CATCH Fentanyl Act

Mr. President, I am so grateful for the remarks of my colleague and friend from the great State of Massachusetts and for his voice on this very important issue.

I rise today as a child of the Civil Rights Movement, as the blessed beneficiary of its bold moral witness in America, and as a member of only the second generation of our Nation to have full and fair access to the right to vote.

Some have argued that in a real sense, our country did not really become a democracy until 1965 when there were those who stood up with courage and challenged the Nation to live up to its ideals.

I stand here today, and I am able to work in this building on behalf of the people of Georgia--what an honor--to represent 11 million people, to carry on this grand experiment called democracy.

But it is never far from our memory that, at the time of my birth, Georgia's two Senators were Richard B. Russell and Herman E. Talmadge. In many ways, they were effective. They brought great things back to the State of Georgia, but we would not be honest, we would not be telling the full story if we did not remember that they were both archsegregationists and unabashed adversaries of the Civil Rights Movement, which sought to expand the electorate to ensure that this is a House where every American--the citizen--has a voice.

Senator Talmadge once said: We love the Negro in his place, and his place is at the backdoor.

Well, it is a testament to the greatness of this country that I sit in his seat because there were those who

stood up to fight for the highest ideals of our country.

I reference that history because it is relevant in this moment. Nearly 62 years ago to the day, those two Georgia Senators, along with other southern Senators, began a weekslong effort to prevent people who look like me and my parents and my children from fully participating in our democracy. They were trying to narrow the electorate. So I find it interesting and ironic that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have been leading this effort in recent days have referenced this very history which is the cause for my being here in the first place.

One of them pointed out the fact that when we entered the debate about the civil rights legislation and tried to push it into law, that there were those who stood up day after day, week after week, and he dared to enlist that history as if, somehow, that was some inspiration for what they are trying to do in this moment.

Let me be very clear: You are on the other side of that history. You are on the side of those who are trying to narrow the electorate. So, if you want to pass the SAVE Act, that is your prerogative. If you want to argue that folks have to have a birth certificate or a passport just to be able to register to vote in a country where most Americans do not have a passport, if you want to effectively disenfranchise women, disenfranchise poor people, and working-class people who have to struggle for the right to vote, that is your prerogative. But be very clear: You are not on the side of the movement. You are on the other side of that history. Fight for this, if you will, but you ought to leave the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, name out of your mouth.

This country goes through moments where the electorate expands, and then it goes through moments where it contracts. We are in a contraction moment. We are in a moment wherein the words of the administration itself--it was a Cabinet official in the White House herself who said that we just want to make sure ``the right people are voting''--the right people--``the right people are voting.''

That was the argument in the 1960s. Of those who wanted to make sure that the right people were voting, had they prevailed, I would not be standing here today.

I don't believe in the right people. I believe in ``we the people,'' ``we the people,'' ``we the people.'' That is not just the first three words of our charter document. It is a creed--``we the people.''

Every American citizen must have access to the franchise, and it must not be treated as a privilege. It is a right. When you put up unnecessary barriers, you undermine that basic understanding that the franchise is not a privilege; it is a right. I often say that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children, and our prayers are stronger when we pray together. There are no right or wrong people. There are only the American people.

They put up the SAVE Act, arguing that they want to make sure that it is only Americans who are voting, but they have not demonstrated, and they have provided no evidence that voter fraud is a real thing through voter identification. We know that this will disenfranchise thousands, if not millions, of Americans. We have no evidence that this is a problem that actually needs to be solved. Yet they have shut down much of the business of the Senate in order to do this. They are hell-bent on getting this done.

Donald Trump said that this is his No. 1 priority. So it begs the question, Why is this his No. 1 priority?

With all of the things wrong in our country, why is this the main thing that he feels he must get done? Why is he afraid?

I will tell you why. It is because he knows that he has broken every promise he made. He said that he was going to lower your costs. Instead, he has doubled healthcare premiums for 22 million Americans. His tariffs have cost the average family over $1,000 a year. Gas prices are spiking and show no sign of coming down anytime soon, but this is his No. 1 priority.

He said he was going to be the President of peace, but he has attacked 17 countries and counting. Yet again, we find ourselves entangled in another endless war with no endgame and no idea of what victory even looks like.

All the while, we have more important problems right here at home. Donald Trump promised to support our farmers. Instead, he has raised the cost of fertilizer and has hamstrung their exports, and farmers all across Georgia are suffering as a result.

So that is really what this is all about. Donald Trump is a failed President, and his support is collapsing. I hear it all across Georgia--in rural towns bearing the brunt of the President's immigration policies and farmers dealing with the realities of a trade war.

This President claims to be ``America First,'' but in the name of protecting U.S. citizens, his deportation machine has seized over 170 citizens. They have shot and killed two American citizens on a quiet street. I went to stand where they lost their lives. In a real sense, I felt like I was standing on holy ground, made sacred by the blood of patriots who stood up against abusive authority, under the color of law, to remind us that, at the end of the day, this is our country-- ``we the people,'' ``we the people.''

It is not the powerful interests who can write big checks to keep politicians in office--``we the people.'' Not the lobbyists--``we the people.'' Not the American oligarchs--``we the people.''

Now they want to prevent even more citizens from voting, from making our voices heard. They want to block our ability to stand up in November and say: Enough is enough.

So the President is panicking. He is doing what he always does. He is attacking our elections so that you cannot fire his foot soldiers in Congress. It is pathetic. He looks to me like a scared human being who knows that behind the curtain is a tiny man. We will not be intimidated. Our voices will not be silenced.

The President continues to push the lies that he spread, after he lost in 2020, to create a pretext to interfere in the midterm elections. That is why we saw an FBI raid in Fulton County, GA.

As I watched that FBI raid, I saw the Director of National Intelligence crouched in a corner, talking on a mobile phone, and I wondered, Why was she there? There were bomb threats in polling stations in poor and Black neighborhoods during the 2024 election, which were later traced back to Russian interference. I am still waiting on an answer from her on that.

There she was, engaged in this effort to count the ballots again in the 2020 election, even after the President's own Justice Department found no evidence of meaningful voter fraud. These claims about voter fraud--that is the fraud. That is the fraud. And I think Americans are growing tired of it.

You know, the wonderful thing about our country is that we get to have the argument. The Presiding Officer and I don't agree on a whole range of things, but I just want us to be able to have the argument. It gets rambunctious in the American public square in order to avoid violence, but at the end of the day, everybody gets to go to the polls, and the most powerful words in the democracy are: ``The people have spoken.''

So I will always cast my lot on the side of democracy. I am hopeful in this regard. I believe in the people. I want to make sure my constituents' voices are heard--all of my constituents--even when they don't agree with me, even when I don't get the outcome that I want.

When I think about the nature of human power and human pride--forgive me, but I am a preacher after all--and human sin and our desire to make sure that we slant things so that we get the outcome we want--we see it not just in governments; you see it in your own family--the question becomes, How do you balance all of those things? I think democracy is the best we have got. Given who we are as human beings, I will cast my lot with the people's voice, even when I think they have gotten it wrong. I would rather put my trust there.

Reinhold Niebuhr, perhaps, put it best. He said that human kind's capacity for justice makes democracy possible. Our capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary.

At the end of the day the thing that can fix it, whatever issue we have, I believe, is the people's voice. And so I am

disturbed about what I am witnessing. I am disturbed about an attack on Fulton County and in Maricopa County, AZ. It troubles me when ICE lands in Minneapolis, and then the administration says that we are there to deal with violent criminals, we are there to deal with this immigration issue. But then when it comes down to it, the administration says: Do you really want ICE out of your community? Hand over your voter rolls.

Come on, man. I don't care whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, come on. You can see what this is about. What do voter rolls have to do with violent criminals? What kind of ransom note is that to send to the leaders of the people of Minneapolis?

And so the Big Lie continues to live and we need to kill it once and for all and the only thing that can do that is the people's voice.

The President continues to spread conspiracy theories and outright lies. Here is the reality: This bill will disenfranchise thousands, if not millions, of Americans, and that is why they want to pass it so desperately. They are using onerous citizenship verification as a pretext for voter suppression, requiring you to use a birth certificate or passport to register to vote.

And under this bill, a driver's license wouldn't be enough to register to vote. They ought to call the bill what it is. They ought to call it ``A Driver's License is Not Good Enough Act.'' They call it the SAVE Act, but the question is: What are they trying to save? They are not trying to save our elections; they are trying to save their own power at any cost--at the cost of the voices of ordinary people.

Let's think about this in practical terms. If you change addresses, even if you move down the street and you have been voting for years, do you want to have to track down your birth certificate--which you lost while you were moving--in order to register to vote?

You get married and you change your name, you have to go find your marriage license and a birth certificate or a passport to prove that you are a citizen.

More than half of Georgians, or 5.4 million people, lack a valid passport. And as many as 2.2 million women in Georgia may not have their birth certificate that matches their current legal name.

And so women are disproportionately disenfranchised by this piece of legislation, which again is a solution in search of a problem that does not exist.

Let me be really clear. Noncitizens should never vote in our elections. There is no argument about that. But this legislation will only make it harder for eligible American voters to make their voices heard. That is the actual work that this legislation will do.

