Floor Statements

Mr. President, a little more than a couple of hours ago, my friend and colleague Senator Alex Padilla attended a press conference in the Federal building in Los Angeles being held by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. Instead of treating him with respect, instead of answering his questions, he was grabbed by her security detail, he was physically forced from the room, forced to the ground, his arms pinned behind his back.

This assault on a Member of the U.S. Senate is unlike anything I have ever seen, perhaps unlike anything anyone in this Chamber has ever seen, and it crystallizes the threat posed to our country and its democracy. If the administration can so mistreat a Member of this body, what can it do to every other American? What can it do to every other resident of the United States of America? What can it do to you? What can it do to your neighbor and to your community?

The abusive treatment of Senator Alex Padilla, however, did not take place in isolation. It took place at a time of heightened tension in Los Angeles and around the Nation.

Earlier this week, I returned from my home in Los Angeles, a city in which thousands have peacefully protested the administration's harsh immigration policies and in which the President has ordered the mobilization of thousands of National Guardsmen and hundreds of marines in order to deal with a few hundred vandals and miscreants that local law enforcement was more than capable of subduing.

And the question is, Why? Why order in the military if they are not necessary? Why order in the military over the objection of local and State officials? Why go to the expense? Why go to the trouble? Why undertake such an obvious provocation? Why, in a city of over 500 square miles, did Donald Trump believe it was necessary to escalate so dramatically over the vile acts of a small number of people in the space of a few blocks?

These are some of the questions I imagine that Alex Padilla wanted to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security.

But now, today, we must add one more question: Why would they treat Senator Alex Padilla with such forceful and disgraceful disregard, forcing him to the ground? Why?

And the answer involves failure and distraction and disrespect and disregard--failure of the President's immigration protocol, failure of his economic policy, a desire to distract from these failures, disrespect of our military and its role in civil society, and disregard of our democracy and the principles upon which our Nation was founded.

Let's start with failure: the failure of Donald Trump's immigration policy; the failure, in particular, of his promise to deport massive numbers of violent criminals, a failure that was inevitable because it was based on a lie, a foundational lie--foundational to his campaign and to his Presidency--the original lie of the Trump campaign, the one he spoke as he descended the golden escalator in 2015 and suggested to the American people that most of the folks coming to this country as immigrants and migrants were murderers and rapists and violent criminals bent on doing harm to the American people, that foreign nations had opened their prisons and let out their worst offenders so that they could come to the United States and destroy our way of life.

It was a big lie. It was an audacious lie but a lie that the President hoped he could ride, a wave of fear that he could in turn ride into office.

The truth, of course, is the vast number of people coming to this country are peaceful, hard-working people who want nothing more than an opportunity to get ahead, to enjoy a good life, and to provide for themselves and for their family.

The American people understood this, but they also understood that our border was broken, that our system was chaotic, that the immigration system was itself broken, that asylum cases took too long to adjudicate, and people waiting lawfully to immigrate should be given priority over those who do not.

As President, Donald Trump promised his focus would be on the deportation of violent criminals, but he also promised mass deportations. And the only way to square that conflict between the very specific and the very broad was to go back to that original lie that all immigrants are violent criminals who mean us harm.

If you can make the country believe that, you don't have to be targeted in your immigration raids, you don't have to go through the painstaking work of tracking down people with criminal records who don't want to be found. If you believe the lie that all immigrants are violent criminals, then you can do broad immigration sweeps at restaurants or on farms, in garment factories or high school graduations, in random neighborhoods and homes, or at the Home Depot.

``Just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,'' the President's Deputy Chief of Staff, a frustrated Stephen Miller, demanded after berating Department officials for the slow pace of their operations. Three thousand arrests a day the administration insisted on as a new quota, and gone was any pretense of looking for violent offenders.

And so the indiscriminate raids and the indiscriminate cruelty began to multiply, picking up people who show up for immigration appointments or to take the oath of citizenship, only to deport them; separating fathers from their sons and daughters, mothers from their children, husbands from their wives; a farmworker who worked in the fields for decades--hard work, backbreaking work, work in the heat and the cold, work during a deadly pandemic when others stayed home, work that most U.S. citizens do not want to do and will not do--chased through the fields that they harvested to be taken away from their families; a mother chased down the street by hooded ICE agents, away from her terrified and screaming teenage daughter.

Americans did not vote for this, do not want this. And in the midst of this, the American people started to speak out--at first, in small ways, in private conversations, after the deportation of their neighbors; and then in more public ways, at townhalls and in letters to the editor, on social media, and in gatherings at their schools; and then, as the raids increased in their scope and the scope of their cruelty, by taking to the streets, as is our God-given right and also a right given by our Constitution.

Some of those protests have taken place in Los Angeles, where Angelenos gathered to speak out against these actions, against the separation of families and the injury to our communities and our economy.

And in the midst of these protests, some number of agitators were attracted by the conflict and saw it as an opportunity to vandalize, assault law enforcement, and engage in other reprehensible conduct. Like moths to a flame, every city has these miscreants, and so does Los Angeles. They care not about immigration policy or immigrants or migrants who are affected, and our State and local law enforcement are more than capable of dealing with them--and they did.

But amidst the failure of his immigration policies and the backlash, Donald Trump saw an opportunity. His economic policy was in tatters. His tariff wars were not improving our trade with other nations and instead were prompting the boycott of American goods by close allies like Canada and causing layoffs at American ports, higher prices at Target and Walmart and elsewhere.

He had to fend off Amazon plans to include a line item for the Trump tariff tax on each transaction, which would have made it even more obvious to the American people that he was betraying the central promise of his campaign: to bring prices down when they are going up.

And his Big Beautiful Bill was in trouble over a big, ugly pricetag. Far from reducing the debt or the deficit, the bill was revealed to cost taxpayers a whopping $2.4 trillion added to the national debt. He was borrowing the money from our kids and our grandkids to fund a tax cut for himself and his rich friends.

Even the world's richest man and, heretofore, the President's biggest benefactor, Elon Musk, called the bill a ``disgusting abomination'' and made it clear that Republicans should be ashamed of voting for it.

And the opportunity Donald Trump saw in all this failure was this: Call in a distraction. Call in the troops. Call in the marines--not to save a city but to save himself from drowning in failure. And so he did: 4,000 troops from California's National Guard and 700 from the Marines.

And the reaction in Los Angeles, of course, was the one that he desired: escalation, not deescalation; more conflict, not less; more chaos--and the kind of chaos he thrives on, the kind of chaos where the insurrectionist-come-President, the man who, on his first day, pardoned hundreds of criminals who beat police officers, could somehow try to reclaim the mantle of a law-and-order President.

It has not worked. It will not work. Americans have a long memory and will not soon forget the images of January 6, when the President sat calmly in the White House dining room, dining on burgers and fries, while our Capitol Police were under assault. And the same man who called in the Guard to handle a comparatively small number of criminals and vandals in L.A. refused to call in the Guard to stop thousands of them from ransacking this Capitol.

The last time a President called in the National Guard over the objection of the Governor of a State was in 1965, when the segregationist Governor of Arkansas ignored a ruling of the Supreme Court and refused to integrate the schools in that State. Lyndon Johnson did so to avoid violence and to protect the students trying to attend.

Those circumstances could not be more different than today, when our President has called in the Guard knowing it is more likely to provoke violence than to stop it.

``We must reject any thinking of our cities as a `battlespace' that our uniformed military is called upon to `dominate,''' a Secretary of Defense once said. ``At home,'' he said, ``we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors.''

Those are the words of Donald Trump's Secretary of Defense--not Pete Hegseth, of course, not the FOX News version of a Defense Secretary, and not the Trump Defense Secretary before him or the one before that. No, those were the words of the first Trump Defense Secretary, James Mattis, perhaps the only Trump Cabinet member in his first term or the present term to leave his office with a stronger reputation than before he arrived.

``Militarizing our response,'' Mattis said, ``sets up a conflict . . . a false conflict--between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part.

``Keeping public order,'' he said, ``rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.''

Now, in California, we love our National Guard. We revere them, as we do the Marines. The Guard is always there when we need them, during fires and floods, after devastating earthquakes. They serve us at home and abroad, always protecting our interests, our lives, our homes, and our freedom.

There is a bond between us, a bond of respect, affection, and trust that must not be broken. Donald Trump does not understand this. He cannot understand it any more than he can understand why people choose a life of military service.

The man who once called soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen who fight and have died on our Nation's behalf ``suckers and losers'' could not possibly understand. Nor does he care about misusing them if it suits his personal or political interest as his partisan, disrespectful and inflammatory speech at Fort Bragg makes clear, as does his commandeering of the military for a costly parade to celebrate his birthday this weekend.

Now, there is a birthday worth celebrating this weekend, but it is not the President's. That is the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, an Army that my father was very proud to serve in.

We can and should honor the Army. But a celebration of the vanity of a President who does not himself celebrate the military but only his control over it, that is not a cause for celebration.

Our Founders understood the need to insulate the military from internal domestic affairs, from the raucous and often divisive nature of the political process dominated by party or faction.

For centuries, too, so has this Congress, prohibiting the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes, except for narrow--very narrow--circumstances of rebellion and insurrection.

This is vital not only for the protection of the country from a man who would abuse the military to become a King but also to protect the military from the lack of trust that would accompany its subversion to a partisan end.

Our country is approaching its 250th birthday. It is worth remembering why we chose to separate ourselves from our British masters. The preamble of the Declaration of Independence is familiar to us all in its poetic recitation of truths that are self-evident.

But what has been lost to us over time were the long list of grievances set out in that document, grievances that drove the impetus for revolution:

``The history of the present King of Great Britain,'' it reads, ``is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,'' this is what our Founders wrote, ``all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.''

The Declaration provides in its list of grievances:

``He has obstructed the Administration of Justice.''

``He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people,'' they enumerated.

``He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone,'' our Founders charged.

``For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world,'' they objected.

``For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury,'' they declared.

``For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses,'' they cited in words all too prescient for today.

``He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent of our legislatures.''

``Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.''

``He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.''

All of these grievances so vivid at the time of the Revolution--our Revolution--are so vivid today. And today they can be distilled into a single image--that of Senator Alex Padilla on the ground, face to the ground, and in handcuffs. If you are looking for an image of our democracy in handcuffs, look no further.

America, we have a choice. We can rededicate ourselves to the vision of our Founders, one born of struggle against autocracy, one pledged to a form of self-governance that elevated the people over the powerful, that believed we possessed sufficient virtue to be self-governing, that we did not need to be governed by a despot.

We can rededicate ourselves to that vision or we can continue to travel down our present path of incivility, of division, of might not making right but making wrong, a celebration not of self-governance but of self-destruction.

I believe in this country. I believe we are a great country because we always strive to be a good country. I believe in the country because of good people like Alex Padilla--wonderful people, beautiful people, courageous people, patriotic people.

Alex Padilla's story is the story of all of us, the story of what is possible in this country. He is a good and decent man. He is a great and capable Senator. He deserved better than what he got in that Federal building in Los Angeles. The American people deserve better than what he got in the Federal building in Los Angeles.

Let us remember ourselves. Let us remember who we are. We are the country of Jefferson and of Lincoln and of Washington. We are the country of John Lewis, and we are the country of giants.

We stand on their shoulders. We owe our life, our liberty, the opportunity to pursue happiness to their brilliant legacy.

We have come to the rescue and liberation of other worlds, of other parts of this globe. We have fought for democracy. We have championed democracy and human rights. We believed in treating others as we would treat ourselves. This is who we are.

Alex Padilla face down in a Federal building, forced to the ground by agents of the Secretary of Homeland Security--this is not who we are.

I can't help but think of the words of my late and wonderful colleague Elijah Cummings because they have always been such a potent reminder: We are better than this. We are better than this. We are not a country that sends the Marines into a city--not to restore order but to create disorder.

We are a better country than that. We are not a country that needs to have a parade honoring our President to showcase our military might on his birthday. We are a better country than this.

There have been giants who have served in our military. There have been giants that have served in this body, great people. They came from all different backgrounds. And the strength of this country--that is still so possible. You could come from any beginning and end up here. And we have been a country that has welcomed people from around the world because we have understood they bring their genius and their work ethic and their striving with them, and it has lifted our country forward.

We have that beautiful Statue of Liberty not because we disdain immigrants, not because we view them as a threat, but because we celebrate what they have brought to this country. And I think in the last several years, we have forgotten who we are.

Every now and then, we just need to step back from the abyss and remind ourselves of where we came from and that in this greatest Nation on Earth what is possible.

I didn't serve with Alex Padilla in the State legislature, and I didn't get to serve with him or really get to know him well until I came to this body. And I told my colleagues when I got here: You all are wonderful people, but nobody--nobody--did better than I did in whom I got as my seatmate. I mean that with all my heart. He is a good and genuine and decent and capable and brilliant man.

I will never forget that image I saw today because, to me, it is the image of what is best in this country being brought to the ground.

I ask every Member of this body to think about the legacy we have been charged with protecting and what we are going to do from this day forward to make sure that this incredible experiment in self-governance continues and that we never see an act like we saw 2 hours ago take place again in the United States of America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the U.S. Navy has developed many traditions over its centuries of existence. Among them is the method of naming its ships. Most, though not all, aircraft carriers are named after U.S. Presidents--the USS Truman, the Eisenhower, the Ford. Nuclear submarines are named after States--the VA class and the Ohio class, for example.

The Navy is now partway through building its newest class of fleet replenishment oilers. These are the ships that resupply fuel to the rest of the Navy fleet and the aircraft operating aboard those ships. These are the John Lewis class.

I am immensely proud to have been a colleague of Congressman John Lewis's in the House of Representatives, where I served alongside him from 2000 until his passing in 2020. I was lucky enough, through our shared service, to consider him a friend. He was just a wonderful, genuine, heroic, brave, courageous, and upbeat individual. I never saw John Lewis have a bad day, never saw him anything other than optimistic about the future of our country.

I have another source of pride. The State of California, home to General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, NASSCO, is where the oilers are being built. The ships in this class are, in addition to the John Lewis, named after California Governor and Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and Navy lieutenant Harvey Milk, the San Francisco gay rights pioneer. Four more ships are under construction: the USNS Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth, Thurgood Marshall, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Harriet Tubman and Dolores Huerta are under contract. The Navy reports that the next two ships in the class will be named after Joshua Goldberg and Thomas Parham.

The Navy has seen fit to honor these civil rights icons who spent their lives fighting for the rights of the American people by naming ships in their honor. We learned this week, however, that the Secretary of Defense does not share the view that these leaders are worthy of the honor of recognition that the Navy has bestowed upon them.

