Floor Statements

It is an absolute disgrace that Pete Hegseth has withheld casualty numbers in the Iran war from the American public. One of the biggest questions Pete Hegseth has to answer today is why he was out marketing testosterone supplements for our troops last week while withholding casualty numbers from the Iran war to the American people.

We learned yesterday that the Pentagon failed to disclose that our troops have sustained nearly 100 injuries in the past few weeks of the Iran war.

Sending our troops in harm's way is the most serious thing we can do as a nation, but Hegseth, Trump, and Rubio certainly don't treat it that way.

Hegseth is hiding more than he is sharing these days--whether it is the number of wounded, the damage to our bases overseas, or the immense ballooning cost of this Iran war blunder.

We need answers, but Hegseth wants to give some to the GOP alone. Hegseth is reportedly attending a House Republican meeting today to brief their Members on the war without providing Democrats the same access.

There is no room for this administration's partisan pettiness when our servicemembers' lives are at stake. But that seems to be a trademark for both Hegseth and Trump.

I am calling on Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump to tell the entire Congress everything they are telling the Republicans about the Iran war--both Chambers, both parties.

Everything they tell Republicans behind closed doors needs to be shared in public during today's testimony. But I don't need to hear from Hegseth to know just how poorly this war is going.

If we truly care about our servicemembers' well-being, we ought to be focused on getting them out of harm's way, not on their testosterone levels. We will be forcing another vote this week on our War Powers Resolution to bring our troops home and end this war.

Senate Republicans, don't let Trump off the hook. The Iran war isn't a game. It is not some trifle Trump, Hegseth, and Rubio can brush under the rug. Trump's reckless war is an absolute catastrophe. It must end, and Republicans should join us in making sure that happens. So far, crickets from them.

Mr. President, every single day, we see a new example of Trump's rampant corruption. Senate Democrats are putting all of Trump's scams under the magnifying glass in the coming weeks, and Trump's new Truth API stands out as one of his most corrupt grifts yet.

Every day, there is a new example of these kinds of grifts that Trump gets involved in. Instead of draining the swamp like he promised, Trump has filled it to the brim.

Now look at this: Trump is charging admission. For the low price of $100,000 a month, an investor can turn a profit off early access to Trump's market-moving posts.

Trump imposes new tariffs? Subscribers can short their stocks before anyone else. Trump announces a new contract? Subscribers know where to invest. Trump shakes up the Fed? Subscribers get to reposition before the rest of the market blinks. Meanwhile, Trump rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars in subscription fees.

Truth API is the exact definition of ``insider trading.'' It is textbook pay-to-play. And this is what Donald Trump spends his time doing. And remember, traders need only a millisecond headstart to make a fortune. Just 1 millisecond and they can make a lot of money, the way trading works these days.

As always, Trump's corruption benefits the rich at the expense of working families. How many American families do you think can afford $100,000 a month to get a leg up in the market?

Trump is doing what he always does: selling out America, American interests, and the American people to the highest bidder.

Republicans ought to be up in arms about Truth API and the latest news about Trump's foreign jet. Trump's $400 million Qatari jet is the biggest single bribe an American President has ever accepted in our history. Let me repeat that. Trump's $400 million Qatari jet is the single biggest bribe an American President has ever accepted in history. I have been warning about this for months.

And somehow, the American people still get an invoice. It will reportedly cost the taxpayer as much as $1 billion to retrofit Trump's plane for Presidential use. We just learned that his luxury jet is grounded until it can be ``maxed out'' to meet the same standards as the old Air Force One. Give me a break. Commercial airline ticket costs are up 27 percent over last year, and Trump wants the American people to pay to get his airborne palace off the ground?

Trump ought to rename the plane ``Air Farce One.'' It is not Air Force One; it is ``Air Farce One.''

