Floor Statements

Madam President, on disaster, last week, the city of Davenport in Iowa became the site of the latest national disaster to wreak havoc on our homeland. It has been 8 weeks since the Midwest began battling major flooding, 6 months since the last major wildfire in California, 12 months since a volcano erupted in Hawaii, and over a year and a half since Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico. But because the President has stubbornly and inexplicably opposed aid to Puerto Rico, a comprehensive disaster package has failed to get the necessary support of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, of a majority in the House, and has languished in the Congress.

Unfortunately, the President continues to belittle Puerto Rico and tell flat-out mistruths about the level of support they are receiving. Just yesterday, the President said the people of Puerto Rico ``should be very happy'' with what he has done for them so far. Well, don't ask me. Ask the Governor of Puerto Rico--hardly a left-wing, partisan Democrat; ask the mayor of San Juan; ask the people of Puerto Rico if they are happy. Don't put words in their mouths. Ask them if they are happy with the support they have received from this administration. Ask them if they are happy with HUD's missing its own deadline to advance the release of $8 billion in disaster mitigation funding last week. Ask them, and you will get a much different answer. No one in the Puerto Rican community is happy with the way this President has treated the island and its 3 million American citizens. He has treated them with contempt. It needs to stop.

So, President Trump, if you want to help the farmers in the Midwest, be fair to everyone. You can't pick and choose.

Some of them say: Oh, but Puerto Rico isn't spending its aid well. I heard that when we wanted Sandy money for New York. You can say that about any region. In an emergency, no government program will be perfect, but that is not a reason to hold back the money. Instead, send the money and have some oversight, but help the people. They need it. You can't pick and choose which Americans to help.

I would say this to President Trump: As our President, you must represent all Americans, not just the ones who voted for you.

I yield the floor.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, over the weekend, our friend the distinguished Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi, announced that he wouldn't seek reelection. It is no secret that Senator Enzi and I approach legislation from two very different standpoints, but I have always found him to be thoughtful and decent--qualities that have made him a good Senator and a respected voice for the people of Wyoming.

When Senator Enzi was elected, he was this Chamber's only accountant by trade. Perhaps it is destiny, then, that he will end his tenure at the top of the Budget Committee. Despite his prominent perch and decades in Washington's corridors of power, Senator Enzi still retains the accountant's distaste for the flashy. He eschewed the limelight and the television cameras--something the two of us have in common. If Senator Enzi will forgive me that joke, I would like to wish him and his family the best in all his future endeavors--that is, of course, after he concludes his final year and a half in Washington as one of Wyoming's longest serving Senators.

Madam President, on another matter, in the aftermath of Attorney General Barr's testimony before the Judiciary Committee, it is now clearer than ever that the Senate must hear from Special Counsel Mueller. We need Special Counsel Mueller to testify because, as we have seen, the Attorney General has shown us he cannot be trusted on the matter of the Russia investigation.

After the special counsel delivered his findings, the Attorney General took a 480-page document and turned it into 4 pages, producing a document so inadequate that it even prompted the special counsel to raise concerns in writing--the normally very reticent special counsel, I might add. Meanwhile, the Attorney General has speculated, without evidence, about the special counsel's reasonings, and he has done so, we have now learned, without having reviewed any of the underlying evidence. To make matters worse, Mr. Barr also refused to appear before the House Judiciary Committee, demonstrating his contempt for the oversight responsibilities of Congress.

The bottom line is this: The Attorney General's word cannot be the end of the matter. Special Counsel Mueller must testify. Unfortunately, however, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has thus far been far less than welcoming, and now the President has made it clear that he believes Mueller should not testify.

I want to remind this Chamber that President Trump repeatedly tried to fire the special counsel, then he called the special counsel conflicted and corrupted and refused to be interviewed by him, and now he is trying to silence the special counsel completely. For a man who constantly proclaims his innocence and the ``exoneration'' of the Mueller report, President Trump suspiciously objects to Special Counsel Mueller's public testimony.

Thankfully, Congress isn't subject to the will of the President. My friend Senator Graham has an obligation to ask the special counsel to testify without constraints. I will continue to press him to call for a hearing.

