Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (Executive Session)
Mr. President, today, we mark 4 years since the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, the landmark Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the question of abortion to the people and their elected representatives.
Roe was, quite simply, terrible constitutional law--a fact that has been acknowledged by legal scholars across the political spectrum--and the Dobbs decision reversed this decades-old error and made it clear that Roe's supposed constitutional right to an abortion simply didn't exist.
I am proud to have fought, along with my Republican colleagues, to put
It is fitting that the Dobbs decision occurs close to our Nation's birthday, July 4, the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. As we prepare to celebrate the 250th birthday of the declaration--the 250th birthday of our country--the proximity of these two anniversaries has been on my mind.
The declaration lays out the fundamental principles underlying our system of government, and no lines are more important than these:
``That among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.''
``Unalienable rights''--rights given by God, rights that come before government and that government is required to protect.
``All Men are created equal . . . [and] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.''
As our country knows, to its sorrow, we haven't always lived up to the principles of the declaration, and the sad truth is that, when it comes to unborn Americans, we are failing to live up to those principles today because, in State after State around this country, it is legal to kill unborn human beings--unborn Americans--in some cases, up until the point of birth--up until the point of birth.
These babies--these human beings--will never have a chance to enjoy the rest of their unalienable rights because they are denied their most fundamental right while they are still in their infancy.
This is not, of course, something you will hear from my Democrat colleagues when they attempt to defend abortion. You won't hear about the baby whose rights are at stake.
In fact, my Democrat colleagues do everything they can to obscure the baby in this debate. They mention women and ``healthcare'' and ``reproductive freedom,'' as if killing an innocent person could ever, ever be something we are free to do.
And they never mention the other person in question, which is the unborn human being who was sacrificed in every abortion--probably because they know, at some level, that supporting the killing of an innocent human being is indefensible and completely incompatible with our Nation's creed.
And let's be very clear here. When we talk about abortion, we are talking about the killing of a human being. Everyone knows this. Even my Democratic colleagues know this, although they might like to gloss over the fact.
You don't even need to have seen a baby kicking her feet and sucking her thumb on an ultrasound to know that she is human because human moms and human dads have other human beings. That is Biology 101.
No, the question isn't whether the unborn baby is a human being. The question is whether we value that human being, whether we really believe our American creed.
Do we really believe that, or do we believe that it is OK to say that some human beings are more important than others, that some human beings can be sacrificed for others?
I would hope history has taught us it is a very dangerous thing to say that some groups of human beings are not worthy of protection.
I am proud to be from a State that has extended the full protection of the law to unborn human beings, that has recognized that unborn Americans are also created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights.
I am proud to have supported, sponsored, and cosponsored pro-life legislation here in Congress.
The overturning of Roe has opened the door to substantive pro-life legislation, and Republicans in Congress are going to keep up the fight for real protections for unborn Americans.
I am very proud that with the Working Families Tax Cut, Congress enacted the first pro-life law in decades. Thanks to Republicans' landmark legislation this year, some of the Nation's largest abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, were prohibited from receiving Federal Medicaid funding.
Organizations that have turned the killing of babies into a business were cut off from this source of taxpayer dollars.
The Dobbs decision was a landmark decision because it opened the door for full protection of the unalienable rights of unborn Americans, but there is a lot more work to be done.
The Democrat Party fights tooth and nail to ensure that even the most commonsense measures--like measures to protect babies who survive abortions or to ensure that pregnant college students are aware that they have alternatives to abortion--do not make it through Congress.
And, currently, mail-order abortion drugs are flooding into States in defiance of the law--thanks to the Biden administration's decision to loosen restrictions on these drugs--despite the fact that they pose a danger to women, as well as obviously to the babies.
So as I said, the fight to protect the right to life for all Americans continues, and I and my Republican colleagues will continue to do everything we can here in Congress to support moms and to protect babies.
May the day soon come when we fully live up to that creed.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Working Families Tax Cuts Act (Executive Session)
Mr. President, our country was founded on the belief that all Americans have the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. It is fundamental to who we are as Americans, and these are the building blocks of the American dream. We live in a nation of opportunity. We live in a nation that enables kids to have it better than their parents. We live in a nation that believes that hard work leads to success. For over 250 years, people from all backgrounds have been able to work hard and achieve the American dream.
Here, in the U.S. Senate, I am fighting to renew the American dream.
One of the ways that we have done that with my Senate Republican colleagues is in the Working Families Tax Cut that we passed last year. The Working Families Tax Cut invests in American families and in American children. It invests in the next generation. With my Senate colleagues on the Republican side, we are building a path for another 250 years of opportunity for this great Nation and for the children and families of this great Nation.
The Working Families Tax Cut was great for families. One of the ways that it was great for families and for Nebraskans in my State is with the Trump Accounts that were part of that overall package. These are investment accounts that will kick-start the American dream for kids all across this Nation. You can download the app right now.
Starting on July 4, Nebraskans and all Americans will be able to start opening up these accounts. All American kids under the age of 18 will be eligible to have one of these accounts. And those born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, will also be able to enroll and automatically have $1,000 put into their account, courtesy of the U.S. Treasury, to be able to help kick-start that American dream.
Parents and guardians will be the custodians of these accounts, but the children will own them. And when those kids turn 18, they will be able to take possession of those Trump Accounts.
These accounts work like traditional retirement accounts. Up to $5,000 a year can be put into these accounts--these Trump Accounts--and it can come from your parents, your grandparents. It can come from communities, come from churches, come from governments, come from nonprofits. Employers can contribute and help build that foundation for those young people to be able to achieve the American dream.
Many have already committed to contributing to Trump Accounts. For example, Michael and Susan Dell have donated $6.25 billion to the first 25 million American kids who sign up for these accounts who also reside in ZIP Codes with median incomes below $150,000. That means that each one of those kids will get about $250 on top of the thousand dollars that the Treasury is putting in.
Charles Schwab has said he will match the government's $1,000 with another $1,000 for all the people who work at his company.
These are just a couple of examples of how philanthropists are working together with the U.S. Government to be able to kick-start young people's American dreams through these Trump Accounts.
In my home State of Nebraska, our State government is going to open accounts for all the foster kids in Nebraska. These Fostering the Future Accounts will work just the same, making sure that young Nebraskans in foster care have a little extra financial help. This money is so that these young Nebraskans can put it toward college, buying their first home, or starting a business.
For children whose accounts start with $1,000, additional contributions will not be required. The accounts will still grow, and these accounts will help launch those kids into their future.
Another way we are investing in our children and families is with the expansion of the child tax credits. In the Working Families Tax Cut, we increased that child tax credit to $2,200 and made it permanent. It was set to fall to $1,000, but Senate Republicans made it permanent and took it up.
The child tax credit will benefit over 239,000 Nebraska families. Increasing the child tax credit allows these families to have more money in their pockets, and we want to encourage Americans to work hard and support their families. This is what keeps the American dream alive.
The Working Families Tax Cut also provides an increase in the child and dependent tax credit. We increased the maximum credit from 25 percent up to 50 percent, and we took the increased tax deduction up from $5,000 to $7,500.
We made the first ever permanent paid family medical leave credit, based on legislation from Senator Deb Fischer. This will encourage our businesses to offer that benefit to families all across the Nation.
We expanded the tax credits for employee-provided childcare and created new credits for small businesses to be able to create childcare at work.
We also extended the ABLE accounts, which otherwise would have expired in 2025. These accounts help individuals with disabilities to save and invest through tax-free savings, without losing eligibility for Federal programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income.
These are real investments in American families and the next generation.
And similar to my colleague from Wyoming who pointed this out, every single Democrat--every single one--voted against these provisions that would help young Americans be able to achieve the American dream. Every single Democrat voted against it.
Senate Republicans, by contrast, are fighting in the U.S. Senate to renew opportunity for our kids' futures and supporting families in our country. We are encouraging and supporting the American dream, and we are making it possible for the good life to be more attainable for all Nebraskans.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
America250 (Executive Session)
Mr. President, 50 years ago this Saturday, our Nation celebrated its bicentennial--its 200th anniversary of that day on the 4th of July, in 1776, when a group of Delegates from around the then- Thirteen Colonies gathered to declare their independence from Great Britain.
This coming Saturday, July 4, 2026, I will once again be gathering with a whole group of friends and family in the small town of Hockessin, DE, where I celebrated our bicentennial.
In 1976, we had what some might think of as a sad small gathering that celebrated the Fourth of July. It wasn't huge. It didn't have tens of thousands of people. It didn't have great fireworks. But it was the heart of the town I grew up in.
We had a parade. We had firetrucks. My Boy Scout troop marched. I played the bugle as a group from a local church raised a flag at the new Swift Memorial Park in downtown Hockessin, a small rural farming town of then about 1,500 people.
And this coming Saturday, I will conclude the Fourth of July by, once again, marching in the annual parade, where we will have firetrucks from our volunteer fire company, children from different Scouting groups, different church youth groups, different things like the 4-H and the Grange, and thousands of people, gathering with family, on either side of Old Wilmington Pike to view the parade go by.
I love the tradition of the Fourth of July parade in my hometown of Hockessin, and I wanted to just take a moment and reflect because, as I have talked to my team here in Washington and at home in Delaware, some of them see so much division in our country that they aren't excited about our semiquincentennial, our 250th. Some of them are distracted, as in some ways I think many in America are, by fighting, squabbling between our President and our Congress, between different political parties. And it is too easy to be distracted.
I will remind you that, 50 years ago, on our bicentennial, our country was also in a period of division and political controversy, that we had just come out of the end of the Vietnam war and Watergate, that there had been protests and disagreement, that there were different rights being asserted and tumult in our politics.
My recollection, as a child, was that that day, that period of the bicentennial, was actually a moment for the American people to stop and reflect and think about what brings us together. And so today, I will briefly reflect on what I think we ought to be stopping and reflecting on as we celebrate our 250th.
Mr. President, 250 years ago, where we are right now was part of Great Britain, was part of the English Empire. In looking back, it might seem inevitable, but at that time, it was uncertain which way we would go. Ultimately, we chose liberty, we chose independence, and we had to fight for it in what became a long and brutal, internally divisive conflict.
Ultimately, the American story is not simply one story. We are a nation founded not on one ethnicity or one language, one religion or one history, but on an idea--an idea embodied in the second sentence of the declaration:
Just a few days ago, I had the chance, over at the Library of Congress, along with a bunch of my colleagues, to see the original text of the Declaration of Independence and the changes made by different Framers.
Our story is stronger when we tell it in its entirety--the good and bad, the challenging chapters, the rough places, the foundational sins, the wrongs and the arc--the arc--toward ``a more perfect Union.''
My State has long played a central role in some of these fights over the abolition of slavery, over racial segregation, over protecting our environment, over the right of women to vote, over full inclusion. And over 250 years, what I think defines us is that yearning for freedom, that yearning for the opportunity to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, as we understand it and define it.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at the end of the Second World War--after the paroxysm of a global catastrophe of violence--talked about four freedoms, recognizing and celebrating those foundational First Amendment freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom to worship, but also freedom from want and freedom from fear.
And so I think we need to recognize, at this July 4, that we have a challenge, an opportunity, and an obligation.
