A resolution recognizing October 2019 as "National Women's Small Business Month".

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, if you had to pick a country--anywhere in the world--where you faced a serious illness, you are likely to pick the United States. Here we have some of the greatest hospitals, doctors, and some of the greatest research institutions in the world. In some other countries, they certainly have good medical care, but if you could only pick one, I certainly would pick this country, the United States of America. That is why it is kind of surprising to learn that when it comes to some basic indicators of how well we are doing in the United States compared to other countries, there are some surprising answers.

We are facing a public health crisis in this country today that is often overlooked and ignored, and it is one I am sure will touch each and every one of us. It is the issue of maternal and infant health.

Too often in our country, new mothers and their babies--especially women and babies of color--are dying from completely preventable health complications. Take this statistic to heart: The United States is only 1 of 13 countries in the world where the death rate of new mothers is worse today than it was 25 years ago. How can it be possible that in the United States of America, mothers are dying at a rate worse than it was 25 years ago? Nationwide, more than 700 women die every year as a result of pregnancy. More than 70,000 others experience severe, near- fatal complications. In my State of Illinois, 73 women die every year due to pregnancy-related complications, and 70 percent of those deaths are preventable.

Not only are we losing these new moms, we are losing their babies. Every year, more than 23,000 infants die in the United States largely due to factors that could be prevented. Some of them are birth defects which could be detected in utero, preterm birth, low birth rate, and maternal complications. Here is a startling statistic. The United States of America--our home; this great Nation of plenty--ranks 32 out of 35 wealthy Nations when it comes to infant mortality. Is it possible? If so, what are we going to do about it?

The tragedy of maternal and infant mortality is even more pronounced when you look at mothers of babies of color. Black infants in America are twice as likely to die as White infants. That racial disparity is greater today than it was in the year 1850. Nationwide, women of color are three to four times more likely than White women to die as a result of their pregnancy. In Illinois, African-American women are six times more likely than White women to die of pregnancy-related complications.

Something has to be done. That is why, this week, I joined with Congresswoman Robin Kelly, Senator Duckworth, and others introducing what we call the MOMMA's Act. First and foremost, our bill would expand the length of time a new mom can keep her Medicaid healthcare coverage. More than half of the babies born my State of Illinois are to mothers who are covered by Medicaid--health insurance for those who are not wealthy and don't have access to private health insurance. The Medicaid Program covers more than half of the babies and mothers as they go through the birthing process.

Do you know what happens to Medicaid under the current law? Two months after the baby is born, the

mothers are cut off. Our bill would expand that to a year. Given that 60 percent of maternal deaths occur in the weeks and months after delivery, it is imperative that these new moms have the protection of Medicaid longer than 60 days.

We understand that many States' Medicaid Programs, including my own, are strapped for cash. Our bill will pay for itself by increasing Federal tobacco taxes. That is right. This Senator just called for an increase in taxes. You bet I did. The last time we dramatically increased the Federal tobacco tax was to create the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Is it worth it for kids to be born healthy and live to their full terms in life? Of course.

Given that Big Tobacco and its vaping interest have made billions of dollars at the expense of children and, I might add, of the African- American community, we believe they should help pay for this undertaking. As I said, in 2009 that is exactly what we did to create the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Next, the MOMMA Act would improve access to doulas. Too often, Black women are not listened to or taken seriously by healthcare providers. Doulas can help to provide education, advocacy, and support for women whose voices are often ignored.

To this point, our bill would also improve implicit bias and cultural competency training among healthcare providers. Sadly, the United States is still struggling with racial bias in healthcare.

Finally, our bill would improve hospital coordination and the reporting on maternal health outcomes, and it would ensure the widespread adoption and implementation of services to improve care.

If you have listened to the speech so far, you are probably thinking there is one thing he didn't mention--that many of those African- American women are in poverty, that they are low-income women. That probably explains why they don't have adequate care during their pregnancies or adequate care for their new children.

That is what I had concluded, but it is wrong. The statistics I have given you about racial disparity do not link up with one's economic status. Even African-American mothers who have high incomes and high educations are facing the same threats of maternal mortality. It is not driven by income or poverty. There is something more to the story. Don't we owe it to ourselves to look at it?

There are issues that divide this Chamber, and one of the issues, of course, is abortion. There are people with differing views on both sides of the aisle. It is always a contentious debate, but can't we all agree--pro-choice and pro-life--that we ought to focus on this, on the mothers who are delivering babies, to make sure that the mom survives and that the baby survives? That is what this act is all about, the MOMMA Act.

There are 23,000 infants and 700 new moms who die each year in the United States--some of the worst statistics in the world. We could prevent them with screenings, interventions, and the right healthcare. On a bipartisan basis, I can think of no better way to help babies and moms than to keep them alive and healthy, and that is what the MOMMA Act would do.

women's history month

Mr. President, on June 26, 1913, on a beautiful day in Springfield, IL, Governor Edward Dunne signed into law a bill making Illinois the first State east of the Mississippi where women could vote.

It was not equal voting rights, to be sure.

The new law gave Illinois women the right to vote only for Presidential electors and most local offices--but not for Governor, State representatives or Members of Congress. Still, it was historic.

Word of the milestone sped around the world.

When the legendary Chicago humanitarian Jane Addams--the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize--announced the news at an international suffragette conference in Budapest, delegates roared with approval.

The suffragettes' battle to achieve even limited voting rights was long--it took nearly 60 years--and bitterly fought.

The first time the suffragettes took their campaign to Chicago's street corners, in 1910, they were ignored by some and derided by many--including many women.

When Illinois suffragettes traveled by train to Washington in 1913 to lobby President Woodrow Wilson for voting rights for all American women, their train stopped at Harper's Ferry, WV--this same place where fiery abolitionist John Brown made his stand against slavery.

As they spoke publicly for voting rights, the women were pelted with snowballs by men and boys, but they didn't back down.

In Washington, D.C., suffragettes from Illinois and other States encountered angry mobs and police who refused to intervene.

