Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Waters and Mr. Hill for honoring their commitment to make sure that H.R. 8291, the Reforming Disaster Recovery Act, was a part of this legislation.

I believe that there are many ways that it could have been done, but I also believe that there are only two people who could have gotten it done. That would be Mr. Hill and Ms. Waters, of course, working with our colleagues in the Senate, Mr. Scott and Ms. Warren.

This is a historic piece of legislation. It does what has never been done before. I am talking about H.R. 8291. It will authorize Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery for 3 years and reform the program to help the most marginalized persons. It provides flexible funding, primarily for low- and moderate-income communities recovering from major disasters.

Again, I thank the ranking member and the chairman. I am most appreciative that this bill will contain this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise with much to say, but before going into my message, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Veasey), a colleague who has done an exceptional job representing the 33rd District in the State of Texas. After he has finished, I will then continue with my message.

Recognizing the Life and Legacy of Sylvia Collins

Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate the way Mr. Veasey has conducted this time, and I wish him the very best.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. And I rise, Mr. Speaker, as I always do, unbought, unbossed, unafraid, and now I must also add unelected, a liberated Democrat, truly liberated, liberated to the extent that while I have been censured, I have not been silenced.

While I have now been unelected, I will not be silent. My agenda remains the same. It is still the agenda that deals with the voices of those that are not heard in this House as they should be, the voices of the least, the last, and the lost--the least among us, persons who don't inherit a legacy of much, but actually a legacy of poverty, not plenty; persons who are among the lost in a society as rich as ours where persons find themselves lost in places of despair, living in places that you and I would not consider a place habitable. The least, the lost, and, of course, the last. The last would be those persons who are the last to be hired and the first to be fired--the least, the last, and the lost.

But I also represent other people, and I will continue to do so. I represent those persons who suffer invidious discrimination. They are among the LGBTQIA+ community. They are women. They are persons who are of the Islamic faith. They are persons who are currently suffering from anti-Semitism. They are persons who are suffering because of the color of their skin.

Today, I rise to speak on the topic of invidious discrimination emanating from the Presidency. I call to the attention of the listening audience and viewing audience an article from the Huffington Post, the HuffPost. This article is titled: ``Trump Used His Go-To Insult In Interview After Knicks Loss''--that would not be the last game, of course, the game prior to this one--``And Experts Say It's A Pattern.'' We are talking about his go-to insult, and I must commend Ms. Katie Mather for the outstanding job she has done with this article. It has the date June 9, 2026, as its date of publication.

I would like to read some excerpts from this because I think it would give us an opportunity to understand how the Trump Presidency has not only impacted what he does but also some other aspects of society. So this is truly invidious discrimination emanating from the Presidency.

Let me read some excerpts. The first reads: ``'First Take' host Stephen A. Smith slammed President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning after Trump told reporters on Monday night that Smith wouldn't be a good fit to run for President because `you need a high IQ.' ''

My dear friends, if I may say brothers and sisters because I truly believe that there is but one race, and that is the human race, so if I may just say, my dear brothers and sisters. Friends, you may call Stephen A. Smith many things. I probably would not agree with anything that is negative. I don't know a negative side of him. I know that he is opinionated, but that is not unusual in the United States of America to have people who are opinionated. It is especially not unusual here in the House of Representatives.

So you might call him many things, but I don't believe that you can call him a person in need of a high IQ, implying that he has a low IQ, and it goes on to say this in this article.

Stephen A. Smith is brilliant, and I say this without question, reservation, or hesitation. He is one of the most brilliant people who I have seen in the sports arena, but he goes beyond sports. He talks on a multiplicity of subjects all the time, and he equips himself well on every topic that I have heard him speak on. Now, you don't have to agree with a person to understand the brilliance of the person. He has a brilliant mind, and I do believe that the President made this comment for dubious reasons.

So let me continue reading from excerpts in the article:

``Trump's `low IQ' comment against Smith has racist implications . . . '' This is what the article says: `` . . . racist implications and is referred to as a `racial dog whistle' by linguists and political experts, said Dr. Karrin Anderson, a communications studies professor at Colorado State University.''

This professor is making the point that when the President says these things about persons with low IQs, he is actually signaling to others. It is a racist dog whistle.

The article goes on to say: `` `What distinguishes a dog whistle from just an insult is it is designed to sound innocuous . . .' '' the dog whistle is designed to sound as though, oh, it is harmless, just another thing someone is saying to be funny or cute. Well, not this dog whistle.

The article goes on to say: `` `. . . Anderson, who teaches courses in rhetoric, political communication, and gender and communication, told HuffPost: `It is meant to be deniable. The virtue, the rhetorical appeal of a dog whistle, is you can deny that it functions in the way that it is actually designed to function.' ''

So this dog whistle is designed to appear to be innocuous and harmless, but its functionality is rooted in something else.

He goes on to say: ``It's a term that white supremacists have historically used against people of color, and it's not the first time the President has publicly used it. Last month, he called House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries a `thug' and a `low IQ' person on Truth Social.''

This is where he speaks much of what he says to the public.

But this term ``thug,'' let me focus on it for just a moment. Hakeem Jeffries, he calls a thug. That is demeaning. He does this to demean people of color, but then he adds the injury to this insult of low IQ. You can accuse Hakeem Jeffries of many things, but you cannot, in any way, produce the empirical evidence to show that he is a person with a low IQ. He is a brilliant man, a brilliant person who has the appeal that most people understand to be that of a person with great intellect.

So when the President calls him a thug and a low-IQ person on Truth Social, and he did this in April, this was a means by which he could demean and insult and use the term that those who live in the world of white supremacy embrace. This is something that they readily embrace, and they understand the dog whistle. They understand what the President really means when he says ``thug'' and ``low IQ.''

Let me go on.

``In April, he called Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson the `new low-IQ person on the Court.' ''

The `new low-IQ person on the Court.'

``During the 2024 Presidential election, Trump repeatedly described former Vice President Kamala Harris as a `low-IQ individual.' ''

Note what all of these people have in common: color. African Americans, persons who have reached great heights in terms of their professions, persons who are making a difference in a very positive way in our country. But the President would demean them by challenging their intellect and, in so doing, appeal to white supremacists who still believe that people of color have low intellect.

Reading on:

`` `He applies it . . .' '' meaning his low IQ comment, `` `. . . indiscriminately to Black people in different walks of life and professions.' '' This is what Anderson said.

`` `That's where it reveals that it is a racist dog whistle because it doesn't relate to anything else.' ''

It goes on to say: ``Experts say the `low IQ' insult has a storied past.

``There is a long history in the U.S. of this `low IQ' dog whistle.'' This is Anderson speaking again.

It goes on to say: `` `During the colonial era, White male elites took for granted that they were cognitively superior to women and people of color, and thus, divinely appointed for leadership.' ''

Well, that explains a lot of the sexism that we have seen. That explains a lot of what we have seen when persons decide that they are simply going to reduce you to something less than human by assigning you to the primate family and calling you an ape or saying that you are related to the apes or somehow you are an ape, reducing people of color to animals that are not as superior life forms as some others.

These animals are not persons. They exist, and we want them to exist, but we don't want people to compare human beings to these animals, and the President does this. He has compared a former President and First Lady to apes. We don't like to talk about this, I have found, but there are many people who would rather just see this kind of go away and let's let that just be something that he has done.

Well, the President never apologized for it after saying that. Someone else actually posted it, but he never apologized. By the way, I don't ask him to apologize. I ask him to just tell the truth: That this was wrong, that it should not have been posted, and that he would not allow this to happen again. That would be more suitable for the means by which he can atone for his transgression, but he hasn't done any of that. He tends to double down.

Well, this article goes on to remind us: `` 'IQ was used to justify heinous behavior like racial segregation and forced sterilizations.' '' Now, this is something that another social scientist, Figueroa, has called to our attention in this article.

Forced sterilization because of IQ actually happened in the United States of America. We have much to atone for. As we approach this great anniversary, we would have people believe that all is well.

All is not well. All won't be well until some of our transgressions have been properly addressed.

This notion that you should sterilize a woman because you believe that she has a low IQ is more than simply a crime that is statutorily illegal. It is really a crime against humanity to engage in this kind of conduct. It actually happened.

After we ended the enslavement of African Americans in this country, Africans from America, living in America, who were, at the time, and much of the time not declared citizens--so let's just say Africans in America.

After slavery was ended, the enslavement of people after some 240 years, the people who had a hand in building this very facility, the Capitol, the White House, the ones who built roads and bridges, the people who planted seeds and harvested crops, they were the economic foundational mothers and fathers of the country.

After we ended the enslavement of these persons, then we embarked upon convict leasing, which is another form of racism. Slavery itself was rooted in racism. This whole notion of convict leasing allowed people who violated some code to be placed in the hands of other persons, to be leased out from the government or some arm of the government. Many of them died as leased persons, those convicts who had been leased.

There is a grave near Houston, Texas, with 95 bodies in it, persons who were convicts and leased, all in a common grave.

This kind of behavior was justified based upon IQ. They were less than human. They were akin to the lower forms of animals that we would call primates. As such, you can do almost anything to them that you would like, and people did.

This forced sterilization and this segregation was a form of invidious discrimination and was rooted in racism.

Many of us alive today in this country experienced lawful racism in the form of segregation. Many of us went to back doors, drank from colored water fountains, sat in the back of the bus, and were locked up in the bottom of the jail. Many of us suffered this form of invidious discrimination, known as segregation, which is rooted in racism.

We the people decided that we would no longer have this form of invidious discrimination exist lawfully. We ended it lawfully. We didn't end it as it relates to the practice. Invidious discrimination against people of color still exists to this day in this country.

People who would say that it doesn't exist, and say that repeatedly, those who are in high places, those comments are based in racism. If you are saying repeatedly that people of color are not discriminated against in this country, and you are repeatedly saying it in public spaces, you, my friend, are a racist. You are. Nobody bothered to tell you before now. I know you didn't get the word.

I am here to tell you that people who do this, to demean other people, to say that they are less than, that is racist rhetoric. Persons who do this regularly, with intentionality, you are a racist.

As I indicated, IQ was used to justify heinous behavior, like racial segregation and forced sterilization. ``That thinking,'' it reads here, ``was amplified in the late 1900s by a popular book

titled `The Bell Curve,' which falsely claimed that IQ differences between racial groups were biological.

``Phrenology, another form of race science that claimed skull shapes determined intelligence, has also been completely discredited by the scientific community because of how often it was used to uphold scientific racism and gender stereotypes throughout the U.S. and Europe.''

Friends, people of color and women have suffered greatly in this country under the color of law, under the guise of science that was rooted in racism.

We have to change this. This cannot continue in this country. Until we change this, we cannot truly say that all persons are treated equally. Although they are created equally, they are not treated equally. We cannot say that liberty and justice for all exists when we address ourselves and the Pledge of Allegiance. It just doesn't happen. It is not the case. There is not liberty and justice for all in the United States of America.

Let us continue. It reads: ``Roughly 8 in 10 of Trump's `low IQ' attacks target Black and Brown people, data shows.''

We are talking about empirical evidence.