In the middle of the Civil War, President Lincoln and his Senate insisted on building an expanded Capitol, at the exact moment our Nation was tearing itself apart. President Lincoln said:
I have traveled around the world and heard from people all over that they look to this Nation as a beacon of freedom. And every time I recite the Pledge of Allegiance, I remind myself that, at its end, we pledge ourselves to be a nation committed to liberty and justice for all.
In the months ahead, I look forward to giving many more speeches about what I see as the core defining values of our Nation going forward.
But as you celebrate the Fourth of July, I hope you will take a moment. Think back about your childhood experiences that helped you understand what it means to be an American and that helped you confront the challenges and the opportunities we have ahead of us.
For me, living overseas and seeing our country from the perspectives of others was that great chance. And I think, for all of us, in recent days, seeing people from all over the world come to America during the World Cup and experience our Nation, our hospitality, and our values has been a refreshing reminder that, even in these divided and difficult times, we can continue to inspire and challenge ourselves and the world.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Unanimous Consent Request: S. 4876 (Executive Session)
Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank my friend from Delaware. I am going to take that admonition, as we approach the Fourth of July, and reflect back on, obviously, what makes this country great.
Mr. President, I rise today to ask for unanimous consent on my bill to reassert congressional will when it comes to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
My bill, the Do Not Interfere in Our Intelligence Act of 2026, or the DNII Act of 2026, would strengthen the existing line of succession if the position of the Director of National Intelligence is vacant and ensure that the leadership of the intelligence community remains in the hands of experienced Senate-confirmed national security officials.
As my colleagues have heard me say repeatedly, the President's appointment of Bill Pulte to be the Acting DNI is dangerous. It is dangerous for the rule of law. It is dangerous for our national security.
The ODNI was created in the aftermath of the tragic terrorist attacks of 9/11. Its purpose was to make sure that the now-18 intelligence Agencies actually coordinated with each other, so we didn't have the kind of intelligence missteps that led to the most devastating terrorist attack on our country in the history. And, thus far, thank God, we have not had another 9/11.
And because of its important mission, when Congress created the ODNI, an effort championed by my good friend Susan Collins, it codified into law--we didn't leave any ambiguity--it codified into law that the Director of National Intelligence must have extensive national security experience. It doesn't matter whether that comes from military service, being an intelligence officer, being a Member of Congress on a national security committee, or heading an Agency that deals with national security. You just have to have the experience and the judgment to lead 18 intelligence Agencies and understand their mission.
Unfortunately, Trump's choice Bill Pulte has literately no national security experience. In fact, it seems like the only experience he has--and the only reason President Trump installed him as the DNI--is leaking and weaponizing sensitive information for political purposes. He is and currently remains the head of our mortgage regulatory Agencies. So that kind of person can absolutely not have access to all our Nation's most sensitive secrets.
If you think we were, like, just making it up, look at the pressure points so far. The guy has gone in for a few days. There are reports of firings. I don't even know how he knows who the people who are being fired or reassigned are.
We have heard, as well, that he wants to take home the Presidential daily brief. Anybody--the most junior aide in national security--knows you don't take classified information to your private residence. But in a very kind of way that reflects some of the folks around the President, the one thing he was most interested in: When is he going to get a government plane, paid for by taxpayer dollars, so he can zip between DC and his house in Chicago and his place near President Trump in Florida? Remember, those are your taxpayer dollars at work.
And on these concerns about Mr. Pulte, don't take my word for it. So many Republican colleagues of mine have also publicly expressed their concerns, many of them explicitly expressing surprise at his nomination and calling him unqualified.
But that is not the only place where President Trump has decided to ignore Congress and the law creating the Director of National Intelligence. The law also explicitly states that, in the event there is an absence of a Senate-confirmed Director, ``the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence''--that is the No. 2--``shall act for, and exercise the powers of, the Director of National Intelligence''--not ``may'' or ``if the President wants.'' The word is ``shall.''
And the interesting thing is, there is currently a Senate-confirmed Principal Deputy whom President Trump himself nominated. This gentleman, Mr. Lukas--I may not agree with all the things that Mr. Lukas has suggested, but there is no question, given his decades of patriotic service as a national intelligence officer and on President Trump's own National Security Council staff, that he has the experience and qualifications to serve as the Acting DNI.
So then, once again, I must ask: Why, when there is a qualified individual--one President Trump himself nominated--would President Trump ignore the law and install Bill Pulte?
The only answer is the one that President Trump has actually admitted to. He said the quiet part out loud, which is that he trusts Bill Pulte to recklessly divulge America's secrets--even if it harms our national security--all in the service of the Big Lie and his obsession that he can't get over the fact that he lost the election in 2020.
So my bill is quite simple. So I ask unanimous consent--let's make it explicitly clear that, if the Office of the Director of National Intelligence becomes vacant, you put in place the Principal Deputy or someone else who has got intelligence experience that has been confirmed by the Senate.
We have to do this before Mr. Pulte irreversibly harms our national security.
Mr. President, now, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4876, introduced yesterday; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. President, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was formed after the 9/11 attacks, understandably, to try to address some of the failures that led to those attacks. Unfortunately, I think we can now assess, a couple of decades on, that it is something of a failed experiment itself.
I remember my first days on the Intelligence Committee, when I sat far down the dais from the distinguished vice chairman, and an ODNI aide came in to brief us about a new fusion cell they had created to fight against the Islamic State. And one of our senior members, Dan Coats, who later himself became the DNI, observed that he was concerned that, with the growing bureaucracy at the ODNI, pretty soon they would need a fusion cell for their fusion cells.
Now, the vice chairman and I largely agree that the ODNI needs to be downsized and streamlined, that it does perform some important functions. We may not agree on every single particular. I think many of those functions could be performed elsewhere.
But I have had an opportunity to speak, in the last few days, with Acting Director Pulte. He agrees in those general terms with us that we need to return the ODNI to its original size, scope, and mission by spinning off some of these functional centers and sending intelligence officers who have been detailed there back to their home Agencies so they can do actual intelligence work. And if he continues the work that the vice chairman and I have begun through the annual Intelligence Authorization Act and that Director Gabbard started to carry out, I think that is a win for our national security.
The vice chairman cited various media reports about Director Pulte. I can't comment on all of them. It won't shock anyone to know that I don't take CNN or the Washington Post as ironclad as the Lord's Scripture. But there is one media report that I will comment on, since I discussed it with Director Pulte: the claim that mass firings had begun. That is not accurate. He informed me that, yes, a small
A second point, if Director Pulte can, in fact, take these steps in the right direction, I think that can benefit Jay Clayton, once he is confirmed. Mr. Clayton will be able to inherit an organization that has already been downsized, and he can hit the ground running on day one to continue that work and to ensure that the DNI is promoting our intelligence community's important work, not hindering it.
A third point, as President Trump has said, Jay Clayton is a patriot, and he will make a great DNI once confirmed. I intend to hold a hearing for Mr. Clayton in the weeks ahead. As the vice chairman knows, it is not just our committee that moved at a very rapid pace to confirm Mr. Clayton to this new post. I want to thank President Trump and the Trump administration for moving at lightning speed as well. The FBI finished its background check in record time. The intelligence community and the Department of Justice helped Mr. Clayton through hundreds of advanced policy questions in record time. Even the President's own White House Counsel's Office completed Mr. Clayton's work in record time.
Of course, the backdrop here is the lapse in authorization for section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The vice chairman and I have worked well together to craft a bill that can get 60 votes in the Senate, 218 or more votes in the House. I wish we could simply pass that bill. I think it is regrettable that Minority Leader Schumer and Minority Leader Jeffries have linked together reauthorization of section 702 with the confirmation of an official to a position that really has very little to do with section 702 or, for that matter, with operational activities of the intelligence community at large.
So with those observations, I do, in fact, object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. President, just a few closing comments.
The chairman and I are working very well together. I know he has probably taken some heat, so I don't want to say too many good things about him on the floor for working so well together.
I would simply point out the part he left out about Mr. Clayton, when we were trying to move fast and the White House was moving fast and everything--all the paperwork--was done. We had a scheduled hearing for Mr. Clayton. I was even getting some of our most ferocious opponents to 702 to probably waive some of their objections.
And at the last minute, with no notice to our committee or even to Mr. Clayton, the President pulled his nomination. I have never heard of a President complaining about moving too quickly on one of his nominees.
On the size of the DNI, the chairman and I, we are working together. I even am open to the notion that the office could be obliterated or removed or potentially repurposed somewhere else. Again, that makes sense. But it ought to be done in an orderly fashion. It ought to be done by somebody with national security experience. It ought to be done not in a way where he comes in on the first day--how did he even know whom to fire?
So, again, we will agree to disagree on that, but--boy oh boy--let's do it the right way.
And, again, I do hope--I look forward to asking Mr. Clayton questions. But I know him, and I think he is--I know he respects the Constitution, which is my first question to anybody. And I would point out--and I am absolutely in favor of renewing 702 quickly--the good news, though, is that the communication providers are still working with us; we have not gone dark.
But I agree with the chairman that we need to move as quickly as possible. But everybody has been pretty clear on this: We have to get a real DNI in that office before we get that reauthorization.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for 1 minute on the upcoming vote.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
America250 (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, next week, the country will be celebrating an incredible milestone, the 250th birthday of the United States of America, which is the greatest country founded in the history of the world.
I just wanted to come to the floor today, before we leave for a 2- week recess over the holiday, to talk about what I love most about America.
Two hundred fifty years ago, a group of brave men and women risked life and limb in pursuit of the American experiment, and 13 small Colonies of farmers, merchants, tradesmen, and families of different religions and classes declared what was then a radical idea, that ``all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights.''
Together, this small group of people took on a mighty empire, and they won. In doing so, they changed the course of history.
I have always related to that idea of the American founding on a personal level. I grew up among farmers and tradesmen and factory workers. My dad was a union factory worker, and my mom was a nursing home cook. I came from a working-class family and grew up in a working- class town--a small town--in Northeast Indiana called Columbia City. It was a town that had about 5,000 people when I was born. It is around 10,000 people today. I am still proud to live in Columbia City and to call it my home--this small town, my home today. Even though Columbia City is a humble town, I love it intensely. I have so many great memories from my childhood in Columbia City, and I feel great pride in my hometown, but Columbia City's humble nature didn't stop people from doing great things.
Columbia City shaped Thomas Riley Marshall, who became the Vice President of the United States of America in 1913. It shaped me, too, into who I am today--in my serving here, with the Presiding Officer, as a U.S. Senator. That is the beauty of smalltown America. Small towns like my hometown are where the American dream is realized, and it was in the Thirteen Colonies 250 years ago that the dream of America came to life.
That is why, on this July 4, I will be celebrating Independence Day back in my hometown with my family. Growing up, I remember spending every Fourth of July in Columbia City, watching the community's celebration and the fireworks in the evening. That is exactly what I will be doing with my kids and my parents and my family this year as well.
I know that there will be a lot of incredible festivities happening right here in Washington, DC, and I am all for that. President Trump says it is going to be the biggest and best fireworks display in American history. I have no doubt that he is right about that, but I think it is also important for people to spend time celebrating with the local communities that shaped them. I encourage everyone here and those listening today, if you can, the America 250 celebrations happening in your hometowns are going to be great, and I hope you will be a part of them.
