Floor Statements

Mr. President, we now enter day 2 of the first real government shutdown ever to take place when one party controlled the Presidency, the House, and the Senate. Under this unified control, it was the Republicans' job to govern. It was their job to lead. It was their job to reach out to us and come up with compromise. They have failed.

Our democracy was designed to run on compromise. The Senate was designed to run on compromise. We are no dictatorship subject to the whims of an Executive, just as we are not a one-party system, where the winner of an election gets to decide everything and the minority nothing.

We are a government that can only operate if the majority party--the governing party--accepts and seeks compromise.

The majority, however, has forgotten the lessons of the Founding Fathers. They have shown they do not know how to compromise. Not only do they not consult us, they can't even get on the same page with their President from their own party. The congressional leaders tell me to negotiate with President Trump. President Trump tells me to figure it out with the congressional leaders. This political catch-22--never seen before--has driven our government to dysfunction.

Americans know why the dysfunction is occurring: a dysfunctional President. Hence, we are in a Trump shutdown with party leaders who will not act without him. It has created the chaos and the gridlock we find ourselves in today. It all really stems from the President, whose inability to clinch a deal has created the Trump shutdown.

I agree with Majority Leader McConnell. The Trump shutdown was totally avoidable. President Trump walked away from not one but two bipartisan deals, and that is after he walked away from an agreement in principle on DACA that we reached way back in the fall of last year. If he had been willing to accept any one of these deals, we wouldn't be where we are today.

On Friday, in the Oval Office, I made what I thought was a very generous offer to the President--the most generous offer yet. The President demanded for months that a deal on DACA include the wall. Most Democrats don't think the wall is effective. We think it is expensive and a waste of money. We are all for tough border security, but every expert will tell you that drones, sensory devices, roads, and personnel are far more effective than the wall.

Because the President campaigned on the wall--even though he said it would be paid for by Mexico--and demands the wall, for the sake of compromise, for the sake of coming together, I offered it. Despite what some people are saying on TV--and mind you, these folks were not in the room during the discussion--that is exactly what happened. The President picked a number for a wall. I accepted it. It wasn't my number. It wasn't the number in the bills here. He picked it. It would be hard to imagine a more reasonable compromise. All along, the President has been saying: I will do DACA and Dreamers in return for the wall. He has it. He can't take yes for an answer. That is why we are here.

We don't have anyone in the White House, in the Senate, or in the House, Republicans of the President's own party, to tell him he has to straighten this whole thing out. He can't say yes one minute and no the next--three, four, five times.

The bottom line is this: It would be hard to imagine a much more reasonable compromise. I was, in principle, agreeing to help the President get his signature campaign promise--something Democrats and Republicans on the Hill staunchly oppose--in exchange for DACA, a group of people the President said he has great love for. I essentially agreed to give the President something he has said he wants in exchange for something we both want, but only hours after he seemed to be very open, very eager about that generous, tentative agreement--and it was only tentative; there were no handshakes--he backed away from the last best chance to avoid a shutdown.

That is why, from one corner of America to another, this is being called the Trump shutdown. It is trending all over. People from one end of the country to the other know it is the Trump shutdown, and they know why. They have seen what the President has done. It is a direct result of the President, who has been proved unwilling to compromise and is, thus, unable to govern.

The deal wasn't everything the President wanted. It certainly wasn't everything we wanted. It was a compromise--something nobody loved, but everyone could live with; something good for the country. It would have staved off a government shutdown on Friday. It could still reopen the government today. I am willing to seal the deal to sit and work right now with the President or anyone he designates. Let's get it done.

Meanwhile, the Republican leader would have you believe we Democrats forced the shutdown. He forgets that several Members of his own party voted against the CR. Are they holding the government hostage over illegal immigration? No, it doesn't seem that way.

The Republican leader accuses Democrats of holding up pay for our troops. I heard Speaker Ryan blame the Senate on TV, but yesterday Senator McCaskill offered a motion to make sure our military gets paid, and the majority leader himself objected. The

majority leader prevented the troops from getting paid. This would have passed in a minute. Speaker Ryan should talk to Leader McConnell, who is the only person in the U.S. Senate standing in the way of paying our troops, not anybody here.

