Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Res. 728, which is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 711.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Thursday, May 14; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate be in a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; further, notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motion with respect to the nominations to be considered en bloc pursuant to S. Res. 690 ripen at 1:45 p.m. tomorrow.

For the information of my colleagues, they should expect a vote in relation to S. Res. 526 at noon tomorrow.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Kennedy.

Mr. President, as you know as somebody who led an incredibly distinguished business career, integrity and confidence are the key building blocks in any institution.

We take a solemn oath here to our Constitution and to represent our constituents free of any conflicts of interest whatsoever. When we come here on the Senate floor, our constituents have to know that our only guiding light is what is best for our States, what is best for the people of our States, and what is best for the United States of America.

Engaging in any way in a prediction market or trying to place bets where we might have insider information deteriorates the confidence our constituents have in us. So it is extremely important that the public know that from this day forward, there is no chance that any Member of Congress--Member of the Senate in this case, in this resolution I am going to propose--will be involved in any prediction market whatsoever. I am presenting a resolution that makes that crystal clear.

By changing the standing rules of the Senate, what we are doing is allowing our constituents to know once and for all that no Member of the U.S. Senate, no Member of the staff of the U.S. Senate can ever use that inside information as a way to monetize this job whatsoever.

So I am very proud that we have unanimous support, hopefully, from every single Member of the Senate to do that.

So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Res. 708, which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the Padilla amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the resolution, as amended, be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

I point out that the amendment goes broader for us as Members of the Senate. It is not intended to change the definitions of any of the types of contracts that we are talking about. This is about making certain that we have the integrity we need to show our constituents.

Mr. President, first of all, I am very thankful that the Senator from Oregon is now completely on the side of President Trump in making certain that we restore home ownership for Americans. I didn't think I would see this moment, but I am excited that it happened either way.

I obviously urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment because we have already passed it. We have already solved this problem. In fact, congratulations to all of us--89 to 10, we banned institutional ownership of single-family homes. I think that is fantastic.

By the way, in January, we saw a 7-percent decline in the prices of homes in just San Diego because another factor that we are dealing with tonight is that, unfortunately, the Democrats allowed tens of millions of people to come into this country illegally. That drove up housing prices.

So what this bill is about is actually enforcing our immigration laws, making certain that we have border protection, and making certain that we remove the people from this country that were not supposed to be here in the first place. That will also continue to drive down housing prices.

But again, I agree with the Senator from Oregon. This is about lowering the price of housing. We have already done it. I urge all my colleagues to vote against this amendment.

Mr. President, I want to point out these are just texts that allow us to do certain motions here, and I don't need this for the moment.

I want to speak to you--honestly, speak to my Democrat colleagues-- from the heart. We have a situation in America today in which 260,000 families are without a paycheck. This fiscal year, they have been without a paycheck for more than half of this year.

Now, in the private sector you look at it and say: Well, why would you not pay somebody? Typically, it is because they didn't do a good job, they didn't show up for work, they didn't punch in properly--and all of those things are very litigated, by the way, meaning, in a private business, if you don't pay somebody what they are entitled to make, you have something called a wage-and-hour lawsuit against you.

And yet, the third time in 6 months this body--this body--that is charged with a simple job, which is the power of the purse to appropriate money to fund the government, we have failed. And I get the political posturing: That side of the aisle would say it is our fault; this side of the aisle will say it is your fault.

I can tell you who, unequivocally, it is not their fault, and that is the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security who wake up every day and go to work; they do their job.

And by the way--you have been there, Mr. President, in your State of Missouri, St. Louis, you have seen them firsthand. Members of Border Patrol, Customs, immigration enforcement, CISA--you have seen them.

We see their work. What should we, as the body here, tell those families? In fact, there is an expression that says: Explain it to me like I am a 5-year-old. And there are lots of 5-year-olds affected-- grandkids, kids, siblings--that are wondering why they can't go to camp because their mom or dad wasn't able to write a check. I don't know what I would say if I were a dad.

You are a dad. You are a great dad, actually. I have seen you with your daughter. What do you say to her if you didn't have money to pay the bills, but you did everything right?

One thing I think would help bring us to the negotiation table is for us to get together and say: Look--I will use the same expression that I used the other day--let's eat our own dog food. If we are OK and we find it acceptable for 260,000 American families to go without pay, then isn't it reasonable for us to say that this body--and this body alone, the U.S. Senate, who makes four, five times as much as they do-- for us to go without pay, that our pay be withheld?

Now, I will be honest. I think our pay should be docked, honestly, because that is what would happen in a private sector. We are not going to do that. I am just saying: Hold our pay.

By the way, this is not a bill that I am proposing; it is not a law; it is just a proclamation that says: Every Senator here, all 100 of us, can go to the clerk's office and say: You know what? We can blame whomever we want to blame, but do you know what? I am going to be in shared pain here. Hold my paycheck until we do our job.

What does doing our job mean?

And I look at the minority whip, I have gotten to know. I didn't know you before I came to DC. I think you are a good man, actually. I have had a chance to interact with you in different ways. I think this is a guy who is a serious guy, and he cares, and I know you deeply care about this immigration issue. I remember you telling the story about how you have your dad--I think it was your dad's--naturalization paper in your office. And that resonated with me because I have my naturalization paper in my office. So I know you care. You are a man of good integrity.

And what I am asking that we do is just be able to look ourselves in the mirror every morning when we comply with Senate rules--put on a jacket, put on a tie--come to work and say: Just hold our checks.

Because you know what we should do? Why don't we just get in a room and hash this out?

The way this negotiation has happened is nothing like I have ever experienced in my life. There is a conversation here, a conversation there, a conversation there, a conversation all over the place from 17 different places. Why don't we just get together and deputize one or two people on your side, deputize one or two people on our side, and let's just get this done? I think all of us--I hope, I hope, I actually hope--that we have the moral character in our heart to say: It is just wrong not to pay 260,000 people.

And, look, let me just say this. If Renee Good or Alex Pretti were my children, I would be horrified. What happened was a terrible, terrible tragedy that two Americans lost their lives, but it is not the fault of the 260,000 people who are just following orders, the vast majority of the people who weren't even there. There are families that have never even been to Minnesota.

Again, explain it to me like I am a 5-year-old.