My upbringing instilled within me a profound love for this country. Sadly, not enough people share that same love today. Three years ago, the Wall Street Journal had a poll that showed that only 38 percent of Americans believed that patriotism was important to them, and that was down from 70 percent in 1998. For the last 3 years, I have wondered about and wanted an update on that poll--what does that look like today?--because it has really bothered me ever since I read that story in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago.
Last year, Gallup released new data about American pride and patriotism. Unfortunately, the numbers have hardly changed. Only about 41 percent of American adults said they were extremely proud to be American. Among America's young people, that picture was particularly damning. Only 41 percent of Gen Z said that they were extremely or very proud to be an American. These are record low numbers, but this is what happens when too many people, especially young people, feel detached from our Nation's story.
But here is the thing: As we celebrate America on this historic and monumental occasion, this decline is not irreversible. We can absolutely fix this trend. One way that we can fix this trend is to make our Nation beautiful again and do everything we can to make our Nation beautiful.
A few months ago, I came to the Senate floor to talk about one of my bills that is very important to me, the Beautifying Federal Civic Architecture Act. I spoke about how important it is to have and build beautiful buildings that reflect the beauty of this great country. We owe it to ourselves and to our children to build beautiful buildings that reflect who we really are as a nation.
And that is why I fully support and applaud President Trump and his efforts to make the Federal buildings and communities all across America even more beautiful than what they were before. When a nation sees beautiful and great buildings, it sees beauty and greatness in the nation.
And there is another way that we can reverse the downward trend of American patriotism as well, and that is by returning to our roots in our small communities. Our small communities are what made this country great and are what continue to make America great.
The original Thirteen Colonies succeeded in founding the Nation because ordinary people in ordinary places believed in something that was much bigger than themselves.
We can make America beautiful again, inside and out, by rediscovering the power of those small places and the ordinary Americans who call them home.
When we strengthen our communities, teach our full and honest history with pride, and recommit to the founding principles that turned 13 fragile Colonies into a global beacon of liberty and freedom, we will see national pride rise once again.
Let me end by saying this: Mighty empires that once ruled the world have vanished to the dustbin of history, but America, this great country, still stands, and she stands taller and mightier than the rest.
So as we gear up for the 250th birthday of this great country, let us recommit ourselves to the incredible American story that is still unfolding right before our eyes. And let us never forget that, from small and humble beginnings, rose the greatest country on Earth, the United States of America.
Happy America 250.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, I come to the floor with good news. It is really important news, but it is news that not a lot of people in this country know about. We are experiencing, over the last 3 years, a dramatic decline in the number of people who are killed by guns. Gun violence rates in this country are plummeting, and they have been plummeting since 2002.
Let me just give you a couple of numbers. From 2023 to 2024--the last year that we have full numbers for--we saw urban gun homicides drop by 16.7 percent. That is extraordinary. And, in general, urban homicides have been dropping by double-digit percentages over the last 3 years.
Mass shootings are way down. That might actually make sense to you because, while we still hear about these awful mass shootings on the news, we have a sense that they are not appearing on our television screens with the rapidity and frequency they were a few years ago.
Now, in 2025, there were 400 mass shootings in America. That is unacceptable. There are still more mass shootings than days in the year, but that is a 41-percent decline from 2021.
Similarly, school shootings have declined over the last 2 years.
This is all good news. There are more people alive today because something is changing in America. And while it is still unacceptable that we are averaging a mass shooting every day in this country, the numbers are unquestionably heading in the right direction.
Now, there are a set of complicated factors to explain why that is happening, but it is not coincidental to the passage in 2022 of the most significant piece of anti-gun violence legislation in 30 years. And that is why I am on the floor today, because tomorrow will mark 4 years since this Senate passed and got signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that strengthened the gun laws of this country while respecting the constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to be able to purchase and own weapons.
Let me just remind you of what that bill did, because it is important to remember that we can come together.
There were, I think, 15 Republican Senators that supported this legislation. It received Republican votes in the House of Representatives as well.
This legislation said: Listen, we have got to be a little bit more careful before we sell an assault weapon to a 19-year-old or a 20-year- old--because we had seen, over and over again, that it tended to be, unfortunately, young men under the age of 21 who were carrying out these mass murders.
And so while legislation didn't take away the ability of someone under 21 to buy a weapon--because this is what we needed in order to get bipartisan consensus--we did put enhanced background checks for those individuals--just an extra check, most significantly, with the local police department to see if this was somebody that the police knew as being troubled. Well, since passage of the bill, 800 firearms purchases have been prevented solely because of these enhanced checks.
These were mainly purchasers that were prohibited from buying a weapon, but until you called the local police department, you didn't find out that they were actually prohibited. But sometimes it was that this was an individual that was in crisis. The local police department knew it, and the enhanced check caught them.
The second thing the bill did was just make firearms trafficking a Federal crime. It was crazy that it hadn't been. It made trafficking and straw purchasing a Federal crime. And since that bill went into effect, there have been 280 cases with 525 defendants who have been brought under Federal charges for gun trafficking. That is a big part of why there is so much urban gun homicide--because there is a pipeline of illegal guns that goes into places like Hartford, CT; New Haven, CT; or Chicago, IL. Now we have interrupted that pipeline of illegal guns.
What is something else that that bill did? It said that if you have a history of domestic violence, you can't buy a weapon, regardless of whether that violence is against your wife or your girlfriend. There used to be something called the boyfriend loophole. If you had committed domestic violence against your girlfriend, you could still purchase and have weapons. Well, we closed that loophole on a bipartisan basis. And since that law passed, there have been 10,000 firearms purchases that have been denied because the individual had a history of domestic violence.
Now, the way that we got that bill passed, with Republican votes, was to give the ability of that individual to reapply for the ability to buy firearms. We didn't take that right away permanently. Some of us might have wanted that prohibition to be permanent after you have a domestic violence conviction on your record, but that is how we got the bill passed--an example of how we can find common ground.
And then the last thing I want to mention is that the bill put about $1.4 billion into funding existing and new community anti-gun violence measures--and this is maybe the secret sauce. This is maybe the biggest explanation as to why numbers are going down.
What we find in community after community that is plagued with high rates of gun violence is that it is normally a very small group of people--again, largely young men--that are committing these acts of violence and that if you engage in targeted interventions aimed at these small groups of young men, you can very quickly get gun violence rates down, and it doesn't cost hundreds of millions of dollars, especially in a small community like Hartford.
Hartford has a number of really impactful but small organizations that do this community anti-gun violence work. We gave them a small amount of money from this legislation, and they have made a big, big difference in Hartford. These are groups like Hartford Communities That Care, Compass.
Hartford had 37 murders in 2022, the year that we passed this bill. In 2025, Hartford had 10 murders. That is an extraordinary decline, 37 to 10.
In 2020, there were 223 shootings, a reminder most people don't die in shootings. They get badly wounded. Their lives are altered by the shooting even though they don't die.
Mr. President, 223 shootings in Hartford in 2020--89 last year. That is a 25-year low. And all the laws we passed made a difference in Connecticut, but Connecticut already had pretty strict gun laws so a lot of the stuff we passed didn't have a big impact on Connecticut, but the community anti-gun violence money did because those groups are now well-funded.
Again, these aren't groups with $10 million-a-year budgets. These are often very small organizations that have four or five people on staff. For instance, one of the things that these groups often do is when there is a shooting, they rush to the emergency room because there are often cycles of retributive violence that play out: Somebody gets shot. Their group of friends congregate at the emergency room. They make a plan to engage in retributive violence. Well, these community workers can often get to the emergency room and interrupt that cycle of violence, and they have been enormously successful.
Now, there are threats to the progress we have made. I don't want to make this a speech about President Trump, but it is just true that he has stopped funding the programs that support community anti-gun violence initiatives.
There are also billions of dollars in that bill that we passed for school-based mental health, and he has also suspended many of those accounts. That is bad news.
He has also issued new regulations that undermine other parts of the bill,
And so I don't want you to hear me say that the President is unwinding all of our progress. He is unwinding some of our progress-- our bipartisan progress--but much of the statute can't be unwound.
And so I just want to give us a little pat on the back because 4 years ago, after the awful shooting in Uvalde, four Senators got together--supported by another bigger ring of bipartisan Senators--and we were able to come up with a bill that was not perfect, was not everything that I wanted or that many other Democratic Senators wanted, but it was progress.
And we have seen the impact of that bill: literally extraordinary declines in mass shootings and homicides, all happening, not coincidentally, as soon as we passed that bill.
The gun lobby has a habit of arguing that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The gun lobby says the answer to gun violence is more guns. Well, we proved that if you pass legislation that just makes it a little bit harder for the wrong people to get their hands on weapons--people who have serious criminal convictions, people who are mentally ill--you make it a little bit easier for prosecutors to go after the gun traffickers, you give a little bit more resources to the people who do anti-gun violence work in our communities, that you can make a big difference.
I live in one of these traditionally high-gun-violence-rate neighborhoods. I live just south of downtown in Hartford, and my home is on the route to the primary critical care hospital in the south end of Hartford--Hartford Hospital. And I will just say: There are far fewer ambulances passing my house with victims of gunshot wounds. In fact, it is an extraordinary reduction.
In 2020, I think the year that I bought that house, there were 223 shootings--223 gun violence victims being rushed to Hartford Hospital or Saint Francis Hospital. In 2025, there were 89. So I know we are often consumed with the bad news here, but that is really good news. That is really good news. And it is evidence of the fact that this place is not fundamentally broken. There are these moments when Republicans and Democrats can come together and pass laws that save lives--4 years since the passage and signature of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, something that this Senate should be proud of.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Iran (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, Donald Trump's Operation Epic Fury has become ``Operation Epic Failure.'' He started a war of choice. It turned out, Iran had a lot more leverage than he ever anticipated.
The President thought that superior weapons, a huge number of bombs would give, well, the opportunity for America to conduct a war in which Iran would unconditionally surrender. The President expected that in short order.
But not all unfolds accordingly because Iran had an ace up its sleeve: It had the ability to stop traffic on the Strait of Hormuz. And if the President had listened to any expert, they would have said: You are totally underestimating the leverage and power Iran has over the world economy.
But he didn't listen. So like a dog that got skunked, he has slunk away humiliated--``Operation Trump Humiliation''--and the American people and the world are paying the price.
I am relieved that the bombs have stopped falling, but Trump's disastrous deal has left everyone so much worse off.
The American military: a huge number of munitions expended, 13 servicemembers killed, hundreds wounded.
The U.S. Treasury: depleted by some $50 billion to $80 billion.
American families are paying a much higher price for gas and now facing year-over-year inflation of 4.2 percent because of Trump's war.
American farmers are paying so much more for fertilizer, paying so much more for diesel; bad for the farmers for sure, but that is going to mean higher grocery costs for the American family.
And in international affairs, Russia has been enriched, the Iranian hard-liners have been strengthened; the reformers in Iran have been undermined; our alliances have been deeply, carelessly damaged. Now, of course, Iranian civilians have paid the price with thousands dead and far more injured.
And Iran's highly enriched uranium? Still in exactly the same place it was before his war started.