``Trump has been using this dog whistle frequently. Between January 20, 2025, and April 25, 2026, Trump posted `low IQ,' or a variation of the phrase, 24 times.''

Let me stop for just a moment and deal with the variation of the phrase. There are some people who don't say low IQ. They will say stupid. They will say: Oh, Black people are stupid, or they will say a particular Black person is stupid. In so doing, they will say: Now, I really mean this in the sense of the way the word stupid is defined. They use stupidity. They use this in the sense of referring to the person's intellect. Again, it is another means by which persons are using dog whistles to demean people of color.

This dog whistle that the President uses has permeated what I call racist radio. Yes, racist radio exists. Not all radio is racist, but there is a large segment, a subset of radio, that is racist.

They are on the air daily, utilizing terms such as stupidity, depicting people of color as less than human beings. They have done it to the extent that they have normalized it within the circle that they reside in. They have normalized it. People just come to accept it.

Well, I don't. I refuse to accept what racist radio does routinely.

The President, who is at the top of this chain of unscrupulous behavior, shapes the tone and tenor for all of these things that happen beneath him. Much of what we are seeing today is being perpetrated and perpetuated because the President does it. Why can't others do it? People see it this way.

We have this racist radio that is constantly perpetrating and perpetuating racist dog whistles in the form of IQ, in the form of depicting persons as less than human, who are persons of color, and in the form of using language other than low IQ, such as stupid. Stupidity has become another dog whistle for racist radio.

They know that I speak truth. They rarely have the truth spoken such that they are exposed. Those of you who are listening to it and enjoying it, you are enjoying racism. As long as you continue to enjoy it and support it, buy the products being advertised on those stations, you are supporting racism.

Racism exists in the public arena because, in many instances, people are buying the products that the racists purvey. The racists sell the products on their radio stations. They advertise the products. You buy them from those stations, and as a result you are supporting racism. I refuse to do it.

Racism is something that we have to combat along with sexism, anti- Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, all of the various invidious phobias.

Let me repeat this. It bears repeating. ``Roughly 8 in 10 of Trump's `low IQ' attacks target Black or Brown people, data shows.'' It goes on to say: ``Trump has been using this dog whistle frequently. Between January 20, 2025, and April 25, 2026, Trump posted ``low IQ,'' or a variation of the phrase, 24 times, according to a study by Truthout, a nonprofit news organization. Eight out of every 10 posts were directed at Black or Brown people. In the first 10 months of his second term, Trump did not refer to any White person as someone with `low IQ.' ''

I am going to repeat that. ``In the first 10 months of his second term, Trump did not refer to any White person as someone with `low IQ.' ''

These are the kinds of things people don't want to hear, but you have to know the truth so that you can free your minds. I read someplace that if you know the truth, it will set you free. I want to free your minds. This will free you, some of you. Some of you choose not to be free, and there is nothing that will be said to free your minds because you choose not to be free.

There is no one so blind as he who chooses not to see. Not as he who cannot see, but he who chooses not to see. There are many people who choose not to see.

No White person referred to with ``low IQ.''

The article goes on to indicate: ``It is designed to signal to a specific audience that a speaker shares their ideology or belief systems.'' That is what these dog whistles are designed to do, to say to other people, hey, don't worry, I have got your back, I believe, just as you believe, that they have low IQs, so it is okay for you to say it on racist radio now. It is all right. You can call persons stupid. You can say low IQ. You can do it with impunity because the President is doing it.

Well, it is not all right, and you are not going to do it with impunity because you are going to be exposed.

This goes on to indicate that: ``[Trump] uses it to refer to Black people and, predominantly but not exclusively, Black women.'' ``Predominantly, but not exclusively, Black women.''

I stand in defense of Black women. I stand in defense of the Black women that he has called persons with low IQs. I defend Maxine Waters. I defend Vice President Kamala Harris. I defend Jasmine Crockett. I defend the women that this President would demean with a racist comment, and that is what it is. It is racist. Racist commentary constantly repeated over the airwaves.

It goes on to say: ``I think, in his mind''--this is a person speaking now of the President--``I think in his mind, because it doesn't explicitly refer to race, he feels that it is easy to deny that it's a racist label.''

My friends, he can deny it, but there are some of us who see through it. I am here to tell you that it is racist, and it is a racist label.

This article concludes with this language: ``By repeating the phrase openly''--as is done on racist radio quite regularly. Remember, we are talking today about invidious discrimination emanating from the Presidency, and I chose this topic, emanating from the Presidency, because I wanted to talk about how it has permeated society. It starts there at the top with this President, and it permeates society.

Now, the argument can be made that it was here, and it was, before this President took office, but he has popularized it. He has normalized it. He has made it such that people in racist radio use it regularly and feel as though they are doing something noble by demeaning people of color and women and others as well, members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

He says: ``I think in his mind, because he doesn't explicitly refer to race, he feels that it's easy to deny that it is a racist label.''

The final comment: ``By repeating the phrase openly, the practice further popularizes the concept.'' By repeating it, he popularizes the racist comment.

As another person who spoke--Harris--once put it, ``Trump's language seems to have become less a dog whistle and more a bullhorn.'' ``Less a dog whistle, more a bullhorn.''

So, friends, here we are. We have a President of the United States of America who routinely uses racist commentary to refer to people of color. Routinely. He does it without a thought as to how it impacts the lives of the people he refers to, the persons that he is calling low IQ. He doesn't really understand--maybe he does understand and doesn't care, but he should consider how it impacts the lives of people, how it signals to other people that the persons are less than, and how it can cause some people to respond to them in a very adverse way.

However, we have to say to the President--and I do so today--Mr. President, if you are using this kind of commentary, as you do, and you continue

to do it routinely, someone has to tell you what you are doing.

Here is what you are doing, Mr. President: You are bringing the country itself, the country itself to a level of concern for others such that we are not seen as we were once seen--as we were once seen as a country with the Statue of Liberty, the notion that there is liberty and justice for all in our Pledge of Allegiance, the notion that we truly respect all people, and that all persons are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You are causing people across the globe to see us differently. You are causing people across the globe to understand that the United States is undergoing something that they never thought they would see and, quite frankly, I am amazed myself.

Therefore, Mr. President, there is only one thing I can say to you: When you do this, you are not only using a racist dog whistle, you are a racist. That kind of terminology utilized the way you do it regularly makes you the racist who has now given other racists the license to say what they say openly and notoriously, normalizing racism.

As we approach the 250th anniversary, Mr. President, you should be ashamed. However, there is no shame in you. You have already demonstrated this with your behavior over the many years that you have had a public voice.

You have already demonstrated there is no shame in you, so because you have no shame in you, Mr. President, I would call to your attention that while I am unbought, unbossed, unafraid, and unelected, censured but not silenced, Mr. President, there is still a countdown to impeachment. Mr. President, it is just a matter of time. Your day of reckoning will come.

Someone is going to stand in the well of this House of Representatives and is going to introduce Articles of Impeachment against you. These articles are going to pass in this House of Representatives, but before that person does it, however, I believe that there will be someone who will introduce articles to lay the foundation for the actual articles that will later on pass the House of Representatives.

There is always someone who lays the foundation for things. A foundation was made at the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A foundation was laid to eliminate invidious discrimination in bussing on bus lines when Rosa Parks took a seat and ignited the sparked that started the civil rights movement.

Someone is going to lay the foundation.

Mr. President, you should know you will be impeached again. You will be three times impeached.

Mr. Speaker, with that said, I, Al Green, a proud, unbought, unbossed, unafraid, unelected, and truly liberated Democrat, yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my very dear friend from Virginia for allowing me the time. I shall return some of it to the gentleman.

First, an acknowledgment: I am a dues check-off member of AFSCME. I am proud to have been a member of this union for more than 20 years, and I rise to say that I support the legislation.

More importantly, I rise to say that we should not engage in insidious prevarications to solicit the support of

legislation. It is not true, and I defend all the unions, especially SEIU and AFSCME. It is not true that any of those unions support Hamas. That is below the belt. There is no empirical evidence to indicate that any of the unions support Hamas. When I heard that, it really touched a nerve.

We can debate these issues without the prevarications that can become incitive.

This is about whether we should have collective bargaining, that it should be fair, and that the industry and labor should compromise and work together. I can support compromise, but I cannot support language indicating that labor unions are supporting Hamas. It is not true.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a proud, unbought, unbossed, liberated Democrat. I rise today, Mr. Speaker, with a heavy heart. I rise as an ally of the LGBTQIA+ community.

I rise today to say just a few words about a member of that community who has gone on to glory. I rise to recognize the greatness and the brilliance of the honorable Barney Frank, the first person as a Member of Congress to voluntarily announce that he was a gay person.

I rise to honor him and his brilliance because I had the preeminent experience of sitting right in front of him for a good deal of time on the House Financial Services Committee.

The Honorable Barney Frank was brilliant in the sense that he knew the subject matter. Not only did he know the subject matter, but he could present it with a great degree of eloquence and a certain amount of humor.

He did it with style, and he did it without any notes. He never came to a hearing with notes. He could talk about the derivatives. He could talk about credit default swaps. He could talk about the 3/27s and 2/ 28s, all without a single note. I never saw him bring notes to one single hearing.

He was brilliant, one of the great minds of our time, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to salute him because he not only helped to shape the destiny of this country with Dodd-Frank, but also because he helped to shape the destiny of my path in Congress. He was a great mentor. He was someone who was well respected and that all the members of the committee, regardless of party affiliation, looked up to. He truly had something special--I believe the French call it je ne sais quoi--just something very unique, something that you just don't see in people, generally speaking. I am proud to call him a friend.

I am proud to say that as a friend of the community, I, Al Green, an ally of the LGBTQIA+ community, present the Pride resolution annually in the Congress of the United States of America.

In so doing, I have made the Honorable Barney Frank an honorary sponsor of that resolution. I will continue to do so in H. Res. 550. He was an honorary cosponsor, and I shall continue in his absence to do so.

Dear brother, Barney Frank, you have made a difference, and that difference is known to many; unfortunately, unknown to many others.

Today, I rise to salute you and pay you the respect that you have earned as a great and noble American.

God bless you, dear brother. Rest in eternal peace.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a very proud, unbought, unbossed, liberated Democrat, a Democrat who has been censured in this very House, censured but not silenced.

I am proud to say, Mr. Speaker, that I recognize and respect freedom of speech in this country. It is at the very foundation of our freedoms, the ability to express one's opinions. The Constitution protects freedom of speech, but it does not say that some speech, which can be hateful speech, is speech that cannot be condemned.

Tonight, Mr. Speaker, I rise in this the 119th Congress, First Session, to present H. Res. 1313, Mr. Speaker. I shall read what it says, and I take no delight in reading this resolution because it does deal with free speech, but it also deals with consequences, and I well know consequences.

Remember, unbought, unbossed, censured, but not silenced. As an unbought, unbossed, censured, but not silenced Member of this Congress, I have filed H. Res. 1313, and it reads as follows:

``Condemning the hateful comments of Texas congressional candidate Maureen Galindo.

``In the House of Representatives: Mr. Green of Texas submitted the following resolution:

``Resolution. Condemning the hateful comments of Texas congressional candidate Maureen Galindo.