You go through Customs. I have been to your airport, by the way, at O'Hare--oh my gosh, that is an airport; that is a big one--and you are a TSA worker there or you are a Customs person there because there is lots of international flights. They go home and say: Dad, did you get your paycheck yet? Deposit is due for Disney World. Been planning this trip my whole life.

No, son. The U.S. Senate hasn't done that yet.

That is not right. It is just not right.

So I will make my first motion, and I don't know how persuasive I am. I am going to guess that I wasn't very persuasive.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 296, S. Res. 526; further, that the resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

And what this means is that our checks get held back. We will get the money eventually, like DHS employees do, until we come to a resolution of this national disaster.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

But I do believe it.

Would you consider modifying the resolution to take that piece out, just to make it clear, the paychecks while we are here, whatever the wording--that you and I sit down and we technically fix that wording so it basically says: During this period of time while DHS is not being funded? Can we just make that amendment and technical fix?

This is not my bill. It is Senator Kennedy's bill. But would we be willing to do that because I don't want this to fall on a technicality?

I appreciate the Senator from Illinois and his point of view. I will ask Senator Kennedy to make those modifications, and we will come back out and fix it, but I appreciate, again, your willingness to engage in this conversation.

So let me offer another proposal, just a little bit different proposal. I think we can all agree that our job is--since we are getting paid, we should do it--is to work hard here and stay through whatever it takes, by the way. I would be willing to stay this weekend. I was here all last weekend. I will stay through Easter. I will stay through Fourth of July, whatever period of time it takes until we release the paychecks of 260,000 Americans.

So what I would like my Democrat colleagues to consider is to fund all of DHS, every single part of it, for 2 weeks--just 2 weeks.

We don't leave for Easter break. We spend every single moment together since we don't have planned meetings Friday, Saturday, Sunday for the next 2 weeks. Maybe we have codels and trips and family vacations, but I have a great and understanding wife. I am sure Democrat colleagues have the same thing, an understanding family--you have to, to do this job. And we stay here until we just get together and say: Hey, look. In a 2-week period of time, we can get there.

And I think there has been some negotiations that said: Hey, maybe we can address this. The White House has come to the table unlike any time I have ever seen. They have offered to codify tactics.

And I know, Mr. President, you personally are concerned about that because you know a lot about law enforcement. You were the attorney general of your State, and you know that if you put tactics into legislation, there is a lot of unintended consequences. You could have law enforcement breaking the law when, in reality, any of us would say: Oh, actually, they are doing the right thing. There is a judgment call. You can't be that granular. Things have to be reasonable.

So I think we can work out that language; it is just 2 weeks.

But here is what this resolution does, if my Democrat colleagues, all they have to do is stay silent. Think about the power. If my Democrat colleagues do not say a word. I don't know how long the Parliamentarian will wait--maybe 7 seconds. If she hears nothing for 7 seconds, for 7 seconds--think about this, for 7 seconds, silence--260,000 people get to go home tonight and tell their kids, their spouses, their brothers and sisters, their mom or dad: I am getting paid. They are retroactively paying me. They get paid for the next 2 weeks.

Nothing is--the world will still be here in 2 weeks. Politics will still exist in 2 weeks. We can beat the you-know-what out of each other for the next 2 weeks, but we have got 260,000 families that get to go home and just--have you ever been in a situation, Mr. President, where you just (inhale/exhale) and you feel like the world is better again-- 260,000 people, for 7 seconds or less--maybe, say, 3 seconds--just silence.

I hope that we can get there. And by the way, just to be crystal clear, because what I heard from the minority whip was that my colleague from Oregon was going to offer to fund TSA--this does that. This does that. This will fund every single TSA worker in America. Three seconds of silence gets every TSA worker paid, gets every Coast Guard person paid, gets every CISA person paid, gets every FEMA person paid, gets every Customs person, gets every Border Patrol person paid-- 3 seconds of silence.

Two weeks. Put the burden on us. You won't take away our paychecks. The Senator didn't agree to that. Will the Senator agree to not object, to just say: Let's pay TSA workers right now?

By the way, I think, if there is a chance that C-SPAN2 is on live at the airports and they saw you, Mr. President, say: Hearing no objection, done, Americans would cheer at airports all over America right now. St. Louis, Portland, Cleveland, Miami, Atlanta, for sure, would cheer. My God, TSA workers are going to get paid. Come back to work. We are so sorry. And we are going to spend 2 weeks--that is it, 2 weeks--not 2 years, not 2 months, 2 weeks--to sit down like grown men and women and do our jobs that pay us $175,000 a year-plus, plus, plus.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 156, H.R. 4553. I further ask that the substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

The timing will start now.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, will my colleague yield for a question?

Mr. President, point of order of the Parliamentarian: I would ask my colleague to remember rule XIX, in which you are analogizing me to a hostage taker. I find that offensive. I think that is in violation of rule XIX.

Madam President, again--again, Madam President--

--you have warned the Senator from Oregon. He has repeated the exact same statement. I believe rule XIX does now allow him to continue speaking if he is violating that standard.

Madam President, the questions I was hoping the Senator would answer, so they would be more fresh in his mind, were: Is the Senator only suggesting right now, just to be crystal clear--crystal clear--a lot of people's lives are at stake here, by the way.

Let me just clarify that a 2-week continuing resolution would pay people retroactively. See, they are owed almost 40 days of pay. So this would pay them back the money we have taken from them for the last 40 days and give us 2 weeks, not 2 weeks of pay.

I just wanted to make sure he understood because maybe I misspoke. I wanted to make sure the Senator from Oregon didn't misunderstand what I said.

I was suggesting that we fund DHS, which retroactively pays 260,000 people; give us 2 weeks to get a solution; and never ever do this to a single American family again.

It is a disgrace that we are doing this, and I am not impugning any-- I am impugning all of us that we never do this--that we never allow a hard-working American to go without a paycheck because of our politics. I just want to make certain that the Senator understood that.

I also want to make certain that I heard the Senator properly because I don't think his speech matched the resolution.

Is the Senator--so this is a simple yes-or-no question. If the Senator doesn't mind, just give me a yes or no, if he wants to. He doesn't have to. I have the floor. But it is up to the Senator if he wants to answer yes or no, but I am going to frame it as a very simple yes-or-no question.

