33% In June--Sixth Straight Month Of Steep Declines.''
Canadian visitors are the most common foreign visitors to the Commonwealth of Virginia. They tend to love Virginia Beach, and we love Canadians coming to Virginia Beach. But we have seen Canadian visitation drop. All States in the country have seen Canadian visitation drop.
There are so many other stories that I hear out on the road. I was with a baker in Virginia who has three pie shops--Mom's Apple Pie. We were talking about this back in the spring after the tariffs had been announced but before they had really bit.
She had seen tariffs in Trump's first term, and she said to me on behalf of Mom's Apple Pie--I mean, this is almost too good a story to be true--Mom's Apple Pie, for gosh sake.
She said: Senator Kaine, you have got to do something about these tariffs.
I said: Tariffs? You have three bakeries--one in Occoquan, one in Purcellville, one in Leesburg. How do tariffs affect you?
Pie tins. Pie tins. All pie tins are made of aluminum, and they all come from Canada. If you jack up the cost of aluminum with aluminum tariffs by 25 percent, apple pie gets more expensive. Nobody has to buy apple pie. If it gets more expensive, people will choose not to buy apple pie, and I got to lay people off. I saw it in Trump term 1. I am going to see in Trump term 2.
Farmers. Farmers have seen commodities be pretty darn flat. Commodity prices have not been going up. They have been getting a lot more for agricultural commodities, but the inputs aren't stable. They are getting more expensive.
One of the most significant inputs for any farmer of an agricultural vegetable or grain product is fertilizer. One of the key ingredients in fertilizer is potash, and about 80 percent of potash that goes into fertilizer used by American farmers comes from Canada.
So the initial effect of these tariffs is to raise the cost of these inputs--building supplies, food, fertilizer, pie tins. The input costs go up. And then there is never a one-way trade war, so a nation will say: Well, then, we are going to retaliate against you. We are not going to take this sitting down.
So Canada doesn't want to, but after Trump imposed the tariff, Canada retaliates on products in the ag sector, and suddenly it becomes harder for American businesses to sell products in Canada.
One of the products that is an important one in Southern States like mine is whiskey. ``The U.S. Alcohol Industry Is Reeling From Canada's Booze Boycott. Trade fight prompts pullback in purchases by the biggest export market for U.S.-made wines, costing American brands tens of millions in sales.''
Virginia is one of the top 10 States in the country in the volume of wine production. We also produce a lot of whiskey and other spirits. And Canadians like to buy American products. But the retaliation and the anger at the United States has caused many to decide to pull all American products off their shelves--all American products off their shelves. And I speak with a number of businesses in Virginia who would face this.
So the consequences are very real. My colleague from Minnesota talked about estimates that this could be already costing American families on average between $1,800 and $2,000 a year.
But it has consequences bigger than that. Canada is an ally. We are trying to convince Canada to increase their NATO expenditure up to 2 percent of GDP and related expenditures on infrastructure up to 5 percent of GDP. The new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has gone to the Parliament and gotten their commitment to do so.
We are asking Canada to participate with us in one of President Trump's most significant military priorities, called Golden Dome. In Canada, they call it Continental Shield. They have a different name for it, but it is the same thing; it is missile defense for North America. And we are trying to get Canada to heavily invest, as they should, to try to provide missile defense in North America. It is much harder to convince an ally to spend hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars on a joint defense platform when you are punishing their economy and when we are punishing our own citizens.
So that is why we need to vote for this resolution.
There is a right way to resolve this, and my colleague mentioned it: the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It was one of the highlights, the stellar achievements of Donald Trump's first term. NAFTA was 20 years old; it needed to be renegotiated.
Donald Trump said: We are going to renegotiate it and make it a lot better.
Guess what. He did. He and his team did make it better.
So when it came to the Senate, my recollection is it came to the Senate, and it passed by about 89 to 10. We can't get that vote on a Mother's Day resolution here. Donald Trump should be proud of USMCA.
USMCA had a provision that, in 2026, we would look at the first 5 years of its history and then make it better. Those discussions had just started when I was in Ontario about a month and a half ago. The Canadian Government felt really good about sitting around the table with the United States and Mexico and making this deal better. Donald Trump has stopped the discussions because a TV ad hurt his feelings.
The right answer to the U.S.-Canada relationship on trade is to go back to the table on USMCA, find anything that hasn't worked, anything that can be made better, negotiate it, and make it better.
Tariffs are hurting our economy, hurting our citizens, hurting our businesses. Let's terminate this bogus emergency and let our households and businesses save some money.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. President, I rise today to express my support for this resolution, and, indeed, the full series of tariff resolutions my colleagues Senators Kaine and Wyden and others have put forth. And I want to take this opportunity to personally commend Senator Kaine for his leadership and for his understanding of the complexities of the issues we face.
Our resolution would overturn President Trump's tariff taxes on American consumers. These tariffs are part of the President's effort to use trade policies to benefit his friends and himself at the expense of American families.
He has used trade to prop up Argentina's President before a key election because that country's President has said nice things about President Trump, hardly the basis for a fundamental economic decision affecting the life of every American.
And he has used trade to punish the entire country of Brazil for the prosecution of its former leader, another friend and political ally of Trump.
These are not economically based decisions. These are purely personal, whimsical decisions that harm American families.
The hope is that any Chief Executive is going to look thoughtfully and rationally, measure benefits and costs, and make decisions that benefit this country. That is not the case with President Trump.
And while he is cutting these special-interest trade deals, President Trump is really whacking households with more than $15 billion in additional costs each month. This includes the tariffs on Brazil, one of the main sources of coffee for the United States of America. And, you know, we are just waiting for our constituents to roll up to their Dunkin Donuts, if you are in Rhode Island, and order a small coffee: That will be $15, please.
