Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, like any patriotic American--Democrat, Republican, or Independent--I was appalled by the press conference that capped off the President's trip to Europe this morning. President Trump hardly pressed President Putin on a single issue, saying that ``both countries'' are responsible for the state of relations between the United States and Russia.

When it comes to interference in the 2016 elections, the President has managed to point the finger at just about everyone except the culprit. The one person he hasn't blamed is the man who is actually responsible--Vladimir Putin. Rather than taking the opportunity to confront Putin and stand up in defense of the United States, rather than demanding that Putin hand over the Russian intelligence agents who were indicted last week, the President took the word of the KGB over the brave, hard-working men and women of the CIA. It is amazing. When has a President ever done something like that--believed our enemies instead of our own intelligence agents, who have worked so diligently and hard to keep us safe?

Vladimir Putin's goal for over a decade has been the weakening of American leadership and the erosion of vital international alliances, such as NATO, that promote American values of democracy, freedom, and open markets. He has labored for 10 years, and he didn't get very far, and now President Trump is handing him the keys to the city.

President Putin could hardly have scripted a more successful foreign trip for his interests than the one we have just witnessed by President Trump. Now, because of President Trump's inexplicable actions, Americans and citizens of the world from one end to the other are scratching their heads, saying: What is going on inside the President's head? Because of the President's almost inexplicable actions, a single, ominous question hangs over the White House: What could possibly cause the President to put the interests of Russia over those of the United States? Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous and inexplicable behavior is the possibility--the very real possibility--that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump.

The questions of the moment--now that our security has been put at risk by the President--are these: Where are our Republican colleagues? Where are the Republicans who cheered Reagan's famous challenge to Gorbachev to ``tear down this wall''? Where are the Republicans who demanded a strong response from President Obama when Putin annexed Crimea? Where are the Republicans who surely know in their hearts that trusting Putin over American intelligence, defense, and law enforcement diminishes the standing of our great country?

Now is the time, if there ever were one, for Republicans to stand up. If we wait much longer, our global alliance will fracture; the institutions America created in the ashes of World War II will crumble; and our allies will consider abandoning us, maybe even embracing China, if the consequences--economic and military--are devastating for our country; and Putin's Russia will emerge all the stronger for

it. American power, prestige, and even our economy will be deeply damaged.

I am pleading--pleading--with my Republican colleagues to push back by doing four things:

First, ratchet up--not water down--sanctions against Russia.

Second, join us in demanding that the President's national security team immediately come to Congress and testify.

Third, end attacks by so many on the hard right on the Department of Justice, the FBI, and Special Counsel Mueller. These attacks are beyond the pale, but now that the President has done this with Putin, these attacks are dangerous to the future of the Republic.

The special counsel needs to finish his work. The President needs to sit for an interview with the special counsel, as previous Presidents have done and as Republicans demanded of President Clinton.

The President has no problem breaking bread with a man who maliciously attacked America during our elections, but he can't sit down with a man charged with investigating it--Special Counsel Mueller. Please. What is the President afraid of? What is he hiding that we don't know?

Fourth, our Republican colleagues must demand with us that the President insist that the 12 indicted Russians be sent to the United States immediately to stand trial.

Every one of these actions is important. Every one should be bipartisan. Every one of our Republican colleagues, no matter what their ideologies within the Republican Party are, should choose country over party--what is good for America over the politics of the moment. Let us show strength and not fear when President Trump shows weakness, as he has today.

I am asking Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan, both friends, to make sure the four things we have asked for are done. I am pleading with them, for the sake of the country, to do so.

The President is doing grave harm to the standing of the United States, to the strength of the United States, to the security of the United States, and to the economic robustness of the United States by kowtowing to Vladimir Putin. The President will continue to do it if he is not checked, and the best check is our Republican colleagues, if they only have the decency, the honor, and the courage to stand up at a time when the moment calls for it. Some have--Senator McCain, Senator Graham, and Senator Sasse--but where are the others? Where is Leader McConnell?

The summit today was an insult to all Americans--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. We have to stand up together and push back.

Mr. President, let me first thank my friend and colleague from Illinois. He is a lamp of light in this horrible moment when children are being separated from their parents, when we don't even know where they are, and when we don't even know who their parents are. He is showing the inhumanity and the incompetence of this administration rolled into one. He has been a constant and vigilant voice to reunite the families and bring some justice, some peace, some calm to these poor kids. So I thank him for the work he has done.

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

Madam President, last night President Trump selected Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee for the upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court. In selecting Judge Kavanaugh, President Trump did exactly what he said he would do on the campaign trail--nominate someone who will overturn women's reproductive rights and strike down healthcare protections for millions of Americans, including those with preexisting conditions. He has put at risk civil rights, labor rights, environmental rights, and LGBTQ rights. How do we know? Because President Trump repeatedly promised to nominate Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade and who will undermine our healthcare laws.

