Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Executive Session)
Mr. President, colleagues, there is a lot going on in the country right now--actually, a lot going on around the world. And I rise today not to address specifically the cost-of-living challenges that so many working families are struggling with. That is certainly a topic of news these days--rightfully so. I am not here to focus on what families of deployed servicemembers must be feeling right now, although that is certainly worthy of our thoughts and consideration and empathy, particularly the family members and the loved ones of the 18 servicemembers that have lost their lives in this unauthorized war with Iran that the President has brought us into.
I want to focus on something that about a year ago was really dominating the evening news and a lot of our social media feeds-- immigration, and specifically this administration's cruel, often violent tactics as part of their mass deportation agenda.
Families are still being torn apart. Tens of thousands of immigrants are currently being detained in detention centers around the country. Loved ones of those killed by Federal agents in broad daylight are also still hurting, including the family of Johan Sebastian Guerrero, the 25-year-old father and immigrant from Colombia who had work authorization, who was driving in his car last month when a Federal agent opened fire, shooting him in the head and killing him.
I hope you remember the story. It wasn't that long ago. If you followed the story, you will know that his partner and his 3-year-old daughter, still dressed in her Bluey pajamas that morning, were there at the scene because it was so close to their home.
According to witnesses, Johan's last words were:
I raise this because whenever there is a tragedy like this that happens, under this administration, we quickly hear from Department officials, from the White House, and MAGA supporters that all these victims had to do was to follow instructions, as if it was their fault they were being shot and, in some instances, killed. Well, that is exactly what Johan was attempting to do. Yet he was killed anyway.
I know we don't have all the details of exactly how this tragedy unfolded. In large part, we don't have all the details because some people say ``Well, let's go to the video; let's go to the body cam footage and see exactly what happened,'' but despite receiving billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, which included funding for body cameras, these officers weren't wearing any.
But there are a couple of things that we know for certain. First of all, Johan Sebastian Guerrero's daughter should still have her father. Second--and this is publicly reported--the man who took his life should never have been given a badge and a gun. And that is not just
From what we have learned, this is a man who verbally, emotionally, and physically abused not just one but two ex-wives and once threw his 13-year-old daughter through a glass coffee table. So Mr. Homan is absolutely right when he says that this man's hiring was a failure of the Agency's vetting process.
But it is emblematic of a much larger failure within the Department of Homeland Security. ICE has rushed, this last year, to put as many officers as it could into communities as quickly as possible--something pretty hypocritical, by the way, from an administration calling for the revetting of previously vetted refugees and other immigrants.
But I digress. In less than a year, ICE has hired more than 12,000 officers, a 120-percent increase in staffing--huge increase in a small amount of time. In part, they were so eager to hire up that they were offering $50,000 bonuses for people who signed on to the Agency. Along the way, they also lowered recruitment standards to try to hire as many people as possible, and they shortened training--shortened training-- for law enforcement officers before deploying them into the streets.
Anybody with history and experience with State and local law enforcement knows what happens when you do this. It is a bad combination, a recipe for disaster when you hire too quickly, shorten training, and lower recruitment standards. Now the Federal Government is seeing the consequences of those bad decisions.
How many more unqualified individuals who have not been sufficiently vetted or trained are now in our communities, not just armed but armed as if they are going to war--that is not the job they are doing--and, along the way, violating constitutional rights; using excessive force; risking innocent lives; and, worst of all, facing no accountability?
Colleagues, accountability isn't an inconvenience for law enforcement; it is imperative in a society where we entrust law enforcement officers with the power to take our lives, our liberty, or our property when warranted. Accountability is what gives law enforcement the legitimacy in a democracy, but that is not what is going on today.
Just a couple of weeks ago, it was reported that the FBI will no longer investigate confrontations with immigration enforcement agents. Instead, Homeland Security will do the investigating to determine whether officers or agents have broken the law. If true, how is that supposed to inspire confidence or legitimacy? After all, it has been 6 months since the killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Goode, and still nobody has been held accountable for those deaths.
Let me repeat their names: Alex Pretti, Renee Nicole Good, Ruben Ray Martinez, Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Joan Sebastian Guerrero.
God, I pray there is not more to come.
How many more need to die before this administration recognizes, acknowledges, and admits that something is deeply wrong?
Another important point I want to make today is that these failures don't end on the streets in our communities; they are also happening inside the walls of detention facilities, where as of yesterday, at least 54 people have died since the beginning of this administration.
The year 2025 was a record year--not a good record--the most deaths in ICE custody in a calendar year, and we are on track to exceed that in 2026. At this moment, more than 67,000 people are being held in overcrowded and understaffed facilities, where many are denied access to healthy food, clean water, even basic medical care--forget about lifesaving care for people with extreme conditions, folks that I have seen and talked to personally, suffering from injuries they sustained when being taken into custody because of the cruelty and the violence of how it is being done.
And reporting just this morning from the Associated Press shows us more than 50 parents and spouses of Active-Duty servicemembers have been detained since the beginning of the second Trump administration, and at least six have been deported.
Think about that. Their sons and daughters, husbands and wives are willing to put their lives on the line for this country during wartime, no less, and the Trump administration is rewarding their service by detaining and deporting their family members.
Yet, despite all this, Donald Trump and those around him keep repeating the lie that they are only going after ``the worst of the worst.''
It is not true. Even Federal courts have found that the conditions in these detention facilities, by the way, are unacceptable. A Federal district court judge in California just ordered improvements to basic needs like access to clean water, nutritious food, and medical and disability care in the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, basic standards of humanity that are both Federal law and international law.
In February, a similar order to provide access to medical care was issued regarding the large detention center in California, the one located in California City. But just last week, we learned from a neutral court-appointed monitor that ICE is failing to comply with that order.
This administration just doesn't care.
Despite these deaths, despite these conditions, and despite the enormous human toll, the administration is actually doubling down. ICE arrested 51,000 people in the month of July, the largest in a single month in DHS history. And again, the vast majority are not dangerous, violent criminals.
So we have a historic number of arrests coupled with a historic number of deaths in ICE custody, and this administration has the audacity to ignore court orders to provide basic care and dignity to the people that it is cramming into these detention facilities.
And on top of all that, the Republican majority in this Congress has given ICE and Border Patrol more than $150 billion with no accountability, no safeguards required. So they don't even have to come back to Congress to justify their funding requests and answer questions for the next 3 years.
ICE is now expanding detention facilities while continuing to carry out these mass enforcement operations across the country.
They are failing. They are failing the humanity test. They are being ordered by Federal courts to do the job right. They are doubling down and growing their operation.
And we now know that over 300,000 Haitian immigrants are now facing arrests and deportation after the Trump administration has ripped away their temporary protected status.
Colleagues, how many people need to die at the hands of ill-trained, unqualified, and unaccountable Federal agents and inside inhumane detention centers before we as a Congress--at least the Senate--say: Enough.
Before we call for accountability and demand commonsense reforms, what is it going to take? Because our proposals are out there, like my VISIBLE Act which says immigration enforcement officials have to have very clear, very visible identification, something that is standard for law enforcement Agencies nationwide.