That is where we are headed. And it is going to hurt our constituents, particularly the most vulnerable, and working families that are struggling to get by.
Grocery prices continue to climb with essentials like coffee and beef, with a 19-percent increase and 15 percent increase, respectively, more expensive than they were a year ago.
The average new car price just crossed $50,000 for the first time in our Nation's history. Investment bank UBS reports that tariffs have increased home construction costs by $9,000, and we have an affordable housing crisis in the United States in every State.
And Ashley Furniture, the largest U.S. and, indeed, global furniture manufacturer, announced this month it was raising prices by as much as 12 percent due to the President's tariffs, and that was before new 25- percent furniture-specific tariff came into force.
In total, researchers at Yale report that tariffs are costing families $1,800 this year. The President has essentially claimed these costs are a figment of our imagination, repeatedly claiming that foreign companies--not Americans--pay his tariffs. But his claims don't match Americans' reality or the economic data.
A recent Goldman Sachs report found that foreign exporters have been paying only about 9 percent of tariff costs.
In fact, Goldman, the nonprofit Peterson Institute, and investment bank Morgan Stanley have all reported that most of the President's tariffs are being absorbed by American companies, small businesses, and consumers.
Indeed, our Nation's two largest auto manufacturers, General Motors and Ford, have each reported billions of dollars in new tariff-related costs. Nike told its investors it will pay $1.5 billion in tariff costs this fiscal year, and defense manufacturer Raytheon announced $220 million in tariff costs in the third quarter alone.
Make no mistake, businesses, large and small, in every corner of our country, are paying these costs but with much tighter margins--much, much tighter margins--than previously.
Many of the Main Street businesses may not survive because of it. And, increasingly, companies are passing the costs of these tariff taxes on to American consumers. It is not just higher costs. When companies shoulder new costs, they hire fewer workers. And we are seeing that in many parts of the country. We are seeing it in Rhode Island.
Unsurprisingly, job growth, as a result, has stagnated under President Trump. Payroll company ADP found the private sector actually lost 32,000 jobs last month, while those Yale researchers estimate that Trump tariffs will eliminate half a million jobs this year.
It used to be the chief responsibility of the President of the United States to create economic programs and policies that stimulated employment--not eliminated employment.
And while President Trump wants to demonize any dissent toward his policies as political or the work of his enemies, data and economic warnings around his tariffs are coming from every corner of our country.
I will close by noting that I do not want to be on the floor delivering this speech. I do not want to have to criticize the President for his economic decision making, but instead of pursuing thoughtful, impactful, and cost-reducing policies, President Trump has decided to take a whack at American small business and families with billions and billions in new costs.
And as a Member of the Senate, I cannot sit by quietly while our President makes Americans suffer simply because their needs do not match his priorities.
I was hopeful that President Trump would come to his senses before Congress and the courts act, but he has not, and that is why we are on the floor. And that is why we must pass this resolution, which is one of the first steps to eliminating these Trump-induced costs on households and businesses.
Passage today would signal to Americans that Congress's priority is their financial well-being, not the well-being of the wealthy, the well-connected, and Donald Trump's personal pals.
Most importantly, it would start the process of eliminating over $15 billion in new monthly costs for families.
I urge my colleagues to prioritize hard-working Americans, not Donald Trump and friends, by passing this resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Rhode Island, as well as Senator Klobuchar and Senator Kaine. We have all been teaming up to terminate Donald Trump's blanket tariffs on products Americans buy from Canada.
Once again, we have an opportunity to cancel a Trump trade tax and put money back into the pockets of the American people.
This is a chance for Senators to show our constituents that we are going to act for them, not for special interests or some new Presidential obsession.
Unlike many of the nations Trump has slapped with taxes, there is already a comprehensive trade deal between the United States and Canada. It was written with input from the Senate Finance Committee, and it was bipartisan. USMCA was a trade deal negotiated by Donald Trump himself, and it got a significant bipartisan vote.
Congress approved the deal, put it into black-letter law, and we made sure--with Senator Brown, in particular, leading the fight--to have a bill with tough enforcement--enforcement teeth--to make sure the United States could hold Canada and Mexico to their commitments.
This is the only way to ensure that farmers, workers, and businesses get the full benefit.
But Trump's trade taxes aren't addressing enforcement issues with Mexico and Canada, or making the USMCA work better. Instead, he is unilaterally undermining supply chains across the board.
He has imposed new tariffs on scores of products we buy from Canada, making groceries, housing, energy, and cars more expensive.
He put a 50-percent tariff on steel and aluminum, a singularly bad idea. Beer, appliances, auto parts--all of them--are getting hammered by that tax.
There are 8 million American jobs that depend on trade with Canada. Canada is the biggest export market for 32 American States.
With this trade war, Trump is destroying jobs and harming America and making our people poorer.
Since national security was one of the rationales for the Trump trade taxes on Canada, I have to point out that his trade war against our close ally is making American allies and us less safe.
For one, Canada is a reliable source of energy, raw materials, and critical minerals that China has repeatedly used as a bargaining chip in trade talks. Critical minerals are essential to manufacturing in the high-tech and defense industries. The Trump administration has invested millions in developing the Canadian critical minerals industry as an alternative to China's near monopoly.
But here is a key point: instead of developing Canada as an alternative to China for raw materials, Donald Trump is driving our closest ally straight into the arms of China.
The Canadian Prime Minister said last week that his country is looking to reengage with India and China to find new markets and new allies that are more reliable than the United States. America would get better results on trade by buying spells from an Etsy witch.
Trump's stated reason for blowing up commerce is fentanyl trafficking. Now, I don't take a backseat to anybody when it comes to cracking down on the scourge of fentanyl. Oregon is no stranger to the devastating effects it has wreaked in our communities.