This didn't come out of the clear blue; President Trump promised it. He said he would only pick ``pro-life judges'' who would ``automatically'' reverse Roe v. Wade. President Trump actually went so far as to say that women should be ``punished'' for their healthcare choices. President Trump also said that his judicial appointments would ``do the right thing,'' unlike Justice Roberts on healthcare. That is President Trump's litmus test, and it couldn't be clearer.

During the campaign, President Trump commissioned a list of 25 people who would meet the litmus test, who were vetted and approved by two organizations that represent the hard right--the Federalist Society, led by a man named Leonard Leo whose goal in life has been to overturn Roe v. Wade, and the Heritage Foundation, whose goal is to strike down healthcare law because they don't want the government to help people out when they have preexisting conditions or other healthcare needs.

Edward Whelan, a prominent conservative activist, said this about Leonard Leo, the man who put together the list that Trump promised to choose from: ``No one has been more dedicated to the enterprise of building a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade than the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo.''

If anyone believes that Judge Kavanaugh or anyone else on the list would uphold Roe v. Wade, then I have a bridge to sell them.

Leonard Leo's goal in life is to repeal Roe. He came up with the list. Do you think he put any slackers, in his opinion, on that list? No.

Judge Kavanaugh got the nomination not because he will be an impartial judge on behalf of all Americans but because he passed President Trump's litmus test--repeal women's freedom for their reproductive rights and repeal America's healthcare, including protection for preexisting conditions. If Judge Kavanaugh were to be confirmed, women's reproductive rights would be in the hands of five men on the Supreme Court. That is not what the women or the men of America want.

Judge Kavanaugh in his own writings made clear he would rule against reproductive rights and freedoms and that he welcomes challenges to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, of our healthcare act. Judge Kavanaugh has argued that the Supreme Court should question the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. He openly criticized the Supreme

Court when they upheld the law. He is no neutral arbiter. He has already made up his mind. He wouldn't have been approved by the Heritage Foundation if they weren't certain that he would repeal the ACA. He wouldn't have been approved by the Federalist Society if Leonard Leo wasn't certain that he would repeal Roe v. Wade.

Judge Kavanaugh has argued that the Trump administration could keep a young girl in Federal custody to prevent her from obtaining constitutionally protected healthcare. He has argued that employers should be able to deny their employees access to affordable contraceptive coverage. If Judge Kavanaugh feels that way about contraceptive rights, imagine what he feels about a woman's right to choose.

I will make one other point about Judge Kavanaugh. He is a deeply, deeply conservative justice, way out of the mainstream. He has written troubling decisions rejecting something 90 percent of Americans want-- commonsense gun laws. He has undone environmental protections. He has challenged them. Our Clean Air and Clean Water Acts would be at risk. He would make it far more difficult for regulations to exist to enforce those laws.

Here is what is most amazing: He has gone so far as to say that a President doesn't need to follow the law if he ``deems'' it unconstitutional.

Folks, here we have a President, President Trump, who cares less about the rule of law, less about the restraints that every other President has felt were put in place by the Constitution and the norms that have blessed this great country for 200 years, and we are going to put on the Bench someone who says: If this President, President Trump, deems some law is unconstitutional, he doesn't have to follow it. How many Americans think the President would be judicious and limited in doing that? That is not the President I have seen over the last year and a half--oh, no.

An analysis by Professor Epstein of Washington University of St. Louis found that Judge Kavanaugh would be the second most conservative Justice on the Court, to the right of Judge Gorsuch, second only to Justice Thomas. This is the most conservative Court we have had in 80, 90 years--since the 1930s, at the very minimum. To those who say that President Trump has made a moderate selection from the judicial mainstream in the form of Judge Kavanaugh, think again and look at his record. He is a deeply conservative justice.

His judicial philosophy appears to spring from his history. Judge Kavanaugh was embedded in the partisan fights of the past few decades involving the notorious Starr report, the Florida recount, President Bush's secrecy and privilege claims once in office, and ideological judicial nomination fights throughout the Bush era.

The hard right has had a goal. They can't achieve their hard-right philosophy through the two elected branches of government, try as they might--the Congress and President--but if they get control of the one nonelected branch, the judiciary, they can turn the clock back in America for decades, maybe centuries. That has been their goal. When Judge Kavanaugh worked in the White House, he helped them achieve that goal. Judge Kavanaugh's background as a partisan political operative seems exactly like the kind of man President Trump would want on the Supreme Court if legal issues from the Mueller probe arise--deferential to a fault to Executive authority.

Judge Kavanaugh's long track record of partisan politics comes with a long paper trail. The Senate must now be able to access and have the time to adequately review all documents, emails, and other paperwork associated with Judge Kavanaugh before the process moves forward. Judge Kavanaugh's papers may be critical to helping the American people understand the kind of jurist that Judge Kavanaugh would be on the Supreme Court, and if that makes us take a little more time, so be it.

As the President himself has said, this is one of the most consequential nominations we have had in a generation. To get the full record before any of us vote is absolutely necessary, important, essential, and fair. Judge Kavanaugh's papers may give the Senate the best and only chance of understanding Judge Kavanaugh's personal views.

