Theodore Roosevelt National Park Wild Horses Protection Act

Mr. President, I am here to talk about a bill that is a matter of fundamental fairness to our veterans and most especially to our combat-injured veterans--a group that should evoke the sympathies and support of our Nation as no other.

I am here to talk about the Major Richard Star Act. Many of my colleagues know about it because 76 Members of this body are cosponsors. That is a large number, but so far, it has not been sufficient to gain even a vote. So I am asking today that that support be turned into action.

This bipartisan legislation will correct one of the deepest injustices impacting disabled veterans. It is labeled by stakeholders as the ``wounded veterans tax.''

The wounded veterans tax, as it stands now, causes more than 50,000 combat-injured veterans who were forced to retire to be barred from a full military pension that they earned or were promised. Let me explain. They are getting a dollar-for-dollar reduction of their military retirement pay from their VA disability benefits. The reduction, dollar-for-dollar, in their retirement pay is the result of their receiving those disability benefits for their combat injuries.

They are entitled to each of the separate and distinct and different forms of compensation. They have earned both. They are different, separate, and distinct. But right now, under current law, they are deprived of the full benefits of their pension because they were injured in combat. Just to describe this injustice should make our stomachs turn with outrage.

The Major Richard Star Act is really a commonsense bill. We use that word, ``commonsense,'' all the time in this Chamber, but in this instance, it seems particularly appropriate. It would right this longstanding injustice and finally provide these military retirees their full VA disability and Defense Department retirement benefits.

This cause is not only common sense, it is rightfully bipartisan. It has received overwhelming support--those 76 cosponsors in this body but also 304 cosponsors in the House of Representatives--and it is the collectively top priority of the military and veterans services organization communities of the United States. Yet, year after year, this bill has stalled, and detractors have worked to deny a simple vote.

Now, in public--critics have avoided taking a public position on the bill, and they have given lipservice to veterans and advocates requesting their support. What their real reasons are, I can't say.

But the fact of the matter is that these veterans have been denied this simple justice.

And let me speak to those critics.

We can't balance the Federal budget on the backs of combat-injured retirees. Doing so reneges on our obligation. It is a sacred obligation to take care of veterans after their time in uniform.

The bill doesn't create some great, new, overly generous benefit, but it would be enormously impactful and beneficial for each of those retirees who would be affected. The average is about $1,200 a month-- some more, maybe some a little bit less. At $1,200 a month--you can do the math--it is not a fortune, but it would make a difference in the lives of these combat-injured veterans.

It simply ensures that the benefits we have promised and the benefits they have earned are the benefits that are now delivered--it is that simple--not clawed back, as happens now, from the heroes who have sustained those combat-related injuries.

The veterans and heroes involved in these bills are similar to the namesake of the bill, MAJ Richard Star, a decorated war veteran and engineering officer in the Army. He suffered from lung cancer caused by burn pit exposure.

We all know about Iraq and Afghanistan burn pit exposure. We passed the PACT Act to provide care and benefits for victims of those burn pits and exposure to other toxic chemicals.

They led to his retirement and his death in 2021. He was 51 years old. Until

his death, he was a dedicated advocate for his fellow veterans and combat-related disabilities.

His wife Tonya Star walked these halls by his side. She died in 2024. She called my staff days before her passing, in tears because another Congress had ended, in 2024, without a vote on the Richard Star Act. Tonya knew the tremendous difference this legislation would make in the lives of caregivers and widows like her.

It would make a difference also in the lives of veterans like Pat Murray of North Kingstown, RI. Pat is a Marine Corps veteran and a staunch veterans advocate. He recently welcomed a baby boy, and he was forced to move back to Rhode Island to be closer to his family because the injuries he sustained from an IED blast in Iraq made it difficult to care for the newborn.

We need to be very clear. This act won't return his amputated leg. But it can provide him and his family with desperately needed financial certainty, which they deserve, they need, and they were promised.

And it would also help veterans like retired MSgt Gabriel Peterson of Biloxi, MS. He was medically discharged as a result of reactive airway disease. He is on five different drugs. They help with his breathing. It is a struggle for him to live, and this act would ensure that he could provide for his family, even if he is no longer able to be employed.

The stories are powerful, and they are persuasive. They depict the scope and impact of this act, if it were passed, in lifesaving and life-enhancing benefits, and what it will mean to the tens of thousands of veterans across this great Nation.

In fact, these veterans and their families--think of their families-- deserve a lot better. They deserve elected officials who will stand up and deliver for them the benefits they were promised and the benefits they earned; and they need them and deserve them today.

I am asking my colleagues to advance this legislation now. The principle of taking care of our veterans has never been Democrat or Republican. The Veterans' Affair Committee is supremely bipartisan. My hope is that tradition will continue, including today.

So let's put politics aside. Let's put partisan differences aside and finally do the right thing and advance this important legislation for our Nation's veterans.

And so notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1032, the Major Richard Star Act; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I want to respond very briefly to my colleague from Mississippi and my friend, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. We have worked together, as he does always, in a bipartisan way on armed services issues. So what I am about to say is not personal to him. In fact, I am willing to bet that it isn't his decision to object here.

