Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a remarkable member of my staff who is retiring from public service: Mr. David Grannis.

I must admit I misled David into coming to the Senate floor for this speech. I told him I was coming to speak on something completely different because he is not fond of being the center of attention, particularly when he is the subject of praise, but he deserves it--both the praise and the surprise--since he has been known to play a practical joke or two himself. All I told him is I needed to discuss a very important matter on the floor of the Senate and I wanted him to hear it.

By the way, everything I made up on the way over here, you can completely ignore. That was a ruse.

What I wanted to come here to talk about was, in fact, David Grannis. David is no stranger to these farewell speeches. Congresswoman Jane Harman gave one about him leaving her office. Not to be outdone, Senator Feinstein has given two farewell-to-David speeches--one when he departed as staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee and another when he left her office as chief of staff.

This speech today may be the last of its kind, or may not. You never know. But let me begin by quoting my former colleague, the late, great Senator Feinstein, who said:

David led with wit and wisdom and demonstrated an uncanny

ability to get the job done. He has been by my side for

countless meetings with foreign leaders, ambassadors,

military commanders, corporate chiefs, and local officials.

David has served as a mentor for many members of my staff,

and his professionalism and dedication are second to none. He

is someone that I am proud to call a friend.

I cannot improve on those comments, so I will not try. Instead of sharing again his long list of accomplishments--the major pieces of legislation that he has helped to pass, the critical oversight that he has delivered, or the assistance he secured for so many grateful Californians--I want to talk about David as a person and what he has meant to the many dozens of us--probably hundreds of us--who have had the privilege of working with him.

When David first joined my office as a senior policy adviser, I knew we were gaining someone with a wealth of experience. I had known him from his time on SSCI and also serving with Senator Feinstein. But what I did not fully appreciate, what I could not have known was that our team was not only gaining someone with just incredible experience but also someone who cares so deeply about the people he works with and someone who is just a superlative mentor, particularly toward the junior staff, many of whom are here with us today to honor him.

His impressive CV does not mention his acerbic wit, his many practical

jokes, his commitment to learning the lingo of the newest generation-- seriously, he is quite committed to that; very awkward when he uses it, but he is quite committed to it--or the vigorous way he ensures that the staff keep the office refrigerator clean enough for surgical instruments. So, today, I want to do something a little different. I want to come here and laud once again his record of legislative service, yes, but more to the point, I want to share some of the stories of those who have had the privilege of working alongside him but who do not have the same privilege that I have to order him to sit here and listen to us say nice things about him--because, otherwise, he would not allow such a celebration; he would not allow us to share these stories of his mentorship and his presence, how he has uplifted our staff and colleagues, and how much he means to all of us--because his work is really the stuff of legend.

One of our young staff Andrea calls David ``best friend.'' And that is not an exaggeration. He once told her that she should ``heckle every staffer on our team who was late to their meeting regardless of who they were, and yes, [including the] Chief of Staff.''

He has encouraged ``spontaneous selfies'' and participated in staff chats exclusively in all caps. Andrea, and all of us, know that he is someone who will never fail to make someone laugh during a very stressful day.

To know him is to be on the watch for practical jokes, sometimes by his hand and other times played upon him. And we won't even get into the ``caps lock'' incident or the role he has played as ``Mr. Liquid.'' And I am not going to get into those things because I have no idea what they are.

When Sydney on our team noted that we would ``lose a true institution'' with David's departure, she may have been thinking about this interaction she had with David:

Sydney, then assistant to our legislative director, joined a staff delegation trip with a branch of our Armed Forces, and because she was one of the only Senate staffers on the trip, and perhaps because they thought Sydney was the legislative director herself, they named the trip ``STAFFDEL DUCKOR,'' Sydney's last name. And so, when Sydney returned, David had printed a floor chart version of the STAFFDEL DUCKOR documents, alongside a 30-inch-tall headshot of Sydney--a floor chart that still, on occasion, is wedged in a place that Sydney will somehow run into it when she least expects it, like in a stairwell. Sydney's giant mug or the floor chart is sure to pop up at unexpected moments, courtesy of her mentor David Grannis.

As Ian, a former staffer for Senator Feinstein, noted, David had an ``extraordinarily hard job over many years, even for a chief. But he did it so well and kept his cool, protecting the boss as well as the staff with that [s]-eating grin as his shield and that . . . wit as his sword.''

Even when he is at his busiest, David has always had time for everyone from interns to LDs. As Ian put it, ``He acted as if he wasn't too busy for you, [not] at all.''

A consistent theme for David is talent spotting and uplifting staff. Megan, who was a young Feinstein staffer in her San Francisco office, found out when the Senator had a need for a new director of scheduling. David brought her out to interview. Now, Senator Feinstein wasn't convinced that Megan was the right fit, but David was not deterred. So he flew her out again, this time to staff the Senator, training her on how to do the job, and then made the case again to the Senator. And wouldn't you know it, she got the job.

As Megan told us, ``It shaped my entire career trajectory, shaped me as a leader, and showed me how to lead a ship in troubled waters.'' She also noted that she eventually told David a couple of years later that ``the Senator said she wanted to kick [him] in the pants when [he] recommended [Megan].''

Alexandra, a mentee of David's, remembered that he took a chance on her and remembered the time he took to engage interns and teach them about the Senate, like in a scavenger hunt that ended in the interns needing to get the torture report recreated in the documents room and have David autograph it, which he most gamely was pleased to do.

And when Brett was called by David to offer him a job, he did the sensible thing: He asked for a little bit of time to talk to his wife about it. And as Brett tells it, ``There was a long pause. Then, in a tone I would come to know very well over the next several years, David said: `Really? You seriously need to think about this?'''

As Brett put it, ``That's David in one line--you never quite know if he's teasing you, testing you, or just telling you the truth. Twenty- plus years in Congress, and he remains, to everyone who's worked with him, [kind of an] enigma. The enigma is the method. He protected the staff so [they] could just do the work. That wasn't an accident. That was David, protecting people who didn't even know they were being protected.''

Even in our office, David had an eye for talent, never failing to mention when an intern or a junior staffer did a first draft or came up with an idea that was brought to him and then brought to me. He could do it with the smallest of projects. But he knew how to handle the biggest tasks, especially on the Intelligence Committee.

As Mike Buchwald told us, ``David was known for approaching politically charged issues with integrity and a commitment to ensuring the Committee fulfilled its constitutional oversight responsibilities.'' That is the highest charge of the Intelligence Committee, as we saw with David's handling of the Senate CIA torture report, its creation, and its release.

It was because of David, Senator Feinstein, and the many talented members of the SSCI staff, that this report ever saw the light of day, culminating in a floor speech by Senator Feinstein for the ages. David and Mike worked on draft after draft of the speech, announcing the ``painstaking process'' to chronicle each of the CIA's abuses of power. But they were never sure the speech would actually see the light of day.

Finally, one morning at 9 a.m. David dropped by Mike's desk, saying simply, ``Let's go to the floor. She's giving the speech.''

She gave that speech right here, speaking truth to power, calling out abuses of power.

Dan, a SSCI staffer at the time, noted David's immense work with a bipartisan group of Senators to ban the CIA's ``enhanced interrogation techniques,'' which included torture tactics such as waterboarding. As Dan put it, David ``served our country in enormously consequential ways, almost entirely out of the public view. And because of the quiet, persistent work he did, the known history of the United States is different, and more honest, than it would otherwise be.''

Now, I want to make one thing very clear. I don't want any of this praise to make you believe he is perfect. He is not. David, for example, would prefer that, today, I quote from the wisdom of Fangorn or Lothlorien, which I will not do because, for one, I have no idea who they are; and, what is more, I suspect it is some obscure reference to ``Lord of the Rings.''

He once gave a presentation to our staff at a brown bag lunch in which he said that, of the top 100 films ever made, three of the ``Lord of the Rings'' movies--three of them, mind you--were in the top 10. So you can see he is prone to occasional but glaring lapses in judgment.

I am sorry, David. You are just wrong about that. And I know that I am pissing off Stephen Colbert and a lot of other people by saying that. But really? Three of the greatest movies of all time, ``Lord of the Rings'' movies? I mean, does that even require discussion?

Another member of our amazing staff Sircey noted dryly that ``behind the wit, David genuinely cared about the people he worked with--even if he wasn't always going to admit it.'' She cited specifically how he brought his wonderful humor to the--well, the bowels of the basement where our office was once located--actually, twice located--which David took to calling the ``lower chamber.''

Peter, a colleague from the Senate Intelligence Committee, remembered two benches. Senator Feinstein would occupy the ``hot bench,'' peppering you with questions. David, in contrast, was a ``cold bench,'' where he would just stare at you uncomfortably with a

``resting ice face,'' kind of like I am getting right now, and allow for your own internal dialogue to wreck you. Both techniques were very effective.

When Peter, a former prosecutor, was told to run a hotline, he had no idea what to do--something I can relate to after joining the Senate after so many years in the House. So Peter asked David how to hotline something. And according to Peter, he just ``stared at me for a long time. He then took a long, deep breath. And then he continued to stare.'' Classic David Grannis.

Deanna noted that David is the reason ``so many of us got our start on Capitol Hill'' through his steady advocacy.

Ricky noted a simple code to live by that David would repeat:

Don't do anything stupid.

That is outstanding advice for Senators and staff alike.

Tonya said he was ``never afraid to poke fun and turning almost anything into a punchline, he truly cared for and mentored so many young staffers.''

Flavio said that ``despite his seniority, or more likely because of it'' through humor and pranks, David ``makes our office laugh while teaching us the importance of timeliness and delivering praise'' and always advocating for interns and junior staff, even if they didn't ``always understand the pre-2001 movie references.''

Megan said he shared important life lessons, Grannis style: Don't attend a meeting and change the agenda. And--if you think you have it bad, someone always has it worse.

When Jahari first moved from our Fresno office to DC, she was nervous, but in her telling, David was the first person she chatted with and immediately felt at ease. When other staff ask who has become her mentor, as she put it, ``David is an easy answer.''