No doubt, Judge Kavanaugh will be schooled, as were his most recent predecessors, to reveal as little as possible about his philosophy and personal views in his confirmation hearing. No doubt he will employ practiced evasions that have become a farcical tradition of the nomination process: I will respect precedent. I will follow settled law and strive to uphold stare decisis. Gee, Senator, I can't comment lest I bias myself on a future case.

We have seen what happened when Justice Roberts, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Alito said that. Once they got on the Bench, they overturned precedent with alacrity to achieve their political goals. Probably the worst was Citizens United, where Chief Justice Roberts undid close to a century of tradition and allowed wealthy people to send millions of dollars undisclosed into our politics, making the swamp so much worse. Most recently, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Roberts, and the rest dramatically overturned precedent in the Janus case on a whim, as the dissent noted. They just pulled a theory out of a hat--a First Amendment ruling that the First Amendment prohibited unions from organizing. My, oh my, how can anyone believe that Judge Kavanaugh will stick to precedent when Justice Roberts, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Alito ignore precedent and make their own political rulings regularly?

We need to review the record--Judge Kavanaugh's written history, where the best clues of his jurisprudence may lie. It is no less than the standard my Republican colleagues demanded of then-Judge Kagan during her confirmation process. They asked for her entire record; 170,000 documents were sent here.

We need those documents now more than ever because this new Justice will be so pivotal in determining the future of our Nation for so long. The nomination could alter the balance of the Court in favor of powerful special interests against working families for a generation. The pro-hard-right business Heritage Foundation wants only nominees who will side with the big boys against the average person, and in Judge Kavanaugh, they have someone who would do just that.

We cannot let it happen. If the Senate blocks this nomination, it will lead to a more independent, moderate selection that both parties could support.

I yield the floor.

First, Mr. President, let me thank my colleague, my neighbor from New Jersey, for the excellent job he does in just about anything he does but particularly today as ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. His leadership is invaluable to this country so I thank him for it.

Mr. President, President Trump is on his way to attend the annual summit of NATO leaders in Brussels. The President should use the occasion to reinforce and build up the transatlantic alliance rather than tear it down.

Since its founding nearly 70 years ago, NATO has become the most powerful and successful security partnership ever created. The first half of the 20th century was marked by unprecedented human suffering-- depression, war, and genocide. After World War II, in the face of Soviet aggression and expansion, NATO showed the world a different way.

Working together with other international institutions, NATO established the political and economic rules of the road that have promoted our national security and our mutual prosperity.

This institution now finds itself under incredible and completely unnecessary strain from Russia's interference in democracies across Europe and including the United States, from China's rapacious economic aggression and geopolitical provocations, from the evolving threat of terrorism, and, shockingly, from within.

Our President, President Trump, has routinely berated the leaders of our NATO allies in far harsher terms than the President has ever criticized President Putin of Russia, a dictator who has invaded a sovereign country, murdered journalists and political dissenters, directed a nerve agent attack in the United Kingdom, and continues to prop up the brutal Assad regime in Syria. He has shown an eagerness to impose tariffs against Europe but a reluctance to sanction President Putin and his cronies. He has accepted the word of President Putin over the consensus of 17 agencies of the American intelligence community.

For reasons that continue to baffle so many, President Trump will follow up his summit with a one-on-one meeting with President Putin in Helsinki, a mere 100 miles from the Russian border.

Before leaving for Europe this morning, the President summed up his agenda. He said: ``I have NATO, I have the UK . . . and I have Putin. Frankly, Putin may be the easiest of all. Who would think?''

Who would think? President Trump, considering all you have said and done in the past 2 years, considering your kid glove approach to President Putin that has everyone here scratching their head, any one of us could have predicted that Putin would be your easiest meeting, but every one of us is in fear of what Putin might get out of it.

Every time the President has negotiated one-on-one with President Xi, with Kim Jong Un, our rival has gotten the better of him and of our country. And many of us fear what President Trump will do alone with Putin, what he will concede and what Putin will get out of him.

The President of the United States should be a clarion voice for our values, bolstering our allies and isolating our adversaries. President Trump has, unfortunately and alarmingly, been the opposite.

The values at the foundation of our NATO alliance are worth fighting for--free markets, free and fair elections, representative government, rule of law. These are the values that protect our citizens from the encroachment of tyranny. President Trump should recognize that power resides in the values shared by our NATO allies as well as the strategic sense of using NATO as a powerful bulwark against the abuses of a resurgent Russia.

Later this afternoon, the Senate will vote on a motion to instruct conferees on the Defense bill to reaffirm Congress's enduring and unequivocal support for NATO. I hope it receives the overwhelming bipartisan, if not unanimous, approval it so deserves.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, as everyone knows, later tonight President Trump will announce his nomination for the upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court. Whoever fills Justice Kennedy's seat will join an otherwise evenly divided Court and immediately obtain the ability to affect the laws of the United States and the rights of its citizens for generations to come.