We know that about 760,000 voting-age Georgians who are U.S. citizens would have difficulty showing documentation proving their citizenship. We know that.

By the way, we have voter ID in Georgia. And I will tell you, for the record, that I think you should have to prove that you are who you say you are before you vote. I support voter ID. We have voter ID laws in my State. You should have to prove that you are who you say you are before you vote. That is basic, but that is not what this is about.

This is about onerous voter ID requirements used as a pretext and as a tool for voter suppression because there are those in the administration who want to make sure ``the right people vote.'' There are currently strong laws on the books that keep noncitizens from voting. They face criminal prosecution and deportation if they vote.

So let's just think about the risk-reward analysis, the cost-benefit analysis. You will be criminally prosecuted if you try to vote and you are not a citizen. You are trying to tell me that folks will risk criminal prosecution in droves to change the potential outcome of an election? Are you trying to tell me that folks will try to vote twice? It is hard enough to get folks to vote once, let alone twice.

And that is probably why Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger found only 20 instances of noncitizens registered out of 8.2 million in Georgia--8.2 million people registered to vote in Georgia. The Republican secretary of state found 20 instances of noncitizens who were registered and only 9 had ever attempted to vote and the majority did so before 2012. This is a solution in search of a problem that does not exist.

And so this means that the SAVE America Act would burden or disenfranchise over 150,000 Georgians for every single instance of a noncitizen voting in the last decade. Does that make sense? You keep 1 noncitizen from voting and you disenfranchise 150,000 for every 1? You are trying to tell me that that makes the democracy stronger? more representative of our interests?

And so if there is no meaningful voter fraud, and if this law is so disastrous for voting citizens, the question is: Why is the President so desperate to sign the SAVE America Act into law? And I mean, he is desperate, so desperate that he has threatened his own Republican caucus, said: If you all don't do this, we are not going to do anything.

The President is trying to take away your right to vote so he can hold onto power, and Washington Republicans are trying to help him do it. They are using the SAVE America Act as a pretext for voter suppression. They know their policies are deeply unpopular with the American people, but instead of working to change their policies, instead of working to get more people access to the healthcare that they need, they are taking healthcare away from 15 million Americans. Instead of working to lower the cost of groceries, they are instituting reckless tariff taxes that make everything more expensive. Instead of actually working on behalf of the American people, they are working to change who can vote in the next election.

And so we are going to stand up. I am certainly going to stand up for all of my constituents, and I mean that. I want the Georgians who are in red districts to know that I am fighting for you and your voice because this administration's so-called SAVE America Act will disenfranchise many of my constituents in red districts. That is because, increasingly, the people's voices are being squeezed out of their democracy. It is the folks with a lot of money, it is the corporate interests that they want to hear from.

And you are living right now with what happens when your voice is diminished. I see it. I see it in rural red counties that I visit all the time where their rural hospital is either closed or it is almost near closing because they cut a trillion dollars out of Medicaid. I see it in the eyes of farmers who are burdened by these tariff taxes and how it is creating damage and wreckage for their businesses.

I saw it the other day in Social Circle, GA, where the administration is determined to put a 10,000-bed ICE detention center in a town of 5,000 people--5,000 people--in Social Circle, GA. The administration went in, bought a warehouse for $128 million, and the mayor, the city manager, the leadership of Social Circle, GA, learned that there would be a detention center in their town that would triple the size of their town by reading about it in the Washington Post.

So think about that. The mayor, elected to represent his people. The big, bad Federal Government comes in under cover of night and ambushes the duly-elected local officials because they didn't want to hear their voice. They were determined to bring this warehouse to their town whether they like it or not.

I am fighting for those people, even though it is, by and large, a red district. I don't have a lot of votes in Social Circle, GA, but I am a pastor first. I told the people of Georgia that I would fight for them, that I would walk with them even as I work for them. This is about the voices of ordinary people. This is about saving our democracy.

As I close--and nobody believes a Baptist preacher when he says ``as I close,'' but I am not trying to break any records today. Andrew Young tells me the story of when they passed the civil rights bill into law.

Dr. King and his lieutenants went to see President Johnson. The President was feeling good--and he should. They had passed the civil rights bill into law after that long filibuster that I talked about at the beginning of this speech. They passed the civil rights bill into law, and Dr. King and his lieutenants went to see the President, and Dr. King

said: I am glad we got that civil rights bill into law. Without skipping a beat, he said: Now we need a voting rights law. He wasn't going to let the President bask too long in the glory of that victory. He said: That is great, but my people can't vote in the South. I need a voter rights law, and I need it yesterday.

The President said to Martin Luther King, Jr.: You are right. I get it. But I just can't get that done right now. I don't have the power.

They left the meeting, and the staff was feeling all demoralized and dejected, and they said to Dr. King: What are we going to do? The President said he doesn't have the power.

Dr. King just sort of shrugged his shoulders and said: Well, if the President doesn't have the power, I guess we are going to have to go and find him some.

Think about that. He was just a Baptist preacher, wasn't elected to anything. He was not a U.S. Senator, certainly not the President of the United States. But he said: We are going to go and find the President some power.

Dr. King understood and those who were around him understood that it is not about the people in power; it is about the power that is in the people.

So the people are standing up in this moment, and I am standing with them. No to the so-called SAVE Act; yes to saving our democracy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am so grateful for the leadership of Senator Schumer, and he speaks for all of us.

The thing that we have in common on both sides of the aisle is that my colleagues and I travel back and forth from this city to our home States every week. Airplanes are our other office.

So every week I fly here or fly back home. I pass by hard-working agents of the TSA. I get to see their dedication up close, their professionalism. They are public service in action, and they are working long hours around the clock every day of the year.

Wherever we are trying to go, our TSA agents get us there safely; safely to work, safely back to our families, wherever the public is trying to go. And these public servants sacrifice their holidays, their special moments with their families so that we can get to our families.

They work nights and weekends to make sure that we in this Chamber and the millions of Americans that travel from our Nation's airports can do that without fear.

So this is basic. No one should be fooling around with the TSA agents. We have our differences, our debates in this Chamber, but for the second time of the year, our TSA workers are working without pay because of Washington dysfunction.

Here is what I believe: I believe that if you are working-- particularly, during a government shutdown--then you should be fully paid. I believe this so much that I have broken with Members of my own party to vote to pay all Federal workers, which includes TSA officers, during government shutdowns.

I think it is simply wrong for my Republican colleagues to use these hard-working Americans as leverage, as pawns, in what they are presenting as a false choice to the American people.

Here is the choice that they are presenting to us. They are saying to us: Either shut down the government, denying working people the money that

they have earned, or vote to continue to support the President's paramilitary force that is wreaking havoc in our streets and killing ordinary citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights.

That is a false choice--one I simply cannot accept--and it confounds common sense.

The time is always right, as Dr. King used to say, to do what is right. So I am calling on this Chamber to pay TSA workers right now before we, again, all head to the airports. Let's keep having this debate, but pay the TSA workers.

So with that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4127, the Transportation Security Administration Pay Act, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I object.

Mr. President, let me be very clear. Our differences here are differences in principle, and they have real consequences on the streets of America in realtime right now.

This is not just some theoretical argument. This is not about politics. This is about the people.

I disagree fundamentally that we ought to have an unaccountable paramilitary force wreaking havoc on the streets of our country. ICE, as Trump has remade it, is killing American citizens.

And I can't pretend like that is not happening. I stood where Renee Good was shot and killed while her vehicle was driving away. I stood where Alex Pretti lost his life while just trying to defend and protect a woman who we all saw being abused by ICE agents in realtime.

And so this idea that we either have to fund that or shut the government down is a false choice. Republicans have the majority in the Senate. They have the majority in the House. They have the White House. We can pay our workers right now.

By the way, ICE already has more than enough money. They gave ICE $75 billion in the ``One Big Ugly Bill.''

Let me put that in perspective. In terms of funding, ICE is now bigger than the U.S. Marines, and my Republican friends are saying to me and saying to my colleagues that if you don't give this overgrown paramilitary force of masked agents jumping out of unmarked cars more money, we are going to leave TSA workers and others unpaid.

I think that is patently unfair. I think we ought to fund the Federal workers; we ought to fund FEMA, the Coast Guard. We ought to fund Homeland Security while we have a principled argument about what is happening with ICE, because what is happening there gets to the very basic things that I learned in my ninth grade civics class about the engagement between law enforcement and ordinary citizens every single day. And what we are witnessing, in this moment, is unacceptable.

Pay the TSA workers. That is my offer. That is my request. And, therefore, I object to the Senator's modification.

Mr. President, I very much appreciate the Reverend Senator Warnock and his reminder that questions about voting in America are moral questions, they are historic questions, and they are questions about our democracy. I am grateful for his leadership on this, and I hope all of us have a chance--if we didn't get to hear the speech the first time around, that we will get to replay it and listen to what he has to say.

Donald Trump is trying to stop American citizens from voting. Why? Because he knows that his agenda is unpopular and that Republicans can't win based on what he is doing, so he wants to rig the election by picking his own voters. That is what the SAVE Act is all about.

Don't let Trump and the Republicans in Congress fool you. They will say things like: Hey, you should have to show an ID to vote just like you have to do to buy a beer.

