Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the legislation that was recently signed into law to fund the Federal Government through January 30, 2026. Like many of my colleagues and people across the country, I wanted the shutdown to end. I also believe the legislation to reopen the government should have included provisions to lower escalating healthcare costs. Lowering costs overall, from healthcare to groceries to electricity, is the top priority for Minnesotans and for me. The Nation is facing a healthcare crisis that will raise costs and threaten access to healthcare for many Minnesotans if Congress does not act.

If the President and congressional Republicans do not extend the healthcare tax credits, the health insurance premiums of millions of Americans will double next year. This premium increase will be felt by many, including families, small businesses and their employees, and people living in rural communities. I am committed to lowering healthcare costs and will do everything I can to get this done. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware, wise words. And I thank Senator Schumer, all of our colleagues that have gathered here today. We truly come in good faith.

I thank our Republican colleague who is listening to us right now and for the good work that he has done in trying to bring people together.

And we know there are a number of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have been working diligently with Democrats to try to resolve this. And we come in good faith because we know this isn't a blue-State or a red-State problem. It is everyone's problem.

When we look at the people who are on these Affordable Care Act plans, they tend not to work at big corporations. If they did, they would have healthcare; they do have healthcare. They tend not to work in government, local, State, Federal; they tend to have healthcare. They work at small businesses.

They are entrepreneurs, like the woman that I spent time with last weekend in Eagan, MN, who has one employee. She is so proud of her business. She has been doing better. He had cancer a few years ago, and he got through it. He is married, has kids. That plan, she pays for 75 percent of the premium for the employee, and he pays for 25 percent of the premiums. And she just looked at what happened, and she said: I don't know if I can keep him on. They are going to double. Those are the people we are talking about.

Farmers and ranchers, 27 percent of the farmers in our country are on this kind of plan. So these are people that are just on the margins so much because they have decided to go out on their own and be entrepreneurs. Or when I talk to my rural hospitals, they tell me how the people who are on these plans, if they can't afford a doubling or tripling of the premiums, which is what we are seeing right now with the numbers that came out on the Marketplace--if it is doubled or tripled, they will just drop their plans because they still got to get groceries. They still got to pay the mortgage. So then they are going to drop their plans, and then the rural hospitals, that are already just hanging on, aren't going to be able to make it.

So it is all of a mix of things that I think would defy people's predictions of who is depending on these plans, and I think we are starting to hear from them now. So we have this opportunity. This is really, I would say, a practical plan. It looks at what we need to do to open the government again. It looks at the work that has been done by our great leaders in appropriations, and it says: OK. What can we do about healthcare right now?

We disagreed with the bill that got passed this summer on our side, but what can we do right now? And what we can do right now is stop this doubling and tripling of these healthcare premiums. And it is not something that is going to help in the end of December or January; it is a now thing. They are making their decisions now.

So that is why we came forward with a lot of people in our caucus, as you can imagine, having differing views and wanting more in good faith, but we figure this is a good idea so that we can, one, help these people in all our States, and then, two, look at reforms. We are open to reforms, and then these reforms would have to be done before these tax credits expire at the end of next year.

But it will get us through this, and, most important, it will get people through it like Elizabeth of St. Peter, MN, who told me: ``I have no idea how I am going to come up with the extra $200'' each month.

This is what is happening. People who are terrified of what is going on.

So we have this moment in time. We are ready to work through the weekend. We hope our colleagues are as well. So let's get to the table.

I hope the President comes and meets with us. The amount of money we are talking about here is about the same as the money that went to Argentina. I am not going to relitigate that, but it shows what we could do and why we could do it. So let's get it done. Thank you.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to posthumously honor U.S. Army Captain Willibald Charles Bianchi of New Ulm, MN, a true American patriot who courageously served our country and made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our Nation.

On August 11, 2025, Captain Bianchi's remains were identified--more than 80 years after he died in service to our country.

Since the founding of our democracy, each person who has worn the uniform has left their mark on our Nation as they defended our freedom.

Captain Willibald Bianchi was no different. Born in New Ulm, MN, and raised on a poultry farm, Captain Bianchi, like many Minnesotans before him, initially aspired to follow in his father's footsteps and become a farmer. Instead, he went on to serve in World War II with the greatest generation.

In 1940, Captain Bianchi commissioned as an Army second lieutenant and was deployed to the Philippines, joining the conflict in the Pacific theater. In 1942, during his deployment, Captain Bianchi volunteered to help clear a series of Japanese machinegun nests and continued leading the attack even when wounded multiple times, his heroism earning him the Medal of Honor. While he was later captured and died aboard a Japanese prisoner of war ship, his recovery reflects our Nation's commitment to bringing our missing heroes home--no matter how much time has passed.

We can never serve any veteran in quite the same way they served us. Whether they served many decades ago or in our more recent conflicts, our obligation is to ensure they have the support and care they earned.

So today, I rise today to honor Captain Willibald Bianchi, an American hero.

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

Mr. President, I want to thank Ranking Member Padilla and Senator Blumenthal, Ranking Member Padilla of the Rules

Committee, and Senator Blumenthal for organizing a group of my colleagues for coming to the floor today and for their leadership on this issue.

We are focused on, as we saw last night, Americans turned out in droves to vote, to exercise their constitutional right and, really, their duty to vote. And we want to make sure that people can continue to stand up, to show up, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents, to protect voting rights and ensure that every eligible American can make their voice heard in our democracy.

I also want to thank the State and local election administrators, secretaries of state, poll workers, and everyone else in States like Minnesota, Virginia, California, New Jersey, and more who made sure that yesterday's elections went smoothly.

It takes a lot of people and a lot of planning to do that. Yesterday, millions of people exercised that sacred right. According to preliminary data, Minneapolis saw its second highest turnout for a municipal election with more than 147,000 people casting a ballot in an off year, and in Virginia 3.3 million people voted this year, the State's highest ever turnout in a non-Presidential election year.

As Congressman John Lewis once said, voting is the most powerful tool we have to create a more perfect Union.

In recent years, from the January 6 insurrection to election conspiracies to threats against polling sites in New Jersey, we have seen an alarming rise in dangerous rhetoric and threats against election workers and polling places. Sometimes it is from other countries trying to do harm, regardless of the political outcome, but wanting to mess around in our democracy.

Sometimes it is people trying to influence an election from either side. We have also seen repeated attacks on access to the ballot box from this administration.

The Justice Department has turned away from its mission of enforcing the Voting Rights Act, and the President has issued an unlawful Executive order to overhaul our Nation's elections that would purge American citizens from voter rolls and make it harder for the men and women of our military to vote.

Just as the President overstepped his authority by implementing the across-the-board tariffs, I was at the Supreme Court oral argument today, along with Senator Lee and Senator Markey. I will say it was a well-argued case with pointed questions from the Justices. I am very impressed by some of the arguments that were made against these tariffs by both the States and the lawyers for the small businesses, as well as some of the Justices' discussions when it came to the tariffs about Congress's right under the Constitution, under article I, our authority to assess taxes--not an unconstitutional delegation or an overreach by the administration.

And so we have seen this overstep with regard to the tariffs, which is having calamitous effects on my constituents, small businesses, farmers, ranchers. One soybean farmer told me it was the perfect storm of ugly.

But we have also seen this overstep when it comes to the Constitution and people's right to vote. The White House recently confirmed that the President intends to continue his unlawful attacks on voting rights by issuing a new Executive order targeting mail-in voting.

Mail-in voting is nothing new. It dates back to the Civil War, and the President himself has said that voting by mail, voting early, and voting on election day are all good options. I agree. And Americans across the country agree.

In Minnesota, we have made it easier, not harder, for all eligible Americans to vote, including by giving everyone the chance to vote by mail. We have people who vote by mail. Some of these States like Utah and Oregon, they have almost the vast majority of people vote by mail. We are not actually that. We are kind of a mix. We have the highest voter turnout in the country nearly every election in the country.

I go into a hardware store or a cafe, and I know that 70, 80 percent of the people have voted. Sometimes they will come up to me and say: Well, I didn't vote for you, but I did like this one thing you did or I have an idea for you. That means something in a democracy.

But that is because we make it easier to vote, not only with the mail-in voting and the drop-off ballots, but we also have it with same- day registration, which when you look at States that have that, whether they are red or blue or purple, that is probably the most defining thing about if you are going to have high voter turnout. And when you have high voter turnout, believe me, my State has elected everyone from Jesse Ventura to Michele Bachmann to me.

But what all of us have in common is that we had extraordinarily high voter turnout when the people got elected, and that makes people feel like they are part of the franchise. That makes them feel like, wow, we are part of this democracy. We are not left out of it. And that alone is worth something in a democracy, regardless of who gets elected.

In 2024, 36 States allowed voters to cast their votes by mail, and nearly one-third of the voters did, and that is post-pandemic. So instead of creating barriers to the ballot box, we need to expand access to the polls to ensure all eligible Americans can vote in the way that works best for them, regardless of their ZIP Code.

That is why I have led the effort with Ranking Member Padilla to advance commonsense bills to protect our democracy, including the Freedom to Vote Act. That bill will increase ballot access and reform our campaign finance system to ensure that our democracy is of, by, and for the American people.

And I would also note, with regard to some of the things that happened coming out of Texas, it also would make sure that we have a fair system when it comes to the House of Representatives and districts and what is going on there.

That is also why I also strongly voted to support the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore and strengthen key portions of the Voting Rights Act. And it is why I worked to give reliable Federal support to State and local governments, so that they can continue to administer safe, secure elections.

This is something we should all be able to agree on. We must support our local election offices and help them maintain their election infrastructure to keep pace with new technology and combat cybersecurity threats.

We should also be able to agree that we should stand by our election workers, including volunteers, who face a barrage of threats and intimidation.

I remember hearing, when I chaired the Rules Committee, from the election officers in places like Pennsylvania, where a Republican election official was threatened simply because he upheld the election results. His entire family was threatened. Or secretaries of State who have the voicemails of the recordings of their families being threatened or their homes being threatened.

And you think about these volunteers, particularly in rural areas, or election officials where they don't have the police there nearby to protect them.

That is why I led the Election Worker Protection Act--legislation to provide States the resources to recruit and train election workers and ensure their safety. Protecting election officials should not be a partisan issue. The security of our elections is directly tied to the security of our election workers.

Nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than our free and fair elections. Voting is how the American people make their voices heard and ensure their elected leaders are held accountable. So while we continue to see attacks on our democracy, it is our duty to never give up hope.

Every election it is inspiring to see Americans, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike exercise their sacred right to vote however they choose.

It was quite a reminder last night how people are going to vote. And they are going to vote for their families and they are going to vote for their own economic security and they are going to vote because they believe in our democracy. Even in an off-year election, when no Senator is on the ballot, when no President is on the ballot, where not even a Member of Congress is on the ballot, but two Governors and some referendums about the judiciary and

some referendums about the elections and some local officials and mayors, people turned out, and they turned out in record number.

So I hope that makes people realize that our democracy is thriving, but our democracy only thrives when we make it so people can vote. And I have been so proud of my State over the years, and, again, we are a purple State. We have elected Republican and Democratic Governors in the last decades. We have elected Republican Senators in the last decades. We have a split legislature. One house is Republican, the State house; the State senate is Democratic.