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

Mr. President, Attorney General Barr's performance in yesterday's Judiciary Committee hearing was abysmal. It raised all types of questions about his willingness to be a faithful steward of the law. Of the several outlandish claims, one stood out. One of them should send shivers down the spine of anyone who believes in this democracy. It would probably send shivers down the spines of the Founding Fathers if they were to hear this Attorney General say what he said. Attorney General Barr said yesterday that the President could not have obstructed justice because he believed he was falsely accused. He even went further. He made a broad principle.

Here is what he said:

[If an investigation is] based on false allegations, the

president does not have to sit there constitutionally and

allow it to run its course. The president could terminate

that proceeding and not have it be corrupt intent because he

was falsely accused.

What a statement. If the President himself believes he has been falsely accused, he can terminate any investigation or proceeding against him. Any at all? Is that the determination in the President's own head and in nobody else's? I am sending a letter to the Attorney General this morning and am asking him a whole bunch of questions based on that awful, confounding statement.

First, we know he had a theory of the unitary executive. He issued that letter before he was chosen as Attorney General, and many believe that is why he was chosen. Yet this is the first time he had stated it so crassly and so baldly as Attorney General. Does he stand by that or was it a mistake? That will be my first question.

Does he stand by the statement that he said yesterday, based on false allegations, that the President does not have to sit there constitutionally and allow it to run its course? ``The president could terminate that proceeding and not have it be corrupt intent because he was being falsely accused.'' He could terminate the proceeding. So who is the determiner of what a false allegation is? Is it the President himself solely? I am going to ask Attorney General Barr that question.

What about other proceedings and investigations? Let's say one of the President's family members is being investigated. If the President determines that it is based on false allegations, does he have the unilateral power to terminate the proceeding? What if it is one of the President's business associates, and the President believes they are false allegations? Does he have the ability to terminate? What if it is one of his political allies? Again, does he have the ability to terminate?

I will also ask him: Does that mean that Richard Nixon, who certainly believed he was falsely accused, could have simply dismissed the entire Watergate investigation? Is that what the Attorney General believes?

I mean, my God, what President doesn't believe he is being falsely accused? If this were to become the actual standard, then no President could be guilty of obstructing a Federal investigation, and every President would have the right to terminate any investigation-- certainly, about that President and maybe about many others who would have some relationship to the President.

Attorney General Barr's comments are as close as they can get to saying the President should be above the law. So I will be writing him a letter and sending it to him this morning, asking him explicitly these questions and asking him if he stands by his statements. If he does, he should not be Attorney General. I will await his answers. I hope he doesn't stonewall as he has been doing over in the House.

(Mrs. HYDE-SMITH assumed the Chair.)

Madam President, on a related matter, one of the clearest takeaways from yesterday's hearing, in addition to the Attorney General's astounding statement that the President could terminate any investigation or procedure against him if he believed it were based on false facts, was the discrepancy between the Attorney General's opinions and the conclusions of the Mueller report.

My colleague Senator Harris masterfully also uncovered that the Attorney General did not examine any of the underlying evidence in the Mueller report before making a prosecutorial decision and, to his knowledge, neither did the Deputy Attorney General. The arrogance of these men is amazing. This is one of the most serious issues we face. At least half of the country believes it is very serious--more than half. Yet they don't even bother to look at the underlying evidence before they issue a statement that indicates the President has been exonerated--at least in the President's own mind.

But that is to say nothing of the fact that there are so many unanswered questions about the reasoning behind some of Special Counsel Mueller's decisions, regardless of what Barr thought or did or wrote.

So it is imperative that Mueller come to testify. The result is that we have a gap. We have a gap of understanding of key details in the Mueller probe--a gap that leaves a cloud hanging over this country, over this President, over this Justice Department; a gap that could easily be erased by having the special counsel come to the Senate and testify.

So I was frankly shocked, appalled--I thought it wasn't true; it must have been a misquote--when I read on Twitter that my friend the chairman, Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said that he would not ask Mueller to testify, that he would send Mueller a letter asking him to respond if he disagreed with the Attorney General's testimony, but not invite him to testify.