But this is not an ordinary voter ID bill. This is not a bill that says everybody either has to show a driver's license or a student ID to vote. This is a way to keep American citizens from voting, and I will just give you one example of this.

If this bill passes, then in 45 of the 50 States, your driver's license won't count as a valid ID. And then it gets better. Let's say you are a married woman who lives in Massachusetts. Let's say that when you got married, you took your husband's name. Well, when you go to the polls to vote, you can't register by showing them your updated driver's license. Why? Because Massachusetts is one of the 45 States where a driver's license does not prove citizenship.

So you bring along your birth certificate. It shows you were born in the United States. Can you vote now? Nope. Your birth certificate is still under your maiden name.

So, yes, you can use a passport if you have one, but, remember, fewer than half of all Americans have a passport, and it costs $165 to get one, and it takes a month or two if everything is working on time.

No passport and no birth certificate that matches your driver's license--well, Trump and the Republicans say you are just out of luck. And that is just one example of how this bill will actually make it harder for Americans to vote.

Here is another deeply disturbing thing about this bill. It would require States to hand over sensitive information about voters to Trump's Department of Homeland Security so that some shadowy guys can do whatever they want with it. Maybe they take you off the voters rolls. Maybe they use that information for something else. The point is, nobody really knows what will happen.

This is an Agency whose former leader, Kristi Noem, said just a few weeks ago:

[W]e need to . . . make sure that we have the right people

voting.

So just make a guess who is going to get swept off the voter rolls. People that the Republicans think are likely to vote Democratic. So sweep off Black people. Sweep off Brown people. Sweep off women. Sweep off students. Sweep off people in precincts that voted Democratic last time. Sweep off people that you think might vote Democratic in the upcoming election.

I have heard this bill called Jim Crow 2.0, hearkening back to the days in the South when the South blocked Black people from being able to vote with a whole series of tests and barriers so that they just wouldn't have a chance to vote. The Trump bill is Jim Crow 2.0.

Noncitizen voting is extremely rare in America, and the Republicans know that. They have seen the same data that we have. Voter roll audits in Georgia prior to the 2024 election found only 20 registered noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters. That is 0.00024 percent. A 2024 Michigan audit found only 16 noncitizen votes out of 5.7 million votes. That is 0.00028 percent.

So then what is going on? Why are the Republicans doing this? Why are they chewing up all of this time in the U.S. Senate to do this? Well, we don't have to guess because the Republicans have been saying the quiet part out loud.

Republicans in Congress know that they are in deep trouble for the midterms unless they can rig the rules and pick their own voters. Donald Trump even said it himself. He said passing the SAVE Act will ``guarantee the midterms,'' because the Republicans know and Donald Trump knows that the policies they are shoving through right now are wildly unpopular.

So while Trump and Republicans try to spread conspiracies and lie about the SAVE Act, it is important that each and every one of us stays focused on what the Trump administration is really doing.

Iran

Mr. President, here is what the Trump administration is really doing: After promising no more wars, Donald Trump has dragged the United States into an illegal and reckless war with Iran. That is lie No. 1. Already, at least 200 American servicemembers have been hurt, and 13 servicemembers have lost their lives. There are American lives lost and families grieving because Donald Trump dragged us into a war based on lies, a war launched without an imminent threat to our country and without any end in sight.

When he ran for President, Trump promised no wars. In fact, he kept saying he would be the ``President of peace.'' He lied.

The United States is spending at least $1 billion a day on the war with Iran. If we put the money we are using at war with Iran toward healthcare, we could lower costs for millions of Americans.

Just this week, Donald Trump's own Energy Secretary said out loud:

We were very aware that we would cause a little bit of

increased prices on Americans.

Think about that. Trump and his top officials knew that this war would raise costs for Americans, and they did it anyway.

In just the first 6 days of the war, the Trump administration spent an estimated $11.3 billion. That was in 6 days. We also lost three F-15 aircraft in just those first few days. That will cost us another $300 million. Estimates say that the Trump administration has kept burning about 1 billion taxpayer dollars a day on the war in Iran, and now we are on day 18. Some estimates look more like $2 billion a day. That is over $23,000 every second, something like $11.5 million since I started this speech.

So let's look at Trump's warmongering by the numbers. Mr. President, $11.3 billion, the estimated cost of the first 6 days of Trump's war; $5.6 billion, the cost of munitions spent by the Pentagon in the first 2 days of the war; $300 million, the cost to replace the three F-15s lost to friendly fire in the first week of the war; $50 billion, how much the Trump administration says it wants to add to an already massively inflated defense budget to pay for a war that was never authorized by Congress; $1 trillion, the Pentagon's budget this year; $1.5 trillion, the total amount Trump is reportedly requesting for the Pentagon budget for next year. That

means Republicans in Congress want to increase the Pentagon's budget by $500 billion.

To put these numbers in context, the Trump administration will spend $30 billion in just the first 30 days of the war. That is exactly how much we could have used to lower costs for millions of people for an entire year--people who got knocked off their healthcare or saw their premiums go up because of Trump's healthcare cuts. So instead of going to war with Iran, we could lower healthcare costs and actually save lives here at home.

Here is one more: $12 billion--a number we have already passed--$12 billion is what it would cost to restore the expanded child tax credit for 1 year. So in less than 2 weeks of Donald Trump's war, we spent the same amount of money that would have lifted millions of kids out of poverty.

For the same amount the United States is burning on just 1 single day of Donald Trump's reckless war with Iran, we could provide a full year's worth of food assistance for nearly half a million Americans or Medicaid coverage for 300,000 children.

But there is more we could have done with the $12 billion the Trump administration has spent on war with Iran. We could have provided housing assistance for around 1 million Americans. We could have lowered prescription drug costs for tens of millions of people. We could have paid the entire National Park Service for more than 3 years. We could have given Pell grants to 1.6 million students so they could afford to go to college. We could have provided retirement and disability pay for veterans wounded in combat and still had plenty of money left over. We could have helped pay the salaries of more than 100,000 teachers and nurses--2 jobs that are crucial, and where we have seen shortages. We could have funded Direct File, the program that lets Americans file their taxes online and for free. We could have funded that for two whole decades. We could have provided humanitarian assistance for countries around the world for almost 3 full years. That is a huge amount of money.

And I want to talk about one more thing we could be spending taxpayer money on instead of Trump's reckless war in Iran: making childcare more affordable for families.

Here is the thing: People have been getting childcare all wrong. Childcare costs are painfully high. Right now, families are having to choose between breaking the budget, being forced to cut back on work hours, or settling for lower quality care just to ensure that their kids have a safe place to be while the parents are working. In 49 of the 50 States, families pay more for childcare for their two kids than they do for rent.

And the reason why costs are so high is that, right now, people think of childcare as a privilege or as a service that is for sale. That is wrong. We should be thinking of universal childcare as basic public infrastructure. We should be thinking about it the same way we think about roads and highways. Why? Because, for this country to work, we need to care for our kids. And when parents don't have childcare, they can't go to work.

Investing in universal childcare is also good for our kids' development, and it is good for our economy. We need affordable childcare just as much as we need schools to educate our workers and bridges to connect goods to the market. It is basic infrastructure to make this country run. It is the infrastructure we need to thrive. And, up until now, our Nation just hasn't been thinking about childcare that way. This is why we need to invest in childcare for every family.

It is just basic supply and demand. There are a whole bunch of families that need childcare, but there are a whole lot fewer childcare workers. Normally, when we want to attract more workers to an area, we just pay them more. But childcare prices are already sky high, and families just can't afford it. So where does that leave us? There is a huge gap that the Federal Government needs to fill.

Imagine: If the Federal Government didn't invest in roads and bridges, we just wouldn't have them.

And that is what is happening with childcare, and it is why we need to invest in universal childcare and raise wages for childcare workers. They should at least make the same amount as local public schoolteachers.

In the wealthiest country on this planet, access to affordable, high- quality childcare and early childhood education should not be a privilege reserved for the rich; it should be a right.

But instead of talking about lowering childcare costs, Donald Trump is delivering a punch to the gut to every parent struggling with those costs. Donald Trump is spending billions of dollars a week bombing Iran for reasons he cannot explain, but he cannot find a nickel to help the millions of people who are struggling to pay for healthcare, groceries, or childcare.

But this is a one-two punch. The Trump administration is spending a tremendous amount of money on war, and the war is also driving up costs for Americans.

Take the price of gasoline over the past month. For months, Donald Trump has been saying gas prices are going down. He has been loud and proud about it. Right now, the average price for gas is more than $3.70 a gallon, more than 80 cents higher per gallon than just 1 month ago, when Donald Trump started this war. That is more than a 25-percent increase in gas prices in a single month, which Donald Trump called a ``very small price to pay''--whoa, spoken like a billionaire.

We have not seen gas prices jump this much since Russia attacked Ukraine.

And now Donald Trump's war is choking off the Strait of Hormuz. That is where about one-fifth of the world's oil and natural gas supply comes through, and right now it is all bottled up.

So what does that mean? Trump's war with Iran means gas prices are skyrocketing for American families here at home. And Donald Trump's response?

If they rise, they rise.

In other words, he just doesn't care.