But, in reality, there is no crisis at the northern border. Less than 0.2 percent of fentanyl entering the United States comes from Canada.
Some of my colleagues on the other side have voiced concerns about tariffs but said they want to give Donald Trump more time to strike a deal. I would ask: what in the past 6 months makes you think that this is somehow magically going to get better?
Instead of negotiating, Donald Trump spends his energy having tantrums about TV ads that accurately quote Ronald Reagan's position on tariffs. He has already increased these tariffs on Canada once. He is now threatening to jack up Canada tariffs by another 10 percent because one of their provinces--just one--took out the Reagan ad.
Who would make a deal with a person who acts like this, who ignores a deal that was made just a few years ago and who constantly threatens to annex their country?
That is what Donald Trump has done with Canada.
These tariffs are doing nothing to help Americans. They are unrelated to trade disputes.
I hope every Senator will vote to repeal the taxes on Canadian goods and help lower costs for our constituents.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Kaine for his leadership on this issue, highlighting it, meeting on it, bringing it to the attention of the American public. The same thing is true for Senator Wyden and Senator Klobuchar.
Thank you so much for your leadership.
And I rise to join them in highlighting the devastating impact President Trump's economic policies are having on small businesses across our country. Small business owners are struggling in President Trump's economy.
Let me just say this: 97 percent of all the companies in America that engage in trade are small businesses, and those small businesses represent one-third of all trade that our country engages in.
They are not big companies. They can't buy a year or 2 years' inventory in advance. They live week to week. They live month to month. And that is pretty much where they have been since April. They have been trying to survive. They have been trying just to make it through this hectic, unpredictable, roller coaster of tariffs, which the President has been imposing.
And these small businesses, they are unbelievably struggling in this economy right now. Thanks to President Trump, just this year, electricity costs are up 11 percent. Food prices are up. The cost of coffee is up 19 percent this year. Bananas are up 7 percent. Beef is up 13 percent. The cost of healthcare for millions of small business owners will increase by an average of 114 percent.
This is going to be a massive hit on small businesses and small business workers if the Affordable Care Act tax premiums expire. It is going to be 10 million small businesses and small business employees in our country that are going to see a spike that is going to be dramatic for their healthcare.
And 42,000 jobs we have lost in manufacturing this year--42,000 down, not up--not as promised. And that is supposed to be at the center of his tariff policy? We are losing manufacturing jobs at an accelerated rate after Joe Biden increased manufacturing jobs.
And I would like to, again, really point out what a great job you have been doing, Senator Kaine, on this in putting a great big spotlight on all of this, because this is absolutely central to the economic well-being of our country.
So back in May, I introduced and tried to pass my Small Business Liberation Act, a bill that would have protected small businesses from Trump's tariff chaos, just saying: Get those 97 percent of all the businesses engaged in trade--the small businesses--get them out of this war. They can't survive that war. Big businesses, maybe, but not little businesses. They just can't do it. But the Senate Republicans blocked that proposal.
Then I did it again. Republicans blocked my proposal just to spare the small businesses, and, unfortunately, Republicans have not shown the courage yet on Trump's tariffs, just capitulation, as they do on so many other issues.
By opposing my bill and preventing those sensible resolutions from moving forward in the House, Republicans are allowing Trump to tax any good from any country for any reason--no rules. And the only reason is Trump doesn't have the legal authority to do that. He doesn't have the legal authority to do what he is doing right now.
Trump claims to have authority under a 1977 law signed by Jimmy Carter, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This law was so uncontroversial in 1977 that it was passed on a voice vote.
Now, can you imagine? Jimmy Carter is President. There is a bill that is going to allow Jimmy Carter to become a dictator, to impose tariffs on any country in the world, to jack up the price anywhere they want on any product, at any time; anything that ticks him off, including some little commercial about Ronald Reagan, and all of a sudden, boom, we are smashing you, Canada.
Does anyone here really think the Republicans and the Congress, in 1977, at the height of Jimmy Carterism, were giving him unlimited authority to be able to impose tariffs?
You know that did not happen. He doesn't have the legal authority to do this, and I can tell you because I was there on the floor of Congress when it happened in 1977. I know there was no debate on this.
And so that is what we are talking about right now. The Congress did not give Jimmy Carter King-like powers--I can guarantee you that--on a voice vote. But Trump, he thinks he can exercise these emergency powers and tax any import for any reason. Our latest emergency? It is a television ad, a Canadian-produced and featured audio of former President Ronald Reagan denouncing the tariffs. And, in retaliation, President Trump decided everyday Americans and small businesses should pay 10 percent more on imports from Canada.
It is very clear, Trump is just making all of this up. He is making it up as he goes along.
And, for Massachusetts, it is very important. Every fifth grader-- when I was in the fifth grade and all fifth graders in Massachusetts-- in the geography book there is one chapter entitled: ``Our Friends the Canadians.'' And why is that? Because they are our leading trading partner. It is only like a 3- or 4-hour ride to get up to Canada. It is who we are. We trade with them every single day. We do $10 billion of trade with Canada. That is whom we do business with.
And this 10 percent additional tariff, you know who it cascades down onto? The small businesses of Massachusetts. Ordinary citizens, they are going to be further crushed. That is whom we partner with.
And he knows he doesn't have this trade authority. Small businesses have had enough of Trump's illegal actions and have successfully challenged the tariff authority twice already. He lost in the district court. He lost in the circuit court. And next week, this case is going to be heard in the Supreme Court. So small businesses have already won twice, and now they are going for the final round in the Supreme Court, hoping that they won't engage in creative legislative history reinterpretation of that Republican unanimous vote in 1977 that allowed Jimmy Carter to become a King on tariffs.