We don't want to use the troops as hostages. Unfortunately, some on the other side may be doing just that. We can make sure our troops get paid right now if the majority leader would only consent. If there is pride of authorship, let him offer the resolution. We will not block it. We will applaud it. I hope it can happen as soon as possible.

The Republican leader also accuses Democrats of blocking CHIP, when he full well knows every Democrat here supports extending CHIP. It is 4 months lapsed. Who let that happen? The Republican majority. A Democratic majority would never have allowed CHIP to expire.

Now, just because it was placed on a CR--that was a bad idea for so many reasons--Republicans want to pretend they are advocates of CHIP, but quite the contrary. They were using the 10 million kids on CHIP and holding them as hostages for the 800,000 kids who are Dreamers. Kids against kids; innocent kids against innocent kids. That is no way to operate in this country.

Again, a party that controls the House, the Senate, and the Presidency would rather sit back and point fingers of blame than roll up their sleeves and govern.

The way out of this is simple. Our parties are very close on all of the issues we have been debating for months now. We are so close. I believe, we might have had a deal twice, only for the President to change his mind and walk away. The President must take yes for an answer. Until he does, it is the Trump shutdown.

He has said he has a love for Dreamers. Let him show it. He said he needs a wall and border security. Accept our offer to do both of those things because we Democrats--while we think the wall will not accomplish very much and cost a lot of money--we strongly believe in border security and fully supported the President's budget proposal on border security for this year.

So this is the Trump shutdown. Only President Trump can end it. We Democrats are at the table ready to negotiate. The President needs to pull up a chair and end this shutdown.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I am happy to continue my discussion with the majority leader about reopening the government. We have had several conversations, and talks will continue, but we have yet to reach an agreement on a path forward that would be acceptable for both sides.

For that reason, I object.

Mr. President, I address you and this body in the shadow of a government shutdown, something that nobody wanted and almost everybody strived to avoid. Yet we are here.

The CR last night barely received 50 votes, let alone the necessary 60. Several Republicans joined Democrats in rejecting the House continuing resolution, which hurts our military, does nothing for urgent domestic priorities like opioids, veterans, and pensions, nothing on disaster relief, and, of course, nothing on the immigration issues we have a real urgency to solve. We just kicked the can down the road one more shameful time. I believe it was the fourth time we have done that.

My Republican friends speak often of the damage done to our military by lurching from continuing resolution to continuing resolution. We Democrats agree. That is why we offered Secretary Mattis his full budget request, something I offered yesterday in the White House to President Trump as well.

My Republican friends know that we have to stop these CRs, and it is time to actually do a budget and fully fund our military. We can't forget about urgent domestic priorities in the budget, but the military has to be given the certainty it needs. This is one of the main reasons the bipartisan coalition rejected the House CR last night--because of the damage that Secretary Mattis has said it has done to the military.

Another reason they rejected it is that it was constructed with not an ounce of Democratic input, and I suspect very little input from many Republicans in the Senate. In our democracy, you have to compromise if you wish to govern. That is how our Founding Fathers designed our government to operate. Yet, time and again, the Republican leader believes he can drop legislation on the floor, say ``Take it or leave it,'' and then gear up the machines of partisan war if we decide to leave it.

The leader crafts a partisan approach without consulting us and then tries to blame us for not going along. That kind of behavior would not pass in any part of civil society. It would be called bullying. We are happy and eager to compromise, but we will not be bullied.

The most important point is this: The Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House. That is why America and the world are calling this shutdown the Trump shutdown.

It is the responsibility of the President and congressional Republicans to govern. It is their responsibility to keep the doors open and the lights on around here, but the Republican leadership can't get a tumultuous President on board with anything, and they don't offer us any compromises on their own.

The breakdown of compromise is poisoning this Congress, and it all springs from President Trump. He has turned blowing up bipartisan agreements into an art form.

The President can't take yes for an answer. Twice in this long debate, President Trump walked away from partisan deals to solve all of the issues before us. A week ago last Tuesday, President Trump appealed to Congress on national television to come up with a deal, and he said he would sign it; he would sign whatever Congress sent him. He said he would take the heat for it. But when a bipartisan group of Senators, led by Senator Graham and Senator Durbin, brought him that compromise, he blew it up in a volcanic meeting at the White House.

The same script played out with the President and me yesterday. The President called me in the morning and asked that I come to the White House. Of course, I accepted. We had an extensive and serious negotiation about every single outstanding issue. We came close to a tentative agreement on the budget after I offered the Pentagon's full budget request.