This character of David is not new. During Senator Feinstein's first farewell speech about him, she noted the same:

I . . . want to echo many of the comments that our

committee staff has made about David.

[He] has been the rock upon which the staff's foundation is

built.

Now, speaking of The Rock, I fear this speech would be incomplete without talking about the ``big hunk of beef'' incident, which I am told is a favorite story of David's.

David and Senator Feinstein's legislative director Rachel were staffing the Senator during a late-night vote-arama--something we have had a lot of experience at lately. It is around 2 a.m., and the Senator is flipping channels between CNN and the floor and random channels when she finally lands on a movie starring none other than The Rock. After a while, she just matter-of-factly states, ``That's a big hunk of meat,'' causing David, at a safe distance, to laugh uncontrollably.

When I put out the call for recollections of David and their memories of his time on the Hill, the response, as you have heard just a small sample, was overwhelming. But now I want to share my own.

David has not only been a mentor to the staff, he has helped mentor me as well. We began working together almost 2 years ago when I was elected to the Senate; and in that time, I have been such an enormous beneficiary of his experience and his wisdom, his sense of humor, his poise under pressure, his intellect, and his friendship.

I am so lucky. I am so lucky to have had you on my team--so lucky.

On the most extensive range of issues--from foreign policy, to national security, to intelligence reform, to Senate procedure, and so much more--he has been the most extraordinary source of knowledge and expertise.

I have come to rely upon him implicitly and without hesitation. The respect he is held in by Senators and staff is unrivaled on the Hill-- truly. He has dedicated himself to public service for decades now, and the Senate and the country are immeasurably better for it. He is the quintessential public servant.

Thank you, David. Thank you.

Finally, I want to end my comments by thanking David's wife Kerry and their wonderful children Sarah, Amelia, and Nathaniel. Senate staff make a lot of sacrifices to serve the public--financial and otherwise, late nights, weekends, missed trips--and their families are the ones who support them the most.

So thank you, David. I can't wait to see what you do next, and the legions of staff that you helped and influenced and mentored and supported can't wait either. We all thank you.

I yield the floor.

(Mrs. MOODY assumed the Chair.)

(Mr. McCORMICK assumed the Chair.)

Recognition of the Majority Leader

Mr. President, more than a year and a half ago, when Donald Trump placed his hand on a Bible and took the oath of office for the second time, he swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. In the time since, he has failed to live up to that basic promise. Instead, he has focused laser-like on a very different priority: to preserve, protect, and expand his family's wealth.

The payments to the President and his family have been massive. The self-dealing and profiteering have been absolutely breathtaking in their scope. And you don't have to take my word for it. Two weeks ago, the President filed his annual financial disclosure, signed under penalty of law. It shows more than $2.3 billion in income last year alone--$2.3 billion made by the President in the last year alone. Wow. That is 3\1/2\ times what he reported the year before. So either he has just become a much better businessman since he became President, or he is corruptly using his office to enrich himself.

The same can be said for much of the rest of his family.

Exposing this corruption is the first necessary step to stopping it. This is important in its own right. Public servants should not be enriching themselves at public expense. But it is even more crucial to root out corruption for another reason, and that is because the cost of corruption is an economy that does not meet the basic needs of the American people--an economy that does not produce housing that average families can afford or a college education that young people can obtain without mortgaging their future or quality healthcare that is accessible or groceries that don't break the family budget.

When the President is fixated only on his family's personal wealth, on money he can make by abusing the power of his position, on his own vanity projects--gilding the White House, gilding statues, and gilding a ballroom--he has very little time or inclination to address the problems facing ordinary Americans. They are mere afterthoughts, and the country suffers. That is the true cost of corruption.

So, today, I am going to walk you through the top 10 ways this President has turned the Oval Office into a personal revenue stream, the settlements he has collected, the gifts he has pocketed, the money he and his family have extracted from anyone with the misfortune of needing something from this government, and the pet causes he has extorted money to fund.

Bear in mind that every number I am about to give you is either taken from his own financial filing or from public reporting. And because the President seems to enjoy ratings and rankings, we will count them down from No. 10 all the way to No. 1 of the top 10 most corrupt self- enrichment schemes of the President. By the time we reach No. 1, we will have tallied billions of dollars for him, for his family, for his personal whims, and nothing for you. That is the cost of corruption.

No. 10, overseas licensing. Let's start small, and by ``small,'' I mean $23 million.

Since his reelection, the Trump family has made at least $23 million licensing the Trump name overseas. A hotel in Oman, towers in India, golf courses on the outskirts of Riyadh and Doha--these are just a few of the more than 20 overseas projects the Trump administration is now pursuing, many of them requiring the cooperation of foreign governments.

Here is the thing about needing help from foreign governments when you happen to be the President of the United States: Those governments are going to want something in return. They are going to want you to treat them very, very favorably in return. These countries all want something from the United States of America--U.S. military protection, U.S. nuclear powerplants, U.S. technologies, U.S. AI chips. You name it, they want something from this country.

These countries are not investing in the Trump family projects out of the goodness of their hearts; they want payback. Much to the detriment of Americans' national security interests, they are getting it. Let's look at just one example, this one from Southeast Asia.

The administration agreed to lower its threatened tariffs on Vietnam but not until after the Trump Organization broke ground on a $1.5 billion Trump golf course complex outside of Hanoi, a golf complex that Vietnamese officials fast-tracked by ignoring their own rules.

This kind of overt pay-to-play is playing out in country after country after country. What is the cost of this corruption? Well, our national security suffers when the President sells advanced chips to a Gulf nation--not because it is in our interest to do so, not because our own AI companies don't need the chips to compete, but because the President or his family got a payoff. Our country suffers when the President makes national security decisions for financial reasons that benefit not the country but himself.

(Mr. BUDD assumed the Chair.)

Did the President just approve nuclear powerplants in Saudi Arabia because it is a good idea or because the Saudis have been phenomenally generous to the Trump family business, to the President and his sons, and to his son-in-law Jared Kushner, in particular, in whom they invested a cool $2 billion.

Will American troops, our sons and daughters, be more at risk of deployment to the Middle East with more endless wars or because of a nuclear arms race that we helped get started in the region, not because helping the Saudis go nuclear was good for us but because the Saudis wanted payback for their investment in Donald Trump's family? That is the cost of corruption.

No. 9, the Paramount-CBS settlement worth $36 million. No. 9 brings us to perhaps one of the most frivolous media lawsuits to ever see the inside of a courtroom. Following a ``60 Minutes'' interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during that Presidential campaign, Trump sued CBS, alleging, believe it or not, election interference. His claim? That CBS edited the interview to make Harris sound better.

Let me remind everyone: Most long-form television interviews are edited. That is how television works. But in Trump's reality, editing is election interference if he doesn't like the edits.

CBS acknowledged the suit was frivolous. The President had no right to sue because he doesn't like how an interview with someone else is edited. It is absurd. The studio has a First Amendment right to make those decisions for itself.

Nevertheless, CBS agreed to pay off the President $16 million. Why? Not because they thought they would lose the litigation. They knew Trump's claim would never be successful. So CBS agreed to pay off the President because its parent Paramount Studios wanted to merge with Skydance in a deal worth $8 billion. What was a $16 million payoff compared to an $8 billion deal?

And it wasn't just the $16 million payoff. Skydance also committed to paying another $20 million in advertising and public service announcements favored by the President. Final tally: $36 million that the President was able to extort because he could leverage his power to kill the merger deal into a personal payout.

So what is the cost of that corruption to you? Well, if you are a worker in the entertainment industry, it might just cost you your job because a merger that was approved on a corrupt basis and without considering job losses in the industry wasn't made to benefit you.

If you are a consumer, you will be paying more for your streaming service and have fewer choices because this deal wasn't approved with consumers in mind. It was approved to make money for the President.

This particular brand of corruption--suing media companies to extort them for payoffs--goes beyond anything the President did in his first term. This President doesn't just complain about the press, calling them fake news or enemies of the people. No, no. That was the stuff of Trump 1.

In Trump 2, he sues them into submission, uses the leverage he has over their business deals and mergers, and pockets the proceeds--more money for him, fewer jobs for you, and more money out of your pocket when you want to stream your favorite shows. This is the cost of corruption.

No. 8, Big Tech settlements: $60 million. No. 8 is a three-for-one: Twitter, YouTube, Meta--$60 million combined.

Trump got suspended from these platforms for conduct related to the attack he incited on the Capitol. He sued, and one by one these companies paid out to him personally and to his pet projects like the golden ballroom.

Twitter, now Elon Musk's X, settled for $10 million, a case a district judge had already thrown out and an appeals court was openly skeptical of. They paid anyway. And the President's response? He went on television to complain it was not enough, it was too low, that he was ``looking to get much more money than that.''

YouTube settled for $25 million. And in a flourish of creative accounting, $22 million of it was routed straight to the White House golden ballroom project. More on that ballroom in a minute.

But Meta, the parent company to Facebook and Instagram, they also settled for $25 million. And just to sweeten the pot, they kicked in an additional million to Trump's inaugural fund.

So let's recap just this item. The President sues these platforms over their refusal to amplify his false claims about the election and his incitement of insurrection. Using the leverage he now has over them as President to hurt their businesses, he extorts them to the tune of $60 million.

It is a disinformation loyalty program--except the rewards go to the President, and the rest of us get more false claims, more false information, more social harms from an unregulated social media, and potentially more incitement of violence around our elections. This is the cost of that corruption.

No. 7, Amazon and the ``Melania'' documentary: $40 million. For No. 7, we move back to the family business. You may have seen the trailers. Amazon struck a $40 million deal with First Lady Melania Trump for a documentary about her life before and during her time in the White House.

Reports indicate that Melania's team shopped the project to several studios and executives, many of whom had attended Trump's inauguration before Amazon closed the deal.

And Amazon separately contributed another million to Trump's inaugural fund. Of the $40 million, though, the First Lady personally received $28 million. The big-time theatrical run of this film brought in only $16 million at the box office, landing it at a sweet No. 68 on the 2026 releases behind ``Bunny!!,'' behind ``Guru,'' and behind ``Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe.''