But I want to refute two points. No. 1, on double-dipping, let's be clear that these are two separate programs, and the right to payment under each of them is separately deserved. Not everyone who is entitled to retirement pay gets disability benefits. You have to be in that club that nobody wants to join of being combat injured. And it is a separate form of right that in no way involves double-dipping, as we commonly refer to it. The retirement pay is for years of service in the military. VA disability compensation is for the loss of future earnings due to service-connected injuries or illnesses.

And I just want to make clear that this point is really about equity and fairness. Congress eliminated this option for nearly a million veterans who have served 20 years and have a 50-percent VA disability rating or higher. It has already dealt with one segment of this group. This unjust assessment ultimately ought to be eliminated for all the 430,000 veterans who had their military retirement pay clawed back because they are receiving VA disability benefits.

But we are starting here or taking the next step with 50,000 of those 430,000 who, in fairness, should receive both, the retirement pay and disability benefits. And we are doing it because these 50,000 have combat-related injuries.

And as to the total cost--again, not personal to my colleague from Mississippi--but the CBO told us that the Republican-supported tax cuts exploded the deficit by about $3.4 trillion.

Let me repeat that: $3.4 trillion, in large part tax cuts to people who didn't need them.

These veterans need these benefits. This cost is a minuscule fraction of those trillions. This country can afford to do right by these combat-injured veterans. The DOD Office of the Actuary has indicated it could implement the Richard Star Act in an ``actuarially sound manner.''

It is not too costly. It is financially sound. I regret that the Richard Star Act will not be passed today, but I have another measure that I would like to bring to the floor. And it is, with regret, that we are not providing unanimous consent to the bill itself.

And I understand the points made by my colleague, but I would like to present a middle ground. Since we don't have unanimous consent for the Major Richard Star Act today, let's agree to a vote. Let's have a time agreement that would authorize the Senate to take a single up-or-down vote on passage of this bill before the end of the year. This time agreement doesn't guarantee passage. It simply guarantees a vote.

One vote, that is all I am asking. Give us a vote on passage of the Major Richard Star bill, and it would be passage by a 60-vote margin, filibuster proof. If we get 60 votes, the bill passes. If not, it goes down. Let's do it before the end of the year.

I happen to think that we ought to spend whatever time is necessary on this bill. But I understand that leadership is concerned about time. And so my proposal strips away all the time-consuming procedural stuff--I have another word for it--but it allows us to go forward expeditiously. One vote scheduled entirely at Majority Leader Thune's discretion, before the end of the year--it could start and finish in half an hour or 45 minutes.

Surely, the Republican leadership can spare that short time, scheduled at

their discretion, to give these combat-injured veterans a single vote on this bill before the end of the year.

And so notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader but no later than December 31, 2025, the Committee on Armed Services be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 1032; further, that there be up to 2 hours of debate on the bill, equally divided between the two leaders or their designees, and that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the bill be considered read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the bill, with 60 affirmative votes required for passage, all without further intervening action or debate and no amendments or motions in order to the bill prior to the vote on passage.

Mr. President, I respect the points that are being made by my friend from Mississippi. In fact, we share support for every one of those armed services measures that he had described, whether it is bolstering our nuclear force, providing for more drone protection, increasing well-deserved compensation for our military men and women, and it is the reason why he has led, and I have supported, the current National Defense Authorization Act that, hopefully, will be approved by this body within days.

Where we differ is, I think, that I believe that the $9 billion or $10 billion that would go to ensure fundamental fairness to our military is there or a great nation should ensure it is there when we are talking about the trillions that we will spend on many other things, some of them very worthwhile, but, in my view, none more worthwhile than doing right by these veterans.

It isn't double dipping. It isn't overly generous. It isn't going to break the bank, so to speak. To the Federal Government as a whole, with its trillions of dollars, it is a miniscule fraction; to those veterans, it is not only a matter of quality of life and sometimes survival, it is fundamental fairness.

They were promised. They have earned it. They deserve it. They need it. They ought to have it.

And this measure simply would assure a vote--a vote. We ought to face our responsibilities. Maybe my colleagues, even though 76 of them have cosponsored--that is three quarters of this body--maybe it would still fail for whatever reason. But I would like to take my chances. And I assure my colleague from Mississippi, who I think supports the basic goal from what he has said, that I will continue fighting and working for this measure to pass. I know there is deep and broad support in this body for it, and I look forward to a time when he and I will be on the floor together, both of us, supporting this measure in a vote.

I am not giving up, and I am very hopeful that this cause will continue to be bipartisan.

Mr. President, well, it looks like we are going to have a shutdown. What does that tell us? I will tell you what it tells me. It is simply that much more evidence that human evolution is a slow, slow process. I thought humans had advanced more as a species, but, apparently, we haven't.

What do I mean by a shutdown? Well, we can't keep government open without a budget, and tonight, at midnight, our current budget expires, unless we vote to maintain the status quo and continue the current budget as we negotiate a new one.

Many of my Democratic friends say: Well, what is the problem? The Republicans are in charge. The President is a Republican, and the Republicans have a majority in the Senate, and the Republicans have a majority in the House. What is the problem?

They know what the problem is. We can't pass a budget, we can't keep government open just with Republican votes here in the Senate. We only have 53 Republicans. We need seven Democrats to join with us. So for my Democratic colleagues to say, ``Well, the Republicans are in charge, and they don't need us,'' they know that is not accurate. And that is what is going on.