More than 100 women ended up in hospitals. Still, the women didn't retreat.

In 1914, 200,000 women registered to vote in Chicago, and eight women ran for aldermanic seats.

Five years later, on June 10, 1919, Illinois became the first State in the Nation to ratify the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving all American women the right to vote in all elections.

That is a distinction we are proud of. By 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified by the necessary two-thirds of States.

Next year, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the women's right to vote in America.

As this Women's History Month draws to a close, I want to take a few moments to recall the courageous women who have helped advance the cause of freedom in my State and in our Nation and the women who continue to shape our Nation's shared destiny.

This Congress--the 116th Congress--includes more women than any Congress in our Nation's history. In the House, America's first woman Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, returned to her leadership post with 102 women as her colleagues.

Here in the Senate, we now have 25 women Senators--the most in our Nation's history.

The congressional delegation from my home State of Illinois also has more women members than ever before--including the youngest African- American woman ever elected to Congress: Representative Lauren Underwood, but we still have a long way to go to reach true gender equality in America.

This Congress may include record numbers of women, but women still make up only 25 percent of the Senate and less than that--a little over 23 percent--in the House. Those numbers ought to be higher.

The number of women serving in State legislatures has quintupled since 1971. Women now make up nearly 29 percent of State legislatures today.

In Illinois, women make up one-third of the General Assembly. That's progress, but all States--including Illinois--can and must do a better job of recruiting, supporting, and electing women leaders.

Women are making history in other professions and other ways, too.

More than 200,000 women serve in the U.S. military today, and America has 1.6 million women veterans. My friend and fellow Senator from Illinois, Tammy Duckworth, is one of those veterans. She is amazing. She lost both legs when a Blackhawk helicopter she was co-piloting was shot down in Iraq. As soon as she healed from her injuries, she asked: ``What else can I do to help other veterans and help my country?''

I encourage the Department of Defense to do more to harness the patriotism and talent of American women by opening more combat roles to women.

It has been said before, and I agree: You can measure a nation's character and its hopes for a better future by how it treats women and girls.

While America has made great progress, in gender equality, especially in the last two generations, we still have far to go.

It has been nearly 60 years since President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law in 1963. Yet American women in general still earn only 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. For women of color, the gap is even greater; African American women earn only 61 cents, and Latina women earn only 53 cents for every dollar a White

man makes. These disparities persist even among women and men who do the same or comparable work. That is wrong, and we need to close the pay fairness gap.

Many women across the country still lack access to affordable healthcare, including reproductive health care services.

Roe v. Wade was decided more than 40 years ago, but attacks on access have limited a woman's right to choose in many States, and too many women, especially women of color, are dying during or shortly after childbirth.

Here is a sobering fact: The United States is one of only 13 countries in the world where the maternal mortality rate is worse now than it was 25 years ago. Every year, more than 700 women in our Nation--most of them women of color--die as a result of their pregnancies, with more than 60 percent of these deaths being completely preventable.

This is unacceptable. Having a baby anywhere, especially in the United States, should not be a death sentence. We must do better.

The Equal Rights Amendment has been waiting for passage since the 1920s. My home State of Illinois finally ratified it last year.

Here is an idea. Let us work together to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in this Congress.

For the 100th anniversary of women's voting rights in America let's pass the ERA. If we truly believe in gender equality, let's put it in writing in the U.S. Constitution.

Let's not just celebrate Women's History Month; let's build on women's historical successes and make this an even more perfect Union.

Mueller Report

Last Friday, Attorney General William Barr announced that Special Counsel Bob Mueller had submitted a lengthy report from his investigation to the Attorney General.

On Sunday, Attorney General Barr sent another letter to Congress summarizing Mr. Barr's view of the ``principal conclusions'' of the Mueller report.

This letter is very troubling, particularly because the Attorney General inserted his own judgment about potential obstruction of justice by the President rather than letting the Mueller report speak for itself.

I have said repeatedly that I trust Bob Mueller. I believed he could be trusted to do a thorough and fair investigation into what happened with Russian meddling in the 2016 election. I still feel that way.

We have now heard Attorney General Barr's description of what Special Counsel Mueller found, but, respectfully, that is not good enough.

The American people need to hear Special Counsel Mueller's description of what he found.

Attorney General Barr is a political appointee. The reason a special counsel was appointed in this case was to take politics out of the investigation.

The Mueller report needs to be made public without delay. That is what we need to have confidence in the outcome of this investigation. The House of Representatives voted 420 to 0 for making the report public. Even the President claims he wants the report to be public, but we are already seeing an effort by the White House and Republicans to walk back from transparency of the Mueller report.

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the White House will ``want to make sure we're protecting the office of the presidency; have to look at things like protecting executive privilege and sources and methods.''

Let us be clear--We need to see the full Mueller report, not just summaries and not just page after page of redacted text. The sooner this happens, the sooner we can reassure the American people about the integrity of the process. The American people deserve no less.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, on Monday the Trump administration doubled down on their assault on American healthcare by supporting an effort to completely eliminate the healthcare law through the courts. People scratched their heads, saying: Are they really doing this after trying for 2 years unsuccessfully and after losing the election?

Yes, they are. The action is no small matter. The Trump administration's radical support for the wholesale elimination of the healthcare law would send our healthcare system into certain chaos. If the Trump administration has its way, it would send premiums soaring for millions of Americans. It would revoke coverage for tens of millions more who gained coverage through medical expansions. It would strike protections for an estimated 133 million adults in America who have preexisting medical conditions, even people who get coverage from their employer.

Let me say that again. There are 133 million Americans who have preexisting medical conditions. If the Trump administration has its way, the insurance company could just tell those 133 million and their families: We cut you off. We don't want to pay for your insurance anymore because it is too expensive. Your daughter has cancer. Your wife has severe diabetes.

It is a disgrace. Let's not forget that the system would impose billions of dollars in new prescription drug costs on seniors in Medicare. The consequences are dire. That is why we are introducing an amendment to ensure that not a dime of the American people's money goes to the Trump administration's fight to destroy the entire healthcare system. Not one cent of the Department of Justice should be used to hurt Americans like this.