``It is over,'' he repeated to the committee and then to me on the floor when I, really, confronted him, even though he is my friend, because I was so amazed about this--when I confronted him here on the floor of the Senate.

He modified his request after we talked to say that if Mueller said that he was misquoted, he could come. That is not the way to do this.

Mueller should come--no ands, ifs, or buts. The American people deserve it. Frankly, my friend Lindsey Graham is being totally derelict in his responsibilities as chair of the Judiciary Committee not to invite Mr. Mueller.

So I would ask Lindsey Graham to reconsider, to think about the country, to think about his long history of trying to be fair and often--not so much recently, but often--bipartisan. He is someone I worked with, and he showed great courage on immigration. He must reconsider. He cannot have the Judiciary Committee simply be a political arm of the President, which is where it is devolving under his chairmanship.

Congressional oversight requires that Mueller come. The Constitution, if you read it, would indicate that it is perfectly within our ability and obligation to bring Mueller here.

Please, Senator Graham, reconsider. Invite Mueller. His testimony is desperately needed to clarify what he actually meant and said after Mr. Barr's actions.

Madam President, finally, on women's healthcare, last month the Trump administration proposed instituting a radical title X gag rule, which would have regulated the kinds of conversations women could have with their doctors and risk cutting off family planning clinics from millions of dollars of Federal funding.

The rule was set to go into effect on May 3, but courts around the country have granted preliminary injunctions to prevent it from taking effect, as they should.

Those decisions are great news and should be celebrated as an affirmation of a woman's right to make her own medical choices and not to have some court, some judge, or some legislator tell a woman what to do with her medical choices.

But they are also a reminder that President Trump and congressional Republicans continue to undermine the rights of women to make their own healthcare decisions. Since taking office, President Trump and Republicans across the country have launched an assault on women's reproductive freedoms and women's health. In Mississippi, in Georgia, and in Kentucky, Republican statehouses are forcing through radical proposals that would dramatically limit women's ability to make their own choices.

Here in Washington, the Trump administration continues to seek the total destruction of our healthcare law. Just yesterday the administration issued a brief arguing that the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional--an opinion that would gut protections for the 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions and strip away healthcare from millions of American families.

The House has sent us a bill that would protect people's abilities who have preexisting conditions to continue to get insurance, but the Senate is not acting, and that leads me to my last point.

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

Mr. President, as we speak, Attorney General William Barr is testifying before a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee.

There may not be a member of this administration with more to answer for than the current Attorney General, and that is a pretty high bar. His confirmation occurred only a few months ago. Yet, in a short time, Mr. Barr's conduct has raised damning questions about his impartiality and about his fitness.

Just last night we learned that Special Counsel Mueller sent a private letter more than a month ago to the Attorney General that took issue with Mr. Barr's early description of the Russia investigation's conclusions.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter dated March 27, 2019, to Mr. Barr.

What a stunning indictment of the Attorney General, whose principal job in all of this was to make sure--to make sure--that he wasn't mischaracterizing or spinning results. This letter shows what an awful, awful Attorney General Mr. Barr has been so far. I will have more to say on this later.

Mr. President, on infrastructure, yesterday Speaker Pelosi and I had a productive meeting with President Trump at the White House on the topic of infrastructure. We all agreed on the need to invest substantial resources in infrastructure. We all agreed on the need to modernize and rebuild our roads, bridges, highways, and also our schools, our housing, and our power grids, and there was a specific conversation about the need to invest in expanding broadband to underserved communities.

We told the President we needed labor protections, we needed a green bill, and we needed to see that minorities, women, and veterans got their fair share when contracts were let out.

It was a good discussion, but there is more to be decided. So what we agreed was that we would have another discussion in which the administration will present proposals for how to pay for the bill.

Let's face it, the reason we haven't gotten far in infrastructure is that the administration has come up with no way for pay-fors. We Democrats put in a $1 trillion plan--not $2 trillion--but we paid for all of it. We used tax breaks on the wealthy and the powerful who got huge, huge benefits recently to pay for it. That may not be the way the President wants to pay for it, but we want to know how he would because last time he came up with a bill that had virtually no real pay-fors-- public-private partnerships, which even he discredits.