``Section 1. Short Title. This resolution may be cited as the `Original Resolution Condemning the Hateful Comments of Texas Congressional Candidate Maureen Galindo.'

``Section 2. Findings. The House of Representatives finds the following:

``Whereas on May 13, 2026, referring to herself, Texas congressional candidate Maureen Galindo posted on Instagram, `When Maureen gets into Congress, she'll write legislation so that all Zionism is undoubtedly Anti-Semitic, since it's Zionists harming the Semites.''

She goes on to say in these quoted words: ``She'll turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking. (It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists).'''

I find this to be unacceptable and abhorrent and condemnable.

This resolution continues:

``Whereas Ms. Galindo's comments advocate the imprisonment of Americans based on their ideologies and associations and endorse the use of detention facilities as institutions for political punishment.

``Whereas throughout history, some governments have used detention camps and prisons to persecute individuals because of their race, religion, ethnicity, political beliefs, or perceived affiliations.

``Whereas during World War II, Nazi Germany established concentration camps that imprisoned and murdered millions of people, including six million Jews, who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust.

``Whereas among the lessons of the Holocaust is the demonstration of the dangerous consequences of targeting individuals or groups for detention based on identity, beliefs, or associations.

``Whereas calls for the imprisonment of persons possibly associated with Jewish identity evoke some of the darkest chapters in human history and are deeply offensive to Holocaust survivors, their descendants, and the families of those who suffered religious persecution.

``Whereas the First Amendment to the Constitution protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association for all people in the United States; it does not, however, protect persons from the condemnation of their hate speech.''

Some things bear repeating: ``It does not, however, protect persons from the condemnation of their hate speech.''

``Whereas, calls to imprison and castrate Americans because of their ideologies or affiliations are contrary to the idealized principles of liberty and justice enshrined in the Constitution, now therefore be it Resolved that the House of Representatives--(1) Condemns the hateful comments of Texas congressional candidate Maureen Galindo, advocating the imprisonment and castration of Americans based on their ideologies or associations.''

Mr. Speaker, we cannot allow this type of behavior, this type of speech to become normalized. If we do, we will find ourselves with more than just any one group or any two groups. All persons may become subject to the message contained within this hateful speech.

Mr. Speaker, we have to stop it now before we arrive at a point in our history where we cannot. We must end it or it may be our end.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise.

And still I rise, unbought, unbossed, unafraid: a liberated Democrat.

I rise as an unbought, liberated, and unafraid Democrat. I am unbought by crypto cash, unbought by the millions of dollars that the crypto industry spends to elect people to Congress so that they can have influence over legislation, and unbossed by the

cryptocrats, the people who are among the greediest when it comes to controlling money and who desire to not only avoid taxes but to evade taxes.

I am unbossed, unbought, and unafraid; unafraid to speak truth to the powerful crypto industry and unafraid to speak truth about the powerful crypto industry.

Mr. Speaker, you can speak truth to power by simply saying: Power, there is a problem. Let's solve it.

I speak truth about power because I say to power: There is a problem, and you are it.

Today, as a censored but not silenced--censored but not silenced-- Member of Congress, I will today speak truth not only to power but also speak truth about power. As I do so, and I will use my pointer as I customarily do, my cane. By the way, this cane is not to help me ambulate. I am quite ambulatory. This cane is a rod and a staff that comforts me in the presence of my enemies when I don't have the protection that Congress is providing us, and I don't always have it.

Today, as I speak truth unbought, unbossed, unafraid, and censored but not silenced, I want to call several things to your attention, Mr. Speaker, under the topic of the dangers of unregulated cryptocurrency. There are dangers associated with cryptocurrency when it is not properly regulated.

Let's start with the memecoins.

Mr. Speaker, if you own a memecoin, you own nothing. You have bought nothing. You have paid for nothing, and at some point, some of the owners of memecoins will get exactly what they paid for: nothing.

A memecoin is a fiction that requires the person who buys initially at some point to hope that there is another person who will buy at a higher price and that the money between the price paid for and the price you can sell for, the higher price, becomes your profit.

In the parlance of those who do much of this at a street level, that is called the greater fool theory: buying in and believing that there is a greater fool who will come along and cover your possible losses.

If you own a memecoin, Mr. Speaker, you own nothing.

The President is one of the great purveyors of memecoins. The President has a coin, the $TRUMP Coin, and this coin he can pump up, and he can dump and leave those who are part of the higher price holding the bag.

The President pumps and dumps. This is a scam.

I am speaking truth about power, not just to power.

Yes, Mr. President, you are the problem. You have taken advantage of many people with your scam wherein you can make comments and tell people to come down to Mar-a-Lago, come on down, and those who have the greatest investment, you will be allowed. Those who are buying in at a cheaper level won't be allowed.

Therefore, people can go out and buy so that they can be among those who will come to Mar-a-Lago and as a result, he pumps up the value of his memecoin, which is nothing. He pumps up the value of nothing, and then at some point he can sell at this higher price and make an amount of money.

This is really insider trading that is transparent. I don't think the President ought to be able to own memecoins. I don't think the Cabinet should own memecoins. I don't think Members of Congress should own memecoins.

I think that Members of Congress, the President, and the Cabinet have advantages that other people don't have. We talk to each other. The President can tell people when to buy and when to sell because he is going to pump and then dump or allow you to dump.

I believe the law ought to regulate such that memecoins cannot be owned and sold by Members of Congress, members of the Cabinet, the President, and possibly some others that I shall not name at this point.

I believe that we have to properly regulate the memecoin. That is why the cryptocrats want to get me out of Congress because they know I fight them. I stand in the way of what they attempt to do to people who are not knowledgeable about how this can be pumped and dumped and how people can be taken advantage of.

I am in the way, yes. Come and get me. I understand it. Come and get me. As long as I am here, I am going to stay in the way. I want to protect the American people from this kind of insider trading, this kind of selling of nothing, and being taken advantage of by those who happen to buy nothing and assume that they can sell it for something.

Yes, the memecoin is a problem. Those who sell it and create it are a part of the problem when it is not properly regulated.

Mr. Speaker, I want to call to your attention the decentralization of cryptocurrency. The cryptocrats want to decentralize cryptocurrency so that they can have peer-to-peer transference of dollars, huge sums of dollars, untold amounts of dollars, peer-to-peer transfers.

Why is this so important to them? If you can transfer peer-to-peer, you can engage in tax evasion--more than tax avoidance. Tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is illegal. You can transfer huge sums of money from one person to another without some central entity that can be there to make sure that it is properly regulated. That is what the cryptocrats want. They want to be able to just transfer money. That way, you can avoid taxes.

You can also do something else when you have this peer-to-peer transference. You can also transfer that money at a speed that is unbelievably fast. You can transfer it to a terrorist organization. It can be received by those who would do us harm, those who would disrupt our society, and those who would disrupt the democracy that we cherish.

Yes, the cryptocrats are in the business of buying and selling. They are also in the business of contributing to those who would agree with what I am antithetical to. Those who would agree with what I am antithetical to would allow them to have peer-to-peer transfers and allow them to have memecoins that are meaningless, nothing but a thought, a fiction.

I am speaking truth about power, not just to it. Yes, decentralization without regulation is a problem.

Of course, the cryptocrats, whether wittingly or unwittingly, are moving in the direction of creating something akin to the demise of the almighty dollar. Cryptocrats would, if they could, have cryptocurrency become the preeminent currency.

There is a war for currency supremacy going on across the globe. The dollar is the supreme currency across the globe. It is the reserve currency of choice across the globe. The cryptocrats would have the cryptocurrency become the currency of choice. Use the cryptocurrency. Use it, and you don't have to have it go through some centralized location. Just transfer your money like you please.

In fact, if they had their way, cryptocurrency would be tantamount to banks. They would have unregulated banks. The sad thing about what I have just said is that the banks don't know who their friends are. They don't understand, it seems, that there are some of us who are fighting this. They don't seem to understand that.

Well, I can tell you this: I am going to protect the American banking system, whether the banks will join in and help or not. I am going to protect the American banking system because, in so doing, I am protecting the American dollar, and in so doing, I am helping to protect American democracy to a certain extent.

If the banking system fails, people lose trust. They lose trust in the economy. That impacts the democracy in the sense that we allow people to be placed into office who would facilitate this decentralized transfer of money.

I am opposed to it. I am going to protect the banks in this country, a system that has functioned. It has allowed the dollar to be the supreme currency of choice globally. We have to protect the American dollar. I am going to do that.

The cryptocrats, if they had their way, would own every Member of Congress, but there are some who resist. I am a part of the resistance. As a matter of fact, I may be at the tip of the spear of the resistance, a part of the avant-garde. I am the resistance, to a certain extent. There are others, but I assure you that I am going to remain the architect of some portion of this resistance as long as I am in Congress.

Therein is the operative phrase for the cryptocrats: He said as long as he is in Congress. Well, if we just get him out of Congress, we don't have him to contend with.

Well, you can do that, but there are others who will follow. There are. There are others who are already in the fight. They are. They are there. I can assure you of this: I am going to fight you to the bitter end. Until my last days, I will fight what I see as a demise of the dollar, a peer-to-peer transference of money such that you can avoid taxes, and the creation of nothing and selling it as something.

This is the epitome of ridiculosity, to allow such things to occur and not challenge them.

I assure all who listen that I am going to protect your wallet. There are people who say they want to put more money in your wallet? Well, I am going to protect your wallet and make sure that you can get money in your wallet and not allow people to cleverly disguise themselves as persons who want to regulate when, in fact, they just want to pass something under the guise of regulation so that the cryptocrats can continue to move in the direction of dominance with the cryptocurrency, the crypto dollars, as it were.

This is not something that we should take lightly, and I do not. I want to assure you that I am censured but not silenced.

I also want to assure you of something else: The countdown to impeachment continues. What the President has done as it relates to wars, as it relates to pumping and dumping, which I have explained earlier, and as it relates to his disrespect for the Constitution of the United States of America, he has done things that are clearly impeachable.

It is just a matter of time, Mr. President. Your day will come. Someone is going to stand in the well of the House of Representatives and read Articles of Impeachment to remove you from office. It would be the thing that this country should do so as to prevent another cryptocrat, such as yourself--yes, the President is a cryptocrat--to prevent another cryptocrat such as yourself from assuming power. We have to protect American democracy from the cryptocrats.

We have already had a former Vice President say that this President is a great threat to the Republic. I think he said the greatest threat to the Republic. President Donald John Trump: a threat to the Republic and a threat to democracy.

Cryptocracy is his main concern, it seems, because it is a family business that he has brought to the White House, and they are using this family business to make billions of dollars at the expense of unsuspecting Americans and people of other stripes, as well.

I am censured, not silenced, and I am engaging in a countdown to impeachment. I know that there are people who want to know when. It will happen when it happens, and I assure you it is going to happen.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the time. I am proud to say that I am Al Green, the OG Al Green, unbought, unbossed, unafraid, uncontrolled by the cryptocrats.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 41 minutes a.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Tuesday, May 19, 2026, at noon for morning-hour debate.

And still I rise, Mr. Speaker. I must applaud the gentlewoman from California and associate myself with her remarks.

