USPS Executive Benefit and Bonus Removal Act

Mr. President, this week, I had the honor of voting for Todd Blanche as he was coming out of the Judiciary Committee and advancing that nomination. Having worked with him over the past year or so, I think that there is no one better suited to serve President Trump's mission of enforcing the rule of law and one tier of justice for all Americans. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote to confirm him when this nomination comes to the floor.

When I talked to Tennesseans, they want to make certain their communities are safe. That is one of the main issues they talk about, that need for public safety.

Mr. Blanche has played a big role in making that happen as the Deputy Attorney General and then as the Acting Attorney General. Since last year, homicides nationwide are down 18 percent. They are the lowest they have been since 1900. That is 126 years. Residential burglaries are down 13 percent. Robberies are down 17 percent. Carjackings are down 47 percent.

When we talk about these stats in the aggregate, many times, people say: Well, how does that apply to my community? Let me show you what this has done in Memphis and what Mr. Blanche's leadership, working with Director Patel at the FBI, working with President Trump, and working with over 25 other Federal Agencies--what they have been able to accomplish in Memphis.

Just 2 years ago, when you looked at the 2024 crime stats, Memphis, TN, was considered the most dangerous city per capita, and it was averaging a murder a day. It was considered to be more dangerous than Colombia, Mexico City, or even Baghdad.

Since day one, President Trump has worked to help us in the goal of making certain that Memphis is the safest city in the United States, and Mr. Blanche has been a key part of those efforts.

Working together, we established the Memphis Safe Task Force, and that was done nearly 1 year ago. It was put in place in September of last year. Here is what they have been able to do. By working together--your local, State, and Federal law enforcement--they have made over 11,000 arrests, 1,200 known gang members have been apprehended, and 183 missing children have been located. As of this week, 2,000 illegal firearms have been seized, taken off the streets.

While continuing to keep our communities safe, we know that Attorney General Blanche will be focused on rooting out fraud both in elections and government programs.

The Justice Department has taken enforcement actions in blue States across the country to ensure that only American citizens are voting in American elections.

Here in the Senate, we have the SAVE America Act to support this effort, and we should waste no time in getting that to the President's desk. We now know that there are more than 270,000 noncitizens on voter rolls across the country. If blue States won't clean them up, Congress must force them to clean up their rolls.

In one of his first actions as Acting Attorney General, Mr. Blanche also created the National Fraud Enforcement Division. This is something the American people have wanted to see. They don't want their tax dollars going into the pockets of fraudsters. As of April, the Department was investigating 8,000 fraud cases representing more than $1 trillion in stolen taxpayer funds. That is an astounding number: $1 trillion in stolen, misspent taxpayer funds.

To the American people, this is just common sense. You investigate fraud. You lock up criminals. You secure our elections. But our colleagues on the other side of the aisle oppose all of this. Earlier this year, they forced a 75-day shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security to block funding to Federal law enforcement. They have called to ``abolish ICE'' and have slandered our officers as ``secret police,'' ``slave patrols,'' and ``Nazis.''

Instead of working with the administration to secure our elections, they are practically encouraging voter fraud. Fourteen States-- overwhelmingly blue--do not require any ID whatsoever to vote. Think about that. No ID. No ID to go to the polls and show that you are who you say you are and that you are allowed to cast that ballot. Many more refuse to work with DHS to compare their voter rolls with the SAVE database, which verifies a person's immigration status. Out of our States, 26 will use the DHS SAVE database to verify their voter rolls, and you have 24 that don't. So think about that and what that does to open the door for fraud.

At the same time, they have opened the floodgates to fraud in government programs. California and Governor Newsom--well, government spending in California has surged from $209 billion a year to $350 billion a year. The State auditor has repeatedly flagged that billions of these expenditures are questionable payments. Yet what do the State Democrats do? They do nothing. Now, think about this. This is a Democrat State--a very blue State--with a Governor who is very much from the leftwing of that party. He has a State auditor--a State auditor, part of his administration--who is flagging questionable payments, and they don't do anything about it.