Now, Trump has signed a 14-point framework, and it has some troubling elements. Donald Trump calls himself ``Dealmaker-in-Chief,'' so let's look at the deal that he has struck.
What does Iran get? Access to $24 billion in unfrozen funds, waivers that allow Iran to sell its oil at the world price, a commitment by the United States to organize a $300 billion plan like a Marshall Plan to rebuild Iran, and a stipulation that after 60 days, Iran can work with Oman and work out fees for vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.
Let's compare that to the JCPOA that President Obama negotiated. And for more than a decade, I have listened to colleagues across the aisle say President Obama did a side deal that returned $500 million to Iran in frozen funds and interest on that $500 million; that we had had it so long, it had stacked up to $700 million.
All right. We are talking about less than $2 billion. Here is Trump: $24 billion in unfrozen funds, $300 billion in redevelopment, waivers for your oil, and the ability to charge fees in the Strait of Hormuz-- not even vaguely comparable.
And those elements, those are not an exchange for a final nuclear deal. They are an advance of one, undermining America's leverage to get a nuclear deal done. And Trump calls himself a dealmaker, giving away all the leverage up front.
And what else does Iran get? No restrictions on cruise missiles or drones; no restrictions on ballistic missiles; no restrictions on funding proxy groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen. Wow. Those are all important elements.
But the deal does deliver two things: America lifts its blockade of the Iranian ports, and Iran lifts its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. But those were the conditions before the war started. So the one positive thing it delivers was already in place before there was a war. So no improvement because of the war.
President Trump has recklessly squandered American lives and treasure. He has recklessly weakened America's standing in the world. He has recklessly raised costs for American families here at home.
This is absolutely the embodiment of why the Founders gave the question of war, not to the President, but to Congress. It is why we have to stand up for the constitutional vision that we swore an oath to when we became U.S. Senators.
Is there any Senator here who didn't swear that oath to the Constitution? Is there any Senator here who hasn't read the Constitution and read that the question of war was assigned to Congress, not the President?
Here is how Madison described it. He said: The Constitution supposes, what the history of all governments demonstrates, that it is the Executive most interested and most prone to war. The Constitution has accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislative branch.
Does anyone need a clearer explanation than that, under our Constitution, a President cannot take us to war and that there was very careful reasoning that went into making that decision: because Executives are too prone to go to war, and no one person should be able to put the lives and treasure of America at risk.
That isn't to say Congress always gets it right. This Chamber and the House Chamber, they had a debate over the authorization to go to war in Afghanistan. These two Chambers, they had a debate over going to war in Iraq. I believe they got it wrong on both occasions. But there was an opportunity to seek information, to compare ideas, to wrestle with the prospect--an appropriate debate on such a monumental question.
Now, this Chamber and the House Chamber have started to exercise their
Now, in this case, America had not been threatened in the fashion envisioned in the War Powers Act, but the President went to war anyway. So in that case we shouldn't have been under the 60 days. But many of my colleagues in the majority thought that applied, and so we voted time and time and time again. And time and time again my colleagues failed to honor the Constitution and say to the President: Stop and get an authorization because that is what the Constitution says.
But then the House held a vote, and the House voted to actually pass a War Powers Resolution. And it automatically came over here, and it automatically came up on the floor. And we passed it this week 50 to 48. We adopted it. And that concurrent resolution--this one right here--this says: Mr. President, stop military hostilities unless you get authorization from Congress.
Here is the exact wording:
And at the close of it, it notes that action can only occur if it is ``explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a specific congressional authorization for use of military force against Iran.''
So, Mr. President--and I am speaking Mr. President of the United States of America--Congress has spoken, exercising its power under the Constitution. You cannot restart hostilities against Iran unless you get an authorization.
You know, in 2015, many mocked the JCPOA. They said war is the only way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. But now here we are at this moment, and it turns out that we had the war and that diplomacy is the only way to actually stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.
And that JCPOA, it restricted Iran's nuclear stockpile to 300 kilograms--that is 300 kilograms of uranium--and prohibited uranium enrichment above 3.67 percent. That is a very low level, way lower than bomb level. It shipped their more highly enriched uranium out of Iran to be under the care and supervision of another country. It dismantled and removed the bulk of their centrifuges. It created vigorous-- vigorous--verification by international inspectors.
There were a lot of details that were worked out to ensure that there was no path to a nuclear bomb. And, in fact, it required them to dismantle their plutonium reactor in Iran called the Arak reactor. It took 2 years to negotiate.
And our Republican colleagues cheered when Donald Trump tore up that extensive, detailed agreement blocking the path to a nuclear weapon. They cheered when President Trump tore it up.
Well, I don't hear any cheering now, when it turns out this war of choice has hurt everyone, in every possible way. More than 100 days of war, and Iran still has their enriched uranium. And because Donald Trump tore up the JCPOA, they now have 1,000 pounds of more highly enriched uranium, enriched to 60 percent, enough for 10 nuclear weapons, because Donald Trump tore up the agreement that blocked that from happening.
In return for ending the war, Iran has agreed to just 60 days of negotiating in which they will talk about maybe returning to some of the framework of the JCPOA. Pretty humiliating for Donald Trump.
But humiliation is not the question. I hope the President and his team will be successful in the negotiation to restore the many elements that blocked the path to a nuclear weapon. That is in the interest of all of us. I have little hope, however, that they will reach that agreement in 2 months, in 60 days.
So here is my crystal ball, Jeff's crystal ball: No detailed agreement on Iran nuclear material will be signed by mid-August when the 60 days expire. I hope I am wrong.
It is also the case that we have a law that says any nuclear deal must be submitted to Congress. So let's make sure that law is followed.
We have seen the costs in blood and treasure when a President goes it alone. We have been reminded of the wisdom of our Founders, who said the President is not allowed, constitutionally, to go it alone. We can't afford to have that happen again. And yesterday, finally, Congress passed a bill--a resolution to rein in Trump's war. Do you know that that is the first time that we have actually done that since the 1973 War Powers Act was signed--the first time that both Chambers approved a concurrent resolution directing the President to end a military conflict? It is a powerful condemnation of President Trump's war of choice.
I will tell you, I am concerned not just about how the negotiations will go, because I know how complicated they will be from how complicated they were when President Obama undertook those negotiations. Again, I hope they are successful, but I will tell you, I am worried that they won't be. And I am worried that an angry and a humiliated Donald Trump, who has slunk away from the war like a stuck dog, is going to try to distract from all of this--distract by trying to rig the November election.
In fact, today, he was here to talk to Senators of his party about how to rig the November election, that he wants his SAVE Act passed that stops American citizens from voting that he doesn't want to vote. He doesn't want college students to vote. He doesn't want Tribal members to vote. He doesn't want women to vote. He doesn't want people living in cities to vote. And he has crafted a bill to make it very hard for those people to vote because he wants to rig the election.
And I am also worried that he will create another international incident, perhaps with an attack or further action regarding Cuba, because when Trump makes one mess, he starts a new mess in order to distract from the previous mess.
Donald Trump's Operation Epic Fury has become ``Operation Epic Failure,'' devastating for the United States of America, and all Americans should be furious at this abuse of the Constitution and all the harm that has come from it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
Mr. President, for every American who is wondering what on Earth the war in Iran over the past 3\1/2\ months was for, the answer is relatively simple: next to nothing.
Thirteen American servicemembers are dead. Thousands of Iranians have been killed. We spent tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Gas shot up to $5.70 in Hawaii. Grocery bills and energy bills spiked everywhere. We depleted our stockpiles of critical weapons systems. We alienated even our closest allies, who understandably wanted nothing to do with this regime-change war of choice.
And what was it all for? What did we get out of it?
Well, if you take one look at the memorandum of understanding that Donald Trump signed last week, what is plainly obvious is that not only was this war reckless and illegal and unnecessary, but it also didn't get us anything. It has made a lot of things worse.
We don't have a nuclear agreement yet, only a framework to try to reach something close to the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
So to be clear, pre-Trump, we had a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. We had the ability for the IAEA to go into Iran and do intrusive inspections. We had the plan to dispose of the fissile material in a third-party country and to be able to verify it.
And now, what we have is an MOU to negotiate. And if we are very fortunate, if things break absolutely in every correct direction, we will get back to where we were 12 years ago.
The same regime is still in place, but now it is younger and more radical, and they have demonstrated that they have substantial leverage in the Strait of Hormuz. The opposition in Iran is weaker.
One of the hopes of this regime-change war was that they were going
It has gotten worse. They are younger and more radical, and they have more leverage.
Now, I want to be really clear here. The mistake is not ending the war; it was starting it in the first place. Every day this war went on only compounded that catastrophe, and so we ought to be relieved that it may be over and that diplomacy is being given another chance, because it is the only viable path forward.
But none of that obviates the fact that we are suing for peace because it is the least bad option; that a diplomatic solution was within reach all along, before a single bomb was dropped; that after several months of a deadly and costly war, things are worse, not better.
On February 27, the day before the war started, the Strait of Hormuz was open. Oil and other commodities like fertilizers flowed freely to all of the places around the world. Now, under the MOU, the strait is open again but only for 60 days, after which Iran is reserving the right to charge a fee for ships to pass.
Do you understand how unprecedented it is in terms of international law, in terms of international commerce, in terms of the way this planet works with the freedom of navigation, that one belligerent country now gets to charge a fee if you want to move something through international waters?
That is not a ``w.'' That is not good for this country or regional stability.
Under the original Iran agreement that President Obama signed and Trump later ripped up, Iran promised not to develop a nuclear weapon. It was right there on the first page of the JCPOA. And what it meant was that Iran would not produce the kind of highly enriched uranium that could be used in a nuclear weapon.
They have renewed that commitment in the MOU, except for a much higher price this time.
Under the JCPOA--and I remember. I was on the floor. I was a baby Senator here, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said: Oh, my God, you are unfreezing Iranian-sanctioned money, assets to the tune of many billions of dollars.
Can you believe how much money we are giving to Iran in exchange for this pause in the development of their nuclear program? Can you believe that you are giving money to Iran? Look at how belligerent they are in the region.
That was the argument. OK, I thought it was worth it because it was basically buying us 15 years of them not being capable to develop a nuclear weapon.
But under this--and, by the way, not in exchange for a nuclear agreement, in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days.
So I want you to understand, what they are getting is enormous, but it is also not even for a nuclear agreement. It is for an agreement to stop choking the global economy, not only where their assets will be unfrozen, but they will be able to sell their oil freely on the open market for the first time in 30 years.
That is not some $1.7 billion concession. That is not some $10 billion concession. That changes generations of bipartisan policy against the Iranian regime.
One of the reasons that they were not even more belligerent, even more powerful was that we were heavily sanctioning their oil. And we are lifting it in exchange for not a nuclear agreement but just for them to take their boot off the necks of the global economy.
And so, I reiterate this point: Keep two thoughts in your head. First of all, the main error was in starting this stupid regime-change war in the first place, and that you don't have to be some member of the Foreign Relations Committee or some fancy foreign policy expert or some professor at some school that studies the Middle East to say: Hey, you know what, these same dudes keep asking for a new regime-change war in the Middle East about every decade. They usually get it, and it always fails. And they did it again, and it failed again.