The bottom line is simple. We will get an infrastructure bill if the President will come up with pay-fors, and then we can put ours forward--we have

already--and see if we can come to an agreement.

Seven or eight people at the meeting all told the President that we will not get a bill done unless he comes up with pay-fors. He agreed. He said: I will. He said: I will take some heat from some of my fellow Republicans, but I will do it. We will be waiting. We will be waiting.

At the White House, I made it explicitly clear that in an effort to pay for infrastructure, the administration must not take the Tax Code and make it any more regressive than it already is. I prefer to make it more progressive. To tell the wealthy that they are getting a huge tax break and then to tell the middle-class, working people that they are paying for the bulk of this is totally unfair and unacceptable to this Member.

The President said he would come up with pay-fors, but this morning I was disappointed. I saw both the Acting Chief of Staff, Mr. Mulvaney, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board mock the effort we are trying to make to rebuild the Nation's infrastructure. Their criticism? Too much spending, the deficit is too high, and we can't find revenue. Funny that we didn't hear those same criticisms when the Republicans in Congress were jamming through a partisan, unpaid-for $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest of Americans. That doesn't have to be paid for, but our roads and bridges do. We are willing to pay for both, although I am not willing to pay for any big tax cuts on the wealthy that didn't pass with a single Democratic vote. I hope, for the good of the country and for the need of infrastructure--we know when we build infrastructure, America grows, and jobs are created. So we hope Mr. Mulvaney and the Wall Street Journal editorial board will rethink their knee-jerk partisan reactions.

Let's face it. Mulvaney is different. He was with the President. He supported the tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal editorial board believes it is OK to increase the deficit to reduce tax cuts on the wealthy but not OK when you are building infrastructure. Ninety-five percent of all Americans don't agree with that. Let's hope Donald Trump doesn't follow their ministrations.

The bottom line is, we hope to hear from the White House in several weeks, one way or the other.

Mr. President, what are your pay-fors? We want to know, and the American people want to know. Right now it is the biggest barrier to preventing us from getting an infrastructure bill.

Madam President, we have now had a day where the Attorney General testified before the Judiciary Committee, and many issues are not resolved because there are great discrepancies based on Mr. Mueller's letter that has been made public--two letters, in fact, that have been made public between what Mr. Barr has been saying and what Mr. Mueller believes.

The cloud that hangs over our country because of Russian interference in our elections--and, frankly, that hangs over the President because of the actions Mr. Mueller outlined in his report--remains. There is a great need to clear all of that up and to clear all of it up with no ands, ifs, or buts.

I was shocked when I heard the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, my friend and colleague whom I have traveled with, Lindsey Graham, come out of the hearing and say that he was not going to call Mueller for a hearing. The fact that he on his own, despite the desires of many other members of the committee, would simply say that Mueller is not going to testify was so outrageous and wrong. So I went to my colleague here on the floor--my friend Lindsey Graham. I said to him: How can you do this? This is outrageous.

He said: I am just going to ask Mr. Mueller in a letter if Barr said anything misleading or inaccurate but not have the hearing.

I was appalled.

Now I see on a tweet by a reporter, Emma Dumain, that Lindsey Graham has slightly modified what he has said. He said that if Mueller tells Graham in the letter that Barr said anything misleading or inaccurate today, he would have the hearing. That is not good enough. That is a game. He should not put the onus on Mr. Mueller, a straight arrow, somebody who believes in a chain of command, to publicly state that in a letter.

Mueller should come testify--no ands, ifs, or buts. Mueller should come testify--no games as to what he answers in a letter.

What are our colleagues so afraid of on the other side of the aisle? Are they afraid Mueller might say things that are different than what Attorney General Barr said? Are they afraid for the country to discuss the kinds of things the President has done, which nobody much seems to like? Are they afraid that we talk about foreign interference in our elections?

I would plead with my colleague Lindsey Graham to reconsider. I would plead with my colleague Lindsey Graham to say: Mueller is coming; no ands, ifs, or buts so we can question him, including our side of the aisle. That is what Congressional oversight is about. It is not about the chairman of the Judiciary Committee deciding what should be heard and what should not be heard. That is not the job of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, no matter who he or she is.