Bear in mind, the ``Melania'' movie was so bad that one reviewer at Variety said that if you saw it on a plane, you would still walk out. But Amazon

paid the Trump family $40 million for it. Why? Because Amazon has huge contracts at stake worth billions of dollars.

What is a $40 million payment for ``Melania'' when you want a Federal cloud-computing contract worth 100 times that much, worth billions?

So while families across the country are wrestling with the skyrocketing price of groceries, the First Lady is collecting $28 million for a documentary about herself.

But more important, we end up paying Amazon billions in government contracts when Amazon may or may not be the best deal for the American taxpayer, when the amount of the contract may or may not be competitive with other companies, when Amazon may or may not be the best competitor in the bidding process.

We may never know if taxpayers are getting ripped off and whether the true cost of the ``Melania'' film was a bad deal for the country, costing taxpayers billions of dollars on cloud computing that we didn't need to spend.

This kind of corrupt contracting--whether taxpayer funds are wasted because of a backroom deal or a kickback--is common in developing countries, but it hasn't been common here, not until now. And that is the cost of corruption.

No. 6 of the top 10 Trump graft schemes is the Trump meme coin coming in at a whopping $635 million. Just 24 hours before taking the oath of office, Donald Trump launched a meme coin called $TRUMP. A meme coin is kind of a joke digital currency, but Trump saw the opportunity for personal profit--about $635 million worth.

And the people on the other side of that trade--more than 810,000 of them--have lost a combined $2 billion. That is 810,000 people that bought this Trump meme coin. Mainly, the President's own supporters lost money so the President could make hundreds of millions of dollars.

But even that is not the end of the story. It gets worse. Trump hosted a private dinner for top holders of his meme coin. Investors were told they had a 2\1/2\-week window to buy enough $TRUMP to earn a seat.

He created a public auction where what was being auctioned off was access to the President: Buy Trump's meme coin, and you get to dine with the President. Where? At his own private club in Virginia. And among the guests? A crypto billionaire who had been charged by the SEC with fraud in a case in which Trump's SEC, just coincidentally, asked a judge to hit pause on the matter just weeks before the meme coin dinner.

And this March, the case was dropped entirely--dismissed with prejudice, never to be brought again--with the company paying a mere $10 million penalty while admitting nothing. This, for a crypto billionaire who had poured some $75 million into Trump family crypto ventures.

So, to recap this item, the President invents a, by definition, worthless asset, profits while hundreds of thousands of Americans lose their savings buying it, breaks bread with the people his government is investigating for defrauding investors, even as his administration puts an end to the alleged fraudster's potential prosecution.

The cost of corruption here: hundreds of millions of dollars go to Trump, hundreds of thousands of Americans lose the value of their purchases--about $2 billion in total--and fraudsters get a pass to commit other frauds on the American people. More money for Trump, more fraud for you. This is the cost of corruption.

No. 5, the White House ballroom: $600 million. No. 5 is one of the most audacious schemes in Presidential history: the gold-plated, gilded, and gaudy White House ballroom.

The President has solicited ever-larger donations for this pet project, which now has a whopping pricetag of $600 million, a $600 million monument to his vanity, built for him by people who need something from the government and paid for by you, the taxpayer-- because far from the President's promise that no tax dollars would be used for his golden ballroom, he is making you pay an estimated $300 million of your tax dollars toward this project: promises made, promises broken, and the taxpayer left holding the bag.

Now, I have sought answers from the White House on this ballroom, asking: Who are the private donors and how much have they given and what business do they have before the Federal Government?

Their response, not surprisingly: no response, not willing to say, not willing to be transparent, wanting to keep it hidden from the American people.

But we know that there are at least 37 donors--among them Amazon and Apple and Google and Meta and Microsoft and Coinbase and Tether and Caterpillar and Lockheed Martin and T-Mobile and more.

Of these corporate donors, two-thirds have been awarded Federal contracts over the last 5 years--contracts worth $279 billion. And 14 of them are either facing or have had suspended Federal actions for violations of the law.

So let's get this straight: Companies under Federal investigation, many of them write a check for the President's ballroom and their legal troubles go away or their contracts multiply or, in some cases, both.

Trump even told these donors they would be the first guests welcomed into the finished ballroom ``if I still like you at that time, which I am sure I will.''

Translation: Keep paying, and I will keep liking you.

The cost of this corruption? Hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding that could go to building new hospitals in your community or building new schools or keeping the ones near you open go to a ballroom instead.

Hundreds of daycare centers that could have received funding so you don't have to pay so much for childcare or so there is even childcare in your area. But instead of building roads or bridges, hospitals or healthcare clinics or childcare, the President is building a gaudy, gold tollbooth in place of the East Wing. And Federal contracts are going to the biggest donors, not the best competitors, and that could cost you billions more in taxes.

No. 4 of the top 10 Trump grift and graft, the Qatari jet worth $400 million. No. 4 is a gift that keeps on taking, a $400 million luxury gift, gifted by the Government of Qatar, to serve as Air Force One through the end of Trump's term and then transferred to Trump's own museum foundation, his to keep.

He took his maiden flight aboard it just a few weeks ago, and while the President insists the plane is free, outfitting it to serve as Air Force One could cost American taxpayers up to $1 billion in security upgrades. That is $1 billion for this ``free'' jet that he gets to keep--paid for by you, the taxpayer, and his generous friends, the Qataris.

And let's not pretend there is nothing expected in return. Trump himself volunteered that the United States provides security for Qatar and ``will continue to.'' He also explained that only a ``stupid person'' turns down a ``free, very expensive airplane.'' Only a ``stupid person'' would turn it down. How could he refuse?

So a foreign government hands the President a $400 million jet. We pay a billion in taxes to make it usable. He keeps it when he leaves office. And if you think that is corrupt, he thinks you are the stupid one.

That is not a gift to America. It is a gift to Donald Trump, paid for by the American taxpayer, courtesy of a foreign government that now holds a great deal of leverage over the President--the same foreign government whose wealth fund is invested in developing the Doha Trump International Golf Club, complete with luxury villas and 18 holes of world-class golf.

The cost of this corruption? American foreign policy and our national security interests in the region are now skewed toward a country that gives the President exorbitant gifts or develops real estate deals with his family.

That is not putting America first but putting it last--well behind his family and personal interests in a plane and golf courses.

That brings us to No. 3, big law firm deals worth $940 million. At three, the numbers have turned even more staggering. After a barrage of Executive orders targeting the legal profession, nine wealthy law firms struck deals with the administration, pledging nearly $1 billion in ``pro bono services'' to make those threats go away--threats to disfavor their clients, threats to take their security clearances away so they couldn't represent other clients, threats to look unfavorably on the

mergers their clients want or government contracts or lucrative deals favored by their clients.

Now, this money didn't land directly in the President's bank account. This is value he extracted--nearly a billion dollars in legal work redirected to causes he favors, surrendered by law firms that were afraid of what he might do to them if they refused.

And who negotiated these deals? Reportedly, Boris Epshteyn, the President's personal lawyer, not a government official, a private citizen allegedly shaking down America's largest law firms on the administration's behalf--$940 million extracted under threat and all too easily complied with by firms that were unwilling to take a stand. It is a modern protection racket.

What is the cost of this corruption? Well, law firms are silenced from representing clients whose interests may be averse to the President. That might be you one day. Businesses unable to get counsel because these law firms are too scared of crossing a vindictive President--that business may be your business one day.

And the law firms that stood their ground and defied the President? They risk losing business in a corruption of the economy that only favors firms willing to capitulate to the President. It is Putin-style economics, and it doesn't work any better here than it does in Russia.

No. 2, World Liberty Financial and stablecoin reserves: $1.5 billion and counting. We are now in the top two--World Liberty Financial, the Trump family cash cow, a firm in which the Trump family holds an ownership interest of around 75 percent.

The sale of these governance tokens has earned the family well over a billion dollars. A single deal tied to a state-backed fund in the United Arab Emirates funneled $500 million into this venture--a single deal made by a wealthy sheik who is also the head of that country's intelligence service. What could go wrong?

And in return, they just got American-made advanced AI chips, just like they wanted.

Coincidence? I don't think so. If you do, I have a ballroom I would like to sell you.

But the scheme doesn't stop there because the Trump family is also entitled to the interest earned on the reserves backing their stablecoin. This income is ongoing, grows by the day, and is pegged to the U.S. dollar itself. Unlike the meme coin, this is real money, more than $1.5 billion and counting--over $1.5 billion flowing to the President's family through a financial instrument his family controls, launched while he sits in the Oval Office--not a side business, not a blind trust--the President of the United States using the power and prestige of his office to drive money into a venture he owns and from which he profits every single day.

And consider what one of the family's business partners got in return. The world's largest crypto exchange, Binance, helped turn World Liberty's stablecoin from a small venture into one of the largest in the world, first by settling a $2 billion investment from an Abu Dhabi state fund in the Trump coin, then by building it into the exchange's own trading systems. And for that, the Trump family earns interest on every dollar used.

And the founder of Binance, what did he get out of it? Well, he had been convicted of money laundering crimes. He was facing the consequences until last October, when the President pardoned him--a foreign-funded boost to the family business, repaid with a Presidential pardon.

The cost of this corruption? Crooked deals to benefit convicted fraudsters; U.S. foreign policy for sale to the highest Gulf bidder; less time, attention, and resources of our country focused on bringing down your costs, improving your quality of life, bringing back prosperity to America.

Which takes us, ladies and gentlemen, to No. 1, the crown jewel: the President, his IRS settlement, and the $1.7 billion slush fund.

So here is the scheme. And you have to give the President credit for its audacity. The President sues the IRS, an Agency run by one of his employees, one of his appointees, and represented by the Department of Justice, also run by one of his appointees. His lawyers bring the suit, and his lawyers defend the suit. He is functionally suing himself. And he, not surprisingly, settles with himself for a staggering amount. He gets an IRS ``get out of jail free'' card. He faces no audit or investigations for any prior tax fraud or underpayment that he, his kids, his businesses, or his associates have ever made or participated in--a deal estimated to be worth up to $100 million for the Trump family, personally--personally.