On the thorniest issue of immigration, the President said many times he would take a deal that included DACA in exchange for the wall. I put that deal on the table in the Oval Office in a sincere effort at compromise. I put the wall on the table in exchange for strong DACA protections in the Graham-Durbin compromise. It was a generous offer, and I believe President Trump was inclined to accept it and was willing to do a very short-term CR, he suggested Tuesday night, in order to get the deal finalized. Hours later, I got a phone call telling me that this was not good enough--first from the President saying: I hear it is 3 weeks.

I said: No one told me about that. That is not what we discussed.

Then a few hours later: Well, we want what you have offered and four or five more things, which they knew were unpalatable to Democrats but appeased the hard right, anti-immigration wing of the Republican Party.

The bottom line is simple. President Trump just can't take yes for an answer. He has rejected not one but two viable bipartisan deals, including one where I put his most prominent campaign pledge on the table.

What is even more frustrating than President Trump's intransigence is the way he seems amenable to these compromises before completely switching positions and backing off. Negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O. That is why this shutdown will be called the Trump shutdown. The President's behavior is inimical to compromise, which is required to getting things done in our government.

It is impossible to negotiate with a constantly moving target. Leader McConnell has found that out, Speaker Ryan has found that out, and I have found that out. Republican leaders refuse to move ahead without President Trump, and President Trump is so mercurial that it has been impossible to get him to agree to anything.

Again, to sum it up: The President can't make a deal, and congressional Republicans will not. As a result, a paralysis has descended on Capitol Hill.

As Donald Trump said in 2011: ``If there is a shutdown, I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the President of the United States. He's the one that has to get people together.'' That was President Trump's quote then, in 2011. Getting people together--that is just about the opposite of what he has done in these negotiations.

Today, on the 1-year anniversary of President Trump's inauguration, his government has closed its door to the American people, and he hardly seems to care. Early on he said that our country could use ``a good `shutdown.''' Today he tweeted: ``This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency

and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present.''

He called the shutdown an anniversary present--a present--which shows just how out of touch and how callous he can be. A government shutdown is no present for the country, for his party, or for him, and it is entirely the President's doing. The only way out of this is for the President to take yes for an answer and to accept the bipartisan compromise we bring him.

On our side, we will keep trying. Last night I suggested that the four leaders and President Trump meet immediately to sort all this out. I still hope we can do that. Otherwise, this Trump shutdown will go on longer than anyone wants it to.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, very sadly, we are on the precipice of a government shutdown. The majority leader only just allowed us to vote on a continuing resolution that he knew lacked the votes long before this hour. It is not just Democrats who oppose this CR; several Republicans did as well.

All of today, we have endeavored to reach an agreement with President Trump and the Republicans that would have not only spared a government shutdown but cemented an agreement on spending caps, including those for our military, the healthcare issues, disaster relief, and immigration issues.

President Trump reached out to me this morning to invite me to the White House to talk over all of these issues, and I accepted. We had a lengthy and substantive discussion. During the meeting, in exchange for strong DACA protections, I reluctantly put the border wall on the table for discussion. Even that was not enough to entice the President to finish the deal. Many Democrats don't want to go that far on

the border. Many Republicans don't either. But we were willing to compromise with the President to get an agreement. In the room, it sounded like the President was open to accept it. This afternoon, in my heart, I thought we might have a deal tonight. That was how far we had come. That is how positive our discussion felt. We had a good meeting, but what has transpired since that meeting in the Oval Office is indicative of the entire tumultuous and chaotic process Republicans have engaged in in the negotiations thus far.

Even though President Trump seemed to like an outline of a deal in the room, he did not press his party in Congress to accept it. Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell, without the commitment of the President, would not agree to accept anything either.

What happened to the President Trump who asked us to come up with a deal and promised that he would take heat for it? What happened to that President? He backed off at the first sign of pressure.

We had the outline of a deal on caps. We had the outline of a deal on healthcare. We had the outline of a deal on immigration, the toughest issue. It was real, and it was an honest-to-goodness breakthrough. We could have passed a short-term extension of funding so that we could cross the t's, dot the i's, and be done with it all, but the dynamic of the past few weeks during which the congressional Republicans looked to the President for guidance and the President provided none prevailed again today, unfortunately. The same chaos, the same disarray, the same division and discord on the Republican side that has been in the background of these negotiations for months unfortunately appears endemic, and it is standing in the way of bipartisan solutions to all of the issues now before us.