There was an election last night. On that front, we have an evenly split congressional delegation--four and four--because we don't have gerrymandering, and we have actually competitive elections.

A number of years in these congressional seats, and there we are with the one or two highest voting turnouts in the Nation. Why is that? Because people feel like they are a part of it. That is what we want to have happen in this Nation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues--both colleagues--from Connecticut.

As Senator Murphy just said, a budget is a moral statement and how you handle the needs of your constituents in the end has got to be something that you feel in your heart.

What we are saying today is that our constituents' healthcare, it is not something you can just bargain away over the summer and cut trillions of dollars from Medicaid or Medicare or the Affordable Care Act and think it is all going to be OK. And as our colleagues are learning, it is not OK.

I start with the kitchen table. That is where people see their bills, and that is where, right now, they are seeing their grocery bills. For millions of Americans right now, they don't even know if they are going to be able to get groceries for their kids. That is because of what has been happening, not just with the healthcare premiums but also with those millions of Americans--those families, those veterans, those seniors, people with disabilities and their families who use SNAP. A lot of people might not have known how important this is to these families.

Well, when you go to grocery stores in rural America and you talk to the smalltown grocers, you find out just how many people, at various points of their life--maybe they are working several jobs, maybe they went through a divorce and they don't have enough money to be able to get their groceries, maybe it is a family who struggles and their child has disabilities and can't work.

These stories are all across our country right now, so that is why it is so callous that the administration, when they know they can transfer funds from anywhere to pay for SNAP, has decided that they are going to take on this fight--so why not give trillions of dollars to wealthy people and then tell people they are not going to be able to get their groceries.

First they said: Well, we are not going to do it.

Then the court stepped in--Rhode Island, Massachusetts--and said: Yes, you are going to do it. The law says you have to, at the very least, use this contingency fund for $5 billion that is sitting there. And, no, you are not going to use it for a golden bathroom in the White House and you are not going to use it in a ballroom and you are not going to use it for anything else that you think is your vanity project of the day; you are going to use it to help people afford food.

That order came out. They also said: And guess what. You can also transfer funds from other places to be able to help pay for people's SNAP and their groceries.

The administration first says: Yes, we will comply with the order. The USDA Secretary, Secretary of Agriculture, says yes. Then the next thing you know, we suddenly find out: No, we are just going to pay for half of stuff. We are going to pay for half of stuff. Now we are going to tell some States it is OK, some States it is not. We are going to mess around.

Then what happens today, in the middle of the day, then the President sends out a statement, an official statement, on his platform of choice, Truth Social, and says: We are not going to pay SNAP benefits. Sorry.

He signs it, ``Donald J. Trump.'' It is right there, anyone can see it.

Then, today, the Press Secretary says: No. No. No. No. We are going to pay the SNAP benefits.

This will eventually be resolved in court this week, an emergency order. My very strong belief is that the court is going to say: None of this. You are following the court orders. You are going to provide the SNAP benefits.

But think about those families looking at their bills and think about the families looking at their healthcare bills, which is what we are here about today.

Basically, what we are seeing here is people are standing on a healthcare cliff 4 days into the Health Insurance Marketplace open enrollment period across America. Whether it is blue States or red States, we happen to know that 75 percent of the people on these Affordable Care Act policies live in States that Donald Trump won. Why? Well, a lot of small companies, a lot of rural areas, 27 percent of farmers and ranchers are on Affordable Care Act plans.

If you work at a big corporation in a big city, you are going to have healthcare. They are going to provide it to you. If you work at a government entity, whether it is local, whether it is State, whether it is Federal, you are going to have healthcare. But if you are an entrepreneur and start your own small business like the woman I met with in Eagan, MN, on Friday, who has one employee that she loves, who had cancer. She pays 75 percent of the premiums for him and his wife; he pays 25 percent. And you are barely making it go right now--you know, tariffs and all this stuff going on. Then, you think: Can I even keep this employee or can I keep the employee but then they won't have health insurance? They made it through cancer. I love this employee, and I want to keep him on. Those are decisions Americans are making right as they see these premiums double across the country. It is across every single State.

In Texas, a 60-year-old Texas couple, for example, earning about $80,000 a year can see their premium increase by more than $17,000.

I was just on a call with some Nebraskans. They are going to see a doubling, tripling of their health insurance premiums.

We have heard, time and time again--Senator Murphy just mentioned Florida, but whether you are talking to people in Idaho or Utah, whether you are talking to people in the rural areas of West Virginia, they are seeing the same thing: doubling, tripling of their premiums.

And it is within our grasp to do something about it. This amount of money for a year of it--and you can double that to 2 years--is literally nearly the same amount of money as the President gave to Argentina. How can that even be possible that we, as a country, think that it is better for our country to give $20 billion to Argentina than it is to help the small business owner be able to afford her employees' health insurance? How could we even, in our wildest dreams, decide that is a priority--or that the priority is a gilded bathroom in the White House?

This is happening all over this country. It is time for our House colleagues to come back after their 6-week vacation. It is time for our Senate Republican colleagues to sit down and negotiate with us--because this is not a December thing. This is not a January thing. This is a now thing. It is happening now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today, along with my colleagues--I see Senator Kim is here from New Jersey, and I know Senator Bennet is here from Colorado, and you are going to also hear from Senators Welch, Baldwin, Coons, and Merkley. And really everyone in the Senate should be pretty concerned right now about what is happening with SNAP.

We have 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP.

I see Senator Sanders is here as well from Vermont, who I know has visited food banks throughout his State and gets what is going on right now.

What is happening to these 42 million Americans, including 16 million kids, 8 million seniors, and 4 million people with disabilities, should not and does not have to happen.

SNAP is critical for people who have multiple jobs, work part-time jobs, work regular hours. I have met with so many people, particularly in rural Minnesota, who--this is their lifeline. Their salaries aren't as high. Sometimes they get divorced. Sometimes they have like four kids. Maybe they have a kid with disabilities, so they can't work a full-time job all the time. These stories are heartbreaking.

It is colliding right now with the fact that grocery prices keep going up. You have seen what has happened here and there with eggs, with beef because of the tariffs, which are going to be the subject of a major U.S. Supreme Court case tomorrow morning. With everything going on, I want to remind people of that.

When this administration announced--announced--that it would not fund SNAP benefits this month when it previously said it would, Democrats called on the administration to use its contingency fund, which we knew that it had to do, and transfer authority, which means it can allow it to transfer funds from certain places, to ensure that Americans could put food on the table.

Given the escalating prices of food, we don't understand why the President chooses to show off about a marble bathroom with golden sconces as part of the Lincoln Bedroom. We don't understand why the President is raising money for a gilded ballroom and demolishing the East Wing. We don't understand why, in the big, beautiful betrayal of a bill this summer, the decision was made by our colleagues to put up a bunch of tax cuts for the wealthiest while they cut SNAP benefits. And then this?

I guess we are not surprised by this, but we knew from the very beginning when this announcement was made, as the President keeps looking for things to distract us from what is the real issue here, which is healthcare premiums--first, he says he is going to--you know, he makes fun of people and makes light of what is going on and takes our leaders and puts sombreros on their heads in a video. Then the next thing he does is he pardons George Santos. Then the next thing he does is he needs money back from the Justice Department, taxpayer money. Then the next thing he does is he announces he is going to run for a third term--Steve Bannon does it--and then he says ``Yeah, I am'' and then he says ``No, I am not.''

At some point, can people figure out what is going on here? Look at what he has done on SNAP benefits. At first, they said ``Yes, we understand we must fund them,'' which I appreciated--Brooke Rollins said.

During the shutdown, they had a notice on their website, this shutdown plan that was put out literally this year. It wasn't some hangover from the Biden administration; it was something from there. Then, suddenly, it mysteriously vanished. But luckily, we had taken a screen shot of it, so we knew what it said, and that was that it was Congress's intent to fund SNAP during any kind of a lapse in funding because of a shutdown.

So they say they are going to fund it; don't worry. Then they say they are not. Then we bring it to the court, and all of the States get together--25 States--and bring it to court. Big surprise: Last Friday, orders come out of two States--one of them binding on the Nation--that say: Yes, you have to fund SNAP.

So then they say: Yes, we will follow the court order.

Then what happens today? Oh, well, they are only going to fund half of a hamburger. They are just going to fund half of the benefits. Then, 3 hours later, the President puts it out on Truth Social that he is not going to fund any of the benefits. Then we are going to court again.

This is absolutely callous, it is cold, and people are scared that they are not going to be able to feed their families. It is causing complete disarray out there as some food banks are able to get their money, and some States are able to process them, and other ones have different computer equipment, so they are not able to. Really? That is

how you are going to run a government? It is no surprise that the President's numbers on running the government and his disapproval rating have gone from 50-some, 60-some and up because of what is going on here.

These courts told the administration that they must use the contingency fund to cover SNAP benefits. We know that the USDA has said there is currently $4.65 billion in funding. So unless you are going to use those billions of dollars to make up new bathrooms in the White House, maybe you can use it to help get people's groceries on the table.

They shouldn't be forced by the courts when they know what the law says, but they have been now, and they need to follow the order. Then, in addition to that, they can use their transfer authority to make sure they transfer the money over, the remaining amount of money.

Why is this happening? We are in a shutdown because our colleagues are unwilling to come to the table to talk about one simple thing: healthcare premiums.

Do you know that 1 year of Affordable Care Act tax premiums nationally is about the same amount of money that was spent in Argentina--$20 billion? Two years of it--about 2 years of that. Yes, that is what they have done. They prioritized $20 billion to Argentina over the healthcare premiums in States, of which 75 percent are red States won by Donald Trump.

That is why I appreciate Senator Lujan's leadership on this legislation that would basically make sure we are continuing to fund

Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of our bipartisan resolution, which Senator Kaine and I lead, along with our colleagues Rand Paul, Mark Warner, and Leader Schumer.

Our resolution terminates the President's so-called emergency declaration related to the Canadian border and restores stability and common sense to our trade with our close ally and neighbor to the north, Canada.

The administration has used that declaration as a pretext to impose sweeping tariffs on a friend, on a neighbor, on an ally--which are taxes, paid by American consumers and businesses, on Canadian imports.

Back in April, this same resolution passed the Senate with bipartisan support. Under the National Emergencies Act, Congress must review and, if necessary, vote again every 6 months. Because the administration has refused to lift this so-called emergency and instead doubled down by raising tariffs on Canada to 35 percent as of August 1, with a threat of more, we are back on the floor today, and we will be back on the floor until this passes.

Just this past week, the President announced, as I noted, yet another 10 percent tariff hike on Canada--this time in retaliation for an Ontario ad--Ontario, one province. This would be as if the Governor of Texas put out an ad or if the Governor of California put out an ad. But President Trump used this as a pretext for another threat. And that ad accurately used President Ronald Reagan's 1987 remarks criticizing tariffs.