Is the Senator suggesting that we not also fund FEMA?

Madam President, I was yielding for a yes-or-no answer.

Is the Senator suggesting that we not also fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency? Is he suggesting that we not do that; yes or no? What is his response?

Thank you. The Senator answered my question.

No, I have the floor.

Madam President, I have the floor. Thank you for the point of--

Just--I have the floor.

Madam President, would you please instruct the Senator from Oregon who has the floor.

Please, let's maintain decorum here. I think the American people deserve public officials, who are receiving paychecks while they are not, to have a semblance of decorum and class with each other. I hope that I have displayed that thus far.

Here is what is being proposed, just to be crystal--crystal--clear because this gets very fuzzy: I have proposed a 2-week continuing resolution that would retroactively pay every DHS employee and give us 2 weeks to negotiate.

And with my colleague from Oregon, whether intentional or not, what he is proposing in this modification request--in this modification request--I don't have a crystal ball or a time machine. I have no idea what you are going to propose later. God knows what that is. I have no idea.

But in this proposal, it is saying only fund the Transportation Safety Agency. I don't understand why we wouldn't take the opportunity.

So I am going to ask my colleague back: Would the Senator consider, in addition to funding TSA permanently for the rest of the fiscal year--I love that, by the way. Let's do that, absolutely. Can I have an amen? But in addition, fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It seems like a pretty good Agency to fund. These are the men and women that respond to disasters.

You have been there, Madam President, when they have responded to your disasters in your State of Iowa, right? I mean, you probably know these people are unbelievable. Let's fund them. Let's pay them. By the way, let's pay them and say thank you.

Then we look at Cybersecurity, an Agency called CISA. We love acronyms here. The Cybersecurity Agency. What do they do? They make sure that we don't have threats. We are in a major conflict with Iran; 60, 70 percent of them aren't working. Would the Senator also consider funding that? Seems like a good Agency.

Secret Service. Really important Agency. They keep the President of the United States safe. His threat level right now--if you have been to the White House, Madam President, my God, the threat level against the President of the United States right now is at a peak.

We are about to do FIFA, the soccer championship--although, that is also football, which is what we call it in Colombia, but we call it soccer here. We are going to need Secret Service here.

How about Customs? Should we not fund Customs? What is their job? Their job is to inspect packages coming in from other countries, process visitors to your State and my State. Why don't we fund them?

Let's go through here this chart. The Department of Homeland Security USCIS--ugh, another acronym. What do they do? They take people like me who apply to be a U.S. citizen and process my legal immigration status. I love this Agency. I thank them every day because they do a good job-- 3,300 people. Can we also agree to fund them?

How about this group, look at the name of this Agency: The biological and nuclear threat prevention Agency.

Can I have an amen to fund that Agency for the rest of the year and never ever, ever gamble with that threat?

Now, let's talk about this Agency here: Homeland--you can't read that, but Homeland Security Investigations special agents. If you think of the enforcement officers as the police officers, these guys are like the detectives. These are the guys that chase down the worst of the worst criminals--the guys that machete people's heads off, child traffickers, transnational gangs. These guys have gone without a paycheck the last 40 days, and they are still at the job chasing the worst of the worst. Would anybody here do that job? Would any of you like to put this little badge on and go chase Pablo Escobar on steroids? Because that is what they are doing.

And then let's look at this Agency down here. We talked about them: Customs and Border Patrol. I don't know. I am sure--my Senate colleague has been here a lot longer than I have, and that is true about most of the people here. I am sure he is familiar with Customs.

You know, I am a simple guy so, you know, those are the blue uniform guys. You come in from traveling and ``Can I see your passport? Do you have anything to declare,'' right? Do we not want them on the job? We don't want Customs on the job?

And then Border Patrol. I don't just think we should pay Border Patrol for the rest of the fiscal year; I think we should give those guys a massive bonus. They have cut border encounters in this country by 98 percent.

So to my colleague, to summarize it all--we can skip a step; we are going to skip a step--would the Senator be willing to modify his proposal to adopt instead Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147, the DHS Collins amendment? It sounds very fancy, doesn't it? It funds all that stuff.

I have listened to speeches for the last 40 days, and my colleagues have come out saying: Fund this Agency; fund this Agency; fund this Agency. I am agreeing with them. I want them to accept yes for an answer. I want them to say: Yes, let's do it; let's fund all of DHS except for the one Agency that is not on there, which is the Enforcement and Removal Operations.

So to my colleague from Oregon who said you want to fund all these things--your words, not mine--for the rest of the fiscal year plus retro pay--would the Senator be willing to change his amendment to my proposal and instead substitute all of this with Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147, the DHS Collins amendment?

The Parliamentarian--is he able to respond to that, or do you need me to read the formal text here?

Madam President, I think I have the floor. English is my second language, so I sometimes speak too fast and maybe don't use the right language. So let me just be crystal clear again.

I am suggesting that we fund TSA for the rest of the fiscal year, retroactively pay every worker, and do that for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for CISA, do that for Secret Service, do that for Customs, do that for Border Patrol, do that for Homeland Investigations, do it for USCIS--we love these guys--and do it for-- definitely love these guys--the biological nuclear threat prevention Agency. That is--to be crystal clear--what I am saying.

So to answer your question: Does that include TSA? Yes, it does include TSA. This would fund TSA for the rest of the fiscal year.

Madam President, there is an old movie line that says: I think we have a failure to communicate. So let me try one last swing here to make sure that I make it crystal clear. By the way, I absolutely mean this sincerely, absolutely, with total respect. I know that my Senate colleague from Oregon knows that DHS is more than four Agencies. I know he knows that.

So what I just want to clarify is: In this modification to my modification--yes or no--is the Senator from Oregon including USCIS?

So the Senator does not want to fund USCIS?

Madam President, he answered my question. I was 5 when I learned what a fee was. So the answer to that question is not including USCIS, which is odd because they do have an appropriations line in the appropriations bill, by the way. So the answer to that question is no. So no.

Here is what is ironic. My colleague from Oregon--you can't make this up--wants to not fund the people who are in charge of defending our borders and deporting criminal aliens but does not want to provide funding for the Agency that brings people here legally. Wow. That is a moment.