If a group of masked individuals in unmarked cars runs you off the road, jumps out of their cars with guns drawn, and starts screaming in your face without any way to easily and quickly know that they are Federal agents, of course somebody is going to panic.
We just saw that exact scenario play out in Houston a few weeks ago. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was driving in his van on his way to work when two unmarked cars without sirens or lights began chasing him, eventually blocking his car on a small side street.
As he was trying to turn around, they shot him and killed him. Without any clear identification, how could Lorenzo know that these cars chasing him belonged to law enforcement?
As one expert reviewing the footage of this chase from public cameras said, it ``looks more like a carjacking attempt than it [is] a police stop.''
And we wonder why some people panic.
That is exactly why we need basic standards for Federal law enforcement like those called for in Senator Booker's Federal Law Enforcement Standards and Accountability Act.
And for the protection of agents and civilians alike, law enforcement needs to have the body cameras and to have them turned on, which the FOCUS Act would require. These are the kinds of basic safeguards that Democrats have been proposing over and over again, but the administration and the Republican majority doesn't want to act on it.
Now, we have a lot of policy debates here in Congress, but too often, we lose sight of the people behind the headlines and the people behind the statistics that are impacted by these policies.
Joan Sebastian Guerrero was one of those people, as are thousands of others living in fear today: mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. They are our friends. They are our coworkers and neighbors, all human beings deserving of basic dignity and humanity.
Last month, Joan Sebastian Guerrero got into his car expecting just a normal, regular day, and now his daughter will grow up in a world without him in it. She carries his memory with her for the rest of her life--not only of him, but how he was taken from her. She will remember that forever.
Colleagues, I implore that we remember as well. Let's learn from it and do everything possible to keep it from happening again because we are a nation of laws that need to be enforced, but a nation of laws includes being a nation of due process, of accountability, and above all, human dignity.
We should never accept an America where Federal agents hide their faces, abuse their authority, or take life without oversight and accountability.
It is a choice, folks, that we are making. What kind of a country are we working toward? It is a choice that this administration and congressional Republicans have made of what we are seeing on the streets. America deserves better. America deserves better.
I yield the floor.
Nomination of Todd Blanche (Executive Calendar)
Mr. President, I am nearing the end of my Senate term, and I am reflecting on some historic events which I have witnessed at this table, at this desk. One of the most historic I remember--and specifically the date--January 6, 2021. The reason why that day was important was that the votes all across America had been counted to see who was elected President in the 2020 election, and the process involved certification by the House and the Senate of the electoral votes that were to be counted.
In the past, it has been almost a pro forma event, hardly noticed by anyone. But on January 6, 2021, it was much different--much different. The Presiding Officer of the Senate for that electoral vote count is the Vice President of the United States; in this case, it was Vice President Pence.
There was more security than usual in the Capitol Building. To those who are here today witnessing this session and visiting the Capitol, you are lucky. You are protected by one of the best security forces, police forces, in the Nation, the Capitol Hill Police. Most Americans don't know much about them. Those of us who serve in Congress know a lot about them. These are men and women who keep you safe and me safe in the Capitol Building and make sure that the visitors have peace of mind when they come and go.
We want to maintain the availability of this building to visitors from certainly the United States, but from all around the world. And these men and women--some in uniform, some in ordinary dress--make sure that happens. Well, on January 6, 2021, there was a special emphasis on security. The reason: It was not only a historic event with Members of Congress in their chairs and the Vice President of the United States presiding over the Senate. There was also a rally going on downtown by the outgoing President of the United States, Donald Trump, at the end of his first term.
He had summoned his supporters and friends to come for a rally down by the White House and the Washington Monument that day. No coincidence. It was an attempt to put pressure on Congress not to count the electoral votes.
You see, the President then and now had this fiction in his mind that he actually won the election. He was only off by 7 million votes--that is how much he lost it by. But he kept filing lawsuits and making protests and arguing that he should be President again. At one point, he dispatched the thousands--thousands--of people that he had summoned to Washington to leave the Washington Monument area and to march on the Capitol, and they did.
So we were sitting inside with the knowledge that these thousands of people were coming up to our building
At approximately 10 minutes after 2 o'clock in the afternoon on January 6, 2021, I was seated at this desk. Vice President Pence was presiding, and I noticed something curious: Those doors opened and members of the Secret Service came in and grabbed--literately grabbed-- the Vice President to pull him out of that chair; took him out that door. And here we sat with no announcement, nothing, but we knew something was going on outside with this rally that had been directed up this way.
In a few minutes, a representative of the Capitol Police spoke to us in the Chamber and said: Stay calm. Stay where you are. We are going to make the Senate Chamber a safe place for you to stay no matter what happens in the rest of the building. So some of us relaxed in our chairs and looked around and waited for the next development.
The next development took about 10 minutes. Mr. President, 10 minutes later, the Capitol Police came and said: Disregard that earlier alert, leave in an orderly fashion, file through those doors, and follow us to a safe location.
So we abandoned the Senate Chamber and the Capitol and left to go to a building nearby and wait out this ordeal, which was going on in the Senate.
What happened you can witness yourself on videotape. It is all there. About 150 of our Capitol Police were assaulted by these demonstrators-- some seriously injured, others pushed to the brink psychologically, which led to their deaths a day or two later. It was a horrible scene. It wasn't until late in the afternoon that we were able to return to the Senate to complete our business with the electoral vote.
What followed from that with the new President was an attempt to investigate what happened that day and who should be held responsible. There was nothing extraordinary about that. Anyone who did damage to this great building or the people in it obviously should be held accountable. And so the largest investigation in the history of the Department of Justice and the FBI started.
At the end of the day, almost 1,500 individuals were charged with a crime, and they were convicted. Some of them paid a fine, some served brief periods of time, and others more serious offenses depending on what they did. That was the reality of what happened.
Fast-forward four years, and what happened next? President Trump was reelected. And with the power under the Constitution to pardon those who committed crime, on his first day in office in his second term, President Trump gave a full and unconditional pardon to every one of the convicted demonstrators who stormed this building.
If you remember the scenes afterwards, it wasn't just an orderly procession of people visiting this building. They crashed through doors. They broke windows. They did their darndest to cause as much damage as possible.
C-SPAN, which televises what happened here, kept the cameras running, and we were able to see them scramble into the Senate Chamber, pose for pictures sitting in the chair of the Presiding Officer, and riffle through our desks. I watched as some person--I still don't know who it was--went through my desk to look and see if there were some things that he could take that day. I don't know whether he did or not.
But that is the sort of thing that went on for 4 or 5 hours while an effort was made to mobilize police and state troopers and others to reclaim the Capitol Building from the demonstrators.
The reason I bring up this event years later is because there is an important issue to be voted on this week by the U.S. Senate, and that is the choice of the next Attorney General of the United States.
The Acting Attorney General is Todd Blanche, who was President Trump's personal lawyer when he was charged with crimes and who has been Deputy Attorney General for months now. He is seeking a full-time position.
One of the items of controversy is pretty easy to explain. President Trump believes--and Todd Blanche believed at one point--that the people who attacked the Capitol, the people who breached the Capitol, who crashed through the doors, broke down the windows, threatened individuals inside, should receive financial compensation for doing it. Financial compensation.