So that is a good way to begin: with President Reagan's remarks. He said, in 1987, though there are economic and national security circumstances during which tariffs are necessary, that, generally, ``high tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse; businesses and industries shut down; and millions of people lose their jobs.''

This new tariff hike isn't about security. It isn't even about our economy. It is just about the President's personal grievances, and Americans are the ones paying the price.

Since these chaotic, on-again, off-again tariffs began in March, cross-border travel and trade have both fallen precipitously. In Minnesota, we say we can see Canada from our porch. Our people go back and forth all the time--sometimes for jobs, sometimes to visit relatives and friends, and sometimes, of course, for vacations. We welcome Canadians all the time.

I was, in fact, at the Minnesota Frost game in which they played the Charge, a Canadian team, a women's professional hockey team. It was a joyous event with our Canadian neighbors.

You see, we know now, the World Series, one of the most exciting World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

This isn't just some faraway place to us. These are our friends and neighbors. But yet, despite all of this incredible history of friendship and booming economic gains because of all the back-and-forth and travel, trips from Canada to the United States are down roughly 20 percent from last year. Towns in the United States are having to put up signs that say ``We love you, Canadians'' because they feel so dissed by this administration.

They are saying: What is happening? We were the first ones on the ground after 9/11 from another country.

The Canadians were there.

We were the ones that stood by your side in so many foreign wars. We are the one that, for so many of our States, is the No. 1 trading partner. How can this be happening?

And, frankly, it pisses them off, and so individual families are making decisions--are deciding: Well, we are not going to go to America. Maybe we will go to Mexico. Maybe we will go to another country. Maybe we will stay in Canada. But we are not going to travel there.

The average foreign visitor spends about $4,000 when they come to America.

We are not going to eat their food. We are not going to go to their restaurants. We are not going to stay at their hotels. We are not going to fish in their lakes.

You name it, that is what the people in my State are seeing. And everything from manufactured parts to whiskey have dropped sharply. And small businesses, farmers, and manufacturers are losing business.

This is not how our economy was supposed to work, if you believe in capitalism, if you believe in trade, if you believe you just can't put your head in the sand and think, ``Well, we are just going to be on our own,'' when 95 percent of our potential customers, particularly in the agriculture area, are outside of our borders. We should be exporting more goods, and we should be encouraging more trade.

The President shouldn't be able to just wake up one day and see an ad he

doesn't like on TV featuring a Republican President by a province in Canada and decide, ``I am just going to hike up another 10 percent''-- or something happened in Brazil--and I congratulate Senator Kaine and Senator Paul on their recent overturning from this body--finally, enough is enough; we are asserting our power. You are not going to be able to just put a 40-percent tariff on Brazil, a country with which we have a trade surplus, simply because the guy is facing a trial there, and the President doesn't like it. No, this is not how this works. It is not how it works under the Constitution. It is not how it works under the law.

This resolution is about drawing a line in the sand and saying you cannot abuse your emergency powers to start an unjustified trade war; you cannot abuse your emergency powers to hurt one of the finest relationships in the world; and you cannot drive up prices, eliminate jobs, and put in place a national sales tax that experts now predict will altogether--the tariff tax--cost the average family nearly $2,000 per year.

And they are seeing it every day in their grocery bills. They are seeing it when they want to go out and buy tools. They see it when they are going out to buy audio equipment.

Minnesota's No. 1 trading partner, one of our country's top 2 trading partners, and one of our most trusted allies--that is Canada. We export more goods to Canada than we do--in Minnesota--to our second, third, and fourth largest markets combined. In 2024, Minnesota's goods trade with Canada, including ag products, machinery, and medical devices, amounted to roughly $22 billion--$22 billion. That is more than a quarter of all the goods that we export, a major hit for our State.

I chair the Canadian-American Interparliamentary Group. I frequently meet with our partners in Canada. A number of Senators, including Senator Kaine and Senator Shaheen and Senator Welch and Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a Republican--we went up there together to Ottawa a few months back, met with Prime Minister Carney. And as the Prime Minister said recently, the U.S.-Canada relationship has become ``mostly transactional.''

That is not the story of our friendship with Canada. Canada, as I mentioned, fought alongside us in two World Wars. They are our partners in NORAD and NATO. They helped us get our supply chain back in order after the pandemic--and, yes, we helped them. Canada is setting historic new goals to contribute to our collective defense, planning to triple defense spending over the next decade--new equipment, new infrastructure, new technology--to strengthen our NATO alliance, which means strengthening our own national security.

But rather than supporting a thriving Canadian economy that would enable the government to fulfill those goals, the tariffs that the President keeps slapping on this great ally will hinder our potential and Canada's. These tariffs also undercut the very trade deal the President himself once called the most ``modern and balanced agreement in history''--that is, the USMCA, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

I supported that agreement. I was one of the first Democrats--in fact, the first one during that election, the 2020 election--that actually came out and said I supported that trade agreement on the debate stage because I felt it was so important.

So why would the President take this jewel of a trade agreement--that albeit needs to be changed as we go forward and reviewed, which is mandatory this coming year, for things like dairy and other things-- that has been acknowledged. We would like to see some changes to it. But why would he take this incredibly important agreement and just say it doesn't matter?

The kind of uncertainty that we are seeing with these tariffs shakes business confidence across North America. These tariffs are paid by families: groceries, clothes, housing. Homebuilders say higher material costs from tariffs are adding as much as $10,000 to the cost of a new home. Americans looking for a new car are paying more than $3,000 more for an American-made vehicle. And of course it is increasing the cost of cars made in America because parts come from Canada.

And this is an important point: The tariffs are not just about raising the prices on the goods that we import; they are also driving up prices across the board on all types of goods and services-- electricity costs. If we continue down this path, as I noted, the average family will likely see a $2,000 increase per year.

This might not mean a lot to some of the President's friends and family members, billionaires on his Cabinet. They are not going to care about this $2,000 a year. That is true. They are not going to care. But people right now, that are already faced with all these problems with healthcare, which is a fight that is raging right now, about this budget, they can't handle it.

Tariffs, as I noted, can be an important tool for countering other countries' unfair trade practices. I supported some of the steel tariffs that were more narrow from the former Trump administration and the Obama administration and the Biden administration in order to make sure that our iron ore--very key to my past and our future--mined in northern Minnesota--my grandpa was an iron ore miner--that that continue.

But that is not what we are talking about with the President's action here. The broad emergency power statute enacted from 1977 that the President has used to justify these across-the-board tariffs didn't even mention the word ``tariff.''

My colleagues and I have filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court. That case is going to be heard next week. But it is not the only answer. The answer should be that Congress asserts its power, even though I believe that the use of the statute is clearly illegal and I believe, as the underlying court--which was made up of the initial trade court: a Trump judge, an Obama judge, and a Reagan judge--yes, they still exist. They unanimously, the three of them, said that this was an illegal use of the statute.

But this, today, is about something else. It is about us asserting our own power, stopping the chaos with changes over 100 times in these tariffs: small brewers paying for aluminum cans that can't afford them, furniture makers paying more for lumber, and family-owned tourism businesses in my State suffering.

If the Trump administration wants to address trade disputes with Canada--and the Prime Minister is clearly open to that--it should work in good faith with our neighbors to strengthen the USMCA trade agreement that the President himself originally negotiated.

Our bipartisan group of cosponsors understands this. This isn't about politics. It is about jobs, economic stability, and respect for the successful agreement that we committed to in the past. It is why this resolution has support from the United Steelworkers, the International Association of Machinists, North America's Building Trades Unions, and the AFL-CIO. The Chamber of Commerce, the National Taxpayers Union, and the National Retail Federation have all endorsed this resolution.

These are voices from every corner of the political spectrum, every part of our economy. Maybe we should be listening to them and not be a rubberstamp, I say to my colleagues. It is time to stand up. Otherwise, why are you here?

I yield the floor, and I see that my friend from Virginia, who has been such a leader on this, is here.

Mr. President, in conclusion, I want to say this: One, thank you to Senator Kaine and Senator Warner, the two Senators from Virginia, for their leadership on this important resolution; Senator Wyden for all of his work; Senator Rand Paul and others who have stood with us, who have stood with capitalism, who have stood with this idea that trade matters and that our country is stronger when we do business and sell our goods across the seas and to our friendly neighbors like Canada.

Let me start with Canada. As the head of the Inter-Parliamentary Group with Canada, I spent a lot of time working with the Canadians. It was one Embassy, years ago, when America was disliked by a lot of countries, that displayed on their Embassy huge banners that said: ``Friend, Ally, Partner.''

For so many of our States, they are our biggest trading partner. They fought alongside us in two World Wars. They are our partners in NORAD and in NATO. They worked with us together on supply chains and getting them back working after the pandemic. They are setting new historic goals, Canada is, to contribute to our collective defense, planning to triple defense spending over the next decade.

So what does this administration do? Slap them with a 35-percent tariff. And then, just because the President woke up in the morning and didn't like an ad that quoted a beloved Republican President, Ronald Reagan, didn't like it, he said: Well, I am going to give them 10 percent more.

Yet this is a country with which we share a trade agreement that this President negotiated with Mexico and Canada. If you want to make changes, like for dairy or other things, do it in the review of that agreement. Don't do it like this to a neighbor and friend.

Secondly, what do these tariffs mean to America? mean to the people in our country? Combined, they have been changed over 100 times--total chaos. Inflation is up. Manufacturing jobs are down. Small farm bankruptcies are at their highest levels in 5 years, and every Senator in this Chamber has heard from their beef producers or heard from their soybean farmers. What is happening right now, as one of my farmers called it, is a ``perfect storm of ugly.''

For an individual family right now, these tariffs mean a $2,000 tax per family. Tools are up. Audio equipment costs more. This is the effect of this tariff policy on individual families in America.

So we can have high-ended debates here, but at home, they are looking at their grocery prices. They are looking at their markets, their family farms--that they spent a century there, they are next in line to take it over--drying up. That is what these tariffs are about.

Then, finally, this President cannot keep abusing his power like this. There is a reason, when you look at the numbers, who supports this resolution: United Steelworkers, International Association of Machinists, North America's Building Trades Unions, the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Taxpayers Union, the National Retail Federation have all endorsed this resolution.

But, unfortunately, with a few exceptions, our friends on the other side of the aisle are just rubberstamping what this President wants.

Well, it is time for us to stand up. This vote is about reasserting Congress's constitutional role, article I, section 8, of the Constitution gives Congress--not the President--the power to impose tariffs and regulate commerce with foreign nations. We must stand up for American workers, businesses, and consumers and remind our allies and ourselves that America keeps its word.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I first want to thank my colleague and friend Senator Smith for her beautiful remarks and for her friendship with Dick to the end.

I am sure you hear his voice all the time when you are trying to make decisions, and having that kind of person that is so grounded, not just in Minnesota but in his values that he brought with him to Washington and that he brought with him to the Vice President's office, couldn't be more important, and especially at a time like this.

I just kept thinking, as Senator Smith spoke, about how Dick cherished history instead of trampling on it like we have seen right now. He understood that you could learn from history and that history can teach you lessons that help guide you when you have to make decisions in the now.