According to a statement from a spokesman, it is better to name defense installations and assets that are more aligned with ``the warrior ethos''--whatever they mean by that.

The Secretary of Defense, who testified at his confirmation hearing that today constitutes ``the most dangerous moment we have been in since the end of the Cold War, and possibly since World War II''--that Secretary of Defense is spending his time ordering Department officials to remove the name of Harvey Milk from the second oiler in the John Lewis class of ships. Other ships may be similarly renamed.

Harvey Milk joined the Navy as a diver after graduating from college and saw action in the Korean war while serving on a rescue submarine from 1952 until 1954. He was forced to resign with an other than honorable discharge rather than being court-martialed for being gay.

In 1977, he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors as the first openly gay official in the country. On November 27, 1978, Milk was tragically shot by a fellow supervisor, Dan White.

As many Senators know, our former colleague Dianne Feinstein, in whose seat I am now deeply honored to serve, was the first to find Harvey Milk's body after he had been shot to death and to whom the job of holding San Francisco together then fell.

Dianne Feinstein was a cosponsor of the USNS Harvey Milk, with her name welded into the hull. One wonders if the Secretary of Defense will try to remove that as well.

I suspect it is no coincidence that the Pentagon released the news of the renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk at the beginning of Pride Month and while Washington, DC, hosts World Pride. You can draw a straight line between the Department of Defense in this administration removing Jackie Robinson from its official site and its terminating the first woman to lead the military services and a well-respected African- American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all without cause.

I don't understand how these removals promote the ``warrior ethos.'' I don't understand how it promotes the ``warrior ethos'' to rename the military installation Fort Bragg, using the fig leaf that it is now named for a different person of that name than the Confederate general for whom it is really connected. Engaging in such duplicitous word games seems more weak than warrior.

The U.S. Senate should not stand by silently while U.S. civil rights icons--from John Lewis to Cesar Chaves, to Dolores Huerta, to Harriet Tubman--are erased from the Navy just as the Pentagon has erased so many other figures from American history on its websites.

And so, today, I offer a simple resolution with my California colleague Alex Padilla. It says that the Senate believes it is important and worthwhile to honor civil rights leaders by naming ships after them and expresses the Senate's view that the Department of Defense should not seek to remove these names.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 264, submitted earlier today; that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague.

Past Presidents and Secretaries of the Navy have named these ships. They have named them after civil rights leaders: John Lewis, Thurgood Marshall.

Joshua Goldberg, who lived from 1896 to 1994, was drafted into the Russian Army in World War I, emigrated to the United States, and became the first Jewish rabbi to volunteer for naval service in World War II, rising to the rank of captain.

Thomas Parham, who lived from 1920 to 2007, was ordained in 1944 and served in shore assignments during World War II and then returned to Active Duty as a chaplain during the Korean war, serving in Japan, and becoming the Navy's first African-American sailor promoted to captain.

These are inspiring people. Honoring them by naming ships after them tells young people that the United States welcomes them--all of them.

Naming ships may fall to the executive branch, but I think Congress, with its constitutional duty to raise armies and navies, has an important role to play.

All this resolution does is express approval of the existing names. It does not force the Navy to keep them. But it says that the individuals that have been named are worthy of that honor and distinction, and I would urge my colleagues to support the resolution.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, Members, welcome to the roaring twenties, not the ones you may have read about in F. Scott Fitzgerald novels, not the ones with jazz and liberation and industrial boom. I mean these roaring twenties--the ones where instead of flappers, you get fossil fuel and dirty air; where instead of innovation, you get obstruction, tariffs, isolationism, blinding nostalgia for a world that no longer exists. Instead of leaders who want to tackle the climate crisis head-on, you get votes to tear down the tools that we need to fight it.

The reason I stand here today and was here last night until 1:30, 2 in the morning is that Senate Republicans have pushed through resolutions to revoke California's authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards, to set its own rules about what kind of air we breathe in California.

This is an authority that my State has had by statute for more than 50 years. We have had the right to deal with our unique problems of congestion, our topography, our smog. We have had the right to demand of ourselves cleaner air, for ourselves and for our children.

That is under attack right now, and not just California's ability to set its standards to protect its people, but because other States have also followed California's lead. This will affect the quality of air all around the country.

And that is the gravamen of the problem for my colleagues in the GOP. And that is that it is not just California. It is the fact that so many other States have followed our lead. So many other States have decided they would rather have fewer cancers than more cars with combustion engines.

That was their choice. That was their right. They weren't coerced into joining California. They made the decision about what was best for their constituents, and it is not for us in this body to arrogate to ourselves, to decide we know better for Californians or we know better for people in other States than what their own leaders have decided about the quality of their air.

This is a direct attack not only on my State but on our ability to innovate, to lead, and, indeed, to breathe clean air. This is bad policy--clearly, certainly yes--but it is also a dangerous abuse of the process in this House that will lead to other harmful consequences.

To get this done, to repeal California's statutory waiver to set its own air pollution rules, Republican leadership has decided to blow a procedural hole in the filibuster. And let's call it what it is: This is a dangerous new kind of nuclear option that dispenses with the filibuster. But they would have us believe: only here, only when it is necessary to cater to the oil industry. It is the oil exception to the filibuster rule.

Now, the nuclear option has been used over nominees in the past. And there has been debate about doing away with the filibuster entirely. But, today, what we are talking about is only carving out the oil industry from the filibuster--so not carving out protection for voting rights; not carving out protection for reproductive freedom; not carving out fundamental rights for the American people, for which there would be a strong case to

have a carve-out from the filibuster. But no, today, we are talking about an oil-industry-only carve-out. And they are using it to overturn some of the most successful clean air policies in American history.

Since the 1960s, California has had the obligation and the ability and the authority to lead, and they have used it. We have used it to reduce pollution, to increase fuel efficiency, and to drive innovation across the country. And much of the country has California to thank for the development of electric vehicles, for the improvement in fuel efficiency standards, because as we have led, others have followed and industry has adapted.

Despite the naysayers and those always saying it is too hard, it can't be done, America got cleaner cars thanks to California, and consumers got more choices thanks to California. Now, some in this Chamber want to go back in time, not because the policy failed but because it succeeded.

Imagine if, just after Henry Ford unveiled the Model T, Congress passed a resolution demanding we double down on bigger, stronger horses, because that is what this is--a deliberate attempt to deny the future because it threatens the status of Big Oil.

The President says that he is for energy independence. That is their mantra: Make America energy independent. But that is not what they are doing. They are killing clean energy all over the country.

You know what just came out of the House in the dead of night, last night, in their reconciliation bill--their ``Big Ugly Bill?'' A provision to essentially kill every clean energy project in the country that is not almost all finished. If it isn't going to be operational in a very short period of time, they want to pull the plug.

Now, why would they do that? Why would they do that when, in fact, most of those projects are in red States, not blue ones, not States like California but States like Indiana and Kentucky.

Why would they do that? Because the obligation here is not to their State or constituency. The obligation here is to the oil industry. They would sacrifice the jobs and the clean energy industry all over the country. To their own constituents, they would put those people out of work. And why? Because of fealty to the oil industry.

This is not about energy independence. It is about oil dependence.

Today, we are in a full transition to a clean transportation future-- or we could be--and Senate Republicans are trying to bring back the smog. They are trying to make America smoggy again.

We are seeing the climate crisis, and they are trying to cut the brake lines on progress. We are literally standing at the gates of the future--a future that we will lead or China will lead, a renewable energy future--and some would rather turn it all around and ride off in a horse and buggy, because that is what this vote means. That is what these votes mean--not just being stuck in a past technology beholden to an old way of doing things, but also stuck in a dirtier and more toxic world.

Millions will be stuck breathing in hazardous emissions unnecessarily.

What is the pay-for here? What is the pay-for for this gift to the oil industry? Cancer--cancer is the pay-for. We will pay for this repeal of clean air rules with cancer--maybe your cancer, maybe your father's cancer, maybe your sister's cancer, maybe your child's cancer.

That will be the pay-for because this is about power, and it is about profit, and it is about punishing States that dare to lead. It is about undermining the Senate's own rules to score a short-term win that will do long-term damage but will placate the oil industry, because once you start twisting the CRA into a weapon to attack anything you don't like--rules, waivers, facts--you don't just hurt California; you hurt the country, because don't think for a second it ends here.

If this gambit works, it will not be the last time this tactic is used. Today, we blow a hole in the filibuster for the oil industry. Tomorrow, we blow another hole in the filibuster for what other polluting industry? Or, more broadly, should we expect this majority to use it to strip away protections for workers or privacy rights or reproductive freedom?

This is the real fight here, not just over emissions or waivers or vehicles, but whether we are a nation led by and empowered to shape the future or held hostage by the past.

The roaring twenties were a time of reckless optimism. The stock markets soared, inequality deepened, and political leaders told Americans not to worry, everything was under control--until it wasn't, because the same decade that gave us jazz and swing also gave us the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, a disastrous attempt to protect American industry by walling off our economy to the rest of the world.

It sparked global retaliation. It strangled trade. It helped turn a market crash into a full-blown depression.

What are we seeing now? New tariffs, retaliation threats, political attacks on States that lead, and now an attempt to tear down environmental progress and green innovation just as the global economy is demanding more of it--much more of it.

The roaring twenties gave us invention, yes, but also an illusion, a false belief that we could grow forever without rules and without consequences.

We are in danger of making the same mistake again. We should be building the EV infrastructure for the future, not dismantling climate progress. We should be investing in clean energy, not clinging to combustion engines. We should be protecting the rules of this Chamber, not torching them when they become inconvenient to the oil industry.

The gutting of these norms doesn't end in prosperity; the sacrifice of clean air doesn't end in making us healthy again. It ends in cancer; it ends in an enfeebled economy; it ends in a country going backward and shrinking in on itself. It ends in crisis. Let's not go there.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Padilla for his eloquent speech on this subject.

Today, I want to talk about what is taking place in this Chamber, and I want to talk about it in two respects. I want to talk about what it will mean for the American people in terms of the air that we breathe and the water that we drink--that is the most important thing--but then I want to also talk about what it will mean for this institution, for the Senate; what it will mean for the filibuster; what it will mean for whether things can get passed on a simple majority vote at the behest of the oil industry or any other special interest or whether things in the future will continue to require 60 votes to get through this body.

Let's start with the first and most important thing: What does the repeal of California's clean air waiver--that is, its right to set its own standards for the air that we breathe--what does this mean for the people of California? What does this mean for the people of the United States?

This is downtown Los Angeles in 1955. Now, I don't remember 1955--I didn't come around until 1960--but I do remember air that looked a lot like this when I moved to Los Angeles. I remember days when there were smog alerts. We still have some of those. I remember when it was unhealthy air to breathe, and people were advised not to go outside if they didn't need to, and kids couldn't go out on recess because the air quality was so bad.

But this is what places in California, like Los Angeles and many places in the San Joaquin Valley, looked like just a few years ago--the San Joaquin Valley, where so much of the food in the Nation is grown. These areas have experienced the rapid rise of personal automobiles and expansion of our population--America's West, its suburbs and its cities.

On days like this, you just couldn't walk outside sometimes without hacking. If you had asthma or breathing problems, it was even more severe. And California families, through no fault of their own, were on the frontlines of a health risk unseen since the worst days of the Industrial Revolution pollution. The smog was so bad that in one instance, mass panic broke out in California because there was a belief that there was some kind of chemical weapons attack.

This was, in part, due to these amazing increases of population, but it was also our unique topography. The San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles, the Sierra Nevadas for the Central Valley, they trap fossil fuel emissions and keep smog clouds hanging over our cities where they may not hang over other parts of the Nation. So the San Gabriel Mountains, for those of us in L.A., but the Verdugos and other mountain ranges and the Sierra Nevadas have an impact on the Central Valley.

All that means is that 10 million Californians are living in areas that are under distinct and elevated threats from air pollution. And what that has meant historically is higher rates of respiratory issues like asthma and chronic lung disease. It has meant increased risk of heart disease, chronic headaches, immune system issues, and, most significantly, increased cancer risks.

That is multiplied by us living now on the frontlines of the climate crisis. We have devastating and year-round fire dangers that put millions of other pollutants into our air. So we need, deserve, and reserve the right, as Californians, to do something about our air.

In fact, this is why California became the first State in the Nation to regulate the emissions of automobiles back in 1966 because we understood then, as we do now, the risks that Californians face if we don't take action. Over the past 60 years, since our skies looked like this, California has led on this issue, and now, we are being targeted for it.

What will the cost of that be? By revoking California's right to protect its citizens from dirty air, we face not just dirtier air, but we also face a sicker society. The American Lung Association projected that our Nation moving to zero-emission vehicles in the next decade would generate more than $1 trillion in public health benefits and save more than 100,000 people from premature death.

So this is really the heart of the question for this body, and that is, What is more valuable to us? Is it the unfettered right to pollute the skies and make them look like this? Or do we want to save about $1 trillion in money we would have to spend otherwise on treating asthma and treating lung cancer and treating heart disease that is caused by air like this?

That electric vehicle requirement can save more than 100,000 people from premature death. So I guess we have to ask ourselves, How much is life worth? What would it be worth to us to be able to live a few years longer?

I suppose the answer to that question depends on, well, what kind of life is that? What kind of health are we in? But I would say a few more years is worth a lot. It is worth a lot. It is certainly worth more than contributions from the oil industry to be able to live a little longer, to be able to live a little healthier.

By targeting California--as this effort is doing--which comprises 11 percent of the Nation, and our goal of decarbonizing our transportation sector, we are selling poison seeds for the future--seeds that will grow to be more asthma and more sickness and more hospitalizations and more death. That is the bleak but blatant reality of what we are debating here today.

If the Republicans go nuclear to repeal California's clean air rules, that is what this will mean. It will mean shorter lives, poorer quality of life because of what we are breathing in the air, and ultimately, when they strike down clean water rules, what we are drinking in our water is going to be dirtier, and the American people are going to be more plagued by a whole variety of cancers.

Now, I mentioned the term ``going nuclear.'' What does that mean? This gets to the second point I want to make today, which is how the Republican majority intends to go about repealing California's ability to set the standards for its own air; that is, how does the Republican majority intend to foist its will on millions of people in other States? How are they determined to overturn States' rights? How are they determined that the Federal Government should tell a State: No, you can't protect your people from air pollution, not to that degree you can't, because we answer to a higher authority and that higher authority is called the oil industry? So how are they going to do it because in this body, for better or worse, it generally takes 60 votes to get things done. That is the filibuster. It requires 60 votes.

