Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 480, S. 3475.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 498, S. 3698.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 410, S. 4293.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be discharged from further consideration of S. 4489, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 7189, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H. Con. Res. 127, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 7777, which was received from the House and is at desk.

I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4190, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 5292, introduced earlier today.

I ask that the bill be considered read a third time.

I know of no further debate on the bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate resolutions: S. Res. 876, S. Res. 877, S. Res. 878, S. Res. 879, S. Res. 880, S. Res. 881, S. Res. 882, S. Res. 883, S. Res. 884, S. Res. 885, S. Res. 886, and S. Res. 887.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 888, which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent 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.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 805.

I ask unanimous consent that the Shaheen-Graham amendment to the resolution be considered and agreed to; that the resolution, as amended, be agreed to; that the Shaheen-Graham amendment to the preamble be considered and agreed to; that the preamble, as amended, be agreed to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn under the provisions of S. Res. 888 to then convene for pro forma sessions only, with no business being conducted, on the following dates and times: Friday, September 27, at 10 a.m.; Tuesday, October 1, at 1 p.m.; Friday, October 4 at 10 a.m.; Tuesday, October 8, at 2:30 p.m.; Friday, October 11, at 8:30 a.m.; Tuesday, October 15, at 1:30 p.m.; Friday, October 18, at 10 a.m.; Tuesday, October 22, at 8 a.m.; Friday October 25, at 10:30 a.m.; Tuesday, October 29, at 9:30 a.m.; Friday, November 1, at 11:30 a.m.; Monday, November 4, at 11 a.m.; Wednesday, November 6, at 12 noon; and Friday, November 8, at 12 noon; further, that when the Senate adjourns on Friday, November 8, it stand adjourned until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, November 12; that on Tuesday, 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 morning business be closed; that following the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Perry nomination; further, that if any nominations are confirmed during Tuesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; further, that the cloture motions filed during today's session ripen on Wednesday, November 13.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, both parties in both Chambers continue the work of avoiding a shutdown. House Republican leadership needs to get the CR done quickly because we still need time in the Senate to move the bill through the floor. House Republicans should work with Democrats--House and Senate Democrats--to find the best path to getting the bill passed in a bipartisan way. The House Republicans have already wasted enough time as it is.

Once the House acts, the Senate will move quickly to get the CR done. I encourage my colleagues on both sides to prioritize speedy passage of the CR. If both sides keep working together, if we stay away from poison pills and partisan spectacle, then the American people can rest assured there won't be a government shutdown. But we still have more work to do.

Of course, nothing was inevitable about the tight deadline we face now. The bipartisan CR I negotiated with Speaker Johnson and Leaders McConnell and Jeffries is more or less the result people expected from the beginning--a short-term CR, one that does not last 6 months, that is free of poison pills, and which honors the bipartisan funding levels we agreed to earlier this year.

But this feels like the third or fourth time this Congress that House Republicans have had to learn the same elementary lesson: In a narrowly divided government, partisan bully tactics and appealing to the extreme just does not work, plain and simple.

I know a few on the hard right say: Oh, we can demand, bang our fists on the table, and force everyone to do what we want. That ain't happening. What they want to do is so destructive to America that the overwhelming number of Democrats and a large number of Republicans don't want to do it. But nonetheless this feels like the third or fourth time in this Congress that the House Republicans have had to learn the same elementary lesson--I say particularly the House hard- right

Republicans and the Freedom Caucus. In a narrowly divided government, partisan bully tactics and appealing to the extreme simply does not work.

I would have thought that would have been made clear a year ago, when Speaker McCarthy kept trying and trying and trying to appease the hard right with increasingly severe funding cuts, and it ended up being all for naught anyway. We ended up passing a bipartisan CR, and radicals turned on Speaker McCarthy.

This time around, it was Donald Trump again telling the hard right to shut the government down if we didn't agree to their poison pill provisions--never mind that a shutdown would mean costs would go up, programs like Head Start would halt, and public safety here and at the border would suffer. To Donald Trump, these are all OK because they are just apparently the cost of feeding his ego. It is bewilderingly cynical to see Donald Trump push for a shutdown, knowing the pain it would cause the country. But thankfully we are still on track to avoid that kind of mess. Of course, we still have more work to do.

I earnestly hope today brings good news in the House. We here in the Senate are ready to work to get this bill done quickly.