Enormously important issues hang in the balance: the right of workers to organize, the pernicious influence of dark money in our politics, the right of Americans to marry whom they love, and the right to vote.

Two issues of similar and profound consequence are the fate of affordable healthcare and a woman's freedom to make the most sensitive medical decisions about her body. These two rights--affordable healthcare and a woman's freedom to make sensitive healthcare decisions--hang in the balance with this nominee. The views of President Trump's next Court nominee could very well determine whether the Senate approves or rejects this nomination.

President Trump has already made up his mind. President Trump has repeatedly said that he believes Roe was wrongly decided. He has promised, in his own words, to nominate only ``pro-life judges'' whose selection will result in the ``automatic'' overturning of Roe

v. Wade. Those are his words: ``pro-life judges'' and ``automatic.''

He also said that Chief Justice Roberts has been ``an absolute disaster''--his words--for voting to uphold the healthcare law and said his judicial appointments ``will do the right thing, unlike Bush's appointee John Roberts, on ObamaCare.''

It is near impossible to imagine that President Trump would select a nominee who isn't hostile to our healthcare law and to healthcare for millions and millions of Americans and who isn't hostile to a woman's freedom to make her own healthcare decisions.

We can be sure of this because President Trump, during the campaign, asked Leonard Leo, the founder of the Federalist Society, to assemble a list of possible Supreme Court Justices for him to pick from. Mr. Leo was not only aware of Candidate Trump's preference for a Supreme Court that would reverse Roe v. Wade; he himself spent his career in pursuit of it.

That is not just my view. According to Edward Whelan, one of the most prominent legal conservative activists and bloggers, ``no one has been more dedicated to the enterprise of building a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade than the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo.'' No one has been more dedicated to overturning Roe v. Wade than the very man who chose the list of 25.

That is what we are up against here. That is why America is on tenterhooks, so worried about any choice from this list.

Let me repeat again that Mr. Leonard Leo is the man who assembled Trump's list of potential Supreme Court nominees, and no one--no one-- has been more dedicated to overturning Roe v. Wade than Leonard Leo.

Normally, in the Senate we have a process of advise and consent on the Supreme Court. In the old days, the President would consult with Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on a qualified judge and, then, after careful deliberations, nominate a jurist who could get bipartisan support. What we have here is the exact opposite.

The President has gone to two ``far out of the mainstream'' hard- right groups--the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society--and asked them, not the Senate, to advise and consent on a Supreme Court nomination.

Whomever the President selects tonight, if that nominee is from the preapproved list selected by Leo and the Heritage Foundation, everyone ought to understand what it means for the freedom of women to make their own healthcare decisions and for the protections for Americans with preexisting conditions: Those rights will be gravely threatened.

We are going to hear a lot this summer about precedents. The traditional question in these matters has been: Will the nominee defer to precedent? Nominees will be asked if they respect settled law. This is known as the principle of stare decisis. The nominee always answers that, yes, he or she will respect and defer to precedent, and Senators nod their heads, having received this rickety, vague assurance that the nominee will not rock the judicial boat and turn the clock back decades. But for two reasons, this standard of settled law--stare decisis--is no longer an adequate standard by which to judge nominees. Why?

First, we have ample evidence from the past several years of judges who have sworn in their confirmation hearings to respect precedent and then have reversed their stand once on the Court. For example, in his confirmation hearings, then-Judge Gorsuch said:

Precedent is like our shared family history of judges. It

deserves our respect.

Last week--just last week--now-Justice Gorsuch voted to overturn 41 years of precedent in the Janus decision, relying on flimsy and fabricated legal theory. It was so flimsy, in fact, that Justice Kagan wrote in dissent that the majority overruled precedent, ``for not exceptional or special reason, but because it never liked the decision . . . subverting all known principles of stare decisis.''

Justice Roberts--another person who swore he would obey precedent-- said he would call balls and strikes as he saw them, that he would interpret law rather than make it. Of course, it was Justice Roberts who was then responsible for overturning 40 years of precedent in the Citizens United decision, which so set back our politics and so deepened the swamp that so many Americans despise, by allowing huge amounts of dark money, unreported, to cascade into our political system.

On two of the most important rulings in the history of the Roberts' Court, a cumulative 81 years of precedent were thrown out the window, despite the earnest promises of Justices Roberts and Gorsuch at their hearings.

When they say they will obey settled law, you can't believe it. You can't believe it because it just hasn't happened in this new conservative Court that is so eager to make law, not interpret it.

There is a second reason, which is maybe even more important, why the principle of ``I will follow settled law'' no longer works, and that is President Trump. We already know that President Trump's nominee will be prepared to overturn the precedents of Roe v. Wade and NFIB v. Sebelius. We know that because President Trump has said so. When the President has a litmus test for his nominees and only chooses from a preapproved list of nominees designed to satisfy that litmus test, it is certainly not enough for a judge to prove his or her moderation by invoking stare decisis. Stare decisis and respect for precedent have become an almost meaningless bar to set for a Supreme Court nominee. At this critical juncture, with so many rights and liberties at stake, U.S. Senators and the American people should expect an affirmative statement of support for the personal liberties of all Americans from the next Supreme Court nominee.