Here is another one: food prices. About a third of the world's fertilizer goes through that same Strait of Hormuz, and prices jumped up by 30 percent in the days after Trump started this war. One U.S. farmer even said his fertilizer suppliers are warning they just can't get the fertilizer. It is not only that the price has gone up; it just literally is not available.

So you have all this fertilizer that can't go through the Strait of Hormuz, that can't make it to our farmers here in America. And without that fertilizer, the farmers say they just can't plant as much food this year. And what is that going to mean? It means food prices will go up.

So that is gasoline; that is food. But the prices of clothes, of technology, of basically anything that is moved around by trucks that use gasoline or diesel--the prices for all of those goods will go up as well. Diesel prices are already up by more than 25 percent, raising the cost of shipping goods--including Amazon packages and food--nationwide. And jet fuel prices have shot up by 58 percent since Trump started the war. Airlines are passing these costs on to consumers by pushing ticket prices up even higher.

Donald Trump's war with Iran is gearing up to become another forever war that burns billions of taxpayer dollars and makes life even more expensive for Americans here at home. This is a war that the American people do not want and did not ask for, but they are the ones who are footing the bill.

And what does the Trump administration have to say about that? Well, listen to Trump's top economic adviser. He said:

If [the war] were to be extended, it wouldn't really

disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt

consumers, and we'd have to think about . . . what we would

have to do about that. But that's really the last of our

concerns right now.

Consumers, ``the last of our concerns''; higher prices for your family, ``the last of our concerns''--according to the Trump administration.

Look, you don't need to wonder why prices are going up. The Trump administration has said the quiet part out loud. The higher costs American families are paying are the last of the concerns for the Trump administration, and they can't even be bothered to worry about lowering costs for the American people.

Lie No. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6: Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and other top Trump officials just can't keep their story straight. They have no clear plan and

for weeks have failed to tell the American people what the goals are for this war and when this war will end.

First, Trump said the war would be over in 4 to 5 weeks. OK, that was 3 weeks ago. Since then, Trump has said all of these things: The war is ``won.'' The United States still needs to ``finish the job.'' The operations could end ``soon.'' The military may need to go ``further.''

Every hour, the Trump administration's justification for this war sounds completely different.

Why did the United States strike Iran? On March 2, Pete Hegseth said it was to end a 47-year war. The same day, Hegseth said it is because Iran refused to negotiate. And in another comment on the same day, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said it was a response to Israel planning to strike. And then--yep, on the same day--Donald Trump said it had nothing to do with Israel planning to strike. Donald Trump said:

[I]f anything, I might have forced Israel's hand.

Rubio then said Iran would have ``so many short-range missiles'' in a year. That is the reason to initiate the war.

Two days later, Trump says the reason why the United States struck Iran is because he had a ``good feeling'' that Iran would strike U.S. assets and our personnel in the region.

Look, it is just one story after another, and none of them add up. How can the American people trust this government when this government can't even keep its own story straight?

And the Trump administration clearly has no plan for how this war will end. On the very first day of the war, Trump called the attacks ``major combat operations in Iran.'' A week later, Trump called it a ``short-term excursion'' that we are ``getting very close to finishing.''

And what is the goal? The administration has no clue. On day one of the war, Trump told the American people he had to attack Iran because Iran posed an imminent threat based on their nuclear capabilities. But remember, last June, Trump bombed Iran and claimed that Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities had been ``completely and totally obliterated.'' Both of those things cannot be true at the same time.

And understand this: If Trump believes that Iran's nuclear ambitions are a threat, then he had a chance to curb them. In fact, the United States had a deal that could have prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. That was President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, and Trump ripped up that deal and--here is the best part--got nothing--nothing-- in return.

So instead of doing the hard work of diplomacy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, Trump lies to the American people while dragging us into yet another reckless war that is costing American lives.

If you can believe it, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have even given conflicting takes on whether or not this war is over. On March 8, Hegseth said:

[T]his is only just the beginning.

The next day, March 9, Trump said the war is ``complete, pretty much.'' But he also said: ``You could say both,'' very complete and just the beginning.

Trump also said that we ``haven't won enough'' and that we will ``go further.'' But just days later, he said:

We won. The first hour, it was over.

And then he said:

We don't want to leave early, do we? We've got to finish

the job.

Then, last week, Trump said we are ramping up strikes.

How long will this war go on? Well, one day after the war, Trump said ``4 to 5 weeks.'' The same day, Hegseth said ``more or less than 2, 4, or 6 weeks.'' And then he added:

It could move up. It could move back.

Then Hegseth said:

We'll go as far as we need to go to advance American

interest.

On March 10, Hegseth said it is up to Trump. He said:

Our will is endless. Ultimately, the President gets to

determine the end state of those objectives.

On March 11, Trump said the war with Iran will end ``soon.''

Look, this is not a game. This administration is sending young Americans to die overseas, and that means our government leaders need to treat this conflict with life-and-death seriousness. Instead, they don't even have the decency to level with the American people.

Yet another lie from the Trump administration was about the horrific U.S. military strike on an elementary school in the early days of the war. Last week, a preliminary investigation by the Department of Defense confirmed that it is likely that it was our own military that bombed a girls school in Iran. This was one of the most devastating military mistakes in decades. Mr. President, 175 people were killed; most of them were children.

Now, before the investigation, Trump said over and over that the attack was done by Iran. But even after the investigation, Trump kept lying to the American people. He said he ``didn't know'' about the investigation--an investigation done by his own military on one of the most horrific military mistakes in recent history.

And, remember, Pete Hegseth gutted the office that was in charge of preventing civilian harm. How do I know? I led the charge to establish that office in the first place.

Hegseth is also purging the military's legal experts, the people who act as legal guardrails and ordered a ``ruthless'' overhaul to make sure that no one else who might question him is left standing.

It is a betrayal of our servicemembers and a betrayal of the American people that we still have no answers and no accountability.

So what would accountability look like here? Well, for starters, Pete Hegseth should be fired immediately. Hegseth's long pattern of chaos and incompetence has put our servicemembers and the American people at risk, and we haven't even scratched the surface of Signalgate or Hegseth's role in boat strikes that could be war crimes.

Pete Hegseth has got to go, and he needs to go now.

The basic story here is pretty straightforward. Working families are struggling to pay for basic needs like groceries, housing, healthcare, and electricity. And now, prices are shooting up even higher because of Donald Trump's new war in Iran.

Donald Trump's dangerous actions overseas are making everyday life both more expensive, and regular Americans are paying the price. That is Trump's America in a nutshell. And instead of changing their policies and actually trying to help the American people and not just themselves and their rich buddies, Trump and the Republicans are working to keep as many Americans from voting as humanly possible.

That is what this bill is really about, and every Senator who cares about our democracy should vote no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, you are entitled to your opinion. This is a free country. Whether you like President Trump or not is up to you. Your view of the war is up to you. But you are not entitled to your facts. You are entitled to the facts. And here are the facts. To my Democratic colleagues, I challenge you today to prove that I am wrong.

During the negotiations to find a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, President Trump sent Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to negotiate with the Iranians. They say all they want is peaceful nuclear power--the Iranians. They have been saying that--and they should be entitled to enrich like other countries, like us, a bunch of nations--enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and they claim: Why not us? Because you cheat.

The IAEA--not me, not Lindsey Graham--you have had a history of not living up to what you say about your ambitions, that your enrichment facilities are not designed to produce peaceful power, but a weapon.

So during the negotiations, Witkoff and Kushner offered the Iranians: Listen, if you will give us your highly enriched uranium, we will guarantee you a lifetime fuel supply for free, that you can have all the spent fuel you need to operate a peaceful power program you don't need to enrich, and if you want to enrich for medical purposes, very limited, fine, but you can't have an enrichment program that would lead to making bomb-grade material because you are not reliable.

And I would go a step further. It would be like letting Hitler have anything. See, the difference between me and, I think, a lot of people here--maybe most of my Democratic colleagues--I think these guys are religious Nazis. Hitler wanted a master race. He wrote a book. Nobody believed him. He literally wanted to kill all the Jews, and nobody believed him. The Ayatollah is the same. The regime is built around the cult of death. They want three things to purify Islam. They are Shiites. Their No. 1 enemy is Sunni Arabs. They think they have got the faith wrong--that they are traitors to the faith. They hate Sunnis because they are not true to the faith, and Saudi Arabia believes it.

So they want to purify Islam, bend it to their will, make every Sunni reject their view of Islam and accept the Ayatollah's view. That is what they say, not me. I believe them.

No. 2, they want to kill all the Jews, and they openly say it. They are not hiding their disdain for Israel. They actually talk about it. They put ``Death to Israel'' on, like, milk cartons. These people are serious, and we should take them seriously.

Like in the thirties, people didn't want to believe that Hitler meant what he said because they were tired from World War I, and they said: Oh, he is just all talk. He wants this. He wants that. He wants more German-speaking territory. He is not completely crazy. You know, he is sort of just doing the Hitler thing.

Well, he was completely crazy. Now, I don't know why he wanted to kill all the Jews. I don't know why Hitler thought the Aryan race is the only pure race on the planet, but a lot of people are dead because we got that wrong. Let's don't do that again.