The whole time, this is taxpayer money. It is not government money. It is taxpayer money that is being sent to the government so that the government will be a good steward of that money and use that money for programs that are going to benefit the constituents, the citizens, the taxpayers, but instead, they are letting it go out the door to fraudsters.

In Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz allowed billions of dollars to be stolen through Medicaid fraud. In New York, Chinese criminal groups have stolen millions more through fraudulent Medicaid billing.

See, we know this is happening. Auditors have found it. It has been pointed out to the State officials, and they won't do anything about it. So as a taxpayer, if you are in California, New York, or Minnesota, what does this tell you? It tells you that your elected officials do not give a rippin' flip about you and your hard-earned money that is going into these coffers. And then what are they doing? They are wasting it away.

Our national debt is approaching $40 trillion--unbelievable--and the American people expect their elected representatives to be good stewards of those dollars. Instead, the Democrats are embracing the failures of socialism.

In New York City, Zohran Mamdani unveiled a $127 billion budget while proposing billions in new taxes. New

Yorkers could see more than half of their income taken in taxes. Yet I have laid out for you how much of that money is being wasted--wasted-- going into fraud.

The mayor is pretty clear about his intentions. In a speech to the Young Democratic Socialists of America, he said that his ``end goal'' is ``seizing the means of production.'' Well, how about that? He wants to go use eminent domain. He wants to take away your ability to live out your American dream because if you have some form or means of production, he is going to take it away and say: Hey, wait a minute. That great idea you have, that great machine you built, this factory that you have, this restaurant that you own, it is no longer yours. It is the government's. It is the government's.

That is what you call communism. It is not yours. You don't own it. It is the government's. Then the government is going to turn around and tell you what you have to do in order to exercise that means of production while they are the ones that benefit and not you. You are the cog in the wheel. You owe it all to them.

Just this week, there was a Democrat candidate in Michigan, and he said:

How I define my politics is a redistribution of resources.

Well, how about that? Socialism. Communism. Taking from those who are producing and giving to those that refuse to produce, because we have all got to be the same. That is the way the Democrat socialists view it. You are working hard. Take it away from you and give it to people that are going to go sit on their rear and do nothing. That is what they believe. They are proud of it. They think that is a great thing. It is astounding.

It was so telling last year when the House voted on a resolution denouncing socialism in all its forms and opposing the implementation of socialist policies in the United States. Well, guess what. One would think that if you are a Member of the U.S. House and you have taken an oath to protect and defend our Constitution, you would say: You better believe I am against socialism. You better believe I am going to support our citizens.

But do you know what? There were 98 Democrats--98--that voted against that.

So it leaves you to ask: How in the world could this happen? That final vote tally, 98 jumped the shark and voted against that. You had 2 that voted present and 27 that took a walk and didn't vote at all. Are they so afraid of the far left wing of their party that they can't go exercise their responsibility to cast a vote? Astounding.

You know, that is what you have got to look at with today's Democrat Party. They are more comfortable standing up for socialist, communist ideas--touting those, caving to the leftwing, caving to the leftist media, going for likes and thumbs-up and reposts on social media, following the crowd and not being a leader.

It is just amazing to me. And as I have talked with Tennesseans--and I had a lady in Tennessee sum it up pretty well. She is somebody who has been a Democrat, but, no, she doesn't identify with them anymore. She considers them to be pro-crime, pro-fraud, and pro-socialism.

Now, how is that for a bumper sticker? That is what the Democrat Party is supporting right now. They are pro-crime, they are pro-fraud, and they are pro-socialism.

Now, the good thing is, Americans are rejecting this agenda. And what we have seen since 2020, on net, more than 3.6 million people have fled these big, deep-blue States of New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. You have to say: Why?

And as you talk with many of these people, many have come to Tennessee. They consider themselves to be refugees. They got out because they just don't want to live that way, being governed by people who are so far left that they are pro-crime, pro-fraud, pro-socialism, pro-communism, and being in areas that are cheering on those policies.