Now, we have had a few shutdowns before, and every shutdown is different. But most shutdowns are a combination of both policy and politics in varying degrees. This shutdown, in terms of policy, makes absolutely no sense--none. What we have proposed to our Democratic colleagues and the minority leader, Senator Schumer, is to make no changes to the current budget. We just want to continue the current budget and keep government open until just before Thanksgiving to give us more time to negotiate a permanent budget.

We did that many times when President Biden was President and when the Democrats had the majority. In fact, we did it 13 times. Not only have Republicans done it, but Democrats have routinely done it.

But this time the Democrats have said: No, no, no, no, no. We want more.

And you may be thinking: OK, that is reasonable. What do you want?

Well, it is not reasonable. In effect, what the Democrats are saying to us is that we are going to close government

unless you agree--you, Republicans--to make it bigger. We don't want the status quo. We want you to commit to spending $1.5 trillion more than you are spending now, and we--the Democrats are saying--are going to tell you how to spend it.

First, they want us to repeal all of the Medicaid reforms that we did in the reconciliation bill. Some call it the One Big Beautiful Bill.

The One Big Beautiful Bill would not reduce Medicaid. In fact, it would go up about 2 percent every year as a result of our bill. But it would say to people who are on Medicaid who aren't eligible for Medicaid that you are not going to get Medicaid anymore. Dual eligibles, people who sign up in Louisiana and Mississippi--that is fraud--under our bill, they would be thrown off. The Democrats want them put back on.

Under our changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill that the Democrats want us to reverse, you would have to satisfy certain income levels to be on Medicaid. The law says, if you make too much money, you can't get Medicaid because Medicaid is for the poor. In my State, we have found people, through audits, making $120,000 a year on Medicaid. So our bill, which the Democrats want us to repeal after just passing it, would say to those people that if you don't meet the income limits, you can't get Medicaid.

So that is the first demand of the Democrats: Take out all of the reforms we made to Medicaid in the reconciliation bill and throw them out the window.

No. 2, they want to extend the ObamaCare subsidies. What does that mean? Well first let me say, Obamacare was a mistake, and we know that now. When President Obama passed ObamaCare, we were told that our lives would be better; our lives have been worse. We were told it would make health insurance more accessible and more affordable; it has done neither.

On the non-Medicaid part of ObamaCare, we have got--I don't know--20, 25 million Americans who are accessing it. And for the most part, about 90 percent of them are low-income families, but the rest are making huge sums of money. Some are making $160,000 a year getting ObamaCare subsidized by taxpayers. And that is not the way it was supposed to be.

How did we get here? It is simple. During the pandemic, when people were being laid off or losing their jobs or couldn't work, President Biden ran through a bill to enlarge the subsidies. He took the cap off the amount that you need to earn in order to get ObamaCare, and those subsidies, at the end of this year, are about to run out.

Now, the Republicans have said: We will sit down with our Democratic friends and talk about how to extend them, but we want to reform the program because it is not right that people making $125,000, $150,000, $250,000, $200,000 a year are getting their health insurance subsidized by the Federal Government.

That is bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid. But the Democrats-- Senator Schumer and his colleagues--have said: Nope. We will shut the government down unless you agree automatically to extend these subsidies, which were passed near the pandemic, after the pandemic is over permanently.

And that is just some of my colleagues' demands. I mean, you need-- you need an Excel spreadsheet to be able to follow their demands. Their demands to keep government open, you can stack them here; you could stand on them and paint the ceiling. And that is not much of an exaggeration.

When Senator Schumer announced these demands, that is when I knew; I knew it in a nanosecond: We are going to have a shutdown because my colleagues--my Democratic colleagues--are very smart people, and Senator Schumer is a smart person. And he knew when he announced these demands that I could tell he wasn't serious. He knew they weren't serious, and he knew neither the President nor the other Members of Congress were going to accept them.

You know what, many Democrats know they are unreasonable as well. So that is why I say the policy part of this makes absolutely no sense, and that is because this isn't about policy. This shutdown is about politics.

Now, parties change just like the human experience changes over time. Political parties change. My party has changed; so has the Democratic Party. And there is a wing of the Democratic Party--I call it the socialist wing. Some less charitable people call it the loon wing of the Democratic Party, and they are in charge right now.

And the nonloon, nonsocialist Democrats are scared to death of them. This particular wing of the Democratic Party that is in the ascendency, what do they believe? They believe--they try to outweird each other all the time.

They hate--if you listen to them, they hate Thomas Jefferson; they hate Abraham Lincoln; they hate George Washington; they hate Dr. Seuss; they hate Mr. Potato Head.

They think our kids should be able to change genders back and forth at recess--kids--and if it is their preference, should be able to undergo sex-change operations while minors paid by you, the taxpayers. They believe that.

They believe in open borders. They believe that if you support the law, which says you have to be vetted to come into our country--if you support the law, you are a racist. I think if you support the law, you are being prudent, but they believe in open borders.

My Democratic friends are able to elect a new mayor in New York City who is a member of the loon wing. He is a self-avowed socialist. He has said if the Prime Minister of Israel comes to New York City, he will have him arrested.

But this is not the majority of Democrats that believe this. I don't think that for a second. And I know many of my Democratic colleagues here don't believe that. But the loon wing, the socialist wing, the angry Gary Busey wing of the Democratic Party is in ascendency, and they have got a lot of power, an enormous amount of power.

Many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate are scared of them. The loon wing is mad at many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate. They shouldn't be, but they are. Therefore, many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate are scared of the loon wing, and they want the loon wing to love them.

