Floor Statements

Madam President, first, I thank my colleague. I was asked by my colleague from North Carolina if I would agree with his remarks, and he said he thought so. I definitely do. I think Erdogan is doing very bad things to the Turkish people, to our NATO alliance in the Middle East. He has had a vehemently anti-Israel position. To allow him to get away with all of this stuff without putting maximum pressure on him makes no sense. So I thank my colleague from North Carolina.

Madam President, on other subjects, later today the Senate will move to the consideration of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act. The annual Defense authorization is something our friend Senator McCain cares deeply about and has talked to me about regularly, and we wish he were here to shepherd it on the floor as we have seen him do many times before.

It is important that we get this done for our military, for our broader national security, for Senator McCain, and to ensure that this critical authorization bill moves forward on a steady track. Any time we say the name or see the name written, ``John S. McCain,'' our hearts go pitter-patter a little bit, and we pray for his speedy recovery.

The NDAA is an opportunity to revise and improve our national security to meet the evolving threats of a world that is changing so very fast. I just

want to highlight a few provisions in the bill that are important.

Just this morning, Secretary Ross announced that the Trump administration will relax penalties on Chinese telecom giant ZTE. Instead of permanently crippling ZTE, the administration will settle for a smaller fine than the company paid in 2017 and a reorganization of the company's board. It is essentially a slap on the wrist.

As a reminder, ZTE has been a threat to our national security, and that was stated by the Republican-led FCC, Republican-led FBI, and Republican-led Pentagon. This is not a partisan issue. ZTE was guilty not only of evading U.S. sanctions but lying to U.S. officials about it afterward. ZTE has been deemed such a threat to our telecommunications networks that the FCC recommended forbidding the sale of any ZTE products in the United States.

But, inexplicably, President Trump, after talking tough, did a total reversal. Once again, it seems President Xi has outfoxed President Trump. There is absolutely no good reason that ZTE should get a second chance, but with this deal, the President has inexplicably thrown him a lifeline. President Xi must be laughing all the way to the forbidden palace. He has once again taken advantage of President Trump on an issue vital to our security.

Many believe ZTE could be a mechanism for spying on our military and on lots of different parts of the United States. China has shown no reluctance to do that in the past, and we are just rolling over for no reason, having gotten nothing in return. This is a serious mistake, a 180-degree turn away from the President's promise to be tough on China. Donald Trump should be aiming his trade fire at China, but instead he inexplicably aims it at allies, such as Canada and Europe. When it comes to China, despite his tough talk, this deal with ZTE proves that President Trump just shoots blanks. This guy--the art of the deal? He has gotten taken to the cleaners by President Xi, and the rest of the world is probably laughing at him.

We cannot allow the damage from this action by Secretary Ross to stay. We must undo it. It will be up to Congress to reverse this deal if the President goes forward with it, which he has announced this morning he will.

The Banking Committee already adopted an amendment that would prohibit the administration from weakening sanctions against the Chinese telecoms, including ZTE; however, the President has rushed to undo the sanctions before that bill could pass, so it won't affect ZTE because the sanctions have just been lifted by the administration.

Now that the President has rushed to give this company relief, we will offer a bipartisan amendment, led by Senators Cotton and Van Hollen, that retroactively imposes the sanctions originally leveled against ZTE, reversing the consent agreement signed this morning. This is a bipartisan bill. Senator Cotton and Senator Van Hollen don't agree on much, but thank God, when it comes to national security, they are agreeing. This Chamber should overwhelmingly vote for the Cotton-Van Hollen amendment, which I am proud to cosponsor, as I believe Senator Cornyn and others on the other side will do. We must do that. We hope Leader McConnell will allow a vote or, at minimum, put it in the managers' package. We cannot move forward with this danger to national security without doing something about ZTE.

There is also a provision in the Defense bill to expand the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, so that the board can review minority-position investments and joint ventures in critical technology and infrastructure companies.

Too often, foreign companies--usually Chinese--backed by some hostile foreign governments--usually the Chinese Government--and they are hostile to us economically, make no mistake about it. That word is not too strong. They try to gain controlling or minority positions in critical American technology companies to pilfer their intellectual property and reproduce it in their own countries. They don't allow us to sell the goods; they instead buy minority interests in American companies, learn how to do it, produce it in China, and then undercut us and sell it here. No wonder we lose millions of jobs to China.