As I do so, I will remind us that, yes, the Voting Rights Act was signed by Lyndon Johnson. He did sign it in ink; but the truth be told, it was written in blood. It was written in the blood of those who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, the blood of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney. It was signed in ink but written in blood.

This is bigger than that. Yes, this is of paramount importance. It is also about something else that is taking place at the very same time that we are losing our voting rights and many of our Members of Congress. That other thing is seniority. Seniority is under assault in the Congress of the United States of America. It was the Congressional Black Caucus that fought to maintain seniority. If we lose seniority on our watch after the suffering that they went through and all that they did to protect it, what can we say about ourselves?

Seniority, the means by which many of the people who hold committee chairmanships right now who are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, they had those chairpersonships because of seniority.

Seniority has made a difference because seniority has the power. This is a power grab in the sense that it is a power grab to take seats away, but it is also a power grab to take seniority away. When seniority is no longer the means by which we have upward mobility--some things bear repeating. When

seniority is no longer the means by which we will have upward mobility, money will rule, and we will lose. We will lose.

Maxine Waters became chair, the only woman ever of any hue to chair the Committee on Financial Services, because of seniority. Bennie Thompson was the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security because of seniority, and the list goes on and on.

My closing words are these: I want my record to show that when seniority was at risk, I did everything that I could to protect it. I am going to fight to protect the seniority system because that is the system that allows us to deliver more goods and services to our communities.

Yes, there are exceptions, Barbara Jordan being one; but exceptions don't make the rule, they prove the rule. Seniority must stand, and I stand with seniority.

And still I rise, Mr. Speaker, in defense of the American people who are suffering as a result of more than a trillion dollars in healthcare cuts.

I rise to defend them because my colleagues across the aisle would reduce them to freeloaders, would reduce them to persons who don't deserve to be in the country and receive medical care.

I rise to call to your attention Mr. Bonner, an American citizen who worked for NASA. Mr. Bonner was in line for a double lung transplant. His premiums went up to the point that he could not afford the premium that would allow him to get the double lung transplant. We had to go out on the internet to secure funds for an American citizen who was in line for a double lung transplant who couldn't get it because of the premiums that went up in January.

You would reduce these persons, the Bonners of the world, to freeloaders. They are not freeloaders. These are American citizens who are suffering because of the way you are treating healthcare.

I rise in support of the American citizens who don't have money in the stock market and who are not playing the stock market. They have the supermarket as their means of determining how successful they are. When they go there, they cannot afford the necessities of life. They are having to choose gas over food.

I rise in defense of the American people that you reduce to freeloaders and persons who don't care enough about this country to want to support it and make sure that all persons have access to healthcare. I rise to defend the American people.

Mr. Speaker, once again I rise. Once again I rise to address we the people. Once again I rise to address we the people. Those who believe in a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Those who believe that all persons are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We the people believe in liberty and justice for all. We the people believe in something as simple and as basic as fair play, as respect, being respectful, showing the proper courtesies, showing the country that we understand that if the country is to have harmony within, we the people have to respect each other within. We the people. I rise in the name of we the people.

Today, as I rise in the name of we the people, I would remind us that I am the Al Green who is not only unbought, not only unbossed, not only unafraid, not only liberated, but also censured. I was censured but not silenced; censured but not silenced.

My censure took place because in this very Chamber I, at a joint session of Congress, reminded the President that he did not have a mandate, a mandate to cut Medicaid, to cut Medicare, and Social Security. Many members of the press will print that I said he didn't have a mandate. They are being inaccurate, and they are misleading. I think it is done with intentionality because they would want it said that I said he didn't have a mandate, and then there would be a big debate about it. I said he didn't have a mandate to cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, and I still stand on this. And the President went on to impose one of the biggest cuts on healthcare ever seen, and we are still suffering from this today.

I rise in the name of we the people understanding the consequences of the cuts that were made. I have had an experience with one of my constituents, a constituent who needed a double lung transplant, a constituent who saw his premiums go up exponentially to the extent that he could not afford to pay for that premium that would allow him to have the double lung transplant.

I rise on his behalf. His story is a story that needs to be heard and needs to be told. That story is an important story--double lung transplant. I rise on his behalf to show the injustice in what occurred when I took my stand and called it to the attention of the country, the injustice that occurred after I called it to the attention of the country, and the country and the world paid attention and noticed that the injustice took place. We exposed the injustice. It was exposed right here in this House.

I rise today to mention that this man who needed this double lung transplant, we had to help him to make sure he got his premiums paid, and we did. He came to our office for help. We wanted to make sure that he got that double lung transplant. I am proud and honored to say he has received the double lung transplant, and he is doing well in spite of, not because of, this President--in spite of.

This President doesn't respect the right of human beings to have good healthcare. This is a human right. This is a right that all people should have, especially in this the richest country in the world, good healthcare.

The disrespect doesn't end there. It doesn't. This is a President who has portrayed himself as the Pope. The President of the United States of America has the audacity to portray himself as the Pope.

The President published this depiction of himself as the Pope. I have on this poster, I trust that it can be read at the bottom, but for fear that it cannot, I will hold it up: Donald Trump is not the Pope.

We know this, and he should not depict himself as such, as the Pope. I don't know why it would surprise us, to be quite candid with you, Mr. Speaker, that he would do this after the way he has disrespected the Latino community. He disrespected the Latino community by defining persons who are here undocumented as illegals in such a way as to cause all persons who are Latino, look like they are Latino, or caught speaking Spanish, all persons, to become suspect. Under ICE, these persons who have been suspect have been treated disrespectfully.

Mr. Speaker, you don't have to treat people in an inhumane way to police them. You don't have to do it, and you surely don't have to kill them. You don't have to kill them while they are kneeling or face down, Mr. Speaker, shot, many times. You don't have to kill them as they are driving past you in an automobile, Mr. Speaker. You don't have to do that.

This is a disrespect for human life that this President is showing. It is a disrespect for human life. I am not sure that it should surprise us to see his disrespect for the Catholic Church and for people who are the followers of Catholicism. It doesn't surprise me that he would do it, but he shouldn't.

This level of disrespect is unbecoming the office and the officer who holds the title of President of the United States of America. It is unbecoming, but he didn't stop there.

He has depicted the Obamas in a very unpleasing, unpleasant, disgraceful, and disdainful way. He has refused to apologize for a video showing the Obamas as apes. I didn't bring the actual picture. I have it.

People are very sensitive, and they don't want to see that. However, we have to talk about that because this is disrespect for people of color. Regardless as to who you are, it is disrespectful. It is disrespectful of people of color. This is the same level of disrespect and indecency that was utilized to enslave people in this country, the United States of America.

Good Christians, many of them, not all, but a good many of them justified the enslavement of human beings because in their theology, the human beings were closer to apes than they were to the Homo sapiens, the human beings that you and I happen to be a part of, that class of human beings. This President went out of his way, it seems, to do this and to disrespect the Obamas.

He didn't stop there. This President has the audacity and the unmitigated gall to do something that is absolutely inane and insane. He has portrayed himself as Jesus Christ. He has depicted himself as Jesus Christ. You will see on this poster, Mr. Speaker, that I have noted: Donald Trump is not Jesus.

Now, he can make specious statements and questionable statements after he has done this and try to convince some people: Oh, no, I was just pretending to be a physician. I was trying to show myself as a physician.

Well, most physicians that I know don't have all of this taking place as they are standing over a patient. They don't have what looks like an eagle flying, planes flying through the air, and the Statue of Liberty. They don't have persons looking in awe as the physician lays a hand on a patient. They don't have what appears to be a person or an image of someone that is humanlike, perhaps an angel with wings, above.

Mr. President, people are not so low of IQ, as you would say, as to believe that you are not representing yourself as Jesus. You use that term low IQ so you think all of us are low IQ people and all of us would think you are a physician. Mr. President, we are not. People are not. We the People are not, and We the People, Mr. Speaker, find this disgraceful. We find it unacceptable.

We find it shameful, and We the People believe that you should acknowledge that you were wrong. You don't have to apologize. Just say you were wrong to do this, but you won't. You won't. That is because you find yourself to be above all and above the law, and, in this depiction, above humanity.

Mr. President, I want you to know that there will be a record for posterity. There will be a record for posterity. Earlier I talked about legislation that I have already filed. Now, Mr. President, I am going to mention a resolution, legislation that I will file. I will file legislation, Mr. President, so that those who look through the vista of time will know that at least one person, there may be others, I am not

speaking for anybody but myself, so I say at least one person. There may be many others, I don't know.

I do know what I will do. I don't speak for any political party. I speak for myself and everybody who agrees with me, and I believe that We the People have among us many who will agree.

I have this resolution that I will file.

Permit me to read the style of the resolution.

It reads: Resolution condemning President Donald J. Trump-- condemning--resolution condemning President Donald J. Trump for his disgraceful, despicable, and disrespectful social media posts depicting himself as Jesus Christ, diminishing the dignity of the Presidency, and bringing disrepute to the office.

Diminishing the dignity and bringing disrepute to the Office of the Presidency.

It would seem to me, Mr. President, that you knew or should have known that this would be unacceptable. You knew or should have known.

In fact, I have made a few points with that language. Here in the resolution, I have language that says: All who hold public trust, especially those who hold the Nation's highest office, bear a heightened responsibility to uphold respect for the diverse religious beliefs of the American people within our population.

All of us, especially those who hold public trust.

Then I go on to add in the resolution: The President of the United States of America knew or should have known acts by the President of the United States of America that trivialize or exploit any religious symbolism for personal or political purposes are inconsistent with the spirit of mutual respect and dignity that underpin a pluralistic society.

This is beneath the dignity of the Presidency, and the President knew or should have known this.

I go on to say: The President of the United States knew or should have known that respect for religions by the President is essential to maintaining unity and mutual understanding among the people of all faiths and backgrounds in the United States of America.

He knew or should have known.

I am going to move now to what will be one of my last comments. The President of the United States knew or should have known that the Presidency is an office intended to embody the highest standards of respect, integrity, and seriousness. Conduct such as this undermines the essential qualities of dignity and respect and erodes the respect for the office of the Presidency--the respect that the office is intended to command.

The President knew or should have known that he is diminishing the Presidency in the eyes of the world. It is not just a little thing. It is not something of, ``Oh, that is just Donald. He is just misbehaving.''

When we didn't stop him earlier, when he was depicting the Obamas as he did, and we didn't stop him when he depicted himself as the Pope, and we didn't stop him when he disrespected Latinos, he has now devolved into this. This devolution is harmful to the Presidency.

As a result of what he has done to cause harm to the Presidency, I have: It is resolved that the House of Representatives condemns President Donald John Trump for his disgraceful, despicable, and disrespectful Truth Social post depicting himself as Jesus Christ on April 12, 2026, diminishing the dignity of the Presidency and bringing disrepute to the office.

That is one of the things that we have resolved, but there is another one. It is also resolved that Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, should state publicly that his depicting himself as Jesus Christ was disgraceful and offensive--disgraceful and offensive, not just to those who are Catholics but to all persons of all religions.

It doesn't just end with this depiction. This is the genesis of it. There are revelations yet to come as it relates to this. The President knew or should have known that this kind of disrespect is not something that we should tolerate, and I will not. Others may. Let them do what they may. I do what I must.