It is a sham settlement, castigated by a Federal judge as based on a suit brought wholly for an improper purpose and a settlement that was the product of the worst form of collusion and self-dealing.

But that is just the start--the $100 million tax ``get out of jail free'' card, only a start. The settlement also purports to give the President control over $1.776 billion of taxpayer money, which he gets to use as a personal slush fund to compensate his friends and allies who claim that they have been wronged.

Included among the aggrieved: people who violently attacked law enforcement officers on January 6. Now, these people who attacked police officers on January 6, they already got pardoned by the President on his first day. But that wasn't enough for them or for the President. They want to be paid for their acts of insurrection, and the President is willing to pay them with your tax dollars. Imagine, your tax dollars going to pay cop beaters.

And besides the morally repugnant nature of that slush fund and its beneficiaries, it comes at a huge cost. He wants nearly $2 billion of your money--your tax dollars--to fund this cop-beater program, not to serve the public but as a pot of money he controls to pay out to the people loyal to him, willing to use violence for him.

Congress and the courts have compelled Trump's Acting Attorney General to back off the fund for now, but not the President. He still wants to make the payoffs to his cronies and enablers, and the administration is looking for other ways to loot the Treasury for the same purpose, using other funds of the Department of Justice--taxpayer money converted into personal patronage for the President.

There is a word for governments that take public money and hand it to their friends, and it is not ``republic.''

But the cost of this corruption? Incalculable. Besides misappropriating billions of your money, it is also rewarding people seeking to overturn a free and fair election. If it succeeds in encouraging others to do so in the next election, the cost to you just may be our whole democracy.

So let's add it up. Overseas licensing, $23 million; media lawsuits, $36 million; Big Tech settlements, $60 million; Amazon and Melania, $40 million; the meme coin, $635 million; the White House ballroom, $600 million; the Qatari jet, $400 million; Big Law, $940 million; World Liberty Financial, $1.5 billion and counting; the IRS giveaway and slush fund, $1.7 billion and $100 million--for a grand total of $6 billion.

And that, fellow Americans, is just the top 10. That doesn't include the Trump wine sold at the Coast Guard exchanges. It doesn't include Don Junior's ``Executive Branch'' club. It doesn't include the Trump resort in Qatar or the Trump Hotel in Belgrade. It doesn't include Don Junior's $2.6 million in a drone company that just, coincidentally, landed an Army contract. And it doesn't even include all the stock trades of the President.

The President's own filing shows 3,642 trades in just the first 3 months of the year--58 trades every single market day--up to three- quarters of a billion dollars' worth of trades.

Think about that. The man who is supposed to be running the country-- instead, he is running a trading desk.

And what a trader he is. He bought Nvidia stock on January 6 of this year, and, 1 week later, his Commerce Department approved Nvidia's chip sales to China--a $50 billion opportunity for the company. He bought more Nvidia in February. A week later, Nvidia announced the blockbuster deal with Meta.

What are the odds? Trade after trade, perfectly timed to decisions only his government knew were coming. And these are only the deals that we know about.

No one put this historic level of corruption in perspective better than the Vice President, JD Vance, who recently told a crowd that if Watergate

took place today, it would be a 12-hour story.

Think about that for a moment. If the President broke into the Democratic Party headquarters, bugged the place, used hush money to cover it up, used the CIA to thwart the FBI's investigation of it, and lied to the country about it, JD Vance says that would be a mere blip on the screen for them today. He is telling us--the Vice President is telling us--that the corruption of the Trump regime, his regime, is so pervasive, they have so successfully normalized it, that Nixon's behavior would seem quaint.

Congratulations, JD. You have made the most egregious corruption commonplace. Well done. You should be so very proud.

After Watergate, Congress passed a host of reforms to constrain a future corrupt President. They included limits on campaign finance, safeguards to wall off Presidential misuse of the Justice Department, new oversight mechanisms for the intelligence community, offices of inspectors general to root out fraud, and much more.

It now falls on us, in this generation, to usher in a whole new set of reforms, to address a far broader range of lawlessness and corruption.

During the first Trump administration, I introduced the Protecting our Democracy Act, a package of reforms meant to address the many violations of law and norms by the President at that time. We have reintroduced it in the Senate.

But as the list of laws and guardrails shattered and multiplies, the need for corrective action must multiply with it. Just this week, I have introduced three additional bills meant to attack conflicts of interest, keep convicted fraudsters out of our government, and tighten our laws against the bribery of public officials.

In the weeks and months to come, we must propose the best laws that we can, meant to constrain the worst impulses of human nature. But we must be mindful of this truth as well, and that is: no set of laws no matter how well conceived, no constitution, no matter how brilliantly constructed, can protect our lives, our liberty, our prosperity if elected officials are unwilling to live up to their oaths or to accept the truth or to put their country over their party. None of it will be enough.

We must also return prosperity to America. We must make it possible when people are working hard, they can earn a good living for themselves and their families. When people see the lives their parents had as better, all too many are willing to entertain and put their fate in the hands of any demagogue who promises that they, alone, can fix it.

Our democracy will not be on solid ground until our economy is working again for all Americans.

When the Founders gathered in Philadelphia in the sweltering summer of 1787, they debated a great many things, but one fear united them across every divide--the fear of corruption. They had just thrown off a King. They had risked everything--their lives, their fortunes, their honor--to build something new; a Republic, a government of laws, not men. And they knew with a clarity born of hard experience that a Republic would not long endure if leaders used public power for private gain. That is why they wrote a Constitution of checks and balances, one that set the ambition of one branch of government against the other and included provisions meant to address the personal weaknesses and failings of a President--any President--because they understood human nature.

They understood those in power would be tempted to enrich themselves. They understood that foreign governments would try to buy our leaders with gifts and payments and favors. They imagined something like what we are witnessing today.

But what they may not have imagined, what may have exceeded even their worst fears was a President so brazen, so shameless, so relentless, and so creative in the pursuit of personal profit and a Congress so feckless, so loathe to confront him, so lacking in ambition for its own power and institution, so willing to let him profit at the public expense, with payout after payout after payout.

In 1785, Benjamin Franklin was serving as our Ambassador to France. The King of France gave him a gift--a snuffbox encrusted with diamonds--a gesture of diplomatic friendship. In Paris, such gifts were routine; business as usual. But back home, in America, it sparked a controversy.

Franklin had to ask Congress for permission to keep it, and the Congress, then under the Articles of Confederation, granted it. But the concern that a leader less scrupulous than Franklin would be tempted, would be compromised, lingered.

So when delegates gathered in Philadelphia 2 years later to write our Constitution, they remembered the snuffbox. The first draft said nothing about foreign gifts or emoluments. The final draft did because they remembered the snuffbox.

Edmund Randolph, one of the Constitution's Framers later explained it this way:

This restriction was provided to prevent corruption . . . A

box was presented to our ambassador by the king of our

allies. It was thought proper, in order to exclude corruption

and foreign influence, to prohibit any one in office from

receiving or holding any emoluments from foreign states.

They wrote it into the Constitution because of a snuffbox. Imagine. And now we have a President accepting a $400 million jet. Can you imagine what the Founders would have thought of that? We have a President earning more than a billion dollars from a cryptocurrency company his family controls funded, in large part, by foreign interests.

The Founders understood that once you accept the first gift, the second becomes easier, and the third--and soon, you are not making a decision based on what is right for the country, you are making them based on who has been generous to you as President.

My colleagues, the White House has become a marketplace and the Presidency a crooked family business. Every one of these transactions-- the dozens we know about and the many more we surely don't--raises profound questions about the influence of foreign governments and the buying and selling of American policy, American justice, and American democracy itself.

Every single day this continues, our democracy is weakened, our institutions are compromised, the office of the Presidency is degraded, and the costs come out of your pocket--out of your pocket.

But here is the thing: The Founders in their warning to us about corruption also gave us the tools to fight it. They gave us a free press to investigate and expose it. They gave us a separation of powers so that no branch could become too powerful. We have those powers in this body--in this body--to stop it, if only we will use them.

And they gave us, above all, a government of the people, the ultimate authority, the final word. And it will take all of us demanding something better, voting for something better, refusing to accept that this is normal or inevitable or just the way things are; a 12-hour story.

Our story is not 12 hours long but 250 years old. It is the story of a country that began as an improbable experiment where people believed that we had sufficient virtue to be self-governing, that we did not need to be ruled by a despot, a country where what is right matters, where the truth matters, and where decency--basic decency--matters.

That is the story of the birth of this country, and that can be the story of its future, if we are willing to fight for it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, due to unforeseen circumstances on Wednesday, June 24, I was unable to be present for the following rollcall vote No. 185. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows:

1. Rollcall vote 185--Cloture motion John George Edward

Marck to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of

Texas: Nay.

Due to unforeseen circumstances on Wednesday, June 24, I was unable to be present for the following rollcall vote No. 186. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows:

1. Rollcall vote 186--Confirmation John George Edward Marck

to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Texas:

Nay.

Due to unforeseen circumstances on Wednesday, June 24, I was unable to be present for the following rollcall vote No. 187. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows:

1. Rollcall vote 187--Cloture motion Michael J. Hendershot

to be U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio:

Nay.

Due to unforeseen circumstances on Wednesday, June 24, I was unable to be present for the following rollcall vote No. 188. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows:

1. Rollcall vote 188--Confirmation Michael J. Hendershot to

be U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Ohio:

Nay.

Due to unforeseen circumstances on Wednesday, June 24, I was unable to be present for the following rollcall vote No. 189. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows:

1. Rollcall vote 189--Cloture motion Arthur Robert Jones to

be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Texas:

Nay.

Madam President, 3 weeks ago, this body voted to have a debate over the President's war in Iran; more specifically, whether the United States Congress should exercise its constitutional authority to declare war or to bring this conflict to an end. Since that time, the administration has announced that it has reached a deal with Iran to reopen the strait with an agreement to reach an agreement later over Iran's nuclear weapons. The President has made it clear that should Iran not agree to a deal over its nuclear program within 60 days, he will resume bombing.