To repeal California's law, if you were to take that step, it would require 60 votes. Don't just take my word for it. We asked the Parliamentarian, who is the expert: Does this require 60 votes? Is this subject to the filibuster?

The answer is, yes, it does.

Well, you would think that would be the end of the story, but you can overrule the Parliamentarian, say the Parliamentarian is wrong, and then reduce the threshold to 50 votes.

Now, you might ask: How is that possible? Is the filibuster really that fragile that whenever it is ruled that you need 60 votes, you can simply overrule the Parliamentarian?

The answer is, yes, the rule is that fragile, which means that if Republicans move to go nuclear, to overturn the Parliamentarian, to do away with the filibuster, to do away with California's clean air, they will be setting a precedent that at any time and for any reason, for any State, for any rule, for any nonrule, for any waiver, for any license, for any grant--for any anything--a new majority can simply say: Well, we would like to vote on this with 50 votes. And if the Parliamentarian says it takes 60, you just vote to overturn the Parliamentarian.

So that is the import of what we are doing today, which is we are setting a precedent that the filibuster is essentially now meaningless, because if you can do away with the filibuster to do away with one State's clean air, well, you can pretty much do away with the filibuster for anything and everything.

So that is the momentous nature of what is happening today. The majority here may force Californians to breathe air like that again, and the majority here may decide they are getting rid of the filibuster.

Now, getting back to the underlying merits here, the American Lung Association found that our transition to cleaner air and zero-emission vehicles would result in 13 million fewer lost

workdays in the next 10 years. So what does that mean, 13 million? It means 13 million fewer times that you are so sick, you can't go to work. You get 13 million more days of health with these clean air rules. Think about that--13 million more healthy days for you, the American people, if we achieve our emissions goals.

Now, since my swearing-in 6 months ago to the Senate, I have had the privilege of visiting communities all over California, talking to Californians who are on the frontlines of this. Yes, some are environmental activists, and, yes, some work on science and climate issues, but there are others, too. They are the people who put food in your grocery stores. They are the people who spend so much of their days outside, breathing the only air available to them. They are the people who will be sicker--some of the people who will be sicker, work less, maybe die earlier, if we let the fossil fuel industry win this week; the people who spend hundreds of hours each month on their hands and knees, making sure that all the rest of us can have fresh berries and greens and other crops that California puts on your plate. I am, of course, talking about farmworkers. I invite any of my colleagues to consider what millions more pounds of smog in our air over the next decade will do to them.

Of course, it is not just farmworkers; it is all of us--all of us who spend time outdoors, all of us who can't help but be outdoors. All of us are going to be breathing in dirtier air, all of us are going to be suffering more sick days, and all of us are going to be plagued by more cancers if we repeal the rules that each State gets to set that has a waiver or wants to join California's healthier air rules. That will be the repercussion.

It used to be there was a bipartisan consensus in favor of cleaner air. It wasn't just Democrats. Richard Nixon, who founded the EPA, Pete Wilson, Ronald Reagan--they all understood the importance of the environment and clean air and clean water. They helped California take the environmental movement and make it mainstream. We got pollutants out of our air and out of our water and out of our communities.

Where is that party now? Where is the party that helped write the Clean Air Act? Where is the party that says Congress should not meddle in what one State is doing to govern itself?

What will happen when you lose the majority and Democrats have the opportunity to follow this precedent? What will happen to your State? We decide we don't like your State's rule on mifepristone or we don't like the fact that your State got a license to export liquid natural gas or we don't like a grant that your State got in transportation or we don't like some rule that benefits your State. Will you argue to us that ``oh, no, you can't overturn the Parliamentarian''? Will that be your argument? Because that fight will be over.

So I will remember where I am today. I will remember what we are doing today. I think we all would and will. I hope it is not the day that we made it easier to pollute California's skies. I hope it is not the date we made it easier to make water filled with more forever chemicals like PFAS. I hope it is not the day we decided that we could eliminate a State's right to control the quality of the air that their citizens breathe or the water they drink. And I hope it is not the day we decided that it was worth getting rid of the filibuster to satisfy the fossil fuel industry.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, my colleagues, it is getting very late. Indeed, most of our constituents are asleep. But across the U.S. Capitol tonight, the lights remain on.

Over in the House, they burn dimly on the House floor as Republicans try to jam through a ``big, ugly bill'' that would wreak havoc on our families, our communities, and our climate to pay for more tax cuts for wealthy people, that would cut Medicaid and block help for families that will go hungry so that billionaires like Elon Musk get another tax break they simply don't need.

But that is not what I am here to talk about this evening. I am here at this hour, or this morning, because right here, right now, in the dead of night, Republicans in the Senate are hard at work on another objective, an unprecedented and previously unimaginable effort to abandon their own standards, their own precedent, their previous very public statements, the very rules of this body, to make our air less clean.

To do so is complicated. It requires a lot of parliamentary maneuvers. Why?

Because to make the air dirtier requires 60 votes, and they don't have 60 votes, or it requires Republicans to break their word, to eliminate the filibuster so they can do the bidding of those who would pollute our air.

Now, I don't blame my Republican colleagues for wanting to shroud what they have set out to do tonight in secrecy. I don't blame them for trying to hide it. It was just a few short weeks ago the Republican leader assured this body that he would never do any such thing, but that was then.

But hide or not, the blame will lay squarely on my Republican colleagues for the impact of what is done here tonight because tonight is a turning point, a moment in which the majority gave up yet another guardrail, where they chose to go nuclear, to violate the filibuster, to overturn the Parliamentarian in order to gratify the wishes of Big Oil over the need of our constituents for cleaner air.

The GOP wasn't always this way. Republican administrations didn't always demonstrate such hostility to the environment. At a different moment in our history, there was a very different kind of Republican Party.

So I would like to begin tonight by reading verbatim a message from President Ronald Reagan. The date was July 14, 1984. The then-President turned on a microphone in a studio here in Washington and took to the Nation's airwaves to deliver an address. This is part of what Ronald Reagan said:

My fellow Americans:

I'd like to talk to you today about our environment. But as

I mentioned earlier this week, in doing so, I might be

letting you in on a little secret--as a matter of fact, one

of the best-kept secrets in Washington.

More than 15 years ago, the State of California decided that we needed to take action to combat the smog that was choking the beautiful cities of my home State. Out of that concern was born the first serious program to require manufacturers to build cleaner cars and help control air pollution. The auto industry had to build two kinds of cars--one that would be for sale in the other 49 States and one that would meet the stiff antipollution standards required in California.

We had other concerns in California, such as protecting our

magnificent and unique coastline. And we took the lead in

that area as well. It took the rest of the Nation a few years

to catch on, but in 1970 the Congress followed California's

lead and enacted the Clean Air Act. Other laws to protect and

clean up the Nation's lakes and rivers were passed, and

America got on with the job of protecting the environment.

Part of the secret I mentioned is that I happened to have

been Governor of California back when much of this was being

done. Now, obviously, neither the problems in California nor

those nationally have been solved, but I'm proud of having

been one of the first to recognize that States and the

Federal Government have a duty to protect our natural

resources from the damaging effects of pollution that can

accompany industrial development.

Now, if you are just tuning in, this is a speech from Ronald Reagan.

The other part of the well-kept secret--

The former President had to say--

has to do with the environmental record of our

administration, which is one of achievement in parks,

wilderness land, and wildlife refuges. According to studies

by the Environmental Protection Agency, the quality of our

air and water has continued to improve during our

administration.

In many big cities, the number of days on which pollution

alerts are declared has gone down. And if you live near a

river, you may have noticed that the signs have been coming

down that used to warn people not to fish or swim.

We came to Washington committed to respect the great bounty

and beauty of God's creation. We believe very strongly--

Reagan said--

in the concept of stewardship, caring for the resources we

have so they can be shared and used productively for

generations to come. And we've put that philosophy to work,

correcting deficiencies of past policies and advancing long-

overdue initiatives.

Let me give you some facts that our critics never seem to

remember. When we took office in 1980, we faced a dusty shelf

of reports which pointed out our predecessors had been so

busy spending money on new lands for parks that they

seriously neglected basic upkeep of the magnificent parks we

had. So, we temporarily put off acquiring new parkland and

started a new billion-dollar, 5-year program to repair and

modernize facilities at our national parks and wildlife

refuges. If you've been to just about any national park

lately, you've probably seen the results.

We've nearly finished repairing the damage from years of

neglect, and I've asked the Congress for almost $160 million

to resume buying lands to round out our national park and

refuge systems. We also took the lead in developing a new

approach to protecting some 700 miles of undeveloped

coastal areas--the dunes, beaches, and barrier islands

that are some of our most beautiful and productive natural

resources.

Now--

Reagan said--

there are some who want you to believe that commitment to

protecting the environment can be measured by comparing the

budgets of EPA under the previous administration with those

proposed and approved by the Congress under my

administration. But they deliberately ignore that the major

Federal environmental laws are designed to be carried out by

the States in partnership with EPA.

By the time the clean air, clean water, and other big

programs put in place in the early 1970's moved into their

second decade, the States had largely taken over the job

formerly performed by the Federal Government. With the

successful delegation to the States, EPA, under the

leadership of Bill Ruckelshaus, has been freed to move on to

the challenges of the 1980's--such as cleaning up abandoned

toxic waste dumps.

Under our administration, funding for the Superfund cleanup

program will have increased from just over a hundred million

dollars in 1981 to $620 million in 1985.

And by the way, under this ``big, ugly bill,'' the cuts to Superfund cleanup will be enormous. It will move the country exactly the opposite direction that Ronald Reagan moved the country back in 1981.

By the end of this year--

Reagan said--

EPA expects to have undertaken more than 400 emergency

actions to remove and contain public health hazards. And

because we recognize that we need to do more cleanup work

than the current law provides, I'm committed to seeking an

extension of the Superfund program.

As I said, our progress on protecting the environment is

one of the best-kept secrets in Washington. But it's not, by

far, the only secret. And I'll have more on that in the

months ahead.

Until next week, thanks for listening, and God bless you.

That was Ronald Reagan. The Republican Party wasn't always like it is today. There was a time when the environment and clean water and clean air were a priority of this party.

Now, this isn't the first time I have noted on the Senate floor that Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave. It is certainly true of our treatment of Ukraine and our giving in to the Kremlin. But that President, who was looked to as a portrait of the American conservative movement, watching as the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan completes its transformation into the party of Donald J. Trump, it probably doesn't recognize what it sees.

What happened to ``States' rights''? Because this attack on California's clean air policy is an attack on States' rights.

What happened to ``freedom to innovate''? This will stifle innovation.

What happened to ``family values''?

How is what we are doing here tonight in service of our kids and the air that they breathe?

Now, Ronald Reagan wasn't the only Republican President to believe in clean air and clean water. This is Richard Nixon giving an address January 22, 1970.

I now turn to a subject which, next to our desire for

peace, may well become the major concern of the American

people in the decade of the seventies.

In the next 10 years we shall increase our wealth by 50

percent. The profound question is: Does this mean we will be

50 percent richer in a real sense, 50 percent better off, 50

percent happier?

Or does it mean that in the year 1980 the President

standing in this place will look back on a decade in which 70

percent of our people lived in metropolitan areas choked by

traffic, suffocated by smog, poisoned by water, deafened by

noise, and terrorized by crime?

These are not the great questions that concern world

leaders at summit conferences. But people do not live at the

summit. They live in the foothills of everyday experience,

and it is time for all of us to concern ourselves with the

way real people live in real life.

The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender

to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature

and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to

our air, to our land, and to our water?

If you are tuning in, these are the words of Richard Nixon.

Restoring nature to its natural State--

He said--

is a cause beyond party and beyond factions. It has become a

common cause of all the people of this country. It is a cause

of particular

concern to young Americans, because they more than we will

reap the grim consequences of our failure to act on programs

which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later.

Clean air, clean water, open spaces--these should once

again be the birthright of every American. If we act now--

Nixon said--

they can be.

We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free,

and neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution

control is high. Through our years of past carelessness we

incurred a debt to nature, and now that debt is being called.

What more profound words for today than that?

Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt

to nature, and now that debt is being called.

And that debt is called climate change. Those are my words, not Nixon's.

But Nixon went on to say:

The program I shall propose to Congress will be the most

comprehensive and costly program in this field in America's

history.

This was a Republican President.

It is not a program for just one year. A year's plan in

this field is no plan at all. This is a time to look ahead

not a year, but 5 years or 10 years--whatever time is

required to do the job.

I shall propose to this Congress a $10 billion nationwide

clean waters program to put modern municipal waste treatment

plants in every place in America where they are needed to

make our waters clean again, and do it now. We have the

industrial capacity, if we begin now, to build them all

within 5 years. This program will get them built within 5

years.

As our cities and suburbs relentlessly expand, those

priceless open spaces needed for recreation areas accessible

to their people are swallowed up--often forever. Unless we

preserve these spaces while they are still available, we will

have none to preserve. Therefore--

Nixon said--

I shall propose new financing methods for purchasing open

space and parklands now, before they are lost to us.

The automobile--

Nixon said--

is our worst polluter of the air. Adequate control requires

further advances in engine design and fuel composition.

Little could he have imagined the electric vehicles of today. But he said:

We shall intensify our research, set increasingly strict

standards--

This is Richard Nixon--

and strengthen enforcement procedures--and we shall do it

now.

We can no longer afford to consider air and water common

property, free to be abused by anyone without regard to the

consequences. Instead, we should begin now to treat them as

scarce resources, which we are no more free to contaminate

than we are free to throw garbage into our neighbor's yard.

This requires comprehensive new regulations. It also

requires that, to the extent possible, the price of goods

should be made to include the costs of producing and

disposing of them without damage to the environment.

Isn't this incredible? Richard Nixon, in the 1970s, talking about requiring that the price of goods should include the cost of producing and disposing of them without damage to the environment.

He went on:

Now, I realize that the argument is often made that there

is a fundamental contradiction between economic growth and

the quality of life, so that to have one we must forsake the

other.

The answer--

He said--

is not to abandon growth, but to redirect it. For example, we

should turn toward ending congestion and eliminating smog

with the same reservoir of inventive genius that created them

in the first place.

Now, Richard Nixon--that was in January of 1970.

This was Richard Nixon in July of the same year, July of 1970, in a special message to the Congress:

To the Congress of the United States: As concern with the

condition of our physical environment has intensified, it has

become increasingly clear that we need to know more about the

total environment--land, water and air. It also has become

increasingly clear that only by reorganizing our Federal

efforts can we develop that knowledge, and effectively ensure

the protection, development and enhancement of the total

environment itself.