Let's go to this next one. Will the Senator from Oregon agree to fund the Homeland Investigations unit? In the Senator's proposal, does it include funding for HSI? Yes or no?

Madam President, so just to be crystal clear--because, again, this is getting a little deeply

ambiguous--is the Senator from Oregon suggesting that we fund the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security--everything, everything, everything, the entirety of Homeland Security--with the exception of Customs--the people who inspect packages, the people who greet people at Portland International Airport--and Border Patrol and Homeland Investigations and Enforcement and Removal Operations? Is that correct?

Madam President, I would agree to--we are almost there, but this is actually very important. We are making a lot of progress. And I think the plaque will be there for a long, long time.

So here is where we are at, just for a recap. We used to have 10 commandments in my company, and commandment 11 was: Thou shalt recap. So let's just recap where we are.

The Senator from Oregon, on behalf of the Democrat Party, is saying that he is willing to right now fund the entirety of the Department of Homeland Security--everything, every single Agency of the Department of Homeland Security, but--but--but is carving out the Customs and Border Patrol division and the entirety of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which includes these guys, the guys who chase down bad guys.

So I would ask that the Senator take a look at the Collins amendment, H.R. 7147, Calendar No. 311. Let's include the guys that chase the really bad guys. I will agree to the Senator's proposal if he will include the guys who chase the really bad guys--Homeland Security Investigations--and include the guys who greet people at your airport. What the Senator is suggesting is: Don't pay the guy who screens people who are leaving--you want to pay them--but don't pay the people who are taking care of the people coming back in. This is backwards land. Let's fund everybody at the airport. So why wouldn't we fund Customs? In fact, why wouldn't we fund Customs, the guys in the blue--if you have an issue with Border Patrol, the guys in the green jackets--is that what the Senator is saying? You would agree to fund everybody but Border Patrol and Enforcement and Removal Operations? Because I think we are super close. We can finish this dialogue and bring peace and tranquility to 260,000 families.

Is the Senator willing to do that? Is the Senator willing to modify one little tweak just in between--we are there--saying: Hey, let's include HSI, and let's include the guys patrolling our border; let's include the Customs guys? Or are you saying: No; if we pay people at the airport who receive visitors from foreign countries and the people who guard our border, who are doing an amazing job, and people chasing bad guys--because you won't fund those three things--I am saying: Well, good. We will put Enforcement and Removal Operations on the side. By the way, a $5 billion haircut to this budget, why don't we just do that?

Will the Senator from Oregon accept that? Let's get this done, make the American people very happy, and have glorious news for a lot of American families that are looking--think of the power the Senator has right now, the power you have right now to feed 254,000 American families by the words that are going to come out of your mouth.

I would ask all of us to have the humility to understand how powerful it is, the Senator's next words, because your next words will provide the paycheck for 254,000 American families. Please. I beg you. Please. Please do the compassionate thing, and then we will work on ERO later.

Yes.

Of course.

Madam President, let's just spend 60 more seconds here to recap what we have. So my colleague from Oregon representing the Democrats--who has been given a lot of time to kind to figure out how to come here--has said that what the position of the Democratic Party today is--today's position--different Saturday, by the way; different Sunday. By the way, different than Monday morning in which the minority leader went on Joe Scarborough and said that it was President Trump who objected to the idea to fund all of DHS except for Enforcement and Removal Operations. And then, of course, I think President Trump was maybe a genius there--because maybe by him saying no on Sunday, it made the Democrats say yes. And then he said yes on Monday evening. Then the Democrats had to go back to no. Kind of crazy.

What we are doing is not going to fund for the rest of the fiscal year people who keep our country safe because they want to defund the people whose job it is to keep our borders secure and to deport people who broke into our country illegally, including murderers, rapists, transnational organizations. They do not want to fund those Agencies. I just want that to settle in here and point out to the Presiding Officer that what I proposed today--and the Presiding Officer voted yes--54 Republicans--sorry--53 Republicans and 1 courageous Democrat--54 voted for that.

All it would take is 6 Democrats, and 254,000 people would get their paychecks. It is a sad day. I will mark the time, 5:45 p.m. It is a sad day for the U.S. Senate.

I yield the floor.

My colleague will yield for a question?

To all the Senators here, I ask you to think about a couple concepts that come from the private sector.

I remember the 2008 financial crisis as follows: It was a situation where any day, you would think, we are going to face total and complete bankruptcy.

I had mortgaged everything I owned in my life. I had maxed out my credit cards. I took out loans so big, I couldn't even do the math in my head. I would wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning wondering how I was going to make payroll.

My wife would say: Are you OK?

I would say: Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I am fine.

I think, Mr. President, you have been there.

I had to ask my team to make a lot of sacrifices. We had to cut pay. We had to make a lot of adjustments because it was a matter of life or death. Either the business was going to survive or we were going to collectively perish into the great abyss of bankruptcy.

There is a concept that is important in creating a culture that says that as a leader, you must be willing to live in the shared experience of your team.

Now, I will contradict a little bit of what you said. Each of us in this Chamber makes $175,000 a year. That is not what the average American makes. That is dramatically more than the average American makes, and it is certainly a lot more than what the average TSA worker makes or the average FEMA worker who has to go out and help in places all over the country.

I saw the very sad storms that Hawaii is seeing, and I hope we get help to those people. But it is not going to be me that goes there; it is going to be the hard-working men and women of FEMA that go there, and they make a fraction of what we do.

I can't imagine having a job in which, for the third time in 6 months, you have to explain to your wife or husband or kids: Hey, I didn't get a paycheck today.

The kids look at you and say: Well, what did you do? What did you do to not get a paycheck? Were you insubordinate? Did you not show up for work? Did you yell at your boss?

Nope. I did everything right--other than work for the Department of Homeland Security.

Why would you stay in that job?

I think that is the thing we don't understand, is that people have breaking points where they just say: I am just not going to work here anymore.

This particular Agency, more than anything else, has a very simple charter: Protect us from dangers from abroad. These are the people that chase transnational criminals. I don't think any of us in this Chamber would be willing to go do that. It is tough work, brutal work. They put their lives at risk.

Not only do I think we should give them their paychecks, I think we should say: Thank you. Thank you for being willing to do this job.