Mr. President, well, we have Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Airlines, Trump Coin, and the Trump Presidency--all cons. The product changes; the con stays the same. Donald Trump has turned the Presidency of the United States into the most profitable scheme of his life, and American families are being forced--forced--to pay the price.

Today, I am launching a new effort to expose the corruption, show Americans exactly what it is costing them, and build reforms needed to stop any President from using public office for personal profit. Senate Democrats will be exposing this self-dealing, showing Americans exactly what it is costing them, and developing reforms to make sure no President can abuse the Office this way again.

For the next 3 weeks, Senate Democrats are putting Trump's corruption under a microscope. Throughout the month, we will follow the money, expose the deals, name the people cashing in, and show how Trump's corruption reaches directly into the pockets of working people.

This week, we are releasing a new report that lays out the staggering scale of the grift: how Trump has used the power of the Presidency to enrich himself, reward his family, protect his friends, and sell access to anyone--anyone--willing to pay.

The report shows how Americans are struggling to afford groceries, healthcare, housing, and energy, while Donald Trump and his family have reportedly made more than $4 billion from the Presidency.

We will also be hosting another tabletop exercise with the Democrats' Elections Task Force to prepare to counter Trump's efforts to rig the 2026 midterms.

Next week, we will hold a roundtable on how Trump's corruption is directly driving up everyday costs for the American people, and average folks will testify to what they are going through.

And the following week, we will release major legislation designed to rein in Trump's rampant corruption and to prevent any President from ever doing it again.

You pay; Trump profits. That is the pattern of this administration, and we will highlight it everywhere we see it.

No amount of gold leaf can conceal the rot spreading through this White House. Corruption is not a sideshow in the Trump administration; it is the whole business model.

Trump guts protections for workers and consumers. His wealthy friends cash in.

Trump cuts food assistance and healthcare. Billionaires get another tax break.

Trump hands out pardons to the rich and well-connected, accepts lavish gifts from foreign governments, and arranges sweetheart deals for his family business.

Trump uses the government. Trump gets richer. Americans foot the bill.

His corruption is not victimless. It has a price, and working families are paying it every single day. The average American family is already spending more than $3,100 extra because of this administration's policies.

And yet Trump still expects taxpayers to finance a MAGA slush fund they never approved, a golden ballroom they never asked for, and upgrades to a foreign luxury jet the President does not need.

Donald Trump has turned the Oval Office into his personal ATM, the Federal Government into his family business, and the American taxpayer into the mark.

A few months ago, Trump said:

I don't think about Americans' financial situation.

Of course, he doesn't. He is too busy thinking about his own.

Donald Trump may believe the Presidency is simply another brand to monetize, another product to sell, another scam to run. But he is dead wrong. The Presidency belongs to the American people. It is not a license to steal, it is not a family business, and it is not Donald Trump's personal property.

So throughout this month, Senate Democrats will expose the corruption that Trump wants hidden. We will follow the money and expose the deals.

We will show who profits, who pays, and how Trump has rigged the government for himself and the people closest to him.

And we will make one thing unmistakably clear: The White House is not for sale.

Trump has spent his life betting that the con will always work. This time, the American people will see exactly how the scam works and exactly who has been handed the keys to the kingdom.

iran

Mr. President, on the Iran war, Donald Trump needs to reckon with the terrible cost of the disastrous war he has dared to call ``a skirmish,'' ``a little excursion.'' And once, he called it ``a lovely stay.''

There is nothing ``lovely'' or ``little'' about Trump's blunder in Iran--nothing.

On Thursday, Trump insisted to the Nation that we are ``winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly.''

But instead and sadly, we saw three more brave American servicemembers tragically lose their lives over the weekend because of Trump's reckless war in Iran. Dozens of other U.S. troops were wounded in Iranian strikes last week, and one servicemember remains missing.

I am praying for their families in this difficult hour. I speak for the entire Senate when I say how much we appreciate their sacrifice.