The Government's environmentally related activities have

grown up piecemeal over the years. The time has come to

organize them rationally and systematically. As a major step

in this direction, I am transmitting today two reorganization

plans: one to establish an Environmental Protection Agency,

and one to establish, within the Department of Commerce, a

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This was the work of a Republican President: the EPA and NOAA. And look what is happening to it today.

The Administrator of the EPA Lee Zeldin testified before our committee today. He is calling to cut the EPA in half--cut it by more than half, actually: by 55 percent. This creation of the Nixon administration, he believes more than half of it is a waste. This Agency devoted to what Reagan talked about, what Nixon talked about, devoted to clean air and clean water, is just a waste.

This was the CEO of Ford just a year ago:

If we cannot make money on EVs, we have competitors who

have the largest market in the world, who already dominate

globally, already setting up their supply chain around the

world. If we don't make profitable EVs in the next five

years, what is the future? We will just shrink into North

America.

What about our competitiveness? Are we walking away from that too? Every step this body takes this week to undermine the growth of what could be America's next great manufacturing powerhouse will be felt not just by the big three but in communities all across America.

A recent study from Princeton University found that if Congress takes action to target these emissions regulations, as they are doing, and the EV tax credits that we passed in the last administration--can you guess the place that will be the most impacted? It will be the same States that supported Donald Trump in the last election. That is because the EV component plants that are being built for this burgeoning sector are happening in Texas and in Tennessee and in Missouri and in South Carolina. The battery factories are being launched in Indiana, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and Michigan.

Every signal we send to American industry and to the world that we are throwing in the towel to Chinese EV manufacturers will resonate far longer than I think this Senate realizes this week, and it will hit American families in the exact place it will hurt the most. It will hit them in the wallet. Cutting tax credits, shuttering American electric car manufacturers--these will make the modern commute, the future of family vacation, all that, more expensive as we become all that more reliant on fossil fuels to go anywhere.

It will also hurt the future earnings of our apprentices, our tradespeople, our engineers by killing in the cradle a sector of the American economy to the tune of thousands of good-paying jobs.

That is not to mention, even more significantly, making Americans spend far more on healthcare as they face more sick days and worse health conditions from dirtier air.

Now, I want to talk about that for a moment because I know there are many who take for granted our air, just as we take for granted that the sun will rise or set. While air that we breathe may feel like a given, we cannot lose sight of the fact, for 135 million people--more than 4 in every 10 Americans--they live in a community impacted by unhealthy levels of air pollution; and 24 million Americans--or 1 in every 14 adults--are living with asthma. That rate is even higher in children, with about 1 in every 12 kids living with asthma.

Now, consider for a second that elevated air pollution has been found by the University of Washington, Columbia, and the University of Buffalo to be equivalent on your lungs like a pack of cigarettes.

Why is smog like a pack of cigarettes? Because it has the same effects exactly on our health. Here is what the EPA says on this topic:

[C]onstant exposure to elevated particle pollution will

contribute to reduced respiratory function, even in

apparently healthy people.

Here is another quote:

Respiratory effects related to active exposure to fine

particles include . . . reduction in pulmonary function,

increased airway inflammation . . . and can be serious enough

to result in emergency department visits and hospital

admissions.

That is heart trouble, that is lung trouble, health effects so devastating you could land in the hospital just from constant exposure to smog--smog--something we will see a lot more of once again by repealing these Clean Air Act standards that California has set.

Now, I heard one of my colleagues earlier today say that California was

imposing its standards on everybody else. Now, that is just not the case. For decades now, California has had a right to set its own air quality standards. That right was given by statute.

But other States have chosen to follow California's lead. They weren't required to. They weren't forced to. They chose to. They chose for their constituents to have air as clean as what California was striving to achieve.

And, yes, a lot of States adopted those standards, and some of the other States might not like it. Maybe they are just fine with having dirtier air, and that is their judgment.

But to tell California we can't set our own air standard, to tell California that because other States are following our example, we should lose the opportunity to decide how clean or how dirty we want our own air to be; is that a road we really want to go down?

Now, I know because I have been in the majority before, and when you are in the majority, you feel like you will never be in the minority, but the tables will turn. Do my colleagues want a situation where the Democratic majority can look at rules we don't like in red States and say with a simple vote--majority vote--we are going to get rid of them? we don't like your rule on mifepristone? we don't like your license for natural gas? we don't like something your State likes, and therefore we are going to legislate by CRA? Because that is what is going to happen. You can overturn the Parliamentarian here. We can overturn the Parliamentarian there. I just don't think that is a road we want to go down.

I grew up in California. I have lived there since I was 11 years old. I saw the smog days, and I knew the haze that had come to define our cities and skies for a generation dating back to the first automobile boom of the post-war era. I remember all the smog alerts, days you were warned not to go outside.

It is no surprise that that smog at the time became synonymous with California. Even today, we see some of the most densely populated and at-risk areas in the Nation for air pollution are still in California.

The Los Angeles County area, including the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys; the Central Valley, including Bakersfield and Fresno; San Diego County; San Francisco Bay Area--these are all areas that see dense populations facing increasing health risks from smog, which is why California took such a step 60 years ago to become the first State to tackle air pollution caused by automobiles head-on, to take drastic generational action to clean up our air.

But the steps that my colleagues in the Republican Party are taking tonight aren't going to make America healthy again. They are going to make America hazy again. If we go down this road, the future is clear even if our skies won't be.

Americans will pay for this nuclear option with more of their paychecks on hospital bills. They will pay for it with fewer jobs, less success in their communities, fewer years with their loved ones, more cancers, less time to enjoy the quality of life, and less quality of life.

That is not a future I want to see. I want to see a future envisioned, I think, as we heard by Democratic Presidents and Republicans Presidents alike, in which we invest in the technologies that can clean our air and clean our water, in which we get ahead of this tipping point on climate change, in which fire seasons go back to being a few months a year and not year-round, in which we are not constantly seeing our wildlife at risk, and in which we have to wonder what the future will look like for our kids and our grandkids.

It may seem like a small step tonight to get rid of the filibuster, to force California to abandon its standards for its own air, but this step down this road may be the first. It will not be the last. And I want better for my kids and grandkids, and I want better for everyone else's family as well.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, here we are, the moment that we have been warning about, the moment the majority and its Members used to say, under their leadership, would never come. And yet here we are, the week our colleagues may push to go nuclear and override the Parliamentarian, killing the filibuster, and going against their word to unwind 60 years of precedent and policy.

And no matter what anyone says, that is what is happening. Our colleagues will be overturning the Parliamentarian to end California's right to cleaner air. The majority promised:

We can't go there.

I am old enough to remember just when it was they said it because it was their majority leader just 19 weeks ago--19 weeks ago.

But not to worry, the majority says, this is not what this is about, they claim. Instead, we have heard the majority try to dress this up as an attack on the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, saying that their unprecedented action was preceded, almost warranted, by the GAO's actions.

Yes, my colleagues Senator Whitehouse, Senator Padilla, and myself went to the GAO to ask for their guidance on whether this expedited measure, called the CRA, could be used to target California's waiver, California's right to establish stronger clean air standards.

And, yes, the GAO responded, affirming that this expedited process, this CRA, does not apply, that these are not rules; that if they want to strike down California's clean air rules, they can do so but not in this summary fashion, not without 60 votes.

That is the ruling that the Parliamentarian has reaffirmed and which the majority now wants to strike down.

But let's be clear. Going to the GAO was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it was exactly what both parties have done when adjudicating this issue for decades. There are Senators serving in this Chamber, Republicans and Democrats, who have made use of the exact same process by going to the GAO. There have been more than 20 different opinions delivered by the GAO at the request of Republican Senators and Members of Congress in the last three decades, more than 20 times.

And in the cases where the GAO found that the CRA may not apply, this expedited process may not apply, that decision has stood. They did not move forward and respected the rulings of the GAO and the Parliamentarian until now.

So what does all of this mean? What it means is, California has established clean air standards. It was given a waiver under the Clean Air Act to do so. It has done so for decades. Those standards have been adopted voluntarily by other States and, as a result, in California and many other States, we have cleaner air to breathe--until now--until now when the majority has decided to abolish the filibuster so that they could eradicate California's clean air standards so that they could use a summary process that doesn't apply here to get over the hurdle that they require 60 votes in order to do this.

And I urge my colleagues and the American people not to be distracted by suggestions that nothing is going on here, nothing new is going on here, no precedent is being set here because it is; and that is to eliminate the filibuster in the service of the oil industry--in the service of the oil industry.

Whether it is an attack on the GAO or the Parliamentarian, the new ground we find ourselves in today is dangerous, both in the effects it will have on California and on this body--in California, in particular, because it means that this Congress is abolishing the filibuster so that Californians will have to breathe dirtier air. That is what this is about. They want to abolish the filibuster so that polluters can pollute more and Californians have to breathe dirtier air because they know they don't have the votes for it otherwise.

And taken together, my colleagues are embarking on a path that will forever change the Senate. It will not just mean dirtier air for California and dirtier air for all the other States that have adopted California's higher standard; it will also mean that the filibuster is gone for a whole range of things.

Now, I represent a State that makes up 1 out of every 10 Americans. It is the fourth largest economy in the world. So 1 out of every 10 Americans is going to be deeply impacted, and, of course, if you add all of the other States that have adopted this higher standard for their citizens, it may be more like 1 out of every 5.

But it is more than that as well because what we have at stake is also a State's ability, its right to make its own laws and to protect its own citizens without having this body overturn that right.

This week's vote is shortsighted because it is going to have devastating impacts for our Nation's health, but it is more than that. And it should send a chill down the spine of legislators in every State and communities across the country, regardless of their political affiliation, because the Senate is now setting a new standard and one that will haunt us in the future, and it will haunt those States whose Senators vote to go down this path.

Make no mistake, today it is California and our ability to set our own air quality standards, but tomorrow it can be your own State's priorities made into a target by this vote to open the Pandora's box of the Congressional Review Act.

That oil drilling lease that one of your States got approved? That can be on the chopping block with the simple majority now if the filibuster is eliminated. That license for a new energy hub? Gone with a simple vote of this body. That new community grant? Gone with a simple vote of this body. That is fair game now if the majority adopts this tact. This vote to expand the power of this expedited process called the Congressional Review Act will be used to target Democratic and Republican priorities alike.

I moved to Los Angeles in 1985. I remember what it was like to breathe the air in Los Angeles in the 1980s. I have seen images of what the air was like in Los Angeles in the 1970s and the 1960s and the 1950s. We are a basin. And with

all of that automobile traffic and all of that congestion and our geography and topography, it means that exhaust gets trapped, that smog gets trapped. There are times when you can't see the hills in front of you. There are times when you can't see down the street--at least there used to be.

There is a reason why California got this waiver decades ago because there were unique challenges facing places like Los Angeles, and so California acted to protect its own citizens.

But if your State acts to protect your citizens--whether it is from dirty air that can give you lung cancer or whether it is pollutants in the water that can give you all other kinds of cancer--do we really want this body, on a simple majority vote, to be able to eviscerate what the States are doing to protect their own citizens?

I urge my colleagues again not to abandon States' rights in the Senate this week because this may be a policy that you agree with today, but the thing is about a slippery slope, you can be the one who starts down the slope, but you don't get to be the one who decides where it stops.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor a long-time member of my staff Kyle Abrams, who has spent more than 4 years on my team during my time in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Throughout her service, Kyle has been steadfast in her commitment to constituents across the State of California and been a truly dedicated public servant.

Prior to joining my office, Kyle served as an intern for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and joined my House office as an intern in 2021. We immediately recognized her immense talent and asked her to take on the role of scheduler. Being a scheduler is no easy feat, and being a good scheduler requires patience, organization, and grace--all of which Kyle has in abundance. With her intelligence, personal skills, and strategic thinking, Kyle quickly took on the additional roles of director of scheduling, policy adviser, and most recently, senior adviser, all at a young age and in the midst of a campaign for Senate.

It has been a true pleasure to watch Kyle progress through her various roles on my staff, and to see her mentor junior staff. I am grateful for the responsibilities she took on during the transition from the House to Senate, ensuring that everything went smoothly, and that I could deliver for the people of California without interruption.

Kyle will be leaving my office to start her first year at Harvard Law School. She will be joining a tradition of excellence at my alma mater, and I am eager to see what she will accomplish far beyond the classroom.

In my almost 24 years in Congress, I have learned the important lesson that every member is only as good as their staff and seldom as good as that. We could not do our jobs for our constituents without them and their labors, and my staff have been laser focused on providing the highest level of service for the great people of southern California in the House and now the whole State of California in the Senate. Kyle is no exception; I extend my utmost gratitude for the time she has spent on my team, and I am looking forward to seeing all she will go on to achieve in this next chapter.

Mr. President, today, I want to talk about ``The Art of the Deal'' because Donald Trump has been busy making deals. Not his promised trade deals. Those are heavy on promises but very light on actual deals. Not any deals in Congress to lower costs for the American people. That could make it easier to afford a home or to buy groceries. In fact, with fewer cargo ships arriving at our ports and our closest allies and neighbors boycotting American goods, the President has done nothing but make your life more difficult. Medicaid is under attack. Social Security offices are closing by the dozens. Food assistance, rental assistance, energy assistance--all on the chopping block. There is no end to the destruction.

The first 114 days of this administration have been one bad deal after another for American families, but if your last name is ``Trump,'' these 114 days have been just about the greatest deal of all time: new airplanes from your friends in the Gulf, new hotel deals, new golf courses, new meme coins, new towers. New income is flowing into the Trump family. You name it--Donald Trump and his family are cashing in.

So, today, I want to highlight just a few of those deals for the Trump family, how he is lining his own pockets and fleecing the rest of us in the process, how his family is getting even richer while the rest of us are treated like suckers.

Today, I want to talk about the 10 best deals for Donald Trump and the worst deals for the American people, how the graft is on full display and how you, the American people, are being left holding the bag. You don't have to look far from the White House to find some of the most flagrant examples.

Entering in at No. 10 of the top 10 deals for Donald Trump and the worst deals for the American people, we only need to look at the south lawn. We all saw this happen on the White House grounds--Donald Trump and Elon Musk turning the place into a Tesla showroom. But what you might have missed is what happened before and after this photo was taken.

Just before Trump turned the White House grounds into a used car lot, Tesla stock had been in a historic and disastrous slump. With their market value cut in half since December, Musk needed a jolt to his ailing company, and he got it.