This is why I will be filing this resolution. I will be filing this resolution to condemn the President for this distasteful, disdainful, and disrespectful behavior.

I could only say to this country: We have to stop him. I don't mean physically, no. There are proper political and legal methodologies by which he can be stopped. He has to be stopped.

He is out of control. This is a supreme, superb example of how far out of control the President of the United States is. He has to be stopped. He has to be stopped.

If we don't stop him, he will do what we all perceive he will do. We the people know that this is what his plan is. His plan is to stay on beyond his term of office. How do you know? Because that was his plan at the end of his first term of office.

He incited the insurrection. He incited the insurrection. He incited the insurrection. He intends to stay on, again, beyond his term of office.

We the people can stop this. We can stop it before he causes harm that is irreparable to our country, the image of the country, and the people within the country.

We can stop it. There is one means that we have available to us that we can employ, and I believe we the people must use it. I tried several times, and I plan to try again. That is to impeach him.

Impeachment is a lawful, political process within the Constitution that allows we the people to remove a President who has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. Yes, we the people can do it.

By the way, I won't get into what high crimes and misdemeanors are today, but I will tell you this: When Andrew Johnson was impeached, in Article X of the Articles of Impeachment against Andrew Johnson, a high crime and misdemeanor--or high misdemeanor as it was called then--was his speaking ill of Congress. For speaking ill of Congress, Andrew Johnson was impeached.

We the people decide what the high crime and misdemeanor is. There is no appeal to any court when the President is impeached. We the people make that determination.

We the people in this House of Representatives have more than enough empirical evidence to conclude that impeachment is necessary. We but only have to have the will to do it. The way is there.

This level of disrespect is indicative of where he is going. We the people can stop him with impeachment. This is indicative of where he thinks he should be. He has no problems with the word ``authoritarian.'' It does not really offend him.

In fact, given that he celebrates and tries to get authoritarians reelected to office--doesn't always succeed. Given that he does this, it appears that he wants to be classed and ranked and styled as an authoritarian. The truth is, that is devolving. He has no problems with that. He is devolving into a dictator in the United States of America.

Someone would say that is impossible, not in this country. It is possible if we don't use the political tool of impeachment. It is entirely possible. He has command of the military. He commands the military in ways that are impeachable, but we have not done so. When I say ``we,'' I really mean we here in the House of Representatives.

We have the empirical evidence. I am not going through the articles that we might levy against him, but I want you to know that the empirical evidence is there. We only but have to have the will. The way is there.

He is devolving our society, our military--his means of managing it-- into a might-makes-right military. Might makes right by whatever means he chooses--by whatever means he chooses--to accomplish the goal that he chooses.

If he chooses to go to war without Congress, go to war. Might makes right. It has been said by the Secretary of what I would like to call Defense but is now the Secretary of War that we negotiate now with bombs. That is how we negotiate, with bombs.

Might makes right, any means he chooses to accomplish a goal, and then, at the end, he says: Look at what I have done. Couldn't have done that if I had followed the Constitution. Well, every time he does this, a little bit of

the Constitution becomes meaningless. At some point, we won't have a Constitution that people will see as meaningful. We won't see it as meaningful. We will see it as meaningless because the President walks on it daily.

Might makes right. Any means he chooses--not necessary, but the means that he chooses.

This is where he is headed, from here to dictatorship. Yes, I am among the first to say it, and I am saying it right here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Remember, unbought, unbossed, unafraid.

I say it here so that when I say it back in my community, I will tell people I have already said that. Yes, he wants to be a dictator right here in this country, the United States of America, and impeachment is a means by which we can stop him.

We must move forward. We must stop him, remove him from office by virtue of a trial in the Senate, remove him from office by his being found guilty in the Senate. We must remove him from office, let him leave in the shame and disgrace that he has earned.

He has earned shame and disgrace, and they know it. My brethren, my friends, my colleagues, brothers and sisters across the aisle and on this side of the aisle know it. He has earned it, and we should bestow it upon him. Let him leave in shame and disgrace, that he richly should be rewarded.

As he does so, let us remind ourselves that we will have done what is expected under the Constitution of the United States of America. There are those who would say, Mr. Speaker, that you shouldn't impeach him because the Senate won't convict him.

Well, he will still be impeached, and that ought to be on his record. There ought to be those among us who are willing to stand and show and say: This is what he merits for his dastardly deeds done that are contrary to the Constitution, that are impeachable by virtue of being high crimes and misdemeanors.

Yes, let's let the record show that he was impeached again. He doesn't want to be impeached, and there are people here who want to impeach him, but they don't want to say so. I understand it. Well, I am saying so, he should be impeached. I assure you that when all is said and done, when the last word is written, after all of this kind of insidious behavior, when the last word is said and the last word is written, we the people will have spoken.

We the people will have the last word. Donald John Trump will be impeached again.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

And still I rise, Mr. Speaker. And I rise tonight to thank the Honorable Jim Clyburn for that fantastic recitation that he accorded us. It was a walk down memory lane.

I also am honored to be in the presence of the Honorable Jonathan Jackson, and I thank him for his presence and the many things that he and his family have contributed to the growth of our Nation.

I would also like to thank Cleo Fields who gave birth to the notion that we should have such an event tonight. All of these persons, and many more, have made this possible.

While I will be terse and laconic, pithy and concise, I will assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I won't say all that I would like to say. I do want to remind people of the thing that caused Reverend Jackson to be set apart from his contemporaries.

Yes, he was a brilliant man, and his ability to speak in sound bites was just remarkable. Yes, he had the ability to organize and mobilize huge numbers of people.

But the thing that really caused him to be someone very special, an exemplar, was the fact that he had courage. It was courage. It took the courage that he learned as he sat with Dr. King and understood the civil rights movement from genesis to revelation. He understood what the movement was all about, and, as such, he understood that the movement had to metamorphose from civil rights to silver rights.

He, quite frankly, was the person who pushed the movement from not just taking care of people who needed housing, who needed a living wage, and people who needed healthcare. All of these issues he still embraced, but he also brought in a new element, and that element to the equation was the silver rights movement.

He knew that we had not been treated fairly when it came to integrating the various places that we would want to rest and dine. He knew that, but he also knew something else, that we had to integrate more than people and more than places.

He knew that we had to integrate the money. That is where the silver rights movement--the silver rights movement had its genesis with him.

I want to say more, Mr. Speaker, but the Honorable Yvette Clarke waits, and I have the good sense to know when to yield to the better person.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Clyburn for according me this opportunity. I don't know what Congress would be without Jim Clyburn. It wouldn't be the same. He is the C in Congress, Clyburn.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, Mr. Speaker, and I rise tonight in the name of the TSA worker that made an appeal. I rise in the name of justice for the TSA workers. This worker said to me as I made my way through the airport, help us. We have families to feed. Help us. Fight for us.

This bill does not help those workers. It is dead on arrival. The bill that can help the workers is the compromised bill that came out of the Senate. This bill is dead. The Senate bill lives, and it will help those workers. They have families to feed. They must put food on the table. This bill doesn't do it. It is the Senate bill. It is the compromised bill. You don't want compromise. You want capitulation. Democrats will not capitulate.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. I rise today, Mr. Speaker, with a very special topic. I rise today, Mr. Speaker, because I am a liberated, unbought, unbossed Democrat.

I not only speak the truth to power; I speak truth about power. You speak truth to power by simply saying: ``Power, there is a problem. Let's solve it.'' It is a great thing to do. When you speak truth about power, you say: ``Power, there is a problem, and you are it.''

Today, I am going to speak truth about power. I am going to do so because I will not allow the power that I am to speak about to intimidate me. I insist on having the full benefit of my

free speech rights, and I will take advantage of them. If it should cost me, I will pay the price. I plan to speak truth, not only to power, but also speak truth about power.

Today, I am going to embrace the topic that has caused a good deal of consternation in this Congress, a topic that many people would say that it would be injudicious to embrace because of the consequences, but there comes a time when you have to take a stand. Consequences are things that have to be considered, but when it comes to my country and when it comes to the American consumer, I am willing to take on those consequences. I am willing to do what I believe to be not only the right thing but the righteous thing.

Today, I will embrace the topic: Why the crypto industry is spending mega-millions of dollars to control Congress.

Why is the crypto industry spending mega-millions of dollars to control Congress, not to have debates in Congress, not to allow the American people to hear all sides of issues, but to control Congress to the extent that but one side is going to be presented?

Today, I stand and I speak for all of those people who agree with me. I don't speak for people associated with any party. I don't speak for people associated with any caucus. I speak for everybody who agrees with me, and there are a good many. Not all will say what I say, but they agree with me.

By the way, I say what I say, and I don't expect others to say what I say because I think I am uniquely qualified to say what I say. I sit on the Committee on Financial Services. I have chaired the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for the Committee on Financial Services. I am proud to say that I have lived under the leadership of the Honorable Barney Frank and the Honorable Maxine Waters, and I am proud to say that at some point, I believe that we will have the leadership on that committee again. This is why the crypto industry is so concerned about Members who might take the position that I take.

The topic again: Why the crypto industry is spending mega-millions of dollars to control Congress. Let's start with what is actually happening right now in Congress. The Congress is the House and the Senate. We are in the House of Representatives, but it is the House and the Senate. The Senate has passed a piece of legislation that deals with housing. It is styled the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

I have a section-by-section breakdown. I am not going to go through every section, but I can tell you that there is language in here that, if implemented, will be of great benefit to people in the area of housing, people who are in need of housing, people who are in need of a place to call home. There is language in here that I support.

I also want you to know that in this bill that deals with housing, the crypto industry decided that something was germane that I totally, absolutely, and completely disagree with. The crypto industry decided that near the very end of the bill, on the last page of the document that I have, after having topics styled ``Rental Assistance Demonstration program,'' ``Increasing Housing in Opportunity Zones,'' ``Whole-Home Repairs Act,'' and many other things that are beneficial, the crypto industry--this is on the very last page of the summary that I have--found reason to believe that what I am about to articulate is germane. I don't think it is germane, but it is in the bill.

The crypto industry has included language in section 1001, section 1001, styled ``Central bank digital currency,'' crypto industry, central bank legislation in a housing bill. Here is what it would do. This section pauses the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency, pauses, pauses for approximately 5 years.

It pauses it. That pause is not good enough for some people. There are some people who want a permanent ban on a central bank issuing a digital currency.

Now, I have to give some edification to many people who are listening. Let's start with this. Right now, if you desire to, you can transfer with crypto dollars--cryptocurrency, I should say--money from one person to another without it going through any other entity or going to any other person, one person to another without going to any other person, friends.

That kind of transference is beneficial in many ways to many people. Some people who would do dastardly deeds are indeed enthralled with this methodology. They are enthralled with it because, when they can transfer from one person to another, if they want to transfer funds to someone engaging in some sort of illicit activity, they can make that transfer and remain anonymous.

There is something called pseudonymous. They are pseudonymous. They have pseudonymous positions that allow them to be secretive within the transaction. It is called pseudonymity. They have pseudonymity.

This pseudonymity allows people to do dastardly things and not be recognized for their dastardly deeds. It makes it very difficult to catch them. For example, someone who wants to send money to a terrorist organization, you can do this anonymously. You have pseudonymity.