This carnage is the bitter fruit of Trump's ``labor'' in Iran. Every second Trump prolongs this war is another second that the lives of our men and women in uniform are in danger. In the coming days, we are going to make Senate Republicans take another vote on our War Powers Resolution to end this war and get our troops out of harm's way. Trump needs to stop this catastrophe and bring our troops home, and Senate Republicans can't let him off the hook until he does.

100th Anniversary of the Long Island Association

Mr. President, now I want to briefly take a moment to recognize some guests from New York who are in the Capitol today. I guess I am a little late, but they were here.

The Long Island Association, a storied regional business development group, is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Some of its members traveled here today to celebrate this occasion.

Their century of work fighting to make Long Island a better place to live, work, and do business has accomplished much for the region. From affordability to energy, to infrastructure, to innovation, they have lit the road forward for Long Island's future.

It has been my pleasure to work with them for several decades, and I know that under the leadership of their acting CEO and president Stacey Sikes--who once worked for me--we will continue our great tradition of delivering for Long Island together.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, Donald Trump's election speech tonight is not about the election Trump lost 6 years ago; it is a threat against the election he is afraid to lose this November.

Trump may control the microphone tonight, but he will not control the verdict in November. The voters will have the last word, and Senate Democrats will rebut Trump's lies every day. We will fight like hell to make sure Trump can't silence voters.

Trump's prime-time speech tonight isn't simply about relitigating his overwhelming defeat in the 2020 election; it is about undermining the 2026 election before a single vote has been cast. Trump won't expose anything of substance about 2020; he will just echo the same stale, baseless, pathetic lies he has repeated for 6 years.

Donald, you have been trying this shtick for 6 years. Only your little coterie of sycophants still believes these lies--no one else.

You can say it tonight, Trump. You can say it tonight. You can say it tomorrow. You can say it every night until election. No one believes you. The election was not stolen.

Trump keeps chasing his tail, going round and round and round in circles so many times, he has left a rut in the ground. Every time he tells a lie, he digs himself deeper into the hole. Trump's fixation on these conspiracy theories reeks of desperation.

Trump knows he can't defend Republicans' disastrous record--his disastrous record as well--so he is trying to discredit the voters who will judge it in November.

Hey, Donald, the reason your numbers are so low is because you are obsessed with BS like this instead of what Americans actually care about.

The American people are fed up with Donald Trump. Americans are fed up with the chaos in their streets, fed up with the corruption in their government, fed up with sky-high costs in every part of their lives because of this administration's policies. Voters are sick of forking over their tax dollars to line Trump's pockets and to fuel his failed war in Iran.

Trump has given up on winning over hearts and minds. Now he is focused on rigging rules and purging voter rolls. Instead of changing course on their deeply unpopular agenda, Trump and the GOP have launched a coordinated, multifront campaign to subvert the 2026 election.

But don't worry, America, it will fail.

Trump has called for Republicans to ``take over voting in 15 states in the country.'' That is what he said. Trump said:

We want to take over. We should take over the voting. . . .

Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.

It is in his own words.

Trump has issued unlawful Executive orders to try to kill vote-by- mail. The administration is packed to the rafters with election deniers, including key election oversight positions. MAGA loyalists like Todd Blanche and Kash Patel have used the DOJ and FBI to torment election officials and foment lies with politically motivated investigations designed to sow doubt and instill fear. Trump's Republican allies in Congress keep pushing the SAVE Act, the most devious voter-suppression legislation Trump has ever dreamed up.

Donald, when it comes to the SAVE Act, the courts have rejected it, Congress has rejected it, and even members of your own party have rejected it. Give it up. The SAVE Act isn't going anywhere.

There is no way we are letting this administration feed Americans' personal data into an algorithm Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Russell Vought created and let it pick who gets to vote.

Donald Trump made life harder and more expensive for the American people, and now he wants to make sure the American people can't hold him accountable at the ballot box. That is what Trump's speech is about tonight. But in America, voters choose their leaders; leaders do not choose their voters.