When the President was asked whether his symbolic purchase of a Tesla at the White House might help the company's stock, Trump said:

I hope it does.

But that wasn't all because the best part of the deal for Donald Trump took place after the Teslas had been driven away and the cameras had been packed up. Not long after the special livestream on X or Twitter had ended, something even more important happened. With Tesla's shares on the rebound, Elon Musk promised to pump $100 million into Donald Trump's political operation. That is right. Donald Trump received one of the largest political contributions in American history, all for the price of one measly Tesla Model S and the use of the White House as a salesroom--a damn good deal for Donald Trump, if you ask me. For you, the American taxpayer, nothing at all. Zero. Zilch. Nada. All you got was being taken for a ride.

For No. 9 of the best deals for Donald Trump, we have to zoom down to Mar-a-Lago, where you can generally find the President golfing on your dime and lining his pockets in the process. We saw this during the first Trump administration, but at that time, he was still finishing the front nine.

During his first term, Donald Trump made an astounding 473 trips to his own golf courses while in office, but this term, he seems determined to go for the club record. In just his first 100

days, Donald Trump spent over a quarter of those days while in office-- a quarter of those days while in office--golfing. Wouldn't you like a job like that, where you get to play golf every 4 days? Pretty sweet.

Through market collapses, Donald Trump was out on the golf course. Through national crises, Donald Trump was out on the golf course, enjoying the golden age in his golden golf cart, playing the back nine while you struggled to pay your rent or your mortgage.

That is bad in and of itself, that the President of the United States is spending so much time, when there are so many challenges facing American families, out on the golf course, but that is not even the worst of it, because guess who is paying for all that golf? You are. You are--the American people, the taxpayer. That is right. All those drives and those chip shots, all those slices and those hooks, all the missed putts--you are paying for every hole.

This term, reports suggest he spent well over $30 million in taxpayer funds on these golfing trips. That is your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen. And it is not just the use of these taxpayer funds that is a travesty; it is that these taxpayer dollars go to benefit him directly. His golf courses and his hotels charge the U.S. Government to pay for the Secret Service agents and other White House staff to play golf with him or to accompany him on his rounds--to rent golf carts, to have meals.

In other words, your tax dollars are going to the Trump Hotels and golf course organizations directly. If you are interested and wealthy enough, Mar-a-Lago memberships will cost you a cool million or more, where you can hobnob with the President and his family and see if you, too, can get any special deals from the Federal Government.

Don't spend all your money at the Trump golf courses because there is a movie that you are going to want to save some money to rent because, well, someone has to watch it. Coming in at No. 8 of the top 10 deals for the Trump family is Melania's new documentary. On January 6 of this year, Amazon announced a new documentary coming soon. An ``unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at First Lady Melania Trump.'' Get this, Amazon will be paying out $40 million to the Trump family to license the documentary.

OK, so let me just say that again. Amazon is giving $40 million in cash to his family--the Trump family--to license this documentary-- direct cash into the pockets of the Trump family.

But, apparently, they are still looking for more. Melania's agent has been trying to sell sponsorships for the film, starting at $10 million to prominent CEOs and billionaires who were at the inauguration. In return for your sponsorship of this Melania documentary, buyers will get thanked at the end of the credits and be invited to the premiere.

Reportedly, Trump interests are also pitching Hollywood for a show about Don, Jr.'s time outdoors, a hunting show. Seriously, who wouldn't want to see it? Might be like watching Dick Cheney go hunting again.

If you are looking for a way to get in good with the Trump family that doesn't involve golf or TV shows or buying a Tesla at the White House, they are offering another great solution. At No. 7 of the top 10 deals for the Trump family during this Presidency, we have the Trump family's new private club. As part of their crusade to refill the swamp, the Trump family is opening a private club right here in Washington, DC. It will be called ``The Executive Branch.''

I wish I was kidding.

Much like the Trump Hotel in the first administration, it will serve as a gathering place in the Trump world and a way to directly pay homage to the President in the form of champagne and caviar and checks to his business endeavors and those of his kids. For a cool $500,000 membership fee, you, too, can schmooze with people wheeling and dealing within the administration. There is, perhaps, no more appropriate image of the Trump Presidency than this. ``The Executive Branch'' club is an invite-only club for insiders or investors and billionaires who directly line the pockets of the first family, sending a message as clear as day to anyone who wants to do business in the United States: If you want to be with Trump, you have to pay the cover charge.

Now entering in at No. 6 of the top 10 deals for Donald Trump, of his Presidency, a brandnew Trump Hotel in Dubai. Right now, literally at this moment, Donald Trump is in the United Arab Emirates. You can imagine the scene: standing in some gold-plated hotel room looking out over Abu Dhabi; and just beyond the line of sight in the distance is the skyline of Dubai, a skyline that, as of a few weeks ago, is likely getting a new feature cutting through the night sky--the Trump International Hotel and Tower Dubai, an 80-floor behemoth.

Within it, luxury residences and exorbitantly expensive hotel rooms, apartments that start at a cool $2 million, and penthouses that will cost tens of millions of dollars. Even better, if you can't make the Trump new club here in DC, there will be an exclusive members-only club right there in Dubai that's, in their words,'' set to redefine the meaning of ``exclusive luxury.'' All benefiting--that is right--Donald Trump and his family.

Now, their ventures in the Middle East don't start or end in Dubai. Entering in at No. 5 of the best deals for Trump and the Trump family of his Presidency, they are cashing in, this time, in Qatar.

Coming soon to Doha, the Trump International Golf Course. This is going to be an 18-hole course, a clubhouse and high-end villas with beach access. A $5.5 billion deal--billion with a ``b''--set to net the Trump family hundreds of millions of dollars. A deal that is reportedly in partnership with Qatari Diar, a company owned by, in this case, the Qatari Government itself.

I am sure Qatar's multibillion-dollar investment in the personal finances of the Trump family is entirely coincidental. I am sure it is not intended to influence U.S. policy towards the country, which also hosts al Jazeera, in any way.

I know it is easy in all the Trump corruption and schemes to miss the forest for the trees, but let's not fail to appreciate just how unprecedented this is, just how corrupt and dangerous this is. The President's namesake company is directly in business with a foreign government. And the money is going into his pocket--not the Treasury, not in your pocket as a taxpayer. It is going into Donald Trump and his family's pocket--his.

But that is not the only Gulf nation in business with the President and his family--not by a long stretch. There is also Saudi Arabia. Because entering in at No. 4 is the newly announced Trump Tower in Jeddah and their brandnew projects in Riyadh. These will net the Trump family millions as well.

This isn't the first time the Trump family has cashed in with the Saudis. Months after Trump left office the first time, Jared Kushner's investment firm received a $2 billion investment from none other than the Saudi Crown Prince; a deal that was so shady, even the panel that screens investments for the Saudi wealth fund recommended against it. Imagine that. But they were overruled by higher-ups in the Saudi royal family, and the money went straight into the Trump family's enterprise--$2 billion.

But it is not just Donald Trump and his family that are cashing in at your expense. The world's richest man is using his role, too, as a special government employee to cash in as well, because even when you are the world's richest man, as Elon Musk is, enough is never enough.

Entering at No. 3 are Elon Musk's shady Starlink deals. Elon Musk, when he is not tweeting or firing essential government workers, is turning his company Starlink into a global superpower. How? By using the sway of his position and his proximity to Trump to negotiate a whole raft of deals with foreign nations to purchase his Starlink satellite systems.

Just look at what happened with the nation of Lesotho located in South Africa. Donald Trump slapped crippling tariffs on the country. In hopes of a trade deal, they came to the table, and that meant coming to Elon Musk's table. To understand this best, I want to read verbatim from a leaked internal State Department memo:

As the Government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with

United States, it hopes that

licensing Starlink demonstrates goodwill and the intent to

welcome U.S. businesses.

As the Government of Lesotho negotiates a trade deal with the U.S., it hopes that licensing Starlink demonstrates good will and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.

This is from the State Department's own cable, in black and white. It is just pay to play. To get out from under the tariffs that Trump imposed on Lesotho, that country is going to buy Elon Musk's satellite system. Wow. Pay off Trump's machine, and maybe you will get a trade deal.

And, of course, it isn't just the poor country of Lesotho. In February, Elon Musk met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Blair House, a government building just steps from the White House. The meeting was private, but the results were very public. Shortly after the meeting, India announced two Starlink distribution deals--millions into Musk's pockets negotiated steps away from the White House.

Since then, since the imposition of these tariffs, since the need of other countries to come in and to negotiate tariffs away with the Trump administration, Elon Musk has reached deals with Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

And that is just what we know about so far. But I promise you, this will not be the end of it. It is among the most obvious, egregious, and dangerous acts of corruption in American history. Want out from under a tariff? Make a deal with Elon Musk and Starlink.

And they are barely trying to hide it, which brings us to No. 2 of the top 10 deals for Donald Trump as President and the top 10 ways the American people are ending up holding the bag, because Qatar isn't just investing in a new Trump Tower at home. The Qatari Government is also gifting the President a new Air Force One, an aircraft so opulent that they are calling it a ``sky palace,'' a palace in the sky, a $400 million gift for Donald Trump that taxpayers will have to pay to debug.

You can imagine all the national security implications of getting an airplane with all of its electronics and all of the venues you could hide eavesdropping equipment. You can imagine what would be necessary to debug an aircraft like that. It will need to be retrofitted and upgraded to meet the standards of an Air Force One. It will cost taxpayers a fortune.

And their plan--the Qatari's plan--is to give the plane to the Trump Presidential Library before Trump's term ends. That way, the President can keep using it as he pleases; that way, Donald Trump, in addition to his own private plane, in addition to Air Force One--which he is very upset with because it is a few decades old and, you know, it just doesn't have the amenities that Donald Trump has come to expect--he gets to keep this palace in the sky.

While American airports are in crisis--air traffic controller shortages, radar blackouts, massive delays, and surging prices for you the passenger--this is what the President of the United States is focused on: not bringing down airfare for you, not dealing with those luggage fees and all the hidden costs when you buy airplane tickets.

No, that is not what the President of the United States cares about. This is what he cares about: He cares about getting a $400 million gift from the Qataris, which he calls a nice gesture, giving a whole new meaning to the term ``nice gesture.'' I kind of associate ``nice gesture'' with maybe someone picking up the tab at Chipotle or maybe giving me a ride instead of having to take an Uber somewhere. For Donald Trump, a nice gesture is a $400 million palace in the sky that he gets to keep or make use of when he is no longer President.

Never mind that the gift violates the Constitution's prohibition on a President receiving gifts or emoluments. Never mind that it violates the Constitution that seems to be of little concern to the President.

But the fact is, the Qataris are not stupid. They are going to want something for that $400 million plane. There is no such thing as a free lunch. There is no such thing as a free $400 million plane. And that is something that the Qataris are going to want is favorable U.S. policies towards Qatar in the Middle East. They didn't want something for that plane. Maybe they would have given it to you or somebody else not named Trump. This is, in fact, why we have a clause in the Constitution that prohibits gifts like this, because we want to know that the President of the United States is acting on our behalf, on our country's behalf, on our national security behalf, our interests, not some foreign interest that gave them a $400 million gift. And if you really believe that Trump won't return the favor when the time comes--when the Qataris want something that may or may not be in our national interest--if you really believe that Trump won't return the favor when that time comes, then I have got a 747 palace in the sky that I would like to sell you.

But that is not even the most corrupt deal of the 114-day-old Trump Presidency because, coming in at No. 1 of the top 10 best deals for Donald Trump and the worst deals for you, the taxpayer, is Donald Trump's crypto scheme.

You have heard about the meme coin by now. This is, I think, the logo of the meme coin--the President's most brazen cashing in, a corrupt effort that has already made him and his family billions of dollars between its soaring values and the trading fees. Now, this meme coin has gone up and down in value, but the thing is, every time it gets traded--every time it is bought or sold--this guy gets a cut. He gets the fees that are estimated already in the value of hundreds of millions of dollars. It is like posting his Venmo account online: inviting personal monetary tributes from foreign powers, foreign investors, or anyone else who is willing to pay up.

You have heard about the private dinner that they are offering associated with this meme coin. The top 220 meme coin owners--many of whom are foreign investors--are invited to a private dinner with the President of the United States. Businesses are buying and jockeying to be one of the favored few who will also get a private audience with him if they are willing to buy millions of meme coins, not to mention receiving a personal tour of the White House.

But beyond the meme coins and the dinner parties, there is something else also brewing behind the scenes. As I speak, Eric Trump and Don, Jr., are getting into the action--jetting around the world and building their own financial empire in the crypto business space. In Dubai, the Trump family's World Liberty Financial firm announced a joint venture capital firm, backed by the government of Abu Dhabi, that would invest $2 billion using Trump digital currency.

Now, I know it is hard to keep all of these billions apart. You have got the $2 billion investment in Jared Kushner by the Saudis. You have got a $5.5 billion investment by other Gulf nations in Trump properties. When you have got $2 billion here, $5.5 billion there, and another $2 billion here, pretty soon, you are talking about serious money for the Trump family. This deal alone will generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and fees for the Trump family.

So that is ``the art of the deal'' with this President. Trump gets rich. You get screwed over and over and over again.

It is obvious to anyone who looks, but it bears repeating: He does not care about you. He does not care about making your life better. He does not care that prices are soaring or that homeownership seems impossible. He doesn't care if you have to choose between rent or groceries, let alone whether you will be able to take that family on a vacation that you have dreamed of. He doesn't care if the healthcare you rely on gets cut or your local Social Security office closes down. He doesn't care. If it helps pay for his billionaire tax cuts, it is all the same to him. He does not care.

Trump cares about one thing and one thing only. It is the same thing he cared about when he wrote this book, and it is the same thing he has focused on every day of his Presidency: deals to make himself richer, to make his family richer, to make his billionaire friends richer. And, my colleagues, he is succeeding. He is succeeding beyond his wildest imagination. He will likely make more money in the next 4 years than he did in his entire life up to that point. In fact, he probably already has with new, gold-plated skyscrapers around the world and a suite of new

golf courses to match a fancy, new plane; a speedy, new Tesla with the richest man in the world in the passenger's seat; a crypto empire; and projects around the world that will keep the gravy train going for generations.

No matter what wreckage he leaves behind here, he knows that he can head off to one of those gold-plated skyscrapers, look down on the rest of us, and chuckle at his good fortune: ``the art of the deal,'' indeed--for Donald Trump, not for you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse for his remarks. He has been our environmental champion in the Congress for many years, and he led the effort to insist that the Senate follow the rules when it comes to protecting our environment and when it comes to preserving the power of the Parliamentarian.