The loon wing will never love them. They are better off doing the right thing, and they know what the right thing to do is. But that is why I say this is a political decision. That is why we are going to shut government down.

Now, once you shut government down, unless you are prepared to leave it shut down permanently--and maybe my Democratic colleagues are, but I don't think so. Maybe I am naive, but I still think many of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate know better. Once you shut the government down, you have got to get it back open.

How are they going to get it back open? We are not going to agree to their demands--$1.5 trillion. They know we are not going to agree to it.

So how is my friend Senator Schumer going to get the government back open? You know, there is a famous movie line. I don't remember the movie. I think Denzel Washington said the line. I love Denzel Washington. He is what cool looks like. The guy is awesome. He is a total bomb. I love Denzel Washington.

But anyway, I think he said in one movie: If you pray for rain--if you pray for rain, you better be prepared to deal with the mud.

And truer words were never spoken.

So if you want a shutdown, I say to my Democratic friends, you better be prepared to deal with the mud.

How are you going to get it back open? How are you going to get it back open? I wouldn't want to be in their shoes to have to make that decision.

Let me just say a few words--every time we do a shutdown, it scares the living daylights out of the American people, especially our elderly. It breaks my heart. All of us get phone calls from folks scared to death they are not going to get their Social Security check or they are not going to be able to see their doctor. And it just breaks my heart. So I want to give them a little bit of assurance.

During the shutdown, the executive branch will be in charge, and the Trump administration is not going to do anything to hurt our elderly. I want to assure them of that. If you are receiving a Social Security check or Medicare or Medicaid or veterans disability, your checks are going to continue. We will make sure of that. The Trump administration will make sure of that. Government may be shut down,

but essential workers will still be there to make sure those checks are sent out.

If you are hungry and you don't have money to eat, we are not going to let you starve to death. The administration is going to continue payments--some people call it SNAP; I call it food stamps--and we will continue the payments for the Women, Infants, and Children's Program. Most of us refer to that as WIC.

You will still get your mail. Don't worry about that. The Postal Service will be working through the shutdown. If you depend, for healthcare, on your Veterans' Administration and VA medical centers, they are going to remain open. So I don't want you to be scared about that.

Now, you are going to notice an impact. Probably, we have got 2 million to 2\1/2\ million Federal employees--probably 750,000 aren't going to be on the job. Under the law, they have to go home. So you will notice an impact.

You will notice it in our parks. You will notice it in our museums here in Washington if you are visiting. You will notice it in many of the Federal Agencies. That is the law. They can't come to work in a shutdown--doesn't matter who initiates the shutdown.

You know, we still have a little time, midnight tonight. We are going to be taking some votes here in a few minutes, give our Democratic colleagues one last chance--one last chance--to do the right thing. And I certainly--I certainly--hope they accept it.

With that, Mr. President, I appreciate your patience.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss a vote that the Senate will take later this week on en bloc Executive nominations. The vote will likely come either tomorrow or possibly Friday. There is an en bloc of approximately 100 nominations that we will be considering, and I rise to talk about the nomination of one individual--Bill White to be the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium.

I regret that we are taking up nominations en bloc. I think there are good reasons to reform the nominations process. I think we probably have to have Senate confirmation for too many people. But I didn't believe a few weeks ago in the Senate action that allowed people to be lumped together because my view was that that causes individuals who were in the en bloc not to get the appropriate scrutiny they should get. I viewed the action, bluntly, as a little less about advancing nominations as raising the risk of hiding nominations in large groups where individuals would not get the appropriate scrutiny, and I believe that very strongly to be the case with Mr. White.

Mr. White is President Trump's nominee to be Ambassador to an important U.S. ally, Belgium, the headquarters of NATO. Mr. White has done some good things in his life, and I don't dispute that, and I know he has been a strong supporter of President Trump, as are virtually all of the Trump appointees, many of whom I have voted for. I haven't done this calculation, but I probably have a track record on the Democratic side of voting for as high a percentage of President Trump's nominees, both in term 1 and term 2, as just about anyone because I do believe as a former Governor that your election does carry with it a mandate to be able to assemble a team of like-minded people. Even if I might disagree with you, President Trump was elected, and he should have the ability to assemble a team of like-minded people.

But I do carefully scrutinize the character, judgment, and qualifications of the individuals who are put before us for important positions, and this nomination of this individual for this country at this time I view as so uniquely bad that I wanted to take the time to come to the floor and talk about why.

What I am going to talk about is Mr. White's judgment as evidenced by his social media postings. I have a whole lot of examples I could use, but I am going to just narrow it down to the ones that I think are a true window into this individual's judgment and character and that demonstrate that he is not suitable to represent the United States in a critical ambassadorial position.

On May 16, 2023, he tweeted out about one of our colleagues, Senator Graham of South Carolina:

Graham is a snake.

He has tweeted out many bad things about Democratic colleagues that I am not going to post before you, but someone who says about Lindsey Graham that he is a snake is not demonstrating the judgment you need to be an ambassador representing the United States in Belgium.

Mr. White fell down the rabbit hole of election conspiracy in 2020 and has repeatedly tweeted and posted his belief that the 2020 election was not accurately called and that Donald Trump actually won rather than President Biden. Now, I think any intelligent person recognizes that as a conspiracy theory that most fourth graders wouldn't be gullible enough to fall for, but Mr. White has tweeted it over and over and over again.