So the President says it is ``enemies of the country'' who are suing him. If that is how you view Main Street in America--Kiwanians, Rotarians, small business, chambers of commerce all across the country--they are the ones bringing the suit and have already won twice and are now heading for the showdown on the Supreme Court.
For small businesses, this isn't about politics; it is about survival. And right now, Trump's tariffs are taxes for them. So far, it is $30 billion coming from small businesses that Trump then transfers into tax breaks for the wealthiest people in our country or for the Argentine Government, but it is not staying on Main Street. They are not getting the rewards for the work which they have done.
A small business in Massachusetts that designs and manufactures and sells outdoor recreation equipment told me that they have paid an extra $500,000 this year because of Trump's tariff taxes. Earlier this week, they received a $40,000 bill from imports from Taiwan. It is just a small business.
And, meanwhile, big businesses have CEOs meeting directly with the President and receiving generous exemptions.
It is Robin Hood in reverse. Trump is taking from hard-working, regular people, and he is transferring the wealth to the millionaires and billionaires in our country. It is absolutely economic craziness that the President is engaging in. He is punishing Main Street. He is turning Main Street into ``Pain Street'' in every single State in our country.
And that extra increase in the tariffs from Canada puts a special burden on Massachusetts and our small businesses, our workers.
So it is very clear this tax is not being paid by other countries. American small businesses pay the tax. Main Street is paying this tax. And President Trump is taxing food and clothing and toys and even tea. And as a small business owner reminded me, the last time there was a tax on tea, there was a revolution in our country that began in Boston.
Small businesses have no lobbyists, no Mar-a-Lago, no golden gifts for President Trump, no margin for error. There will be no invitations to the new ballroom, but I am not going to back down. I am going to continue to stand up for small businesses across the country, across Massachusetts, from red States to blue States, who are bearing the burden of these tariffs, and I hope that our Republican colleagues will join us today by voting to pass this resolution.
And, again, I thank you, Senator Kaine, for your leadership, and the same to you, Senator Wyden and to Senator Klobuchar. This is a very important moment in the economic history of our country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. President, I rise in opposition to S.J. Res. 77, which would terminate the fentanyl national emergency declared with respect to Canada.
I agree with my colleagues that tariffs should be more targeted to avoid harm to Americans. I made precisely that point at a hearing in the Finance Committee in May.
We should consider more exemptions, whether for unavailable natural resources, capital equipment, or other key inputs.
It is equally as important that enforcement guidance provides the clarity that U.S. companies need to comply with the tariffs and to 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 to helping American families and businesses of all sizes.
What my colleagues across the aisle have not discussed is the ubiquitous tariffs and nontariff trade barriers that our small businesses and large businesses alike face across this globe from countries that are not allowing fair trade to happen with the United States, and the cost of that is being borne by the American people-- small businesses and large businesses alike.
The President's historic trade negotiations recognize that this cannot continue, and nations across the globe need to reduce their tariff barriers and their nontariff trade barriers to American companies and American citizens.
The President's negotiations are bearing fruit. President Trump already announced new trade deals with major trading partners, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and the European Union. Other such announcements we expect to be forthcoming.
And I urge other trading partners of the United States to reach similar deals.
Consequently, S.J. Res. 77 is counterproductive to the progress already made by the President and to new gains he can still achieve in the ongoing negotiations with our trading partners. Let's truly get a balanced, fair playing field in trade.
On April 30, the Senate rejected the joint resolution of disapproval of IEEPA-based reciprocal tariffs for the same reasons. I recommend we do the same thing today and reject this resolution.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. President, in conclusion, I want to say this: One, thank you to Senator Kaine and Senator Warner, the two Senators from Virginia, for their leadership on this important resolution; Senator Wyden for all of his work; Senator Rand Paul and others who have stood with us, who have stood with capitalism, who have stood with this idea that trade matters and that our country is stronger when we do business and sell our goods across the seas and to our friendly neighbors like Canada.
Let me start with Canada. As the head of the Inter-Parliamentary Group with Canada, I spent a lot of time working with the Canadians. It was one Embassy, years ago, when America was disliked by a lot of countries, that displayed on their Embassy huge banners that said: ``Friend, Ally, Partner.''
For so many of our States, they are our biggest trading partner. They fought alongside us in two World Wars. They are our partners in NORAD and in NATO. They worked with us together on supply chains and getting them back working after the pandemic. They are setting new historic goals, Canada is, to contribute to our collective defense, planning to triple defense spending over the next decade.
So what does this administration do? Slap them with a 35-percent tariff. And then, just because the President woke up in the morning and didn't like an ad that quoted a beloved Republican President, Ronald Reagan, didn't like it, he said: Well, I am going to give them 10 percent more.
Yet this is a country with which we share a trade agreement that this President negotiated with Mexico and Canada. If you want to make changes, like for dairy or other things, do it in the review of that agreement. Don't do it like this to a neighbor and friend.
Secondly, what do these tariffs mean to America? mean to the people in our country? Combined, they have been changed over 100 times--total chaos. Inflation is up. Manufacturing jobs are down. Small farm bankruptcies are at their highest levels in 5 years, and every Senator in this Chamber has heard from their beef producers or heard from their soybean farmers. What is happening right now, as one of my farmers called it, is a ``perfect storm of ugly.''
For an individual family right now, these tariffs mean a $2,000 tax per family. Tools are up. Audio equipment costs more. This is the effect of this tariff policy on individual families in America.
So we can have high-ended debates here, but at home, they are looking at their grocery prices. They are looking at their markets, their family farms--that they spent a century there, they are next in line to take it over--drying up. That is what these tariffs are about.