I sincerely hope that this is the beginning of the end of the war and that our servicemembers will soon be coming home, but a still-secret agreement that postpones the difficult questions for 2 more months is little assurance when the President has so often during this conflict promised far more than he has delivered.

From the beginning, the President assured the country that the war would be ``short'' and it would be over ``very soon.'' Just weeks after the conflict began, around 100 days ago, the President said that U.S. forces would be leaving ``in the near future.'' He said talks were going very well and ``very, very soon'' the conflict would be over. ``I think we won,'' he said.

That was on the last day of winter. This weekend will mark the first day of summer. This entire spring, the American public have stepped into the shoes

of Charlie Brown, constantly being told that the football will not move, that the end is near, only to have peace snatched away time and time again.

And so, in this moment, Congress cannot accept a vague promise of a future end to the war as a substitute for the very definite terms of the War Powers Act. The President should come to Congress for our authorization to keep troops deployed to the war zone or bring them home. Those are the only two choices the law provides.

After all, this war began without the administration making the case to Congress or the American people. There was no attack on the United States by Iran, nor was there any imminent threat. This was a war of choice, and it was chosen by the President.

In the months since, the administration's rationale for the war has shifted many times over time, with the President and his Cabinet alternately claiming an imminent threat from Iran's nuclear program, which they also claimed to have been obliterated by an attack by the United States 9 months earlier; claiming an imminent threat of a missile attack by Iran on our homeland, which the United States intelligence community concluded was, in fact, 9 years away; claiming this was the best opportunity for the Iranian people to rise up against the regime, then saying they would get mowed down if they did, with more vacillating, inconsistent, and implausible justifications for the war given every week.

And now we have little more than a deal to make a deal. Initially, the agreement seeks to rebuild the status quo that this war shattered by reopening the strait. But even this preliminary agreement is contested, with the President saying Iran won't charge any tolls, but with Iran saying it may charge ``fees'' for the crossing.

And the future deal on nuclear weapons, although still very much a work in progress, appears little different than the agreement that President Obama negotiated and Trump disavowed--although the present deal seems far better for Iran than that deal since Iran may receive 10 times the billions it did under the Obama JCPOA and also be a party to a $300 billion reconstruction fund.

Imagine that: You paid $60 billion more for gas during the war, and those billions you paid at the pump are going to go to Iran for rebuilding.

High gas prices are just one of the costs that have been borne by the American people over these 100 days. The region has been in chaos, along with global shipping. As a result, the price of Americans' grocery bills has been much higher, the cost of fertilizer for farmers much higher, and the price of energy bills much higher to heat our home in winter and to keep it cool in summer. Everything is going up, up, up--except the incomes of the American people.

And, most significantly, American servicemembers' lives have been lost. That has been the most terrible price of this war.

Americans wanted a President who would bring down their cost of living, lighten their economic load, and deliver a better future for their children, address their rising rents, their inability to afford childcare, their difficulty getting a health plan or a good education without breaking the bank, to address their anxiety when the fridge runs empty or the gas light comes on. But this President did the exact opposite.

And now we are told that Iran--not the United States taxpayers, who footed the bill for all of this--may be set to receive $24 billion in sanctions relief and another $300 billion in reconstruction reparations and investment.

This war of choice was brought to America by a President who promised no more foreign wars, no more Middle East wars, no more regime change wars; someone who said on election night to the entire world, ``I'm not going to start a war; I'm going to stop wars'' but now says, ``I didn't guarantee no war'' and that he didn't build such a powerful military for nothing.

So let's look at the record of this President who promised no more wars and that he would focus on the problems of Americans here at home: 200 people killed in boat strikes in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, with more strikes every week; an attack on Venezuela, capturing President Maduro and now leaving in power his corrupt second in command, long past the time when that country's constitution demands a new election and the country's rightful President, the winner of Venezuela's last election, is relegated to the sidelines, little more than an afterthought; and now the stationing of American military right off of Cuba, blockading that country and indicting its leaders.

The war in Iran is far from over, and the President seems to be promising another one when it is, saying, with respect to Cuba, he likes to do things one at a time.

We have in this moment an opportunity to show the President and the country that we are listening to our constituents, that we hear their concerns, that we will do our job to make their voices heard, to bring down the cost of living and address the difficulties they find in just making a go of it.

We have a responsibility to uphold what our Founding Fathers gave us: a Constitution that provided Congress with the power to make war, not the President. We can bring our troops home, and we can return our attention to our difficulties at home and rein in a President that has now become all too fond of war.

We have found a majority to carry this motion once before. We can do so again. The American people are counting on us to send this resolution to the Oval Office with bipartisan support and to end this war of choice once and for all.

Our constituents cannot afford to risk another 100 days of war, and-- if we are to be more than a constitutional appendage--neither can we.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, today marks the 14th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, known across the country as DACA.

As a Senator from California--home to thousands of Dreamers and DACA recipients--I stand here to acknowledge the enormous impact of DACA, a program that has provided more than 800,000 young people a shot at the American dream--a chance to form families, buy a home, attend college, achieve a career, and pursue their dreams--and a chance to feel safe in the only place they have ever called home.

Today, we also reflect on the road ahead as we seek to achieve a permanent solution for Dreamers--a pathway to citizenship.

Most Dreamers arrived in the United States as children and have grown up in the United States and spent the vast majority of their lives here. DACA recipients--one of every four of whom lives in California-- are part of the fabric of our communities and essential to our economy. They are interwoven in the very fabric of our society. They are our doctors, our teachers, our nurses, and our engineers. They are our neighbors and contribute nearly $17 billion to the U.S. economy annually. They are our family and friends. They want to be our fellow citizens.

Despite the relief this program has provided in the past, hundreds of thousands of Dreamers and DACA recipients live day to day facing an oppressive uncertainty. They have faced that for years, living from one court case to the next, one Presidential whim to the next. With each passing anniversary, we are reminded how fragile this lifeline has turned out to be.

Because of this administration's draconian immigration policies, thousands of Dreamers and many others are living in a constant state of fear of deportation. Since the program was created, Republicans have tried to strip DACA recipients of their protections, repeatedly attacking the program in the courts, failing to support comprehensive immigration reform, refusing DACA recipients a pathway to citizenship, and creating significant delays in their ability to renew their status and work authorizations.

Right now, many DACA recipients are being forced out of their status and losing their jobs through no fault of their own. Under this administration, 261 recipients have been detained--261 DACA recipients detained--and dozens have been deported.

In March, I met with Maria, a DACA recipient from Sacramento. Maria was wrongly detained and deported just 24 hours after what she thought would be a routine immigration appointment. She has lived in the United States for nearly 30 years. Yet, even with her DACA protections, she was deported and separated from her daughter, causing enormous pain and fear. She is now back in the United States after a judge ruled her deportation unlawful, but this never should have happened in the first place.

Every month, I receive alarming letters from constituents concerned that their DACA status is going to be taken away and they will be separated from their family and friends.

Elidio, a DACA recipient from the Bay area, wrote in a letter to me:

I was recently diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer, and I

was inquiring if you can help out with an inquiry on the

timetable of the process. My work authorization is set to

expire soon, and with it, the prospects of losing my health

insurance, which I deeply rely on.

His life, his very life, depends on the renewal of his DACA application.

Another of my constituents, Ravina from the Inland Empire, wrote to express frustrations and deep concerns with ongoing renewal delays, which have already negatively impacted them. They came to this country as a 1-year-old. Now they are a civil engineer, living what they called ``a dream come true'' and contributing to California's vital infrastructure and transportation sectors. But that dream has always carried with it the threat of expiration due to processing delays and the uncertainty of the program.

Ravina's work permit lapsed due to deliberate delays on the part of this administration, and they are now on mandatory leave and at risk of losing their job entirely. They want to work. They want a stable future. They want, as with all DACA recipients, certainty--certainty that from one day to another, they will not be forced to leave this country, their home.

Another of my constituents, Marco from the Southern California area, also wrote to me, worried about the future. He works for a local health department while going to school to obtain a degree in microbiology. Since he doesn't qualify for Federal student aid, he is paying everything out of pocket, working while a student to get by. Without his work authorization, he could lose his job and ultimately be forced to drop out of college.

These stories are real. Their constant worry is real. These Dreamers just want a permanent fix and a pathway forward.

My constituent services team is working diligently to assist DACA recipients with their applications, but we need something more permanent. We need to provide Dreamers a pathway to citizenship in this country and ensure that they and their families are not living in limbo, that they have the certainty they need to achieve the American dream.

Just recently, Congress voted to give ICE and CBP a budget so astronomical that it rivals the military budget of many industrialized countries--all in the service of a draconian immigration enforcement agenda that is anything but American. And this comes at a time when, instead of addressing our Nation's challenges, American taxpayers are being forced to give even more to ICE and Border Patrol agents--more money to fuel a cruel immigration policy and raids that are separating families; more money for an out-of-control Federal police force without a modicum of accountability, including agents that have killed American citizens in cold blood, in broad daylight, on video, for exercising their constitutionally protected right to free speech. These agents have broken into homes. They have refused to show their faces or their badges and have ripped children from their parents.

If we can afford $70 billion more for these agents, why can't we afford a clear path for Dreamers? Why can't we afford to process work applications in a timely way? But of course we can if there is the will to do it. This administration could start fixing the delays that DACA recipients are facing. This won't just help families across the country; it will also help stabilize the workforce and boost our economy.

But Congress itself needs to act as well because we failed at every turn to provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, and it is within our power to do so.

President Trump once said that he himself believed Dreamers needed protection. He once said:

I'd love to be able to do something for them. . . . [T]hey

should feel safe, but I'd like to be able to do something.

That was then. I guess we are living in a very different kind of now.

Nevertheless, this body should act. Members on both sides of the aisle should recommit today to work together to find a pathway to preserve, codify, and extend the DACA Program and provide all Dreamers a real pathway to citizenship.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 5740 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, Members, this amendment is very brief. Its operative language is a single sentence. It provides:

No judgment, award, compromise settlement, interest, or

costs shall be authorized for payments that arise out of a

lawsuit or claim filed by the President or Vice President.