Every American knows the Republican Party controls the White House, the Senate, and the House. It is their job to keep the government open. It is their job to work with us on a way to move things forward. But they didn't reach out to us once on this CR--no discussion, no debate, nothing at all. It was produced without an ounce of Democratic input and dropped in our laps. Meanwhile, they can't even get on the same page as a party. They control every branch of the legislative process, and it is their responsibility to govern, and here they have failed.

Several Republicans voted against the CR, as well as Democrats, for the same reason we voted against it. One of the most serious consequences of having continuing resolution after continuing resolution is the damage it does to our military. As the Pentagon spokesman said last night, another CR would be wasteful and destructive to our military. The Navy Secretary said that because of CRs, ``[the Navy has] put $4 billion in the trash can, poured lighter fluid on it, and burned it.'' That is the Navy Secretary--because of what you have done.

This is no way to conduct the Nation's business. Republicans know it. Democrats know it. The American people know that this party is not capable of governing.

So where do we go from here? I believe many of my Republican colleagues sincerely want to get a deal. I know their hearts are in the right place. I know they lament the fact that we now accept brinksmanship where bipartisanship used to be. In the past, there was always discussions on these issues. Everyone knew in the Senate you needed both parties to work together. None of that happened here today.

Now, all of this problem is because Republican leadership can't get to yes because President Trump refuses to.

President Trump, if you are listening, I am urging you, please take yes for an answer. The way things went today, the way you turned from a bipartisan deal, it is almost as if you were rooting for a shutdown, and now we will have one, and the blame should crash entirely on President Trump's shoulders.

This will be called a Trump shutdown. This will be called a Trump shutdown because there is no one--no one--who deserves the blame for the position we find ourselves in more than President Trump. He walked away from two bipartisan deals, including one today in which I even put the border wall on the table. What will it take for President Trump to say yes and learn how to execute the rudiments of government?

Tomorrow marks a year to the day President Trump took the oath of office on the Capitol steps. Unfortunately, a Trump shutdown would be a perfect encapsulation of the chaos he has unleashed on our government. Instead of bringing us all together, he has pulled us apart. Instead of governing from the middle, he has outsourced his Presidency to the extremes. Instead of living up to the great dealmaker he marketed himself to be, he has been the single driving force in scuttling bipartisan deals in Congress.

Now, at this late hour, his behavior is on the verge of grinding our government to a halt--a Trump shutdown. Democrats will continue to strive for a bipartisan agreement on all of the outstanding issues. I know there are men and women of good will on the other side of the aisle who are just as upset as I am with the direction we are headed in. I plead with them to see reason and prevail upon their leaders--and most of all the President--to give us the space to work together, to let us do the job the American people sent us here to do.

When President Trump decides he is finally ready to lead his party to a deal, Democrats will be ready, willing, and eager to clinch it. There is a path forward. We can reach it quickly.

Tomorrow, the President and the four leaders should immediately sit down and finish this deal so the entire government can get back to work on Monday.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

I object.

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

Mr. President, before I move to the bulk of my remarks, let me respond to the majority leader's comments on CHIP.

First, let me say I am a good friend of Leader McConnell. We are getting along quite nicely. I know what a difficult job he has, but sometimes he says things that are just way over the top, and I have to respond, as this morning, to his remarks on CHIP.

Of course, Democrats support CHIP, Leader McConnell. You know that darn well. If we were in charge of this Chamber, we would have never let it expire, but your majority did, Leader McConnell. Your majority let health insurance for 9 million children expire, even though there were bipartisan majorities in both Houses of Congress that would have extended it.

Now it is placed on the CR. That is a bad idea for so many reasons that I will get to shortly, and Republicans pretend Democrats are against CHIP. It is outrageous.

We are leaders of our parties, and we say certain things, but it seems the lack of straightforwardness, the lack of relying on any facts that is endemic at that end of Pennsylvania Avenue is seeping over to the majority leader's desk, and I regret that because what he said this morning about CHIP was outrageous. To suggest that Democrats are standing in the way of CHIP is drawing, Leader McConnell, on a deep well of bad faith.