Donald Trump campaigned on ``End ObamaCare.'' Then, the Republican Party--and even we thought Trump himself--saw they had no replacement. This repeal and replace had no replacement. They couldn't come up with one.

What is the Republican Party now standing for? Here it is. ``The Republican Party will become the party of healthcare,'' says Donald Trump. Absolutely not. Here is what his tweet should say if he is being honest and telling the truth to the American people: The Republican Party will become the party that ended your healthcare.

You cannot have a situation in the Trump administration where President Trump says one thing and their Attorney General goes to court to do the opposite. You cannot or should not have a situation where Republican Senators get up and say we need to expand healthcare for people, and then they say not a peep when their own President tries to strip it away from them.

President Trump says the Republican Party wants to be the party of healthcare. Well, I say, God help the middle class if Republicans are the party of healthcare. What, dare I ask, is their plan? Let me ask Leader McConnell and every Republican Senator, and I hope their constituents will ask them, too, because this is the No. 1 issue across the country.

We should ask our Republican friends and the President: What is your plan to deal with prescription drug costs?

Costs are at an alltime high. Instead, they are supporting this lawsuit that would impose billions of dollars in prescription drug costs on seniors.

We should ask President Trump and Leader McConnell: What is your plan to get more people covered on high-quality health insurance that they can actually afford at a time when premiums are still rising because of sabotage by the Trump administration? How will they bring relief?

Instead, our Republican colleagues, by their silence, are assenting to a lawsuit that would kick tens of millions of people off insurance.

I ask President Trump, Senator McConnell, and our Republican colleagues: What is your plan to protect people with preexisting conditions?

Over and over again, the Republicans say they support keeping safeguards for preexisting conditions. Instead, they are supporting this lawsuit or, by their silence, assenting to their party's President's lawsuit that completely wipes away the protections for preexisting conditions.

The American people deserve answers because President Trump insisted yesterday that he has a ``plan that is far better than ObamaCare.'' We all know that that is not true. He just talks off the top of his head. He said it at the lunch.

President Trump, what is your plan that is better than ObamaCare? You may not have all of the details, but give us the main points.

When you are President, you have a responsibility, as people's lives are at stake. They need healthcare. It is not for you to simply say ``we have a better plan,'' file a lawsuit that gets rid of the existing plan, and then give people no inclination--no clue--as to what that plan is.

Why is this happening?

One, we know that President Trump has no fidelity issues. He talks off the top of his head. He doesn't know what the issues are all about. Regarding issues, he is the least informed President we have ever had in American history. He just says what he thinks sounds nice at the moment, and then his administration does the hard-right thing all of the time--the extreme thing--that has a narrow special interest but is not in the interest of the American people.

Mick Mulvaney

Madam President, President Trump's actual administration seems to be far to the right of even the mainstream of the Republican Party. Why does that happen? Well, here is one reason.

Mick Mulvaney is now Chief of Staff and was the head of the OMB, but he still has a lot of say over that Agency. It was reported last night that it was Mick Mulvaney, against the advice of others, who convinced President Trump to take this radical position on healthcare. So we all know who is holding the strings, who is putting in President Trump's head these hard-right ideas that his administration continually effectuates and of which he almost never backs off. We now seem to be living in the Mick Mulvaney administration.

He is the same person who said we need to end Medicare as we know it. That should send a chill down every American's spine. Let me repeat that. The Mick Mulvaney administration, of which President Trump is a willing follower, if you will, says: We should end Medicare as we know it.

Do Americans believe that? No. Do Republicans believe that? Most of them do not. Yet this man, Mulvaney--not elected--puts ideas in President Trump's head, and that is what President Trump does. Make no mistake about it--the ultimate responsibility is President Trump's, but when you wonder why the words the President says differ from so many administration policies--and it is the policies that are hurting Americans--the reason is Mulvaney.

Here is what the Mulvaney administration looks like: extreme budget cuts to the programs that the middle-class families depend on--cuts to the Departments of Education and Transportation; severe cuts to the Office of Science; severe cuts to the EPA; cuts to programs that are most in need, SNAP; faster cuts to Medicare; and repeated government shutdowns. It was reported yesterday that the administration is considering no more Fannie and Freddie--no more help for the middle class to buy a home. This is another great Mulvaney idea.

Mick Mulvaney was one of the five most hard-right people in the House of Representatives. He was one of the authors of the previous shutdown. His views are far, far away from the average American's. Donald Trump, who gets full blame for Mulvaney's ideas because he is enacting them, seems to be following him lock, stock, and barrel. If the President had actually campaigned on these Mulvaney ideas in 2016, he would have been roundly defeated.

If he goes to Michigan tonight and talks about these Mulvaney ideas, he will get booed even by his own supporters, for he enacts the Mulvaney ideas. His Justice Department is now suing to get rid of healthcare, which is something Mulvaney has always advocated for.

President Trump, your administration is now the Mulvaney administration.

That should terrify every single American, and it should terrify any thoughtful Republican Senator.

Make no mistake about it--Donald Trump's hard-right administration, which so hurts the middle class and so helps the narrow, wealthy, special, and corporate interests--the brain child of many of these ideas--comes from Mr. Mulvaney. He puts it into the cipher of Donald Trump. Donald Trump enacts it, and the American people suffer.

Puerto Rico

Madam President, on Puerto Rico, it has been 18 months since Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma devastated the people of Puerto Rico and the surrounding islands.

These were extraordinary disasters that required an extraordinary response, but President Trump has hardheartedly said that the island of Puerto Rico has received too much aid. He complained that the U.S. Government had already given $91 billion in relief.

Mr. President, stop making up your own facts, for $90 billion is the amount of damage these storms caused. The people of Puerto Rico are suffering. They have received a sliver of the funding they need.

It is hard to fathom the depths of cruelty that it takes for the President to treat the people of Puerto Rico this way. They are American citizens.