Then, finally, this President cannot keep abusing his power like this. There is a reason, when you look at the numbers, who supports this resolution: United Steelworkers, International Association of Machinists, North America's Building Trades Unions, the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Taxpayers Union, the National Retail Federation have all endorsed this resolution.
But, unfortunately, with a few exceptions, our friends on the other side of the aisle are just rubberstamping what this President wants.
Well, it is time for us to stand up. This vote is about reasserting Congress's constitutional role, article I, section 8, of the Constitution gives Congress--not the President--the power to impose tariffs and regulate commerce with foreign nations. We must stand up for American workers, businesses, and consumers and remind our allies and ourselves that America keeps its word.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. President, first, I want to thank our great Senators Klobuchar and Kaine and Wyden for leading the charge here on the Senate floor against Donald Trump's destructive, self-defeating, and often utterly juvenile trade war.
Today, the Senate will vote to end Donald Trump's national emergency declaration against Canada and put a stop to the asinine trade war with our neighbors to the north. This has been the most peaceful relationship over the centuries, and Donald Trump seems to throw a hand grenade to undo that relationship. We need to put a stop to this asinine trade war with our neighbors to the north.
And if Americans want proof that Donald Trump's trade war has been a catastrophe, consider this: While he capitulates to Beijing, he is raising tariffs on Canada.
How nonsensical. How stupid. How thoughtless.
Canada--one of our strongest allies, one of our most important trading partners. I don't know of two large economies that are more entwined than America's and Canada's. And after a year and a half of failed trade war, Americans have not gotten liberation. Instead, Americans have been saddled with a national sales tax. That is what Trump's tariffs are, a national sales tax on Americans.
The average family--America, listen to this--the average family, American family, is paying $2,000 more a year thanks to Trump's tariffs. Our farmers are taking a beating.
In New York, Donald Trump's 35 percent tariffs on Canada have been devastating. We depend on tourism. More than a quarter of the tourists who visit Niagara Falls and the wine country in the Finger Lakes region are from Canada. So many from Canada flood New York City every year. And yet, this year, tourism and border crossings are down 20 percent. Western New York and Buffalo depend on those border crossings all the time.
Trade between our Nations has been hurt. Jobs have been squandered. The economy of every northern border State--as with Minnesota--has suffered.
And now Donald Trump wants to add another 10 percent tariff on Canada because his feelings were hurt over an ad featuring Ronald Reagan. Can you imagine what an infantile leader we have in America? He sees an ad and then hurts the American people with these tariffs.
Yes, that is right. Donald Trump's pride has become so fragile that he is threatening to increase tariffs on Canada by another 10 percent, from 35 percent to 45 percent. Why? Simply because the government of Ontario released an ad that included a radio address from President Reagan, warning about the danger of tariffs, and, apparently, that got Donald Trump's feelings all hurt.
Trump is letting his delicate little ego drive U.S. trade, whether it is with Brazil, Argentina, or with Canada. The consequence is that Americans are paying more.
This isn't a laughing matter, really--no. Struggling families have to pay thousands of dollars more each year because Donald Trump doesn't like the internal goings on in Canada or Argentina or Brazil. That hurts Americans, and we pay more for construction materials, for aluminum, for paper, and so much more.
But do you know what? The truth hurts. What President Reagan said, back in those years, about the danger of tariffs was true back then and remains true today. And I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle disagree.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the radio address delivered by President Reagan on free trade and on the harms of tariffs on the economy, on April 25, 1987, be printed in the Congressional Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Yesterday, the Senate came together in a bipartisan way to pass legislation to end Donald Trump's bogus emergency declaration in Brazil, under the leadership of Senator Kaine. Today, we can take the next step to reverse Trump's trade war on one of America's most important allies, under the leadership of Senator Klobuchar. I urge--I urge--my Republican colleagues to join Democrats once again to think about the families back home that are hurt by Trump's tariffs and put an end to Trump's tariff war on Canada.
Enough is enough.
I ask unanimous consent to yield back the remaining time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Under the previous order, the clerk will read the title of the joint resolution for 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?
I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-Smith), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) is necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 50, nays 46, as follows:
The joint resolution (S.J. Res. 77) was passed, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. President, what has always separated America from other nations around the world is the right to vote. It is a right that everybody in this body cherishes, as do the American people. Every person who approaches the ballot box generally has confidence that their votes are going to be counted and their voice will be heard.
But, as we stand here, this cherished right is coming under attack because, in 2026, we can expect a continuation of what is happening in these last 9 months: that the Trump administration is doing everything it can to undermine the confidence in elections and sow distrust in the election process.
It is like a spider weaving a web. The Trump administration has crafted multiple strands that, when combined together, attack and change the voting landscape in a way that America will not recognize.
Trump is attempting to strip power from the States, consolidate it for himself, and subvert the will of the people. It is systematic, it is strategic, and it is deeply and urgently serious.
Today, I am beginning an extended effort to elevate this issue and sound the alarm--because voters will go to the polls this Tuesday, and my fear is that it could be the last free and fair election, unless we rise up and we act. And this fear is not mine alone. I have heard it all around Connecticut and from my colleagues all around the country, and it is well founded.
President Trump's crusade of voter suppression and election subversion started on day one of the administration, when he pardoned the individuals who participated in the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6. That January 6 attack was not a protest or even just a riot. It was an assault on the very heart of our democracy. In attempting to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election,
President Trump provided a blanket pardon to the January 6 attackers and thereby endorsed and placed the Presidential seal of approval on their actions and their direction and goal of seeking to overturn the will of the people. So it was no accident that these pardons were one of President Trump's very first acts in office. It was an unmistakable signal that his administration would be obsessed with suppressing votes and undermining free and fair elections.