I will end with this to my colleagues: We have to eat our own dog food. If we don't eat our own dog food, we will get disconnected permanently from the people we serve.

If we are willing to accept a paycheck that is three, four times what the average American makes and we deposit that every month and we say: Well, look, I have to pay the bills--I don't care how wealthy you are, if somebody is a multimillionaire or not a multimillionaire, 175 grand a year is a lot of money, certainly enough to pay the bills. Just ask the people who make three times less than that--they figure out how to make the bills.

This isn't about giving up the paycheck or giving up money--which, by the way, I think we should. I don't think we should get paid retroactively. I think we should just say: Look, you didn't do your fundamental duty, which is to fund the government, and if you have a policy dispute, then do the hard work. Go into the rooms and make the calls and go out there and persuade your colleagues. In the meantime, don't punish the workers. Don't punish the workers.

I grew up coming to America in the seventies and eighties. I looked at Democrats like Tip O'Neill and J.F.K. These were Democrats who said: Above all else, we are the party of the working men and women of this country. We are for the people who built this country. The very wealthy--they are just fine. They are just fine. But we focus on the working men and women of this country.

What drove me to run for office--not what I expected ever to do in my life, believe me. I never did. But I do consider it a great honor. Every day, including today--a beautiful, sunny day--I see the Capitol, and I think, my God, what would my mom and dad think if they were alive, that their youngest son gets to work in the U.S. Capitol?

It is crazy. Do you know what my mom would say? Only in America. Only in America.

But there are 260,000 families that aren't feeling the love right now. The least we could do today is say: We join you in that shared sacrifice. We join you so that we can understand what it is like to have to leave here and say ``Hey, yeah, not good. We are not going to get a paycheck because we didn't do our job.''

If we don't do that, what do you think the message is? You are much more elegant than I am. I think the accent does you 80 percent of the bidding there. But what do you think that says?

Here is my question: What does a signal of saying ``No, no, no, no. We insist on getting paid three times what the average American makes. We are not willing to sacrifice anything because maybe we are special''--is that the message that is sent?

I yield the floor.

Will my colleague yield for a quick question?

Mr. President, I just wanted to clarify where we are right now because I think it was--we maybe rushed through it.

My question to my colleague from Louisiana is: This doesn't remove money from Senators; this just holds the money until the government reopens, much like the employees at DHS, where their paycheck is being held but, once we do our job--because they are doing their job--once we do our job, everybody would then get paid, correct? There is no loss of money.

And so that seems to me--would the Senator agree that that is like a bare minimum standard because any of us can go to the clerk of the Senate and say: Hey, hold my check until this government opens. What the Senator's resolution is saying is that all of us should do that, correct?

Will my colleague yield for a question?

I would ask my colleague if he would consider resubmitting your question again as a motion to reconsider.

Mr. President, just a parliamentary inquiry. Again, this is just somebody who has not been here a long time. I just want a clarification--a parliamentary inquiry: In order to speak before the U.S. Senate, my understanding is that the Senator has to yield the floor or complete his speech. Another Senator, if ordered to speak, has to seek recognition from the Chair in order to speak; is that correct or not?

Thank you, Mr. President.

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

Mr. President, today marks the fifth time that Republicans have asked to end debate and allow us to discuss funding the Department of Homeland Security.

So for the people at home that don't keep up with Senate procedures, what the Democrats have actually done again, for the fifth time, is not even let us get on the bill and actually debate it. They have refused to allow us to consider the bill, which is a pretty remarkable scenario when you think of the effects.

For those who aren't as familiar, the Department of Homeland Security was created right after 9/11, the attacks of 9/11. I don't know about you, Mr. President, but I know exactly where I was when that second plane hit the tower, because that is when we knew we were under attack.

We took a bunch of the Agencies that are charged with protecting this country and put them into this very, very large Agency that today employs 260,000 Americans. If this was a private company, it would be absolutely a Fortune 50, maybe even a Fortune 25 enterprise--huge, huge organization.

The one part of the Constitution that is crystal clear is that our responsibility is to fund the government. Yet, for the third time, we now are in either a full or partial government shutdown that the Democrats have initiated because they refuse to do the basic work-- funding the government.

Now, you will see a lot of noise from the Democrats when they say: Well, we have--they acknowledge that they have not funded the entire Department, so they will say: But we want to fund this Agency or this Agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

What they won't tell you--because obviously then they would have to admit what it is they really want--is they don't want to fund Customs and Border Patrol and they don't want to

fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

So you think, well, what do those two Agencies do that would make the Democrats not want to fund them? So let's talk about the first one-- Customs and Border Patrol.

All of us who have ever flown in from a foreign country, you see the person that greets you--that is somebody from Border Patrol, Customs.

Why would you not want to fund that Agency? I think what is interesting is the way the Senate is set up, the appropriations process is meant to allocate money, and then we have committees whose job it is to set the policies for those. But they don't want to do that. They are tying both together. We just don't want to fund--typically, when you don't want to fund an Agency, it is a way of saying we don't want that function any longer.

So they don't want to have Customs? They don't want to have people inspecting packages? We are in the middle of deep hostilities with a very savvy adversary, and you don't want to have somebody guarding our border, checking our ports, making sure these containers don't have hazardous materials?

We have all seen the movies. Those are people from Customs and Border Patrol. I haven't heard one rational explanation from my Democratic colleagues why on earth they would not want to fund Customs and Border Patrol.

Now, of course, it is no secret to anybody that the Democrats have been held hostage by the extremists in their base who want to both either abolish ICE or defund ICE.

So what is ICE? Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It is basically broken down into two organizations. You have something called Enforcement and Removal Operations. Now, what do they do? A pretty straightforward mission. If somebody enters the country illegally, a judge gives them a hearing and says: You have a final order of deportation. It is the job of that Agency to remove that person from the country. Is that what they are looking not to have happen any longer?

Then the other one is Homeland Security Investigations. What do they do? I am going to read you the mission statement. It says: Criminal investigations targeting transnational criminal organizations and terrorist networks that exploit U.S. customs and immigration laws.

It seems like a decently important function. You can see it here on this chart. It is 7,000 special agents.