And you say to yourself: They got a full, unconditional pardon by President Trump. Now they want money too? And the answer is not only yes, but, unfortunately, they have done it with some pride.
The Trump administration proposed an Anti-Weaponization Fund. And just to give it a cute little twist, they appropriated $1,776 billion for that purpose. Well, it didn't go over very well with Congress because as we read this decree by the Trump administration, people said: Wait a minute. We are giving money to people who were convicted of a crime of attacking the Capitol, disrupting the business of the Senate, injuring 149 Capitol policemen? We are going to give them not only a pardon, but some sort of financial compensation?
That was the plan: The Anti-Weaponization Fund. And who was the person who executed that plan? Todd Blanche, the person who is seeking to become the next full-time Attorney General of the United States.
The controversy involving that particular proposal is well-known. Not only was there a bad reaction among Democrats to this idea but many Republicans as well.
Some of them kept their opposition behind closed doors. I understand. But others were very vocal about it. In fact, two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said they want in writing, from Todd Blanche, a promise that he would never create this fund to reward cop beaters and demonstrators in the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
It went forward in the Senate Judiciary Committee and the negotiations between two Republican Senators and Todd Blanche continued until the beginning of this week when it was announced they had reached an agreement. Sadly, that agreement--the so-called agreement not to create the Anti-Weaponization Fund--is written in a way it wouldn't pass law school Contracts 101.
There is no signature on any of these pages of promises when it comes to future activity. They say: We are rescinding the previous order, but there is nothing to stop a new order from taking place. That is a gaping hole in the logic and the effectiveness of any of these documents.
We should have clear indications from the parties to that lawsuit that both sides agree; that would include the President of the United States, who was a party to the lawsuit that led up to this. But they can't bring it together because the President doesn't believe that the Anti-Weaponization Fund should go away. He said publicly over and over again he believes in it, wants to do it, wants to give the demonstrators money. Todd Blanche thinks he has taken care of this problem, but he has not produced any documentation to make that point clear.
Secondly, there was a provision in a lawsuit. Now, here is what the lawsuit is all about: The President sued the IRS and Treasury arguing that they disclosed his income tax returns without his permission.
They arrested the man who actually did it--they caught him--and he was prosecuted, as he should be. He broke the law. He knew he was breaking the law when he disclosed the President's income tax returns.
The President sued the IRS and Treasury for billions of dollars-- billions--because they disclosed his income tax return. I have completed quite a few years of public service. I disclose my income tax return every year without fail as a Member of Congress and the Senate. I am not posing for holy pictures; I am just trying to tell you it isn't that big a deal if you follow the law.
Do you know what the settlement of the Trump lawsuit was for disclosing his income tax returns? Part of the settlement said--get this now, and Todd Blanche is the draftsman of this as well--part of it said neither the President, his family, or any of the companies in his Trump empire business can be held for violating any tax crimes in the United States.
How would you like that? Get-out-of-jail-free card. And that was part of the agreement, and it should be contested.
If we say no one in America is above the law, how in the world can you justify doing this for the Trump family and their businesses? And we know this President deals in big numbers when it comes to income.
His first year in office--estimates--between $1.4 and $2 billion in the President's first year in office of his second term--$2 billion. How did he do it? Well, you won't be surprised to know that there are cryptocurrency fingerprints all over this deal.
The President made hundreds of millions of dollars off of a meme coin or some contraption that comes out of the cryptocurrency world. That is the reality.
And who was overseeing this operation? Todd Blanche, the man who wants to be the No. 1 law enforcement officer in the United States of America.
Well, I will tell you, I am not going to go much longer because I see some of my colleagues are gathering, and they want to speak on this issue as well.
This is a serious mistake for the Senate to approve Todd Blanche as the next Attorney General. If there was ever a moment in history when we need an Attorney General above reproach who is clearly dedicated to ending corruption, even at the highest level of our government, it is right now.
The history of this era will be written, and it will be a shameful history for those who are empowering this man, Todd Blanche, to take his personal representation of this President to the highest possible level as he becomes the next Attorney General.
I beg my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: I think I know how many of you feel privately, but I know you are afraid to cross this President. He has been guilty of retribution many times in the past, and he would be on this. But don't be in the history books on the wrong side when it comes to this issue. Come out against corruption; come out for the prosecution of corporate fraud; come out for changing the current situation in the United States to one that is more respectful of the law and more respectful of the families and voters who create this democracy.
I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the nomination of Todd Blanche as the next Attorney General of the United States.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. President, I begin with a quote: ``I am his lawyer.''
``I am his lawyer'' is what Todd Blanche said in the course of his confirmation hearing for the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Senate. "I'm his lawyer,'' meaning, I am Donald Trump's lawyer.
Now, admittedly, he had no intention of saying it that way. He had no intention of allowing that revelation to slip, but it was a glaring illustration of his mindset. He was, he is now, and he will be Donald Trump's lawyer, his personal lawyer, as he was during the criminal and civil trials--a trusted, loyal consigliere.
He is not an independent lawyer with a law firm; he is in-house. He is literally kept by the President on his personal leash.
You may think I am overstating it, but, in fact, he demonstrated it throughout that hearing, and the through line was he will be guided by blind loyalty to the President and contempt for the law, enabling the President in continued corrupt crypto schemes, as well as condoning and empowering the President to establish a slush fund for January 6 rioters, as well as tax immunity. Even though, purportedly, those agreements were limited, he will enable the President to circumvent the so-called agreements, which are a sham. They are a fraud on the U.S. Senate just as Todd Blanche committed a fraud on the Florida U.S. district court that referred him to the New York bar for investigation in connection with that wrongdoing.
Maya Angelou famously said:
And Todd Blanche has shown us repeatedly who he is, who his boss is, and whose loyalty he will hold uppermost.
I was a U.S. attorney in Connecticut for 4\1/2\ years, part of the Department of Justice, which I revered--more than just respected; in fact, revered--because it epitomized what lawyers should be in upholding the highest standards of ethics and morality. Even when we made an error, we were supposed to state it--in effect, acknowledge it before the court.
I will never forget the first time I appeared before a U.S. district court judge in Connecticut, a former Federal prosecutor himself. And he asked me: Whom do you work for?
I said: The government.
He said: No. You work for and you represent the United States of America.
Think of it for a moment: walking into a courtroom representing the United States of America, sworn to uphold the Constitution--not any President, not a legislature, but the United States of America.
That is not what Todd Blanche has done as a Justice Department official under Donald Trump. It is not what he will do, as he showed clearly. Nothing epitomizes it better than the answer he gave at one point when he referred to the attack on the Capitol that occurred on January 6, 2021--we all remember it; we went through it; we saw it--the attack on the Capitol which injured and contributed to deaths of our Capitol Police. He referred to it as ``events.'' He couldn't bring himself to refer to it as an attack, as it clearly was, because Donald Trump will not allow any of his nominees to refer to the January 6 riot and insurrection as an attack on the Capitol. It was an attack designed to prevent the lawful and peaceful transition of power, and to call it anything else is disrespectful to the brave Capitol Police who defended us that day and disqualifying for a judicial nominee and for any position of trust in the U.S. Government.