And since that very first day in office, President Trump and his administration have been praising and hiring into leadership positions the very people who attempted to subvert our democracy. In fact, just this past month, the White House reportedly hired Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who attempted to overturn the 2020 election results, and he is working officially as a ``special government employee'' tasked with looking into the 2020 election and current voting machines.
But rewriting the history of January 6 was only the beginning of a relentless, purposeful campaign to stoke fear among voters and sow seeds of distrust in American elections. They have employed Federal Agencies to help do some of the dirty work. In fact, President Trump has weaponized several Federal Agencies against you, the voters. He is using these Agencies as instruments to suppress your vote.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice have both taken alarming actions in recent months targeting the vote. At DHS, a senior Department leader, Heather Honey, an election denier and conspiracy theorist in her own right, reportedly told State and local election officials that the administration could declare a ``national emergency'' based on the claim that the 2020 election was stolen to obtain ``additional powers that don't exist right now'' and act ``without Congress'' to ``mandate that States'' adopt her preferred, radical election rules.
In addition, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, a critical Agency within DHS that works with State and local officials to protect the security of our elections, has been gutted. CISA has been instrumental in protecting our elections from cyber attacks and threats by foreign and domestic actors. These attacks are growing, not diminishing.
I don't have to reveal any classified information for the American people to know that attacks by our adversaries on our election system are an increasing threat, but instead of bolstering CISA, President Trump has placed on administrative leave or reassigned nearly all of its election experts. In their place, President Trump has installed inexperienced political activists who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Marci McCarthy, named director of public affairs at CISA, was responsible for spreading false claims about faulty voting machines in Georgia.
This past July, Sean Plankey, the nominee to head CISA, refused to answer me when I asked him in a hearing if he believed that the 2020 election was stolen.
President Trump has also chosen to attack CISA officials. In April, President Trump issued an Executive order directing the Department of Justice and DHS to investigate Chris Krebs, the former head of CISA, calling him a ``bad-faith actor'' who ``weaponized and abused'' his authority--all because Krebs refused to lie and say Trump's 2020 election was rigged. And because Krebs said there was no evidence in 2020 that ``any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,'' he was attacked, and that Executive order asked DHS to target him.
At the same time, President Trump has dismantled CISA's election security programs, including by terminating initiatives that monitor foreign disinformation and cutting the funding of systems that detect, deter, and alert States and localities about cyber and physical attacks on election infrastructure.
This dismantling of CISA is fundamental and deeply alarming, but at the Department of Justice, things are no better. President Trump took an ax to the Department of Justice's Voting Section within the Civil Rights Division, that historic section established to protect and uplift the vote.
First, he decimated the Voting Section staff. In January, it was estimated that the section had 30 attorneys on staff to enforce voting rights laws. Today, it is three. Then he decimated its mission, transforming the section from a bulwark against voting suppression into its opposite: a mechanism to suppress voters and stoke fears of voter fraud.
So instead of lifting up the work of voting rights and serving as a staunch defender of voters in the courts, the section has withdrawn its engagement in seven active voting cases. Where it does remain involved, in redistricting cases such as Louisiana v. Callais, it has taken a sudden and staunch anti-voter stance.
The Department of Justice has decided to make a mockery of poll monitoring as well. The Trump DOJ will now use poll monitoring--which began as an effort to secure minorities' votes when they were denied it following passage of the Voting Rights Act--to potentially intimidate and surveil voters and officials alike at polling sites in California and New Jersey. He is doing it at the request of the Republican Party officials in those States, ahead of the November 4 election.
Those anti-voter campaigns are coupled with efforts to distort the electoral maps. Since President Trump took office, he has pressured Republican State legislators to ignore the will of their voters and effectively elect representatives through extreme and unabashedly partisan gerrymandering. This flagrantly abusive redistricting occurred in States like Texas, representing a top-down campaign directed by President Trump to eradicate as many congressional districts as possible that could conceivably elect a Democrat.
For example, the new Texas redistricting seeks to gift Republicans 80 percent of its House seats in a State where Democrats routinely receive between 40 and 50 percent of the vote in congressional districts. It is plainly a move designed to target minority voters.
The same playbook follows in Missouri and North Carolina. These are the actions of desperate politicians--desperate because they know how deeply unpopular their policies are with voters, policies of stripping people of their healthcare, cutting taxes for the rich, and sending the military into American streets. Instead of changing those policies to win over voters, the Trump administration is seeking to disenfranchise the voters, suppress votes, and rig these elections by shamelessly moving voters to new districts.
President Trump and Republicans have started a tit-for-tat redistricting arms race where Democrats are forced to fight fire with fire and play catchup to undo Republicans' damage and restore balanced representation. And the ones who suffer are the voters. Their voices are ignored and often silenced by frightened partisan politicians.
But it isn't just the voters who are undermined; it is our States as well. Under the Constitution, it is the States that have the power to oversee the time, place, and manner of their elections, subject only to legislation enacted by Congress. The President is given no role--zero-- in that process. States are not agents for the Federal Government, hamstrung to Presidential orders when it comes to elections. In this space of elections, they have their own independent, sovereign authority. Yet President Trump believes he can dictate the rules over our elections and seize power from the States for himself, and he has sought to do it in a number of important ways that ought to concern this body, especially because we represent our States.
Foremost among his tactics, he wants to supplant States in determining the means, methods, and mechanisms for placing our votes. Those mechanisms vary. For example, some States use more mail-in voting than others, and States don't always have the same approach to early voting. Rather than the States making those calls, he wants to be Big Brother himself, watching how elections must be run, dictating how it is done.