He has gone beyond just asserting that Donald Trump won the election in 2020. He has actually gone much, much further than that. In the runup to the election of 2024--so this is now 4 years after the 2020 election--Mr. White was posting material and reposting material about Georgia's secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, claiming that he had acted improperly in the 2020 election.

Lock [Georgia's secretary of state]--

And forgive me; this is a quote.

Lock . . . this mother effer up.

That is what he is calling to happen to the Republican secretary of state in

Georgia. And this was recent. This was in August of 2024. This is not years and years and years ago.

Mr. White went on to continue in this extreme rhetoric in the aftermath of President Trump's election in 2024. Within the days to follow, shortly after the election, he basically says Donald Trump won Georgia--that is referring to the 2024 election--and that it is high time now to legitimately prosecute the Georgia secretary of state and Governor Kemp, the Republican Governor of Georgia. Mr. White is calling for them both to be prosecuted, and this was just at the time that Donald Trump won the 2024 election.

OK. Donald Trump was elected President in 2024. Why are you still so focused on a campaign of retribution against Georgia Republicans whom you were urging to be locked up and prosecuted?

To be an ambassador, you need to have some judgment, you need to have some diplomacy. You will deal with tough issues. Belgium is not a big country, but Belgium is a very important country. It has been a U.S. ally for a very long time, and it is the headquarters of NATO, which has a huge importance in the world right now.

Putting somebody into a position like this who puts out negative tweets about Lindsey Graham and who is encouraging Republican officials in Georgia to be prosecuted and locked up--I think those would be disqualifying in and of themselves, but as I was looking at this individual's social media account, I came upon something else that a lot of people didn't notice, because it seemed odd, but I did a little bit of research into it, and I want to focus on it.

Mr. White, in May of 2024--months before President Trump's election-- retweeted a post from an individual named Dries Van Langenhove, with a video from this individual. The video is a lengthy video wherein this individual, Dries Van Langenhove, says:

This Friday, they may send me to prison for years, so this

video is my last chance. They are trying to destroy me, but

with your help, we will destroy them. Free Dries.

Among the other tweets of calling a colleague a snake and calling for people to be locked up, this one seemed odd. Who is Dries Van Langenhove? Who is Dries Van Langenhove? Dries Van Langenhove is a convicted, Holocaust-denying, pro-violence anti-Semite in Belgium. The tweet that Mr. White posted was his video the night before he was sentenced to a year in prison for inciting violence and denying the Holocaust.

This is an article from POLITICO Europe in March of 2024, and it talks about Mr. Van Langenhove. Title: ``Belgium's far-right prodigy gets prison term for inciting violence.''

Dries Van Langenhove, a political activist and leader of a

Flemish-nationalist youth movement called Schild & Vrienden,

was convicted of inciting violence and denying the Holocaust,

the Ghent criminal court [ruled].

[He]"revelled in Nazi ideas that caused much suffering. He

wants to undermine society,'' a judge said when announcing

the ruling.

Why would Mr. White, in March of 2024, even know who Dries Van Langenhove was?

When I saw this, as I was researching this prior to the hearing on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I had no idea who Dries Van Langenhove was. I wondered, Why is Mr. White platforming this individual I know nothing about? Then, as I read it, I find that he is a notorious violence-promoting, Holocaust-denying anti-Semite criminal convict in Belgium. This is a big deal.

The ADL says that of any nation in Europe, Belgium may have seen the most spike in anti-Semitic behavior since October 7.

Some of you might remember the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris a couple of years ago, pre-October 7. There was a similar attack on the same day in Belgium, an anti-Semitic attack. Belgians have been charged with crimes of vandalism and religious-based violence and attacks on the Holocaust museum in both Belgium, Brussels, and Paris. And the Belgian Government is really working hard to try to deal with this cancer of anti-Semitism in this nation.

As far as I know, Mr. Langenhove is the only individual who has been successfully prosecuted in Belgium for Holocaust-denying, inciting violence, and reveling in pro-Nazi ideas. The material that Bill White posted was Mr. Van Langenhove seeking support in donations to help him avoid accountability for his words and actions.

Mr. White's work in the past might qualify him to serve in some capacities. I am not saying there isn't a position, one that doesn't require diplomacy, where his skills might be necessary, but this particular appointment is an insult to Belgium--a nation that is trying to deal with a deep, deep challenge in anti-Semitism.

For the United States to send as an ambassador to that nation someone who has platformed the far-right prodigy who has received a prison term for inciting anti-Semitic violence is a slap in the face of this important ally.

I started by saying I am worried that the fact that this nomination is being slid into the middle of a big block of nominations means it won't get the attention that it deserves. Traditionally, on a nomination like this, we might get 1 or 2 hours on the floor to focus on this particular individual.

My colleague Senator Merkley, as we were discussing the change that allowed en bloc nominations, proposed an alternative where you could remove a name from the en bloc if you wanted to actually have some ability to focus on it. That effort was unsuccessful. But I want to raise this today.

This is already getting press in Belgium. The hearing itself, where it came to light that Mr. White was platforming Dries Van Langenhove, is getting press in Belgium; it is getting press elsewhere in Europe; and it is being examined as: Wait. How does the United States feel about this country and this relationship? How does the United States feel about qualifications for diplomats if someone who is so intrepid in his speech but also is platforming Belgian Holocaust deniers gets the plum position to be our Ambassador to Belgium?