As Senator Smith mentioned, Dick was born in Duluth, not actually far away from where my dad grew up, in Ely. So there was a lot of good stock up there. He was the son of Russell and Virginia Moe, and he grew up surrounded by the values that define our State: hard work and service to others, and especially northern Minnesota.

He then goes on to the University of Minnesota and gets his start in a big way by running the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and he helped to lead that party to victory, time and time again, because, like I said, he was grounded in doing the right thing, but he also was a mastermind of how to win elections and how to follow up for people and get things done.

That is the path that led him to my mentor, Walter Mondale, whom we all miss very, very much. I literally got to see Mondale at his highest peaks, when

he was Vice President and I was an intern in the office, hired by Dick when he was Chief of Staff.

And then I got to see him back in Minnesota, where he was, literally, working at the law firm with me, and I saw him in grocery lines, where he would engage in long discussions with the clerk at the grocery station on how we could get, say, peace in the Middle East or what we should be doing about an economic crisis.

And Mondale had that same thing that drew Dick Moe to him, and that was a grounding in the people that you represent.

So we all know what a great job he did running that office and his Norwegian sense of humor--I know those words don't always go together, but it was a very dry sense of humor--and just this belief in decency.

Senator Smith recounted how Dick helped Fritz prepare for that meeting with Jimmy Carter. And I had one interesting perspective on how prepared Walter Mondale was for that meeting.

When I actually went to Plains, a few years back, and met with President Carter and Mrs. Carter, what they told me, over the pimento and cheese sandwiches that the former First Lady made, was that it was Walter Mondale that knew that her name was pronounced ``Rosalynn'' and not ``Rosalynn.'' And I have a very strong feeling that Dick Moe drilled that into Mondale's head when running down there. And Carter actually said that really stood out because a bunch of the candidates mispronounced his wife's name.

Among other things, as Tina explained, this was a model that they, after getting elected, embarked on, and Dick Moe became Vice President Mondale's Chief of Staff. He crafted that 11-page memo that redefined the Vice Presidency, giving an active role in shaping policy, and he also served on President Carter's senior staff, which was very unique.

That is when I got to be an intern at that time. I still remember writing in, sending in my letter, and interviewing over the phone. I have this cherished picture in the Vice President's home backyard that Dick Moe is in with all the interns, which included me and Tom Nides, who went on to be our Ambassador to Israel. It was quite an intern class, and he was there. I remember it was the first time I ever had lobster; so it is very memorable to me.

I was so eager when I got there to do these policy memos that I had talked to Dick about and write all of these very smart ideas for them. And they, in fact, assigned me to do the furniture inventory of every piece of furniture in the Vice President's office and write down the numbers on a spreadsheet and make sure that they were all there and turn it into some government office. And I literally crawled around on the floor for 2 weeks, checking serial numbers on desks and chairs.

So the first thing I learned from all that is that Walter Mondale and his Chief of Staff, Dick Moe, were scrupulously honest, and nothing was missing and, second, was to take every job seriously. I often share that with young people, including the interns in the Capitol.

That internship that Dick Moe hired me for was my first government job in Washington, DC, and this was my second. So I remind them: Take those internships and the people you work with and the relationships, even if they are fleeting, that you form as you are meeting people and getting to know them, because they are oftentimes the key to your future. And never complain about what assignments you get.

So Dick Moe believed in preparing the next generation of public servants. I think Senator Smith's story of that just really says it all. And then, in his later years, when he is not feeling as good, he takes that time to be such a mentor to her.

So we talked about the longest serving president for the National Trust for Historic Preservation--a 17-year tenure. He led the efforts to rebuild so many historic neighborhoods in New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina. Working on restoring President Lincoln's cottage is such an amazing thing. To think it had not been restored, but Dick Moe knew how important that was.

I don't think he saw preservation as nostalgia. I think he saw it as honoring our country and honoring the Americans that had served.

There was a lot about that book, ``The Last Full Measure,'' that I just love, and it is now recognized as the definitive history of the First Minnesota Regiment, which, as we know, fought for the Union in the Civil War, before Minnesota was even a State.

There had been another book, the historical novel ``The Killer Angels,'' which, OK, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1975, but Dick felt it did not correctly account for the bravery of the Minnesotans in the First Minnesota, and he more than righted that wrong.

So that story that I have often quoted around our State about the 262-member First Minnesota Regiment, which held the line against 1,600 Confederate troops while desperately needed reinforcements were brought in on the Union side, is truly worthy of the book that Dick wrote.

I went with a number of Senators, including Senator King and a number of Republican Senators, to take a 1-day deep dive on the Gettysburg battlefield site, Monday. It was led by the head of the War College and another veteran member of that War College. And we went to that site.

We first talked about Maine and the historic story of Maine, and then we went to the Minnesota site, which is a very big monument, but it is not nearly as much visited.

The head of the War College, at the time, actually started to shed a tear when he told the story because he said, as Dick knew, the story of the First Minnesota was a story like no other.

They asked them to hold the line--262 men, 200--and they didn't pause. They went and did it. And we saw that open field. And 215 of them were struck down by bullets, an 82-percent casualty rate, the highest percentage of casualty suffered by any Union regiment in a single engagement in the entire war.

That sacrifice, which Dick researched and captured, is summed up by a Churchill quote:

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so

many to so few.

Those ragtag soldiers that didn't even have proper uniforms, that were farmers, that were laborers, that were part of a regiment from a State that wasn't even a State, stood up when it couldn't be more of a difficult burden, and they didn't hesitate, and they did their jobs.

That is what Dick honored with that story, and it is something I think we all should be thinking about right now. What is truly sacrificed? What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to stand up for your country?

So Dick's wife Julia and his kids Alexandra and Andrew, and the granddaughters, we send our love and gratitude. Our State is so much better and our country is so much better because of Dick Moe. He showed us, and clearly Senator Smith, that public service is worth it, that this devotion to history is not just some ancient thing in a dusty book. It matters to now.

He showed us that the ties that bind us--whether it is small towns and historic preservation of buildings, like Lincoln's Cottage--mean something in the now; that history matters. And I think we all need to remember that today.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator from Oregon yield?

I have one question, and it is about just the Justice Department. We just got the shocking news yesterday--every single day, something happens--that once again, the President is treating the Justice Department as his own personal law firm. He has now asked for--and this might have been while the Senator from Oregon was speaking--the President has now requested $230 million back from the taxpayers of this country, off of their backs, to line his own pockets--or he says now to give to a charity of his choice. And to me, this is just another example of how he keeps considering the Justice Department as it should be--not as the people's lawyer but as his own lawyers. In fact, he has installed his own lawyers there.

He has done everything from deciding to pardon George Santos and pardon his friends to prosecute his so-called enemies, including firing career prosecutors to allow him to install a White House aide to go after his enemies.

And so one of my obsessions with having watched this from the Judiciary Committee is just how that can be justice. And I think it does tie in with everything else that is happening.

You know, he is focusing on getting $230 million that he doesn't deserve back into his pocket, instead of helping the American people get healthcare. He is focused on helping his pals and his friends and going after his enemies, instead of doing the work for the American people that he was elected to do.

So I would just like to have my colleague from Oregon answer a question about how he sees this Justice Department fraud and what is happening over there as related to how the President isn't doing anything for regular people and, instead, he is helping his pals.

And will the Senator from Oregon yield for a question?

So when you look at how this all started, I think about all of these people who have stood up--and you are standing up today. I think about career prosecutors in the Justice Department who have basically said: No, I am not going to do the bidding of the President, whether I was appointed during a Republican Presidency or a Democratic Presidency, whether I personally vote Republican or vote Democrat. I have a job to do, and that is to follow the laws of the United States.

And I think the real first indication of this, where people realize just how off the cliff this was going, was when, in fact, there was pressure put on career prosecutors in New York to dismiss these charges that had been the result of a long investigation involving Mayor Eric Adams.

And what I remember from that time was that Danielle Sassoon, who was a very, very well-respected, conservative prosecutor, someone that came up through the Federalist Society, who had clerked for conservative Justices, she decided to resign rather than do their bidding, because she felt that it wasn't consistent with the law, that it was against the law.

And then, another career prosecutor named Hagan Scotten, who was a decorated veteran, who had clerked for then-Judge Kavanaugh and Justice Roberts, he said when asked to file a motion in that case: You may find a fool or a coward to file that motion, but it won't be me.

And those words always echo in my mind.

I say to the Senator from Oregon as he stands up today, of these people through these last months, whether it is standing to march with their kids on their hips, whether it is to stand up, as so many of us have done in this Chamber to fight for healthcare, whether it is people who, like the statistician at the Labor Department, simply doing her job, willing to stand up and give the facts of what the job numbers were--and then the President didn't like it and had her fired, which I always thought was ironic when it is about job numbers, and then you lose another job.

But, in any case, he just fired her.

Or going after Governors at the Federal Reserve or deciding which States he is going to take funding from--in my home State of Minnesota, as I know you have experienced in Oregon, he cut a bunch of energy projects. And I looked at the list, and I thought: Wait a minute. These are all great projects. So many of them were major, major projects with private companies to provide energy in neighboring States like North Dakota and South Dakota.

I kind of looked at the list and saw all the funding, because the company was based in Minnesota, but all the funding was for the surrounding red States. And I just thought: Oops, I guess they didn't mean to put this on the list.

All of that combines, as you look at what is happening with the Justice Department, right now, with a President that has basically decided that there are no norms. And so the only norm left is this body, because the House has decided they are not coming back right now. They are waiting for these Epstein files that they hope will just go away, but it appears they will never go away. They won't even seat a newly-elected Member of Congress from Arizona because they are so afraid of these Epstein files.

So while that is going on and they basically decided to just stay home and hang out and not come to work every day, this is the functioning Chamber, as close as it can come, that is supposed to be dealing with the matters before the country. And the matter before the country right now is what is happening with our healthcare system on November 1. These premiums are going to be doubling in so many States.

You look at some of the States that actually Donald Trump won, like Florida, with millions and millions of people on these plans. You look at Texas. And 75 percent of the people on these plans live in States that Donald Trump won.

So while all that is going on, the President goes to his go-to, and his go-to is messing around with the justice system. He literally pardoned someone, as in George Santos, who claimed to be, what--a world-class volleyball player, producer of the Spiderman movie, and was actually simply a fraudster that the entire Republican leadership of the House of Representatives booted out of the House of Representatives?

The President says: Oh, I am going to bring this guy back, too, because every single day, it is that strong-arm technique. He doesn't care if it leads to more violence, doesn't care if it violates the oath of these lawyers in the Justice Department, doesn't care if people get fired.

What does matter? What does appear to matter is making news that day. What does appear to matter is dominating the news that day--not our country, not the rule of law.

But the one thing I can say, and I ask this of my friend, the Senator from Oregon, because the President seems to think this: But does, in fact, Trump trump the Constitution? Isn't it a fact that our laws and our Constitution, which has withstood--withstood--wars, withstood the Great Depression, withstood Watergate, withstood all these things--why? Because people stood up as the Senator from Oregon is doing today.

Judges stood up, as we are seeing across the country.