The Democrats have taken action. The House passed a comprehensive disaster bill 2 months ago. It would have provided aid to Puerto Rico and to the other States that are hurt. We want to help all of those States, as that is what Americans do, but Donald Trump has told our Senate Republicans: No aid for Puerto Rico. Instead of standing up and saying that it is wrong, that it is not fair, they seem to be going along. This is shameful. We have an opportunity to change that by fixing the disaster bill that is currently on the floor.

I would tell our Republican friends that we want to help people in the States where there is flooding in the Midwest, where there are wildfires in the West, where there are droughts, but the bill they are trying to pass here is never going to pass the House. They know that. To get disaster aid for the country, which is well needed in so many places, our Republican friends are going to have to tell Donald Trump his cold, cruel-hearted, and divisive policy must fall, his policy of not letting any of the already allocated aid be distributed to Puerto Rico.

Mueller Report

Madam President, on one final matter--Mueller--yesterday and for the second time this week, Leader McConnell blocked our request that was made by the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein, to make public the full report authored by Special Counsel Mueller.

I thank Senator Feinstein for making the request and for standing up for transparency. As Senator Feinstein said, a four-page summary from a political appointee is hardly a sufficient substitute for Special Counsel Mueller's 2-year investigation. There were reports this morning that the Mueller report is over 300 pages. All we have gotten is a four-page summary by someone who was appointed by the administration and who, before he took office, felt the President could never--almost never--be called for obstruction of justice, which is one of the main parts of the Mueller investigation.

For Mr. Barr to quickly issue a four-page report in his attempt to try to exonerate President Trump and now to delay the release of an over 300-page report that has been written by Mueller so that the American people and we Senators and Congressmen cannot see what was written has too much of the odor of political expediency to help the man who appointed him, President Trump.

The American people have a right to know the full scope of the facts behind Russia's interference in our election. The American people have a right to come to their own conclusions about actions taken by this administration. The American people deserve to have full confidence in the integrity of our system and in the impartiality of the rule of law, and only the full release of the report can affirm that.

What I am saying here shouldn't be controversial. In the House, it passed 420 to nothing--the resolution to make the full report public-- voted for by such partisan defenders of the President's, like Representative Jordan and Representative Meadows.

Transparency, we all know, is all the more important because the Attorney General has made no secret of his antipathy toward this investigation and appears intent on holding the report secret for as long as possible. I guess his hope is to let the dust settle, and then no one will pay attention. Well, he is wrong about that. He is prolonging this. Remember, this Attorney General made clear that he was hostile to the special counsel and was opposed to Mueller's inquiry into obstruction of justice. Then he opines about it 2 days later without showing anybody any backing? That is so wrong.

According to press reports, in his phone call yesterday with Mr. Nadler, Mr. Barr would not even commit to releasing the whole report at any time. He wouldn't commit to a date. He was not even willing to disclose how many pages were in the special counsel's report, as if that were some kind of state secret.

As I said, since that conversation, there have been reports that it is over 300 pages. If it is, it is just disgraceful for Mr. Barr, who was able to read through it and summarize it in 48 hours, to now say he can't release it because he is busy culling it.

The Attorney General must end the stalling and the secrecy. It is not going to be a happy opening chapter for the Attorney General when history looks back on what he has done. We should make the report public now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, tonight I am going to speak about Saudi Arabia's brutal murder of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This despicable act has been condemned by the Congress, by the American people, and by governments and citizens around the world, but Donald Trump and members of his administration will not talk about it. They seem to think it is just fine to sweep this atrocity under the rug. I am here to describe why the Congress must not let that happen and how I intend to do everything in my power to make sure it does not happen.

The Senate is now debating the Defense Authorization Act, which this year includes the Intelligence Authorization Act. I serve on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Intelligence bill that is part of the defense legislation contains an amendment I offered with my colleagues, Senator Heinrich, Senator Harris, Senator Feinstein, and Senator Bennet. That amendment requires that the Director of National Intelligence provide a public report identifying those who carried out, participated in, ordered, or were otherwise responsible for the killing of Mr. Khashoggi.

Last Wednesday, the United Nations released a detailed report on the Khashoggi murder. The report described how even before Mr. Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Saudi officials had meticulously planned his killing.

A team of more than a dozen Saudi agents were organized. Their travel and accommodations were designed to mask the purpose of their trip to Turkey. The consulate office where the killing took place was cleared of staff. In the moments before Mr. Khashoggi's arrival at the consulate, the Saudi agents were recorded discussing how to kill and dismember him and dispose of his body.

They referred to Mr. Khashoggi as ``the sacrificial animal.'' The report even describes the recorded sounds of the killing and the dismemberment.

Who bears ultimate responsibility for this brutal, horrendous, despicable crime? The U.N. report stated that every expert--every expert--who was consulted found it inconceivable that an operation of this scale could be implemented without the Crown Prince. They found that, at the very least, being aware that some kind of criminal act was to be conducted against Mr. Khashoggi was, in their view, clearly, something the Crown Prince knew about.

The U.N. then concluded that there was ``credible evidence warranting further investigation of high-level Saudi officials' individual liability, including the Crown Prince.'' I have read that directly from the U.N. report.

The Senate has also spoken on this in a resolution passed unanimously. The Senate stated that it believes the Crown Prince is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Donald Trump and his administration refuse to discuss this publicly. Last November, Donald Trump said the intelligence community was continuing to assess information about the killing, but as for the question of whether the Crown Prince had knowledge, the President said only: ``Maybe he did and maybe he didn't.'' Then he said: ``We may never know all the facts.''

So we have, in the Intelligence Committee, something at the beginning of the year called an open threats hearing. It is a public hearing. At that open threats hearing, I asked the CIA Director whether the Senate's unanimous belief that the Crown Prince was responsible was correct. She acknowledged that the Khashoggi murder was premeditated. In terms of who was responsible, she referred us to what the Saudis had said publicly, but Director Haspel said she would not disclose to the public what the intelligence community thought with respect to who was involved in the brutal murder of Mr. Khashoggi. That is why there is a provision in the Intelligence Authorization Act that we are considering as a part of this Defense bill, requiring a public report on the Khashoggi killing. The provision is there so, finally, more than 8 months after the murder, there will finally be some real accountability.