So I would encourage people to think through what is happening. I would encourage them to stand with the rule of law. And I would encourage all of my colleagues to vote aye for Todd Blanche as we vote to confirm him as the Nation's Attorney General. He understands the importance of the rule of law, enforcing the rule of law, and abiding by equal justice for all.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to express my concerns with the U.S. Postal Service operations in South Dakota, my home State. Over the past year or so, my team has heard from thousands of South Dakotans expressing their frustrations and, frankly, anger about poor mail delivery in our State.

We have heard from veterans who are not getting their medication on time; we have heard from individuals who are having to pay late fees because their bills arrive the day they are due; and we have heard from people who simply aren't getting their mail delivered, even though they can see on the Postal Service app that they should be receiving it that day.

My team wanted to test it for ourselves. We wanted to see how long it would take to send a piece of first-class mail from our office in Rapid City, SD, to Pierre, SD, the capital of our State, which is about 172 miles driving distance away.

That would be from Rapid City to Pierre.

Instead of taking a direct route, this letter went from Rapid City west to Denver, and then to Des Moines, IA, across Nebraska and then from Des Moines, IA, to Fargo, ND, and then back to Pierre.

Let me do the math for you. This letter traveled over 1,800 miles across four different States just to end up back at South Dakota.

As soon as we caught wind of just how bad the mail service had gotten in South Dakota, I tried to have an open discussion with the Postal Service leaders. When it became clear to me that they weren't interested in fixing it, I requested an investigation from the Office of the Inspector General of the Postal Service which happens to answer to Congress, not to the Postal Service.

The OIG accepted our request and began to investigate the issues with mail service in South Dakota. As a part of their investigations, they were on the ground in South Dakota earlier this year. For evidence of just how deep the problem in the Postal Service runs, the OIG reiterated to my team and to me that they had to do this investigation clandestinely. If Postal Service leaders caught wind of where OIG representatives were going to be on which days, they could try to manipulate the results.

Turns out, they were correct. As soon as it was announced that the OIG team would be heading to South Dakota, my team heard from local post office employees that they were being asked to hide piles of mail.

As I mentioned, we have also heard countless stories about lifesaving prescriptions not arriving for our veterans who get many of their refills through the mail. In fact, that is the desired route for many of our veterans to get their prescriptions.

According to the Black Hills VA, the USPS has lost so many important medications, that the VA has had to repeatedly notify the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Service inspector general. In some parts of the country, the VA tells veterans they should order prescription refills at least 20 days before their supply runs out to account for these delays.

By comparison, it only took half that time to put a man on the Moon. I have even heard from the Secretary of the VA Doug Collins who, because of the nationwide postal delays, he directed his staff to look into policies on how the VA can better work with independent community pharmacies to give veterans the prescriptions they need to live a healthy life.

It should not come down to this.

Five years ago, the Postal Service told Congress that it needed billions of dollars in financial relief to become sustainable. Based on that promise, Congress passed the Postal Service Reform Act. They promised that the so-called Delivering for America plan would cut costs, improve service, and return the Postal Service to profitability.

Instead, today Americans face unprecedented costs when they want to mail a letter with delivery times worse than the Pony Express, all while the Postal Service continues to burn through billions of dollars as if money grows on trees.

The U.S. Postal Service decided that in order to be cost effective, they should deprioritize rural America. For many years, mail was picked up from post offices and routed to processing

facilities at least twice a day, regardless of where you lived or how rural you may be.

But under the Postal Service's Regional Transportation Optimization initiative, mail from post offices located more than 50 miles from a processing facility are only sent to processing facilities once in a single morning dispatch, and in many cases, this adds up to a full-day delay before a letter starts its journey to the processing facility.

Now, that is bad enough, but it also means that despite a letter being in the post office's legal possession, it is not postmarked until at least the next day. For many, this can be the difference between a tax return being on time or an absentee ballot being counted, simply because of where you live.