Also, you might recall some time ago not so long ago, there was a group of people, maybe one person--I am not sure--who wanted to extort money from a very notable family. They wanted that money to be transferred in crypto dollars, crypto fashion, digital currency. They wanted it to be transferred digitally because they knew that it would prevent them from being caught.

Now, maybe they would be caught. Maybe there is some super means of spying and finding out, but their chances of being caught were very slim if they could have the money transferred from one person to another, not go through a central bank, and, as a result, claim their ill-gotten gains and go off into the world unknown to people as the criminals they would be.

It is great for those persons who want to extort money, this direct transfer of money from one person to another.

Now, it would be against the law to do this, but it would also be up to the law to find some means by which you can prevent this or you can at least arrest the people who do this. But with this pseudonymity, they have the ability to do this and not be caught. If they are caught, it would be very difficult to accomplish the actual act of catching them after they committed the crime. So extortion is one means by which this kind of direct transfer can be used.

But there is another means. This means is something that applies to people who have large sums of money but don't want to pay taxes. Some things bear repeating. There are people who have large sums of money who do not want to pay their fair share of taxes.

With this direct ability to transfer dollars from one person to another, transfer them digitally, transfer them at a later point into a currency that is tangible, this ability to do this also opens the door for them to not only avoid taxes, which is legal, but to evade taxes, which is illegal. It is lawful to avoid; illegal to evade.

Many people in this country--I know it is a surprise to some people to know that there are some people who would evade taxes. My dear friends, my dear brothers and sisters, there are people in this country who, if given the opportunity to pay zero taxes, they would pay zero taxes, notwithstanding the fact that they have large sums of money.

Well, I believe that taxation is something that is necessary. If I want the roads that I traverse, if I want the bridges that I cross, if I want the infrastructure that we have, taxation is necessary. You don't pass an offertory. You don't pass an offertory for infrastructure.

We need taxation to help us with hospitals. Sometimes we have to build the infrastructure with tax dollars to aid and abet people who are sick. Aid and abet might not be the best choice of words. Sometimes my diction is less than superb.

The point is, we need tax dollars to do things to help people in this country that we have concluded are in need of help, and it is necessary to do so. That is what we do here in Congress. We pass legislation quite regularly to help people, and we decided that this is a good thing to do.

But you can't get the tax dollars from people who are evading because you don't know that they are actually in the business of evading until you

can prove it, you can't prove it if you can't catch them, and you can't catch them if they are making these direct transfers from one person to another, one entity to another. They are anonymous.

I am not saying that all of my colleagues had this in mind when they say they want privacy. Privacy is a big issue. They are saying that the government ought not know that I am moving my money from one place to another, that that's my personal business.

Well, it is your personal business until you break the law. Then the question becomes if your position is to break the law, how do we prevent it. The way you prevent it is to have a third entity involved in this transaction, a third entity. That entity, that third entity, can then have some means by which your anonymous position is known.

If you go to the bank now and you want to withdraw funds, you can do so. It is your money. You can do so, but you can't withdraw it to send it to a terrorist organization. I think that is a pretty good thing. I don't want terrorists to be able to get money easily. In fact, I don't want them to get it at all. But if we make it easier for them to get it, this system will be utilized.

Let me give you an example. I have it on good authority that the drug traffickers--there is a big issue in this country about drug trafficking. The drug traffickers, the people who are dealing with cross-border selling of guns, they use crypto methodologies. They use a crypto method to transfer the dollars involved. Well, we don't want them to be anonymous. We want to catch them. These are the people who are indirectly killing American citizens. We want to capture them. We want to stop this.

They can transfer the guns, and once the guns are received, the money is transferred. It is done from one person to another, and the government cannot seem to be able to find a way into that transaction such that the people who are committing the crime can be properly prosecuted.

That is pseudonymity, unknown persons transferring large sums of money for unknown reasons.

A third entity in this process that allows the money to get into it, digital dollars--we might call it a digital dollar, digital currency-- gets into this third entity, and the identity is exposed. We know that you are transferring this huge sum of money. It is okay for you to transfer it, but we want to know who is getting it. That is what we can do with some sort of third entity that we can call a central digital bank. You can have it by any name, but the point is, a third entity that gets in between the direct transfers of these huge sums of dollars.

By the way, currently, without this, you can literally transfer unlimited amounts of money, and no one will know. It is illegal to do some of the things that are being done, but how do you deal with the illegality if you can't deal with the people who are actually engaged in illegal transactions. That is the issue.

So the crypto industry has decided: Here is what we will do. All the people who think as I think, we will just take them out of Congress. We will just have a Congress that has one mindset, and that is an absolute ban on any kind of centrality associated with this movement of money, an absolute ban.

Now, the bill that I called to your attention, this bill, just has a pause, as it is called in the bill--just has a pause for a period of time, just a pause.

There are people in this House who are antithetical to a pause. They want permanency. They are willing to kill a housing bill because they can't have a permanent ban. They will kill a housing bill because they cannot get a permanent ban against some sort of centrality in the digital currency world.

This legislation should not have the ban that it has in it. It is a pause. Excuse me. It shouldn't have the pause that it has. Somebody said: Okay, we are going to compromise.

The art of compromise is how things get done. I appreciate it. They made a compromise.

But a temporary pause is not good enough. There has to be a permanent ban, because they want the permanent ability to move money from one person, unlimited amounts, to another person with anonymity, pseudonymity. It is pseudonymity because they assume an identity that is not necessarily a name that belongs to the person. They get another name of some sort.

Mr. Speaker, this shows you the length and the extent that the crypto industry is willing to go to have its way. They are literally willing to kill a housing bill because they cannot have language in it that would prevent the transfers of funds from one person to another in this pseudonymous fashion, this pseudonymity, this means of avoiding and evading.

That is not all they seem to be interested in doing. Yes, I am talking about the crypto industry, so call them up and tell them: Al Green is on the floor, and he is doing it again.

Yes, here is what Al Green says that they want also. They also are eliminating, as best as they can, the notion of seniority meaning something, the notion of upward mobility in Congress being affixed to some extent with seniority. Seniority is being in a position for some time, understanding of the rules of the road, understanding the bills that have already passed, having the institutional knowledge to bring forth what is necessary to present the counterargument. Seniority is how you acquire this. You can't get it by being anyplace other than here and serving time here--well, serving in Congress. Serving time is not an appropriate way to say it. It is by being in Congress and serving in Congress. You have to be here.

They want to eliminate that. If they eliminate this, then, Mr. Speaker, money will rule. Money will be the methodology by which you can acquire chairmanships, and when money becomes a means by which one can acquire chairmanships, the Al Greens of the world will not be in Congress. That is because we don't have the connection to the dollars and because some of us refuse to take certain money.

I don't take money from the crypto industry. They graded me out just recently, and I graded an F. I graded an F. When you get an F, Mr. Speaker, that means that they don't like you. That means that when they don't like you, they will do whatever they can, it seems right now, within the law, to expel you and to evict you.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot allow money to have a greater influence on elections than it already has.

There are Members of Congress who are here because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 or because of what happened at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They are not going to be here if seniority is eliminated. A good many of us won't be here, a good many.

Congress will then become a place influenced by and controlled by mega-dollars. People will have to raise millions of dollars, not just 1 million, not just 5 million, not just 10 million, 20 million, or 30 million. $40 million easily becomes the amount of money that one would have to raise to become a Member of Congress.

So it becomes more about money than about issues in general. There will be specific issues that will come to the floor, and they will be unopposed because the crypto industry and the persons of that ilk associated with the industry will have the money to own Congress. At this point, we will literally have the best Congress money can buy. We will have the best Congress that money can buy.

It depends on where the money is coming from as to which issues are going to be brought to the well of this Congress and voted on. There will be issues of greater importance that will never get voted on because the mega millionaires won't allow it. They will control Congress. They already have an inordinate amount of influence. They will have an overwhelming amount of influence. They will be able to determine what issues are important in the Congress of the United States of America.

I stand in the way. I stand in the way now, and I will stand in the way as long as I am in Congress. They know this, and they know that the Al Greens of the world are the people who are not likely to support what they are doing.

I do believe in compromise, so I haven't written off compromise legislation, but this notion of a permanent ban, I think we have got to be very careful.

There are additional reasons we ought to be careful. It is because China does not ban centrality. Now, here I am mentioning China. China doesn't have our best interests, China has China's best interests at heart. While we are pausing and banning, they are going to be moving forward with a digital currency, a digital currency that is backed by another form of currency. It will have some backing.

There is a war for currency supremacy in this country. There is a war to dethrone the American dollar as the king of reserve currencies. As such, we can borrow money at a lower cost. As such, we are able to impose these sanctions that you hear us talking about, Mr. Speaker, that we can impose. That is because countries hold dollars in reserve. They hold dollars in reserve because they believe that our treasuries, our dollars, are going to be there, and they will be the last dollar standing.

If they hold it in reserve, there is another reason why, and I simplify it. There is another reason why they hold it. It is because they know that we have the biggest guns, and nobody is going to take anything from the United States of America. They are not going to take our currency. They are not going to destroy us from within because we can protect ourselves.

People value the American dollar. That is why there is this war, this war for currency supremacy. If the yuan replaces the dollar or some other currency, then that means that that country will have lower interest rates when they borrow. It means that that country can then influence the dynamics associated with sanctions across the globe. That country will then displace the United States of America as the preeminent country in the world with the ability to influence geopolitical circumstances with what I would call soft power, the soft power of the American dollar. It is an awesome power that we have.

There are people willing to sacrifice this just so that they can make more money and just so that they can hold on to money. Too much is not enough. A billionaire wants to be a trillionaire. Too much is not enough. Well, Mr. Speaker, have all you want. Just do it lawfully, pay taxes on it, and I will salute you, Mr. Speaker.

However, this notion of doing things that would damage the American dollar I am going to defend. I defend the dollar. I defend the American consumer, and I defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Al, why do you bring the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into this statement?

Here is why. It is because my colleagues across the aisle are doing everything that they can to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That is the one entity that is designed to protect the consumer and that would be there to look into illicit transactions of dollars by way of cryptocurrency. They are the one entity they are willing to eviscerate, to decimate, and to eliminate.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to have closing comments. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I have been censured but not silenced.

In closing, I still say the solution is impeachment. We are still in a countdown to impeachment.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. And still I rise. I rise today, Mr. Speaker, a liberated, unbought, unbossed, unafraid Democrat. I rise, Mr. Speaker, after having been censured but not silenced. Censured, but not silenced.

Yes, I am that person who chooses to take on some of the great social injustices of our time. There are times when taking on these injustices necessitates that we take action right here in this Chamber. I am proud of the things that I have done to call to the attention not only of the Congress, not only of this country, but to the attention of the world some of the injustices taking place in my country. Quite frankly, it is the country that I love because of what it stands for in its great documents, liberty and justice for all, as told in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Yes, I sometimes have to take difficult positions. When I do, I sometimes have to face difficult consequences, but I do so, and still I rise, Mr. Speaker. And still I rise.