This must be stopped. Because these foreign companies go to great lengths to avoid a CFIUS review and sneak in under the radar, we ought to widen the scope of cases that CFIUS can look at, better protecting our national security and our economic security, and the Defense bill, fortunately, is the first opportunity to do that.

Now back to ZTE, the ZTE example is perhaps the best example of how this administration's trade policies are in shambles. The President has talked tough on China. President Trump and I agree very strongly--or we had agreed. I don't know where he is now, but in the past, we have agreed. We just had a conversation a few weeks ago about the need to combat China's rapacious trade practices. Initially, I was hopeful the President would follow through. He seemed to do this out of conviction. But it seems that even though President Trump roars like a lion on China, he behaves like a lamb. Instead of ramping up pressure on China, he tells them he is weak. He tells them he will back off. He tells them he is not for real. President Trump has directed far too much of the administration's energies on trade toward punishing allies such as Canada and Europe instead of focusing on the real menace, the No. 1 menace--China.

So if President Trump is listening this morning, I tell him: Be strong on China. Don't trade away our leverage for anything short of real concessions on intellectual property theft and market access--the two things that most threaten our long-term economic standing, that most threaten the American economy, the American worker, and American jobs.

Now on another matter, Madam President, today the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments in a case concerning the potential violation of the emoluments clause by the President of the United States--none other than the President of the United States violating this clause. The emoluments clause of the Constitution of the United States--written over 200 years ago into the Constitution by our Founding Fathers--prohibits any member of our government from profiting from their office, accepting any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign state.

The reason for the emoluments clause is plain: The Framers were worried that members of our government could be co-opted or influenced by the bribery of foreign capitals and thus prohibited even the potential for self-enrichment. They knew then what we know now: We don't want double-dealing by our elected officials, and when they have private interests, you never know--are they acting in what they believe is the national interests or what will help make them a profit?

With President Trump, we sincerely hope that no such self-enrichment is going on, but it remains a great concern to millions of Americans that President Trump has maintained a stake in vast business empire holdings all over the world. President Trump continues to profit from these holdings while he refuses to divest--an appalling departure from well-established practices of past Presidents. It shows a degree of selfishness that we haven't seen in Presidents. The President still refuses to disclose his tax returns and the precise extent of his foreign holdings--another radical and disturbing departure from past Presidents. This President acts like he is in the swamp, not like he is cleaning it up.

The President's actions certainly present the possibility of exposure to violation of the emoluments clause, so I believe it is a good thing that the courts are looking at this issue and taking it seriously. That is what our Constitution says they should do. It is a good thing the courts are taking it seriously. We cannot afford to have the Office of the Presidency of the United States corrupted for narrow, selfish means.

President Trump could easily--if you want to be President, you give up all the stuff you own. Every President has done it. There are blind trusts. There are all kinds of ways to do it. But this President seems to think he is measured by a different standard than anyone else. Everyone else makes their tax

returns public; he does not. Everyone else divests themselves of any interest in foreign business to avoid even the appearance of conflict; he does not. It is a double standard.

When the President says he wants to clean up the swamp when he goes to his rallies and gets cheered, what are those people cheering for? He has made the swamp worse than any President I know.

Mr. President, yesterday the majority leader announced that the Senate would remain in session during much of the planned August recess. President Trump tweeted: ``Great. Maybe the Democrats will finally get something done other than their acceptance of high crime and high taxes.'' As usual, the President's tweet makes little sense given that Republicans control both Houses of Congress. But I agree with the President on one thing: Canceling the recess is a great opportunity to get something done. In fact, I have a suggestion for what Congress should do. How about this, Mr. President? Why don't we get something done on the issue that numerous polls say is the No. 1 priority of Americans--healthcare.

We Democrats--our entire caucus--believe this previously unscheduled session time could be put to good use to finally help Americans secure affordable healthcare that the President and congressional Republicans have thus far failed to deliver. Before being sworn in, President Trump promised to deliver healthcare that was ``far less expensive and far better.'' Those are his words. But since he has taken office, President Trump has completely dropped the ball on healthcare. Instead of shoring up our healthcare system and driving down costs, President Trump and Republicans have sabotaged our healthcare system and driven up costs.

Yesterday, Maine and Pennsylvania joined a growing list of States that will see higher healthcare rates thanks to the policies of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans. In States such as Virginia, Maryland, New York, and Washington, rate increases are in double digits. One PPO plan in Maryland requested a rate increase of 91 percent. And when you ask these CEOs of companies why their rates are going up, many of them cite Trump administration policies and congressional Republican policies.