Mr. President, let's get to the issue at hand. Government funding expires at midnight tomorrow and still the House Republican majority is moving forward with a continuing resolution that is very likely to be unacceptable to the Senate and may well be unacceptable to House Republicans. The CR prepared by the Speaker is not an honest attempt to govern. As typical of this Republican majority, it was done with zero negotiations with Democrats. They could get away with that strategy on the tax bill when they forced it through reconciliation; they can't here.

When are our Republican leaders going to learn that the best way to

govern--the best way to accomplish things--is by talking to us, not dropping ultimatums on us that bear none of our input? That is what happened with the FISA bill. It nearly went down. That had divisions on both sides of the aisle. That is what is happening here, and it doesn't look good for the CR coming over from the House for that very reason.

Furthermore, the CR leaves out so many priorities that the American people want and demand--opioids, veterans, pensions. It doesn't resolve the fate of the Dreamers. It doesn't include an increase in military funding that Members from both sides of the aisle would support. It is just another kick of the can down the road because the Republicans-- both in the Senate and the House and the White House--can't get their act together.

Even President Trump tweeted this morning that he opposed including CHIP on this bill. Does that mean he is against the CR? Who knows? It is a mess. We can't keep careening from short-term CR to short-term CR. If this bill passes, there will be no incentive to negotiate, and we will be right back here in a month with the same problems at our feet. Eventually, we need to make progress on the biggest of issues before us.

Don't ask me; ask Secretary Mattis. When you talk to him, he knows how bad it is to continue CRs on the defense side. Why would our Republican colleagues go along with that?

So this CR can't get the job done. House Republicans don't even know if they can pass it. Some Senate Republicans, like my friends from South Carolina and South Dakota, have said they don't want to vote for it. We are going to have to go in a different direction.

Ideally, we would all roll up our sleeves and try to reach an agreement on all of the issues we need to resolve. We can resolve the issues of caps for defense and nondefense spending; we can resolve disaster relief; we can resolve the healthcare issues; we can resolve immigration issues; and we can do all of this in a rather short time because work has already been done on each of them for a while.

We could easily sit down and find a cosmic agreement that would get the support of the majority on both sides, in both Houses, and keep the government open. Despite all the rhetoric around here, I genuinely believe that.

The one thing standing in our way is the unrelenting flow of chaos from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. It has reduced the Republicans to shambles. We barely know whom to negotiate with. The President, on national television, tells Congress to bring him something, and he will sign it. The majority leader says he needs the President's imprimatur before we cut any deal. The President is like Abbott and Leader McConnell is like Costello: You do it. They point at each other and nothing gets done.

Of course, the principal reason the Republicans are in such disarray is, the President and his team have been agents of chaos in these negotiations since day one. After all, President Trump was the one who said last year that we need ``a good `shutdown' . . . to fix mess!'' The President said we need a government shutdown.

Mr. President, 95 percent of all Americans, I would guess, do not agree with you. I would guess in their hearts, 95 percent of all Senators and Congressmen--Democratic and Republican--don't agree with you, President Trump, when you say we need a good shutdown.

Don't just ask me. Here is POLITICO. They are a rather down-the- middle publication. No one thinks they are leftwing or rightwing. No one thinks they are FOX or MSNBC. Here is the headline: ``Negotiators on Hill find Trump an unreliable partner.'' Lawmakers find it difficult or impossible to negotiate when the President can't seem to stick to a position for more than a few hours. Let me read the first paragraph of this article:

Donald Trump ran for President as a bipartisan deal-maker.

But if there's one thing he's proved after a year in office,

he's better at killing bipartisan deals than clinching them.

Again, that is the first paragraph in this paper. I am going to read it again so the American people hear it loud and clear--and I know some of the rivals of this publication don't like it too much, but c'est la vie. ``Negotiators on Hill find Trump an unreliable partner.'' The first paragraph:

Donald Trump ran for President as a bipartisan deal-maker,

but if there's one thing he's proved after a year in office,

he's better at killing bipartisan deals than clinching them.

No truer words were ever written. That is not fake news, Mr. President. We all know it to be true.

Exhibit A, yesterday regarding the discussions on DACA, the majority leader said: ``I'm looking for something that President Trump is going to support. And he has not yet indicated what measure he is willing to sign.'' Mitch McConnell said that. He said he still has to ``figure out what [the President] is for.''