So I wish we would just have a more honest debate here and that my Democrat colleagues would stand up and say: Look, we just want to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We want to abolish the Enforcement and Removal Operations. We do not want--they do not want to take people out of the country that are here illegally; it is that simple. Instead, what they are doing is they are keeping 260,000 people without a paycheck.

I said, and I will say it again today: I find it deeply ironic and, quite frankly, I will use the word ``disgusting'' that we here in the U.S. Senate are getting paid while 260,000 people aren't getting paid because of political shenanigans from the other side.

It is just morally reprehensible. We need to do our job. We need to get the Department of Homeland Security funded. I am going to end with one difference between what we are seeing now and what we saw during the Biden era.

I think by any metric, by any standard during Mayorkas' term as the Secretary of Homeland Security, it was a total abject disaster. We allowed tens of millions of unvetted migrants to enter this country. We had no idea who they were, where they came from, what their intent was, or, quite frankly, where they were going.

Border Patrol was a total disaster during the Biden years, total and complete failure. But you know what we understood as Republicans? It wasn't the fault of the Border Patrol agents; it was a fault of policy. And yet Republicans still funded the Agency.

Because when we are not happy with the executive, we have a few other tools that we should be using. We could have impeached Mayorkas; Democrats unanimously fought against that. By the way, we passed no new laws, and yet our border went from the most open in American history to a border that is now completely zero. Zero illegals entered this country in the last 10 months--zero, not 1. During the Biden years, there was 10,000 a day. Yet Republicans funded Customs and Border Patrol because we knew it was not the fault of the agents; it was the fault of a Commander in Chief and a Cabinet Secretary with Democrat enablers here in Congress that allowed that to happen. Just keep that in mind as these arguments get made.

It is Friday. People should be thinking about March Madness and which their favorite team is, what they are going to do for the weekend, and millions and millions of Americans are doing that. But 260,000 American families are wondering how they are going to pay for that barbecue, how they are going to make the rent, how they are going to pay for the car payment, how are they going to pay for that vacation that they had planned because they have now missed three paychecks.

I hope to get to a point in time where our Democrat colleagues find their humanity because this is what it is about, their humanity, to do the right thing, fund the Department of Homeland Security, and then let's have a robust argument around oversight and how we do it.

I yield the floor.

Thank you. Thank you.

Are all of your Democrat colleagues here, because, by our count, there are nine missing.

So we are willing to call our Members back. Are you willing to call your Members back from the California fundraiser that they are doing this weekend?

Will you yield for another question?

Mr. President, for those who are not familiar with what actually happens here in Washington, DC, as I stated earlier, for the fifth time, Democrats have blocked to end debate on whether 260,000 families should get paid for the work that they have done. It is almost ludicrous to even make that statement because the idea that we would withhold the pay of 260,000 hard-working DHS employees is insane.

But we haven't actually even had debate. What you see here in this Chamber that is virtually empty is that one person will make a speech, another person will make a speech, and quite frankly there is no interaction. So I actually want to change that a little bit.

So to any of my Democratic colleagues that want to speak, I will yield my time if they can answer for me and acknowledge that there are currently 260,000 DHS families going without pay. Is that true or false?

OK. No answer on that one. I will break the suspense. That is true.

The second thing I will yield for a comment on is: Will any of my Democratic colleagues that are present in this Chamber acknowledge that the Democrats have not agreed--have not agreed--to individually fund Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, and the nuclear threat Agency within the Department of Homeland Security--have absolutely not presented any resolutions or votes to fund those Agencies? Is that true or false?

Seeing no response, I will break the silence and say that is true.

Would any Democrat in the Chamber acknowledge that fewer than 10 percent of the entire workforce of DHS works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE?

Well, they can fact-check me, but the answer is that is true.

Of the 22,000 ICE employees, will any Democrat in this Chamber acknowledge that the vast majority of those employees work for Homeland Investigations?

What do they do? That is the group that identifies, chases, and catches really bad guys. These are the people who actually go out and find the worst of the worst, transnational groups. The vast majority of ICE employees work for that division. Is that true or false? Would you acknowledge that that is accurate?

OK. Hearing no comments from my Democratic colleagues, the answer to that is it is true.

So the remaining 5,000 employees out of 260,000 that my colleagues do not want to give a paycheck despite the fact that they came to work for the last 35 days--unlike anybody in this Chamber who has not come to work the last 35 days because that has definitely not happened--will they acknowledge that collective punishment is a bad idea? In other words, would they acknowledge that punishing 5,000 people who work for Enforcement and Removal Operations because a couple dozen--maybe, generously, a couple dozen; probably less; probably a handful maybe didn't do everything perfectly--you are recommending that we collectively punish all 5,000 people? Is that what you are saying?

No response. The answer is only a politician would think that that is a good idea. Only a politician would think that collective punishment is the way to go. You are punishing 260,000 employees in the Department of Homeland Security because you think that if you had been in that situation, you would have acted differently. Four or five, six, seven people that you think did the wrong thing gives you the moral authority to take away the paychecks of 260,000 people.

And I am going to look forward to hearing from my colleague from Utah, who has done so much work to put together the SAVE America Act. And he actually hasn't had anybody say this to him: Thank you. Thank you for the hard work. You have put in I can't even imagine how many hours--you and your staff. You have been willing to listen to anybody who wants to improve your bill, and yet you have gotten very little feedback, except for on the floor when they accused you of God knows what.

But I will ask my Republican colleague--because I watched it on TV, and so I am going to ask my Republican colleague to answer whether this is true or false; and any of my Democratic colleagues I will yield to if they want to jump in. I suspect they won't.

Is it true that, yesterday, my fellow Republican Senator, Senator Husted, who is doing an amazing job--a good man that I have known for 20 years. Is it true that he proposed a bill that would have simply required photo ID to vote? Not a photo ID that proves you are a citizen, which I think we should have that, but just a simple photo ID the way any of us have to walk in and out of this building? Is that true?

I yield to my colleague from Utah.

It does. Unless any of my Democratic colleagues want to debate any of the items I mentioned--hearing no debate, I yield the floor.

Will my colleague from Utah yield for a question?

There are just a few of us here in this Chamber, but I see my colleague from Connecticut. So I am going to ask the Senator a question, my colleague from Utah.