And despite these cost-saving measures, now the U.S. Postal Service is asking for billions more, all while senior executives receive large bonuses and lavish benefits like wellness reimbursement incentives, financial planning, retirement counseling services, TSA PreCheck-- reimbursement for it--and membership in up to two airline lounge clubs per year.

The post office also created a deferred compensation program. Yes, a deferred compensation program to pay its highest paid officers above compensation limits that have been imposed by Congress.

That needs to end.

And that is the reason that I am introducing the USPS Executive Benefit and Bonus Removal Act. Incompetent bureaucrats should not get bonuses when the mail does not run on time. If the Postal Service were serious about cutting costs, they should have cut costs inside its own ivory tower before passing costs on to the American people who are still receiving terrible service.

In addition, I have announced that I am placing holds on every nominee for the Postal Service board of directors until their leaders take steps to fix mail service in South Dakota. I suspect other Senators from rural States may do the same.

To lift these holds, I want the Postal Service to commit to making these three fixes in South Dakota at a minimum: No. 1, immediately suspend their Regional Transportation Optimization in South Dakota on a permanent basis; No. 2, start delivering intrastate mail--meaning, mail inside of South Dakota--within 1 to 2 days using our existing facilities that they have already been scaling back; and No. 3, they need to commit fully to implementing all findings of the OIG investigation when it becomes available.

Now, I have spoken with some of my Senate colleagues who are seeing the same issues in rural parts of their States. I look forward to working together to find a different model for the Postal Service that actually works for the American people, again, despite the blinders that our Postal Service leadership seem to have on.

It is way past time that we put the ``service'' back into the Postal Service.

Mr. President, I rise today to express my concerns with the U.S. Postal Service operations in South Dakota, my home State. Over the past year or so, my team has heard from thousands of South Dakotans expressing their frustrations and, frankly, anger about poor mail delivery in our State.

We have heard from veterans who are not getting their medication on time; we have heard from individuals who are having to pay late fees because their bills arrive the day they are due; and we have heard from people who simply aren't getting their mail delivered, even though they can see on the Postal Service app that they should be receiving it that day.

My team wanted to test it for ourselves. We wanted to see how long it would take to send a piece of first-class mail from our office in Rapid City, SD, to Pierre, SD, the capital of our State, which is about 172 miles driving distance away.

That would be from Rapid City to Pierre.

Instead of taking a direct route, this letter went from Rapid City west to Denver, and then to Des Moines, IA, across Nebraska and then from Des Moines, IA, to Fargo, ND, and then back to Pierre.

Let me do the math for you. This letter traveled over 1,800 miles across four different States just to end up back at South Dakota.

As soon as we caught wind of just how bad the mail service had gotten in South Dakota, I tried to have an open discussion with the Postal Service leaders. When it became clear to me that they weren't interested in fixing it, I requested an investigation from the Office of the Inspector General of the Postal Service which happens to answer to Congress, not to the Postal Service.

The OIG accepted our request and began to investigate the issues with mail service in South Dakota. As a part of their investigations, they were on the ground in South Dakota earlier this year. For evidence of just how deep the problem in the Postal Service runs, the OIG reiterated to my team and to me that they had to do this investigation clandestinely. If Postal Service leaders caught wind of where OIG representatives were going to be on which days, they could try to manipulate the results.

Turns out, they were correct. As soon as it was announced that the OIG team would be heading to South Dakota, my team heard from local post office employees that they were being asked to hide piles of mail.

As I mentioned, we have also heard countless stories about lifesaving prescriptions not arriving for our veterans who get many of their refills through the mail. In fact, that is the desired route for many of our veterans to get their prescriptions.

According to the Black Hills VA, the USPS has lost so many important medications, that the VA has had to repeatedly notify the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Service inspector general. In some parts of the country, the VA tells veterans they should order prescription refills at least 20 days before their supply runs out to account for these delays.