Again, the No. 1 issue affecting Americans is the high cost of healthcare. My Republican colleagues are busy touting tax breaks. If you are very wealthy, you got a big break. If you are a middle-class person, far too often, your increase in your premiums exceeds your tax break.

Let's do something to put more money--net more money--in the pockets of working class people. Let's spend

August working on healthcare. Folks were already paying too much for healthcare in the form of premiums, out-of-pocket expenses, and the eye-popping costs of so many prescription drugs. Now all of those costs are going up because ``the unified Republican government'' has done little to bring down the high cost of healthcare, and what it has done has made the situation worse.

Again, President Trump has dropped the ball on healthcare, and the August recess is a time to recover and do something good. President Trump deliberately sowed uncertainty in the healthcare marketplace as a way to make a political point against ObamaCare, and then congressional Republicans repealed the coverage requirement in their tax bill. Health insurers from coast to coast cite the repeal of the coverage requirement as one of the major reasons they are increasing rates next year.

Just last night, a report issued by the Trump administration itself showed that Medicare is going insolvent faster than expected. What caused it? In part it is the Republican tax bill and ``the repeal of the individual mandate, which increased the estimate of the number of uninsured, in turn leading to a large increase in uncompensated care payments.'' Again, the tax bill led to Medicare being less solvent and running out of money sooner.

In short order, the Trump administration will make things worse. They will be offering junk insurance plans that will bring back the dark days when Americans with preexisting conditions faced higher premiums, denied care, and medical bankruptcy.

We now have a few extra weeks in August. What will be No. 1 on the American people's list? It is not the things Leader McConnell mentioned, falsely blaming Democrats when appropriations aren't moving along well, and he brags about how many appointments he has made to the bench. No, the No. 1 thing Americans want is healthcare, and we Democrats will spend the August recess focusing on that issue and forcing our Republicans to either cast votes or deny votes on those important issues. It is a great opportunity not just for Democrats, not just for Republicans, but for America. We are going to do it. We already have an agenda ready to go, and we are going to push for votes on these measures in August.

One, we want to expand access to Medicare. Many of us Democrats in this caucus believe 55 should be the age when you can buy in. Loads of Americans support that.

Two, we want to increase tax breaks to help families afford the cost of healthcare.

Three, we want to create a national reinsurance program to lower premiums.

Four, we want to ensure that people with preexisting conditions don't get denied and priced out of insurance due to an expansion of junk insurance.

Five, we want to lower the skyrocketing costs of drugs.

President Trump should stay in Washington.

No Mar-a-Lago, Mr. President, no golf all the time. You have taken so many vacations, while you criticize others.

It is typical--the double standard that he seems to exhibit every 10 minutes. President Trump should stay in Washington with us, roll up his sleeves, and get to work on making healthcare great again.

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

Madam President, over the past few weeks, we have all endured the increasingly novel legal theories dreamt up by the President and his lawyers regarding the special counsel's investigation into the Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Over the weekend, we learned the President's lawyers wrote a memo that asserted unfettered authority over all Federal investigations. Rudy Giuliani actually suggested that the President could have ``shot James Comey'' and not been indicted or prosecuted because, according to him, ``in no case can [the President] be subpoenaed or indicted.'' Is that incredible?

The President himself tweeted yesterday that he had the absolute right to pardon himself and that the appointment of the special counsel was unconstitutional, despite the fact that he regularly called for a special counsel to look into Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. The two-facedness, the hypocrisy of saying Hillary should have it but, no, it is unconstitutional now that it applies to him--how can the American people tolerate that kind of thinking in a President? This morning, again, President Trump faulted Attorney General Sessions for recusing himself from the probe instead of helping to end it.

The President's tweet regarding Attorney General Sessions this morning is part of a pattern where the President admits out loud and shamelessly that he was trying to take steps to end the Russia probe. First, in a television interview, the President admitted that stopping the Russia probe was his motivation for firing Director Comey. Now he says he would never have hired Sessions if he had known he was going to recuse himself, even though recusal was required by Department of Justice rules.

This latest stunning admission is just more evidence that the President may have something to hide. If he did nothing wrong, President Trump should welcome a thorough investigation to exonerate him.

Each of the claims that I have mentioned has the same theme: That the President believes he is above the law. Of course, we know the idea that anyone in America is above the law is antithetical to the very idea of America, antithetical to the very idea of democracy, and antithetical to what millions of Americans have fought for and hundreds of thousands--millions--have died for in the course of our history. We don't have a King. We have a President, bound by the same Constitution and the same laws that govern the average American citizen.