Would it surprise you to know that, just a couple of years ago, a Democrat State representative in Connecticut proposed a bill to allow all undocumented noncitizens the right to vote? It is estimated that there are 240,000 illegal aliens in the State of Connecticut; yet a Democrat-elected official proposed that bill. Would that surprise you?

Mr. President, I would like to continue exactly the themes my colleague from Vermont brought up, except I think, before we talk about artificial intelligence, we should talk about natural intelligence. It absolutely goes against natural intelligence for us to sit here in this Chamber knowing that we have 260,000 working

American families, who work for our government, who are doing their job and not getting paid. That, to me, is the crisis we should be talking about.

And, yes, I agree with my colleague from Vermont. We should not be worried about Mr. Musk or any of the other billionaires going hungry. I worry about our TSA agents going hungry. I worry about our Coast Guard people going hungry. I worry about the people at FEMA going hungry.

And yet, with total disregard for over a quarter of a million families, we sit in this Chamber, and we are getting paid. Everybody here is getting paid, and yet they are not.

And I applaud my colleague from Vermont, who is walking out of the floor, for caring about working Americans.

Why don't we care about them? Why don't we fund DHS now? Why don't we worry about those families who, by the way, according to the last Secretary of Homeland Security--the last one said--and I am going to quote here:

The average [TSA agent] lives paycheck-to-paycheck.

We have taken away three paychecks. Three paychecks we have taken away from them.

If there was ever a time we needed to fund [DHS], it's . .

. now.

This is not a Republican Secretary saying that. It is a Democrat Secretary of Homeland Security saying that.

I don't understand how, in a leadership role--which is what we are here in the U.S. Senate--we would allow the suffering of 260,000 families to go with this much contempt and, instead, fund DHS in its entirety. Allow those families to get paid.

Mr. President, you were a business guy like I was. Could you ever look at yourself in the mirror when you owned your businesses and know, because of your actions, the people who worked for you weren't getting paid and were suffering? It is impossible.

I remember when I started my first business. I felt the weight of success because I had to take care of my family. But for those early families, for that first business that I bought, every day I walked in, I felt this incredible responsibility. Man, if I made bad decisions, if I make a bad decision today, people will go hungry who work for me. And that drove me to succeed.

We are totally disconnected. We sit here in this Chamber. It doesn't even touch any of us, and I think that is a disgrace. I think we should, very simply, do what has always been done before we became this hyperpartisan Chamber: We fund the government responsibly. And then, if we have policy disagreements, we can sit down.

By the way, right now, just down this hallway--just down this hallway--there are Democrat colleagues and Republican colleagues of good faith sitting down to negotiate differences to get the Department of Homeland Security funded.

We have American citizens that are paying taxes to fund the government to work that is not working.

I know that sometimes pleading with my colleagues to have some level of humanity is ineffective because, quite frankly, maybe this place takes a little humanity away from you. Maybe you don't see how these decisions affect many, many people.

So with that, Mr. President, I am going to ask a very, very, very simple request--very simple.

I am going to ask unanimous consent that this body, the U.S. Senate, proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 156, H.R. 4553; I further ask that the substitute amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

What this means in English, to the person who may be watching, is this funds the entire Department of Homeland Security for 2 weeks. Everybody gets paid up to date. We get the Department open, and then let the work that is being done now proceed. I ask that that happen.

Mr. President, I am not sure what I just heard because I just offered to fund TSA. I just offered to fund the Coast Guard, FEMA, Customs and Border Patrol, Secret Service, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, USCIS, Homeland Security Investigations. Let's do it for 2 weeks. Let's do that for 2 weeks.

Down the hall--down the hall--there are Senators of good faith that are getting together to end this political charade.

So, to my colleague, I will yield the floor for a simple question: Why would you want to fund just TSA and not the Coast Guard? Not, for example, in your State, the American Immigration Council, which deals with 102,700 undocumented immigrants in Michigan--why wouldn't you want enforcement around that? Why wouldn't you want to fund the Department that allows people like me, who, when I was 18 years old, applied for citizenship? Why wouldn't we want to fund 3,300 employees--some of them in your State--that actually process legal immigrants? Why wouldn't we fund that? Why wouldn't we fund 7,000 special agents that are there to stop transnational criminals? Why wouldn't we fund 200 employees that fund--and you were a CIA agent--that fund biological and nuclear threat prevention? Why wouldn't we do that? Why wouldn't we fund 60,000 employees at Customs?

You care a lot about the bridge that was hopefully due to be opened from Canada. You need Border Patrol agents there. You need Customs there. Why wouldn't we fund that?

Why wouldn't we do that for 2 weeks--2 weeks--and then we can get together. Why wouldn't we do that?

Why just fund one narrow slice of the Department of Homeland Security? I am just curious why you would do that.

Will you yield for a question?

Look, I appreciate--and I know you are a person of good

character, by the way. I genuinely believe that. But that is not what you are asking for. You are asking to fund just TSA, meaning the question is this: Why would we use 260,000 people and their families as pawns in a negotiation? Why wouldn't we pay all those people?

So will you consider adding a bill that I have put together that says that as long as we haven't fully funded the government, we get money taken out of our paychecks--not held in suspension, but we actually would lose compensation, about $500 a day, every day that goes by where we haven't fully funded the government. Would you consider adding that to your resolution?

You have the floor.

So Homeland Investigations is part of ICE. There are 7,000 special agents that work for ICE that stop transnational criminals. You are not suggesting that we not fund them, are you?

One more question, with your permission.

So nobody on your side has agreed to fund USCIS. You have not suggested that. USCIS is an independent part of the Department of Homeland Security.

That has not been suggested by any Democrat.

I appreciate that you are.

Nobody has agreed to fund the bioweapons of mass destruction Agency-- not been suggested.

You have specifically--not you personally--the Democrat Senators have specifically said they do not want to fund Customs, which you understand really well--really well--what Customs means--and Border Protection.

These Agencies that are listed on this board--there has been no movement among Democrats to fund these, and this is why my point is the same.

I am not suggesting to my colleague from Michigan at all that we permanently fund this forever. What I am saying is 2 weeks. Let's reopen the Department of Homeland Security for 2 weeks. Let's let people of good faith--you and I--look, we agree on what you said. Let's take our paychecks away. Let's prevent us from flying home. Let's make us--I will use your words--keep our butts here until we get this done, if that means today, tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday. We could play pickleball in between; that would be fantastic, OK? But we don't leave. If that means right through Easter, by the way, we do not leave this Chamber, and we lose pay every day that goes by until we have funded the whole thing, because we can work it out. We can work this out.