So my hope--and in life, I have often learned that high hopes are great and so are low expectations. I will say in standing here today, I stand here with high hopes and low expectations. My hope is that some of my Republican colleagues might look at this and say: This is a bridge too far. This is too important a country and anti-Semitism is too important an issue to send, with the imprimatur of U.S. Ambassador and to this ally of the United States, somebody who is platforming and promoting an anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying convicted criminal.

That is my hope that when we have this vote later in the week, we might decide that the United States can do better by our ally.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, Democrats do not want a shutdown. Democrats also do not want millions of American families to go bankrupt next year because their healthcare premiums more than doubled. Democrats do not want people to get kicked off their healthcare, get sick, or even die. Democrats want to stop our rural hospitals from closing and laying off more staff.

We have been clear about this for weeks and weeks and weeks. All along, Democrats have made clear we are ready to hammer out a solution to prevent a shutdown and save people's healthcare. But I am afraid that at every step of the way, Republican leadership has made clear they would rather shut down the government than make sure people can afford healthcare. Apparently, working with Democrats to save American families money and keep the government open is too much for Republican leadership because their plan so far has been to let healthcare premiums double--double--next year and insist that Democrats swallow a bill that does nothing on healthcare.

President Trump and Republicans in Congress would rather shut down the government than have serious negotiations to lower costs, save healthcare, and prevent a shutdown.

Unfortunately, Republicans decided on the shutdown track weeks ago and have done nothing to steer away from that cliff. This is not hard to understand. Republican leadership has not been subtle.

If Republicans were serious about avoiding a shutdown, they would not have skipped town last week, and Speaker Johnson wouldn't be refusing to return lawmakers until after the funding deadline.

If Republicans were serious about avoiding a shutdown, they wouldn't be holding a vote on a bill that already failed and that, I should say, actually got fewer votes than Democrats' bill since eight Republican Senators didn't even bother to show up to take that vote.

If Republican leadership was serious about avoiding a shutdown, they wouldn't be refusing to hold the vote until the last minute.

If Republican leadership was serious about avoiding a shutdown, Trump wouldn't say:

Don't bother dealing with Democrats.

He wouldn't shrug his shoulders and say:

If it has to shut down, it will shut down.

If Republican leadership was serious about avoiding a shutdown, they would not have waited until the last possible moment to hold the meeting that could have happened weeks ago, and they would have listened and negotiated at that meeting instead of just saying ``my way or the highway.''

Ask yourself this: If Donald Trump and Republican leadership were serious about preventing a shutdown, would Trump be tweeting out completely unserious, AI videos riddled with lies, debunked conspiracies, and mariachi music? Would they be toying with the lives of public servants and threatening to fire more of them when they know the vital role that they all play in providing services to the American people? Come on.

The President is thrilled to be shutting things down and sowing division, not working to solve the problem. He is showing every day how unserious he is in this moment.

Let's look at this another way. What would the Trump administration and Republicans be doing if they wanted a shutdown? Well, if President Trump and Republicans wanted a shutdown, they might be planning how to cause as much damage as possible, planning how they would hurt women and children who need vital nutrition assistance.

The administration might be planning to conduct a shutdown as a pretext to conduct more of the mass firings we have seen for months and inflict more pain. Republicans might openly talk about how Trump ``welcomes'' a shutdown and how they will use it to advance their extreme agenda--exactly like Russ Vought and his team at OMB are doing and have been doing.

If President Trump wanted a shutdown, he might be scheduling meetings with Democratic leaders, only to cancel them and finally reschedule them at the last possible moment--exactly as he just did.

If Republican leadership wanted a shutdown, they might mischaracterize what Democrats' position is because they know that refusing to lower costs and protect people's healthcare, which is what they have been doing, is not popular. And, of course, mischaracterizing Democrats' positions is exactly what Republican leadership has been doing.

I swear, the only way President Trump knows how to compose a sentence is noun, verb, illegal immigrant. And hey, why not throw in ``transgender'' for good measure? That is how he aims to sow division and hatred.

Are they serious?

American citizens across the country are starting to get letters now warning that their premiums are set to double. Hospitals are already closing or laying off staff and not for no reason in particular--this healthcare crisis is happening explicitly because of Republican policy decisions.

Instead of talking with us about addressing healthcare from the start, Republicans decided to pass a partisan CR. They decided they would do nothing about the fact that healthcare premiums are about to skyrocket. They decided they preferred a shutdown because they don't want to act in time to prevent families from paying dearly with exploding healthcare costs.

Good luck explaining that to the American people.

Good luck arguing: Sorry Republicans left town until the eleventh hour and shut down the government, but, you see, we wanted to make sure you couldn't afford healthcare.

Good luck saying that to your constituents.

Good luck saying: You don't understand, those radical Democrats demanded we stop your premiums from more than doubling next year.

It is not going to fly. The American people are a whole lot smarter than that.

Despite all this, Republican leadership is pretending they want to talk about healthcare later. The reality Republicans won't talk about is that higher premiums are being announced right now. Let's be clear about that because it underscores why addressing healthcare is so urgent.