Senate Democrats are going to fight like hell to make sure our elections belong to the voters, not to Donald Trump.

The country does not belong to Donald Trump. The ballot does not belong to Donald Trump. The verdict does not belong to Donald Trump. It belongs to the American people. And this vote in November, they will deliver it.

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

Mr. President, anyone who can represent a known pathological liar like Donald Trump can have no integrity and should never be Attorney General.

We all know lawyers are supposed to represent their clients, but when you represent a client who just lies and lies and lies, pathologically, you should never be Attorney General.

The only thing today's hearing will confirm is that Todd Blanche represents one client alone, Donald Trump, and he will continue to represent that lying client when he is Attorney General. There will be no integrity. There will be no real basis of fact. He will just do whatever Trump wants. We know that.

But the central question today, at this hearing and on into the process, is not of what Trump wants but what Senate Republicans will do. Let me repeat that. The crucial question today is not what Trump wants, but what Senate Republicans will do.

Where are the Senate Republicans? Are Republicans really going to go to the mat for Blanche, after he aided Trump in his corruption every step of the way? Do Senate Republicans have no issue with Blanche masterminding Trump's MAGA slush fund, arranging Trump's sweetheart deal from the IRS, and refusing to release 3 million pages of the Epstein file? Come on, Republicans, you have no shame? Is there no bar that can block you from, prevent you from, putting a man like this as Attorney General?

Republicans have set the bar so low for our Nation's top law enforcement official that you have to dig for it. The American people don't trust Todd Blanche. Neither should Senate Republicans, plain and simple.

Now, let me talk a little bit about the SAVE Act. Republicans keep screwing around in reconciliation with Trump's voter suppression SAVE Act. Republicans should know by now that it ain't going to fly with us, with the courts, or with the American people. I will say it as many times as it takes: The SAVE Act is dead on arrival here in the Senate.

I don't care how Republicans try to package their plan to resurrect the old ghost of Jim Crowe. We will kill it.

Trump's blatant effort to strip Americans of their voting rights is withering in the courts, too. Yesterday--just yesterday--Trump lost his 14th and 15th cases trying to demand state voter rolls.

Hey, Donald, what you are doing is illegal and unconstitutional, and the courts are making that very clear.

Rightwing Republicans like the Senator from Utah can bluster all they want, but the SAVE Act is not going to become law. Trump will have to face all the voters, not just the ones he wants, in November.

And the mess the Republicans find themselves in right now won't go away until they realize just how futile this effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans is.

Instead, Trump has bragged on national TV that he plans to force a shutdown if he doesn't get his way on the SAVE Act. Trump said: Republicans have to pass SAVE, otherwise we are going to have a shutdown in November.

Hear that, Republicans? You hear that, Americans? You hear that, voters?

Trump says he is going to shut down the government to take away Americans' voting rights. Are Republicans going to go along with that?

I remind Donald again--as I did yesterday--last time you bragged about shutting down the government with Nancy and me in the Oval Office didn't come out too good for you, Donald. This one will come out even worse.

So I hope Republicans hear this. Trump says he is going to shut down the government so he can take away Americans' voting rights. How do you think that is going to go over in this country?

Democrats aren't saying we want a shutdown; Trump is. Republicans ought to do themselves a favor and bury the SAVE Act once and for all.

Now, on Iran, the hole Donald Trump keeps digging himself into has turned into a chasm. Trump continues to escalate his asinine war of whim with Iran.

Yesterday, Trump renewed his threat to bomb Iran's civilian infrastructure--something that was criticized across the board the last time he lashed out.

Democrats voted unanimously against the NDAA--unanimously--because the belief of our caucus is wide and deep: Congress cannot continue business as usual on the annual Defense bill when Trump is actively escalating one of the worst national security disasters in American history. That is what he is doing.