The American people deserve to know what kind of a Justice President Trump's nominee would be. President Trump is the one who made a litmus test for his nominee, not us. The onus is on his nominee to show where he or she might stand.

Considering the ample evidence that President Trump will only select a nominee who will undermine protection for Americans with preexisting conditions, give greater weight to corporate interests than the interests of our citizens no matter what precedent says, and vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the next nominee has an obligation--a serious and solemn obligation--to share their personal views on these legal issues no matter whom President Trump selects tonight.

Mr. President, briefly, on another matter--the ongoing negotiations with North Korea over their nuclear program. Despite all the reality show pomp and circumstance, the negotiations have, thus far, been a flop. After the summit, President Trump declared, without any evidence--that is so typical--that ``North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat'' to the United States. The reality, of course, is far different.

Recent reports have shown that North Korea is making upgrades to a nuclear facility and expanding ballistic missile manufacturing. Just a few days ago, North Korean media called the negotiations with Secretary of State Pompeo ``deeply regrettable,'' accusing the Trump administration of pushing ``a unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization.'' Talks are going great, and then our side is accused of being gangster-like?

For the President to say North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat and then have North Korea's Foreign Ministry come back and say what they said, shows the disconnect between President Trump's rhetoric, the reality, and the sheer incompetence of this administration. For those who say--and I hear it all the time from many of my Republican friends in my State and throughout the country--they say: Look, we don't like the President's style. We wish he didn't tweet so much, but we support him because he is ``getting stuff done.'' Take a look at the yawning gap between what the President claims and what he has actually achieved. On North Korea and on so many other issues--taxes and healthcare are two other examples--the President makes grand promises but fails to deliver for the American people.

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

Mr. President, yesterday, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, creating a vacancy on the Supreme Court. After Kennedy's departure, the Supreme Court will be evenly divided between Justices appointed by Republican Presidents and Justices appointed by Democratic Presidents. Whoever fills Justice Kennedy's seat on the Court will have an opportunity to impact the

laws of the United States and the rights of its citizens for a generation.

Because Justice Kennedy was frequently independently minded and was a deciding vote on important issues like marriage equality and a woman's right to choose, a more ideological successor could upend decades of precedent and drag America backward to a time before Americans with preexisting conditions could affordably access healthcare, to a time before women could not be prosecuted as criminals for exercising their reproductive rights, to a time before gay and lesbian Americans could marry whom they love. An ideological Justice more extreme in his views than Kennedy could eviscerate the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively for a fair wage and stretch the bounds of Executive power for a President who has demonstrated little respect for them.

Of course, if Republicans were consistent, they would wait to consider Justice Kennedy's successor until after the midterm elections. Time and again, Leader McConnell justified his unjustifiable blockade of Merrick Garland by claiming the American people should have a voice in deciding the next Supreme Court Justice. That was in February of an election year. It is now almost July.

If the Senate's constitutional duty to advise and consent is just as important as the President's right to nominate, which the Constitution says it is, why should a midterm election be any less important than a Presidential election? Leader McConnell is simply engaging in hypocrisy.

Whomever the President picks, it is all too likely they are going to overturn healthcare protections and Roe v. Wade. We don't need to guess. President Trump has said time and again he would appoint judges who would do those two things--overturn Roe v. Wade and overturn healthcare protections. On November 11, 2016, then President-Elect Trump said: ``I am pro-life; the judges will be pro-life.'' In a debate against Secretary Clinton, then-Candidate Trump said: ``Because I am pro-life, and I will be appointing pro-life judges, I would think that that will go back to the individual states.'' It is impossible to conclude that President Trump will appoint a Justice whom we can have faith will leave Roe v. Wade as settled law. President Trump said, in his own words, that he wants to appoint a Justice to give the Court a majority that will overturn Roe v. Wade, so count on it.

President Trump will, in all likelihood, nominate a Justice willing to send Roe ``back to the states''--again, those are President Trump's own words--where several are preparing, if not already prepared, to roll back a woman's right to choose. In fact, according to the Guttmacher Institute, there are at least 18 States where abortion would be wholly or partially illegal almost immediately. That is against what America wants. It is because the President and his hard-right ideological judicial acolytes are way far away from where the American people are and are trying to create a Court that will turn the clock backward in so many ways, with Roe at the top of the list.

We also know President Trump will likely nominate a Justice willing to reinterpret the Court's ruling that our current healthcare law is constitutional. Again, listen to President Trump's own words. On January 1, 2016, Candidate Trump said that ``Justice Roberts turned out to be an absolute disaster because he gave us ObamaCare.'' Later, he said: ``I don't think I'll have any catastrophic appointment like Justice Roberts.''

Even Justice Roberts was too far to the middle for the President on healthcare. President Trump made it crystal clear that he is going to nominate somebody hostile to the Court's ruling on healthcare. There is no other way to interpret President Trump's words, so count on it. He will appoint a nominee who will roll back healthcare protections for tens of millions of Americans. America doesn't want that, but, again, the hard-right acolytes whom President Trump listens to want to use the Court to roll back America's rights and privileges.