Today, Mr. Speaker, I rise to address corruption within the Trump administration, corruption within the Trump family, corruption within Trump politics. I want to show how this corruption is encroaching upon something that is very sacred in this institution.

Let me start now, Mr. Speaker, with corruption within the Trump family. Mr. Speaker, I had the preeminent privilege of being a part of a hearing today in Financial Services. This hearing had to do with fraud, fraud being perpetrated.

Well, I want to talk about the corruption being perpetrated. I spoke about this at the hearing today, and I shall revisit some of these things that I called to the attention of the public at the hearing today.

The first is a news article. It is styled ``Trump meme coin down 96 percent as bitcoin and meme coins slide.'' This is the $TRUMP memecoin. This article is dated February 9, 2026, and I shall read excerpts.

It reads in part this: ``Last February, the coin's market capitalization stood at $3.5 billion''--we are talking about now the $TRUMP memecoin, $3.5 billion--``already well below its $14.5 billion peak on the eve of his second inauguration.''

When the Trump administration took on the task of being President again--which I regret occurred, to be quite candid with you, but when it did, it also, at the same time, by and through Trump the person, introduced a memecoin. That memecoin stood capitalized at $3.5 billion.

Well, this is $14.5 billion at its peak. It was $3.5 billion later. At its peak, it was $14.5. ``Today, it has fallen to $1.78 billion.'' To repeat, so as to allow people to completely understand, initially it was capitalized at $3.5 billion. It then made an upward move to $14.5 billion. This was at its peak. Today, this is following February 9, it fell to $1.78 billion.

Why is this important? Why is it important for me to call this article to your attention? It is because there is something called pump and dump, pump and dump. This is where clever people will create something such as a memecoin, and they will instantly start to put money into it, but they use famous people.

In using these famous people, this name identification in and of itself brings credibility to the product that they are placing in the market. That credibility causes the product to move rapidly in its value. It goes up. As it goes up, the people who are pumping it, they then find reason at some point to take out their profits. They take out their profits.

They pump it, and then they dump it, meaning they get rid of the product. They no longer want it. When they dump it at its zenith, they take out great profits. They make not only millions, but billions. They remove the profits.

Let me read on: The indication is there was ``a large-scale pump-and- dump scheme involving at least 15 cryptocurrencies, including $MELANIA.''

That is the currency of the President's wife, whom I have great respect for, by the way. I really do. I have met her and found her to be a very pleasant lady, but I have observed her from afar, and I have great respect for her.

``The complaint alleged that First Lady Melania Trump was used as a

`window dressing for a crime engineered by''' other persons. But the point is this: It was engineered by other persons, but the Trump family made large sums of money as a result.

In fact, I have a second article that is styled ``Melania Trump's meme coin architects accused of pump-and-dump fraud in lawsuit.'' This one is dated October 23, 2025, and it is from The Guardian.

I would beg that people would peruse these at their leisure so that they might acquire additional intelligence about the articles that I am calling to their attention.

This one says: ``The $MELANIA coins were released for just a few cents each on 19 January, the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated as U.S. President.'' The day before he becomes President, the coin is released.

Then within hours, this coin price soared to $13.73. It went from a value of a few cents, just a few cents to $13.73. However, it then collapsed almost as quickly and is now only worth about 10 cents. It went from pennies to $13.73, collapsed to less than 10 cents--about 10 cents. That is less than 1 percent of its peak price.

This coin traded at a peak of $45.47 and now goes for $5.79.

The article also indicates that: ``The Trump family has pocketed more than $1 billion in pretax profits from several cryptocurrency-related products and companies over the past 12 months.'' In 12 months, they pocketed more than $1 billion in pretax profits.

Pumping and dumping allowing consumers to be left holding the bag. Many people who assume that because the President's name is associated with it or a family member of the President is associated with it, they assume that it is credible and then they do incredible things. They just buy into it because they assume that the name itself gives it the credibility that will cause them to make large sums of money.

Well, some people do make large sums of money. These are the people that introduce these coins. These are the people that pump them up, and these are the people who take their profits right off the top at the zenith of the market for the coin.

This kind of scam, this kind of scheme is something that we should not tolerate emanating from the highest office in the land. The President of the United States is in the business of performing what I call a hustle, a hustle of the country itself, of the market itself.

The President uses all sorts of scams to make money based upon the fact that he is the President of the United States and his name should bring some sort of credibility to products that other people will buy into and lose money.

I regret that this happens, and the best way for us to stop it right now immediately is for people to understand that the President's name is not worth what it appears to be worth. People should not buy into these scams simply because the President associates his name with it.

At some point, the President and his family members will take their money out and when that happens, the dumping starts. When the dumping starts, those consumers who bought in in good faith end up losing money.

Pump and dump: raise the price, sell, dump, and leave others holding the bag and they take the profits. This kind of corruption is not limited to just the family of the President.

Just today, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary Noem, has been relieved of duty. There is a good reason why. Just today I spoke about this at the financial services hearing when we talked about this corruption.

Here is an article titled: ``Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts.'' This is indicating that the Secretary had these contracts within the purview of her jurisdiction and that there were ad companies, companies that were advertising on behalf of the Federal Government. These ad companies received some $220 million in DHS contracts. Now, well, maybe that is not all bad. Ad companies make money. Ad companies should make money when they perform a service, a worthy service, but there is something about this contract and some of these that are a little bit different.

By the way, this article is dated November 14, 2025. ProPublica is the publisher, and I will read just a bit more about this before I go on.

Let's read: ``Advertising firms make money by taking an often-hefty commission. Federal records show the contracts have gone to two firms.'' We are talking about the Secretary now and her contracts that were let under the jurisdiction of her office on her watch.

``The contracts have gone to two firms. One is a Republican ad company in Louisiana called People Who Think, which has been awarded $77 million.'' That is not the bad news, ``But the majority of the money, $143 million''--I repeat for emphasis--``$143 million has gone to a mysterious LLC in Delaware. The company was created just days before it was awarded the deal.'' Days before receiving a $143 million contract, a mysterious LLC was created in Delaware, $143 million.

Mr. Speaker, if it really walks like, looks like, and quacks like a corrupt duck, then that is probably what it is, and that is what this is--$143 million, a just created company.

Well, the President and Ms. Noem have had a little bit of a disagreement about this it seems. The President denies any association with this, as he always does. My speculation is that Ms. Noem is correct when she gives the indication that the White House approved of what she was doing and, of course, the President doesn't know anything about anything at all associated with some sort of corrupt activity that he might be aligned with. In this case, Ms. Noem is the person who is going to take the fall. She has been removed from her position.

By the way, there were Articles of Impeachment filed against her. I am one of the persons who signed on to them and believe that she should have been impeached. She has been moved now to some other position, but I think that Ms. Noem should be removed from the government, from the offices of the government. The good offices should not have Ms. Noem associated with them after this incident with the contracts, but more important than this, this is about money.

I think about what has happened with the human lives that have been lost--innocent persons, two people; American citizens, two people; unarmed, two people participating in peaceful protests--two people who have lost their lives. These people have families that are still in mourning, still in mourning, and the President and Ms. Noem just move on.

They go on to the next big scam, scheme. They move on to the next big thing that the President does that is questionable. For example, going to war without conferring with Congress. He decided that on his own volition he can just take nuclear-powered aircraft carriers into a position off of the coast of a country, engage in gun boat diplomacy, and then, after he concludes that the diplomacy has not succeeded, simply decide he is going to go to war and so much as say it.

Then we decide here in Congress that we are going to take up the cause of being Congress people because of the Constitution, which accords the power to go to war, conferred upon the Congress, placed within the hands of the Congress. Each Member of Congress will have a voice and a vote. When we decide we are going to take up this challenge and say to the President, you can't do this, this is wrong, and it has to stop.

Well, my Republican colleagues will cover, and they do a good job of allowing the very power that has been accorded them, placed and entrusted to them in the Constitution of the United States of America, they now delegate that to the President even when it is in contravention of the Constitution, and it is because there was no imminent threat to this country from Iran.

No imminent threat, which is one of the reasons why I voted against H. Res. 1099--I believe that is the number for it--because it had in there that Iran is a threat to the United States. Iran is not a threat to us. We are a superpower. Iran is not capable of harming us. Then they say, well, in 10 years, they could. Well, in 10 years a lot of other things could happen, but I don't think we should simply go to war because someone says to us that Iran is a threat to us when we know better. Our intelligence would tell you better.

Iran is just not a threat to the United States of America, and as such, I don't

think we should be at war with a country that is not an imminent threat to the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, Iran is not an imminent threat to the United States of America. We shouldn't be at war with Iran. I voted today for the War Powers Resolution, the Khanna resolution. It is a resolution sponsored by two Members of Congress. I mentioned Khanna.

This is a resolution that we should respect, and we should make sure that history shows where we stood in such a time as this, when the resolution was presented to us on the floor.

I absolutely believe that if there is an imminent threat, then we can take--we can allow the President to have certain latitude. Without that, it should not be done.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Massie and Representative Khanna. Representative Massie was the lead, I believe. Representative Khanna was there with him. I thank them both for what they have done to bring this to the floor, and I regret that the resolution did not pass.

Mr. Speaker, moving on to the Trump politics and the corruption in politics, the corruption in politics emanates from the President having decided that he will simply take, in mid-decade, congressional seats from various States wherein Republicans have the ability to do this because Democrats happen to have seats that are coalition seats. These are seats where different groups have joined together, and they are electing representation of their choice.

Down in Texas, the President said let's take five seats from the Democrats and award them to the Republicans. The Governor of the State of Texas, being the loyalist that he is to the President, complied completely, totally, and absolutely as best as he could. I am not sure that he will succeed when the final bell rings on election night in November. I am just not sure.

They made every effort to do what the President has demanded, being the loyalists that the attorney general and the Governor of the State of Texas are. As a result, these seats were removed. There were five seats, one of them in Houston, when the Ninth Congressional District and the 18th Congressional District were combined. That means one less seat in Houston, Texas, on the Democratic side. When this was done, it created mass confusion, unbelievable confusion.

There were people who were prognosticating all kinds of things. People were saying that certain Members were not going to be returning. All of this prognostication has been, unfortunately, derailed because the persons who were engaged in it didn't quite succeed like they thought they would. They won't succeed like they think they will.

It is amazing how this corruption now brings in the crypto industry. The crypto industry has decided that they are going to target people around the country, spending not $1 million but millions of dollars. The crypto industry would, if they could, control the Congress of the United States of America. I am one of the people standing in their way. I will continue to stand in their way.

They graded me out, and I got an F. I am as proud of that F as any A I have ever received in life. I am very proud to say that the crypto industry does not find favor with me. They believe that those who receive A's from them should be rewarded by eliminating the opposition in Congress that is to them, the opposition to them in Congress.

The crypto industry is on a roll now. They are going to go around the country. They are going to buy congressional seats. That is what they are doing. They buy congressional seats. They buy reputations for people who are running on their side of the ledger. They then spend just millions of dollars on ads to try to remove people who are antithetical to what they are doing with their crypto program, the program which entails as little regulations as possible.