Now, those who may be following these remarks or this discussion may ask: Why does this matter? Why is this important? It matters because the Trump administration has bent over backward to please the dictator running Saudi Arabia.

The U.N. report recommended an FBI investigation of the Khashoggi murder. Donald Trump made it clear that he is not interested in that either. It is part of a pattern. In one of the most dismal and disappointing responses I have seen to any national security concern, this administration refuses to look into whether Saudi officials helped Saudi criminal suspects flee the United States to escape justice.

The administration continues to turn a blind eye to the Saudi Government's grotesque human rights abuses. Donald Trump vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have ended U.S. support for a devastating and seemingly endless war in Yemen. The President recently invoked what I consider to be a phony emergency to go around Congress and sell arms to the Saudis. Example after example, whether it is within our borders, in a consulate office in Istanbul, or elsewhere, this administration's record is the same. They will help cover up the Saudi Government's brutality.

Jamal Khashoggi, besides being a U.S. resident, was a journalist who wrote for a U.S. newspaper. The absence of accountability for his murder sends a horrendous message that as far as the Trump administration is concerned, it is open season on journalists. Donald Trump is making this clear when he cozies up to dictators cracking down on journalists in Russia, Hungary, and the Philippines. That doesn't even include his affection for the dictator of North Korea, where we all know there is no press at all.

Donald Trump's contempt for a free press in the United States is as apparent as it is dangerous. The White House and Pentagon have simply stopped all press briefings. Donald Trump has threatened to use the taxation and antitrust powers of the government to punish the media when they dare to criticize him. At his rallies, he has whipped up support against the media to the point where people are threatening journalists in attendance. Almost every day, he dismisses any media outlet that accurately describes what he disagrees with, with respect to their comments, the corruption in his administration, as fake news. Recently, he accused journalists at the New York Times of treason after they dared to publish a story that displeased him.

The Trump administration created a secret list of journalists it targeted for tracking and questioning--journalists who were reporting on the administration's cruel treatment of migrants at the southern border. Border agents have even detained journalists--American citizens--and subjected them to prying and detailed questions about their travel and their work.

Most ominously, over and over, he called journalists enemies of the people. That is language that is designed to justify state repression or vigilante violence against journalists. It is also language that comes, unfortunately, directly from the worst dictators in history. That is based on the record, based on the public statements I am walking through tonight. That is what Donald Trump thinks of the press, which is why the Saudis told him that Jamal Khashoggi was an enemy of the state.

As far as I can tell, the President seems to believe that first amendment freedom of the press basically should only apply to people who say nice things about him.

I don't know of any such provision in the First Amendment about which the Founding Fathers felt so strongly. They thought freedom of the press was almost as important as anything else people could imagine. The Founding Fathers didn't in any way suggest the First Amendment applies to discussing only nice things about someone who is a public official. Reporting facts to the public on corruption in the administration and the President's tax cheating, on the administration policy of locking up migrant children in cages without beds, soap, or toothbrushes--Donald Trump evidently considers all of this to be a treasonous act.

The brutal, premeditated murder of Jamal Khashoggi is, in my view, the canary in the coal mine for press freedom around the world. These are dangerous times for journalists. It is already a dangerous career in many countries. If dictators see the killing of Jamal Khashoggi as a signal that they, too, can get away with cold-blooded murder, then the question is, How many more journalists and dissidents are going to die?

That is why, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, I am tonight drawing the line right here. For me, the events of the last week have only highlighted the urgency of this issue. In a nationally televised interview aired just yesterday, Donald Trump was asked repeatedly about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Each time he kept coming back to Saudi money. He said: ``Take their money.'' And he repeated it: ``Take their money.''

I disagree that U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia somehow mean that they have all the leverage and that the United States is helpless, but even more important, the message that impunity for a brutal murder can be bought is both repulsive and dangerous.

Right now, Donald Trump is telling the Saudis and every other dictator in the world that for the right price, you can murder a U.S.- based journalist you don't like. You can dismember his body, and you can make it disappear. As far as Donald Trump is concerned, what we have seen recently is that the lives of journalists are for sale.

In the same interview, Donald Trump was also asked about the U.N.'s call for an investigation into the Khashoggi murder. He made it clear that, again, he would resist any public accountability. He said the murder had already been ``heavily investigated'' and that he had seen ``so many different reports.'' Well, it is time for the American people, the Congress, and everyone around the world fighting for press freedom to see the reports.

Something else happened last week that I thought was also very important for the Senate to reflect on. Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee wrote an extremely important essay in the New York Times. She wrote: ``Washington has chosen not to use its strong ties and leverage with Riyadh to get the Saudis to reveal the truth about Jamal's murder and to ensure those responsible are held accountable.''

Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee described her meetings with Members of Congress who are sympathetic but were embarrassed that nothing had been done, and this is what she concluded:

``I began to feel that Jamal had not only died in Istanbul but also in Washington.''

This must not be the last chapter. The U.S. Congress must demonstrate that the fight for press freedom does not die in the Nation's Capital.

To describe how I intend to proceed here, you have to give a little bit of a sense of how the Intelligence Committee works. The Intelligence Committee accepts as boilerplate that we always keep classified what are called

sources and methods. It is just automatic in the consideration of any business before us and before the Congress. That is because we so admire--I know the Presiding Officer feels this way--we so admire those who work in the intelligence field and in the national security field, and should sources and methods be exposed, we can have people who are helping to keep us safe die. So we put it in every bill.