The Founding Fathers didn't set out to create a monarchy; they set out to construct a system of government entirely distinct from the monarchies of their time. That is why they installed checks and balances and devolved power between three branches to ensure the liberty of the people and guard against the encroachment of tyranny. That was their great gift to us, and their ideas have kept American democracy alive for two and one-half centuries and the admiration of the world for an equal period of time. Trump is besmirching all of that with his recent activities.

So despite what the President and his allies may feel about his authority or his absolution from legal repercussions, the Constitution and the founding principles of our country tell us he is dead wrong. President Trump: We are not a monarchy. You are not a King. We are a constitutional democracy, so act like it.

Madam President, on another matter, this week the Senate is processing a number of judges. Some of these judges are noncontroversial. As I have said in the past, Democrats are committed to working with the majority to process these noncontroversial nominees, but there are several highly controversial nominees after this slate that bear attention.

Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider the nomination of David Porter for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, despite the fact that Senator Casey has not returned a blue slip on Mr. Porter, who was nominated by the White House over the home State Senator's repeated objections. Mr. Porter, like so many of the nominees submitted by this President,

is far outside the judicial mainstream. Throughout his career, he has maintained affiliations with anti-LGBT organizations and expressed personal views that are contrary to the interests of American workers-- the very people President Trump defends: the American working people. He appoints judges who undo their rights, their opportunities, their ladders up. This is an example. Unfortunately, the majority is, once again, bucking a century-old tradition of respecting the opposition of home State Senators and moving forward with the consideration of yet another hard-right, anti-working class ideologue.

On Thursday, the Judiciary Committee will consider the nomination of Ryan Bounds for a circuit court seat in Oregon, although neither Senator Wyden nor Senator Merkley, the two Senators from Oregon, have returned a blue slip on his nomination. Recently, we learned that Mr. Bounds had some rather offensive writings that he failed to disclose to the bipartisan Federal Judicial Selection Advisory Committee established by the two Oregon Senators to recommend potential nominees. Nonetheless, of course, the Republican majority, prodded on by the hard-right ideologues, is moving ahead with his nomination, over the tradition of the blue slips, over these recent revelations.

Next week, the Senate will likely move to the pending nomination of Thomas Farr to the Eastern District of North Carolina, currently the longest vacancy in the United States. Part of the reason the State seat has remained open for so long is because Republican Senators blocked an Obama nominee, Jennifer May-Parker, for nearly 3 years. With Mr. Farr's nomination, we have another example of a vacancy that only exists because Democrats recognized and respected the blue-slip tradition--a tradition the Republicans have so unceremoniously discarded.

Not only has Mr. Farr spent his long legal career working against the rights of unions and the rights of workers to organize, Farr has demonstrated himself to be a partisan.

After challenging multiple congressional maps drawn by North Carolina's Democrats, Mr. Farr vigorously defended the most recent maps drawn by North Carolina's Republicans which, in fact, were overturned by the Supreme Court for discrimination. Mr. Farr also defended North Carolina's restrictive voter ID law passed by the Republicans, arguing that voter ID was a ``minor inconvenience'' for voters. Might I remind my colleagues, this is the same voter ID law that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals determined was passed with ``discriminatory intent'' and which ``targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision.'' Those are the Fourth Circuit's words, not mine. That is whom we are putting on the bench--people who support laws that blatantly discriminate against people of color. What are we coming to in this country? Where are our ideals when it comes to picking people for the bench? I am sure they can find conservative folks who don't have these kinds of egregious pieces of behavior.

I have long argued that we should judge our judges on three metrics: excellence, moderation, and diversity. By dint of his legal career in defense of partisan Republican issues, Mr. Farr clearly lacks moderation and is even willing to defend the most strident attempts by North Carolina Republicans to game the congressional maps and make it more difficult for minorities to vote.

I will strongly--strongly--oppose his nomination, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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

Madam President, first, let me welcome you and all of my colleagues back from another productive State work period. I traveled a good deal around my State, spoke at a bunch of graduations, and found it fun and productive. I learned a lot. I am glad to be back but glad we were out in our States.

First, Madam President, let me address the President's recent comments on the Russia probe, then our negotiations with North Korea, and then healthcare.

This morning, the President tweeted that he has the ``absolute right'' to pardon himself and that the appointment of the special counsel is totally unconstitutional. President Trump, you went 0 for 2 on the Constitution this morning.