By comparison, it only took half that time to put a man on the Moon. I have even heard from the Secretary of the VA Doug Collins who, because of the nationwide postal delays, he directed his staff to look into policies on how the VA can better work with independent community pharmacies to give veterans the prescriptions they need to live a healthy life.

It should not come down to this.

Five years ago, the Postal Service told Congress that it needed billions of dollars in financial relief to become sustainable. Based on that promise, Congress passed the Postal Service Reform Act. They promised that the so-called Delivering for America plan would cut costs, improve service, and return the Postal Service to profitability.

Instead, today Americans face unprecedented costs when they want to mail a letter with delivery times worse than the Pony Express, all while the Postal Service continues to burn through billions of dollars as if money grows on trees.

The U.S. Postal Service decided that in order to be cost effective, they should deprioritize rural America. For many years, mail was picked up from post offices and routed to processing

facilities at least twice a day, regardless of where you lived or how rural you may be.

But under the Postal Service's Regional Transportation Optimization initiative, mail from post offices located more than 50 miles from a processing facility are only sent to processing facilities once in a single morning dispatch, and in many cases, this adds up to a full-day delay before a letter starts its journey to the processing facility.

Now, that is bad enough, but it also means that despite a letter being in the post office's legal possession, it is not postmarked until at least the next day. For many, this can be the difference between a tax return being on time or an absentee ballot being counted, simply because of where you live.

And despite these cost-saving measures, now the U.S. Postal Service is asking for billions more, all while senior executives receive large bonuses and lavish benefits like wellness reimbursement incentives, financial planning, retirement counseling services, TSA PreCheck-- reimbursement for it--and membership in up to two airline lounge clubs per year.

The post office also created a deferred compensation program. Yes, a deferred compensation program to pay its highest paid officers above compensation limits that have been imposed by Congress.

That needs to end.

And that is the reason that I am introducing the USPS Executive Benefit and Bonus Removal Act. Incompetent bureaucrats should not get bonuses when the mail does not run on time. If the Postal Service were serious about cutting costs, they should have cut costs inside its own ivory tower before passing costs on to the American people who are still receiving terrible service.

In addition, I have announced that I am placing holds on every nominee for the Postal Service board of directors until their leaders take steps to fix mail service in South Dakota. I suspect other Senators from rural States may do the same.

To lift these holds, I want the Postal Service to commit to making these three fixes in South Dakota at a minimum: No. 1, immediately suspend their Regional Transportation Optimization in South Dakota on a permanent basis; No. 2, start delivering intrastate mail--meaning, mail inside of South Dakota--within 1 to 2 days using our existing facilities that they have already been scaling back; and No. 3, they need to commit fully to implementing all findings of the OIG investigation when it becomes available.

Now, I have spoken with some of my Senate colleagues who are seeing the same issues in rural parts of their States. I look forward to working together to find a different model for the Postal Service that actually works for the American people, again, despite the blinders that our Postal Service leadership seem to have on.

It is way past time that we put the ``service'' back into the Postal Service.

Mr. President, just before I begin my remarks, I would associate myself with the remarks of my colleague from South Dakota pertaining to the Postal Service and their work in South Dakota. If there was a way to build an incredibly inefficient model, they have figured out how to do it. It needs to be fixed. I share his view, and we will work with him to insist and ensure that they make changes that improve the service that affects the constituents, the people that we represent and serve.

Republican Party Accomplishments

Mr. President, when this Congress began last year, we had a long to- do list. The American people had made their priorities clear. As I said from the start, this Republican majority was ready to deliver. Republicans were committed to strengthening our economic future, ending the Biden border crisis and making America safer and stronger in the years ahead.

That is exactly what we have been working on these last 19 months, and the American people are seeing the results of our efforts.

The clearest example came this April when 90 percent of Americans saw a tax cut which meant more of their hard-earned money stayed in their pockets instead of going to the IRS. That was thanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts. That was Republicans' top priority last year.