Earlier today, I participated in a press conference with some of the prosecutors--the career prosecutors--who pursued convictions of those rioters for the serious violations of Federal law that they incurred. They made the point that the failure to acknowledge an attack on the Capitol or that President Biden won the 2020 election shows a lack of independence that should be disqualifying.
They have submitted a letter to all of us here. And I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record because they make the point that these statements by nominees for executive office or for judgeships, in effect, perpetuate the Big Lie.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Election deniers have no place on the bench or in the Department of Justice. And, in fact, in response to my submitted question relating to the 2020 election, Todd Blanche refused to state that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, and he stood by his prior statements perpetuating the Big Lie.
The through line here is whatever Donald Trump says, Todd Blanche does. He will do anything, say anything, conceal anything that serves Donald Trump's interests.
Now, in some ways, the most tragic illustration of this through line is Todd Blanche's treatment of the Epstein survivors. Let's remember, he showed us again who he was when he revictimized those survivors by completely botching the release of the Epstein files. He failed to redact the survivors' personal information and defied the Epstein Files Transparency Act by redacting unnecessary information. Why? To shield Donald Trump.
That was the purpose of the meeting in the Situation Room when the threat to release additional files was to Donald Trump because he was mentioned in those files. And the Situation Room meeting, which is recounted in ``Regime Change,'' a recent book by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, showed clearly the effort was not to do justice for the survivors but to protect Donald Trump.
He refused to meet with the survivors. He spent 2 whole days with Ghislaine Maxwell. Why? Well, we don't really know because there was certainly no information useful to any investigation that emerged from it. What did happen was that she was transferred to a cushy prison camp and has remained silent.
And when he finally agreed to meet with the survivors, they described it as demoralizing and degrading. In fact, they called it gaslighting.
He protected Donald Trump at the expense of those survivors, and one of the most heinous sexual abuse and trafficking rings in American history has yet to produce the kinds of convictions necessary--the convictions in court, the prosecutions of the coconspirators and others complicit and legally responsible. That is not the conduct of an Attorney General; it is the conduct of Donald Trump's personal lawyer.
That is the through line. He certainly was acting as Donald Trump's lawyer when he issued two documents recently, supposedly ending the contract that was involved in the agreement on Donald Trump's purported, so-called lawsuit seeking damages from the revelation of his personal tax information.
We know that two of our colleagues, Senators Cornyn and Tillis, said that they needed something in writing, but what they got in writing was virtually meaningless in showing that either the slush fund--the so- called anti-weaponization fund--or the tax immunity was in any way materially changed. In fact, the document that purported to say that the slush fund was dead, in reality, is a sham. It is a fraud on the U.S. Senate, just as he allegedly committed a fraud on the court in Florida.
The reason is quite simply that there was a contract here. The agreement produced that contract. The agreement was between Donald Trump and the United States. Donald Trump did not in any way forgo or renounce any rights under that contract. It is still binding. He could go into court tomorrow and force it to establish the $1.8 billion thug fund.
And, likewise, the immunity agreement, which is unprecedented, worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Donald Trump, tax immunity from audits, in effect giving him a free pass for everything that occurred before this immunity, negotiated by Todd Blanche with only Todd Blanche's signature on it--the limiting of that immunity from tax audits to Donald Trump, his sons, his organization, worth hundreds of millions--unprecedented, unconscionable, and unacceptable from an Attorney General of the United States, dealing with potential tax violations of law, signing away tax liability no matter how serious it might be. It is unprecedented, and no one else but the President would even think of trying to get it in this way, under these circumstances. And he was able to get it only because Todd Blanche acted as his personal lawyer, not as Attorney General of the United States.
Senator Cornyn himself put it well at the hearing about this contract for the slush fund:
Todd Blanche answered in the affirmative. He well knows that the document that he prepared and released does nothing to change that contractual obligation.
The conversation that Todd Blanche had recently, talking to individuals interested in reproductive rights, I think is extremely revealing and important. In a private call just last week, he said the quiet part out loud; that he would work to restrict abortion in every single State all across the country.
He wants to block States enacting their own policies and laws. He wants to make abortion-access States follow the laws of abortion-ban States. In short, he wants to strip Americans of their right to choose and strip States of their right to govern. That is not the conduct or statement of an Attorney General of the United States carrying out and respecting the Constitution; it is fidelity to an ideologue--the President--who wants to impress his base, not represent the American people.
Todd Blanche showed us who he was when he ducked and dodged my question about deep-sixing an investigation into possible pay-to-play commutation of a federally convicted felon, David Gentile. David Gentile reportedly paid $2.5 million to a broker to obtain clemency. That clemency robbed his victims of nearly $16 million in restitution. When a U.S. attorney tried to investigate--the Eastern District of New York, U.S. attorney--Mr. Blanche reportedly killed the probe. That is not the behavior of an Attorney General; that is Donald Trump's personal lawyer.
So there is a powerful case against this nominee. I am under no illusion. We have seen this movie before. We saw it again when my two colleagues in effect caved--voted for his nomination yesterday. I am not here with rose-colored glasses. I know that Donald Trump will come down hard on any Republican colleague who has the temerity to say: We want a lawyer who represents the people, a lawyer who has fidelity to the Constitution and to the United States of America above the President, an Attorney General who will follow the law and insist that no one is above the law and no one is beneath it, an Attorney General who is true to the trust that we expect and to respect.
Todd Blanche might be the President's lawyer, but we don't have to be
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the nomination of Todd Blanche to serve as Attorney General of the United States.
The Attorney General is supposed to be the people's lawyer, someone whose loyalty is to the Constitution and to the rule of law, not to any one person--even the President of the United States. But in this administration, the Attorney General and the Department of Justice are focused solely on pleasing one person, one man, no matter the cost to our country.
Lest anybody forget, huge banners like the one displayed here hang outside the Department of Justice, the front door, as pictured here, and the other entrance to the Department of Justice. Every single day, the folks who are supposed to uphold our Constitution and the rule of law walk beneath these banners, reminding them that in this administration, their loyalty is to Donald Trump, not to the people of the United States. One of the people who do that every day and who have demonstrated loyalty to the President over the Constitution is the person whose nomination is pending on this floor today to be the Attorney General.
It is crystal clear from Mr. Blanche's record as Acting Attorney General and before that as Deputy Attorney General that he is still acting like Donald Trump's personal lawyer--a position he held before going to the Justice Department. His record has shown us very clearly that he will continue to put the President's personal interests above the interests of the American people; that when he walks through that door to the great Department of Justice that is supposed to serve justice for the American people, he looks up and he sees Donald Trump.
He was formerly the personal lawyer to Donald Trump, and even now, at the Justice Department, he continues to demonstrate that he puts the President's interests above those in the Constitution and the rule of law.
The Department of Justice has used taxpayer dollars to punish the President's adversaries, to reward his friends, and to pursue the President's personal vendettas.