And that is a different thing from me demanding that they continue this idiocy. I am not demanding that they continue this idiocy. I am glad that they are finally folding.
But make no mistake. They are folding, and they are folding because they played a terrible hand, as terribly as you could possibly play it.
And so, all I am asking--if you are an Iran hawk, if you are a dove, if you are anywhere in between--is let's have a logical foreign policy. Let's understand that Iran is a belligerent country--they are not our allies--and that almost every single time--not every time, but almost every single time--kinetic engagement without any kind of strategy doesn't work. It always backfires.
And, by the way, that is, generally speaking, true. It is, extraordinarily, predictably true in the Middle East.
And I want to make one final point: It is the same people every time. It is the same foreign policy think tanks. It is the same people in the media. It is the same nonprofits. It is the same Members of Congress.
They just look around the planet for a place to remake with force. And there may be a couple of examples in human history where you can remake a place with force, but usually it backfires spectacularly.
And it did here again.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Colorado.
Trump Administration (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, as a former English major, one of the great tales in Greek mythology was the legend of King Midas.
As the story goes, Midas was granted a wish. He wished that everything he touched would turn to gold.
At first, it seemed like a blessing. Twigs became gold. Stones became gold.
Midas thought he had found true wealth. But he soon realized it wasn't much of a blessing. It was more of a curse.
Midas' food turned to gold. His water turned to gold. And, eventually, even his daughter turned to gold.
The lesson is simple: A man who mistakes gold for greatness will end up with neither.
President Trump never learned that lesson, and he corrupts pretty much whatever he touches.
Take his gold-plated ballroom. The President promised it wouldn't cost taxpayers a nickel, but those promises turned out to be fool's gold.
The cost has skyrocketed and President Trump now wants to spend $300 million of your taxpayer money to pay for it. He is not building affordable housing in Denver, Durango; he is building a ballroom for himself and his rich friends to enjoy.
President Trump promised to drain the swamp; instead he has turned the Reflecting Pool into an algae-infested bird killer. The administration awarded a no-bid contract for this project to President Trump's neighbor, one of his donors. The renovation was supposed to cost $1.5 million. It is now estimated at $16 million, and the job still isn't done.
President Trump isn't working to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies or reverse the Medicaid cuts that will kick 240,000 Coloradans off of their healthcare. His Reflecting Pool got a makeover while our insurance pool was gutted.
Now President Trump wants to build an enormous arch near Arlington Cemetery. While planning this project, he unilaterally, on his own volition, went to war with Iran, promising immediate victory, total and complete.
What he has delivered is one of the great failures in our Nation's history. He made America less safe and less secure.
He made America's economy weaker, and 14 American servicemembers lost their lives. When asked about the tragic casualties, President Trump said:
Our heroes deserve a Commander in Chief who looks out for them, not a
America's prosperity isn't measured in monuments; it is defined by dreams, dreams that are only made possible here in this country. Those dreams are what brought me to Colorado as a geologist 20 years ago--or I should take that back--45 years ago, and they are what inspired me to enter public service, so one day my sons and your daughters will inherit a country where everyone has an equal shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
But right now the American dream is slipping out of reach because the deck is stacked against working people. Whether your biggest worry is fuel or fertilizer or gas or groceries, whether you live in a mountain community or an inner city, whether you are surrounded by cows or concrete, this administration's misplaced priorities are making life harder for you. And I don't think it has to be this way.
First, we have got to stop the bleeding from this administration. We have got to end the illegal war, end the disastrous tariffs. We must curb ICE's lawlessness and repair our social safety net, reversing the administration's cuts to healthcare, to SNAP, to student aid. But then we have got to get back to making your life better once again.
We need to lower the cost of living. We need to create more and better jobs and protect our public lands. This work is not going to be easy as we mark America's 250th anniversary--our 250th anniversary. Many are questioning whether we are still capable of meeting the magnitude of this moment, a moment where a technological revolution promises unbelievable innovation at unprecedented speed like a runaway train.
It also leaves us more isolated and struggling to discern fact from fiction. A moment when the consequences of climate change are increasingly impossible to ignore with unprecedented wildfires, drought, destruction; a moment when wealth is flowing to the wealthiest Americans at an unprecedented rate. I am not immune to skepticism, frustration, despair, but a better and a brighter future requires that we work harder and harder and harder. It requires us to giddyap.
Progress is possible because we have seen it, we have done it. This week Congress passed the biggest housing reform bill in decades.
We worked with Senator Warren to diminish Wall Street from buying single-family homes and to limit their influence in disturbing the housing markets. This matters to every Coloradan because home ownership is one of the single best paths to economic stability and upward mobility.
It is a reminder that our government works best when it works for working people. When it does, good policy reflects our highest values; and the values that made this country have always been about opportunities for all, not wealth at all costs.
Earlier this morning right as the bill was about to be signed, President Trump decided to hold the legislation hostage. Instead of passing this commonsense bill, he wants to peddle a voter suppression bill that has literally nothing to do with housing.
This is a clear choice before us. Speaker Johnson and Senator Grassley and Senator Thune should sign this housing bill and send it to the White House, or they should not adjourn Congress for the July 4th recess; it is as simple as that.
This saga is exactly why so many Americans have lost so much faith in our President. He has had every opportunity to lower costs, but he chooses not to. The Coloradans I meet on the Front Range or the West Slope aren't looking for more attacks on mail-in voting; they aren't looking for more ballrooms, bombs, and billionaires. They are looking for help, all the while looking out and helping each other.
I see it across Colorado, people showing up for their neighbors, families sharing what they can: Meals, clothing, rides to school. America's wealth has never been found in monuments, reflecting pools, or arches. It is found in our families. It is found in our communities. It is found in you. Our charge has always been to help each other and to keep the American dream alive for the next generation. That is what it has always meant to be a Coloradan. That is what it has meant to be an American. And that is worth more than gold.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Unanimous Consent Requests (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4329. Further, I ask unanimous consent 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. Is there objection?
The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object, 4 years ago today, women in America lost the right to control their own bodies when an activist Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. For 18 months, women in Wisconsin were forced to live under a law passed in 1849 and widely viewed as a criminal abortion ban.
Overturning Roe was just the beginning of the Republicans' war on women's reproductive rights. This bill is yet another example of their agenda to make it harder for women to access care by stripping away funding for family planning clinics.
Title X clinics serve millions of Americans and offer cancer screenings, birth control, and wellness exams. Republicans have already tried to rip this healthcare away. Their ``Big Ugly Bill'' last year defunded Planned Parenthood, leading to the closure of 60 clinics so far. And we expect that as a result of the ``Big Ugly Bill,'' in total, over 200 clinics will ultimately close. That is 200 fewer places that women can get essential healthcare, exacerbating an already dire healthcare crisis that families are facing.
This administration has also withheld funding from title X clinics for months, threatening access to care for more than 800,000 people. They then delayed funding for the program again, causing even more confusion.
The administration's goals are clear: They want to sow chaos and end access to reproductive health care. There is no reason that we, the people's branch, should be adding to that and further making life harder for the people we work for. We should be focused on expanding access to healthcare and lowering the cost of it, not closing more clinics, jacking up costs, and eroding women's rights even further.
I will not stop fighting until every woman in this country has the freedom to make her own choices about her own body.
Therefore, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. President, you know, it is always so interesting to hear the objections of my colleagues when it comes to something that is considered a pro-life measure. And pushing this bill forward and listening to my colleague--it just shows me that once again, they are not standing with that right to life.
We are celebrating 250 years of our great Nation. What do we have? That
Today marks 4 years since the Supreme Court corrected a blatant act of judicial activism that legitimized the killing of more than 63 million unborn children.
My colleagues across the aisle like to say: Oh, but abortion is compassionate.
Think about the 63 million unborn babies--63 million.
So, yes, 4 years ago, the Supreme Court corrected this act of judicial activism. With the Court's Dobbs decision, the authority finally returned to the States and ``we the people,'' where it belongs.
This marked a watershed moment in the fight for life, but there is still so much more work to do to make certain that right is recognized, that right to life--the right to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness.
We know that one thing that needs to be done is ending all Federal funding of abortion services. That is important. This isn't about closing clinics; this is about making certain that taxpayer money does not go to fund those services.
For decades, Federal law has prohibited the use of Federal funds for abortions, but big abortion providers like Planned Parenthood exploit every loophole possible to get around this restriction. It is a long list. They are addicted to your money to provide abortion services.
One of those loopholes is the title X Family Planning Program. This program is intended to assist low-income women with family planning services. Section 1008 of the Public Health Service Act explicitly states that title X funds ``shall not be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.'' That is the law.
This isn't about restricting healthcare; it is about--we need to support life, and we need to abide by the law.
Yet, under the law, title X clinics are allowed to refer patients for abortions and share facilities with abortion providers. As a result, Planned Parenthood clinics that receive Federal family planning funds can share the same facility, staff, and waiting room as an abortion clinic. There is no division there. They are sharing that space. They are sharing staff. They are sharing the waiting room. You go in the same door, and they are thereby using taxpayer dollars.
Now, taxpayers, including millions across the country who hold deeply held beliefs opposing abortion, should not have to spend a penny in supporting abortion providers. This is their hard-earned money. We have a law. The law should be abided by. That is why I am asking that we move forward with this bill. We have heard my colleague's objection. I disagree with her. We should abide by the rule of law, and we should support the right to life. I think everyone should stand up and close this loophole once and for all.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. President, today is the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
I just shared some reflections about what happened in my home State of Wisconsin when we reverted to a law that was passed in 1849--1 year after Wisconsin's statehood--that was widely viewed as a criminal abortion ban. No abortion care was provided within my State until a court ultimately ruled many months later that that 1849 statute did not apply, but in the meantime, I heard stories from Wisconsin women whose lives were upended by the Dobbs ruling.
When I think about one of the first stories I heard in those first months after the Dobbs decision came down, I remember a woman sharing with me that she was pregnant, expecting--was delighted about that-- when her water broke at 17 weeks. She went to her doctor at the hospital where she was planning to deliver her baby, and they said: Your baby has no chance of survival, and we can't do anything to assist you in this moment because Roe v. Wade has been overturned.
The doctors consulted lawyers. We had lawyers actually practicing medicine, if you will, in the State of Wisconsin at that time, and she was sent home. They said to let nature take its course. Well, in her case, that meant facing sepsis and a fever that got worse and worse and worse.
How close do you have to be to death before you can get the healthcare that you need when Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land?
What it drove people in Wisconsin to have to do is consider getting care out of State.
So, today, I rise in support of the women across this country who just want to be able to control their own bodies. Right now, 27 million women are living under abortion bans since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and it is no secret that my Republican colleagues want to see a national abortion ban enacted piece by piece. Because of these bans, women are literally bleeding out in parking lots outside of clinics and hospitals. Women are developing life-threatening infections like the one I just described from my constituent in Wisconsin.
Women are being told that they have pregnancies that are not viable but that they have no option for healthcare. Women are being denied the care that they need even in States like Wisconsin where, because of our courts striking down the 1849 statute that was in existence when the Dobbs decision came out, abortion is now legal, though many restrictions remain on the books.