We are playing like World War II never actually happened, and you are rewriting this regime's history. From 1979, what have they done until today to make you think they don't believe what they say? What behavior have they exhibited that they really do want to be normal?

So during those negotiations when they said no to every offer under the Sun, they said something that was a fatal mistake for them: Oh, by the way, we have 460 kilograms of uranium at 60 percent. Now, why did they tell us that? They were trying to intimidate us and letting us know that if we don't bend to their will, we will have a problem.

Now, what is the problem? The difference between 60 and 90 percent enrichment is weeks, not months or years. And when you get to 90, that is weapons-grade enrichment. That material can be turned into a nuclear weapon. Mr. President, 460 kilograms at 90 percent is enough to build 10 nuclear bombs. And I am talking weeks, not months, to go from 60 to 90, and they were threatening to do it.

What did President Trump do? Instead of begging them not to, instead of giving them a bunch of money bribing them not to, he blew up their enrichment facilities so they couldn't

get to 90 percent. It is called Midnight Hammer. Mr. President, I am glad you did, and it is clear to me nobody in the Democratic Party would have done that.

The question for my friends on the other side and critics within my own party: How could they have 60 percent enriched uranium at 460 kilograms without cheating? Everything you wanted to do to contain these people failed. The JCPOA--every agreement that has been offered to restrict Iran's nuclear program failed if, in fact, they do have 460 kilograms of uranium at 60 percent.

So here is my challenge: If you don't believe that is true, come to the floor and tell me why I am wrong. We know that the material at 60 percent is under all the rubble of their enrichment facilities, and we are worried that somehow somebody is going to get it before we do.

It is a fact that they had produced enough uranium at 60 percent. That means they were cheating because there is no commercial purpose for uranium to be enriched at 60 percent--none--zero. You don't need that to run a nuclear power program. You need nothing beyond 20. To go to 60 means you are a threshold nuclear nation. Why 60? It is just a small jump to 90, and they want to intimidate and blackmail the world.

When they told us that: We have got this much at 60, Trump said: Well, that is all you are going to do because I am going to take enrichment off the table. And thank God he did.

Their enrichment program has been obliterated, and they couldn't go to 90. I think they will come back at it one day if we don't deal with it now. So that is Midnight Hammer.

Epic Fury. What happened after we blew up the enrichment facilities? Within weeks, they were actually, the Iranians, trying to start over again, going deeper. What was the lesson they learned from Midnight Hammer? We are not deep enough in the ground.

And here is the most telling thing: They were trying to create a new enrichment capability that did not require an air shaft. Now, why is that important? The bombs that were used that were dropped on the enrichment facilities went through the air shaft--penetrated and blew up the facilities deep underground. That is a testament to our air power, that the air shaft opening was about the size of a refrigerator, and we dropped bombs through those air shafts to obliterate the enrichment facilities they had.

Instead of learning their lesson and ``let's sit down and talk about peaceful nuclear power,'' they went the other way. I think that is a fact.

So Epic Fury. If you do not see this is an imminent threat, then you are blind for your hatred of Trump. There are people on the left and people in my own party that are more afraid of Trump being successful than the Ayatollah having nuclear weapons. That is sick. That is sick.

When Obama took out bin Laden, I clapped like a seal. Every time he wanted to go into Syria, I was there with him and John McCain. I have tried to be bipartisan on such things. I never have ever introduced a resolution against a Democratic President under the congressional War Powers Act to limit their ability to protect the Nation ever because I think it is unconstitutional. I have never done to a Democrat what you constantly are doing to this Republican President. And when a Republican tried to do that, I objected.

If you don't like what President Trump or any other President is doing in military matters, cut off the funding. We have the power of the purse. We could stop funding for these operations, and that would be constitutional. What we can't do, in my view, is become the Commander in Chief.

You can't have 535 people becoming the Commander in Chief, and that is what the War Powers Act does. After 60 days, if Congress doesn't approve, military action stops. Basically, under the Constitution, you can be Commander in Chief for only 60 days and Congress takes over. That is not what they had in mind.

Let me tell you what the Founders had in mind: a single person--the President--to be Commander in Chief and Congress to have the power of the purse and regulate the land and naval forces. That is the balance we have had all these years, and the War Powers Act is unconstitutional because it destroys that balance.

But it doesn't mean Congress is out of the game. Literally, if you had a resolution or an appropriation bill denying funding for Epic Fury, I wouldn't agree with you, but you would be on sound constitutional grounds.

Now, why do I oppose this? Not just because I think it is an infringement on the power of the President and an overstep by the Congress. I think it would be really, quite frankly, dangerous not to finish this thing out.

In 18 or 19 days, we have done a number on the ability of Iran to build ballistic missiles to hit us and our allies. And if you don't think they would, put yourself in the same category that miscalculated Hitler. What is it about the Iranians that you think they really don't mean what they say?

So we have destroyed that ability to build those missiles to come after us, and they were building 100 a month before we did this.

The second thing is, they have been funding Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, proxies. Hezbollah has a lot of American blood on its hands. It killed 220 marines and sailors back in the 1980s when we were in Lebanon trying to help with that civil war. They attacked our barracks. They have a lot of American blood on their hands from Afghanistan, IEDs made in Iran. So these people have been at war with us since 1979. Finally, we are pushing back.

Instead of doing deals that don't work, we are trying to eliminate the threat in a responsible way.

What happens next in Iran? I think the people will have a chance down the road to decide that--not me, not you. We are not going to invade Iran. We are not going to do the Iraq-Afghanistan thing. There is no reason to. What we want to do militarily is eliminate the threats: They can't fund proxies, they can't build nuclear weapons anymore, and they can't build missiles that would terrorize us in the region and Europe.

When we accomplish those three things, here is what I think will happen: We will build on what President Biden started, which is normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Now, why is that big?

Senator Booker has been great on this. He has gone with me when Biden was President. I was a Republican trying to build on the Abraham Accords, see if we could get Saudi and Israel to normalize, which would be the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It would be the biggest change in thousands of years. And I would be willing to help President Biden-- I was. And we had a bipartisan team. I was part of it.

Well, October 7 came along to stop that. Now, we were very close to having a breakthrough on normalization under President Biden, Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Brett McGurk. I went over there eight times, I think. We were close, but October 7 was designed to stop what we were trying to do.

It was a nightmare for the Iranians, I think, for the Arabs and the Israelis to make peace because it changes the region forever, leaving them behind. So October 7 was an attack by Hamas, but it couldn't happen without Iran stopping normalization. And it has worked to a great extent.

The tolerance for a two-state solution in Israel is pretty low after October 7, and the Arab world is pretty inflamed because of Gaza. But we can't let Iran win the day.

So here is what I hope we can do: keep this military campaign going-- weeks, not months; continue to degrade the ability of the IRGC to terrorize their own people, to wreak havoc in the region. And we are going to take some blows. They still have a lot of drones, they still have missiles, but less every day.

Gas price is up--no small thing for somebody trying to raise a family on a limited income. But I believe with all my heart that you pay now or you pay later with this regime.

We were a couple of weeks away from the Ayatollah and his crowd having weapons-grade material for 10 bombs. You think things are bad now? I can only imagine what the world would look like if this madman and his regime actually had nuclear weapons. One, I think he would use it. If you don't believe he would kill all the Jews, that would be a mistake. Certainly the Jewish people believe that.

This idea that we were drug into the war by Israel--that is the oldest game, literally, in the book: If it weren't for the Jews, we would all be better off. It is the Jews that are always getting us in trouble.

What an offensive thing to say. Israel consulted with us. We do have common values, and we have a common enemy. They don't just chant ``Death to Israel''; they chant ``Death to America,'' the Iranian regime, and they have our blood on their hands, not just Israeli blood.

So the idea that somehow President Trump got hoodwinked by the Jews is like--enough already. If you know anything about President Trump, nothing could be further from the truth, and you are just giving life to the idea that has been around for like 2,000 years for the Jewish people. Enough.

So what I hope will happen: We will be steady. For the American people, there is going to be some pain.

The region: You are going to get hit again. We have lost soldiers. God bless them. God bless the wounded--a couple hundred. And casualties may increase.

But the only thing I can tell you about the military from my time being around it, which is most of my adult life: The worst thing you can do to a military unit is ask them to sacrifice and not finish the job. Do you want to help the military? Let them finish the job they believe in, that is necessary. And you get nothing for finishing second in a war with mad people, crazy people.

If you don't think the regime is built around a cult of death, then you missed a lot. They want a religious world that they run. They want a religious master race, not an Aryan-ethic master race. They want to dominate the world through their faith, and that should scare you.

I don't intend to bend to their will. I don't think Sunni Arabs are. You know what. Most Iranians don't buy that, but they have been killed by the tens of thousands. They have had it too.

So I think we are close to weakening the regime to the point that we can start again with normalization talks between Saudi and Israel, which would be the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict--the biggest change in 2,000 years. If they can't do another October 7, then I think we may get there, building on what was done by the past administration.

So just think about it. We are not going to get a normalization deal that doesn't have a Palestinian component because MBS, the leader of Saudi Arabia, can't recognize Israel until he finds some dignified solution for the Palestinians that Israel can live with. And he wants a defense agreement with us because he wants to come our way--not Turkiye, not Pakistan. A mutual defense agreement.