The best use of cryptocurrency right now seems to be that of allowing those who are engaging in blackmail and extortion to move large sums of money. They move large sums of money without it being traced. There are billionaires who would love and are enjoying knowing that they can move large sums of money without it being traced because these large sums of money can be used for nefarious purposes. They can be used for evasive purposes, evading taxes. These are large sums of money, unregulated, because the money can just move from one person to another in a flash.

Blockchain technology is a wonderful thing. The problem that we have--and the thing that I consider a problem for this country--is the impact that crypto may have on the dollar and the fact that these dollars do not move through a central bank, meaning from one person through a central bank to another person.

At some point, we will find that cryptocurrency can be used to fund nefarious operations against this country. How do we prove it right away when the money moves from one person to another without going through a central bank? I want to see this regulated. I do. I am going to continue to want to see it regulated, and I am going to continue to fight to have it regulated.

This is something that I believe is going to injure our interest rates when we borrow from other countries, if it has an adverse impact on the dollar. The dollar is the reserve currency of choice across the globe, meaning countries hold dollars in reserve in their coffers.

We should cherish and protect the dollar as a reserve currency. There are some people who are trying to knock the dollar out of this place. There is a war for currency supremacy. In so doing, the dollar, if it is diminished in some way, our interest rates could go up.

We have to be careful in terms of having the supremacy of the dollar continue. Cryptocurrency could conceivably have an impact on the dollar. I have had some tell me that it can, and they are concerned about it. These are experts.

My hope is this: We will wake up and understand what is happening with the cryptocurrency purveyors, the people who want to take control of Congress. They are willing to spend millions, untold millions, to remove people from office who are antithetical to them. We have to take a stand against this. I will take that stand. There are many who will stand with them. In doing this, something else is occurring.

When they can take the congressional seats by drawing lines and simply taking them, and then if they can take them by using cryptocurrency--and these are friends of the President. They are friends of the President. The President and the cryptocurrency persons who would desire to control Congress, as the President would desire to control it, are all in this together. For the most part, right now, he does.

These people, when they use this cryptocurrency, they are using it to take away seniority. They want to get rid of senior Members of Congress, and they are using their crypto dollars--they are really American dollars. They are using this money to remove people from office, and they are going after senior leadership in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, senior leadership is important in this Congress. Senior leadership means the persons have been here. They have served. They understand much of how this great institution functions. They also understand how to get things done efficaciously.

There is something more important than all of this as it relates to senior leadership. If we decide that seniority no longer has any merit in the Congress of the United States of America--and that is the direction we are moving in. If we decide that seniority no longer has any merit in the Congress of the United States of America, money will rule. When money rules, many persons will lose. A good many of them will be people who just don't have access to billionaires, millionaires, people who are exceedingly wealthy who can fund their campaigns.

These campaigns are being funded. There are people who say they don't take money from corporate America or don't take corporate dollars. Well, no, they don't, but they have the money from these corporations in these independent expenditure accounts that are actually funding the campaign. That is a clever way to avoid saying that someone is getting the money into their campaign, although it benefits their campaign.

These companies are spreading this money out in huge amounts to benefit

campaigns. They are taking the seniority out. Seniority matters. It does in Congress.

If we allow this to occur, the seniority, the means by which some people move up, if it no longer exists, then money will rule. If money rules, we will lose.

We cannot allow money to dominate more than it does currently because it already has an outsized influence. If we allow money to take complete control--no seniority, I assure you--then people who just don't have access to the billionaires, the multimillionaires, and the very wealthy will not have access to Congress.

Then, people who look to certain people to bring up issues that are important to them will get them not as a primary consideration, not as a secondary consideration, not as a tertiary consideration--I am not sure where they would rank in the hierarchy of considerations--maybe quaternary, I don't know, but I do know that they won't be primary.

As a result, what happens to people who are here championing the cause of the very poor; the people who believe that Social Security is an investment, not simply an entitlement; the people who believe that there ought to be Medicaid for people who cannot afford insurance and who are living sometimes in the streets of life; and the people who understand that Medicare is something that we have to protect because the insurance companies don't want you after you become a certain age?

There are people here who fight for these things. That fight can be minimized. Don't you think for one second that there are not people who wouldn't take that money that is now in Social Security, in the government's hands, and put it in the stock market. There have already been efforts to tamper with Social Security.

I stand and fight for these things: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. I have a history and a track record of fighting for these things. We fight, and we win. We win because you still have these programs. If we had lost the fight, you wouldn't have Social Security as you know it now.

Texas was offered $100 billion for Medicaid expansion and rejected $100 billion--Texas did--and we have to fight to get these things done. That fight will be limited to people who are wealthy in and of their own right and who can afford to take on the crypto giants and the very wealthy. It will be fights among the very wealthy and the puppets of the very wealthy. When that happens, this country is going to be a country that can no longer say that it stands for liberty and justice for all.

How can it be justice for all if poor people who need healthcare can't get it? How can it be justice for all if Social Security is minimized or placed in the stock market and is subject to the whims of the market? No. The system that we have is a tried and proven system that works well, so we have to protect it.

We have to protect it from the crypto corruption that is finding its way into Congress to take out senior leadership and to destroy the system by which persons get there after having served for some time and being a senior person in line to have the opportunity to serve as a leader. That is pretty important for people who don't know millionaires and billionaires.

Mr. Speaker, finally, I think it appropriate to talk about not only how the corruption has permeated Congress and how the corruption is right before our eyes in the stock market, where pumping and dumping is taking place, but how the corruption is taking place as it relates to persons who simply are trying their very best to engage in the process of buying and selling stocks but find themselves on the losing end.

All of this corruption is taking place before our eyes, and we have to do something about it. I think that the best way to do something about a thing is to go to the root of it--the root cause. What is it that is at the very essence of the thing?

Mr. Speaker, this corruption is aided and abetted by a President of the United States of America, who is engaged in the corruption and the skimming and scamming in the stock market. He is a President who would take seats from one side and award them to another side just to maintain power and to make sure that he stays in office. He said as much that he is afraid that we will impeach him, and he is right. This President is at the root cause of this.

If you look around the world, you will see all of the turmoil that he is creating around the globe, across the globe, using the military at a whim.

He has taken on certain things that we just never expected a President to do. We always thought Presidents would have a certain amount of dignity, a certain amount of decorum, and a certain amount of principle.

This man has no principles. He does whatever he chooses, when he chooses, and he knows that he has the backing of Congress--that would be the House and the Senate on the Republican side, not the Democrats-- and he has, to a certain extent, the backing of certain people on the courts who are loyal to him.

I regret to see all of this happening, but I do know this: There is a solution that the Constitution has given us here in the House of Representatives and in the United States Senate.

This is why this was instilled in the Constitution, this remedy that I am calling to your attention. It was put there for a time such as this and a President such as Trump.

This is why it is there. This is why we should use it, so that we would honor the Framers of the Constitution and their infinite wisdom and understanding that, when someone is placing himself above and beyond the law and being aided and abetted in the process, then there has to be a means by which that person can be dealt with.

It is political. It was intentionally political. The process is political. The process is such that you can bring that person before the bar of justice right here in the House of Representatives and, when that person is brought before the bar of justice here in the House, every Member has a vote.

Do not let people calling themselves constitutional scholars try to convince you that it is anything more than what President Gerald Ford said it was. President Gerald Ford said that this process is something that is lawful whenever 218 Members say that it is, assuming that that is the majority on a given day.

Whatever the majority says that it is in the House, there is no appealing the decision of the House. No Member has to say why they voted the way they voted. You vote. You vote your conscience with this process. When you vote your conscience with this process, if you vote to do as they did in a bygone era with Andrew Johnson, as they did with him, they voted to impeach him because he spoke ill of the House of Representatives.

Don't let people convince you that it has to be something that is more than what the will of the House says that it is because it is not appealable. It is comparable to an indictment in the House--not the same, but comparable.

Then, if this process functions as it should, it goes over to the Senate. Then, the Senate takes up the process, and the Senate can try the President. If the President is convicted, the President can be removed from office.

This process, you have been wondering what it is, I am sure. This process is one that we have a countdown on, and I am absolutely committed to it. There is a countdown to impeachment. Impeachment is the process. This is what the Framers of the Constitution accorded to us for a time such as this and a President such as what we have: impeachment.

There is a countdown to impeachment, and, yes, Mr. President, quake in your boots because I will tell you the truth: You will be impeached. We are laying the foundation for it right now. You are going to be impeached again.

There are people who would say that if you can't get him convicted in the Senate, why impeach him in the House? It is because we want posterity to know that the House of Representatives did its job.

Let the Senate then have the opportunity to do their job. We send bills to the Senate all the time that we know that the Senate won't pass. We do it all the time. We did it for tens of years with healthcare knowing that we couldn't get it done, and we finally did get what is called ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act.

That didn't happen overnight. Many times, we sent legislation over to the

Senate that didn't pass, and we do it now. Yet, when it comes to impeachment, the persons who don't want to see it will say that we shouldn't use that same paradigm. You shouldn't send it over unless you know that the Senate is going to take it up and pass it.

If that is the case, we wouldn't send most of what we send over to the Senate right now because we can't pass it, and the Senate won't take it up, for whatever reasons. I am talking about from the Democratic side. We should not allow that to become the asset test for whether we are going to do the right thing. The right thing to do is to impeach him right here, send it over to the Senate, and give the Senate an opportunity to act.

I am committed to this process. I do it as a matter of conscience. I do it as a matter of conscience. I do it because I believe that we shouldn't allow this country to just go down the tube or down the drain. I don't want to see my country on the trash heap of history. This is a great country, and it can be great if we remove the stain from its conscience that the President has imposed upon it.

This is our time. We are the people, and we can change this because this President is truly unfit to hold the office that he holds. There are people who would defend him to the nth degree, and I cannot understand how you can see all that is happening to this country and still defend this President's actions.

We now have found ourselves devolving into authoritarianism. Then what lies beneath authoritarianism? One-person rule. One-person rule meaning more so than one person with cohorts, one person alone ruling a country that extolls liberty and justice for all, government of the people, by the people, for the people. That is where we are headed.

I stand in the way, with some others. I don't stand alone on this. There are others who are with me. But the people in this country are going to rise up and demand impeachment. In fact, they are already doing it. They are just waiting on us to catch up. Well, I am going to help us catch up.

There is a countdown to impeachment, and I am guaranteeing you and I am assuring you that there will be additional Articles of Impeachment brought before this House of Representatives. I do it as a matter of conscience, and I do it knowing that there are people who are going to spend all kinds of money to prevent me from doing it. Let them spend. But I will leave, if they do succeed, knowing that I gave it my best. Every day that I was here, I gave it my best, and I pledge to you you will continue to get my best.

God bless you. God bless the United States of America. The countdown to impeachment continues.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, and still I rise.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to indicate that I attended the classified briefing yesterday. General Caine was there. The Secretary of State was there. The Secretary of War was there. I stayed from start to finish.

Mr. Speaker, after hearing from them, I have concluded that there was not--N-O-T--an imminent threat to this country, to my country, the country that I love.

I also concluded something else: that we should not put our young people in harm's way such that they are losing their lives, when the President knew or should have known that there was no imminent threat.

I will vote for the resolution. I believe it is an appropriate resolution, and I trust that it will pass. Of course, this is the Massie-Khanna resolution that I speak of.