That is it. It doesn't single out any President in particular--not past, not present, not future. It applies to all.

Does anyone here believe this slush fund is a good idea? If there is anyone here who believes it is a good idea, say so. Speak out. Say so.

Does anyone think this is a good idea? Anyone?

If not, let's do something about it. Support this amendment, and let's put this to rest for good. I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act and all budget resolution disciplines that apply, I move to waive all points of order for the purposes of the pending measure.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

Mr. President, today I rise to honor and celebrate Temple Knesset Israel in Los Angeles for its milestone 100th anniversary.

Founded in 1926, Temple Knesset Israel has been a beacon of light for its community; a congregation that has shown an ability to grow in the modern world and build strong foundations for future generations. One of the oldest congregations in Los Angeles, Temple Knesset Israel has focused on giving its members spiritual connection and cultural awareness.

Fostering strong ties to its visitors, the temple has been a cornerstone of empowering all religions and ethnicities. A place where everyone is welcome, Temple Knesset Israel has been a powerful force of good.

The temple has always been a welcoming home for those in need. Comprised of congregants from many ethnic groups, Temple Knesset Israel is proud to be a congregation focused on inclusivity and community. Its continued efforts to educate its members and bring together those of all walks of life has made the congregation a critical part of the Los Angeles community.

Temple Knesset Israel's spiritual leaders Rabbi Robert Elias and Cantor Lee Greenberg have been pillars of spiritual guidance and continuity throughout the years. Maintaining stability in trying times, these leaders have been a centerpiece for calm and perseverance.

I ask all members to join me in acknowledging the importance of Temple Knesset Israel. Its impact on the Los Angeles region cannot be overstated, and for 100 years, it has worked to bring together the Jewish community with immensely positive impact.

Pursuant to 50 U.S.C 1546(a) and section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 184.

For the last 8 weeks, I have taken to the Senate floor to oppose the Iran war. I have pointed out the lack of an imminent threat from Iran and the shifting justifications for the war.

I have enumerated the many costs of the war in blood and in treasure, in higher gas prices and costs of groceries. And I have lamented the loss of 13 servicemembers including a Californian and the injury of scores of others.

Today, I rise to sound the alarm about another risk of this war and that is that the administration is poised to violate the War Powers Act and that if we permit such a flagrant violation of the law, we, the Senate, and the Congress, will have surrendered the war power completely to the Executive.

This would be enormously dangerous and wrongheaded. I believe it is also in direct contravention of the Constitution and our duty to uphold it.

At midnight tonight, it will be the 60th day since Donald Trump notified Congress under the War Powers Act that we were at war with Iran--60 days. It is also a moment that some of my Republican colleagues have pointed to as a turning point in their consideration of the legal and constitutional bases for the Iran war.

That is because under the War Powers Act of 1973, a President is legally mandated to remove military forces from a conflict if Congress has not voted to authorize it within those 60 days.

As we have all acknowledged, the President can order military action in response to an armed attack or the imminent threat of an attack if those dangers require immediate action, but that power and responsibility is not unlimited.

After 60 days, he must seek an authorization from Congress to continue the war or, failing to receive it, he must order the withdrawal of our forces.

Now, some of my colleagues across the aisle have argued that the President properly began this war because they believe that we faced some form of an immediate threat to our forces or our allies. But they have also affirmed that the President's authority to use military force expires after the 60 days set out in the War Powers Act.

Now, I strongly disagree with the argument that we faced an attack-- or an imminent threat of attack--from Iran, justifying this war. But I respect the fact that some of my Republican colleagues have acknowledged that authority, if it exists, lapses tomorrow night.

This military operation has been carried out by the Commander in Chief for the past 60 days. We have multiple carrier strike groups, tens of thousands of servicemembers, pilots and sailors and soldiers and marines, all serving halfway around the world and now for 60 days.

In addition to the 13 servicemembers who have lost their lives, more than 200 others have been seriously--or have been injured, and some seriously. The letter of the law is clear. This is what the act says ``Within sixty calendar days after a report''--and that is a report on the beginning of hostilities like the one we received from the President on March 2--``Within sixty calendar days . . . the President shall terminate any use of the United States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted . . .''

``Shall terminate.''

That is ``Unless the Congress has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of [the] United States Armed Forces.''

Now this is important. The law does not turn on the introduction of an authorization to use force or committee consideration of such an authorization or even a Senate floor vote on an authorization. No, the law requires the enactment of a war authorization. Failing that, the law requires the President to remove U.S. forces.

This is the case unless the Congress changes the War Powers Act itself, which we have not done, or cannot meet as a result of an attack, which is demonstrably not the case because, well, we are all here.

Those are the only two carve-outs. There are no other exceptions. If the President is still using the military for the same purpose as he was 60 days earlier and there has been no authorization of military force enacted--or war

declaration--the President must terminate this use of force until Congress says otherwise.

Now, some might argue that because we are not currently bombing Iran--because there is a tentative cease-fire in place--that somehow the War Powers Act no longer applies, that somehow the war powers clock stops ticking. But this is simply not true.

The United States Navy is still being used to interdict Iranian ships or ships embarking from Iranian ports. We are still using our Navy to blockade Iran. Our servicemembers are still at risk. And there is no provision in the War Powers Act to suspend the clock when military force is used in one respect but not another.

For the law says:

The President shall terminate any use of [the] United

States Armed Forces . . .

There is no exception made for the Navy or the use of naval forces. Now, the law allows for a 30-day period for a safe withdrawal if the administration seeks it, but the President has not requested one. It is important to note that the purpose for an extension is explicit in the law. It exists:

If the President determines and certifies to the Congress

in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the

safety of [the] United States Armed Forces requires the

continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing

about a prompt removal of such forces.

The President has made no such certification.

And so I say to my colleagues: This is the moment you have pointed to and waited for. This is the moment when Congress must assert itself. This is the moment when we must recognize that the Founders gave Congress alone the power to authorize war. The moment of reflection and action that you have identified--and I respect you for doing so--is here.

And we must take action. We should all bear in mind that today's vote is simply to bring a resolution to the floor to discharge my resolution S.J. Res. 184 from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee so that it can be debated by the Senate. That will happen well after the 60-day clock has expired.

Colleagues, we must not move the goalposts again. If we do, we surrender all authority to authorize war to the President, and he already has enough power. What we have remaining is already so greatly diminished, already a poor reflection--a mere shadow--of the power granted to us by the Constitution and our Founders.

The War Powers Act was a product of a bipartisan, bicameral agreement which took years to negotiate in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, another deeply unpopular war that stretched far longer than the American people wanted.

Consider the words of one of the law's authors Senator Jacob Javits a Republican Senator from New York, words he spoke on the Senate floor while Senators overrode a Presidential veto of this law with a full 75 votes in the Senate and nearly 300 in the House.

Senator Javits said ``No one is impairing the President's authority to carry on the foreign policy of this country. Let us not confuse this with foreign policy. Foreign policy does not mean war, and war does not mean foreign policy, unless there is a breakdown or failure of foreign policy. Congress is determined to recapture for ourselves the representatives of the people at the State level in the Senate and as the House did on the local level, the awesome power to make war. When we judge, by this measure''--he said--``that an incident would become a war, then we, and we alone, have the right to decide that it shall go on into war or that it shall stop. For the Constitution lays upon the Congress, unmistakably, the responsibility of deciding whether or not the state of our Nation should be changed from peace to war.''

Senator Javits understood the criticism that would be leveled against the act--and those who supported it--by President Nixon and his allies, but he also understood that the Constitution was clear. And he helped draft a law that upheld, reinforced, and strengthened the separation of power between a Commander of Chief and a Congress empowered to authorize his use of that command for the purpose of making war.

Our war power is given clearly by the Constitution, but it is a muscle. And if we do not exercise it, it will not hold our weight. And Congress for years has allowed that muscle to atrophy.

Mr. President, 50 years ago Republicans and Democrats alike tried to reinvigorate our war power with an eye to restoring the authority that Congress possesses but which the Vietnam war had eroded. We must not ignore that law now.

For the sake of all 13 families that have already lost someone to this senseless directionless war, for the sake of future generations who may be sent into battle without the approval of Congress or the American people, by a President grown too fond of war, this has to be the moment we stand up. This has to be the moment we say enough.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I know of no further debate.

Vote on Motion to Discharge

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor and celebrate the 100th anniversary of San Bernardino Valley College, a milestone that reflects a century of educational opportunity, service, and community impact.

On June 23, 1926, the first board of trustees convened at a site on the east side of Mount Vernon Avenue, between downtown San Bernardino and Colton, and cast a forward-looking vision for higher education in a rapidly growing region that would later be known as the Inland Empire.

What began as the San Bernardino Valley Union Junior College District has since become a cornerstone institution, educating generations of students and strengthening the economic and civic life of San Bernardino County.

The land, however, holds a deeper history. Long before modern institutions were established, the area was home to the Serrano people, whose descendants include the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. Their enduring presence and stewardship of the land and San Bernardino Valley College are an important part of the history and deserve recognition as we reflect on the progress and institutions built here.

For 100 years, San Bernardino Valley College has served as a gateway to opportunity, opening doors for first-generation students, veterans, working

families, and lifelong learners. Through academic transfer programs, career and technical education, and workforce development, the college has remained responsive to the evolving needs of the community it serves. Its innovative partnerships with key institutions like the San Bernardino City Unified School District and the San Bernardino Municipal Water District have greatly benefited students, employers, and the local economy.

Through times of change and challenge, San Bernardino Valley College has upheld its commitment to equity, access, and student success. The dedication of its faculty, staff, and administrators has fostered a supportive learning environment that empowers students to achieve their goals and contribute meaningfully to their communities. The college marked a historic milestone on May 23, 2025, by graduating its largest class ever. A total of 1,765 students were honored, with more than 2,500 degrees and certificates conferred, the highest number in the college's 100-year history.