In a case that I am very familiar with, a Federal judge found that Mr. Blanche's statements about the Department's case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia showed clear evidence of a vindictive prosecution. In other words, the judge found that Todd Blanche and the Department of Justice brought a case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a Federal court because he had exercised his due process rights, to punish him for exercising his rights, so that judge threw out those charges.
Under Mr. Blanche's leadership, Department lawyers have resigned rather than participate in blatant prosecutions, like the prosecutions of James Comey and others.
Career, professional lawyers have resigned rather than participate in abuses of power, like the Department's criminal investigation against Renee Good's partner after the shooting in Minneapolis instead of holding accountable or pursuing accountability for those who killed Renee Good. Think about that. This Department of Justice launched an investigation into the partner of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by DHS agents, instead of investigating the shooting itself--again, to please the dear leader in the White House, not to uphold the rule of law.
We also know that the Department of Justice has lost 10,000 employees since the beginning of fiscal year 2025 and nearly one quarter of its lawyers--lawyers who signed up to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution, not serve the dear leader acting through the dear leader's former personal attorney Todd Blanche. Now they are hiring prosecutors with no prior legal experience and asking many of them to sign a pledge supporting not the Constitution but the President of the United States.
We have seen how Mr. Blanche has acted as the President's personal lawyer since he has been at the Justice Department. We know, of course, of the outrageous $1.8 billion slush fund that was created to make payments to the President's political allies. When I asked Mr. Blanche at a hearing if those who assaulted police officers here on Capitol Hill on January 6 would be eligible for those payouts, taxpayer-funded payouts, he wouldn't rule it out. He wouldn't rule that out.
At the same time, he and the Department entered into a sweetheart settlement providing extraordinary tax liability protections to the President and his family and his businesses--essentially a get-out-of- jail-free card for nonpayment of taxes due if that was what had been ultimately found.
Now, after Republican Senators and only after Republican Senators threatened to block his nomination did Mr. Blanche issue an order supposedly rescinding the slush fund and narrowing the scope of those tax protections.
By the way, even if you narrow the scope the way it is supposed to there, the President and his family get essentially a get-out-of-jail- free card for past tax liabilities that may be due.
So this deal is a sham. It is not worth the paper it is written on. It is not written into the law, and nothing prevents the Department from restarting the slush fund once Mr. Blanche is confirmed.
That is not the only example of Mr. Blanche continuing to serve as the President's personal attorney while having the title of ``Acting Attorney General.'' We also see that in his handling of the Epstein files.
During his time at the Justice Department, Mr. Blanche has withheld critical information regarding those files rather than seek justice for the brave survivors who have shared their stories of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates.
When Mr. Blanche appeared before the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Department of Justice, Senator Murray and I both asked him that if we connected him with the Epstein survivors, would he meet with them and hear them out?
His answer:
He promised he would do so if we connected the survivors to him.
Well, we followed up multiple times. Nearly 2 months later, he had not fulfilled the promise he made in that Senate committee hearing. He had still not met with the survivors.
So Senator Murray and I wrote him a letter demanding that he fulfill the promise he made because that should be a bare minimum for someone seeking this post. And it is pretty clear he had zero intent on keeping the promise made in public at that committee hearing until Senator Tillis said that he would not vote to move his nomination out of the committee until Mr. Blanche met with the survivors.
After that threat was made, the meeting happened, but it was clear from reports about the meeting by the survivors that Mr. Blanche did not do so out of respect for them and out of a genuine interest to hear what they had to say but simply to preserve chances of his confirmation, because according to the survivors, it was nothing more than a check-the-box exercise. In fact, they said Mr. Blanche was condescending, that he was rude, and that he was dismissive. They were interrupted and told to ``get to the point.''
Well, someone who can tell the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's horrific crimes to ``get to the point'' is not a person we want defending the American people because a nominee for Attorney General should demonstrate that their loyalty will be to the Constitution and the rule of law and getting justice for everybody in America, including the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, not to the President of the United States.
So I hope we will recognize that if we look at the conduct and actions and record of the Acting Attorney General, we will recognize that he is not suited for this position because his record shows he has not been upholding the rule of law and the Constitution. Instead, he has been doing the business of this one man.
This photo was taken today--taken today. These big banners of Donald Trump have been hanging outside the Department of Justice for a long time, and they send an unmistakable message to people who work inside that they better serve the interests of this
That is not the job of the Department of Justice, and it is not the job of the Attorney General.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General of the United States.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. President, I listened to the presentation by my colleague from Maryland and agree with everything he said.
And the heart of the question is whether the person who has been nominated to serve as Attorney General will serve the people of the United States or will he serve the President to whom he has indicated blind, complete, servile loyalty?
And the recitation of facts about what Mr. Blanche has done in this incredibly important job as Acting Attorney General has made clear what his client is, who that client is.
There is no place at the top of the Justice Department for a person who pledges personal loyalty to anyone other than the American people. But, you know, the reality here is, the President won't appoint anybody to the Attorney General's position who won't act as his personal attorney.
And there is a sadness that I have about this whole story that is before us. It is the story of a person who when he was a young man, a young attorney, Todd Blanche was extraordinarily talented, was very idealistic, was a prosecutor's prosecutor, and who did abide by and uphold the rule of law.
He became a new person in service of a President that I believe is corrupt. Two billion dollars of income to the President of the United States in his first year raises more than a mild question.
And this person now to be Attorney General, in his Acting Attorney General role, essentially provided tax immunity to the President and to all of his children, family, and affiliates. It is totally outrageous. When you say it, you can't even believe the words are coming out of your mouth. It is absolutely unprecedented.
It has nothing to do with the way public business should be conducted. But Mr. Blanche, who has considerable talents, has used those talents to enable and to facilitate and to cover up and to revise and accommodate the corrupt goals of a President who, I believe, is corrupt.
And, by the way, as I mentioned earlier, that is whom the President wants. He wants someone who is going to do his work for him unquestioned, no matter what. But, you know, there is another question that belongs right here in the U.S. Senate. Is there no line that the U.S. Senate will not allow this President to cross?
The Senate confirmed Bondi; it confirmed Hegseth; it confirmed Patel; it confirmed Noem; and we are about to confirm Blanche. The President is abusing his authority, in my view, in every day and in every way. And that is shame on him, but the U.S. Senate is failing to use its authority, its power on any day or in any way. Shame on the U.S. Senate.
Should not the U.S. Senate use its advice and consent authority to demand competence and integrity? Did the Senate do that with Bondi, with Noem, with Hegseth, with Patel, and now with Blanche? Should not the U.S. Senate use its taxing authority to stop tariffs that the vast majority of this body believes is hurting the American people and is not the right of the Executive to impose?
Should not the U.S. Senate use its constitutional power of the purse to stop the invasion by President Trump into the power of the purse? And should not the U.S. Senate use its constitutional authority over the awesome power to declare war and stop this illegal war in Iran that, in fact, President Trump is losing?
The President is abusing his authority. We are failing to use ours. We can stop capitulating today by rejecting this nomination.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. President, I am here today to join the chorus of opposition to Todd Blanche's nomination as Attorney General of the United States.
Things that Republicans have purported to care about are disastrous with this guy. Pam Bondi put the blame directly on Todd Blanche for the Department of Justice's foulup with the Epstein files.