Well, to my Democratic friends: Entertain the idea of helping us get there, but you should insist that there is something there for the Palestinians. And we all have a chance here to make history.

In a few more weeks, not a few more months, we should be at the point, in my view, that we can start where we ended before, and Iran's efforts to deny real peace to the region will have failed.

Kharg Island. Seldom in the history of warfare has a country or a warring opponent had a single point of failure. All their money comes from oil and gas in Iran--the regime--and all the infrastructure virtually is on a single island. If you control that island, you control the destiny of the income to continue this war.

And remember what I said: I don't know what President Trump is going to do.

As to this resolution, I have a lot of admiration for Senator Booker. We are going to be friends, and we will work together where we can. I think this is the wrong signal at the wrong time. I never believed it was constitutional. I never did it with a Democratic President.

But we do not need to do this because if we stop now, then we are going to pay a heavy price later. The worst possible outcome is for those 32,000 people to go to the streets and die for nothing. The worst possible outcome is to suffer and not get it right. They have a pair of 2's, and we have a full house. It is not a card game, but we are in a good spot.

To those who have lost their lives and been injured: You died in the service of your country, making the world safer, and that is what military people sign up for.

To those who have been injured: You have been hurt trying to stop something that matters.

This is not a foolish endeavor. This is something that had to be done because they were going to break out if we didn't stop them. We were really a couple of weeks away from them having enough uranium at 90 percent to make 10 bombs, and the world would have changed in the blink of an eye.

So I am going to oppose this resolution. I am going to support President Trump's plan to continue to defang the regime. And I will join with my Democratic colleagues if they would like, and if Saudi Arabia and Israel want to talk about changing the Mideast forever, I would encourage you to do what I did. Let's all work together to bring about the biggest change in 2,000 years.

The reason we didn't get there in the last administration was because of October 7. It wasn't any fault of anybody else. This attack was designed to stop everything we tried before. And it would be a shame and a tremendous missed opportunity in history to let the Iranians deny the region something I think they really want: to move forward, not backward.

I will end with this. To the American people: I know it is tough. I know the economy, on the gas front, is hurting. But I do believe this with every ounce of my being: If we had not done this, they would be on the path, the Iranian regime, to a nuclear capability, and they would use it. Eventually, they would use it or give it to somebody who would. They are no different than Hitler except this: Hitler wanted a master race to run this world, and he was denied--only after about 50 million people died. This regime wants a master religion to dominate this world. I don't know why, but I believe them. And we are so close to getting this right.

Since 1979, this regime has been built around a cult of death. A 16- year-old girl was killed last year for not having the headscarf on right--drug off the bus and beaten to death. The people have been in the streets, slaughtered by the tens of thousands.

Let's not let this moment pass. Let's, in a responsible way, keep weakening this regime, giving the people down the road a chance to have a new Iran, stand with our allies, finish the job. And if you do it right, a gateway to peace will open up.

The biggest thing you can say to those who sacrificed or were hurt and died: Because of what you did, you created an avenue for peace that is going to change the world.

So I will be voting no, but I am going to do more than vote no; I am going to support an outcome that will change the world. The day this regime no longer can wreak terror and havoc will be a good day, and we are close to that. The day when we can get back to the peace table between Saudi Arabia and Israel will be a wonderful day.

The center of Islam, Senator Booker, is Saudi Arabia. That is where the holy mosques of Mecca and Medina are. And this young man, MBS, has made a decision to go a different way. Now, I have had my problems with him, but I really do think he has made a decision to go a different way that will benefit the region and the world.

I hope the Israeli people understand: If you want true peace, lasting peace, you have to deal with your neighbors.

The Abraham Accords tells me they are willing to deal with their neighbors.

Let's don't let October 7 be the final chapter. Let's make sure we punch through what happened on October 7 and we punch through right now to get the conflict in a spot where we can truly have peace.

Last thought: You will never have peace in the Mideast and we will never know peace here at home until this madman regime, the Ayatollah and his henchmen, organized around a cult of death, can no longer hurt us.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I think all of us know here in the Senate that Senators have the ability to write the titles of their own bills. You can give a bill whatever name you want, whether it is accurate and true or misleading. And in this case, we have a bill that has been entitled the SAVE America Act. But make no mistake, this is not about saving America. That is a fraud on the American people.

And what we are hearing from our Republican colleagues and what we hear from the President of the United States is that there is this rampant noncitizen voting in our elections. Donald Trump says there are so many noncitizens voting at the polls that they are rigged. In fact, that is why he lost in 2020, he says.

But, of course, we know there is zero proof for that. We know, in fact, that it is a big lie.

It is already illegal to vote if you are not a U.S. citizen. And the cases of noncitizen registration and noncitizen voting are vanishingly rare, almost nonexistent.

So what is this really about? Well, it is about Trump's obsession with a Federal takeover of our elections. That is not my word; that is his. He said he wanted to ``takeover'' our elections. And they do-- Donald Trump does--want to make it particularly hard for voters who they think will vote against them. He wants to make it particularly hard for those voters to actually be able to cast their votes.

And that is what this bill is all about. It is about making it more difficult for millions and millions of Americans to exercise their right to vote, and it is calculated to try to make it harder for those Americans who President Trump assesses will vote against him or against Republicans.

Why else would Donald Trump have said it will ``guarantee the midterms''? By ``it,'' he meant this bill. So the President of the United States is saying that if Republicans pass this bill, it will guarantee them the midterm elections.

The only way that could be true is if this bill were designed to try to prevent, slow down, make it harder for millions of Americans to cast their vote who Republicans and Donald Trump think will vote against Republicans in the midterms.

He goes on to say: ``If you don't get it, big trouble''--meaning, if we actually let American citizens vote and we don't put up these additional restrictions, President Trump assesses that Republicans will lose the midterms.

And he is desperate to change that. We already saw that in the redistricting effort in Texas and other places around the country. This is part and parcel of that effort.

Donald Trump said that was the goal, and, in fact, recently fired former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the same thing in different words.

Here is what she said, a few weeks ago, in Arizona: ``We have been proactive to make sure that we have the right people [to vote]--

And then she said the other part out loud--

[to vote to elect] the right leaders.

In other words, let's try to shape the electorate by passing this bill so that we--we the Republicans and President Trump--get the voters they want to elect the ``leaders'' they want, meaning Republicans.

That is what this is all about. It is not about saving America. It is about saving Republicans in the midterm elections and beyond.

And they do this by making it harder for citizens to vote. So, yes, it is suppressing the vote. If you make it harder for anyone in this room who is an American citizen or anybody around the country to go out and cast their vote, if you put up hurdles to casting those votes, yes, it is making it more difficult to vote. That is suppressing the vote.

So let's look a little more deeply at the underlying claims behind this bill--the claim that we have all these noncitizens that are voting.

They can't prove it. In fact, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said that noncitizens voting is something they know is happening ``intuitively''--``intuitively.''

He went on to say:

But it's not been something that is easily provable.

Not something easily provable--that is ridiculous. Of course, it is provable. People go into a voting booth. They give their name. That is a matter of the official record. And you can go about finding out whether the person who registered and cast their vote, in fact, is an American citizen. It is provable.

And the problem Republicans have is they set out to prove it and came out completely empty--completely empty.

Let's look at the findings of the conservative Heritage Foundation. So this is a conservative think tank, a Republican think tank. They could only find 24 instances in 20 years of somebody who voted without being a citizen, or maybe it was just registered to vote--but 24 instances between the year 2003 and the year 2023. This is what they are calling a rampant problem.

The Cato Institute, which is not a liberal organization, put out a report last month noting that Utah--the State of Utah--reviewed its approximately 2.1 million voters, and found 1 confirmed noncitizen who had registered but never voted.

I mean, it is certainly possible that if you are a permanent resident, if you have a green card, you might mistakenly believe you can vote in an election and register, and then realize you really can't and then not cast the vote.

So Utah looked at 2.1 million voters, and not a single one--not a single noncitizen among them--cast a vote and only 1 registered.

In Georgia, out of 8.2 million registrants, Georgia found only 20 who were noncitizens. I don't even know if they ended up voting or not.

So, obviously, in this country, we want only American citizens to vote, and that is what is happening. American citizens are the ones who are voting, not noncitizens.

And if you think about that, it makes intuitive sense, right? The penalty--the Federal penalty--for providing false information when you register is up to 5 years in prison. And then, if you actually go ahead and cast a vote as a noncitizen, it is up to another 1 year in prison.

Nobody--nobody--is going to risk going to prison for 6 years in order to cast a vote in an election. I mean, that defies common sense, and it also defies the fact, which is why Republicans can't come up with any proof to support their claim, which they argue justifies this bill-- none.

Again, the Speaker says it is an intuition. In other words, it is a feeling he has got, but there is no proof to support it. It is because there isn't any.

So that is the false claim being made to justify this bill. In other words, it is a bill in search of a problem, but actually the problem doesn't exist. So it is obviously in search of something else, and that something else is making it harder for millions of Americans to vote.

As I mentioned, Donald Trump thinks if this bill is passed, it will ``guarantee'' the Republicans ``the midterms.'' The former Secretary of Homeland Security says we need this bill to get the right voters to vote for the ``right leaders.''