There are Trump-appointed judges that have made decisions time and time again, contrary to this administration, because it is against the rule of law. We saw that in a tariff case with those tariffs that are burdening the small businesses in our State. We saw a Trump-appointed judge, a Reagan-appointed judge, and an Obama-appointed judge that stood together and said the tariffs are illegal.

So this is happening, judges are standing up. Our constituents are standing up, as we saw over this last weekend--millions and millions of people standing up, in what was the biggest peaceful protest in the history of this country.

And, yes, Congress needs to stand up, and that is what the Senator from Oregon is doing today--standing up and saying: This is not normal. This is not normal to have a Justice Department that is doing what they are doing. So I do ask the Senator from Oregon, despite him not being a lawyer, to talk about the fact that Donald Trump cannot trump the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. President, I rise today because the American people deserve affordable healthcare, and they deserve a government that works for them--not a government of threats, not a government of bullies. They deserve a government that comes together in a bipartisan way to find solutions to the problems and challenges they face.

Sadly, right now, we are on day 18 where the Republicans in the House of Representatives have not reported to work--day 18. I went over there this morning, and there are literally more statues of former Republican leaders than there are actual Republican House Members in the entire House. I

walked down the hallways. I went to the door. I went to see if anyone was there. There is no one there. There are just a bunch of statues of former leaders.

We need real leaders right now over in the House that are willing to sit down and negotiate with Members of the Senate and, yes, with the President--not to be rubberstamps of the President but to actually come back and say ``This is what I am hearing from my constituents'' because we know what they are hearing. We have seen the numbers. And some of them have been willing to say it--some of the House Members on the Republican side and some of the Senators.

Three-fourths of the people on the Affordable Care Act plans, according to a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, three-fourths of them are in States won by President Trump. The vast majority of them are in red congressional districts.

So we know what they are hearing because it is what I have been hearing. Some of the people are already getting notices in some States--like in Senator Warnock and Senator Ossoff's State of Georgia-- and they are seeing a doubling of their premiums or a tripling of their premiums.

I have heard the proposed numbers in the State of Minnesota, and it is not pretty.

A few weeks ago, I went on a 13-county rural tour in my State--I visit all 87 counties every year--and I met with soybean farmers. One of them told me that what he was seeing, between the tariffs drying up his market--60 percent of the soybeans in Minnesota are exported around the world. We are proud of that. We feed the world. Those markets have dried up. They can't sell their soybeans. They can't get a good price for their soybeans. I heard the same thing from our corn growers.

So when you look at what is happening with their markets and then you look at what is happening with their input costs for things like fertilizer because of the Trump tariffs and you look at the increases for them in their daily living expenses--like electricity bills and grocery bills--because of these tariffs and, yes, these healthcare premiums--you look at this, and one soybean farmer told me this is the perfect storm of ugly.

So what should our answer be--to stay away like these Republican House Members have done because they are afraid to have a vote on the release of the Epstein files? That soybean farmer is like: What? Go take care of your business. Your job is to come here and help me.

Families' budgets are being squeezed. The President promised he would bring down prices on day one, but instead, it is day 261, and the opposite is happening, especially with healthcare.

This isn't a December problem or a January problem; this is a ``now'' problem because November 1 is the date. November 1 is the day when these plans that are called different things in different States--in my State, it is called MNsure--when these plans, which over 25 percent of our farmers are on, for one thing, and a whole bunch of small business owners--they are not working at some big corporation. They do not have the option of getting their plans that way. Instead, they rely on these types of plans from the State. Ours existed even before the Affordable Care Act, but it is one of those Affordable Care Act plans.

So November 1 is when that marketplace opens up, and then they have to decide--they can't afford a doubling of the premiums. That is what this fight is about.

A poll published last week found that 78 percent of Americans think we should extend the ACA tax credits, including significant majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.

Why don't my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and my colleagues who aren't here over in the House--Republicans--why don't they see this as an opportunity to do something good, to come to the table and do something good? That is what this is about to me. I thought that is what we were elected to do, but, instead, what do we see?

According to Minnesota's health insurance marketplace, a 30-year-old in Mower County--that is one of our more rural counties kind of near the Iowa border--earning $39,000 per year would see their premium increase from $77 per month this year to $225 a month for the same plan--no extra bells and whistles; the same plan.

A family of three in Roseau County--that is way up north--with an annual income of $106,000--this is a family of three--would see their premium jump from $675 a month to $1,100 a month--an annual increase of more than $5,000.

A 60-year-old married couple in Bemidji earning $85,000 per year-- this is in the middle of our State, a beautiful lakes area. It is the home of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. They just dealt with a horrible, horrible storm, and their town showed this incredible resilience.

A 60-year-old married couple in Bemidji earning $85,000 per year will see their premium climb from less than $500 per month to $1,700 per month. That means an additional $15,000 next year for the same coverage. These increases are going to force people to make a decision.

My rural hospitals told me--behind closed doors, some of it--they said: So we have a whole bunch of people that are going to be hurt by these Medicaid cuts that were in the budget bill this summer, and we have a whole bunch of problems because $500 billion in Medicare cuts was automatically triggered by that Big Beautiful Bill, as it is called--or ``Big Beautiful Betrayal'' of a bill.

Five hundred billion in Medicare cuts was triggered why? Because the debt went up so high because of all the tax cuts for the wealthiest. That is just in law. If you put up the debt that much, you are going to get Medicare cuts that aren't going to hit individuals--they will eventually--but they are going to hit these hospitals. I say ``eventually'' because there is not going to be anyplace to go get your healthcare if you are in a rural area and these hospitals and clinics start closing down.

So on top of all that--Medicaid and Medicare--then you layer on these Affordable Care Act issues. What the people--the doctors and nurses-- told me is that because that is how so many of their patients get their healthcare, if they don't get their insurance, which some of them just won't be able to afford unless we do something about it, which is fully within our power to do--like, literally, you can take that money that was going to go to Argentina and screw over our soybean farmers in Minnesota, that $20 billion--I have no idea why that was a good idea-- you can take that money, and that is going to pay for a big chunk of just the first year of these tax credits for regular Americans and not screw over our soybean farmers.

So, anyway, they told me that if you make sure these people still have insurance, that is a huge deal to these rural hospitals. It means that they can maybe just barely eke by and make it. Otherwise, people are going to get rid of their insurance, and they are going to show up at the emergency rooms because they are not going to be getting not just primary care but elective surgeries and regular things they should be getting because they don't have the insurance, and they are going to show up at the emergency rooms, and then the hospitals are going to be paying for that care. That is what we are dealing with here.

These increases are going to force people across the country to make these impossible decisions.

A constituent of mine was caught off guard by a $2,000 premium increase.

A family of four is considering downgrading their insurance plan.

A father expects that his family will owe $16,000 more next year.

One woman currently saves more than $450 per month because of the ACA tax credit. She is retired. She is single, so she does not have any additional income coming in. That gives her $5,400 extra per year, and that is before you factor in--this is important for people to know because everyone is having trouble with what is going on in the insurance market right now--that is before you factor in what is expected to be a 21-percent increase in the premium.

Another constituent shared that her biggest fear is affording healthcare for her family. She said: Please keep up the fight for the ACA subsidies. Every day, the cost of just living goes up. I am worried for my family.

We know our healthcare system is far from perfect. There are many steps we should take to improve it. I could

spend the whole day giving some ideas that would be constructive.

One of the things that I finally got passed into law that I spent years working on and leading the bill--a negotiation of prices under Medicare.

Congress, before I got here, somehow locked itself into what the prices should be under Medicare, and you could see people and our worthy veterans under the VA getting much better deals on their drugs than all of the seniors in America. Why? Because the VA was negotiating prices, and Medicare was banned from negotiating.

So we opened that up on at least 10 drugs in the first year, drugs like Xarelto and Eliquis and Januvia and Jardiance--big, big drugs with big populations of people that use them--and we got that negotiation started during the last administration and were able to get some remarkable savings.

But there should be many more savings. These are supposed to be negotiated--15 more drugs and then 15 more drugs and then 15 more drugs--and I will tell you right now, I am watching to make sure that happens. But there could be a lot more we could do on the front of pharmaceuticals and many other areas of healthcare. But, instead, the least we can do right now is make sure that people aren't going to end up bankrupt--small-farm bankruptcy is at a 5-year high right now--who live in rural areas.

We are asking our colleagues to come to the table. We are asking the Republicans in the House of Representatives to return to work so that they are not outnumbered by a bunch of statues that have been sitting there for a hundred years in the Rotunda. We would like the real Representatives to come back and join us in negotiating to end the shutdown, which is what we want, but also to do something to help Americans with their healthcare.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today as millions of Americans stand on the edge of a healthcare cliff. I join my Democratic colleagues in continuing to fight to reopen the government and to prevent Americans' healthcare costs from skyrocketing.

A critical part of governing is finding common ground. You don't always pick your neighbors, as the Presiding Officer knows--we have worked together for many, many years--but you find a way to live next to your neighbors, as we do, and to work with them.

Making healthcare more affordable should be a bipartisan issue. And some of my Republican colleagues know we need to act and we need to get something done and the overwhelming majority of Americans agree. I worked that way in the Senate. For a number of years, I was ranked No. 1 for bipartisan bills and No. 3 for passing bills into law because when we sit down together to work things out, we can get things done.

Courage is about willing to stand next to someone you don't always agree with for the betterment of this country. That means finding some common ground. It doesn't mean saying: My way or the highway. It doesn't mean, when you are the President of the United States, canceling meetings, doing one at the last minute, and then, with the Democratic leaders of our country, putting up a deepfake video that was incredibly offensive, poking at them instead of taking this issue seriously. They came to him in good faith and still do.

Unfortunately, right now, our Republican colleagues are not working with us to find a bipartisan agreement to prevent the government shutdown and address the healthcare crisis. We know that even when they float ideas--which we surely do appreciate--in the end, the President appears to make the call. He made the call on tariffs, even though so many of our Republican colleagues disagree with him on that. He made the call on certain nominees like R.F.K., Jr. He made the call when it came to certain provisions in the ``Big Beautiful Betrayal'' bill, which many of our colleagues didn't like, including the nutrition program decision at the end to reward the 10 States with the highest error rate when it comes to SNAP. I know none of them are in the Midwest.

That is why my Democratic colleagues and I want to reach an agreement, not only with the Republicans in this Chamber, but we also need the President at the table. He prides himself for the ``Art of the Deal,'' and it is time for him to make a deal. We are working so hard to make sure that more than 20 million Americans who rely on the Affordable Care Act--it is called different things in different States; in my State, it is called MNsure--have access to affordable health coverage. It tends to be a lot of individual buyers in the market. It tends to be a lot of small businesses. And over a quarter of the farmers in this country rely on it.

Again, it is called different things in different States, but it is a plan to allow people who maybe aren't at a big corporation to be able to have healthcare. A while back, maybe they didn't want to leave a big company or if they left without being in a big company or in the government or something like that, they couldn't even get healthcare at all. That is why the Affordable Care Act was passed.