Trump can't launch a directionless war, defy Congress' bipartisan demands that it end, refuse to level with the American people about the cost, and then expect Democrats to follow quietly and vote all the money he wants to continue this absurdity.

We will not act like a rubberstamp when our servicemen are in harm's way abroad and Americans are getting crushed financially and at the gas pump here at home. No way. Democrats have not and will not go along with this war.

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

Mr. President, how long will Republicans let Trump's secret police continue to sow chaos and violence in our American streets?

For the second time in less than a week, ICE agents fatally shot someone, first in Texas and again in Maine yesterday.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about these two shootings, but what little we do know is disturbing, to say the least. Both cases appear to have involved ICE agents who were not wearing body cameras--killing individuals who were not the subject of the agents' warrant.

Why were these two people shot at and killed? We don't know the answers. There are no body cameras yet. There are no body cameras as we would require. The ICE agents in Texas were also riding in unmarked vehicles. If Republicans had passed our bill, there would be body cameras, proper agent ID, warrant requirements, and other commonsense reforms, and these killings might not have happened.

I hope our Republican colleagues are listening. If they had passed our reforms, these killings might not have happened. With those reforms, we would have at least had a better idea as to what exactly happened so that we could have avoided further killings in the future. Instead, Republicans poured tens of billions of dollars into Trump's rogue Agencies with no strings attached--no strings attached. While every other police department in America has rules, our Republican colleagues and Trump said: No rules. Do whatever you want. And look at the results. Look at what has happened.

It is dangerous to give ICE agents free rein when we expect every other law enforcement agency in the country to follow basic codes of conduct. Allowing unidentified Federal agents to roam through American streets, to

kick down people's doors without a warrant, to shoot people dead in the street without any--any--provocation, as it might well have been here, is an invitation for state-sanctioned violence, not an immigration policy.

I am calling on the Trump administration to release all information related to these two shootings, and we need to conduct independent investigations of each.

The American people need to know how and why this chaos is spreading through their streets. Republicans who refuse to go along with real reforms of ICE--reforms that we see in every police department in the country--should pivot, change their minds, realize these shootings were just awful and work with us to reform this rogue Agency. The American people need to know, of course, how and why this chaos is spreading through their streets, and we need a complete investigation that is independent.

Now, Mr. President, on Iran and the NDAA, when all the Trump administration can say about his disastrous war with Iran is that Vietnam was worse--a point Trump made yesterday--he reveals the scale of his failure. This is what Donald Trump said. The only thing he can say is that Vietnam was worse.

Oh my God, a war that killed close to 50,000 Americans, a war that lasted almost a decade, a war that ripped America apart in ways that took decades to recover is what he compares Iran to? Oh my God.

Trump's supposed cease-fire deal has completely collapsed. Our troops are coming under attack. The Strait of Hormuz is a minefield, and gas prices are going back up. Donald Trump is totally out of his depth. In fact, Donald Trump is drowning in the Strait of Hormuz because he has no plan. He had no plan when he got America into this war, and he has no plan on how to get us out. Trump started the war without authorization, without a strategy, without an exit.

The reason that we have war powers acts is to force an administration to think through the consequences of going to war ahead of time. Trump, of course, didn't listen. Finally, after weeks, bipartisan majorities in both Chambers of Congress voted to end it. We had tried and tried. Finally, enough Republicans joined us, but Donald Trump ignored them.

Now the White House has formally notified Congress that hostilities have resumed; that American strikes are underway again; and that our forces remain positioned for more. Yet Republicans want the Senate to take up the NDAA--the Defense bill--as though none of this is happening, as though Congress can debate the Nation's central national security bill while ignoring the Nation's most urgent national security crisis. We cannot.

I will be voting no.

The President is waging an unauthorized war in defying bipartisan majorities in Congress and in refusing to level with the American people about the cost, the mission, or the endgame. The NDAA cannot become a permission slip for that recklessness that we see occurring in Iran. Donald Trump does not get to drag the American people deeper into a war he cannot explain and does not know how to end and then demand Congress look the other way.