Mr. President, this is downtown Los Angeles in 1955. It was the postwar era, with the rise of the personal automobile, the baby boom, and the rapid expansion of American cities and suburbs in the West. Suddenly, millions of families were experiencing firsthand, and for the first time, the most serious environmental impacts of unchecked industrial and manufacturing activity. Many could not walk through the streets of our cities without handkerchiefs to their face.

The iconic Ford and Chevy automobiles of the 1950s and 1960s kept their roofs shut. And, in some cases, the smog was so bad that people mistook it for a chemical weapons attack. And here is the thing: It got worse, not better, over the coming decades.

President Trump often speaks of restoring America, of making America great again, taking us back to that postwar period, with the rapid economic expansion and runaway prosperity of the wonder years. Well, his tariff wars have ended any hopes of an economic boom, and he now has the country headed in exactly the wrong direction, toward an economic bust instead.

And if he and Republicans get their way in the coming days, our Nation and our air will be on a trajectory back to 1955, all right. We will make an America where our spacious skies will be clogged and smoggy and our purple mountains' majesty will be hidden behind a haze that comes with letting oil companies call all the shots in Washington.

Back then, in reaction to these horrific air conditions, as well as devastating oil spills and other environmental hazards, California helped launch the modern environmental movement. In 1966, California became the first State to regulate tailpipe emissions to tackle this smog head-on. In fact, some of our biggest achievements and biggest actions took place under Republican Governors.

And wouldn't you take action? I mean, look at this. If this was your city, if this was your State, wouldn't you take action to deal with air pollution this bad, where you can barely make out the skyline, the skyscrapers? Where a body of lawmakers, many of whom, like me, served in State legislatures before coming to Congress, if you saw your State schoolchildren being choked by smog like this, wouldn't you see it as your job to step up, regardless of party politics? That is the fundamental right of any State and its legislature. In the face of threats against your kids and your own families, you do something.

And that is what California did and has continued to do, so often setting the standard for the rest of the country.

We in California are 1 out of every 10 Americans. We have a right to protect our citizens, our environment, our ability to live. After all, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are all impossible if we can't breathe.

In the 1960s, through the Clean Air Act, Congress granted California the ability to set standards for itself when it comes to air pollution. Under Republican President Richard Nixon, we even formed the Environmental Protection Agency. Through Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses, that authority and promise has been upheld. Nearly 60 years of environmental protection has made the Golden State the gold standard for protecting our planet.

But now Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump are willing to ignore their own promises to punish California and to reward Big Oil. They are trying to break the Senate rules to make California's air dirtier, to make it harder and less safe for Californians to breathe, all to please the oil industry.

That is just wrong. And don't take it from me. ``We can't go there.'' That is what the Senate majority leader said about the prospect of overruling the Parliamentarian merely 5 months ago, as did his Republican predecessor, who said:

Abiding by the ruling of the Parliamentarian is central to

the function of the Senate.

The Senate Parliamentarian, he said, is the ``final'' word.

And, please, if they try to tell you this is not overturning the Parliamentarian, you must not believe them. The Parliamentarian has ruled that this device--this mechanism--cannot be used to overturn California's waiver and its ability to set its own air standards. This ruling from the Senate's independent referee has been explicit and direct, and it should be respected.

I realize I am a newcomer to the Senate, and I will not ask my colleagues to stand on the long traditions of this institution, which I barely know, but they must stand by their commitments. They must stand by a State's right to make its own laws to protect its own citizens.

If the Senate goes nuclear overruling the Parliamentarian, there is no telling where the Congressional Review Act will be used in the future, by Republicans or Democrats.

Could the Senate merely vote to wipe out an entire 4 years of actions taken by a previous President? Will your State's regulations be next? What about your State's funding, your State's ability to administer programs like the Clean Water Act?

Precedent can be a hard thing to make tangible, but this is our history. This is what awaits us if we go down this dangerous road: air like this.

We will not stand idly by as this administration fights to make California's air unhealthy again. We will fight this. We must.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to acknowledge my colleague from Virginia, Senator Warner. Thank you for your extraordinary leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee. You have brought your intellect, your talent, and your ingenuity to the service of the Nation's security, and you have been doing a remarkable, remarkable job. I thank you.

Mr. President, in February 2024, Russia began its invasion of Crimea, a part of Ukraine. Little green men arrived suddenly in masks and unmarked uniforms, but everyone knew them to be Russians, acting on the orders of the Kremlin, despite the Kremlin's rather pathetic denials.

I traveled to Ukraine shortly after, joined by colleagues in Congress from both parties. We were there to speak with our friends in Kyiv and to pledge our support for our ally, to reinforce in our own way our commitment to NATO's eastern flank and to uphold our obligations under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. That memorandum assured Ukraine's territorial integrity if Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons it acquired when it was part of the Soviet Union.

At the time, Ukraine had the third largest nuclear stockpile in the world. Not only was the United States a signatory to that assurance, along with the UK, but so was the Kremlin. Well, Ukraine did give up its nuclear weapons in 1994, and, sadly, Russia violated the terms of that agreement with ferocity. When people like Steve Witcoff say they believe Russian leaders live up to their word, they are dangerously ignorant of history.

In 2022, Russia launched an even more massive invasion of Ukraine, and just a month later, I returned to that country, alongside Speaker Pelosi, for the first congressional visit to that country during the war.

I am not here today to talk about Putin's aggression or this administration's shameful betrayal of Ukraine and capitulation to the Kremlin. I am here to talk about the fact that before those trips, we received clear guidance: Assume everything you say will be overheard by the Kremlin. Everything you type on a phone may as well be a direct message to the Kremlin dictator. Certainly, do not message anything sensitive. Just don't do it.

The danger of Russian hacking and spying is high enough abroad. Just

imagine how aggressive they are in a country they are actively invading. But that caution, that instruction was not limited to our visits to Ukraine.

As the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, I found myself traveling around the world to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and more--numerous secret trips over a decade. And every time, the same message: Assume everything you do on your phone, personal device or burner phone--it doesn't matter--will be snooped and scooped up by any adversary who cares to do so.

And let me tell you, they care to do so.

The same is true here at home. Handling classified information, we took every precaution. Practically, that meant we spent a lot of time underground, quite literally, inside a windowless secure compartmented information facility, or a SCIF, in the basement of the Capitol--an actual bunker.

No phones allowed. No recording devices of any kind, not even a Fitbit. We understood: Hey, this wasn't going to be convenient. It wasn't designed to be convenient. It was designed to be secure.

We all knew then, as we all know today, that preserving the classified nature of our Nation's secrets is of the utmost importance, which brings us to today, where we have witnessed the top officials in this administration discussing classified military operations, military strike plans, war plans in the open on Signal, a commercial app like WhatsApp.

The administration's top officials created an unsecured group chat and shared information before--before--the start of a military operation that could have put the pilots flying these missions directly in harm's way.

Now it appears this was not a one-off because, of course, it wasn't a one-off. We are now hearing that there were 20 or more chats involving top officials discussing sensitive information, where the administration seems to have shared national secrets like they were discussing--well, I don't know--March Madness, texting them recklessly.

And it appears that the only reason--the only reason--we know about these chats is because they accidentally added the editor in chief of The Atlantic into one of them, while he was apparently sitting in his car in the parking lot at a Safeway grocery store.

It would be funny if it weren't so damn dangerous to our national security. Put aside the amateurism of debating and deliberating over our national security operations using emojis and whatever else they used on this chat. From a counterintelligence perspective, this was the effective equivalent of shouting our national security secrets on the busy streets of Beijing or leaving folders of information in cafes near the Kremlin. It is a national security screwup of epic proportions.

As the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, I have heard after-action reports of what happens when an intelligence failure occurs, when a source or an asset is compromised, when an enemy penetrates our networks or gets a source that can provide a glimpse into our secrets, because when an intelligence failure happens, it can be catastrophic. Informants can be burned. Lives can be ruined. In some cases, human sources can be tortured and murdered. Operations can be compromised, our soldiers put in harm's way without their knowledge, our methods exposed and therefore adapted to, future missions scuttled because the source, human or technical, has been burned, gone.

In Syria, the Houthis are undoubtedly turning everything upside down to figure out how we knew where the target of this operation would be. Was there a human source who knew the location of the building which was, apparently according to this chat, the girlfriend's residence? Or was there a technical source, like the target's phone or someone else's phone?

What future missions will now not be possible because we don't know if our sources have been compromised.

The loss of trust is also significant from our allies around the world that contribute intelligence to support operations like this one. Published reports indicate that Israel may have provided some of the information used in support of that attack on Houthi missile operatives, and that the Israelis are furious.

For me, it brings back memories of other published reports of President Trump whooping it up with the Russian Ambassador and Foreign Minister in the Oval Office. Do you remember that saga during Trump's first term, while reportedly discussing, still, other intelligence reportedly provided by Israel?

The accidental inclusion of a reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg, sitting in that Safeway parking lot, privy to that classified exchange of operational military planning, is a serious indictment of the arrogance and incompetence of this administration.

The fact that information was shared with such reckless disregard on an unsecured, vulnerable network, apparently with regularity, is a scandal of historic proportions, and yet they refuse to accept any accountability. They engage in more whataboutisms.

They dodge every which way. Deny, deflect blame, blame the journalist, blame the publication, blame the app. Call it unimportant, call it a lie, call it a hack. Say that someone's contact information was just sucked into their phone. The list goes on. The lies and obfuscation gets worse, and in the end, no accountability, no security, no nothing.

Signalgate is the perfect microcosm of this administration's carelessness with our national secrets. But it doesn't start or end with Signal or using Gmail for sensitive national security matters. Just yesterday, we learned of another purge, this time at the National Security Council. The firing of inspectors general and ethics lawyers and career prosecutors wasn't enough; senior officials at the NSC just got shown the door. Among others, Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, the well- respected Director of the National Security Agency, the NSA, and Commander of CYBERCOM--fired; not because of incompetence, no; not because he was responsible or involved in the Signal group, no.

The folks in that Signal chat, they are doing just fine. No, these folks were fired because a rightwing influencer and conspiracy theorist apparently told the President to get rid of them--because an internet troll, not an intelligence professional in any sense of the word, walked into the Oval Office and claimed that these officials were not sufficiently loyal to the President.

National security be damned, in this troll's view they were not sufficiently loyal to the President. How can we not see what is happening here or do we see it and just don't care enough to do anything about it? To say something, anything. They are betraying our national security, and they will do it again.

They are turning their back on our closest allies and friends as they cozy up to dictators and murderers, and they will do it again.

They are compromising the safety of our servicemembers, and they will do it again. They are investigating the investigators, and they will do it again. They are prosecuting the prosecutors, and they will do it again--over and over again--because this administration has all the wrong priorities in all the wrong places, and whom does that hurt the most? The American people.

What are we supposed to say to families unable to sleep at night, worrying that their father or daughter or sister or brother may not come home from their deployment or may come home in a body bag because some administration official was sloppy handling war plans and their plane got shot down?

The Houthis have air defenses. They can shoot down aircraft, and they have. The servicemembers who volunteered to go into combat to keep us safe don't know if they can trust their own government to do the bare minimum to ensure their own safety.

The plain, simple, indisputable fact of the matter is this: All of us, all of us are less safe because of this administration. We are lucky--damn lucky--that no one has died as a result of their repeated incompetence and mishandling of classified information. We are damn lucky.

But it has got to change before our luck runs out and someone gets killed.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Trump administration is corrupt. It is easily the single most corrupt and lawless administration in American history. And it would be exceedingly difficult to debate that simple proposition because notwithstanding all of the whataboutism we occasionally hear, there is really no denying it.

The self-dealing by unelected billionaires like Elon Musk; the Presidential meme coins; the quid pro quos; the dismissal of corruption cases in exchange for help on the President's policy agenda; the dismissal of national security personnel, not on the basis of national security but on the word of rightwing cranks; the deportation of someone to a maximum security prison in another country on the basis of a clerical error; the mass illegal firings; the reckless use of commercial apps for classified information; the scorning of court orders; the phony math to hide the deficit-exploding impact of tax cuts for billionaires; the attacks on Social Security, calling it a Ponzi scheme, when people making those attacks are the conmen who want to raid the hard-earned retirement funds belonging to our Nation's seniors and veterans.

The swamp is full. It is overflowing. And Donald Trump is standing right in the middle of it up to his ears in the filth.

And it is plainly obvious to anyone who is watching that the President simply doesn't care about anyone but himself--not you, not your families, certainly not the American people. He is in it for himself.

While your retirement savings are being wiped out, he is playing the back nine at his country club: Oh, caddy, caddy, would you hand me a No. 6?

Now, the Trump administration's abundant corruption doesn't happen in a vacuum. His corrupt self-dealing doesn't just boost his own bottom line and that of his wealthy donors. It hurts everyday Americans; it hurts Californians; it hurts all of us.

So let me give you some examples. Days before Donald Trump was sworn in, he took one of the most obviously corrupt actions of his political career, and that is saying quite a lot. The President took to Twitter to announce that he was launching his own cryptocurrency--a meme coin. He would maintain a vast ownership of the stock in it, but anyone in the world could buy in, from a Chinese national under indictment in the United States to any Sultan in the Middle East looking to buy influence. And, predictably, the meme coin just skyrocketed. On paper, it appears to have made billions on it.

It is possible he made more in 1 day from this joke cryptocurrency than he had made in his entire life up to that point. You might recall a press conference he had when a reporter asked him at the beginning of his Presidency: Are you going to continue to traffic in this coin, in this currency that is making a lot of money?

The President's question is: Well, how much is it making me?

And when the reporter said: ``It is making you a lot,'' the President was delighted. He turned to--presumably off camera, Elon Musk, a billionaire--and said: That may not be much to these guys. And there was great laughter to be had.

The corruption is out in the open. And the thing about this new ``currency'' is that it is a message to anyone who wants to curry favor with the President, whether it is foreign governments, oligarchs, or wealthy Wall Street billionaires. It gives them a chance to literally buy Donald Trump's favor--directly, corruptly, and unmistakably.

Who does that ultimately hurt? Short answer is everyone else. So maybe a billionaire is buying a bigger tax break, but that means hard- working Americans are going to have to pay for it. Or maybe it is someone under indictment for fraud who can now get their case dismissed by Donald Trump's DOJ for the right price in the meme coin. That hurts every American because it just invites all kinds of further corruption. The President's kids are in the crypto business, and there are even more opportunities for graft.