Women face access issues. They face barriers to accessing the healthcare they need. In Wisconsin, abortion services are only available in 3 out of our 72 counties. That leaves 69 counties without care, meaning the people who live there must travel for the care they need. They have to arrange childcare and take time off work and sometimes drive for hours. They have to face unnecessary barriers just to get the healthcare that they need.
That is why I introduced the Reproductive Health Travel Fund Act. This legislation would help ease the financial burdens that too many women face when they are trying to access safe and legal reproductive healthcare, oftentimes far away from their homes and their support systems. This bill would get women the practical support they need to access care, including support for travel, childcare, lodging, meals, and more.
I won't stop fighting until a woman's right to choose is fully restored. In the meantime, the least we can do is help women access the care they need that the Supreme Court and some of my Republican colleagues continue to put further out of reach for women. I urge my colleagues to address the healthcare crisis we are facing in this country by reducing the barriers that women face to get the healthcare they need.
Therefore, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4922, introduced earlier today; further, 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 Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. President, I object.
We just talked about the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which would ensure that taxpayer funds aren't used or flow--these family planning funds--to abortion providers.
What Senator Baldwin has talked about in this bill is the Reproductive Health Travel Fund Act, and what it would do is make obtaining abortions easier. It would make it easier because it would allow them to be paid for by tax dollars. Let's let this sink in for a minute. This bill would authorize hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to fund, as my colleague said, the travel, the lodging, the meals, the childcare, and all of the other expenses that are associated with obtaining an abortion. Four years after Dobbs rightfully returned this issue to the American people and their elected representatives, this very legislation would undermine that decision by using Federal dollars to facilitate and fund abortions across State lines.
Now, we all want healthy moms and healthy babies--that is a goal that everyone shares--but instead of supporting pregnant women by making grants available to pregnancy resource centers, our colleagues across the aisle would rather spend that $350 million in taxpayer funding each year to eliminate what makes obtaining an abortion
If Congress truly wants to respect the conscience rights of millions of Americans and actually protect women, children, and families, it should reject this legislation and pass the Title X Abortion Provider Protection Act.
For all of these reasons, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Mississippi.
Unanimous Consent Requests (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, 4 years ago today, our Nation took the historic step when the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturned the so-called right to end a baby's life in America and returned the authority to regulate abortion to the people. Since then, the abortion industry has intensified its efforts to convince women that pregnancy is inherently dangerous and harmful to their health. While pregnancy can involve complications, those cases are the exception; they are not the rule. Yet these exceptions are often used to justify abortion at every stage of a pregnancy, including a growing number of at-home abortions, using mail-ordered mifepristone, without having direct physician oversight.
Here is the truth about chemical abortion: First of all, this regimen is not safer than Tylenol. A woman can experience anywhere from a month to 6 weeks of bleeding after taking the abortion pill regimen-- horrendous bleeding that is significantly heavier than usual. It is especially dangerous for women who are already anemic with low blood counts. Nearly one in nine women who take these drugs will suffer a serious adverse event, such as sepsis, hemorrhaging, infection, or emergency surgery, within 45 days of ingesting the pill.
Chemical abortion can also pose a serious threat to women's future fertility or even their lives when they are not screened through an in- person doctor visit for conditions like an ectopic pregnancy, and a woman who has a chemical abortion has a 300-percent increase in having a preterm birth in future pregnancies--a 300-percent increase.
The SAVE Moms and Babies Act puts commonsense safety protections back into place by at least requiring an in-person doctor visit before being prescribed mifepristone, which is designed to abort a baby. This drug should never be administered through the mail, where abusers and traffickers can hide behind a computer anonymously.
While I cannot stress enough the importance of correcting misinformation about abortion drugs and reinstating the safety protections that the Biden administration recklessly removed, we also need to flip the abortion industry's entire script by highlighting something too often overlooked: the extraordinary benefits of pregnancy for women.
Pregnancy is nothing short of remarkable when you consider everything that must fall into place perfectly to conceive, sustain, and deliver a healthy child. While the process can feel overwhelming, women's bodies are uniquely equipped for this lifegiving role. The resilience and strength demonstrated through pregnancy and childbirth are incredible and empowering.
For example, pregnancy is often described as a marathon--and for good reason: A woman's cardiovascular strength expands when her pregnancy is carried to full term, and her risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke are significantly reduced later in life. From the long-term well-being that motherhood can inspire with a commitment to healthier habits to the protected effects of breastfeeding associated with the reduced risk of breast cancer, these changes offer life-sustaining gifts.
In fact, research suggests that women who have children later in life often experience greater longevity. Women's bodies were seemingly designed to break the limits and then keep going.
As we continue to build a life-affirming society in this Dobbs era, our ongoing challenge is to continue championing the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of pregnancy and of motherhood.
Mr. President, as if in legislative session, and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3697; further, I ask unanimous consent 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. Is there an objection?
The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
Let's be clear. This bill would roll back the clock by 25 years. It limits access to a safe and effective medication that has been approved by the FDA since 2000. Hundreds of robust clinical trials have demonstrated mifepristone's safety. That is not political; that is science.
This bill would impose new requirements on prescribing healthcare providers, and it would restrict drug dispensing to in-person administration, specifically targeting women living in rural areas and women without access to a primary care doctor or OB/GYN.
For the past year, we have all watched as Secretary Kennedy and this administration have peddled conspiracy theories and junk science to dismantle public health structures in this country.
Just like with the pediatric vaccine schedule, changing the rules on FDA-approved drugs without specific scientific input, legitimate evidence on safety risk, or transparency will cause unnecessary fear for patients.
This bill undermines the critical role of the FDA in ensuring the safety and efficacy of medical products through a gold standard review and approval process. It overrides the FDA's oversight authority by prematurely banning approval to medications, even if they are safe and effective.
That is not gold standard science; it is an effort to control women's bodies and their healthcare decisions.
On the very anniversary of the Dobbs ruling, Senate Republicans are looking to continue to restrict access to care.
I want to remind my colleagues that mothers living in States with abortion bans are nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth compared to those in States that allow women to access reproductive care. These tragedies happen when there are delays in miscarriage and emergencies because reproductive medicine is criminalized.
I object to this legislation.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The Senator from Maryland.
As I just said, on the very anniversary of the Dobbs ruling, Senate Republicans are looking to continue to restrict access to care.
In stark contrast, Senate Democrats are working to expand access to healthcare for women. We are working to better support new and expecting mothers and babies. I introduced the Healthy MOM Act to do just that.
Uninsured pregnant women are more likely to miss critical prenatal care. These gaps in care lead to a 31 percent higher likelihood of adverse hospital and delivery outcomes. My bill would ensure that all women eligible for coverage through Affordable Care Act marketplaces and private insurance can access affordable health coverage throughout their pregnancies by establishing a special enrollment period for expectant mothers.
Right now, marriage, divorce, changing jobs, or having a baby are considered qualifying life events that trigger a special enrollment period, but becoming pregnant is not considered a qualifying life event. That is unless you live in a State like Maryland, which allows women to enroll in or change their health insurance plan outside of the standard open enrollment period after they learn they are pregnant.
If you want to protect moms and babies, you need to make sure that they have health insurance and access to the care they need. I ask unanimous consent to pass this commonsense legislation to close a senseless loophole and keep expecting mothers across the country healthy.
Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 3274 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object. Mr. President, I object.
While my colleague's bill seemingly aims to assist expecting mothers with the burdensome cost of pregnancy and childbirth, I would like to point out that this legislative effort is not designed for success, and it has zero bipartisan support.
However, bipartisan support in this arena is possible, and I am so grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have worked with me on the Supporting Healthy Moms and Babies Act. I introduced this effort last year with Senators Kaine, Gillibrand, and Hawley to insulate expecting parents from the high cost of pregnancy and childbirth by eliminating cost-sharing requirements for prenatal, childbirth, neonatal, perinatal, or post-partum healthcare. Bringing a child into the world is costly enough without piling on cost-share fees that saddle many mothers and families with debt. The bill would take away some of the burden for childbearing generations.
My hope is that if we can relieve the financial stresses associated with pregnancy and childbirth, more families will be encouraged to embrace the beautiful gift and the responsibility that comes with parenthood.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Unanimous Consent Request: S. 1756 (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, it is toward the end of June, and 250 years ago today Thomas Jefferson was in the third floor of a rented space in Philadelphia, literally by himself, working at a desk that he had built himself writing a declaration--250 years ago literally today he was by himself writing away on that.
Within about 4 days from now 250 years ago, the Committee of Five-- the four others that worked with him--all determined: No, this is the document that we are going to present to the Continental Congress. It is kind of remarkable to be able to think about that kind of history.
They determined that they were going to end that simple statement at the introduction to say:
It was a much-debated statement, and they made several different changes to it, but that same statement 250 years later still rings true as a core value of who we are as Americans.
Today I rise to be able to mark the fourth anniversary, though, of the Dobbs decision--a decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion and when life begins and who we are going to be as a people on this issue of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness back to the elected representatives from the States and to the people.
Today we are remembering 60 million children who died under the 49- year time period under Roe v. Wade and the conversation that is still happening all over the country. We the people are still having a dialog about the value of every human person and whether life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness still applies to everyone. Does it apply to only people that are a certain height, a certain weight, a certain age? Or does it apply to every single person?
I am one of those crazy people that actually believe that children are valuable--all of them. And I know it is much maligned in our culture currently, and it is very vogue to be able to say some children are valuable and some children are disposable and those children that are disposable, we shouldn't even discuss. But, honestly, I think we should continue the conversation, the dialogue that has been going on for 250 years, to determine: Does life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness apply to all of us? Are all people created equal, or are some people more equal than others?
Just because a child cannot defend themselves, just because a child doesn't weigh very much yet doesn't mean it is not a child.
Science would say that life begins at conception when the cell division happens. Every single cell in the woman's body has the exact same DNA except when she is pregnant--then there are certain cells in the womb that have different DNA. Do you know why? Because it is a different person.
And there is cell division happening in the woman's body because she is alive, and there is cell division happening in that child's body because so are they, and they are a uniquely different God-created person. They are not inconvenient. They are a child. And we are still having this conversation as a country to try to determine what are we going to do about that.
So me and my colleagues have come to the floor today on the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs decision and said: Let's keep the dialogue going. Let's keep talking about this issue of when a child is a child. Do they have to be a certain weight? Do they have to be a certain age? Do they have to be a certain height? Or is it when basic science would say that child is a child?
What is interesting about this is I am not even bringing a bill tonight to be able to deal with the issue of abortion of a child. I am actually bringing a bill tonight to be able to talk about conscience of individual healthcare providers.
You see, most doctors and healthcare professionals share a common science-based belief that a child in the womb is just like the children they care for outside the womb. The only difference is time.
A child at conception and a child outside the womb are no different. It is just 40 weeks older. That is it. I am 40 weeks older than I was 40 weeks ago. That child is 40 weeks older from conception to birth, but it is still the same child.
The millions of Americans who believe this same truth, we have conscience protection laws on the books, and we have had them on the books for a long time. In fact, there are 25 Federal conscience protection laws right now that are already the law of the United States. Many of these have just flatout not been controversial. Let me give you a couple of them.