The American people had suffered for years through an inflation crisis caused by Democrats' reckless spending, and they were facing a massive tax hike, $2,500 for a typical family in my State if Congress had failed to act. But the Working Families Tax Cuts made sure that tax hike never came.

Republicans delivered permanent--permanent--tax relief that benefited 97 percent of taxpayers this past year. We implemented new tax cuts like no tax on tips or overtime, raised the child tax credit, gave seniors an additional $6,000 deduction, and provided America's small businesses and family farms and ranches with significant and permanent tax relief too.

And Republicans haven't just put more money in hard-working Americans pockets. We have been working to bring down costs, and one of the ways we are doing that is by lifting unnecessary and burdensome regulations that drive up the cost of things that Americans need.

We passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which cuts redtape and that has contributed to home ownership becoming more affordable for many Americans.

We did away with Biden-era regulations that would have driven up the cost of household appliances and energy. We got rid of electrical vehicle mandates that were going to force Americans into pricey electric cars that they didn't want, and we have taken concrete action to drive down costs at the pharmacy counter as well.

We passed a law to ensure that patients get the savings from any discounts or rebates from their purchases at the pharmacy counter and their healthcare plans. We removed incentives for pharmacy benefit managers to promote higher priced medications at the expense of seniors. And we approved access to more affordable generic drugs. These are policies that change the math of families' budgets: more money in their pockets, lower costs for the things that they need. And beyond that, we have also taken actions to strengthen our economy for the long term.

We have seen positive news about a boost in manufacturing in our country thanks, in part, to the Working Families Tax Cuts. Other provisions in that law make education pathways more affordable, strengthen our skilled workforce, and create opportunity for the future. The law also bolstered programs that America's farmers and ranchers depend on, and the Working Families Tax Cuts made a generational investment in rural healthcare providers in all 50 States, putting those providers on a more secure path forward so that Americans in rural areas can continue to have access to quality, affordable healthcare close to home.

I mentioned that ending the border crisis was another priority for the Senate majority, and we didn't waste any time getting to work on that either. The first bill we passed was the Laken Riley Act, requiring that illegal immigrants who are arrested for certain crimes aren't put back on the streets.

We also passed the HALT Fentanyl Act to ensure that law enforcement has the tools it needs to go after fentanyl and fentanyl analogs that have taken too many--too many--American lives.

And then there is the border itself. President Trump took swift action to secure the border early last year, and in the Working Families Tax Cuts, we provided the resources necessary to hire more agents, finish the border wall, and keep the border secure permanently.

Today, illegal border crossings have slowed to a trickle. It has been like that for just about the entire Trump administration, an incredible feat considering how bad things were under President Biden. And thanks to our efforts, the resources are in place to ensure the border stays secure for the long term.

Beyond the border, we have also been focused on strengthening our military. The Working Families Tax Cuts made a generational investment in our military readiness. We complemented those efforts in last year's annual Defense bill which, among other things, made significant reforms to the way the Pentagon does business to ensure that tax dollars are being spent to maximum efficiency and effectiveness for our men and women in uniform. And this year's National Defense Authorization Act builds on those efforts as well.

We have been busy. The Senate has taken close to 900 votes since last January. We have been in Washington a lot more than in previous years.

We have also done a lot of things that haven't been done in a number of years. As I said, we made generational investments in border security, military readiness, and in rural healthcare. We approved the most significant tax relief bill in decades. We confirmed 21 Cabinet nominees faster than the last three incoming administrations. And we passed the first crypto bill ever. We approved a rescissions package that cut billions in Federal spending for the first time in literally three decades.

Our work continues. Earlier this afternoon, we passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, giving the President critical tools to bring peace to Ukraine. We also approved another slate of 74 Trump administration nominees, bringing our total to 590. And I expect to move forward on additional items very soon.

We have been working our way through our to-do list and delivering real wins for the American people. And the work goes on.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, later today, I hope the Senate will vote to confirm the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General.