That foulup was pretty deadly serious for the women who were victims, who had managed to keep that fact private until Todd Blanche and the DOJ fouled that up and put out their names, put out their addresses, put out their photographs, and in some cases put out photographs with very little clothing on--complete disruption of the lives of the victims of Epstein's depravity, complete incompetence from a document- production point of view.
And on the other side, this guy actually participated in the Epstein coverup. Remember that there was a witness who spoke to FBI agents about having been assaulted by Donald Trump when she was about 14 years old, physically assaulted and sexually assaulted.
She spoke to the FBI at least four times. Those four times were recorded in FBI 302s. A 302 is the FBI name for the witness statement that the agents write up after an interview.
So four times this woman has been interviewed about what had happened to her as a girl. Three of those 302s specifically mentioned Donald Trump. In the disclosure that Todd Blanche made under the Epstein files law, the only one of the four that got disclosed was the one that didn't mention Donald Trump.
That ought to be disqualifying right there. Luckily, some very sharp investigators realized through, like, gaps in Bates stamp numbers that documents were missing and that the three 302s had not been disclosed. And so Blanche was forced to cough those up.
But behind a 302 come the agent notes. And there are still 37 pages of documents relating to that that are still suppressed, that are still covered up, that look to be the agents' notes, which should have been disclosed. So the coverup continued with respect to allegations against Donald Trump. Where else did the coverup continue?
Well, the Treasury Department sent to the Department of Justice what are called suspicious activity reports. A suspicious activity report is what you get when international banking transactions look like something funny is afoot, look like there is, for instance, money laundering going on. In this case, it was money laundering and human- trafficking concerns that provoked the suspicious activity reports.
You don't have to be a genius investigator to look at a suspicious activity report and deduce it might have something to do with some suspicious activity. It is the title of the report, for Pete's sake.
Billions of dollars of transactions were behind those suspicious activity reports. How many were investigated by the Blanche Department of Justice? Zero. Turned a complete blind eye to that whole aspect of the Epstein files, even though the suspicious activity reports were right in front of them.
And then he goes running down to Tallahassee to interview Epstein's comrade-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell. Did he use that interview to develop any new information, to go after people who were culpable in the Epstein files? No.
He used that interview to extract exculpatory comments from her about Donald Trump. Oh, that he was a perfect gentleman. And the next thing you know, she is rewarded with a transfer to a Club Fed-type prison.
What is the excuse for that? Oh, she was at risk. We felt she was in danger. Well, look, I have been around law enforcement for a long time, and this is the first time I have ever seen a prisoner allegedly in danger be transferred to a less secure setting to solve the problem of danger. Right? You move the prisoner to a more secure setting, not a less secure setting. It makes no sense. So in the Epstein files, Todd Blanche's fingerprints are all over the screwup and the coverup. Then we move on to the slush fund and the Trump family tax fraud amnesty, which was cooked up in a deal surrounding a Federal court proceeding, which was such a mess that the judge in that Federal court proceeding has gone back to look at what the heck happened.
She was looking at whether something happened called fraud upon the court. You probably haven't heard of fraud upon the court. It is unusually rare. It is a thermonuclear ethics accusation. We have looked. In the history of the Department of Justice, fraud on the court has not even been alleged against any senior DOJ official--ever. Ever.
And here you have a court that opened a proceeding, an inquiry, into whether or not there was fraud on the court, and that is still pending.
There is still every reason to believe that Blanche may be found culpable for putting a fraud on the court together to cook up the slush fund tax amnesty scheme. That is pretty unheard of.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon in this Blanche Department of Justice. There is a cascade of criticism from Federal courts about misconduct by this Department of Justice--misconduct that is unprecedented.
I will tell you that I was the U.S. attorney for the District of Rhode Island. If judges had used words like this about my attorneys' conduct in their courtrooms, there would have been consequences. At a minimum, there would have been staff meetings. There could have been referrals to the Office of Professional Responsibility. There could have been apologies required to the court. There could have been a reboot, internal office discipline of what is going on with this case. But when a judge says that the government's argument is disingenuous, when the judge says that the government's argument is a pretext for something else, when the judge says that the government has engaged in bad faith, each one of those is a four-alarm fire word.
In medicine, there are things that they call never events, things that should never happen in a hospital that you protect against, these are never event words coming from Federal judges. And yet they are commonplace in the corrupted Department of Justice run by Todd Blanche.
As to his complicity in the Epstein files coverup, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from Epstein survivors to Senators Tillis and Cornyn be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.
With respect to the destruction of the Department of Justice that he has wrought, I would also ask that we add George Will's column called ``Against Todd Blanche.''
I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled ``Against Todd Blanche'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
And with respect to this litany of criticism of the honesty of the Blanche Department of Justice, I would like to add a ProPublica article entitled ``Federal Judges Chastise Trump's Justice Department for `Unlawful,' `Unethical' and `Unseemly' Conduct,'' whose first sentence begins:
I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled ``Federal Judges Chastise Trump's Justice Department for `Unlawful,' `Unethical' and `Unseemly' Conduct'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
And then this isn't just a problem in American legal communities. There is a global magazine called The Economist magazine, which, by the way, does not run liberal. It is a fairly conservative publication.
The cover story in the July 18 The Economist is a picture of the Department of Justice logo and the title ``Degradation in progress.''
I ask that The Economist magazine article--there are actually two. One is the opening article that they lead with before they get to the main article; and the second is the main article--the two articles about the degradation of the Department of Justice under Todd Blanche be added to the Record as well.
I ask unanimous consent that the articles entitled ``Degradation in progress'' and ``The rule of one'' be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Last, there is a group called Just Security, which keeps track of what goes on in Federal courts. This is a binder of the cases that they have put together in which a Federal judge is harshly criticizing the integrity or the competence of the Department of Justice.
This binder, frankly, should not exist. This is two-sided, by the way. These many cases--it is just astounding. I am not going to ask that this all be put into the Record. But I will note that if you look at justsecurity.org, you can look at their report published on March 19, 2026. It gets regularly updated.
And if you want to go through it, you can see truly appalling criticisms by Federal judges of every appointment background against incompetence and dishonesty by the Blanche Department of Justice.
Where that really hits the road is with something called the presumption of regularity. You might not know what the presumption of regularity is, but it is a benefit that the government enjoys--that as a matter of policy, the Federal judiciary has determined that the Federal Government is generally so honest and competent that its proceedings will be given the presumption of regularity that the benefit of the doubt will go to the Department of Justice lawyers and to the government Agencies involved.
Unless the adversary can prove otherwise, courts will presume that the government has done the right thing. And over and over again, we have seen judges say that presumption of regularity is now shot because there is so much dishonesty and incompetence coming out of the Department of Justice. That is unprecedented.
There are hundreds of other reasons to vote against this most reprehensible Attorney General nominee in American history, but the very specific ones about his complicity in the Epstein files screwup and coverup, his being the first senior Department of Justice official in the history of the United States to face a fraud on the courts inquiry, where the judge already decided that the proceeding was a sham and that the parties were in collusion with each other and that the whole thing was done in bad faith, and that that is not an isolated incident--that is part of a pattern of incompetence and dishonesty out of the Department of Justice that has never before happened in the United States of America.