The Church amendments. These laws protect the conscience rights of individuals and entities that object to performing or assisting in the performance of an abortion or a sterilization against their religious or moral convictions. When that passed Congress--right after Roe v. Wade--when that passed Congress, it passed 92 to 1. It was not controversial.
In 2004, when Congress created the Weldon amendment--which is in all of our annual appropriations bills still. The Weldon amendment bars the Federal Government and State and local government recipients of Federal funds from discriminating against healthcare entities that refuse to provide, pay for, provide coverage, or refer for abortions. It wasn't controversial. It passed overwhelmingly. It still continues.
The conscience protection bill that I bring tonight is also very straightforward. It is already in Federal law that individuals have the right of conscience. The challenge is, those individuals only are protected in the right of conscience if the Federal Government actually goes and prosecutes individuals that violate their conscience. So if the executive branch chooses not to enforce the law--they just ignore it, though it is federally against the law but no one prosecutes--then nothing happens and that individual has rights that are actually not protected by their own government.
This conscience protection bill is very simple. It says if their rights of conscience have been violated, according to Federal law, that individual has a private right of action to bring their own suit. If the Federal Government won't defend their rights under Federal law, they have the ability to be able to bring it on their own.
This is a very simple, straightforward bill. It doesn't change anything about abortions. We will have the exact same number of abortions the next day after this passes that we did
So this is a straightforward bill that, again, won't limit abortion at all but will protect the rights of individuals to have their own rights of conscience.
So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session, notwithstanding rule XXII, tonight I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1756; further, I ask unanimous consent 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. Is there objection?
The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I rise to object to this bill, which would restrict access to vital healthcare coverage and make healthcare more expensive for many Americans.
Thirteen States, including my home State of Oregon, have passed laws that require insurance companies to cover reproductive care, including abortion services. If this became law, this proposal would override those State laws. It would let insurance providers deny women coverage for care they need.
Women should make their own healthcare decisions, not politicians, not State governments, and certainly--certainly--not insurance companies.
For all of these reasons, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
Religious Freedoms (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, almost 250 years ago, 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress affixed their signature to the most influential document in the history of human rights: the American Declaration of Independence.
Over succeeding generations, more than 100 other nations would model their own declaration of independence with statements that followed the American pattern of 1776. It proclaimed liberty as an unalienable right in what Walter Isaacson has called ``the greatest sentence ever written.''
Among our unalienable rights, the document declared, are ``Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'' Defining liberty and giving definition, substance, and legal guarantees of that right has been one of America's greatest ongoing commitments to the betterment of humanity. And at the forefront of that pantheon of liberties the Declaration affirms has been the right to believe and practice religion according to the dictates of our own conscience.
Four decades ago, 160 of 170 international constitutions were modeled, in whole or in part, on the American model. Freedom of religion is guaranteed in principle, if not in fact, in 97 percent of those constitutions.
When the first colonists arrived in the New World, religious freedom existed in theory, like that of John Locke, but not in political practice. Roger Williams founded Rhode Island on the principle of sole conscience in 1636, and 150 years later, in 1786, Thomas Jefferson authored the pioneering Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom:
The State legislation he proposed therefore decreed that no person shall ``suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all [persons] shall be free to profess . . . their opinions in matters of religion.''
It was a long journey from Jamestown to Plymouth Rock, to that Virginia statute, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
America has made great progress, but the road has been, at times, harrowing for those people at the margins of our mainstream.
Quakers were hanged in Massachusetts in 1659. Baptists were imprisoned in Virginia in the 1770s. Catholic convents and schools were burned in 1834. My own people, the Latter Day Saints, were mobbed and murdered in Missouri and Illinois in the decade to follow. And Jewish people have been the victims of discrimination and violence from the founding to the present.
One of the lessons to be learned from this history is that you can legislate religious protections but you cannot legislate respect or compassion or bonds of charity. Yet religious freedom hinges on these virtues.
Our public discourse, however, has never tipped so precariously into what Arthur Brooks has called a ``culture of contempt.'' If you think you sense something alarming in the air, the statistics say you are right. A March 2026 Pew survey reveals the distressing fact that Americans view their fellow Americans with more hostility and suspicion than is the case in any democracy surveyed.
The United States is the only place surveyed where more adults describe the morality and ethics of others living in the country as bad, 53 percent, than as good, 47 percent. We can do better. We have to do better.
Yes, as members of this national community, we have the right to espouse our values--religious, moral, or political--without hindrance or constraint. That also means we must accord to others the right to espouse their values without hindrance or constraint.
Religious freedom is distinctly intertwined with pluralism because the free exercise of religion presupposes a mosaic of differing values and other life orientations.
The words ``kindness,'' ``civility,'' and ``charity'' nowhere appear in our Constitution or our Declaration of Independence, whose anniversary we will commemorate next week. That is because those values were presupposed by the Founders.
This grand experiment in democracy required for its organization and requires for its continuation a willingness to build bridges of understanding, as well as defend principles to which we are committed.
Dr. Matthew Holland has written of how civic charity is deeply embedded in our thoughts; John Winthrop, leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, of Thomas Jefferson, America's apostle of religious liberty, and of Abraham Lincoln, who so powerfully invoked the better angels of our nature at a time of national crisis.
We will never achieve consensus on the particulars of our religious commitments or our lack of religious commitments, nor should we. Our pluralism is a source of our strength and should be a source of pride.
However, we can honor our founding principles by returning to the particular kind of faith they did have in common: faith in the essential goodness of each other and one another.
The psychologist Jamil Zaki has written: Cynicism is a lack of faith in people. Skepticism is a lack of faith in our assumptions. Charity is the only way whereby we flourish in our differences, even as we work together for a more perfect Union.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
S.J. Res. 196 (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, in the United States today, 42 million Americans are drowning in $1.7 trillion in student debt--42 million Americans, $1.7 trillion in student debt. Further, a recordbreaking 9 million Americans are now in default on their student loans.
Instead of providing financial relief to these Americans, the Trump administration is about to make a bad situation even worse.
As we all know, President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill--to my mind the worst piece of legislation passed in modern history--made the largest cut to education in the history of the United States in order to pay for the largest tax breaks for billionaires in American history. Not only did we throw 15 million people off the healthcare they had; we devastated Federal funding for education.
If Congress allows these education cuts to take effect, beginning on July 1, just 6 days from now, 7 million Americans will be thrown off of their low-cost student loan repayment plan, known as the SAVE plan and into a much more expensive plan.
What does that mean in real terms? It means that the average college graduate will be forced to pay $4,000 more each year on their student loan payments, about $244 a month.
At a time when tens of millions of Americans--working-class Americans--are struggling to pay for the outrageous cost of housing, groceries, prescription drugs, healthcare, and other basic necessities, the last thing in the
It has been estimated that if these cuts go into effect, one out of every four student loan borrowers will be in default by the end of this summer.
So what does it mean to be in default? It means that workers could have their wages garnished to pay back their student loans. They can't pay their student loans because they are not earning enough money, and then they get their wages garnished and it will be an even worse situation.
It means that seniors who took out student loans for themselves--and I know many people don't appreciate it. They are thinking about student loans, and they are thinking about young people. Well, guess what. There are grandparents who are still paying off their student loans. And it means that these people or their family members could have their Social Security checks garnished.
Imagine going to college, paying off a student debt for 30 or 40 years, and you can't continue to do it; and they are going to take your Social Security payment. In my view, that is unconscionable. We cannot allow that to happen.
And that is why I am very proud to cosponsor S.J. Res. 196, which we will be voting on this evening. And I want to thank Senator Merkley for his outstanding work on this issue. This resolution would ensure that millions of Americans are not forced to pay thousands of dollars more each year on their student loans.
Two weeks ago, I held a roundtable with four student loan borrowers from across the country who shared their stories about the struggles they are having with their student loan debt.
I spoke with a gentleman named Jordan, from my own State of Vermont, who is a veteran and a father of two young boys. He was told that his student loan payment will increase to $1,300 per month after July 1. And other Members who talked with me had very similar stories.
Geraldine, who is 71 years of age, has student loan debt from when she went to college in the 1980s, and decades later, she is still struggling with student loan debt. Geraldine is retired and on a fixed income, and she was told her payments will be over $500 a month after July 1.
And on and on it goes.
If Congress does not pass this resolution today, working-class people all across this country will be priced out of necessary graduate training in programs like nursing, medicine, dentistry, and social work because of new restrictive arbitrary loan limits. What this means is that working-class students will either be unable to get the education they need or they will be forced to take out loans from predatory lenders that charge interest rates as high as 26 percent.
Now, at a time when we desperately need nurses and other healthcare professionals, how insane is it to force students to pay interest rates as high as 26 percent in order to do the important work we desperately need?
At a time when we have a shortage of nurses, doctors, and dentists in this country, it has been estimated that 21 percent of nursing students, more than half of medical students, and three-quarters of dental students will be priced out of a degree altogether.
In my own State of Vermont, 40 percent of students pursuing graduate education will exceed the new loan limits and will be forced to resort to private loans to make up the difference. In the richest country in the history of the world, no one should be saddled with a lifetime of debt for the crime of getting an education.
No American should enter retirement with the burden of student loan debt or be pushed into default because they can't afford their payments.
So let us prevent student loan payments from going up by an average of $4,000 for 7 million Americans. Let us prevent working-class students from being priced out of pursuing degrees in nursing, medicine, and dentistry.
I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. President, I want to make a few remarks now about the Congressional Review Act vote we will be taking later tonight.
And here is the thing. This is so straightforward, in terms of, here in the United States of America, pursuit of an education to serve the people of this country should never be a privilege reserved only for the wealthiest Americans.
Indeed, don't we want every child to have the opportunity to thrive, to get a graduate degree, to get a professional degree, to be able to serve in the many capacities where we are desperately short of individuals? Of course we do.
And this is something very near and dear to my heart because I am a blue-collar kid, and my father said, when I was in grade school: Go to the doors of the schoolhouse. You go through those doors, and you study hard, and you can do just about anything in America, because we are so fortunate to live in America.
That is a beautiful idea--that every child has the opportunity to pursue their dreams, and if that requires a college education, to be able to pay for a college education without a millstone of debt around their neck or just the actual impossibilities of having access to enough funds to pay tuition.
So I pursued that vision. And my interest did take me to college. And I did borrow money, and I did get scholarship, and I did wash dishes, year after year, in order to help get through.
But that journey is becoming so much harder now, when college is so much more expensive. When I got out of high school, if you worked a minimum-wage job, the summer of 1974, at $3 an hour, you could save enough money, living at home, to pay the tuition for a public university in my home State of Oregon.
Or you might still have to work in order to, well, have a room to live in and have food to eat. But you could pay the tuition.
And now it is completely out of sync. You cannot save enough on minimum wage, which is still only, you know, in many States, only $7.50, or half that if you have a job that has tips, in many States. There is no way you can pay your tuition.
And so shouldn't we all be working to make it easier for children to actually get the expertise that we need in our services, in our economy? But, indeed, we are going in the other direction.
I have often spoken about how I feel the Big Beautiful Bill, as Trump called it, hurt Americans along the way, kicking millions of Americans off of health insurance and gutting nutrition and slashing funding for higher education. Why?
But now we have something else, which is a rule from the Trump administration that will make it very hard for ordinary children coming from modest means--families of modest means or very restricted income-- to be able to go on to college and to go to graduate school.