We can be sure the next nominee, of course, will obfuscate, deny, and hide behind the shop-worn judicial dodge: ``I will follow settled law.'' As we saw this week in the Janus decision, settled law is only settled until the Supreme Court Justices on the Court decide it isn't. Yesterday, they reversed 40 years of precedent in a ruling that stretched the meaning of the First Amendment to meet their ideological predispositions--their anti-union bias.

Already there is a case wending its way through the courts that questions the constitutionality of the healthcare law. By repealing the coverage requirement, Republicans have removed the foundation upon which the Chief Justice based his ruling to uphold the law. If the change in the law changes Justice Roberts' mind, which is very likely, and the new jurist is as biased against our healthcare system as President Trump said he or she will be, millions of Americans could see their preexisting condition protections wiped out.

I say to America, 80 percent to 90 percent of you believe we should have preexisting condition protections. The nominee of the President is likely to undo them and leave tens of millions of American families helpless. Stand up now, America, before this happens.

The Trump administration decided the Federal Government will not defend the law protecting preexisting conditions in the Court. The next Supreme Court Justice may indeed be faced with casting a deciding vote on the fate of our healthcare, and we already know, unfortunately, the kind of vote President Trump wants.

Now, my friend Leader McConnell warned the Senate to not get into personal attacks on the President's nominee. Of course, he doesn't seem to mind the President who makes personal attacks his daily MO, but be that as it may, I can assure my friend the Republican leader that there is no desire and no need to get into personal attacks.

There are so many weighty issues hanging over the vacant seat: a woman's right to choose, the fate of our healthcare law, the right of workers to organize, the pernicious influence of dark money in politics, the right of Americans to marry whom they love, the right to vote. We will discuss these issues on the merits and consider a nominee in light of these issues, but discussing a preordained list of candidates who meet the hard right's ideological litmus tests? That is certainly legitimate, and we are going to continue to bring that up. We will evaluate the President's nominees on the issues, but every American should have his or her eyes wide open to the fact that President Trump is not picking the best legal mind. He has sworn to nominate a Justice culled from a preordained list, vetted by the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society--organizations whose mission has been to repeal Roe v. Wade and strike at the heart of our healthcare law. Does anyone believe a nominee on that prevetted list doesn't want to challenge Roe? How do you think they got to be on that list, with the Federalist Society, led by Leonard Leo, whose goal is to repeal Roe v. Wade, putting it together, and Trump rubberstamping it? Given what the President has said, it is virtually certain that members of the list of 25 would vote to overturn Roe.

So let this be a call to action for Americans from all corners of the country to rise up and speak out. Don't let this new Court--this new nominee, whomever he or she may be--turn back the clock on issue after issue because President Trump has embraced a hard-right group who has a veto power over nominees. Don't let us turn back the clock, America. Stand up. Speak out. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives-- all should want a much fairer process.

America, tell your Senators that if you do not want a Supreme Court Justice who will overturn Roe v. Wade, those Senators should not vote for a candidate from the list.

Immigration

Mr. President, a word on immigration. Yesterday, the House Republican majority tried and failed to pass two distinct immigration proposals. They cannot find agreement, even within their own caucus, on how to handle the situation at the border or broader reforms to our immigration system. It is as clear an indication to date that President Trump must fix this situation on his own. He has the power to immediately and administratively reverse his family separation policy at

the border, which remains intact. He has the power to appoint a family reunification czar, to marshal and organize the various Federal agencies in charge of reunifying families. President Trump should exercise that power to start cleaning up the mess he made with his slapdash family separation policy.

Russia

Mr. President, this morning, the President tweeted that ``Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with meddling in our election'' before trying to turn the focus back on the FBI. Why does President Trump take the word of bullies like Mr. Putin at face value, while constantly questioning the credibility of our own intelligence agencies? It's outrageous. We don't ask the bank robber if they robbed a bank.

Seventeen intelligence agencies have concluded, definitively, that Russia has meddled in our election. There is no reason to question their findings. The President just continues to deliberately spread falsehoods for the sake of his personal political interests.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

I am not--keep going.

Mr. President, I thank my friends from Illinois and Texas for yielding the floor to me amidst that interesting debate.

Family Separation and Asylum Processing

Mr. President, yesterday a Federal judge ordered the Trump administration to immediately reunify the families who were separated by the administration's policy. It certifies what we in the Congress already expect--that the administration will expend all resources at its disposal to immediately reunite the over 2,000 families who have been separated. This should be the President's first order of business to undo the harm he has caused through his chaotic and cruel family separation policy.