If my Republican colleagues want to get behind that--if they are cool with an Attorney General who has that record--that is on you.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. President, every parent in America, they want the same thing. They want to know that their kids are safe. As U.S. Senators, each of us has a responsibility to the millions of parents we represent for the safety and welfare of American kids first.
And that is exactly why--just 9 months ago on this very floor--76 Members of this body voted to close the hemp loophole that allowed these dangerous substances to be sold in unregulated retail stores.
But since last November, the intoxicating hemp industry has attempted to delay our effort to close this dangerous loophole.
May I show you some of the products that you can find in some of these stores?
It looks like a familiar brand, but if you look closely--well, sometimes they use the brand name. But how about something like Slizzles? Pretty deceptive.
You know, these companies want to continue selling these intoxicating THC substances loosely labeled as hemp products. They want to put them on the shelves of local convenience stores, gas stations, and grocery stores nationwide.
And the problem doesn't stop there. The packaging is unmistakably designed to appeal to kids. Using these bright colors, they intentionally mimic popular snack food and candy brands like this.
But what is most concerning is how easy it is for a child to walk into a convenience store and pick up what looks like their favorite snack or their favorite candy without realizing that they are actually buying an intoxicating substance.
See a familiar--what might be a familiar brand here, but it is Stoneo. How about that?
So it is difficult enough for an adult to distinguish the minor difference on these name-brand products and intoxicating substances on the shelves. I mean, just look at the examples. So are you telling me that this is not intentional?
You know, the four basic principles of marketing are product, price, place, and promotion. And what we are looking at right here, it is a crash course in all four: how to package a product; how to make it appealing; how to put it in front of consumers; and how to promote it, while attempting to evade Federal law.
You know, this is not some innocent coincidence. You don't accidentally create packaging for an intoxicating substance that bears a strange resemblance to a recognizable brand. You don't accidentally make an intoxicating product look something like a child would recognize from a grocery store shelf without reasonable intent.
Now this is marketing by design, and it is designed--it is designed-- to evade the law. The resemblance here is absolutely outrageous, and it is putting our kids at risk each and every day.
And over the past few years, we have already seen the horrifying consequences play out in emergency rooms across the country.
From 2018 to 2023, emergency departments in the United States that responded to pediatric cannabis poisoning increased by 461 percent; 91 percent of those patients were 4 years or younger--91 percent. And 45 percent of those kids--ages zero to 11--45 percent of them required hospitalization.
These numbers, they are not just statistics. They represent children ending up in emergency rooms--45 percent of them. And why? Because the intoxicating hemp industry wants to make a cheap dollar.
Now, in my home State of North Carolina, cannabis consumption-coded emergency department visits among minors, they increased by 969 percent between 2017 and 2025. That is almost 1,000 percent increase, and that is nothing short of alarming.
THC can have very serious consequences for adults. It can trigger psychosis, addiction, manic episodes, bipolar relapse, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. And having assessed those risks, it makes it utterly irresponsible to turn around and put those same THC substances within reach of our kids.
It is also impacting our workforce. Able-bodied adults, they are unable to hold jobs that require them to take a drug test. Stores near military bases sell these products to men and women in the armed services, making them ineligible for military service. And that is also no accident.
I can't tell you how many times that I have sat down with a family in my office that has tragically lost a son or a daughter because they became addicted to these disguised substances, and it is just heartbreaking to witness. It is heartbreaking to have those conversations, and, yet, they keep coming to my office. We keep hearing their stories.
There are young people who no longer walk this Earth. They will never graduate. They will never go to college. They will never start a career. They will never get married. They will never have children. And they will never get the chance to experience the life that was ahead of them because these dangerous substances robbed them of their future.
And I am appalled at the well-oiled, slick lobbying machine--which is very well connected in this town, by the way--that has chosen to wage this surreptitious war against our efforts to protect American children.
So let me be clear to my colleagues. I am not going to back down on this. I am not going to waver. I am not going to stop until this life- threatening loophole is closed permanently.
And we are going to have this fight before the end of this Congress, and I can assure you that I am not going to stop fighting to protect American children.
And I have already had numerous conversations with the White House about this issue, and I am willing to have a larger conversation about marijuana. We may not agree, but I will have the conversation.
But I want to make one thing really, really clear: Making THC intoxicating substances readily accessible to our kids is an entirely different issue from the medical marijuana movement.
Today, we are talking about unregulated hemp products being sold on the shelves of nearly every corner store in America. These intoxicating substances--they are hiding in plain sight, and they are putting our kids at risk.
Parents should never have to face the fear that sending their child into a convenience store for a snack or a treat could mean that that child walks out with a product that can get them high.
And that is not too much to ask. It is just common sense. And it is our responsibility to make sure that the millions of parents that we represent--that they can trust the product sitting on store shelves, that they are safe for their kids.
I am not here to obstruct the Senate for the sake of obstruction. I am here because I have a duty to the millions of parents in North Carolina who have sent me to Washington to be their voice and, above all, to protect their children.
To every parent in North Carolina: I hear you. I stand with you. You have my word I am not going to back down, and I am not going to stop fighting until we get this right.
This is a public health crisis that deserves this Senate's immediate attention. Our children should never be the testing ground for an industry willing to exploit a loophole in Federal law for profit.
We need to strip this amendment from the continuing resolution and regulate these harmful substances for exactly what they are, not what the industry wants to call it.
So if substances cause intoxication--like marijuana--then it should be regulated as such, not given a free pass as hemp. There is no loophole worth putting a child's well-being at risk.
I yield the floor.
Social Security (Executive Session)
Mr. President, I have been coming to this floor talking about Social Security. No offense, but you look like, with that gray hair of yours, you might be on Social Security. I am thinking that might be the case.
But a lot of people who are watching right now are on Social Security. Why? Like 75 million Americans are, and this should be important to Congress because in 6 years, Social Security goes insolvent.
And when that happens, those folks watching right now who are on Social or anybody who is watching who is going to be on Social--which I hope includes everybody in this room, including the young people who are our pages--they will get a 22- to 28.5-percent cut in their benefits.
Let me say that again. In 6 years, when the Social Security trust fund goes insolvent, by law, there will be a 22- to 28.5-percent cut in the benefits that people on Social Security receive--from now until eternity.
And folks say: No, no, no, we will just raise taxes. We will just pay for it. We won't cut benefits. We will just raise taxes.
If we do that, according to the actuaries, we have to raise payroll taxes 40 percent. So think about that family who is struggling to make ends meet. They notice that they are paying a payroll tax, and now that goes up 40 percent.
Over the course of the year, that can be thousands of dollars that they don't have in their pocket to pay for their groceries, their gasoline, the time to be together on a special night, hopefully, putting some away for savings. That won't be there because, instead of cutting benefits, we are going to raise taxes.
And then a third group says: No, no, we are just going to borrow the money.
The Congressional Budget Office has looked at it. If we just try and borrow our way out of here, they say the amount of debt accumulated is so large, their models cannot calculate the destabilizing effect upon the U.S. economy.