I would make a lot of improvements to it, and we do have some opportunities to do that. But right now, we need to make sure we don't push them off a healthcare insurance premium cliff. This is on top of the draconian Medicaid cuts that are going to push 15 million people off their healthcare that were in the One Big Beautiful Bill and also the Medicare cuts, which no one intended to have $500 billion in Medicare cuts, I guess, of our colleagues on the other side. But the debt accumulated from the bill of $4 trillion was so big, it triggered automatic Medicare cuts, which are hitting and going to hit rural hospitals, which they are now putting into their bottom line.

While they are staring that down and the Medicaid cuts, they are also looking at the fact that so many of their patients and people who visit rural clinics--those who often tend to be in the hospitals are on the Affordable Care Act because rural areas--and I am focused on rural areas because I went on a 13-county tour in my State--rural areas tend to have more people that are small business owners percentagewise and also that are farmers and ranchers.

So this is not a December thing; this is not a January thing; this is a now thing because those premiums are hitting November 1 when that market opens up. Right now, millions of Americans are staring down the reality that their healthcare premiums could double. For many families, that will mean making impossible choices to make ends meet or losing coverage altogether.

This is preventable, but we have to act now. Over 20 million Americans are enrolled in an Affordable Care Act health insurance plan. If we don't act, they are going to be forced to make impossible decisions. And that doubling number that says the premiums are going to double came out of a study just this week by the Kaiser Family Foundation. If Congress doesn't come together in a bipartisan way to extend these credits, these families, farmers, ranchers, small business owners, entrepreneurs, seniors, people living in rural communities will have to pay an average of double every month, hundreds of dollars more every month--not every year, every month--to keep their health insurance.

In Minnesota, nearly 90,000 people will see their premiums increase by double digits. You can say: Well, I am not on that kind of healthcare. I work at such and such company. You don't know the day, especially with these tariffs, when people are starting to get laid off at manufacturing companies like John Deere or that a farmer's business goes bankrupt--his farm goes bankrupt because bankruptcies for small farms are at an alltime high in the last 5 years--you don't know when

it is going to be you. It is like a lottery, especially right now, with the crazy things going on in this economy. So even for people who aren't on the Affordable Care Act, this affects them.

For many, this will put healthcare coverage out of reach. This is not political theater, I say to the President, after he posted that offensive video. This is not a joke. These are real Americans who are facing these challenges.

The loss of this tax credit will raise premiums for everyone. Minnesotans have already started to receive notice that their costs will increase. One constituent is bracing for more than a 27-percent increase in their premium next year. Another whose husband's job was just eliminated called the 19-percent increase in health insurance costs their family is facing incomprehensible with the loss of income that they already face. And this is before adding in the extra costs people will be forced to take on if the tax credits are not extended.

So, if you noticed, I used those numbers 19 and 20, and you are thinking: Well, she just said they doubled. This is before that happens. This is what is happening in the market right now because of a number of factors going on that the President should be dealing with.

People are going to be socked with this, smacked with this, right while the price of groceries has been going up. I think the President promised he was going to bring costs down on day 1, and we are on something like day 255, and the opposite is happening. Anyone who goes into a grocery store and walks out and looks at their receipt knows exactly what I am talking about. As to the people who are in the grocery aisle and see the cost of beef, they know what I am talking about. As to the people who get their electricity bills, they know what I am talking about. Those aren't deepfakes. Those aren't fake videos that the President puts up on Truth Social. Those are real bills.

So, especially as this is going on because of these tariffs--and could I just add, since I have the floor here, as to the latest on tariffs on sofas and cabinets and lumber? It is already too expensive for Americans to buy a house or to rent a house or to rent an apartment, and now we are going to see major increases to home furnishings--and while we are in the middle of a housing crisis. It is literally one of the worst things he could do right now, but he did it.

So all that is not nothing. All of that kind of sets the stage for why the healthcare cost, which is one of the most expensive for people just on a yearly basis, is so devastating.

One of my constituents shared that while they planned for higher premiums, they didn't expect a more than $2,000 increase for the same coverage next year. Like so many others, they were concerned that even if they switched to a cheaper plan--and you know how that is. You are betting, and you are trying to guess and estimate what is going to go wrong in your family. Is your kid going to have some kind of surgery or break a leg? Is your husband going to have to have some kind of healthcare checkup that will be expensive? You have to always calculate those things. Like so many others, again, they were thinking ``Well, should I switch to a cheaper plan to save money and then hope I don't get sick?'' and then they would be more exposed to higher costs. Those are the kinds of things people are doing right now.

It is like the woman who Jeanne Shaheen had at a spotlight forum, which we did this last week, who had M.S. She had actually talked to her doctor about whether she could ration--kind of like people used to do with insulin for diabetes before we put those caps on insulin--could she ration her medication for M.S. The doctor said: No. That is not how this works. It will just grow the pressure in your brain and make your symptoms worse.

Another Minnesotan wrote to me that without the tax credits, their family of four would have to downgrade their health plan and spend significantly more on their health insurance than they do on their mortgage.

Another said that he expected his family would have to pay an additional $16,000 per year for their health coverage if they had no healthcare tax credits.

One Minnesotan shared:

I cannot absorb additional costs and will be forced into a

catastrophic plan if these reported double digit increases go

into effect.

Just because someone can't afford to stay insured doesn't mean they need healthcare less.

One of the things that I learned that maybe I hadn't thought through when I went to these rural hospitals was the fact that because there is a high percentage of these farmers and people in small towns on these plans--ours is called MNsure, like I said--they are already hit by the Medicaid cuts--the hospitals--by the Medicare cuts because it is an older population, but they actually cared a lot about this--the doctors, the nurses, the people running the hospitals--because they know that the people won't be able to afford this if these premiums double. They will choose not to get healthcare insurance. Then what will happen is they will end up in their emergency rooms in hospitals that are already strapped thin, and they won't be able to afford--they will treat them, but they won't be able to afford it for a long period of time. So they, time and time again, mention to me that these affordable tax credits expiring or not being maintained will create a major problem.

Already, approximately one-third of Americans report not taking medications as prescribed due to the costs.

Jason, from Pennsylvania, was able to get lifesaving coverage when he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

He said:

It's only because of the premium tax credits that I've been

able to afford that coverage.

Now faced with the expiration of these credits, he understands the consequences for people like him.

He said:

If you're faced with a choice of bankruptcy or debt or

saving your life, you're probably going to choose your life,

but the consequences of that, of having an immense amount of

debt--the rest of your life could be ruined because of that.

Another cancer survivor who has always made health insurance a priority also fears what unaffordable health insurance could mean for patients like her.

She said:

It means that I don't have to wait around . . . to find out

about a disease that could have been cured if it had been

detected soon enough. [The insurance] means I don't have to

forgo my entire life savings and my home because of medical

bills. I don't have to forgo lifesaving treatment because I

can't afford it, and that's all about to change. Without the

tax credit, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to afford

health care--the kind of health care that's going to save my

life.

Already, as I noted, because of Medicaid cuts that were passed in the big, beautiful betrayal of a bill, more than 300 rural hospitals, 200 health centers, and 500 nursing homes are likely to close. This means less accessible care for rural communities, longer drives to access care, fewer places to seek care in an emergency, and more hours taken away from work for more caregiving or other responsibilities. Fewer patients will go to that doctor's visit or get that lifesaving screening. They will not get the surgeries they need. Many will get sicker. Ultimately, as I noted, more patients are going to end up in emergency rooms, and these hospitals are going to have to take on the additional burden of more uncompensated care.

None of this happens in a vacuum. As I noted, these Medicaid cuts-- and Medicaid provides healthcare for at least one in five rural Minnesotans, more than 31 percent of children in our State, and more than half of all nursing home residents across our State. So this is about seniors, people with disabilities, and kids, and that is why Medicaid is so important.

For me, my dad, in his later years, got late-onset Alzheimer's. He was in one place, and then we moved him to another place. But I knew the exact date as to when his savings were going to go away, and we were going into those savings. Sadly, we lost him. But I knew that exact date because I was going to have to move him to another nursing home--another assisted living--that took Medicaid, and I made plans with them. I knew that date.

So many people in this country know that date. Even if they are not a senior who is relying on Medicaid, their kids, their spouses, their grandkids kind of know when those savings--if they had

any savings to begin with--are going to run out.

So Medicaid goes way beyond the individuals who have no savings at all. It actually helps people who do have some savings. It helps people who have worked their lives through, like my dad. Medicaid is there as a safety net for people.

Over the last few months, I have heard from thousands of constituents, including seniors in Minnesota, from Sunrise Village in Milaca that I visited, to Senior Living at Watkins in Winona, to the Pillars of Prospect Park and Episcopal Homes in the metro. They are worried about their healthcare.

I heard from one constituent from Inver Grove Heights, who told me that Medicaid helps her to afford the cost of her father's memory care.

I think about what a constituent who works with adults with disabilities told me. She is a mental health therapist for a woman who had a tracheotomy and is wheelchair-bound and requires nursing care. She is also the aunt of a man with Down syndrome, with many needs, who is in a residential home.

She said: I am concerned about the possible Medicaid service cuts to the people who most need it.

I have also heard from a constituent named Lola, whose daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. A social worker advised Lola that her employer-based insurance may not cover the cancer treatments her daughter needed, and she connected her with Medicaid. She said that ``Medicaid helped completely'' with the surgeries and the T-cell therapy. Lola said, ``Using my own insurance would have caused a lot of delays, because it would not have covered'' what she needed.

I heard from Robby, who, after years in an adult foster care facility, now lives independently with a roommate because of Medicaid's disability waiver and community-based services.

I have gotten to meet some of these incredible Minnesotans while visiting care providers who help people with disabilities.

I think about the progress we have made so people can either live in their homes or they can live in a group home, and they can have jobs. We just can't go backwards.

People will feel the impacts of these cuts, and we know it.

I will close with this: After learning that her insurance cost is set to skyrocket next year, a woman asked:

What can you and the Senate do to make sure I don't have to

stop getting my insurance?

We can do something, and it is something that so many of my colleagues agree with, especially after the cuts that were made, especially after the bludgeoning tariffs and what they are doing to the cost of things for people. It is not going to fix everything, that is for sure, but it is going to save a lot of lives, and it is going to help people contain costs so they don't go over that cliff.

As Minnesota's former Senator--I have his desk--Hubert Humphrey once said: The moral test of government isn't just how it treats the young and the healthy; it is also how it treats the sick, the elderly, and people with disabilities. That is definitely true for us right now, and I believe this is a moral test for all Americans.

At a time when so many families are struggling just to make ends meet, we can't sit back here and just play a blame game and look at the polls and da, da, da. We can do something. It is really pretty simple: We must work to protect Americans' access to healthcare. We must protect our rural hospitals. We must address our healthcare crisis.

As I know, it is not a December or a January problem, it is a now problem, and it is completely within our grasp to do this, and it is certainly within the President's grasp to bring his party with him.

So stop, Mr. President, posting those fake, offensive videos, and start helping Americans with their healthcare.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Madam President, as my colleague from Delaware just noted, we are here today because Republicans have created a healthcare crisis for millions of Americans. And like the Senator from Delaware, I am someone that works across the aisle all of the time. I have one of the best records for bipartisan bills, and I think that is an important part of our governing, and that is to find common ground.