The DOJ has already unsuccessfully sought access to voting machines in
In March 2025, President Trump issued an Executive order--another Executive order--that attempted to mandate that the independent, bipartisan Election Assistance Commission rescind all previous certifications of voting equipment and recertify systems under amended guidelines. That order is currently being challenged in court. It is plainly unlawful, it is reckless, it is unfair to the States, and it is a false solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist.
President Trump has called voting machines ``highly inaccurate, very expensive, and seriously controversial.'' There is zero evidence-- zero--to support these claims. It is all just a pretext to insert Federal control over States' rights. States do have rights, and President Trump is trying to override them roughshod.
His tactics are similar with mail-in ballots. In the 2024 election, nearly one-third of Americans voted by mail. Mail-in voting is instrumental in helping our troops and making sure that every voice is heard, even when they are overseas.
President Trump has stated that he wants to ``lead a movement'' to get rid of mail-in voting, and he posted this past week on social media: ``No mail-in or `Early' Voting.'' He has assigned lawyers to craft another Executive order to stop it.
The irony is not lost on anyone that President Trump himself voted by mail in the 2020 election when he cast his ballot in Florida.
In some States, such as Oregon and Washington, mail-in ballots are the primary mechanism used by voters. Attempting to illegally strip States of this right will decimate the way our citizens are heard and the foundational principle of States' rights.
By law, by tradition, by history, and sound public policy, States make this call, not the President, and attempting to strip States of these rights is flagrantly illegal and unconstitutional.
President Trump's lackeys have attempted to bully States into handing over sensitive and personal information contained within State voter rolls. DOJ has requested information or meetings about election administration from States and has demanded 40 States--40 States-- provide their full voter registration lists. In a private meeting, Michael Gates, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, disclosed that all 50 States will eventually receive these requests. The eight States that so far have refused to turn over that data are now being sued by the Department of Justice.
Trump is attempting to compile the largest list of voter roll data ever in our history in order to bolster unsubstantiated and false claims of illegal voting by noncitizens, despite the fact that noncitizen voting is essentially nonexistent.
This type of national voter roll collection is totally unprecedented in our history. Nothing like it has ever been done before. Nothing like this invasion of privacy and promises to voters would have been imaginable before January of this year.
The information he is requesting includes your driver's license number, your Social Security number, your name, your address, your political party, and your voting history. He wants to know who you are and potentially use that information however he pleases. He wants to use that information against States as well--more broadly, to be the judge and jury of whether States are effectively running their own elections, despite the fact that States--and I apologize for repeating it--States are tasked with administering elections under the Constitution.
In case Trump's DOJ can't dismantle elections using all of these maligned tactics, the administration is also targeting election officials who seek to run efficient, fair, honest elections and to calculate and certify election results in a nonpartisan way. They are at work in every election. Everybody in this body knows what they do and knows how important they are to free and fair elections.
President Trump's DOJ has a new weaponization working group with a focus on targeting election officials as a result of supposedly widespread voter fraud. It is the product of fever imagination.
The Department of Justice is also exploring whether they can bring criminal charges against State and local officials if they believe that those officials have not adequately safeguarded their computer systems from harm, despite gutting CISA--the very Agency tasked with assisting them in safeguarding their computers and software.
To instill fear in election workers, the administration is doing everything it can to signal that it will punish anyone who doesn't bow to them.
Since 2020, Trump has been posting on social media and publicly calling for prosecution against election officials he accuses of working against him. Prosecuting election officials won't make elections any safer or fairer; it is simply about creating fear and anxiety. It will lead to an exodus of individuals--it already has begun--that we need to rely on to run our elections.
The fearmongering seems to be having its effect ever since Trump began espousing false claims of stolen elections in 2020 and putting this kind of pressure on the dedicated men and women who show up for elections to help run them. Election officials have reported harassment, threats, and abuse locally.
Election officials with institutional knowledge of how local systems run and who are imperative to registering voters and maintaining voter processes are leaving their roles at an alarming rate. The turnover was especially pronounced in large jurisdictions where the Trump campaign focused its misinformation campaign around 2020 elections.
Now, each of these individual actions of anti-election assault is serious and significant, but each action needs to be seen together as something deeper and broader. It is the sum and substance of totalitarianism--not at some distant point in the future, not a vague storm cloud on the horizon, but the destruction of democracy here and now.
As we approach our democracy's 250th anniversary, we can't afford the luxury of defeatism or despair or complacency. We need to join together and sound the alarm across differences of political party, geography, financial interests, personal background, and all the rest. Join in this body--come together because we have a common interest in making sure that elections are free and fair.
More than words, we need action--your action as voters registering to vote and enabling others to do so, volunteering to work at the polls and supporting election officials and administrators, contributing to organizations that defend voting rights in court, demanding that public officials unite against the sabotage of our democracy, and uniting at rallies, townhalls, and every other forum available to make your voice known.
I will be reaching out to colleagues on both sides of the aisle and coming to the floor and reaching out to the American people. Just as we threw off the yoke of monarchy 2\1/2\ centuries ago, the American people still have the power to determine their own future. They still have the courage to make ``good trouble,'' as John Lewis, the historic voting champion, famously said. Most of all, the American people have the will and fortitude to stand up to this assault.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. President, the government has been shut down for nearly a month--the longest full government shutdown in American history. It all began with the Democratic leader's desire to play politics with people's lives and paychecks.
Americans, including those in Louisiana, are paying the price. Nationwide, 1.4 million Federal employees--many of whom, of course, are living paycheck to paycheck--are furloughed or working without pay, and 13,000 air traffic controllers have already missed 1 paycheck and will miss another soon.
SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and food stamps--these benefits run out November 1 in many States, like mine, and that is just 2 days away. In Louisiana alone, that is 804,000 individuals, including 312,000 children, who rely on SNAP.