In fact, that bill--that Big Beautiful Bill, as Trump called it-- eliminated the Grad PLUS loans, which allowed students to borrow the full amount of their program, and replaced those loans with two categories. A graduate degree student is limited to borrowing $20,500 a year and up to $100,000 in total.
So that restriction--a graduate degree student--whom does that apply to? Well, it applies to nurses, to social workers, to physician associates, to teachers, to engineers, to physical therapists, and to many other categories.
And so those professions are told: You can only borrow $20,500 a year.
So what does that mean? It means that since tuition is often much higher than $20,500--and then throw in the dormitory and throw in the food--well, you are talking $40,000 a year.
There is a survey from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, which reports the average cost of a nursing program is $38,500 a year--the average cost--so often over $40,000.
So what is the effect of putting this limit of $20,500? Well, this is a gift to the predatory lenders. Now, one friend of my son's, well, she had 6 percent loans that were the government loans, and then she had to get private loans. What was the interest rate on that? It was 11 percent.
We are basically saying: Hey, if you are wealthy and your parents can pay your tuition and your dormitory and your food, hey, you are golden. The avenue of opportunity is for you.
But if you are from a family that doesn't have the ability to pay that cash and you have to borrow, we are going to force you to borrow loans that are 9, 10, 11, 12 percent because we don't want that avenue of opportunity for you. We only want it for the rich kids.
This is a rule for rich America, and this is a penalty against normal people. That is wrong. I thought this democracy was supposed to be of, by, and for the people, not special, gold-plated avenues for the kids of the richest families.
And I know that this Chamber is full of multimillionaires--maybe a few billionaires--who don't know the darnedest thing about how families struggle across this Nation and how much they want their kids to have opportunity too.
So this is very simple. Let's reject this rule that puts up a huge barrier for the children of families of modest means and medium incomes or low incomes. Let's knock down that barrier. Let's not force them into predatory lending.
Now, there are some who say: But wait. We think that the schools will lower their tuition as a result of us making loans unavailable.
That is a false premise. Never worked anywhere because the schools have to pay the professors. They have to pay for the infrastructure. They have to pay interest on the buildings they have already built. And so they have to charge accordingly.
When we saw before--and we have been down this road--when there was a limit on public loans and people had to go to private loans--like the friend of my son--you end up with those 10, 11, 12 percent interest loans. They are predatory against our children of the next generation.
So who here wants to speak up for the rich to be the only ones with opportunity in this country? Let's strike down this rule and say to the President's team: When this bill was passed, no one in this Chamber meant to say that opportunity is only for the wealthy kids.
This is our opportunity. It is a Congressional Review Act. It means we can say no to a rule that puts up a hurdle to ordinary children.
So it isn't as if everything is rosy for the children of the next generation--hey, housing prices, up through the roof. Home ownership median age has risen from 33 to age 40 over just a 5-year period because the next generation can't afford to buy a home. Rents are pressing people against the wall. Tariffs have added so much cost to the families.
Why are we going to pile this predatory loan program on top of everything else? It is absolutely wrong. So let's just join together and say: Let's put this rule in the rubbish bin. Let's put it through the shredder because it only hurts the next generation that we should be striving to help thrive.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
Mr. President, it is really kind of interesting. A couple of years ago, we were talking about student loan debt. Colleges were saddling students with student loan debt, forcing them to live in their parents' basement because they couldn't pay back those loans.
If you look to the people taking these loans, they may not have completed their degree, or the degree they got paid them less in a year than the annual tuition they were forced to pay. And, of course, that tuition--paid for by borrowed Federal money--compounded interest, leaving them mired in debt.
It is a false compassion to say that every person should be able to borrow as much as they want from the Federal Government, to go to the school, whatever the school charges. That is a false compassion.
Republicans are not about false compassion. We are about allowing Americans to live the American dream, but that is not by saddling them with debt like a weight around their neck, pulling them into a pool of debt from which their whole life is affected.
It is pretty clear. The cost of higher education is out of control. And that is, in part, because of Federal lending programs that will allow students to borrow whatever they wanted to--almost. And so universities raise their tuition to maximize income, not to maximize value, but to maximize income.
By the way, a 2023 National Bureau of Economic Research study found that uncapped Federal borrowing for graduate programs did not increase access or degree attainment.
Think about this: Oh, we can give much, much, much more money, but the NBER found that giving as much money as they wanted did not increase access and did not increase degree attainment.
You know what it did increase? Student loan debt. That is what it increased because the universities making profit off of that really, ultimately, were not left holding the bag. It was the student and the U.S. taxpayer who were left holding the bag.
Colleges could increase their prices--the higher the cost, the bigger the loan. The kid drops out. He doesn't graduate. He can't pay back the loan. The taxpayer picks it up. The person is saddled with debt, but the college has the money.
Now, by the way, putting Americans more and more in debt, while colleges raise tuition, only makes the affordability crisis worse.
In August, Republicans put an end to this nonsense, and we passed the Working Families Tax Cut bill. We addressed the root cause of rising costs. We put limits on Federal loans for professional degrees.
As a result, there are universities already lowering their costs. Last fall, Santa Clara University cut law school tuition by $16,000, citing loan limits the Senate Republicans enacted as a catalyst. Think about that: Law schools are 3 years. Mr. President, 3 times 16, we got $48,000 less in borrowing in a response to the legislation that we passed.
UC Irvine recently announced cutting tuition for their MBA program by 38 percent for the upcoming fall semester.
Now, unfortunately, the resolution offered by my friend from Oregon undermines this success. And the claim is that this merely corrects a rule put forward by the Trump administration that limits access to taxpayer-funded loans for certain professions.
That is not true. This resolution would nullify the Department of Education's regulation for implementing all student loan reforms enacted in the reconciliation as part of the Working Families Tax Cut bill. Every part of it is going to be nullified.
A vote for this CRA undermines the $284 billion in savings for the U.S. taxpayer. A vote for this CRA is a vote to undermine changes that are already reducing the cost of higher education.
A vote for this is a vote to allow the student to borrow as much as she wants to in response to a tuition skyrocketing and to land her into a hell of student loan debt that she can never escape.
A vote for this is to go back to the Biden approach to student loans, rather than the historic reforms passed by congressional Republicans and signed into law by President Trump.
Now, by the way, there is a nuance here. If you are thinking about voting for this resolution because you have concerns about how professional degrees have been defined in the rule, we should talk. I am happy to have that because, frankly, I have some concerns about that. And so let's see if we can actually address that in an appropriate way, not in a blunt axe way.
That debate is a separate, targeted conversation, not fit for an overly broad CRA. For example, let's address the criticism that nurses and social workers are excluded from professional degrees.
Now, I am going to be clear. I am a doc. I worked with nurses. They are professionals. They are right up there with me because I have been--at 3 in the morning--taking care of sick patients vomiting blood. I know the professionalism that nurses bring to their care--similarly for social workers. So no one doubts that they are professionals. No one doubts that they are essential to the health system.
But this debate is a debate about certain degrees that are required for entrance into the profession and require longer lengths of study than graduate-level programs. And based on those factors, should you be able to borrow up to $200,000 in taxpayer-backed Federal loan programs to pay for a degree?
More importantly, do you have a realistic ability to pay back that loan? If
By the way, most nursing students--95 percent of them--borrow less than $100,000 to complete their degree. That is below the borrowing limit Congress established in the Working Families Tax Cut.
The 5 percent of nursing students borrowing more than $100,000 choose to take on that debt. They choose a more expensive option. Clearly, since 95 percent don't need to borrow that much, there are other options, and not all nurses need federally backed loans up to $200,000 in order to get their degree.
So, is my colleague suggesting that taxpayers subsidize the 5 percent of nursing students, regardless of their ability to pay back the loan? I don't think that is fair to them.
If there are limited number--and this is important--if there is a limited number of targeted subspecialties in professions--I think of a CRNA--that are inadvertently and inappropriately excluded by this rule, let's have a conversation. Let's measure their ability to pay back such a large loan and if that loan and the degree it pays for is necessary for their professional subspecialty. And, importantly, can they pay it back?
CRNAs do well. I personally think we should have a higher loan limit for them--that is one example--because they are going to do well financially. And to the point, it could be more expensive for them to have their training.
That is, if you will, a nuanced approach, looking at a group of people for which we know the facts. But that is not what this CRA does. It guts all reforms and sends us back to the Biden administration student loan disaster.
There are bipartisan efforts on my committee to make college more affordable for students, families, and taxpayers. I am leading the College Transparency Act, the CTA, which allows students to compare the differences between a college that they go to, and the major within that college, to see the value of the degree relative to the price of admission.
I ask my Democratic colleagues to work with us to advance these bipartisan solutions, not to push partisan resolutions that raise the cost of college and bury students with debt.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this effort.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Will my colleague yield to a question?
I believe I understood you to say that you are citing a university that has lowered its tuition.
Did I understand that correctly?
Which university was that?
I think it was Santa Clara. I have to go back to my notes. I think it was Santa Clara.
Is that a private or public school?
I don't know if the University of Santa Clara is private or public.
So here is the thing. There are 4,000 universities in the country. Do you have any idea how many have followed that example and lowered their tuition?
I don't know how many have, but the bill has just passed. And I do know that market reforms permeate society.
And as a student realizes, I can go to the community college down the street and get a nursing degree and pay for it entirely with a small amount of money, or I can go someplace far more expensive and have to borrow $100,000--in the case of the previous law, $200,000--that market forces--and, particularly, if we put in the College Transparency Act-- will have that individual go to one where they get the better value for their education. That, I am positive of.
My colleague has got it completely wrong. There are less expensive ways to get a nursing degree. Indeed, my wife is a nurse, and she got her 2-year nursing degree at a community college. We were very, very fortunate to get even some scholarships to help her do that at a time when our income was extremely little.
But here is the thing: There aren't very many slots like that. With the 4-year programs that are throughout Oregon at private universities, you can't come close to paying your annual expenses at $20,500. We need a lot more nursing slots because there are a lot of folks who are coming out of high school with straight A's. They can do the statistics, and they can do all the prerequisites, but there just aren't enough slots. So we are wrestling with the fact that we are importing a lot of nurses from overseas rather than providing opportunities for our kids.
What this means is, yes, you are right. There are some ways to get a nursing degree--a 2-year degree in particular--that are less, but most folks have to do another 2 years because now hospitals won't take a 2- year nurse. They often have to go to a private program, and those programs average $38,500 a year.
The math is simple. For the families like the family I come from, wherein you have to borrow, borrowing at 6 percent is a hell of a lot better than borrowing at 11 percent. With the rich, their families have home equity loans. If they are going to borrow, they borrow at 6. So we are saying: Here is this big obstacle for ordinary people who don't have parents who are affluent.
It is just the math.
The idea that all of those programs are going to be able to lower their $38,500, on average--many are much more--to $20,500 is just false. There may be one or two universities that have lowered it, and by the way, they did it in anticipation--and maybe for different reasons--because this hasn't gone into effect yet. It is going into effect a few days from now. That is why we are talking about this now. It is going to affect folks who are going to school next year. So this is very disturbing to me that we are creating this obstacle for families who need help.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