Now, I was just listening to one of my Republican colleagues on the floor talk about how we need ID for all sorts of things, and, of course, that is true. You need a license to drive a car. But guess what. That license that you get, that is not proof of citizenship. That doesn't qualify under this bill. Even the new REAL IDs don't qualify for proof of citizenship under this bill because there are noncitizens who have those forms of ID. So when Republican Senators talk about these other forms of ID that we use every day, suggesting that they could be used for this purpose, that is just not true.

What this bill does is essentially narrow the forms of ID that you need to prove that you are a citizen in the first place to essentially two categories.

One is a passport. Now, it turns out that only about half of Americans have a passport. So that means half of the American citizens that are preparing to go out and vote will not be able to vote because they wouldn't have the proof of citizenship. They don't have a passport.

Or it is an original birth certificate. Well, I think we all know that there are lots of Americans that don't have their original birth certificate.

In fact, if you are a woman who has gotten married and changed her name, that original birth certificate won't provide you the proof of citizenship required under this law.

And research at the Brennan Center at the University of Maryland shows that more than 21 million American citizens do not have these required documents readily available--21 million American citizens who will be forced to go through all these additional hoops and, by the way, pay money in order to get the required ID.

And, of course, in America, we are not supposed to have a poll tax. You are not supposed to have to pay the government any money for the right to exercise your right to vote. But that is what this bill does for maybe up to 21 million of our fellow American citizens.

So if there really were proof of an epidemic of noncitizen voting, of course, we would need to look for ways to prevent that from happening. We would have to come up with some form of required ID to meet that problem. But there is no proof there. There is no ``there'' there.

Now, one of the ways that the Trump administration proposed for trying to get to the bottom of all this claimed fraud was to require States to send the Department of Homeland Security their voting information. In fact, the Department of Justice has been asking a lot of States for this information. You may recall that Attorney General Bondi and former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem were telling people in Minnesota: You know, we will call back ICE and their lawless efforts if you give us your voter ID information.

Of course, in our country, we have State-based elections, thank goodness. Thank goodness we count our elections at the State level. Can you imagine if we did what Donald Trump wants to do, which is federalize the elections and count them at the White House? I mean, do you remember in 2020, after he lost, the President of the United States was calling down to Georgia--Fulton County--and saying: Find me--what was it?--6,000-some votes.

Thank goodness we don't have centralized Federal elections in the United States of America because you can be sure that President Trump would make sure, when he conducted the count at the White House, it would come out his way.

So we don't have that, but we now have a Department of Homeland Security that is essentially demanding that States provide the Federal Government with their voter information. A lot of States are suing. They are fighting back. Some States have been providing that information to the Department of Justice and to other entities. But it turns out that when the States hear back from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Homeland Security is giving them all sorts of misinformation.

Let's look at a couple examples of States that have already shared their voter roll data with DHS. This was, again, for the purpose of DHS checking to make sure that voter rolls in those States did not include noncitizens. So DHS was going to scrub those records and let the States know what kind of problems they have.

Well, Missouri's records were reviewed by DHS, and it turns out that DHS found hundreds of voters that DHS said were ineligible to vote. Guess what. It turned out that DHS was wrong and that they were eligible voters. So DHS was essentially telling the State of Missouri that eligible American citizen voters in fact were not eligible.

One county clerk in Missouri said of the DHS system:

This is not ready for prime time. And I'm not going to risk

the security and constitutional rights of my voters for bad

data.

That is a clerk in the State of Missouri.

An election administrator in Texas said:

I really find no merit in any of this.

That was after three eligible Texas voters--in other words, eligible American citizen Texas voters--had been flagged for removal by DHS.

So here is the State of Texas: OK, DHS, take a look at our voter files, and you find all those people that are really not American citizens.

Well, guess what. They didn't get any back that flagged people who were not American citizens. They did get back people that DHS claimed were not eligible, but when Texas inspected it, it turns out they were eligible to vote. That is the kind of operation the Trump administration is running at DHS.

In addition to requiring this essential Federal takeover of review of the voter rolls, this second bill that has been introduced by Republicans in the Senate is even worse than the first. The first was called the SAVE Act. This one is called the SAVE America Act--which, as I said, the real purpose is to ``Save the Republican Party in the Midterm Elections Act.''

But this second one actually makes it harder for people to register to vote and to vote. It includes new provisions that President Trump has demanded prohibiting vote-by-mail except in very, very narrow circumstances.

In order to vote by mail, a voter would have to submit sworn certifications to the specific circumstances, including their health status or travel plans, to their board of elections. Even after that, you can't just drop the ballot in the mailbox; you have to send it by certified mail, with signature verification.

So this isn't a voter ID bill. That is just untrue. It is a specific kind of ID that is required, which millions of American citizens don't have. It is really a ``Show Me Your Papers Voter Purge Bill,'' making it harder for American citizens to exercise their right to vote.

As I said earlier, the real purpose is not to prevent noncitizens from voting; it is to prevent citizens who the Trump administration and Republicans assess will vote against them in the midterm elections--to make it harder for them to vote.

You are seeing many other efforts that are ongoing right now to try to rig the midterm elections. I mentioned earlier the efforts to redistrict in Texas. We see challenges to the Voting Rights Act. We see this bill. It is a sign of desperation. It is a sign that Donald Trump knows that the American people don't like what they see coming out of this administration.

After all, this is a President who, as a candidate, said he would keep us out of wars--especially in the Middle East--and he would focus on lowering prices. That is what Candidate Trump said. What has President Trump delivered? He has gotten us involved in more conflicts than any other President in a very long time--including an illegal war of choice in Iran as we speak.

The Economy

Mr. President, prices and costs are going up, up, up. The price of groceries is going up. The price of rent and mortgages is going up. Healthcare is going up.

By the way, we could have at least reduced some people's healthcare costs if this Senate had voted to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, but Republicans in this body blocked that effort. So I have constituents in Maryland who now have to pay more because while the Republicans' so-called Big Beautiful Bill permanently extended tax cuts for billionaires, they let the one tax credit that helps middle-class families afford their healthcare--they let that lapse.

Billionaires--permanent tax cuts. American working families' tax credit for healthcare--that one they let die, go away, so healthcare costs are going up really for everybody.

Childcare costs are going up.

Instead of addressing those issues, we have a President who continues to hide portions of the Epstein files from the survivors as well as from the American people, and we have a President who is engaged in driving up costs for the American people instead of bringing them down.

I don't know exactly how many days it has been since the Supreme Court struck down his illegal tariff tax, but it has certainly been enough time for the President and his administration to say that they are going to send the money they stole from the American people back to American households. Mr. President, $1,700 per household is the estimate of what those Trump illegal tariff taxes cost on average.

Give them their money back, President Trump. Do it today.

But that is not what President Trump is doing.

Iran

Mr. President, the war in Iran has already cost us the lives of 13 servicemembers. Hundreds more have been injured. Over 2,000 civilians have been killed throughout the region, from Iran, to Lebanon, to Israel, including over 160 Iranian schoolgirls killed, apparently, by a U.S. Tomahawk missile.

That war is making us less safe, not more safe. We all know that the administration has no endgame. They took the lid off Pandora's box.

They, together with Israel, took out a number of members of the Iranian regime. It is a heinous regime, and it has been brutal to its own people. But public reporting indicates that our intelligence Agencies assess that if you got rid of the top-level Iranian leadership, very likely, they would be replaced by even more radical leaders, people who are closer to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard--in other words, people who are even more dangerous and more likely to destabilize the region. And that is what we are seeing.

We are spending a billion dollars of taxpayer money every day-- probably more--on this war that is making us less safe.

By the way, for the President who said he was going to reduce prices, oil and gas prices are going up, up, up.

Corruption

Mr. President, the American people don't like what they see. On top of this, it is mixed with a toxic amount of corruption. We have the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner going around and pretending to be the big peacemaker in the Middle East--look how that is going--and at the same time doing big, huge deals with Gulf States, with Saudi Arabia and others.

We know that this is a President who, with his so-called meme coin, has pocketed millions and millions of dollars for himself and his family, accepted a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family and a gold- plated Rolex desk clock from Swiss business leaders, and in exchange for a gold crown, gave South Korea a lower tariff rate.

Probably one of the most corrupt transactions of them all was with the UAE, because what happened with the UAE was just before Donald Trump was inaugurated as President. Someone in the UAE--one of the members of the royal family--made a huge investment in the Trump family stablecoin business--a huge investment.

It wasn't long thereafter that the President's son Eric Trump went to the UAE. And guess what happened. Sheik Tahnoon, who is a member of the royal family, invested billions of dollars in that Trump family stable coin business.

Then it was about 2 weeks later that Donald Trump goes to the UAE and says to the UAE that he is going to relax the restrictions the United States had in place on the transfer of very sophisticated technology to the UAE--semiconductor technology, AI technology.

We were especially worried about transferring that technology to a particular set of companies in the UAE because of their relationships with China. But do you know what? The UAE--a member of the royal family--had just invested a lot of money in the Trump family stablecoin business, and so, hey, Donald Trump relaxed the restrictions on the transfer of U.S. technology to the UAE and put that at risk of transfer to China.

It is massive corruption that benefited the Trump family at the expense of American national security.