You don't always pick your neighbors, but you find a way to live next to your neighbors. You find a way to work with them. And what is so unfortunate about what is going on tonight is that it didn't happen here. There was no crossing over the fence with some coffee for the neighbors to try to have a meeting, to try to work this out.

In fact, it was Senator Schumer and Leader Jeffries who had to request time and time again--that got canceled on--a meeting with the President.

There is still time to continue to negotiate, but not if they are just going to say: Hey, this healthcare thing, it is not a problem. Maybe we can deal with it in December.

First off, who would believe that when Donald Trump just says one thing one day or posts something on Truth Social, and then everyone changes what they agreed to, which has happened time and time again. So that is one reason it is not reality unless he is at the table.

No. 2, it is not reality because this is not a December problem. This is not a January problem. This is a now problem. November 1, that is when people start reenrolling--a whole bunch of small businesses, 20 million people, more than a quarter of the farmers in this country, who are already facing, as one of my farmers said to me last week, ``a perfect storm of ugly.'' That is about the tariffs. That is about their input costs with fertilizer, and that is about their personal healthcare costs--``a perfect storm of ugly.''

When you are in a big storm in Minnesota, you don't just go outside, hold an umbrella, and think: Maybe it will go away. You do something about it then. You take cover then. You help people take cover then.

That is not what they are doing with this vote tonight.

We have a bill that would help millions of Americans sleep easier. We are still dealing with the tariffs. We are still going to push on that, which has led to all of these grocery cost increases. We see what is happening with the electricity cost increase.

Costs are up. Chaos is up. And corruption is up.

But there is one thing we can do, and that is one of the biggest cost drivers when we look at inflation, and that is healthcare.

So let's start with how we got here. We know that over 110 million Americans depend on Medicare and Medicaid--110 million. These programs cover everything from hospital visits to lifesaving prescriptions to the long-term care that allows seniors to remain in their homes.

And these programs, along with Social Security and SNAP, which is the nutrition program, have driven poverty among seniors, for years, to record lows. The best poverty-fighting program there is: Medicare, Medicaid.

But the budget that congressional Republicans passed earlier this summer, without our votes--again, they didn't listen to us--makes the biggest cut in history to Medicare and Medicaid. That is right--the biggest cut in history, while all of these other costs are going up. Their budget cut Medicaid by over a trillion dollars and will trigger more than $500 billion in Medicare cuts.

How does that happen? Well, the debt is so high from that bill because of the trillion dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and the trillion dollars in tax cuts and giveaways for corporations that it actually automatically triggered $500 billion in Medicare cuts on hospitals.

So when we go, as we did--our Members on the Democratic side--last week and met with people in hospitals and patients and doctors and nurses, we heard about that. We heard about the 15 million Americans who are going to get shoved off their healthcare.

But the one thing they could have done--and they voted against it once, but we know behind closed doors they are very interested in doing something about this--it is the tax credits to help people afford their health insurance. Without these tax credits, more than 20 million Americans will see their premiums skyrocket.

A Kaiser study, just today, came out: double the premiums--double the premiums.

That is why one of my hospitals told me: Look, of course Medicaid hits us hard. Of course, Medicare does. But so many of our patients and the people who visit our clinic are on MNsure--that is the Affordable Care Act plan in my State--that, if this happens, a whole bunch of them won't be able to afford it. Then they are going to show up in our emergency rooms. They are going to show up without insurance. They are not going to get the surgeries that they need, and they are not going to do their doctor's visits.

That is why you are seeing some Republicans--some overtly--saying: We have got to do something about this.

They shouldn't be talking about off-ramps. They should be talking about how to get their constituents off a cliff.

Earlier this year, we marked the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid. As we look back at this monumental achievement, we should be strengthening healthcare in the country, not undermining it.

We made progress, right? Capping out-of-pocket costs, passing my bill to allow Medicare to finally negotiate for better prices, making healthcare more affordable. But we should be building on that progress because the status quo is not OK for people right now. We should be building on that progress by

making improvements to these programs, not making them harder.

So we are all calling on our Republican colleagues to pass our bill. And if they can bring themselves do that, or at least to sit in a room and negotiate and actually get this done--the President prides himself in the ``art of the deal.'' Well, show us the deal. Don't say you don't need our votes because you just found out tonight that you do.

They need our colleagues to stop taking cues from a guy who, after a meeting about one of the most important moments in his Presidency, puts out a deepfake video--offensive, making fun of the leaders. Who does that? What other President has done something like that when they are actually in a negotiation? This isn't political theater.

These are real people, like the woman at Senator Shaheen spotlight hearing today, who was from Maine, and she is going to talk to her doctor and literally met with her doctor to say: OK, I can't afford these increases. So how do I manage to ration my medication for MS?

And the doctor said: It doesn't work like that. The pressure will build in your brain.

Well, I hope the pressure from the public when they see what is going on is going to build. And we are starting to see it all over the country right now. This is not the time to just accept the status quo and say we can't do anything about it while our constituents are going off that premium cliff.

So maybe the President needs to get out and talk to that farmer whose soybean market has dried up and who now is not going to be able to afford his health insurance, and see that ``perfect storm of ugly.'' He is not going to meet those people on the golf course at Mar-a-Lago. I can tell you that. He needs to get out there.

And it is time to start taking cues and listen to real people and not memes and not deepfake videos. This is not a joke.

Our bill is a path forward, and we ask them to come to the table and negotiate with us.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today because we have a choice here, and the Democratic leaders in both the Senate and the House just went to the White House. They had a long meeting. I am glad that meeting happened. I hope something will come out of it.

But the President has repeatedly said: Well, we don't need Democratic votes. Well, we can do this on our own.

The problem is the more he says that, the more the American people are saying: What about me?

``What about me?'' says the farmer whose soybean market is dried up, whom I met with last week. ``What about me?'' says the mom coming out of the grocery store and looking at her bill or the student thinking ``I can't afford this electricity bill'' or everyone that is starting to look at these healthcare numbers, looking at the insurance premiums, looking at the fact that this administration has not stood up for them on healthcare?

So if they would open their eyes right now and see what is going on out

there or maybe go to those 13 rural counties that I just visited in Minnesota, maybe they would see that this is a moment where people are expecting the President and congressional Republicans to work with us on these unfolding crises.

The tariffs may be decided in the courts or the Congress can decide enough is enough, but this healthcare crisis--that is on this body to do something right now. The President has sadly made his position clear. He would rather shut down the government than work with congressional Democrats to address this skyrocketing healthcare cost crisis.

So our colleagues, many of whom I work with every day, they can decide: Are they going to rubberstamp what he does or are they going try to work with us?

So one of the things that one of the farmers said to me last week, at one of my meetings, is this: Between my entire market drying up--in Minnesota, 60 percent of our soybeans are exported to other countries; of course, China hasn't purchased a bushel since this President came in--and the cost of fertilizer going up because of the tariffs on potash out of Canada--and even then, though they were reduced, it is still a major driver--between the issues with visas and not having enough workers--he described it, as he looked at the healthcare policy and what is happening there, since about 28 percent of our farmers are on the Affordable Care Act because they are individual businessowners-- he said it is the perfect storm of ugly.

I think that is a good way to describe it. So what do you do when there is a storm--a perfect storm of ugly--coming at you? Do you go out there with an umbrella and say, well, maybe we can look at this in a month or two?

You don't have that luxury. The American people don't have that luxury. This is not a December thing. This is not a January thing. This is a now thing.

So I hope our colleagues will see it as the opportunity that it is, and that is to finally do something to help the people that are facing this.

NBC recently reported on one family that currently pays $278 a month for health insurance, thanks to the healthcare tax credit. If Republicans in Congress and the President let this expire, this family's premiums could soar to $1,800 a month, an increase of $1,500 a month.

The estimate is that nationally it will be a 75-percent increase in premiums. In rural, it will be double. I was actually surprised at our rural hospitals--of course, they are concerned about the Medicaid cuts--that the $500 billion in Medicare cuts that is coming at them, because of the fact that the debt was increased so much in that bill with the tax cuts for the wealthy that it triggered an automatic $500 billion of Medicare costs.

All of that is worrisome, but maybe I just hadn't thought it through. The Affordable Care Act premium increases, without any tax credits, really concern them. Why? Because so many of their people that are going into their hospitals in rural areas are either on Medicaid or they are on what we call in Minnesota MNsure, their policy through the Affordable Care Act.

Those people won't be able to afford double--no way--because they are already in that perfect storm of ugly. So then they aren't going to have insurance, and they are going to show up in their emergency rooms, in these midsize towns, with no insurance. So they said this could make a major, major difference for them.

Our legislation would have kept the lights on. Our bill, it got more votes than the Republican bill. I would like to point that out. A whole bunch of people didn't even show up for the vote that we just had a week ago, and our proposal that did something about healthcare--to restore people's healthcare--actually got more votes than the Republican proposal.

So we want people to work with us and prevent millions of Americans from losing their healthcare. This is our opportunity to show why we came here to begin with, and that is to stand up for our constituents.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I join my colleague from Michigan as well as Senators Welch and Shaheen and the others that come before this body today to talk about what is really happening out there.

Well, what is really happening out there is that we are in a healthcare crisis, and that is because the big beautiful betrayal of a bill will kick 15 million Americans off their healthcare, force hospitals, health clinics, and nursing homes to close. This is already happening with the premium notices, with what they are already seeing. It is raising costs for everyday Americans.

And now, if Congress doesn't act to extend the Affordable Care Act's health tax credits before they expire, more than 20 million Americans will see their premiums soar, putting their coverage at risk.

I go to all 87 counties in my State every single year, and I visit rural hospitals. I know what is happening out there. I know what is happening to people who are in small businesses, who rely on the Affordable Care Act, who are already seeing increased grocery costs, already seeing increased electricity costs, and are already seeing dried-up markets because of these tariffs. This is all hitting them at once.

At the end of the day, everything from regular checkups and lifesaving prescriptions to hospital visits and long-term care is under threat--not for the wealthiest. They are going to be able to handle it. Maybe not even for people in some of the big cities, but for people out there in rural right now, they are barely holding on as it is.

And this is on top of the funding cuts to public health and medical research that extinguish hope for lifesaving cures and jeopardize America's global leadership and medical innovation. Those people are holding on too.

Just last weekend, I went with the Parkinson's Association on their charity walk. Those people are holding on for hope in their wheelchairs. They are holding on for hope. They are daughters and sons; they are brothers and sisters. We are so close in so many areas because of the mapping of the human genome, because of AI--as this is coming from the home of the Mayo Clinic, MN--that we do not want to go backward when it comes to investment in research.

That is why my Democratic colleagues and I are fighting to restore healthcare in this upcoming budget bill. Right now, healthcare access for more than 20 million Americans who benefited from healthcare tax credits are at risk, as I just noted. As a result, a record number of Americans, 24 million people, have been enrolled in this Affordable Care Act, but all of them are going to see this increase if something isn't done.

This will be a massive hit to working families. It will be especially harmful to middle-class families, small business owners, and entrepreneurs, seniors, and people living in rural communities. It will force States to reduce coverage and shift resources away from other priorities like education and public safety. In Minnesota, at least nine rural hospitals are at immediate risk of having to shut their doors and stop providing care.