Special Counsel Mueller just concluded one of the most important investigations in our Nation's history. The Senate and the American people have a right to hear from the special counsel directly about the threat of foreign interference in our elections and, yes, the conduct of the President. It is one of the biggest takeaways from the hearing; that we need the special counsel here to testify, to clarify the discrepancies between what he and the Attorney General are saying. We don't need a letter. We don't need conditions. That seems like a game, a dodge, a ruse, a way to prevent Mr. Mueller from testifying.

In my view, Attorney General Barr routinely mischaracterizes the special counsel's words, his intentions, his reasoning. We know, from the special counsel's letter that was publicly released, that to be true. It is likely that Attorney General Barr did so again in the hearings. We need to hear from the special counsel himself to sort this out and get the truth, not at the discretion of the Judiciary Committee chairman but because America, our system of government, our rule of law, demands it.

Congress has always had, from the days of the Founding Fathers, a duty to provide oversight for the executive branch. Just because one party doesn't feel like doing it because the President is from the same party doesn't measure up to the grandness of our Constitution.

My dear friend from South Carolina, please rethink your position. Back off of this idea that Mueller shouldn't testify or should only testify if he meets certain conditions only set by you and call Special Counsel Mueller in to testify.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, the Mueller report, released earlier this month, was divided into two sections. One is detailing the concerted and coordinated effort by President Putin to interfere in our Presidential election, an effort the Trump campaign welcomed and at times amplified. It also included a second section, which laid out a pattern of dishonesty and interference with a Federal investigation by the President and his team.

Now, today I want to focus the Senate's attention on the first half of the report: the coordinated effort by President Putin to interfere in our elections, which is an unbelievable thing, a threat to our democracy, and something every American should be concerned about.

Though we have long known about President Putin's interference in the 2016 elections--we have all known about that--the conclusions of the Mueller report demand a vigorous response by this Congress to ensure that Putin pays a significant price for his actions and that Putin and other adversaries will not consider a similar action in the 2020 election cycle. What occurred in 2016 was nothing short of an assault on our democracy and an attack on our most revered traditions. It was the kind of foreign influence feared by the Framers and warned about in the Federalist Papers. It is the very reason we have an emoluments clause in our Constitution.

Even so, President Trump and his administration met these attacks with apathy. The President has routinely sought to undermine and weaken efforts by this Chamber to sanction Russia. The Treasury Department recently cut a deal to reduce sanctions on the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Just last week, the Times reported that then-Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen was told to not even mention election security in front of the President, even though she reportedly considered it one of America's highest priorities as we head into 2020.

In the face of the administration's disturbing indifference, it is clear the Senate must act. In the past, this body has proudly come together, bipartisan, to pass sanctions on Russia. We have not done enough yet to hold the guilty parties of 2016 accountable, and we must do more to ensure that a foreign power cannot meddle in our elections ever again. With that in mind, I have three proposals for my colleagues to consider.

First, we should pass additional sanctions against President Putin, his cronies, and other adversaries considering similar malign activities. There are multiple bipartisan sanctions bills awaiting action, including the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, called DASKA, and the Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act, the DETER Act. I would urge the chairmen of those committees to take up those bills and send them to the floor, where Leader McConnell should bring them up for serious consideration.

Second, we should commit serious--and I mean serious--resources to election security. FBI Director Wray and other intelligence officials have testified that 2016 was not an isolated incident. Foreign powers will try again to interfere in our elections, they posited, in 2020 and beyond. Director Wray--and this should trouble every American--called 2018 a dress rehearsal for our adversaries. It might not just be Moscow next time. It could be Beijing, Tehran, or Pyongyang. If our elections are susceptible to foreign influence, our democracy is at risk.

We know--we know right now--that another foreign influence campaign is coming, and if we don't take steps to secure our elections, it would be astonishingly irresponsible. In fiscal year 2018, we were able to allocate $380 million in funding through the appropriations process for States to harden their election infrastructure and help improve election administration. I thought this was very important and pushed hard to get it in that budget, that appropriation. Unfortunately, though, in fiscal year 2019, our Republican colleagues blocked us from allocating more funding to the States, despite overwhelming demand. Why? Why would Republicans want to not stop Russia or someone else from interfering in our elections? It is befuddling. Make no mistake, though, Democrats will push for more election security money in the upcoming appropriations process.