First, of course no President has the power to pardon himself or herself. If they did, the Presidency would function above and outside the law, counter to the very founding principles of our country. We don't have a king. We are a nation of laws, not men. That is why the Founding Fathers created America; they didn't like the monarchy. But if a President can pardon himself, it is virtually a monarchy, at least as far as the President is concerned. If Presidents had the power to pardon themselves, we would no longer be a democracy.

As the Department of Justice legal counsel wrote 4 days before Nixon resigned, ``Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.'' This is virtually indisputable.

Does the President get to choose what he can pardon himself over-- theft, murder, who knows? The President does not have the right to pardon himself. That is for sure.

Second, of course the appointment of the special counsel is constitutional. Never mind the fact that President Trump's own Republican appointees made the appointment of the special counsel; this is far from the first special counsel to investigate a serious matter concerning the President. Again, if the President were beyond the reproach of any investigation, there would be no check on the President's conduct. The President could engage in rife corruption and self-dealing without consequence. Surely, that is not what our constitutional system envisions. That is not the structure of America that the Founding Fathers set up and that we have followed for more than 200 years.

The President's tweets are silly, farcical, and even absurd. They are not legal arguments to be treated seriously. Rather, they seem to reveal increasing desperation on the part of the President. President Trump has escalated his criticism of the Russia probe from smearing the special counsel and his team and hawking outrageous conspiracy theories to attacking the very legal architecture of our country.

Special Counsel Mueller has already issued more than a dozen indictments. He has secured several guilty pleas from top Trump campaign officials. The probe is not only legitimate; it is finding violations of the law on the part of the Trump campaign and others.

As wrong as President Trump was in his tweets this morning, you have to wonder, why is he asserting his right to pardon himself? Why is he questioning the constitutionality of an investigation in the first place? For a man who constantly proclaims his innocence, President Trump is doing an awfully good impersonation of someone who believes he has something to hide. It is hard to think of another explanation for the increasingly ridiculous and far-fetched legal theories peddled by the President and his lawyers.

The pundits and the analysts in the media are debating whether it makes smart, strategic sense for President Trump to sit down for an interview with the special counsel. They are asking the wrong question. The President's strategy and political interests shouldn't be the basis for whether he sits down with the special counsel.

If the special counsel requests an interview with the President as part of his investigation, the President should agree to provide testimony. If President Trump has done nothing wrong, as he so often and so loudly claims, he should have nothing to fear by sitting down with the special counsel.

On another matter, Madam President, North Korea, over the last few weeks, we have seen an on-again, off-again routine from the Trump administration when it comes to the potential summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un. Now that the meeting will seemingly proceed as planned, we want to make sure that the President's desire for a deal with North Korea doesn't saddle the United States, Japan, and South Korea with a bad deal.

We are all hoping the President succeeds. We are all rooting for peace. We very much hope he will be able to achieve a strong and enduring agreement because the danger of a nuclear-armed, ICBM-equipped North Korea is very, very real to the United States. But the President needs to be willing to take time to construct a good deal, and if he finds that one is not achievable, the President must be willing to walk away from the table.

In a letter to the President, Senator Menendez and I strongly urged the administration to ensure that any agreement with North Korea meets five key principles.

First, North Korea must dismantle or remove every single one of its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Second, North Korea must end the production and enrichment of uranium and plutonium for military purposes and permanently dismantle its nuclear weapons infrastructure. That means test sites, all nuclear weapons research and development facilities, and enrichment facilities have to be destroyed.

Third, North Korea must continue to suspend all ballistic missile tests.

Fourth, North Korea must commit to anytime, anywhere inspections for both its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, including all nondeclared, suspicious sites. If inspectors reveal any violation, we must be permitted to implement snapback sanctions.

Lastly, any agreement between the United States and North Korea must be permanent.

If President Trump meets with Kim Jong Un and reaches a deal that meets these principles, he will have made the world a much safer place. But if he tries to reach a deal with Kim Jong Un just for the sake of reaching a deal, and if the agreement fails to live up to the principles we have laid out, then he will have been bested at the negotiating table yet again.

These five principles are the lens through which Senate Democrats will evaluate any deal with North Korea. If the deal doesn't live up to these standards, then the President should not expect Democratic support in the Senate if he tries to lift sanctions to implement an agreement.

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

Madam President, this morning, I would like to address four issues at varying lengths: recent news on the North Korea summit, the Russia probe, the proposed recission of Ebola funding, and a word about the upcoming Memorial Day holiday.