Medicare, Medicaid, and enhanced healthcare tax credits are overwhelmingly supported by Americans. Why? Because this is about their families. This is about the fact that they know that healthcare--over the years, they have seen the prices and what has happened with pharmaceuticals, and they expect us to do better than what is happening now. They expect us to do better than putting forward what is in this bill that just happened that hurts their rural hospitals or throws people off of their coverage or stops lifesaving research on these cures that has always been so bipartisan or the rhetoric around vaccines, which so many of them know their kids need. I just found out this year I had no immunity to measles. I got the shot, but it was at the wrong time. So I got that vaccine. Right now, so many people don't even know. They turn on the TV, and they hear the HHS Secretary question these vaccines against the belief of a number of people on the other side of the aisle, the Senators, Republican Senators, including those who are doctors. This is just creating massive chaos.

Costs are up. Chaos is up. Confusion is up. We must do better. More insured Americans is good for patients, good for families, and good for our country. More research paves the way for cutting-edge treatment and the cures of tomorrow.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague Senator Smith because once again our State is in mourning. After a painful summer where we lost Leader Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in a horrific act of violence, we were once again shaken to our core by a deadly mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.

It happened during the first mass of the year, an exciting time for so many students, back to school, meeting their new teacher, seeing new students. Right in the middle of that mass, two children, Fletcher Merkel and Harper Moyski were murdered.

We mourn for their lost lives, their families, the 21 people injured, including 18 children, ages 6 to 15. I think about the teachers and clergy who never imagined having to instruct children to duck under church pews to save their lives, and all the kids who were forced to grow up way too quickly. They will never forget that morning.

On the day of the shooting, literally within an hour of the shooting, I found out that one of my former employees who worked in this building, whom I am very close to, Kate Nilan, she had three kids in that church that morning. She left Washington, got married, had these three children, two of them twins, and they were all three in that church.

Her daughter Cora, who is in middle school, saw two of her best friends get shot--one in the stomach, one in the neck--and she had to run out of that church when they could get to safety and told one of their dads that his daughter had been shot.

We have since heard about a teacher who got a kid out of a wheelchair, a child with disabilities, put him under the pew, and then shielded him with her own body.

We have heard the words of a young, young child who was saved because his friend laid on top of him and got shot in the back. We heard the stories of the police officers who ran toward and not away from danger and saved lives. And we have heard the stories of the medics and the first responders and the doctors and the nurses in the operating rooms that somehow were able to save all those other lives at two fine hospitals, Hennepin County Medical Center, as well as a children's hospital in Minneapolis, and I am sure several others.

You know, it is such a close-knit neighborhood that surrounds this beautiful church. Annunciation is a church on a hill, but it is not a church alone on a hill. It is a church that is attached to a school, and it is a church and a school that are right next to houses literally a few yards away. And then next to the houses are more houses, and then next to the houses are a shop. And next to that is a restaurant, and then next to that is another big high school. And then next to that are more houses.

So many houses filled with families who, on that day, Wednesday, August 27, had to tell their own kids the horror of what happened in every single one of those houses. You can't hide from this, as much as you want to shield your kids from these kinds of stories, but

when they are 6-year-olds that are in the mass shooting, that are in the church, who are the neighbors and friends of the kids in the other houses, every parent had to tell their kids about it.

This church, this school, these people of faith, these neighbors, they have all been incredibly strong, and even on this horrific day, I saw, hours after the shooting, neighbors sitting out on their lawn chairs with food for each other. Neighbors hugging people they knew and hugging perfect strangers whose lives had been just turned upside down.

But most of all, I have been thinking about that little 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel, 10-year-old Harper Moyski, and their families, whose lives were taken that day, and I am going to start by talking about them.

Fletcher was just starting third grade. He loved his family, his friends. He loved fishing and cooking, and in his Dad's words, ``any sport that he was allowed to play.'' His dad also said that Fletcher was on his way to becoming a wonderful young man. In light of his family's tragedy, the family has urged people to wear bright colors to his funeral this Sunday to honor his memory, and he asked all parents to give their kids an extra hug.

Harper Moyski, the other child we lost, had just begun fifth grade. Her parents described her as a bright, joyful, and deeply loved 10- year-old whose laughter, kindness, and spirit touched everyone who knew her. She was adored by her little sister. Like so many girls her age, she would have sleepovers with her friends. They would stay up late watching movies and doing each other's makeup.

So I met that family just many hours after they lost Harper. They joined thousands of people at the Academy of Holy Angels nearby because they didn't want to be alone. They wanted to be with people from their community, whether they knew them or not. They were there to hear from the archbishop.

They were there to hear words of comfort. And I met Harper's little sister, sitting quietly on her mom's lap, holding a Teddy bear, knowing her life would never be the same.

Harper's family was clear that they want to see us take action. In her parents' words:

Change is possible, and it is necessary--so that Harper's

story does not become yet another in a long line of

tragedies.

Change is possible, but it takes courage, and that courage isn't supposed to come from parents in mourning or from defenseless kids in mass in the first week of school. Sixth graders should not have to protect first graders.

You know, I will never forget meeting several of the Sandy Hook parents in 2013, and I shared this story with some of the parents at Annunciation. It was the day we had the vote on the bipartisan background check bill. I remember Joe Manchin was trying to get that done. It was a strongly bipartisan bill. It was one of my worst days in the Senate because they were in my office, and I had to call Joe to get the latest--because he was trying to get the bill done--and tell the families that we weren't going to be able to get it passed. We were missing just a few votes.

I remember that day because one of the moms in my office described how her son had severe disabilities, and he had a school aide that would be with him all the time. Every day before he went to school, he would point at the picture of the school aide that was on their refrigerator because he loved her, and he did that that day.

She told me that was the last time she saw her son. He was autistic. He loved that aide and loved his family.

Hours later, she sat with other parents in that firehouse in Connecticut waiting as, one by one, kids would come in, and their families would cry and grab them and hug them and whisk them away. Pretty soon, the families left in that firehouse knew they were the ones left. They knew they would never see their babies again.

That mom sat there in that firehouse thinking--and the dad--and they thought about the fact that whatever happened to their child, whom they now knew was dead, would have happened to the school aide too.

When they found them, she had her arms around him in a closet. They were both shot dead.

Those families asked me that day in my office ``How come we have the courage to come here to advocate for background checks, for something that wouldn't have even saved our babies''--because in this case, if you recall, the guns were in the household that the parents had gotten. ``But we advocated for the background checks and closing the loophole because we believed that it would save the lives of other people's babies, and we believed it was the most likely thing that could pass, and we believed that, despite some of us wanting an assault weapons ban or other things, this was the smartest thing we could do. And the people in this place didn't have the courage to stand up like we did for other people's kids.''

We can never give up because it is impossible to believe--when you look at what happens in other countries that still have legal guns and still allow for hunting, you know that we can be better; you know we can do better; you know that guns should not get into the hands of the people that have been doing these shootings.

In 2018, after another horrific shooting, I worked across the aisle with Senator Hatch of Utah to pass a law which has provided over $400 million to support prevention programs to keep schools safe. We tried our best, but it is clearly not enough.

In 2022, after our Nation was rocked by mass shootings in Buffalo and at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, we passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, led by Senators Murphy and Cornyn and negotiated with a group of Senators. It was an important first step in keeping our kids safe, providing more than $2 billion for things like school-based mental health services and violence prevention efforts. It kept hundreds of firearms out of the hands of some people that shouldn't have them. It also included my legislation to close the boyfriend loophole and keep convicted--convicted--domestic abusers from buying a gun.

But it was just a first step. As this tragedy at Annunciation Catholic Church makes clear, there is still so much more that must be done. We cannot rest when gun violence remains the leading cause of the deaths of kids and teenagers. We cannot rest when there have been over 90 school shootings in this country in 2025 alone. Congress needs to act with the courage and urgency this moment demands and pass commonsense gun violence prevention laws that will save lives.

I come from a State with a time-honored tradition of hunting and fishing, like so many Senators in this Chamber. When I considered gun violence prevention measures in the past, I would always ask myself: Do these reforms in any way hurt my uncle Dick in his deer stand? My answer was always no.

The shooter in Minneapolis used an AR-15-style weapon to fire nearly 120 of his shots. You don't have to have an assault weapon in a deer stand, but that is what he used that day in that church. So that is why a majority of Americans, including many Republicans, support an assault weapons ban.

We also need to expand background checks, which over 80 percent of Americans support. And they are messy. They take too long. I think there is a lot more we could do with the information we have available to us online right now. Give me a break. We can't figure out that some of these people that have bought these guns that have been involved in mass shootings shouldn't have these guns? In today's world, with all the stuff online, we are not able to put the resources into figuring that out? How do you tell that to the parents of that 8-year-old and 10-year-old? How do you tell it to the parents of the kids that are still in the hospital right now, barely holding on to their lives?

We should close dangerous loopholes to keep guns away from the people we all know shouldn't have them.

We need to ban ghost guns and bump stocks and high-capacity magazines.

It is never one-size-fits-all. Each shooting is a little different. But if we just took these commonsense measures, which wouldn't set us back on hunting or legal gun ownership, we would make a difference.

We must restore full funding for the ATF, the Agency that enforces many of our Nation's gun laws and plays a huge role in tracing crime guns. The administration cut its budget by more than $400 million and rolled back critical

gun violence programs across the Justice Department.

I am not saying every one of these things would have prevented what happened in one shooting or the other, but I do know--especially when I look back at Uvalde and the Buffalo shooting and the dad that was just simply going to get a birthday cake and never came back from the grocery store--I do know that some of these things on assault weapons-- age limits or doing something when it comes to closing loopholes of who should be able to get these guns--it would have saved a whole bunch of lives if we got that done.

This week, Senator Smith and I and our entire Minnesota delegation, Democrats and Republicans, put forward a resolution to honor the victims and survivors of the mass shooting. The resolution condemns the violence and commends the bravery and service of law enforcement, first responders, medical caregivers, school and church staff, and community members who acted swiftly to protect and help others.

No one should have to fear this threat of gun violence. I am glad we came together across party lines to put that resolution forward, from our most liberal Members over in the House to our most conservative, but we have to do more.

In the wake of this senseless tragedy, the archbishop of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Archbishop Hebda, shared something that stuck with me. He said:

We have to recognize that it's through prayer, [but also]

through that prayer of the feet, through that action, that we

can indeed make a difference. That has to be the source of

our hope.

He read a letter from Pope Leo, who said:

We must stop the pandemic of arms . . . which infects our

world.

And the Pope prayed that we might fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their

spears into pruning hooks.

There are things we can do here. There are things that would make a difference, and we all know that. It is just going to take the courage of those little sixth graders that laid on top of first graders or the teacher that took the kid with disabilities out of a wheelchair and laid on top of him. That is real courage. We just have to have a little political courage to get this done.

So let's honor the lives of these precious kids we lost by taking action to stop senseless acts of gun violence--by praying, yes, but also praying for action.

I yield the floor.