In order to get my amendment to make sure that we would actually have the American people get the information that the intelligence community has about how Mr. Khashoggi died, I accepted boilerplate language about protecting sources and methods. But I want to be clear--because the intelligence community has, in effect, bobbed and weaved around this issue for some time--that if the intelligence community attempts to use that boilerplate language to avoid real accountability and real transparency, I am going to fight them tooth and nail, and that includes using the procedure, which I will describe tonight, that is available to members of the Senate committee to get information to the American people.

I am going to be specific here just for a moment. I am going to describe section 8 of S. Res. 400, which allows members of the Intelligence Committee to initiate a process that ultimately would permit the Senate to release information over the objection of the President of the United States. I don't make this statement lightly. I don't make threats lightly, and I hope it doesn't come to this.

I hope the intelligence community finally adheres to the intent of the provision in this legislation and tells the American people and the world what it knows about the death of Mr. Khashoggi. But if the intelligence community stonewalls again--once again blocks the truth from the American people--I am not going to rest. The stakes are too high. Press freedom here and around the world must survive. Intimidation and murder cannot be allowed to stand.

I state tonight that I will use S. Res. 400 and every tool at my disposal to finally get this long overdue information about the death of Jamal Khashoggi to the American people.

I yield the floor.

I note that my colleague from Oregon, who is doing important work, is here and I am sure wishes to speak now.

Mr. President, in 2017, I said on the Senate floor that we needed to come together to help rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in the Houston area and that our work was not complete and more work needed to be done. That, unfortunately, still is true today.

It is true also for the damage caused by other natural disasters during the same timeframe that was appropriated by Congress but has not yet found its way to the intended beneficiaries. Although we voted to send billions of dollars to help Texans still reeling from Hurricane Harvey, some of those funds are still needlessly caught up in bureaucratic redtape.

This is not just a phenomenon that affects my State. It affects all of our States. This is not acceptable to me, and it isn't acceptable to the people I represent--all 28 million of them--and it shouldn't be acceptable to Members of the Senate.

This storm ravaged the Texas coast and was the largest rain event in American history, with parts of Southeast Texas seeing 60 inches of rain over about a 5- or 6-day period. It destroyed people's homes, their businesses, and our communities.

In the wake of the storm, we all pulled together in Congress, in an unusually bipartisan manner, to provide billions of dollars in disaster aid. Like I said, it wasn't just for Texas. It was for Florida, Puerto Rico, for wildfires out in California, and other places that suffered from natural disasters.

The dollars we appropriated, and were signed into law by the President, have helped Texans get back to some sense of normalcy, and I am grateful to my colleagues for working together with us to make that happen. What has not been helpful, however, are the unnecessary delays on the part of the Office of Management and Budget in getting the roughly $4 billion in mitigation funds into the hands of State and local communities that desperately need them.

I have searched in vain in the Constitution for where the Office of Management and Budget has the power to veto appropriations bills passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. I can't find it. Yet they are still the impediment to the execution of Congress's intent to get the money to the people who need it.

The intent of Congress was crystal clear in the February 2018 disaster supplemental, when we appropriated about $12 billion of community development block grants for disaster recovery.

As I said, the undue delay is unacceptable, and I am filing an amendment to the disaster relief that is on the floor of the Senate this week to ensure that these funds and other like funds are properly disbursed.

Last month, Governor Abbott, Senator Cruz, and I wrote a letter to the OMB to stop stalling, but so far all we have heard is crickets.

The amendment we will file will start a timer on when the Federal Government must release funds appropriated by Congress. It will give the government bureaucracy up to 90 days to get the money untangled from all the redtape and to get it to the communities that desperately need it. This 90-day rule wouldn't just apply to this particular block of funding; it would apply to any funds that are now being withheld by the Office of Management and Budget that Congress appropriates to these States.

As I said, last time I checked, Congress had the power of the purse, not the Office of Management and Budget. I don't know about the rest of my colleagues, but I am not OK with letting OMB dictate when and how duly appropriated funds are released to the intended beneficiaries.

The disregard of those who are still struggling to rebuild and prepare for future storms by the bureaucrats is appalling. They know the kinds of hardships my constituents are facing, and they know that Hurricane Harvey will not be the last hurricane to hit Texas. It is time to do what is right by our State and local communities who have seen their livelihoods rot in a fleet of floodwater.

It has now been more than a year since President Trump signed a bill that would have sent roughly $4 billion to Texas. Imagine what could have been accomplished with that money in the meantime. They could have repaired wastewater treatment facilities that haven't been fully restored. It could have led to important economic revitalization projects in decimated areas. They could have even relocated or elevated damaged facilities to prepare for the next storm. But, no--those projects are still on hold because the OMB has refused to release the funding.

The 2019 hurricane season is fast approaching, and it is critical we get work done on long-term projects to protect my State and the Texas coast against future storms.

It is difficult to plan for the future with the resources we need being caught up in bureaucratic limbo. We have been waiting to get to the place where before Harvey and after Harvey isn't such a stark difference.

With the inclusion of my amendment, the clock will start ticking on the Office of Management and Budget to do its job and ultimately release these hurricane recovery funds. Texas communities have waited long enough.

Border Security

Mr. President, I want to draw attention to another group of people who need our help, and those are the officers and agents of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Yesterday, Commissioner McAleenan announced that Customs and Border Protection is facing an ``unprecedented humanitarian and border security crisis all along our Southwest border,'' and he provided some alarming statistics.

Yesterday morning, CBP had more than 13,000 migrants under their care. Under normal circumstances, a high number is 4,000. They consider 6,000 to be a crisis, and now they have more than double that. Yesterday, the Commissioner said that we are at a ``breaking point'' along the border.

Frankly, because the American people aren't acquainted with some of the details, they may think that CBP can easily handle 13,000 people in their custody on a given day, but, unfortunately, that is not the case.

CBP's detention facilities are relatively small, built for the short- term detention of single adults. The current immigrant surge from Central America is primarily of children and family units and has put these small facilities at overcapacity levels. Processing times have slowed due to the large number of people being processed and the lack of Border Patrol personnel to process them.