So, yes, the American people don't like what they are seeing. We are seeing that in all the polling.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, nearly 5 years ago, I stood on the Senate floor, and I said that we were ``facing the most dangerous and overt threat to our democratic system in generations.''

I was speaking then in support of the John Lewis For the People Act. Along with my Democratic colleagues, I was pushing to expand Americans' right to vote and push back against the influence of dark money in our elections.

But the threat facing us then pales in comparison to the one that we face today in the form of the Republicans' so-called SAVE Act because their SAVE Act does nothing to save anyone from anything. It does not protect our freedoms; it does not protect our elections; and it does not protect our country. Instead, it actively targets all three.

So I rise again today to face down this new dangerous and overt threat, this time coming from within our own Federal Government. I rise again today in defense of our right to vote because our right to vote is the foundation of every other right that we have. From our right to bear arms to our right to peacefully protest, it is only through our right to vote that we can protect those freedoms and demand a government that does the same. We know this to our core, to our founding, to the genesis of our country.

When, 250 years ago, we fought for independence from Kings, we did so for a government of the people, by the people. The future of that government right now depends on protecting Americans' right to vote. It depends on ensuring that this lever to hold our leaders accountable, to steer our country's future, and to deliver on our country's promise remains in the hands of Americans--that is, in the hands of all Americans.

And when I think about the importance of this fight, I think about my former colleague whose office was right across the hall from mine when I was a Member of the House of Representatives. I think about Congressman John Lewis. I think about him and the thousands who marched in Selma and put their lives on the line to call for the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I think about the thousands who fought against reading tests and poll taxes, folks who faced lynching for having the audacity to cast their vote, folks who ensured access to the vote wouldn't belong only to the wealthy, landowning men.

I think about the thousands of women who organized and marched to demand passage of the 19th Amendment, the women who led that movement and the women who rightly demanded to be included within it.

And I think about the legislative and courtroom battles that delivered the right to vote to Native Americans and Mexican Americans, a right so fundamental to our democracy but one that generations upon generations of Americans had to fight for, continuing into today.

It is our right to make our voices heard through our vote, regardless of income or education, regardless of race or gender. When we, as Americans, exercise our right to vote, we hold in our hands the reins of this great democracy. And while I stand here in reverence of that incredible right and the decades and decades of work that have brought it into the reach of millions, I also stand here in defense of it because it is truly under direct threat right now.

Republicans' SAVE Act would strip the right to vote from those who don't already have a passport or a birth certificate or the time and money to expedite getting one. It would strip the right to vote from women who took their husband's last name and don't have the means to get the affidavits or extra documents to prove that they are the same person they were at birth. It would effectively strip voters of the ability to register to vote by mail. And the substitute amendment that was offered yesterday would eliminate most mail-in voting altogether.

This SAVE Act is today's poll tax, today's exclusion of everyday Americans. Senate Republicans claim that this is necessary to confront the threat of foreign citizens voting in our elections, but the requirements their SAVE Act imposes are neither necessary nor justified. They are by design. They are intended to reimpose a wealth requirement to vote, and they are intended to attack married women's right to vote.

These are the real threats that this legislation poses. This is not a voter ID bill; this is a voter suppression bill. And while the consequences will fall heaviest on married women and those without the money and time to get the necessary documents, it is up to all Americans to push back--which reminds me of the words of Benjamin Franklin.

When asked at the Constitutional Convention if our Founders had created a monarchy or a republic, Franklin famously said:

A republic, if you can keep it.

We can, we must, and we know how because generations upon generations have fought for our sacred right to vote, and in that fight, they have shown us the way because these are not the first threats we have faced to elections in our country's history or even in my limited time in the Congress.

In 2016, we saw Russia execute a concerted campaign to mislead and divide Americans, all in an effort to influence that year's Presidential election. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I helped investigate those efforts, recommending reforms to push back and supporting funding to improve election security across the country, including in my home State of New Mexico.

In 2021, we saw then-defeated President Trump push his Big Lie and urge insurrectionists to storm the Capitol to stop the 2020 Presidential election certification. As a Member of this body, I joined my colleagues in ensuring that the election certification would continue and, later, in clarifying our laws to fortify our election certification process going forward.

And, last July, I helped introduce the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to fully restore that landmark legislation and to override the Supreme Court's 2013 decision that took an ax to the heart of it.

But now, as we enter this midterm election, we see the threats for what they are--and who they are coming from. They aren't coming from foreign governments or defeated candidates this time. They are coming from within our own Federal Government and directly targeting American citizens' right to vote. They are coming from our Commander in Chief and they are coming from our Department of Justice and they are coming from many in the Republican Party. They are coming from folks who would rather sabotage and strip away Americans' right to vote than face the American people's dissatisfaction or, for that matter, be willing to tackle affordability.

The legislation they are using to do that is their so-called SAVE Act, one of the most extreme voter suppression bills in recent history. It is intended to undermine our elections, using tactics that are straight out of an authoritarian playbook.

But we know how to defeat this new threat: Vote no. Vote no on the SAVE Act because it would require every American to prove their citizenship with a passport or a document like a birth certificate every time they register or reregister to vote, because about 140 million Americans don't have passports and about 21 million Americans don't have ready access to documents proving their citizenship either.

But the process to get a passport, that is not fast, that is not easy. In fact, that is not inexpensive. Requiring voters to purchase or renew a passport for $130 is a modern-day poll tax. This is Jim Crow 2.0. That is even assuming you can get yours in time to actually be able to use it to vote in this year's election.

And while I support verifying citizenship, that process should not be limited to just passports and birth certificates. We already have ways to do this, like the motor voter program, which the SAVE Act would effectively eliminate. That program verifies citizenship.

Vote no on the SAVE Act because it would require people whose names don't match their birth certificates, like women who have taken their husband's last name, to provide notarized affidavits, documentation that will undoubtedly take more time and more money to produce.

Vote no on the SAVE Act because it affects our veterans too. With the SAVE Act, many servicemembers and veterans won't be able to register to vote or to vote with their military IDs, even people who fought for this country.

Vote no on the SAVE Act because even if you happen to have the right documents, you will find that the bill all but eliminates voter registration drives, online registration, and automatic registration.

Vote no on the SAVE Act because even when it is done eviscerating your rights to vote, the SAVE Act would turn its sights on election officials. It would require massive, unfunded changes on how elections are administered on the ground overnight, changes that local governments would be forced to pay for, all while exposing election officials to criminal and civil liability.

If you are tempted to vote yes, let me ask this: What does it say about leaders whose sole strategy for remaining in power requires depriving American citizens of the right to vote?

It shows they are weak. It shows they are scared. It shows that their allegiance is to power, not to the American people. And it shows that they have no intention of delivering what the American people actually want right now, which is to bring down costs.

In the end, the conclusion is clear: The SAVE Act is straight-up voter suppression, and it is fundamentally undemocratic, un-American, and wrong.

It is not just me saying that, not just my Senate Democratic colleagues saying that; my constituents see it for what it is too.

Marie from Albuquerque writes:

This act is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise millions of

voters of their rights . . . it is a blatant attempt to

undermine our entire election system.

Deborah from Las Cruces says:

Especially in New Mexico, so many citizens do not have the

resources to get the sort of documentation [that] this act

requires. It will target not only those in need, but also

women who have recently married and changed their name,

people who have moved to a different home, Native Americans

with little access to the bureaucracy to [even] obtain

documents, and older people who may have been born at home

and never had a birth certificate to begin with.

Dawn from Rio Rancho writes:

It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to

implement, streamline, and add staff because we would all

have to go in-person. And if you live in a rural community,

the whole process is even harder.

Mariah from Santa Fe writes:

This is a brazen attempt to strip the voting rights of

trans, immigrant, and women voters across the country, and

the GOP's way of putting their thumb on the scale of

America's future . . . ALL of us deserve a part in the great

experiment of American Democracy. So much progress is made

when we're all included, not excluded.

And Ms. Marsh Davis from Bloomfield says:

This legislation is not about election security. It is a

coordinated effort to suppress lawful voters by turning

registration into a bureaucratic obstacle course. . . .

Voting should not hinge on flawless paperwork. When officials

are afraid to register voters, democracy suffers. . . . Voter

suppression is not always loud. Often, it works through

inconvenience, confusion, and quiet disqualification--

ensuring voters only discover the problem when [it's] too

late.

These are the voices of my constituents from New Mexico, and they are not alone because right now most Americans know that the SAVE Act is not the answer; they see through Republicans' voter suppression scheme; and they are asking us here in the Senate to fight back.

So let me close with some words from U.S. Senator Dennis Chavez of my great State.

Either we are all free, or we fail; democracy must belong

to all of us.

I have a passport. I have the same last name today as I did when I was born. The SAVE Act won't stop me from voting, but it will stop thousands upon thousands of my constituents.

I will repeat: This is not a voter ID bill; this is a voter suppression bill. All American citizens should have the same right to vote as the Senators in this room.

All American citizens deserve to hold the reins of this great democracy in their hands.

So for those constituents, for all Americans, I say again:

Either we are all free, or we fail; democracy must belong

to all of us.

I call upon my colleagues in the Senate: Choose freedom, choose democracy, and say no to this so-called SAVE Act.