We should also take up the bipartisan Secure Elections Act. Ranking Member Leahy and Ranking Member Klobuchar are the leaders on this issue, and I hope their diligence will pay off once again.

Third, we must hear from the intelligence and defense community about the coming threats of 2020. So today I would like to request that Leader McConnell--I am officially requesting him to schedule an all- Senators classified briefing with the leaders of the Departments of Homeland Security, FBI, and the Cyber Command to inform Senators about the threat of foreign interference in the 2020 election cycle. We must be very aware of these threats and take immediate steps to avoid the repeat of 2016.

The Senate can do these three things quickly, and each one of them should be bipartisan and noncontroversial. There are no doubt other ideas and legislation along these lines we should consider, but this is a place to get started. I look forward to having discussions with my colleagues about these items in the coming days.

Madam President, Leg Graveyard. Now, on another and related matter, the three items I just mentioned are examples of the things that the Senate could--could--be doing in a bipartisan way to address a serious challenge. I hope the Republican leader sees the value in pursuing them because so far this year the Republican leader has shown little interest in pursuing meaningful bipartisan legislation.

With over a year and a half left in Congress, Leader McConnell has turned this Chamber into a legislative graveyard, and without a shred of irony, he has proudly bragged that he is the Senate's Grim Reaper. Is that what the American people want? They urge us to work together in a bipartisan way, but Leader McConnell takes all the bills that have passed the House, puts them in his drawer, and spends his time simply doing nominations.

We are one-quarter of the way through the year, so let's do a quick

quarterly review. Our colleagues in the House have been busy. In 4 months, over 100 pieces of legislation passed their Chamber. Here are some of them: Legislation to oppose the lawsuit that would eliminate protections for Americans with preexisting conditions. Who is opposed to that? Leader McConnell is. Legislation to reform our democracy and improve elections, restore voting rights, and get the money out of politics; legislation on paycheck fairness so women are treated equally to men; commonsense background checks for which 98 percent of Americans support; upgrades to the Violence Against Women Act; legislation to restore net neutrality; and despite the fact that the President shut down the government for over a month, these bills have passed the House, most every one of them, with bipartisan support. These aren't partisan bills. They are commonsense proposals to help the middle class solve our country's basic problems.

The Republican leader told the American people that under his leadership, the Senate would debate and vote on issues of the day no matter if his party supported them. Yet not one, not one of these bills has come to the floor of the Senate--not one. Not one has been debated in the Chamber. These are the bills. If the Republican leader doesn't love every aspect of one of these House bills, fine, we are not saying take them or leave them. Let's have a debate. Let's have amendments. At least let's try to compromise on language that can get through both Chambers.

What has the Senate been doing instead? Leader McConnell has wasted precious time on basically two issues, ``gotcha'' votes like a stunt on climate change and Republicans' cynical attempts to limit women's reproductive health choices. The remainder has been spent on approval of alarmingly unqualified nominees to executive agencies in the judiciary.

What are we doing this week on the calendar? Not one piece of legislation, just nominees. Next week could probably be more of the same. So over the next 2 years, the Republican Senate is in danger of becoming little more than a staffing agency to the administration's radical nominees. That is a tragedy because at the start of this Congress, the American people sent a clear message. They wanted us to work together on legislation in a bipartisan way. The American people voted for action: action on healthcare, action on prescription drugs, action on climate change, and gun safety. Poll after poll shows that these issues are on the minds of Americans. Substantial majorities, Democrats and Republicans, supported them. We cannot, simply because we have a divided government, allow this entire Congress to go by without making meaningful progress on these issues. This is not good for the country, certainly not good for the Senate or the Republican Party and the incumbents in those Chambers. The American people cannot afford to have Leader McConnell turn one Chamber of their government into a legislative graveyard for 2 full years. We hope he will realize the folly of this both substantively and politically, and maybe we will start doing some real work.