As the Chief of the Border Patrol has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, this is intentional on behalf of the transnational criminal organizations that are responsible for transporting people from Central America to our borders. This is a moneymaking proposition. If you can charge $5,000 or more a head for every person you deliver to our border, that is a big, big deal. These people are not just involved in transporting immigrants. They are engaged in trafficking of human beings for sex or involuntary servitude, and they are also engaged in trafficking drugs.

I will remind all of us that last year, 70,000-plus Americans died from drug overdoses--70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year--according to the Centers for Disease Control. A substantial portion of that was part of the opioid crisis, not just prescription drugs but also synthetic fentanyl as well as heroin. Ninety percent of the heroin that comes into the United States comes across the U.S.- Mexico border. As President Obama himself said in 2014, this is truly a humanitarian and security crisis, but it is on steroids today.

On Monday, CBP had the highest totals of apprehensions in more than a decade, and on Tuesday, they broke that record. Daily averages for border apprehensions are higher than we have seen at any time since 2006.

Last month, CBP apprehended 76,000 people in 1 month on our southern border--the highest monthly total in over

a decade. Yesterday, Commissioner McAleenan, announced that, in March, they are on track to beat that record with 100,000 apprehensions along our southwest border. That is 76,000 apprehensions in February and an estimated 100,000 in March.

As a result of the surge, because the Border Patrol has to do something, 40 percent of the Border Patrol's manpower is now spent processing immigrants and providing care and transportation. In other words, they are not engaged in their primary mission, which is border security, because they are busy handing out juice boxes and diapers to children, as well as processing the immigrants who are providing other transportation.

The Border Patrol simply doesn't have the resources, nor should it be expected to have the resources, to handle this crisis and perform their primary duty, which is to protect our border. We know that detention centers are at or over capacity, and local charities and nongovernmental Agencies are strained, as well, and all of our border communities are being overrun by humanity.

Recently, Senator Cruz and I were down at the Sarita checkpoint to name that checkpoint after a heroic Border Patrol agent who was killed by two illegal aliens. We were approached by the chief of police from McAllen--somebody who is well respected in law enforcement circles in our State--who said that because the Border Patrol is simply unable to process all of these people, and they are being released into those communities or put on a bus and sent to places like San Antonio, they are increasingly worried about public safety. That is notwithstanding the fact that many of our border communities are extraordinarily safe, at least on our side of the border. If you go on the Mexican side of the border, they are some of the most dangerous cities in our hemisphere.

This is having a profound impact on our local communities, on the men and women of the Customs and Border Patrol. Frankly, it should be an embarrassment to us here in this country that we haven't dealt with this in a more timely and more effective way.

Because the cartels have figured this out, people crossing the border today are largely families and unaccompanied minors because of the special way they have to be processed and because of a consent decree called the Flores decision, which says you can't detain them for more than 20 days. That is not enough time to get them in front of an immigration judge in order to adjudicate their asylum claim, so they are released into the interior of the United States. Guess what. Overwhelmingly, they don't show up for their court hearings because they realize they have beat the system. The cartels know that because of the money they make. They are exploiting these vulnerabilities in our laws and in our infrastructure. The only people who can fix that are Congress and the President, working together in a bipartisan way.

I know we have had a big debate over border barriers--walls, fences, you name it--but, frankly, you could build all the barriers you want along our southwest border, and it will not stop this flow of unaccompanied minors and family units because, frankly, they are showing up at the border, and they are turning themselves in. So we need to act.

Two weeks ago, Ms. Nielsen, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said: ``The situation on our southern border has gone from a crisis, to a national emergency, to a near system-wide meltdown.''

Our Democratic colleagues have called this a fake emergency. They have opposed treating this crisis for what it is. It is even more than an emergency; it is a total system failure, and the only people who can fix it are Congress, working with the President. I am not sure how much longer our Democratic colleagues could be in denial when we see this flood of humanity coming across in higher and higher numbers every day.

The issue is staring us in the face. The numbers confirm what we have said all along: This is a border security and humanitarian crisis.

Secretary Nielsen made an important point that our communities, our members of law enforcement, and the immigrants themselves are paying the price for our inaction.

We have heard it from people at the border who know how to fix the problem, and we need to listen. They have told us time and again that it will take a combination of technology, physical infrastructure, and boots on the ground. It will also take legislative action to fill the gaps in our laws that we know exist and are being exploited by the cartels.

I want to commend the men and women of Customs and Border Patrol for working around the clock in a thankless job but in an important job. Frankly, I am embarrassed that they haven't seen more support by the people who represent them in Congress.

We have sent them out on a losing battle unless we can work together here in Congress to give them the resources and the legislative fixes they need.

I want to assure these dedicated men and women that we are trying, but we need their help to talk to their elected Representatives here in Congress. We need Ms. Pelosi to consider this the same humanitarian crisis that President Obama identified back in 2014, when he called it a humanitarian and security crisis. By any measure, it has gotten much, much worse. We need to give this crisis the serious attention that it deserves.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I rise today to discuss transparency in our democracy and security for our elections.

It has been nearly a week since Special Counsel Mueller's report was completed and submitted to the Attorney General of the United States. We still have not seen the report. I have urged the Department of Justice to release the report, and the administration should not delay in producing the report to Congress. We know the American people want to know what is in the report. According to some public opinion polls, nearly 90 percent of them have said they want to know what is in the report. We also know that 420 Members of the House of Representatives voted that the report should be made public.

We cannot get ourselves out of the mode of remembering that a foreign power invaded our election. Some people call it meddling. That is what I do when I call my daughter on a Saturday night and ask her what she is doing. I call it an invasion of our democracy.

We have learned from the intelligence heads under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, including former Senator Coats, who told us that this has happened, and, in fact, the Russians are getting even bolder. That is what he told us. That is why I think it is very important, putting everything else aside, that we find out the facts in this report.

There have been indictments that have come out of this investigation--dozens of indictments. They made it clear that the unprecedented interference in the 2016 election was designed by the Kremlin with the goal of making Americans lose faith in our election system, whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent.