I support his nomination, and I urge my colleagues to vote for him. Mr. Blanche is nominated to one of the most important offices in our country, and he has shown that he is up to that task. His impressive background and the presentation at our hearing in the Judiciary Committee are proof that he has led the Justice Department with distinction and is well suited to continue doing that.

During his hearing, Mr. Blanche answered questions for more than 5 hours. His testimony reinforced what we already knew about his proven record as Acting Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General. Mr. Blanche is a tough, fair prosecutor, dedicated to the rule of law, and his leadership instills that same zeal throughout the entire Justice Department.

Mr. Blanche began his career clerking for two Federal judges, two Federal judges that were appointed by different political parties of the Presidency. He then spent nearly a decade as a Federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. During that time, Mr. Blanche handled a wide array of criminal matters, including narcotic trafficking and violent crimes.

Mr. Blanche eventually entered private practice, where he had a very successful career with many high-profile cases.

But his love of country brought him back to the public service that he is in right now, repeating again serving as Deputy Attorney General and now as Acting Attorney General.

Throughout his career, Mr. Blanche demonstrated an unwavering commitment to public service and the fair administration of justice. At his hearing and many times since, I have detailed the successes of the Justice Department under Mr. Blanche's leadership. Indeed, the statistics prove that Americans are safer with Mr. Blanche at the helm.

So let's look at that picture. Under his leadership, fraud enforcement efforts have been ramped up; arrests of violent crimes and criminals engaged in child exploitation have increased; terrorist plots have been successfully thwarted; massive quantities of illegal firearms and harmful drugs, especially like fentanyl, have been seized.

So, as a result, the United States has the lowest murder rate since 1900, and crime trends throughout the country have declined. According to the Council of Criminal Justice's 2026 midyear report, the reported rates for homicide have dropped 51 percent from its peak 9 years ago; carjacking dropped 73 percent; residential burglaries down 56 percent; motor vehicle thefts down 51 percent.

Now, you could go on and on with a whole bunch of other statistics because, according to this report, every single violent crime category and nearly all property crime categories have dropped below prepandemic levels, and that didn't happen by accident.

It happened, why? Because Mr. Blanche refocused the Justice Department on keeping Americans safe. That is the sort of impact we should want and should expect from the Justice Department and any Attorney General that heads that Department. And that is what Mr. Blanche has delivered.

We heard about it at Mr. Blanche's hearing. The committee heard a heart-wrenching testimony from an Angel Mom, Jennifer Bos. She told us about her daughter's tragic and gruesome death. She explained the importance of Mr. Blanche's focus on keeping Americans safe.

Ms. Bos stated:

I couldn't save my daughter, but with Todd Blanche as

Attorney General, he might save yours because next time it

could be your

child. It could be your family. It could be you.

This sentiment was shared in the outpouring of support the committee received for Mr. Blanche's nomination. Three hundred Angel Moms wrote a letter thanking Mr. Blanche for prioritizing victims and focusing the Department's efforts on stopping illegal immigration, ending drug and human trafficking, and protecting America's communities from violent crime.

The committee also received several letters from major law enforcement organizations that collectively represent hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers all across our country. They praise Mr. Blanche's focus on public safety, the rule of law, and his unwavering support for law enforcement professionals, the people that risk their lives daily to protect our families and our communities.

In total, the committee received more than 30 letters supporting Mr. Blanche's nomination. These include more than 100 former Justice Department attorneys, chiefs of staff, U.S. attorneys, and other senior officials. Mr. Blanche's nomination was also supported by multiple former Attorneys General, including John Ashcroft and Bill Barr. These former Attorneys General know what it takes to run the Justice Department.

Now, between his proven track record, his presentations to our committee, and the support he has received from across the country, I am convinced Mr. Blanche is the right choice to lead the Justice Department.

A vote for Todd Blanche is a vote for the safety of the American people. That is a vote the American people deserve, and that is a vote that I am proud to cast.

So I urge all my colleagues to join me in voting to confirm Mr. Blanche as Attorney General.