Now, this is not an abstract ideological issue; we are literally talking about food on the table. SNAP can be the difference between a child having a full belly, going to sleep, waking up the next morning, and going to school happy and that same child asking their mom when is the next time they will eat a meal, going to bed hungry, and doing poorly the next day.
Republicans are working to extend the program. I want a bill to fund SNAP, but it looks like we will not have Democratic support to pass.
There are a lot of empty dinner tables and a lot of children going to bed hungry. Democrats have voted against reopening our government 13 times. Thirteen times they have voted to deny children food, sending families to food banks instead.
I am told that food banks will not be able to keep up. Federal workers, single parents with young children, walking into empty food banks. That is coming from a party that regularly claims that they are the party of children, families, and vulnerable communities.
Republicans and the Trump administration are working hard to mitigate the worst parts of the shutdown. President Trump found the money to pay our troops through the generosity of a patriotic American. Senate Republicans voted for a bill to pay all Federal employees, including air traffic controllers who are working without pay now. Democrats blocked it.
They are the party of ``no.'' And the bizarre part is no one is quite sure why, until one of their leaders said the quiet part out loud. The House Democratic whip acknowledged that Democrats are allowing people to suffer because of the shutdown but said:
This is the second highest ranking House Democrat openly confirming that working families are being used as political leverage.
This is all about politics, not what is best for the people of our country. Now, they will tell you it is about healthcare, but their position crumbles under scrutiny. If it were about healthcare costs, why would they make people suffer more in order to change healthcare policy rather than reopen the government and negotiate with Republicans on solutions which actually lower healthcare costs?
Republicans have repeatedly said we will negotiate to lower healthcare costs, just not while Americans suffer. Our position is clear: End the shutdown, and then let's talk about healthcare. It seems reasonable.
You might ask why they are still voting against reopening the government. It is because they know that their proposals on healthcare won't actually lower healthcare costs.
Under Democrats' current plan, premiums still go up next year, not to mention their proposed solution is just aimed at papering over the mess that ObamaCare created because the facts are clear: The Affordable Care Act did not make care affordable.
All of this seems like one elaborate attempt to save face. Well, it is not working, and, more importantly, Americans are suffering. I repeat: Reopen the government, then let's have a conversation about the areas in healthcare we can address to actually lower premium costs and out-of-pocket costs for middle-income Americans.
By the way, the Democrats' current plan will only affect 7 percent of the people on ObamaCare. Their plan ignores 93 percent of Americans who will also see costs go up. We need to help all Americans by fixing our healthcare system, not just paper over the failures of ObamaCare to help a few.
I will add, for as much as they talk about healthcare, the Democrat shutdown is defunding important healthcare programs.
As chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I led a bipartisan effort to protect Americans' access to affordable over-the-counter drugs. The members of my committees worked together to remodify the Over-the-counter Monograph Drug User Fee Program, sometimes referred to as OMUFA. This funds the review process to bring over-the-counter drugs to market.
Because of the shutdown, because of my Democratic colleagues refusing to vote to open the government, for the first time in history, a user fee program has expired, meaning patient access to new over-the-counter treatments for common ailments is in jeopardy.
I am a doctor. I want to tackle the numerous issues facing our healthcare system. I spent my whole career fighting for patients. Let's have a conversation about lowering costs for all Americans like those on Medicare, those with employer-sponsored insurance, and small business owners who provide insurance to their workers.
If Democrats are interested in lowering healthcare costs, as they say they are, reopen the government, pay our troops, and stop taking food from children. I am tired of hearing people say there is no off-ramp or way out of the shutdown. Here it is, the way forward: Open the government.
Mr. President, I spoke on this floor a month ago about the consequences of a government shutdown on our country and upon Louisiana, particularly the half million Louisianans enrolled in the National Flood Insurance Program or the NFIP.
I called on Senate Democrats to join me and Republican colleagues in keeping the government open and Congress working. Unfortunately, the Senate minority leader shut the government down nearly a month ago to appease a radical base. That is nearly a month that many people in Louisiana on the NFIP that have gone without the trust, certainty, and stability that the program is designed to provide.
Families are unable to close on a new house because they can't purchase a new flood insurance policy. Homeowners are vulnerable during hurricane season because they cannot renew existing policies, and that raises a question the American people are asking every day: How can they trust a government that isn't even open?
Now, by the way, NFIP is not perfect. It faces financial challenges. Some reforms are needed. But shutting it down makes the problem worse, not better.
The Democratic leader said that every day the shutdown gets better for them. Well, I can tell you every day the government is shut down, it gets worse for the Americans in my State who are worried about flooding and losing everything.
The American people want solutions. They want a government that works. They want flood insurance that protects their homes, families, and livelihoods. That is why I am working on legislation that would automatically reauthorize the NFIP if there is any lapse in government funding; in other words, prevent any future shutdown from interrupting the NFIP.
It fixes the damage caused by the Schumer shutdown and ensures stability going forward. My colleague John Kennedy from Louisiana and I have introduced two bills, one to extend NFIP in the short term, another to provide a full year of coverage.
We are also working toward broader reforms that keep premiums affordable and the program sustainable for generations to come.
We must reopen the government immediately. Democrats have voted against doing so 13 times. Thirteen opportunities they have been given to end their shutdown, and they have thrown it back in the face of all Americans.
Government services might be on pause, but hurricane season is not. Reopen the government, restore certainty to the American people, protect homes, protect families, protect livelihoods. Republicans are working to prevent the worst effects of the Schumer shutdown from taking place, but Democrats keep blocking our efforts.
We want to pay the troops. We want to fund SNAP. We want to extend NFIP. The American people deserve better. They deserve more than the Democratic Party is willing to give.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