But I look at some of your colleagues who said they are serene as to where we are on this. I don't think there are 260,000 families that are serene about this, and I don't think you are either.

So, again, I would just ask that you amend your resolution to say let's fund the entire Department for 2 weeks. We don't want to defund ICE. I am not hearing you say that. I hear some of your other colleagues say that. But we are not looking to defund ICE, and we are certainly not going to stop Homeland Investigations.

Let's fund the whole thing for 2 weeks. Let's get the American people to understand we can get things done. Let's absolutely not leave-- forget DC; let's not leave this Chamber, the Capitol, until we get this done.

That is my ask. That is my plea.

Reserving my right to object, just to be clear on what was just proposed, what was just proposed is to fund just TSA, nothing else.

Nothing else.

And what is wrong with that--in case you didn't hear the peanut gallery, what is wrong with that is that there are hundreds of thousands of other government employees who, through no fault of their own--they did nothing wrong. They didn't have anything to do with what happened in Minneapolis, had no role in that whatsoever. They go to work every day, doing the best they can to keep us safe.

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I attended a dignified transfer ceremony in Dover. And I am thinking to myself, these three Ohioans--what did they die for? They died to preserve freedom for us. They didn't ask any

questions. They went willingly. They volunteered.

Can we honor their sacrifice by saying: Do the right thing. Fund the Department of Homeland Security for 2 weeks. Senators stay here without pay--not held pay, docked pay--because we haven't done our job. Article I--we are the power of the purse.

So I would ask one last time before concluding this, can I get my colleague from Michigan, who is a good person, to agree to amend her proposal to fund the entire Department of Homeland Security for 2 weeks and then force every Senator--and I think that she has the influence to convince her colleagues--to stay here without pay until this gets done.

Yes.

I, with a broken heart, object. And we did not do the right thing for the American people today, and it is a shame. Politics got in the way of helping working Americans. It is a disgrace.

Mr. President, I would like to echo my colleague's sentiment. I think he said it beautifully and perfectly. I think he honored these three brave soldiers really well.

I would like to, of course, join him in recognizing Capt. Seth Koval, Capt. Curtis Angst, and MSgt Tyler Simmons, who made the ultimate sacrifice for the United States of America and gave their lives for our country.

You see them pictured here. I am a dad of kids that age, and I can't imagine what their mom and dad, their siblings, and family members must be going through. It is far too easy for us to take the blessings of freedom and liberty for granted here in America. We are lucky to live in a stable democracy.

And while our public discourse can sometimes be heated, I look at my colleague from Vermont, and sometimes at the end of the day we leave and we are frustrated and aggravated about why we can't get this or that, I think it is important for us to acknowledge that at the end of the day, we can still break bread together. At the end of the day, we acknowledge, at least we must acknowledge that what unites us is much, much greater than what divides us.

The honest truth is that we live in the luckiest--we are absolutely the luckiest people on earth to live here in the United States of America. We enjoy the blessings of liberty every day, but on days like today, it is important for us to remember why we can live with these liberties, and it is because of the selfless sacrifice of young men and young women, but in this case, three young men, that gave their lives for that.

They signed up, as my colleague from Ohio said, without hesitation. They served honorably, and with incredible sacrifice they gave the ultimate to this Nation. These three Ohioans were the most courageous and selfless individuals of our great Nation.

They were in the National Guard, not for fame, not for fortune, because they always felt ready to be called on to protect and defend our great Nation. As distinguished members of Ohio's National Guard, they answered that call that their unit was activated. They didn't hesitate. They didn't doubt. They didn't worry. They were ready to go and serve, not for themselves, for all of us, every single one of us.

It is their sacrifice that allows us to debate the issues of this democracy every single day.

So when the Senate concludes its business today and each of us goes our own merry way and we sleep in safety and peace, let us not forget that there is a soldier in some distant corner of the world standing watch on our behalf, looking out for us.

And if their families are anything like my family or like my wife, there is a mom waiting by the phone, hoping and praying that they never get the call that these three soldiers' families got.

As we think of those young airmen, Captain Koval, Captain Angst, Master Sergeant Simmons, who put their lives in harm's way for this country. Let us remember these words from the Air Force chaplain's ``Book of Prayers'':

Our Heavenly Father, in this hour of stunned grief, our

first reaction is silence. But in our silence, as many airmen

before us have done, we turn to you and ask for your presence

and reassurance and guidance.

My colleague Senator Husted and I have put together a resolution honoring the families. We will file that tomorrow in the U.S. Senate. We will also fly to the Dover Air Force Base to pay our respects to the airmen in person.

I think what all of us have to do in a moment like this is to understand that, with the issues that we debate

here every single day in this Hall--that will live well beyond any of our lifetimes and that existed well before any of us walked the Earth-- we will have the humility to understand the weight of our decision making; that, while, yes--sadly, by the way--politics always plays a role in a political environment, we will take note of how everything we do affects many, many American families.

I would ask at this moment in which we are debating a lot of issues, that we just take one step back and realize, with deep humility, the responsibility we should all feel for these families. When we see these young men, we should realize that the decisions made here in Washington, DC, carry enormous weight and not to be flippant about it and don't think about what it means for a social media post.

These are really important decisions we make here. Thank God we have soldiers like these three young men who were willing to answer the call of this country. As we get into heated debates between Republicans and Democrats and we start posturing and wondering what this group or that group is going to think, let's just take a little moment and realize that, if not for the sacrifice of men like these, we would not even be able to do any of it.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to honor these three men. Hopefully, what this will add during this week that is obviously going to be contentious will be a moment of self-reflection and humility for this Chamber which, I think, is so desperately, desperately needed.

To the moms and dads of these three young soldiers, I can't even process what you are going through. I can't even imagine the emotions that you are feeling. Just know that America is grateful beyond words for the sacrifices that your heroic sons made.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 12 noon on Wednesday, March 18; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume the House message with respect to S. 1383.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order, following the remarks of Senators Schiff, Lee, Cantwell, and myself.