In addition to this effort, Democrats believe we should start addressing the root cause of the migrant crisis, attacking the disease as well as the symptoms. We believe that Central American countries should conduct asylum processing within their own countries. We believe the United States should help governments in Central America crack down on the ability of gangs and cartels to operate freely and ruthlessly in their countries. And we believe we should go after the drug cartels, smugglers, and drug traffickers with increased penalties and sanctions. There were robust efforts during the last administration to do exactly that, and they were showing progress. But President Trump, in shortsighted fashion, proposed significant cuts to the aid and resources used to fight the cartels and stop the violence in Central America. This is not only dangerous, but it also shows a basic lack of understanding.

There is a pretty simple reason people are fleeing Central America. It is the impunity of these gangs and cartels and the brutal violence they spread. Many of the young people who want to escape being killed are then forced to use smugglers and other coyotes and carry drugs into this country through no fault of their own. We should stop this there in ways that we have been successful in Colombia, and that would greatly reduce the number of people coming to the border. That would make things easier for our country, but it would also make their lives a lot better and safer if they could file an asylum claim in their own country and get it adjudicated quickly. This is what many Democrats are going to propose in about an hour. There are other things we can also do, but we are addressing this issue today.

President Trump needs to end the inhumanity and chaos at the border. We have to develop a real strategy to go after the gangs and cartels in Central America, curbing the violence that sends migrants to our borders in the first place. Later today, I will be joining with several of my colleagues to discuss how we believe the United States should go about this.

China and Trade

Mr. President, on China, I have long argued that the best way to make progress in our trade relationship with China is to be consistently tough until real concessions are won.

China has flagrantly abused international trade rules and norms for more than a decade, stealing our intellectual property and know-how, illegally dumping artificially cheap goods into our markets, and denying blue-chip American companies access to their markets unless those companies sign away their know-how and intellectual property.

Previous attempts to force China to change its behavior have been faulty and milquetoast, at best. Unsurprisingly, these efforts have largely failed.

While we disagree on a lot of things, I was happy to hear President Trump talk as if he had learned from the lessons of the past. President Trump has, at times, pursued a tough, aggressive course of action against China, and I have applauded him when he has. But President Trump seems unable to consistently keep pressure on China. Every time I think he is going down the right path, he turns around and gives China a pass on something.

Take the Chinese telecom giant ZTE, for example. Out of the blue, President Trump relaxed penalties on ZTE and loosened the restrictions on its sales in

the United States, despite the fact that it has been labeled a national security threat by our military. Why? It seemed to no end other than to placate President Xi, hardly our friend on economic issues.

This morning, after threatening a tough new approach to limit China's ability to invest in the United States where national security was concerned, the Trump administration has once again backed off, it seems. Instead, the President seems to be endorsing a bill here in Congress to expand the authority of CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. That is a good provision in the NDAA. It passed with a filibuster-proof majority. An endorsement of the provision hardly means much because it is going to pass. Many of us wanted it to go further. Expanding CFIUS is not just for military and national security, but for economic security as well. But it is not sufficient--not sufficient.

Mr. President, you are backing out again. President Xi is outfoxing you and outplaying you again. Once again, we get the tough talk and no action.

This happens over and over and over again with this President and this administration. Why are we waiting to impose real pressure on China for its efforts to undermine our Nation's economic wellspring? It is another example of President Trump starting down a tough path with China and then just veering off course for reasons unexplained, sometimes on a whim.

It appears there is a total war in the administration over just how strong the President should be with China. One week he is pulled in one direction, and the next, the opposite. If we are going to convince the Chinese Government we are serious, the United States must be strong, tough, and consistent. Otherwise, the President's approach will not succeed in changing China's behavior--or convincing President Xi that he means business--to the detriment of American workers, American businesses, and the economy for generations to come.

Supreme Court Rulings

Mr. President, there is one final topic, on the Supreme Court and what they did yesterday and today.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that California was violating the First Amendment by requiring crisis pregnancy centers to provide information to their patients about abortions.

It comes alongside a rule to affirm the President's travel ban in which the majority also bent over backward to accept President Trump's position. You would have to be living with your head in the sand over the past 2 years not to see a racial and religious animus behind the President's decision to ban travel into the United States from Muslim- majority countries.

Unfortunately, both cases were decided 5 to 4. Five conservative judges ruled against California law and the travel ban. Anyone watching the Bench at the moment ought to be shaking their heads at the political polarization of the Court.

The abortion case makes it even worse. As Justice Breyer pointed out in his dissent, in 1992, there was a California case where the Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring a doctor to provide information about adoption services. In other words, clinics performing abortions, helping women, had to provide alternative information.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. California passed a law that said that clinics that try to dissuade women from having abortions, which is their right, also had to provide information about abortion.

The majority ruled one way in the one case and the opposite in the other case. If free speech works in the one case, why doesn't it work in the other? If the government can compel a doctor in Pennsylvania to provide women information about adoption, why can't the government compel someone in California to provide information to a woman about abortion? There is a total contradiction.

The majority somehow argued there was a glaring difference between the two cases, but it is plainly sophistry. In fact, there was little to no difference between these two cases.