The reason we need to start this conversation right now is because people will receive letters in the mail with

their new rates next month. In Idaho, open enrollment will begin October 15. We already know those rates are going to be much higher if Republicans insist on inaction. We already know millions of people are going to start losing their insurance. They will be priced out if we don't get this dealt with soon.

It is worth noting that according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a quarter--a quarter--of our farmers and ranchers are enrolled through the healthcare marketplace, and nearly one-half of marketplace enrollees are small business owners, small business workers, or self- employed.

Why do Republicans want to price farmers out of healthcare? Why don't they care about small businesses and their workers?

I heard about one family in my home State of Washington who learned that if Republicans get their way on this, their healthcare premium could jump from $278 a month to as much as $1,800 a month. And they are far from alone in staring down a huge, huge healthcare increase if Republicans refuse to act now. Millions of families are going to see their healthcare costs jump by thousands of dollars. That is why we have to act. That is what Democrats want to avoid. That is what we want to avoid, and we know we have to do this now, but still, Republican leadership has refused to start that conversation.

Meanwhile, Democrats are at the table. We have ideas ready to go. Democrats put forward our proposal for funding the government--not, as Republicans are pretending, as a ``take it or leave it'' demand but a proposal, one with several key issues we want to discuss with Republicans.

We want to talk about how we stop Republicans' Medicaid cuts before our families get kicked off their healthcare and before Republican cuts shutter many of our rural hospitals.

We want to talk about how we can stop Russ Vought from stealing money for cancer research.

We want to talk about how we save the healthcare tax credits that tens of millions depend on before those higher premiums kick in and get locked in, before families decide they just can't afford their coverage--in short, before it is too late--because if Republicans insist on sitting on their hands, if they decide to wait until the last minute to finally work with us to save these credits, 1\1/2\ million Americans will lose their healthcare. Again, that is if we do pass an extension at the last minute. If Republicans never get serious about this at all, it is going to be even worse. But even delay has a real cost and one that is paid for by our families. So it is time for Republicans to get serious.

Despite what Republicans are pretending, Democrats are not asking for the Moon here. We are literally just insisting that Congress take action to address the looming healthcare crisis that they themselves caused. It is shocking that Republican leaders are digging in so deep against doing this now. If nothing changes, that is a pretty ominous sign.

I hope, despite the completely partisan path Republicans are on right now, they will come to their senses and come to the table because I don't just want us to keep the government open with a deal brokered by both sides; I want to stop the enormous price increase that is about to hit families. I want us to ultimately get those full-year funding bills that help people--I want those to get signed into law.

Here we are. I have to say that right now, what we see is Russ Vought trying to hold government workers hostage. Right now, we have House Republicans refusing to even come back here to DC to do their jobs until next week. Right now, we have Senate Republicans replaying a failed vote.

Look, if Republicans want to avoid a shutdown like Democrats want to avoid a shutdown, then stop spending so much time saying you will sit down with us on healthcare later. Spend that time working with us right now. But if Republicans insist on writing a bill without any Democrats, they better pass it without Democrats, too, because I am a no.

Democrats will continue to work to keep government open and to save your healthcare. I am ready to keep the government open, as I said many times over the last several weeks, and I am ready and I am willing to stay at the table for as long as it takes. The question here remains, will Republican leadership get serious and negotiate?

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I know many of my constituents are contacting me about the rising cost of healthcare. I know that many of my colleagues are saying that they are being contacted about the rising cost of healthcare.

Believe it or not, some of it is impacted by tariffs--some of it, the anxiety of what happened when Medicaid was threatened in the Big Beautiful Bill. But most specifically now, they are hearing from their State insurance commissioners that rates are going to go up as early as October 15 in the State of Idaho and in many, many States across the country, as early as November 1, are starting to now have to make a choice. Are they going to pay for this huge increase in insurance premiums because this institution, this body, did not deal with the Affordable Care Act extensions of subsidies that provided affordable health insurance to millions of Americans?

This is something that is already going to affect the burden that rural hospitals have. It is going to burden Americans as they try to keep working, and it is going to burden an ever increasing healthcare system that is facing these costs.

I hope that we can do something, to make a commitment to focus on affordability. Why? The American people are seeing a huge cost increase in groceries, in gasoline, in everyday products. Our manufacturers are seeing increases in cost. And so this is an issue that needs to be tackled today, not in a few weeks when you are locked in to the higher rates. It is not something that can be done by the end of the year because you are going to be locked in to higher rates. This is something that Congress and the administration need to hash out now.

Now, I am an advocate of--I wish we would have hashed it out last summer. I basically started realizing in July that this was going to affect my State, when our insurance commissioner came up with what they predicted would be a 20-plus-percent increase in rates, and we started speaking with small businesses across the State who said it was going to affect their ability to keep their employees because of the cost of healthcare.

So what are we doing now? Well, instead of addressing this issue, the Affordable Care Act healthcare market rate extension of making sure that premiums don't rise significantly on many Americans, people are denying that the problem exists or that the deadline is actually here-- past due, really--to affect what we think is an emergency.

Last week, my office released a report showing that dramatic increases in premiums for many States in the United States have already gotten approval, and just one chart that I will show you shows those increased rates, not just for the State of Washington--which we saw a 21-percent increase--but for many other States: Arizona, which they are proposing a 48-percent increase; Georgia, 39-percent increase; North Carolina, 29.36 percent; and Texas, 39.28 percent.