In other parts of the world where there are long traditions of such corruption, they would be called princelings. There is a name for them. They are called princelings. Congratulations, America, we now have our own

princelings, and they are called Eric and Don, Jr. Now, as it turns out, it is not just by buying Donald Trump's meme coin or the crypto investments that may help the Justice Department to drop your case or get the Justice Department to go after your enemies. Since Donald Trump's first day in office, he has methodically and meticulously purged the Department of Justice of anyone who is not blindly loyal to him--not loyal to the rule of law, mind you, not loyal to their oath, but loyal to the person of Donald Trump. That is and will be the only standard in this Department.

It is not a coincidence that the top three lawyers running the Justice Department, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, are all-- all--former Trump criminal defense lawyers. Their client was and always will be the multiply indicted and convicted felon who occupies the Oval Office.

So how does this hurt everyday Americans? Well, it does so in a few ways. First, it means that the Department's resources will be focused on all the wrong things. The DOJ should be focused on keeping Americans safe. It should be focused on cracking down on violent criminals and addressing the fentanyl crisis. It should be hunting down fraudsters who scam Americans. But instead, they are focused on retribution, on going after Trump's enemies, on helping those who are loyal to him, and wasting countless hours and resources in the process.

But also, Trump is using the DOJ now to protect his friends and allies. You don't have to look any further than the case in New York. The mayor of New York, Eric Adams, indicted on serious corruption charges; a mayor who then had seen the writing on the wall, pursues a kind of quid pro quo with the President. He goes down to Mar-a-Lago, and the quid pro quo eventually becomes as plain as day. It is out in the open.

The President's own border czar does a joint interview sitting next to the mayor on ``FOX and Friends'' on their couch to lay out the stark quid pro quo in exquisite detail. All that was left unsaid by Trump's border czar were the words ``or else.'' The mayor would get his case dismissed and, in exchange, he would pursue the President's policy agenda when it comes to immigration.

If the mayor was guilty of serious corruption of bribery, of providing political favors to foreign nations in exchange for lavish gifts--and even the Trump DOJ doesn't deny the evidence against him-- that that doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter, not if he is a political ally of the President.

Who does that hurt? Well, it hurts New Yorkers. It invites more corruption in the city of New York.

But this trend, of course, hurts everyone. A big corporation screwing over consumers can seemingly prevent investigation or prosecution now by kissing the ring. Just takes a trip to Mar-a-Lago. A corrupt politician can continue to leverage public resources for their own gain, knowing they may never be held accountable for their actions.

You can even storm this building--and they did. You can storm right into this Chamber--and they did. You can trample American democracy, you can beat police officers in the name of this President, and not only will your prosecution be dropped, but you will be pardoned and celebrated. And beyond that, the public servants who prosecuted you will be removed, replaced, or demoted. They will be purged. By using the Justice Department as a shield to protect his friends and a sword to go after his enemies, it is the American people who will lose.

Now, just down the street from the DOJ at the Food and Drug Administration, there is something less talked about but also quite sinister going on. Elon Musk, among his many companies, owns one called Neuralink. This is a company that is aiming, essentially, to implant computers into people's brains.

While I am not personally one to want an Elon-sponsored device shoved into my cortex, I do believe in responsible innovation, and I even celebrate it. Unfortunately, for responsible innovation, within weeks of entering office, Elon and DOGE fired the entire team at the FDA's Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices. You guessed it. The office in charge of reviewing his product--gone. That sent a pretty clear message through the Agency: Get on board with Elon or you are out.

It feels like par for the course for Elon, but it is really unprecedented in this country. Especially damaging is the fact that this also occurs at a time when they are massively laying off people at the FDA--huge cuts in the folks that make sure our medicine and food are safe.

Not only does that mean lifesaving medicine doesn't get reviewed and deployed faster to the American people, it means that dangerous stuff gets into circulation much longer before it can be stopped--or maybe if it just gets to slip through with a wink and a nod and a big enough contribution to the Trump meme coin.

If you thought Elon stopped at the FDA, well, I have some more news for you. DOGE has pulled the exact same move at other Agencies providing oversight over him or with which he has contracts: the FAA, where Elon Musk has desires for contracts for his Starlink satellite system; the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, where Elon's companies face a significant threat of oversight--or at least they did before he made that Agency largely go away; or NASA, where Elon's SpaceX has billions in contracts; the Pentagon, more contracts for Elon; and now,

Madam President, this week, Donald Trump spent his time doing three things: golfing at Mar-a-Lago; announcing his latest set of tariffs that will cost families $3,800 more a year and that are so chaotic and far-reaching that they included retaliatory tariffs on a remote island inhabited only by penguins--I kid you not; and third, advocating for cuts that would destroy the services and benefits millions rely on for their healthcare and retirement savings.

Today, with the stock market in the tank and the Nation's economy in freefall, we are expected to vote on this failed businessman's latest ``brilliant'' financial plan for the Nation.

So let's talk about his budget. At its very core, this bill will give massive tax cuts to billionaires and make middle-class families pay for it--tax cuts that billionaires simply don't need. And only the billionaires and Republicans in DC apparently support this.

But wait. The bill that we will pass in the dead of night accomplishes other partisan fantasies as well. It takes away healthcare and goes after the heart of Social Security. It is the same old playbook: Billionaires win, and families lose. And lest we forget, it is the exact same playbook that they ran in 2017.

So how exactly is this a win for billionaires? Two-thirds of all of the benefits in this bill go to the superwealthy and corporations--two- thirds. Over the next 30 years, this bill would spend $25 trillion-- that is trillion with a ``t''--on tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. It would add $37 trillion to the debt--$37 trillion. That will double the Nation's debt--double it.

It will also, by the way, hand tens of millions of dollars to Elon Musk just in the next few years. So he makes out like a bandit. But if you are a family earning--I don't know--$30,000 a year, struggling to get by, or maybe $50,000 or $75,000 a year, you will be lucky to see any tax relief from this plan. But if you are in the top 0.1 percent, you will get an extra $300,000 a year, at the very least. For every dollar that would go to people waiting tables or teaching at a preschool, someone in the top 0.1 percent would get over $52,000. That is $52,000 for every dollar that someone waiting tables or teaching at a preschool will get.

To pass this bill will mean that the top 5 percent of earners will get nearly half of all the tax benefits. That is just not right, not fair, not wise, not sound, not sustainable. Life is already too hard for working families without taking more from them to make the rich even richer.

So how is this bill a loser for families? It is a loser because it would raise costs by more than $1,000 on low-income Americans across the board, from healthcare, to groceries, to housing--families who are already hurting and are going to be hurting more, big-time, because of Donald Trump's massive tariff tax--tariffs that are raising the costs of everything they buy, from coffee, to the eggs they have for breakfast, to the clothes they dress their kids in before school, to the gas they use to drive to work, to the materials their small businesses import, to the meals they have when they arrive at home or the sandwich they grab in between jobs.

These families are getting punched right in the gut, and Donald Trump knows it and knows that this budget would amplify their pain because, beyond exploding costs for working Americans, it will also decimate Medicaid, threatening healthcare for nearly 80 million Americans. That is two in three nursing home residents, two in five children, and one in three Americans in rural communities.

But even if someone isn't on Medicaid, they will still feel the costs; they will still feel the pain. Medicaid is the largest insurer in the Nation, so when it goes down, so will the care that so many families rely on.

Now, whether you are on Medicaid or you are not, it is your local hospital that may close. Clinics will close. Doctors will have to move or shutter their practices. Care that used to be maybe one town away will now be an entire county away and a very long drive, especially for Americans in rural areas who already cannot afford the cost of living.

This bill would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb on the care and the caregivers they rely upon--caregivers like Sabrina Bishop, a California home-care provider. She serves three clients around San Diego. Two are disabled veterans and one receives care from California's In-Home Supportive Services, all of which--all of which-- are funded through California's Medicaid provider Medi-Cal. Bathing them, medication management, cleaning, laundry, food preparation--she does it all.

She lives with her client Mike. He is at the end stage of dementia and unable to communicate. He can't dial 9-1-1. If he sees any medication bottles, he will just take them. If he sees a car door open, he might just get in no matter whose car it is.

Here is what she told me: ``My work means he has someone to help him''--that he can live safely and with dignity in his twilight years.

Many of the folks who rely on funding from Medicaid don't have a family who can help with around-the-clock care. Without the services that she provides, which are funded by Medicaid, those people won't get their medications on time or be bathed or fed. You are talking about a person's most basic needs.

If funding were to get cut more, Sabrina says she thinks many caregivers will just decide they can't afford to do the work they love anymore. There is already a major shortage of care providers. Thousands of people who need care are stuck on waiting lists.

Republicans, in this bill, want to make things so much worse--so much worse. Seniors and disabled individuals will be trapped in their homes without anyone to look after them or be institutionalized at greater cost, if indeed they can even find a skilled nursing facility that is still open.

When asked what she wants Members of Congress to understand about her situation, Sabrina said:

Don't be so quick to cut funding for Medicaid. You yourself

may end up needing a caregiver. You may be diagnosed with a

terminal disease at your next doctor's appointment. You may

have a car accident and can no longer take care of yourself.

But without Sabrina and the countless others who do the lifesaving work that she does, there may be no one to call. That is what we are talking about here. Yet that is what this administration and this Congress seems intent on doing: to deny this care to give Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and all of their billionaire friends even more money. And that--that is a disgrace.

What about Social Security? On that one, DOGE is starting the dirty work already. We are already seeing the cuts and the clawbacks, Elon and his bros heading into the Social Security Administration and firing the staff that make sure you get your check on time. They have plans to close 26 Social Security offices this year alone. They are cutting phone services and pointing seniors to online options that are often unreliable and inaccessible and, if we are being honest, something that not all seniors are able to do. But this is their plan. They are taking a program focused on helping seniors and then turning around and removing all the tools seniors use to get the help they need. And they are not hiding it; they are celebrating it.

Donald Trump's ``co-President'' Elon Musk went on Joe Rogan to say that Social Security was ``the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.''

Billionaire Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said that his mother-in-law wouldn't even notice or care if her check didn't arrive, that only fraudsters would complain if their check didn't arrive on time or at all.

Donald Trump himself stood in front of Congress and delivered an address so riddled with false claims about Social Security that it was impossible to disguise his true intention, and that is to sow broad mistrust so they can come for it all, so they can slash it and leave seniors in the lurch, so they can privatize it.

That is their plan for much of the Federal Government. First, they cut the staff. Then, they cut the services. Finally, they say: It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Privatize it. Let the billionaires run it. Put it in the market.

What could possibly go wrong? Have you seen the market lately? Leaving your hard-earned benefits to the whims of the stock market that Donald Trump has so recently destroyed, plunging millions of seniors into poverty--that is their plan, all for a few more bucks in their pockets.

It is up to each of us to stop them, to protect Social Security and Medicaid.

But I want to talk for a moment not to my colleagues here in this fancy building but to you at home. Whether you are in California or anywhere else in the country, I want to talk to you.

Right now, I am standing on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In just a few hours, we will be voting on a budget resolution that sets the framework for government funding. Now, that may sound wonky or unimportant, complex, and complicated, but I want to cut through the noise and speak to you about exactly what this will do.

In the simplest terms, it will make your life more expensive, make your healthcare more inaccessible, and sow the seeds to slowly destroy or privatize Social Security. It will do these things because Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not care about you. They don't care about you. They care about Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They care about their billionaire buddies. They care about their bank accounts. They don't care about you or whether you can afford a home or you can't afford a home, whether you have the money to take vacation days that you have saved up, whether you can afford to take your kid to the hospital, whether you have to drive 2 or 3 hours to the nearest hospital. They don't care. They don't care if you are paying $6 for eggs, $5 for a gallon of gas, or, depending on where you live, maybe a lot, lot more.

They may say they care about those things, but this--this--their bill we are about to vote on--says otherwise. This bill in my hand is evidence that they don't care about you. They couldn't care less about you.

Now, it is easy to feel hopeless and powerless right now. That is their goal. That is how they want you to feel. They want you to look at the remnants of your retirement savings and the closing of hospitals and the destruction of small businesses and the decimation of schools and they want you to feel discouraged, to look at the wreckage and say, ``Well, I guess they are right; maybe none of it does work,'' because they want to break it all in pieces. When they tear things down that you rely on instead of building them up, they want to turn to you and say, ``See, none of this is working. Medicaid isn't working, and Social Security isn't working.''

Because they broke it, because they are breaking it. And then comes the final step. That is when they sell it all for parts, where they sell off the Social Security you paid into for your whole life, when they destroy the healthcare that you and your family rely on so you are forced to pay for private insurance that costs more and helps you less. That is their plan, and you are watching it unfold in real time.

That is the thing with Donald Trump. He has broken every promise he has made. Lower prices? Nope. Stock market growth? Hard opposite. Your 401(k), if you are lucky enough to have one? Destroyed. A new golden era? Don't make me laugh. Protecting your hard-earned benefits? They are on the chopping block right now.

Donald Trump has broken every single promise he has made except one; the promise he made from a gold-plated Mar-a-Lago podium where he told a room full of the richest people in America:

You're all people that have a lot of money. You're rich as

hell. We're gonna give you tax cuts.

Well, it turns out those tax cuts are arriving right on schedule, and we will be footing the bill. But you can do something about it. You are not powerless. Make your voices heard.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I thank you for being here, Senator Booker. I always knew you were a towering intellect and a phenomenal and passionate speaker and advocate, but I did not know your stamina until today, and I am delighted to join you on the floor and have this opportunity to engage in a dialogue with you.

I stand corrected. I am happy not to engage in a dialogue with you but to ask you a question.

Let me ask the question this way. I was in the airport yesterday when someone handed me a note that said: ``Please save our country.''

``Please save our country.''

And I think the genesis of the note was her profound concern over the direction of this country, over the increasingly authoritarian direction of this country and what is happening to the rule of law in America.

We look at institution after institution, and we see the guardrails of our democracy coming down. We see an assault on the rule of law unlike anything we have seen in modern history, maybe in the entire history of the United States of America--each and every institution, and why? Because they can, because they feel they can. So they are going after the colleges and universities.

They are going after the institutions of higher learning. This was an attack that was presaged by JD Vance years ago in his speech where he talked about ``the professors are the enemy.'' They have to go after ``the seat of learning.''

So they are going after the universities, and they are using enormous cudgel: We will cut off your funds. We will cut off hundreds of millions in your funds if you do things, if you say things that we in the administration don't like. If you irritate the personal predilection of the President, you will have your funding cut. It is unlawful; it is illegal; and yet they are doing it because they can.