We know from the intelligence heads and from some of the indictments that have been made public that they did this in many ways. We have learned that the Russians tried to hack into the actual election equipment of 21 States and that in Illinois, they got as far as the voter files. What does that mean? If we could get more facts about that since that was actually--the hacking of the campaigns and elections was referenced in Attorney General Barr's four-page letter. Well, if we knew more facts, it might help Senator Lankford and me to pass our bill, the Secure Elections Act. We have the support of Senator Burr and Senator Warner, as well as Senator Harris and Senator Graham. Maybe it would help us convince the leader that we should have a vote on the simple concept of having backup paper ballots and audits. Maybe

it would help us convince the public to put pressure on the White House not to block that bill.

It doesn't matter what political party you are in--we all want to have secure elections. None of us want to have a situation where there is one county or one State in which elections get screwed up because someone hacked into them.

The other thing that we learned and got confirmed in the four-page letter was that we know there was hacking into a political campaign, right? Well, we want to know the facts about that.

Again, as people have noticed, there are a lot of people running for office--not just for President but for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives--and certainly the American people and the people who work in the Congress have the right to know exactly what happened. That was one of the major reasons we had this investigation in the first place.

There was something else that was mentioned in the four-page letter that we all want to have more details about; that is, another way Russia tried to influence our election was through the spread of false propaganda on the internet, right? We have now seen the ads. We have seen them in sworn hearings. One of the ones that I will never forget is one that was Russian sponsored, which was a picture of an African- American woman, and it basically said--I am paraphrasing--``Why wait in line? You can text your vote for Hillary Clinton,'' with a texting number on it. That is a crime. That is illegal. That was one of the ads the Russians put into our system.

We know that they put false issue ads out there to divide Americans-- sometimes from the left, trying to make it like they were looking from the left, and sometimes from the right. They were simply trying to sow discord in our great democracy.

Our democracy is fragile. Our democracy is something that we cherish. Our democracy must be protected. That is why, if we could get this full report, that would help us greatly to perhaps step back and look at the Honest Ads Act. That is a bill which I had with Senator McCain and Senator Warner, and we have a number of Republicans who are actually cosponsoring it in the House of Representatives.

I think getting more details here would help to make the case that before the 2020 election--we know that in 2016 alone, $1.4 billion was spent on internet advertising, on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, and we didn't know who was paying for it. We later found out that some of it was in rubles. How obvious can you get? And then also we didn't even know what the ads were because they just vanished from the internet.

So when we first proposed this bill, people said: Oh, you are trying to regulate. Well, guess what. Things changed after Cambridge Analytica, and we suddenly got growing support for this idea that the same rules that apply to newspaper and TV and radio should apply to internet platforms. Now, a number of the major platforms are doing it themselves, although they vary in what they do and it is a patchwork. Also, major CEOs of these companies are saying they now support this bill.

The time has come--in fact, we are running out of time--to put the rules in place on issue ads and candidate ads. I believe it is not just selfishly what I want to get done; it is something that a lot of people in this Chamber want to get done, and that is, making sure our next election is protected from foreign influence on the propaganda side, on the election security side, and on the hacking side. Getting the full report will help us make the case. It will help us figure out exactly what happened.

As I mentioned, there are many people--420 in the House of Representatives--who said they want to see it. Congress should be able to see the full, unredacted report without delay. We are a coequal branch of government and have received unredacted grand jury and classified information in the past. But more than Congress, the public should be able to see this. That is why the House voted 420 to 0--we don't get that kind of vote on a volleyball resolution--in support of publicly releasing the report. Members standing in the way of this report becoming public will have to explain why to the American people.

We know we can do two things at once in this Chamber or maybe 20 things at once. We know the importance right now of making sure we don't repeal the Affordable Care Act, which is why 2 nights ago I was here at this very desk until late at night reading 100 letters from people who opposed repealing the Affordable Care Act because of the protection it gives them to not get kicked off their health insurance. We know how important it is to finally do something about prescription drugs. We know how important it is to work on advancing an optimistic economic agenda for the people of this country. At the same time, we also have to protect the public's right to know. We have to protect the security in many ways--security of our country abroad, our military-- and make sure we are protecting the very democracy that is at the core of this country. The way to do that is to make sure no foreign power messes with our election.

There are hundreds of pages in this report. There are hundreds of people who were interviewed. All of us are a little in the dark, especially those people who are not on the committees that receive classified information. There are many people who would like to know exactly what went down. If I were the secretary of state in one of our States, whether it be the State of Arkansas or the State of Arizona, I would want to know what happened because I, if I am the secretary of state, am responsible for my State's election security.

We urge the Attorney General to do everything he can to make this report public. Now that the special counsel has completed his investigation, we must see the report.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 24, expressing the sense of Congress that the report of Special Counsel Mueller should be made available to the public and to Congress, which is at the desk; further, that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Reserving the right to object, I would simply point out that this entire investigation was started by the Justice Department under the Republican administration, and then, of course, guided by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was appointed by the President.

I will note that this is a simple resolution to just get the report. We may not agree with the foundation of this investigation, but we are simply trying to get the fruits of the investigation, which I believe will be helpful to this Chamber to figure out what we should do to protect our national security.

We are simply trying to adopt and consider the House resolution, which again was voted on 420 to 0, including all Republicans present. The House voted 420 to 0 to see the report. That is why I was simply hoping that we could do this on a bipartisan basis and try to see the report ourselves.

Therefore, I object.

Madam President, if my Republican colleagues don't want to read the report and they want to rely on a summary, that is their right, and they can make requests in the future. I am sure they can get all of that in the future, but all I am simply asking for right now is that whether you agreed with this investigation or not, the public have the right to see the hundreds of pages that may well help us understand what Russia did.

I believe our constitutional duty requires us to have the report and the American people do not deserve to be left in the dark about what the report says.

I hope that it will be made public very soon, and I hope the Attorney General of the United States understands there are a number of us who would like to see a full unredacted report, and there are a whole lot of people who would like to see it as well.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.