As San Bernardino Valley College marks this centennial milestone, we celebrate not only its mission, but its enduring legacy and its promise for the future. I ask all Members to join me in celebrating the centennial of San Bernardino Valley College and wish them continued success.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted for Maddy Libbey, a fellow in my office, for the consideration of S.J. Res. 184.

Mr. President, today the Iranians claimed to have seized two ships in the Strait of Hormuz, while firing on a third. The President has ordered the blockade of Iranian ports to continue, even as he announced a cease-fire, even as he backed off yet another apocalyptic threat.

In short, we are approaching the end of the second month of Trump's Iran war, and there is no end to the conflict or the confusion in sight.

Sadly, there is little sense that a deal is in the offing or what that deal would look like and whether our security will be any better if and when the President declares some kind of Pyrrhic victory. But this much we know already: This war has come at a terrible cost.

First and foremost, there has been the tragic loss of human lives. Mr. President, 13 of our servicemembers have been killed, including CW3 Robert Marzan of California. Over 200 U.S. servicemembers have been injured, some seriously. Our hearts go out to all of the families and communities from which they come.

Scores of Iranian civilians have also been killed including over a hundred at a girl's school that appears to have been mistakenly bombed by the United States. There have also been casualties in Israel and the Gulf States, the total number of which is still unknown.

Second, there is the economic cost to the American taxpayer to the tune of tens of billions of dollars--maybe when this conflict is over, hundreds of billions of dollars. Every American family will already be asked to pay over $1,000 as their contribution to a war they did not want, which their Representatives in Congress did not vote to approve.

Just imagine what that means. For that price, America could have paid for universal pre-K for all of our kids. Think about that. Every American child could have had pre-K for the likely cost of this war. In a very real sense, the early childhood education of our kids will suffer because this President chose to invest in bombing Iran instead of educating our kids.

A hospital costs around $100 million. That means there could have been 200 hospitals in 200 communities around the country for the cost of this war. One of those communities just might have been yours. Those hospitals will never be built because this President, who promised no more foreign wars, no more regime change wars, no more stupid wars, broke his promise. Diminished healthcare for you and your family is a cost of the war.

Third, you are paying much higher prices for gas, electricity, groceries, and more as a result of this war. Why? Because of the eminently predictable action Iran has taken to close a vital shipping lane--the Strait of Hormuz.

General Caine reportedly warned President Trump that Iran was very likely to take this action. Frankly, it didn't require a military genius to reach that conclusion.

But drunk on his own power, convinced of his own infallibility, this is a President, after all, who just said that he would have won the Vietnam war very quickly. Donald Trump could not conceive of anything other than a quick Iranian capitulation. Sadly, though, this has not been the case, and there is still no end to the conflict or the higher prices Americans are paying.

An average family--your family--can expect to pay at least $1,000 more a year in costs like those at the pump as a result of Trump's Iran war; and that is on top of another $1,000 in taxes to pay for all the bombs that we are dropping on that country.

And, finally, we are paying an additional cost for this war from the fact that the case for this war was never made to the country or to the Congress, from the fact that our Republican colleagues in the majority have refused thus far to hold a single hearing on the war. I am told maybe there will be one at the end of next week.

And the American people are not informed about the purpose, the goals, the duration, the price tag, and more of this conflict because we have had no open hearings on it.

And that cost is this: more wars by this President or future Presidents because Congress has refused to exercise its constitutional authority over war.

And that cost could be the most substantial of all because the establishment of a precedent in which the President can initiate a war of enormous consequence, a war in which we pay a tremendous cost in life and treasure--without any input, without any approval--that precedent may lead to additional wars, needless wars, dangerous and damaging wars, which brings us to this moment and to this War Powers Resolution and the need to use our constitutional power to bring an end to this war.

I urge an aye vote.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it has been 13 months to the day since the House first passed Donald Trump's ``One Big Ugly Bill,'' 290 days since it was signed into law--the largest cut to healthcare in American history; $1 trillion slashed for families, children, seniors, our most vulnerable; billions taken away from hungry families; millions of Americans pushed closer to poverty, closer to financial ruin; rising costs.

And for what? To pay for tax cuts for the richest Americans, to give big corporations another leg up, and to give ICE and CBP a budget so astronomical it rivals the military budget of many industrialized nations.

For the average American, it has been 290 days of lost opportunities and less affordable healthcare; of harder conversations at the kitchen table; of more sleepless nights worrying about how to get by; more skipped meals; more doctor visits postponed; week upon week of American families hoping against hope that this President and this Congress might recognize the difficulty that they are facing, the struggle they are enduring, the central promise that this President is breaking.

Day one of Donald Trump's final term is long past, but the prices-- much to the contrary of what he has promised--have not dropped. His first 100 days are now 15 months ago, and still, inflation persists. Indeed, it is worse.

Two hundred and ninety days into the lifespan of the President's supposed signature legislative achievement, this ``Big Ugly Bill,'' and life for so many Americans is not bigger, and it is not more beautiful. At gas stations across America, the reality of Donald Trump's America is clear. At grocery stores in California to the Capitol, that reality is hitting people in their pocketbooks.

And we are not on the right track either--an illegal war in Iran that has neither a clear goal nor an endgame, that has pushed prices higher, that has rocked markets on a daily basis and made the summer road trip that so many families were looking forward to the latest victim of Trump's economy; a misguided tariff agenda that has been struck down by the highest Court. But now this administration will only take steps to return the billions in illegal duties it levied to the corporations that charged them, not the Americans who paid them.

This body recognizes the immense strain that our constituents are under. I know it does because people are making their discontent loudly known at the ballot box and at public fora all over the country in the red States and the blue States alike.

I can assure each and every one of you watching that Members of Congress understand the American dream is slipping out of reach. We know that you are worried about making ends meet. We understand that you are agonizing over whether you can keep your business afloat or what opportunities will be there for your kids.

We have heard your stories. We understand the dread you feel as you near the first of the month, the fear that is all too real when you open the mailbox, unsure of what surprise bill will arrive and tip your family into bankruptcy, the terrible math that you must use to decide which dose of medicine or which meal you can afford to skip just to keep the lights on. This is the reality for so many Americans, and we understand that.

It might be--I don't know--worse, if you could just accuse the Congress of

being in the dark, if we were somehow blind, rather than a majority of this body willfully turning a blind eye to the struggles of regular people.

But as I stand here recounting to you the myriad ways in which the past year of Trump's America has gotten harder--a reality that you live every day--Republicans are getting ready to act on their next big budget resolution, not to help drive down costs, not to address the healthcare crisis, not to do something to help. No, their grand plan to address our Nation's challenges is asking the American taxpayer to give even more money out of their pocket, out of their bank account, to ICE and Border Patrol agents.

An out-of-control police force that has killed Americans and terrorized our streets, and they want more money for CBP and ICE without even a modicum of reform. Now, how is that supposed to help your life? And the short answer is: It isn't. There is nothing in this bill to make your healthcare, your energy, or your housing more affordable. Nothing.

So if there is no money, no billions in this bill to improve the quality of your life, just what are my colleagues proposing to spend these billions on? And it is this: on Agencies that have shot and killed American citizens in our streets, in broad daylight, on video, for exercising their constitutionally protected right to free speech; the agents that have broken into homes, refused to show their faces or their badges, and taken children from their parents; this run-amok force that has defied court orders, detained citizens and people with lawful status, denied them basic medical treatment, which has resulted in an unprecedented number of deaths in immigration custody and denied their constitutional rights.

ICE and CBP get $140 billion in this bill after getting close to $170 billion less than a year ago, for a whopping total of $340 billion. I am sorry, but that is an insane amount of money. That is more than we give to the Marine Corps and the FBI and the DEA and all the other Federal law enforcement Agencies combined.

So if you take the money from the Marine Corps, one of our incredible military services, and you add it to the money for law enforcement Agencies like the FBI and the DEA and the ATF, and you add it all together, it isn't a fraction of what we are giving to just these two pieces of immigration enforcement. That is what they get.

That is what these Agencies get: $340 billion. And you? You get nothing. You get not a dime. After putting more than $3 trillion on the Nation's credit card to give tax breaks to the rich and to give these Agencies the funding to arm themselves to the teeth, after taking your healthcare dollars and plowing them into heavily armed and ill-trained ICE agents, they want to put even more money into what is becoming Trump's private army.

A Gallup poll released last month found that about 1 in 3 adults, U.S. adults, the equivalent of about 82 million people, reported having made at least 1 daily life trade-off in the past year to pay for healthcare expenses. That is 39 million Americans stretching a prescription longer than the doctor recommended; it is 38 million Americans going into debt to pay a medical bill; it is 28 million Americans skipping a meal. One in nearly every 10 Americans reporting the cutback on utilities or on the amount they are driving. And that was even before gas prices spiked thanks to Trump's Iran war with no solution in sight.

And we see these impacts playing out across the country in realtime, month after month, week after week, hospitals are shutting down, clinics are closing, workers are laid off, services are canceled, and families are paying more out of pocket and going without the care they need.

Earlier this year, a hospital in Oakland, CA, announced plans to lay off 300 medical staff because it is projected to lose more than a hundred million a year thanks to the ``Big Ugly Bill.'' Another hospital in Santa Rosa, CA, had to shutter its pediatric unit; Corona, CA, lost its labor and delivery unit; clinics in Madera and Fresno had to lay off staff. There are so many of these stories, and thanks to the trillion-dollar Medicaid cut forced by Republicans in their last budget.

And where layoffs or service cuts were not enough to balance the budget, a worse fate awaited these healthcare providers. Clinics in Compton, Gilroy, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, and South San Francisco all closed their doors thanks to Donald Trump.

Thousands of Californians, all now without a place to go for medical care; that is if they can afford care at all.

Our insurance Marketplace in California saw a 30 percent decline in enrollment as premiums spiked to sometimes double what they were paying for their healthcare before the ``Big Ugly Bill.''

But healthcare--let's face it--it is not the Republican priority. This is something they are not willing to fund. This is not something in this bill.

Instead, we are asked to fund immigration Agencies that have already seen their budgets explode and their accountability erased by this administration.