They are going after major American law firms because these law firms had the audacity, the unmitigated temerity to hire lawyers or have lawyers who would take on causes inimical to the President's personal interests.

So they are going after these firms, and they are threatening the livelihood of these firms. We will close the courthouse doors. We will cut your clients off from contracts unless you kiss the ring.

And, of course, it is not just the firms or what they represent. It is everyone who is in need of a lawyer who now needs to know that, if they run afoul of the policy preference of the administration, they may never get a lawyer.

And why are they doing this at law firms? Because they can.

And they are going after judges. They are calling for the impeachment of judges. The latest is Judge Boasberg, in a case involving the administration grabbing a bunch of people, designating them as part of a Venezuelan gang, and without any due process, without any process at all, taking them to some maximum security prison in El Salvador, and, in fact, it would appear, doing so even against the court order, when the judge said: Turn those planes around.

Now, why are they encouraging the impeachment of a judge?

Well, I impeached a judge here. I was a lead manager before there was an impeachment of Donald Trump--or two of them. I led an impeachment of a corrupt judge. It is the same standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. It is not a high crime or misdemeanor to disagree in a case brought before a Federal district court, to disagree with the flawed reasoning of the government.

Why are they doing this to judges? Because they can. Because they can.

They are going after the press. They are going after the press and saying: If you don't call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, we are going to prevent you from attending press events at the White House or on Air Force One. And why are they doing this, this party that claims to be against censorship?

Why are they doing this to the press? Because they can. And they will continue to do so as long as they believe that they can until we--and not just we in this body, but we in this country--stand up to them and tell them: No, you can't. No, you can't.

If the slogan years ago was ``Yes, we can,'' today it has to be ``No, you can't.''

No, you can't trample the rights of the American people. No, you can't censor our speech. No, you can't bring the weight of the Justice Department down on the American people. No, you can't because we are going to stand together.

We universities are not going to let you pick one of us off. We are going to band together.

No, we are not going to let you go after the law firms. We are going to band together.

No, we are not going to let you go after the press organizations. We are going to demand free speech.

Until we come together, until we mobilize in a massive way together to say, ``No, you can't; no, you can't,'' they will continue to believe that, yes, they can violate the law with impunity.

So my question, Senator Booker, is how do we tell them: No, you can't--not with our country. No, you can't violate the law, violate our values, violate our interests. No, you can't.

How do we tell the administration no?

Will the Senator yield for one last question?

Well, this gets to exactly, Senator Booker, your point. I am optimistic about this country, notwithstanding this deep, difficult, dark

period we are in. I am optimistic about this country, and I am optimistic because of something that Alexis de Tocqueville might have said. There is some dispute about whether he actually said this.

I would like to believe he said this:

America is a great country because America is a good

country.

If he didn't say it, he should have said it, because it is true. This country is what makes me an optimist. There are wonderful, beautiful, patriotic people in every State of the Union, and they will see us through this. But it does, I think, require all of us to be reminded, every now and then, of the better angels of our nature.

Now, I remember standing in that well during the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

And I will tell you, I approached that case as a prosecutor would approach a case--that I just needed to prove the President guilty of what he was charged with. But it became apparent very quickly that that was not enough, that notwithstanding the abundant evidence of his guilt, I needed to show something more. I needed to show that it was dangerous to keep him in office.

Now, tragically, events since have proven my point. But I made a different argument at that point of the trial, which I think gets us to the present moment, which is that truth should matter to us, what is right should matter to us. And even if it doesn't matter to the President, it should matter to us that we are decent as Americans. We are decent. We are good and decent people, as Americans. That is who we are.

We don't believe that when someone is needing medical help that they should be turned away. We don't believe that we should turn our back on our neighbor. We believe in extending our hand. We believe we should be able to disagree with each other without it becoming a personal hatred or antagonism. We are Americans. This is who we are.

I do think sometimes we forget, and we have to remind ourselves that, as Elijah Cummings used to say, ``We are better than this.''

We are better than this.

And you remind us of this all the time, Senator Booker. You really do. You also remind us that we are not defined by what we are against. We are defined by what we are for. And I am fully on the same page with you that we haven't lived up to our responsibility as a party and what we are for.

I think our democracy is in trouble because our economy has been in trouble. And I think our economy has been in trouble because it is not like after the Depression or during the Depression, or the great recession, when people were out of work. The problem today is not that people are out of work. The problem today is that people are working. They are working, and they still can't get by.

And you have too many millions of Americans who see their quality of life, and they look at what their parents had and see it as better, and they look at the future for their kids and see it as worse.

And amidst that economic difficulty, they are ready to embrace anyone who offers something different, any demagogue who comes along and promises them they can fix it.

And while this demagogue is not going to fix it and, indeed, has made their lot much worse, it is not going to fix itself. It falls on us to come up with those big ideas.

Now, some of those big ideas are not new. Medicare for all, which I support, is a big idea. That would expand healthcare access for millions of people and make sure people, parents can go to work and understand if they get sick or their kid gets sick that they will have access to healthcare.

We haven't kept pace with changes in the nature of work, changes that are going to accelerate with artificial intelligence, changes which have meant that, over the last several decades, as the country has become more productive, that productivity and prosperity has simply not been shared with the people who made it possible.

And I think this economic anxiety, which is felt all over the world with these global changes in the marketplace, have put great stress on the whole democratic experiment.

(Mr. BANKS assumed the Chair.)

If democracy is not working for people, they will flirt with other models, like authoritarianism. But we are here to tell folks that is not the direction we want to go in. But it is still incumbent on us to offer bold ideas for how we can make the economy work for people again.

But I do think that what has led people into such bitter antagonisms with each other has been a lot of this uncertainty, the feeling that they are only a car payment or a health problem away from failure. It is up to us to address that. So I join you, Senator Booker, and your optimism about the American people. I join you in the call on all of us, really, in both parties.

But if they are not going to do it, it falls on us to put forward the big bold economic plans that will ensure that we can answer the central question of our time, which is, if you are working hard in America, can you still earn a good living?

We need to be able to answer that question, ``Yes, you can.''

Right now, what we are seeing with this tax cut for billionaires and large corporations is just going to make the problem so much worse.

But I want to thank you, Senator Booker, for your irrepressible optimism about the country, which I share. I want to thank you for seizing the helm today and every day to put forward that positive vision for our Country.

And my question is, Where do you find the energy, my friend?

Amen.

Mr. President, John Adams once said that we are a Nation of laws, not men. And this idea has been foundational to the understanding of the American Republic.

But what does it mean to be a Nation of laws, and is it still true in America in the era of Donald Trump? Are we a Nation of laws when characterized by a legal code that applies equally to all citizens, a justice system in which no one is above the law or beyond its reach, in which there is not one law for the rich and powerful and yet another for everyone else?

Or have we become a Nation of men in which the law must bend to the will of its most powerful citizens, a society in which wealth and privilege mean that the law need not apply to them with the same force as it applies to others or not at all?

Four years ago, after losing his reelection campaign, Donald Trump conspired to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power and incited a violent attack on the Capitol. He also withheld highly classified material and obstructed an investigation into that offense.

In what could be seen as a vindication of the rule of law, Donald Trump was indicted for these crimes, but the system of justice bound by the rule of law requires not only that charging decisions be made against people similarly situated without preference or

disfavor according to their position but that the conduct of those prosecutions likewise be timely and appropriate. In this, our justice system failed miserably. Trump was able to seek endless delays in court, and the courts, understanding of that motivation and mindful of the fact that justice delayed can mean justice is denied, willfully delayed the prosecution of Donald Trump until he could avoid a reckoning with justice altogether.

Most egregious was the conduct of the High Court itself. The Roberts Court first delayed any potential trial of the President and then crippled the prosecution altogether in a decision granting the President immunity from prosecution for the commission of crimes while in office. No wonder the President thanked the Court at last night's joint address and told Justice Roberts, in particular, that he would not forget.

For the first time in America, the Supreme Court held that if you reach the pinnacle of power, the Presidency, the criminal laws need not apply to you; that, indeed, you may use the power of that office itself to commit crimes and never be held to account.

As Justice Sotomayor wrote, that new immunity lies about like a loaded weapon and makes a mockery of the principle that no man is above the law.

Now we have entered a perilous new phase as a country, in which a person who escaped the application of law is now charged with administering the law in which Donald Trump has appointed his own criminal defense lawyers to top positions in the Justice Department and appointed an FBI Director with a long published enemies list.

It is a Justice Department in which Trump's lawyers have sought to dismiss a serious corruption case against the mayor of New York, as an alleged quid pro quo for his willingness to do the President's bidding on unrelated policy matters. They seek a dismissal without prejudice, meaning the President can lower that sword of Damocles on the head of the mayor should he ever demonstrate independence from the whims of the President.

Six senior Justice Department prosecutors resigned their office rather than pervert justice in this way.

As one wrote in his resignation letter, ``I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.''

Other prosecutors at the Justice Department have likewise refused illegal orders to initiate investigations where no probable cause exists, rather than violate their oaths of office.

If this continues, we will be left with a Justice Department leadership populated by only cowards and fools--a Justice Department used both as a sword to go after the President's enemies and a shield to hide its corruption. Then, what will remain of our Nation of laws but a sad memory of a time when we lived up to our Founders' dreams only to squander the gift of our inheritance.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, ``I urge you to beware the temptation of . . . label[ing] both sides equally at fault--

May I have consent to speak for 2 minutes?

I thank my colleagues for their courtesy to speak on this resolution.

I urge you to beware the temptation of . . . label[ing]

both sides equally at fault, [the temptation] to ignore the

facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil

empire.

My colleagues, these are not my words; they are, of course, the words of Ronald Reagan almost 42 years ago to the day.

Imagine if he could see his party now turning its back on our ally and fellow democracy, Ukraine; sponsoring a U.N. resolution that would whitewash the start of the war; engaging in the most immoral equivalence and failing to assign responsibility to Russia for its invasion and ruthless aggression; voting with Russia and North Korea against our longtime friends and allies in Europe and around the world; and abandoning and insulting our allies as Putin seeks to remake the map of Europe.

What is this resolution in the United Nations about that we helped defeat? The United States has used its influence and its vetoes in the Security Council many times, but this resolution was offered by dozens of our close allies on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. What was in it that was so objectionable to split the United States from its friends?

The resolution made clear that Russia started this war. It reaffirmed the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. It deplored Russian aggression on women and children. It raised concerns with North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces. It noted the threat to nuclear safety. It called for an end to the war and a just and lasting peace and the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian lands.

None of this is in dispute--none. This was the resolution that the United States, the leader of the free world, blocked at the United Nations. Can any Member of this body point to a single problematic word in that resolution? Of course not.

The Senate should stand by that resolution, even as we must stand by Ukraine.

Today, the White House and Kremlin seek to rewrite the history of this war with falsehood and slander, calling Zelenskyy the dictator, Ukraine the instigator, and Putin the hero. We need to do more than say something; we need to do something.

``Slava Ukraini.''

Mr. President, today, the Senate is on track to confirm Kash Patel as Director of the FBI. Think about that statement for a moment. Kash Patel--conspiracy theorist, January 6 denier, MAGA sycophant, and political provocateur--will be FBI Director.

The absurdity of it, the destructive consequences of it--and it is worth asking today: How did we get here to such an extreme point, to this moment when someone so patently unqualified--really, disqualified from any position of responsibility--is poised to become Director of the Nation's preeminent law enforcement Agency?

Earlier today, I stood with my colleagues out in front of the FBI headquarters, a building that Kash Patel promised to dismantle on his first day as FBI Director and turn into a museum to the deep state, the home of a Department that we all know he will convert into a political weapon for the President--the President who is a serial law breaker and will use Patel as a tool for retribution against his enemies.

But in a democracy, law enforcement does not serve the President, let alone someone who fashions himself as a King. Law enforcement serves the people. It is nonpartisan. It is not a vehicle of political payback for a political party. And yet we are watching the FBI and DOJ hollowed out, dismantled, and turned into an investigative and prosecutorial extension of Donald Trump's White House. We are watching it live in realtime. It is already happening in that building we visited this morning.

In just the last month, Donald Trump's Department of Justice has engaged in a brazen sweeping purge, a rolling Saturday night massacre, an unmistakable campaign to intimidate, punish, and drive out thousands of hard-working nonpartisan FBI and career DOJ employees. This is happening as we speak.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove fired roughly two dozen prosecutors involved in January 6 criminal cases--not for cause, not for corruption, not for misconduct. They were fired for failing what is, in effect, a loyalty test--a loyalty test.

A MAGA mob attacks the Capitol on January 6 to stop the peaceful transfer of power. They beat police officers, gouge them, bear-spray them, all in the service of an even bigger crime--stopping the peaceful transfer of power after Donald Trump lost his reelection. And they get pardoned by Donald Trump. The lawbreakers get pardoned, and the brave FBI agents who tracked down these violent miscreants--these agents get punished, they get fired, they get purged.

The one-man wrecking ball that is Donald Trump is turning the world upside down. The criminals are being pardoned and the cops are being punished.

Kash Patel sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and, under oath, insisted he knew of no plans to punish FBI employees involved in investigations related to Donald Trump. He positively levitated at the suggestion that such a thing could even be true. Then, within days, top FBI agents were fired. Thousands of FBI employees--career professionals--were sent a detailed questionnaire demanding they disclose any involvement in investigations related to the January 6 insurrection. A warning accompanied this: ``Additional personnel actions'' could follow.

Yet Mr. Patel testified that ``there will be no politicization at the

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 316 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I stand here on behalf of Western States colleagues--Senators Padilla, Heinrich, Lujan, Bennet, and Hickenlooper--to ask this Chamber to take a clear stand on behalf of the firefighters who help fight and prevent wildfires.

Wildfires don't discriminate. They hit red States and blue States. Even as deadly devastating wildfires were burning in L.A. County, President Trump adopted a freeze on hiring so widespread that it is blocking the Forest Service from onboarding the seasonal firefighters we require to prevent future fires.

Not only that, President Trump has also empowered an unelected billionaire to run rampant through the ranks of our public servants, not with a scalpel but with a hatchet. As a result, firefighters who had just finished weekends of around-the-clock shifts fighting these dangerous fires were given a thank-you note from their Commander in Chief that said: Please quit.

Please quit--this was the reward our firefighters got.

Our amendment would make it very clear that we are committed to reversing these cuts to the ranks of wildland firefighters.

I ask for the yeas and nays.