What does that mean? Interest rates sky-high, can't afford a car, can't afford to buy a house. You can't afford to buy a house, so no one is employed building houses. No one is employed building houses, so no one is making shingles. No one is cutting wood, so no one is shipping lumber from here to there. That has ramifications for each of us. We need a better solution.
But the problem is that we have lacked a sense of urgency of fixing Social Security now. I say we need to have that urgency. It is almost like we are telling our seniors: We built a bridge for Social Security, but, by the way, it is about to lose a step. And on that last step, ``woo, boom.'' And Congress sits there and says: We will get to it someday.
It is time for Congress to do its job. It is time for Congress to get serious about something affecting not just the folks in this, who look as if they are elderly, but folks of all ages who will be affected because one day we will all, hopefully, be able to access Social Security.
Now, the good news is, today we had a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the PROMISE Act. Dick Durbin--a Democratic Senator, the whip for the Democrats and their leadership, been here for a long time--he has got a bill. Bill Cassidy is the cosponsor, a conservative Republican. We have got a bill called the PROMISE Act that doesn't say how Social Security is going to be fixed; it sets up a process by which we would consider how to fix Social Security--a process that, ideally, would give a product for the Senate and the House to consider sometime later in the year. Instead of saying we will get to it someday, we get to it this Congress.
By the way, this process is transparent, with input from anybody who wishes to have an input. And we are not saying what the solution is going to be. We are saying: Come up with a solution. But, by the way, if the Senate doesn't like it or if the Senate Finance Committee doesn't like it, they can replace it or, if an individual Member-- Bernie Sanders has a bill. If Bernie doesn't like the product, he can offer
And so we are not prescribing a solution. We are just trying to generate a process by which the Senate will consider how to rescue Social Security.
Now, what was good about the hearing, AARP was there. And AARP, represented by Nancy LeaMond, came out against the PROMISE Act.
I am thinking to myself, Wait a second. All we are doing is setting up a process. We are not saying it has to look like this, the solution. We are setting up a process whereby Congress does its job, and we are forced to come up with something that would rescue Social Security for AARP's members as well as all other Americans.
And so this is kind of the questions I had with Ms. LeaMond. And at the end of it, she said that they could support what I am about to propose.
I said: Ms. LeaMond, do your 38 million members, do they want a benefit cut that would--I am paraphrasing, condensing--would your 38 million members want a Social Security System which is fully funded and is not threatened with a 22- to 28-percent benefit cut?
She answers: No, they don't want a benefit cut.
Would they like a Social Security System fully funded?
Yes, they would.
Is AARP developing a plan to do so?
We are not developing our own plan at this time.
So they want it fully funded. They don't like the PROMISE Act, setting up a process that would lead to a solution, but they are not coming up with their own plan. They are just objecting to people who are coming up with a process to develop a plan.
So I go on to say, to condense it: It seems like what you object to is that, in the PROMISE Act, it is not Senators and Representatives doing the initial analysis, it is a Social Security Commission.
And she says: Basically, yes, that is true.
So I said: If we take out the Social Security Commission and we put together a bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives to start considering all the plans--Senator Whitehouse's plan, Senator Sanders' plan, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Moreno's plan, the Cassidy-Durbin plan--would you support that?
And she said: We would want to talk to you about that.
And I pressed her on that. Wait. You want to talk to us about it? I need a yes or a no.
It is like asking somebody to be married. When you ask somebody: Will you marry me, you don't say: Well, let's talk about it. You say, Hey, dear, either you are going to marry me or you are not. If not, I am out of here. But if you want to, let's get married.
So kind of putting it that way--I didn't ask her to marry me--but I did say: Wait a second. We are going to have a 22- to 28-percent cut in benefits if we do nothing. Your people don't want a cut in benefits. We are talking about a regular-order process, which you say you want, with Representatives and Senators coming together where you would have input, your members would have input, this is--and then bring it back to the Senate Finance Committee for a week of hearings and then bring it to the Senate floor for a vote. Could you support that?
If it is a regular order, which is what it sounds like, yes--meaning they could support it.
Now, I love that. AARP likes what I am about to say.
I have heard that they and others are concerned about the PROMISE Act and how the PROMISE Act would, first, ask a group from the Social Security Advisory Board to come up with a plan.
So to replace the PROMISE Act, I am going to introduce a Senate resolution. The Senate resolution does exactly what I just said. It would immediately--or within a week or two--impanel a group of Senators, invite the House of Representatives to join.
It is a Senate resolution, but we would invite them to join. And we would spend the next 2 months considering all the things that have been proposed to fix Social Security. And we would have open hearings. We would get as much public comment as possible. We would come up with two different proposals and, by the end of September, ask the Social Security actuaries to score these proposals. Does it actually fix Social Security? That would be our goal. And we would start as soon as possible.
We can't wait to get to it someday, Mr. President. We have got to get to it now. There needs to be a sense of urgency. We need to do this like yesterday; if not yesterday, how about tomorrow? And AARP said they could support that process.
And it does go through regular order. All it does is establish a time agreement where, after the products are delivered, they are to be considered by the Senate Finance Committee, and they would come to the Senate floor for further consideration.
I am inviting the House with this resolution, so they also could participate through the Ways and Means Committee. They would have to. That is the whole point.
I would love to have them vote on the resolution, too, but they have been out since July 23. And it is too important to wait to come back until September. Let us pass it in the Senate, pass it in the Senate and invite them to join us, and then that way we could have these hearings through August and September and deliver a product at the beginning of October to the Social Security actuaries to be scored. And then we could consider it.
And by the way, it may be that the products developed are not what the Senate Finance Committee wants. Senator Bernie Sanders could bring his proposal and offer it as an alternative. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Moreno, who have got a plan, bipartisan plan, could bring their plan. Or Senator Wyden spoke about his plan; his plan could be offered because we are not, in this resolution, dictating an outcome. We are dictating a process whereby their proposals can be heard. And in that, we can serve the American people.
What we don't want to do is to delay any further because every year we delay, the taxes get higher or the cuts get deeper or the debt gets bigger in order to fix this problem.
What we are doing right now is only setting up a process where Sanders and Wyden and Warren and Moreno and Cassidy and Durbin and Wyden can have their proposals heard.
Mr. President, I am introducing this resolution--I guess I am. We are doing a hotline right now. We are in the process of doing this.
And if you are watching on C-SPAN or somehow seeing this, contact your Senator. Ask them to support this resolution because all it does is set up a process and then demands that Congress does its job. Don't give Congress a free pass on getting into it someday.
I will finish by saying this: I was once given a compliment by both Lindsey Graham at one time and Bernie Sanders at the other, and I will kind of do it with Lindsey's accent: Bill, you are a lousy politician. You are a good Senator, but you are a lousy politician.
I think I should probably take that as a compliment.
So I am a lousy politician. I think right now we all should be lousy politicians. We should all be good Senators. Let us run to the problem. And the problem is the Social Security System is going insolvent. That will lead up to a 28.5-percent benefit cut for seniors if we follow the law. Let us be good Senators. Let us be good Senators and solve this problem beginning now.
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 majority leader.