Donald Trump and the administration have no authorization, no strategy, no peace, no blank check. Therefore, a day after the President told Congress that his war is back on, I am a no--a strong no--on the NDAA.

Mr. President, on this Trump election task force--it just gets crazier and crazier with this administration. Yesterday, the White House announced that Trump and his election task force will reveal intelligence reports that supposedly corroborate his baseless lies about the 2020 election. Give me a break.

Donald, start focusing on lowering Americans' costs, not on your conspiracy theory that the 2020 elections were stolen from you. You don't have proof. You haven't come up with proof for 6 years because there is no proof, Donald Trump. You haven't come up with the proof because it isn't there. There is no proof.

Trump should get off all of this nonsense, all of this wishful thinking, all of this lunacy and focus on what people actually care about--their higher costs. If Trump thought about November 2026 half as much as he thinks about 2020, maybe his party wouldn't be scrambling right now.

Apparently, Trump also plans to say that Senators Ossoff and Warnock were illegitimate because of election fraud. How desperate can Trump get? He is flailing. His effort to overturn what happened in 2020 is a mission impossible. He ought to wake up, smell the coffee, and abandon this frivolous, ludicrous, diversionary effort. Trump's obvious desperation might be amusing if it weren't so dangerous. Without question, it is part of Trump's effort to subvert the 2026 midterm elections.

The whole reason Republicans are in their current mess is that Trump refuses to drop his radical SAVE Act--to strip millions of Americans of their voting rights. Trump has made clear, once again, who plans to force a shutdown--Donald Trump; yes, Donald Trump. Yesterday, Trump said Republicans have to get rid of the filibuster and pass the SAVE Act ``otherwise we're going to have a shutdown.'' That is what he said yesterday.

So, Americans, hear this: If there is a shutdown, it is on Donald Trump's back.

Donald, do you remember the last time you demanded a shutdown when Nancy and I were in your office? It didn't work out too well for you then, and it won't work out too well for you now.

America, hear this: If there is a shutdown, it is on Donald Trump's back.

Unless Trump changes his course, realizes the SAVE Act cannot pass, and starts working on more productive things, we could be headed for another Trump shutdown.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, my prayers and those of my family are with Senator Graham's family, staff, and friends after his sudden, sudden passing yesterday. We see the white roses on his desk, and we think of Lindsey.

Senator Graham devoted much of his life to public service--first in the military and then in Congress, where he represented South Carolina for more than three decades. To the very end, Senator Graham's life was defined by public service. He was an important Member of this institution and a crucial voice for his constituents in South Carolina.

For all of our many and vehement disagreements, Senator Graham and I still found ways to work together. One of the first things we did together was travel to China. We both believed that China was manipulating its currency, hurting American exports, hurting American jobs, and together we hammered away at that issue.

At first, neither the left nor the right believed us. Amazingly enough, both the New York Times, a liberal publication, and the Wall Street Journal, a conservative publication, said there is no such thing as currency manipulation, but Graham and I proved to be correct, and we took some real efforts over the next few years to stop that manipulation and the outflow of American jobs.

We worked together and hashed out a framework for commonsense, comprehensive immigration reform--the so-called Gang of Eight led by myself and Senator McCain and with Lindsey Graham as a key member. We worked hard. We didn't agree on everything in our bipartisan immigration proposal, but we agreed it was worth trying because doing nothing was worse. We also found common ground in our effort to aid Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

I know that if Senator Graham were here in the Chamber today, he would also join me in urging the Senate to support Ukraine and strengthen sanctions on Russia. I urge Senator Thune in honor of Lindsey to put the Russia sanctions bill on the floor immediately. It will pass overwhelmingly and help our allies in Ukraine.

Not seeing eye to eye is no reason to be blind to the way forward. Lindsey could understand that. Every Senator ought to do the same.