For months, Democrats have sought on behalf of the families and communities terrorized by ICE to enact basic guardrails, reforms, and oversight of their conduct; to mandate they wear body cameras and clear identification, just like any other law enforcement agency; to stop the use of excessive and deadly force, and to guarantee that when they do there is accountability in the form of truly independent investigations; to mandate the use of judicial warrants so that when they are going to someone's home, as the Constitution requires, they have a judicial warrant; to stop racial profiling and the targeting of schools and churches.

All of this for a reason: So we don't have more tragic victims like Alex Pretti or Renee Good or the people that have died in detention centers like Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz or Gabriel Garcia-Aviles, a list that is already far too long.

Now, bear in mind, these reforms that I have mentioned are all wildly popular with the American people, and we have worked in good faith to try to secure these very basic guardrails, saying clearly until these commonsense measures can be implemented, we would vote not for one more dime for these Agencies that have taken lawless instructions from the likes of Stephen Miller and Greg Bovino.

But the administration and my Republican colleagues don't want to solve the problem of excessive use of force from ICE and CBP; they don't want the accountability; they don't want the reform. And so they will use this budget and reconciliation process to bypass the need for changes to how ICE and CBP operate, to jam more money through without Democratic support, and to advance a budget that contains literally not a single dime for healthcare, hospitals, food and groceries, energy bills, nothing but more money for ICE and CBP.

And the terrible tragedy is that we in this Chamber, we here could meet this challenging moment in our Nation when people cannot afford the cost of living.

We could meet that need with a budget that would help people in need. John F. Kennedy on his first day of office stood on the west steps of the Capitol and said:

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it

cannot save the few who are rich.

For every day of Donald Trump's second term, he has sought only to save the rich, to help those that already have so much, to line pockets that are already so deep; and in doing so, he has revealed his campaign rhetoric to be just that, just words.

My Republican colleagues may see this as a convenient way to avoid our demands for accountability, but the American people will see this as a failed opportunity for the GOP as it squanders perhaps the last chance in the 119th Congress to act meaningfully on making America affordable again.

The attempt to sell the ``Big Ugly Bill'' has failed. The American people were not fooled, neither will they be fooled now, because the billions wasted and the millions hurt will not go unnoticed. There will be an accounting, if not now, then in November.

And the American people's rejection of this President's agenda will be big, and in its own way, it will be beautiful. It will certainly be necessary.

If we are ever to make this economy work for people again, we must reject more money for lawless agents in favor of more money for healthcare for the American people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5333 and request that it be reported by number.

Right now, my colleagues, FEMA is holding up more than $3 billion in disaster relief funding for California--funds that could be used to help families impacted by fires, floods, and other disasters that have hit the Golden State in recent years.

More than a half a billion of that funding, in particular, is to help communities in Los Angeles County affected by the devastating wildfires that began at the very start of this Congress. People are suffering, wanting to move back into their homes and neighborhoods, still waiting on Congress to act.

But as we debate this budget resolution, I know our State of California is not alone. North Carolina is waiting on millions in relief designated for Hurricane Helene in 2024. Kentucky saw

landslides and flooding just weeks after Los Angeles County burned. Florida and the gulf coast have also been battered. Texas communities under siege from last year's floods have still not seen the Federal relief their communities need and deserve.

My amendment would require outstanding FEMA funds that American communities are counting on to be obligated--

--so that we are, at the very least, helping these families get the support they need.

I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. President, I rise today to celebrate the Chandler School's 75th anniversary in Pasadena, CA.

Chandler School was founded in 1950 by Thomas and Catherine Chandler with a small but visionary class of 15 students. This class established the foundation for educational excellence that has endured for three- quarters of a century. Since its relocation to the historic Amanda Drive campus in 1957, Chandler School has served as a pillar of the Pasadena and Foothills community, nurturing generations of students in an inclusive environment that is caring, challenging, and ever committed to delivering high quality education.

Chandler School has always remained steadfast in its mission to provide academically challenging education in a supportive, balanced, and diverse environment. Chandler School has empowered its students to continue on to be lifelong students, to continue to learn, think independently, work collaboratively, challenge one another, and contribute to their community.

As an institution, Chandler School's core values of respect, trustworthiness, responsibility, fairness, and empowerment are instilled in its students. By doing so, students and facility are dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion, preparing students to become successful problem solvers, critical thinkers, and transformative leaders in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world.

The alumni of Chandler School are continuing to contribute meaningfully to the southern California region and beyond as thoughtful leaders and engaged members of their communities. Alumni, staff, and current students are expected to embody the school's belief that ``as much is given to us, much is expected from us.'' And I have been fortunate to have staff and interns in my office from Chandler. I commend the Chandler School for their 75 years of dedicated service to their students, families, and community.

I ask all Members to join me in celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Chandler School on April 18, 2026.

Mr. President, we are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and we have already, tragically, lost 13 servicemembers, including one--CW3 Robert Marzan--from my home State of California.

We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and more than 200 servicemembers have been injured, some very seriously.

We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and we have already had two American pilots shot down over Iran, necessitating a rescue under extremely dangerous conditions--a heroic rescue, a daring rescue, and one that was only possible because we have the most capable Special Forces in the world but a rescue mission that we must all acknowledge put an incredible number of our servicemembers at grave risk and could have easily gone wrong.

We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and we have squandered tens of billions of dollars that could have been used to build hospitals and affordable housing, to build childcare centers and senior centers, at a time when the President says we can't afford daycare or Medicare or Medicaid.

We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and Americans are paying astronomical prices at the gas pump, at the grocery store, on their utility bills and medical bills, but the

President's actions and inaction are only making life more unaffordable for our citizens.

We are now in the second month of Trump's Iran war, and the President has offered no proposal to even authorize the use of force in Iran, nor have Republicans demanded one. We have not had a single open hearing on the war, nor have Republicans called for one. The case for the war in Iran has never been made, will never be made, and my colleagues will not put the matter to a vote for fear they will lose that vote or be held accountable for it.

How long can this go on? And the short, terrible answer is: for a very long time. It is beginning to have all of the telltale signs of a quagmire.

For this war had no clear purpose. It had no well-defined goal. It had no strategic plan. Its rationale has shifted endlessly with the wind and the whims of the President. It has vacillated between being about regime change and then not about regime change, about missiles and then not about missiles, about oil and then not about oil, about Iran's nuclear threat and then not about its nuclear threat since the President had said the Iran nuclear program had been obliterated a year earlier.

Ironically, the administration's nuclear endgame now sounds a lot like the JCPOA, the much-maligned agreement that Trump tore up and now seems reconciled to embrace--the JCPOA or something like it.

Iran had blockaded the Strait of Hormuz sending oil prices skyrocketing, and now the Vice President says: Two can play at that game. So we are in the blockade business too.

How does that help the American family that can't afford to fill up the car, the trucker put out of work, or the farmer with no fertilizer?

The simple truth is that this administration has no idea how or when this war will end. It is hard to end a war when you are not clear on why you began it.

We can only be certain of one thing: at some point the President will claim victory. But what kind of victory will it be? One in which Iran for the first time can demand tolls from ships passing through Hormuz? One in which the regime has survived--and empowered and embittered--is even worse with more crackdowns on the Iranian people, even less tolerant of dissent, or worse still, with a fervent desire to break out and build a bomb? One in which we suffer persistent and higher gas prices because of long-term damage that has been done to gulf oil and gas infrastructure? One in which Russia is richer and will be richer for the foreseeable future from the higher oil prices it can charge so that it can better fund its war with Ukraine?

Is this the victory that Trump will declare? One for which we have paid dearly in blood and treasure? One for which we will have cut healthcare by $200 billion more for defense to replenish the stocks of the weapons that he has used?

Does that sound like victory? Does that feel like victory?

In 1984 at the height of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan said this, he said:

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe

the price of aggression is cheap.

Sadly, the lessons of that history have come to pass, and they have come to pass in the form of a President who now too often sees aggression as cheap as he has launched not one, but two wars against Iran, as he has launched unilateral strikes in South America and Africa, as he has overseen a war on vessels in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, as he has blockaded Cuba and threatens to ``take it'' along with Greenland.

To Donald Trump, war has become easy. It has become a kind of default. And as a result, he has become the President he promised he would never be. Far from his promise to end wars, he is now the President determined to start them--and lots of them.

The Founding Fathers warned us of a man like this, a President grown too fond of war, seduced by the quick success of the apprehension of Maduro and Venezuela and of the access to another country's oil, that such an operation begat, he was induced to make war against Iran.

But Iran is not Venezuela, and the son of the Ayatollah is no Delcy Rodriguez, not another pliant regime figure to be easily manipulated.

In the same speech, Reagan also said this:

To keep the peace, we and our allies must be strong enough

to convince any potential aggressor that war can bring no

benefit, only disaster.

This is peace through strength, his most famous mantra in foreign policy.

Well, what is the strength of our alliances now? The President has turned our back on the security pacts that Reagan championed, like NATO. He has failed to consult with our allies before embarking on this war of choice and claimed we didn't need allies, and then complained when our allies did not come to our assistance in reopening a strait that previously had been opened, but now was closed.

The President has undermined our credibility with friend and foe alike as he threatens to end a civilization or to commit war crimes or as he has ordered military strikes while talks were ongoing or as ``two more weeks'' becomes--well, becomes a kind of punch line.

And what have we taught Iran the ostensible aggressor in Ronald Regan's formulation? Have we taught Iran that war can bring no benefit, or is Iran now convinced it can bring the world economy to its knees and impose its will by imposing fees on passage through the Strait of Hormuz? Does it believe that while the U.S. military can pound its navy and missile sites, it can still strike U.S. targets and our partners in the region with rockets and drones? Does it believe it has an asymmetric advantage over the United States because drones and missiles are cheap and interceptors are expensive?

Ronald Reagan will be right, that we have convinced the aggressor that war can bring no advantage, only disaster if, in fact, it is we who are the aggressors.

This war should never have begun, and it is long past time for the U.S. Congress to put an end to it.

I yield the floor.