Why are they going up so much? Well, insurers are saying in their States, the primary reason, as I mentioned earlier, administration tariffs, cost of delivering the healthcare system, and the pending failure of Congress to extend the tax credits in the Affordable Care Act. As a result, as I said, many people will be paying these higher rates, but 5 million Americans across the country, including 80,000 Washingtonians, the estimates are, will just no longer be able to afford insurance.

That is the estimate: 5 million Americans across the country, 80,000 in my State, will just be like, ``Nope, can't afford insurance anymore, not going to buy it.'' Why is that so important? Well, because the Affordable Care Act drove down the rate of uninsured in America from about 15 percent to about 7 percent. That decrease in uncompensated care helped us reduce our overall healthcare costs too, for people who are getting insurance in many different ways.

When you have uncompensated care, the costs don't just evaporate and go into the sky. They are paid by the rest of us in the system. Failing to deal with this affects everybody's healthcare, not just those on the Affordable Care Act premium plan of extension of these credits. It affects everybody because you are increasing the cost of healthcare throughout the entire system.

I don't want to roll the dice on this and find out what happens to many of my constituents. I don't want to find out what happens when people who don't have health insurance get sick anyway and go to the emergency room or have a devastating diagnosis just because we wouldn't act. When you think about this, the ranks of people who are in this uninsured market don't stop getting sick. They do still have costs, and that uncompensated care is what drove up the cost of our healthcare system overall.

So now, as we face inflation, it is the last thing we should be doing, is to drive up the cost of anything just because we have failed to act. The last thing we need to do is discover that, on November 1, that those premiums, which will go into place as people purchase those plans, is something that we can't reverse for the future--because the market is a marketplace. It is a marketplace of insurance. If we want to affect this, we should affect it now.

In August, I asked the chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee to hold a hearing on how to lower these costs for Americans and find ways to keep people insured and healthy. Unfortunately, the Senate Finance Committee did not even meet in September and did not schedule any hearings to actually even discuss this particular problem.

I would have hoped that there would have been an illumination with our report, as everybody realized these rates are going to get locked in, people are going to make purchase decisions in November and December, and then, as I said, lots of people will just say, ``I can't afford these rates. They're insane, and now I'm going to just drop out of the marketplace. But yeah, I'm still going to get sick, and I'm still

going to cost the hospital and the part of the State that may not even be able to afford it. I'm still going to have uncompensated care costs.''

All of this could have been discussed, and that is why, when we put out the report, we expressed the urgency by sending the same letter-- not a big political letter, but a letter--to the ranking member and chairman of the Finance Committee, but also to the leadership of the Senate, the House, and the President, saying you need to wake up to this problem. This problem is real. It will affect our economy. It will affect millions of people, and it will affect the rest of us by driving up the cost of health insurance.

So I heard Speaker Johnson on the television this morning saying that extending the ACA credits is a December issue. Well, it is not really a December issue if people start, in October and November, making decisions and locking themselves into higher rates or deciding that they are not going to even buy insurance because it is too expensive.

He said, ``Reforms are needed to the program.'' Great. We could have had that discussion in August or September, and we certainly could have it today, but I see no convening. The House isn't even here. I see no convening of people saying, ``Let's get serious about these extensions and the high cost of health insurance.'' Families are relying on the exchange, and these decisions need to be made during this open enrollment period.

I know people are thinking, ``Oh, this is such a geeky issue.'' Trust me: I know that many Americans are frustrated over enrollment periods for health insurance period, okay? They are always challenged by the fact that an employer or this healthcare system--yes, we need to keep working to improve the healthcare system. But right now, we don't want to lose millions of people from the healthcare system just because we don't want to talk about it and somebody wants to talk about it later.

To enroll by December 15, you need to know what the premium costs are. To get coverage starting on January 1, you need to enroll by December 15. So that means you have to know what this situation is all about now. When these insurance commissioners across the country--go back to those rates--started publishing those rates, that is when everybody should have woken up and said, ``What the heck are we talking about?'' Thirty, 40, almost 40 percent in Arizona, 40 percent. What are we talking about?

Insurance commissioners are proposing--oh, by the way, maybe in a few red States, they knew it was so bad they didn't even want to put the information out there. Our report published a lot of this, and people weren't even thinking about it. They weren't even thinking about or letting people put out the information about how high the rates were going to be. So why would you do that? Why not address the underlying issue and say, ``What are we doing about the high cost of healthcare?''

So my colleagues on the other side are so confident. Let's hear what their proposal is. Let's hear what they are going to do--because I am pretty sure the tariffs, the Medicaid cuts, and this proposal not to deal with the Affordable Care Act extension are driving up these rates to extraordinary rates that are going to hurt all Americans by making healthcare more expensive.

So I will just say we didn't even have a hearing in the committee of jurisdiction on the fact that we cut a trillion dollars out of the healthcare system and stripped Medicaid coverage from 11 million Americans. We didn't even have a hearing on that. So, our constituents, Mr. President, should be listened to. We need to address this issue. We want Members to figure out how to make healthcare more affordable for millions of Americans.

The 119th Congress thus far has squandered too much time focusing too little on this issue. We need to roll up our sleeves and focus on immediate, real solutions that impact millions of Americans. Together, we can figure out a way to extend these expiring credits and come up with solutions to lower those costs, and I urge my colleagues to do so as soon as possible. The American people are depending on us to help them not face these enormous inflationary costs.

I yield the floor.