First, Madam President, on the very recent news that President Trump has canceled the planned summit with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, the fear many of us had was that the summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un would be a great show that produced nothing enduring. If a summit is to be reconstituted, the United States must show strength and achieve a concrete, verifiable, enduring elimination of Kim Jong Un's nuclear capabilities.

Second, Madam President, on the Russia probe, today on Capitol Hill, Department of Justice, FBI, and intelligence community officials are scheduled to brief the Members of Congress on a few issues related to Special Counsel Mueller's investigation into Putin's meddling in the 2016 election.

There will be two briefings--one for a House Republican partisan who has relentlessly harassed the Justice Department to reveal sources and methods to him for the sole purpose of interfering with and denigrating the special counsel's investigation. After several requests, the Department of Justice will also brief the bipartisan Gang of 8 on the same information separately later in the day.

While we believe no briefing should occur, it is a good thing that the Gang of 8 will be briefed. The overwhelming fact remains that a separate meeting with a known partisan whose only intent is to undermine the Mueller investigation makes no sense and should be called off. What is the point of a separate briefing if not to cause partisan trouble and create a he said, she said scenario? It is so damaging to the way our officials in the Justice Department have always worked.

Representative Nunes, the architect of this sham briefing, no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. He lost all claims to objectivity long ago with his ridiculous, late-night charade at the White House and his conduct on the House Intelligence Committee, culminating in a document of innuendo and whitewashing that has recently come to be called the Nunes memo.

The reason Leader Pelosi and I requested a Gang of 8 briefing was because that is the process for Congress to review sensitive and potentially classified information--it has been the process for decades--the reason being, the Gang of 8 is already read into sensitive national security information and because the Gang of 8 is bipartisan. When one party--Representative Nunes, who so clearly wants to distort national security information for partisan purposes--asks for a solitary briefing, there shouldn't be a briefing at all.

Our preference would still be for the Justice Department to cancel the briefing today, but if it goes forward, there should be one briefing and one briefing only: bipartisan, Gang of 8.

It is also wholly inappropriate that General Kelly is at all involved in these briefings. The White House should never be allowed to interfere in an ongoing DOJ investigation, but it is absolutely beyond the pale that they are interfering in an investigation involving the President and his campaign. The person and people being investigated are being briefed on their investigation before it concludes. That doesn't happen in our justice system no matter who you are. Americans will rightly wonder why General Kelly was present. To erase their doubts, he should skip the meeting.

Alongside all the action on Capitol Hill today, President Trump continues to fabricate a false narrative about deep-state bias against his Presidency. This is what a child does. You look at them like they are doing something wrong, and they blame something else. They try to divert your attention. That is how the President is acting.

Yesterday, he tweeted: ``Look at how things have turned around on the Criminal Deep State.'' Well, Mr. President, I direct you to your own Secretary of State. You just appointed him, promoted him. Here is what he said yesterday:

I don't believe there's a deep state at the State

Department. . . . The employees . . . at the CIA nearly

uniformly were aimed at achieving . . . America's objectives.

That is the President's own Secretary of State, his own former CIA Director, dispensing with this fantastical notion of a deep state.

The President says there were spies in his campaign. It is all in the same vein of his other conspiracy theories. Remember, President Trump said that Obama tapped his phones. That was false. He said before that Russia did not interfere in our elections. That was false. Why should we think the claim that there were spies in his campaign is any different? He makes it up as he goes along to divert attention from the real issue: that Russia tried to influence our election; did influence our election; and there may, may, may--we don't know for sure, but we have to find out--have been collusion with members of President Trump's campaign and even President Trump in that regard. That is serious stuff. We have already had 13 indictments. It is beyond any doubt that Russia did try to influence our election. We need to find out who participated. That is imperative to the future of this country.

The President, acting like he has something to hide, keeps trying to subvert the investigation by simply inventing enemies out of shadows and sowing division in our country. If it were anyone else, we would call it paranoia.

Meanwhile, the President continues to risk our national security by using an unsecured cell phone for some of his communications. When the Washington Post asked a national security expert the odds of a foreign adversary having gained access to the President's unsecured cell phone, the expert responded: ``100 percent, the question is how many foreign powers.''

So while President Trump points the finger of blame in every direction and was relentless that Hillary Clinton broke security protocols, he is guilty of creating a real national security threat every time he picks up his cell phone to call Sean Hannity or Rudy Giuliani. It is amazing. It is utterly amazing, the times we are living in, and it amazes me so that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle still remain silent--still remain silent. Who would have thought.