Let me state it again exactly. If an abortion clinic should be required to give information about alternatives, why shouldn't an anti- abortion clinic be required to do the same exact thing? Why does free speech apply to one and not the other? Why does lack of free speech fit one and not the other?

Many Americans see this Court in a much more negative light than they used to. Chief Justice Roberts famously claimed in his confirmation hearings that he would ``call the balls and strikes'' as he sees them. Here we have the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court leading a majority departing from a clear precedent to affirm a conservative ideology, an anti-choice ideology. No one can see Chief Justice Roberts' decision in the California case as calling balls and strikes; instead, it is a wild, political pitch. And I would say to the Chief Justice: You are demeaning the Court you seek to uphold, in this type of contradiction, and the dissenting opinion showed its outrage at it.

Just a moment ago, the Court ruled on the Janus decision. In the Janus decision, the Court said people had a First Amendment right not to join a union. That is a crazy idea cooked up by the conservative anti-labor movement and pursued relentlessly until a favorable collection of Judges would accept such a harebrained theory. The First Amendment and the right to organize are two totally separate things, but somehow the hard right first pays for these think tanks, which come up with these ideas, and then they assemble enough people in the Court who see things politically--not constitutionally, not legally, not ideologically--to affirm this decision.

Unions are only 6 percent of private sector America. They are declining in membership, and it is a reason the middle class doesn't make more money even in this prosperous economy. This is an awful decision. It is going to increase economic polarization in this country. It is going to make it harder for middle-class people to earn a decent living. And sooner or later, people are going to get so angry that Lord knows what will happen.

The American people are now seeing the results of a coordinated political campaign by deep-pocketed conservative interests to influence the bench all the way up to the Supreme Court. Justice Gorsuch, of course, and the current conservative majority on the Court are the capstone of these efforts, the result of an appalling decision by Senate Republicans to refuse President Obama a Supreme Court pick.

Alongside the California ruling, the Roberts' Court affirmed a plainly discriminatory travel ban, unleashed a flood of unlimited, dark money in our politics, and scrapped a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act--all goals of the hard right, all having little to do with the Constitution or reading the law, all making America a more polarized, economically divided country.

Opponents of these decisions and the President's policy should focus on the Supreme Court, whose thin majority will once again hang in the balance this November.

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, we recently received news that Justice Anthony Kennedy will be retiring, leaving a vacancy on the Nation's highest Court. This is the most important Supreme Court vacancy for this country in at least a generation. Nothing less than the fate of our healthcare system, reproductive rights for women, and countless other protections for middle-class Americans are at stake.

Will Republicans and President Trump nominate and vote for someone who will preserve protections for people with preexisting conditions, or will they support a Justice who will put health insurance companies over patients or put the Federal Government between a woman and her doctor?

The Senate should reject, on a bipartisan basis, any Justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade or undermine key healthcare protections. The Senate should reject anyone who will instinctively side with powerful special interests over the interests of average Americans.

Our Republican colleagues in the Senate should follow the rule they set in 2016 not to consider a Supreme Court Justice in an election year. Senator McConnell would tell anyone who listened that the Senate had the right to advise and consent, and that was every bit as important as the President's right to nominate.

Millions of people are just months away from determining the Senators who should vote to confirm or reject the President's nominee, and their voices deserve to be heard now as Leader McConnell thought they deserved to be heard then. Anything but that would be the absolute height of hypocrisy.

People from all across America should realize that their rights and opportunities are threatened. Americans should make their voices heard loudly, clearly, and consistently. Americans should make it clear that they will not tolerate a nominee, chosen from President Trump's preordained list and selected by powerful special interests, who will reverse the progress we have made over the decades.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, first, on appropriations, the Senate is continuing the process.

I thank Chairman Shelby, Ranking Member Leahy, and Leader McConnell for their work in helping move this process forward.

It has been a long time since the Senate has successfully processed appropriations through the regular order. It requires cooperation on the committee, cooperation amongst the committee staff, and cooperation here on the floor with the two leaders, and that is happening. If we are looking to work in a bipartisan way, this is, probably, the best sprout of bipartisanship that has bloomed in a long time in this body.

The fact that the parties are working together to prevent nongermane amendments that are intended just to create ruckus and the fact that even germane amendments that are regarded as poison pills are not being added to the bills here in the Senate really bodes well for cooperation. I wish it were the same in the House, where it is strictly a partisan process. The fact that the Senate is working together on appropriations bodes well for future legislation, including one farm bill that some people have an interest in who are in this body--many of us, actually--including, of course, the senior Senator from the great State of Kansas.

I hope this appropriations process can continue this way--with bipartisanship, knocking out poison pill amendments, sticking together, and getting a good bill done. The fact that yesterday, I think there were--how many votes?--just a handful of votes against the first minibus of three of the Appropriations Committee's bills bodes well for the future.

I would also caution to say there may be some extraneous forces, some even down the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, that might want to blow this whole thing up. If we can stick together, we can make this happen in a good way, for the good of the country, in terms of the specific bills and in terms of bringing us back together again to get things done.

That is the optimistic note of the morning. Maybe we will have more.