How can you negotiate when the President--who has to sign legislation--is like a sphinx on this issue or at least says one thing one day and another the next?

The President rescinded DACA 4 or 5 months ago. Had he not rescinded DACA, we would not be here today. Remember, the vast majority of the American people--even a narrow majority of Trump supporters--support keeping the kids here, not sending them home. The President rescinded DACA 4 or 5 months ago and told Congress to fix it. Yet the majority leader of his party seems to have no firm idea what policy the President would support to get that done. At this late hour, that is astonishing.

Exhibit B, the President's Chief of Staff has insisted that Senator Cotton and Representative Goodlatte be in the room for negotiations on DACA. I have great respect for each of them as individuals--or the respect every Senator gives to every other Senator and Member of Congress, although I so objected to what Senator Cotton did to Senator Durbin the other day. But having said that, there is no deal that Senator Cotton or Representative Goodlatte supports that would earn the support of the majority in either the House or the Senate.

If Senator Cotton and Representative Goodlatte, who have opposed DACA all along and have basically been strongly anti-immigration, have veto power over an agreement, everyone knows there will not be an agreement. General Kelly must know that.

Then, just this morning--exhibit B prime--President Trump rebuked General Kelly, his own Chief of Staff, on Twitter for saying that he is fighting for a wall different from the one he campaigned on. So that is exhibit B on the incompetence of the Republicans on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue--mixed messages, conflicting signals, chaos.

Exhibit C. Today, with the government shutdown one day away, President Trump is off campaigning in Pennsylvania instead of staying in Washington to help close a deal. We are 1 day away from a government shutdown, and there is no one home at the White House. The President should be here negotiating. There is no better evidence that the President doesn't give a hoot if the government shuts down than the fact that he is away campaigning today, 1 day before the shutdown looms.

We have spent the last few months negotiating in good faith with our Republican counterparts, trying desperately to find a deal we could all live with, but it has been nearly impossible to reach final agreement with this President. He has oscillated between completely opposing positions in a matter of days, sometimes hours. He has signaled an openness to a deal, only to have his staff pull him back. He has given only vague indications of what he wants, even at this late hour.

Mitch McConnell was right; he doesn't know what the President stands for. Now Mitch McConnell ought to have the strength and courage to start negotiating on his own for the good of the country, but that hasn't happened yet either.

The White House has done nothing but sow chaos, confusion, division, and disarray, and it may just lead to a government shutdown that no one wants and that all of us here have been striving to avoid.

The fact remains that there is a bipartisan deal on the table, led by Senators Graham and Durbin. Seven Democrats and seven Republicans are on the bill right now. I hope and suspect more will join. It includes significant concessions from Democrats on

almost every item the President requested, including his full budget request for border security, changes to family reunification--which he calls chain migration--and an end to the diversity lottery system.

There is no other alternative on the table. I repeat: There is no other alternative on the table. If my Republican friends want to protect the Dreamers, as over 70 percent of Americans say we should, this is the deal.

The White House is not going to help us; we know that. We have to do it ourselves. Once we do it, we can solve all of our other problems on defense and domestic spending, on healthcare, including CHIP, community health center extenders, disaster relief, and more.

Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work on both sides of the aisle, regardless of the dithering, the indecision, and the contradictory statements of the White House.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I will have much more to say after this vote on the motion to proceed, which Democrats will support because we want to move forward. We want to get something done. We don't want to keep kicking the can down the road. But I just had to answer the leader, briefly.

The leader is looking to deflect blame, but it just won't work. We all know what the problem is; it is complete disarray on the Republican side.

The bottom line is very simple. Our Republican leader has said that he will not negotiate until he knows where President Trump stands. That is why negotiations haven't gotten anywhere. Let me quote. Here is what the leader said just yesterday: ``I am looking for something that President Trump is going to support, and he has not yet indicated what measure he is willing to sign.'' Mitch McConnell said that he still has to ``figure out what the President is for.'' How can you negotiate when the President, who has to sign the legislation, is like a sphinx on this issue or says one thing one day and one thing the next?

So here is what we can do to solve the problem. We could solve it right now. The four leaders could sit down--there has been a lot of discussion--and come to an agreement and do what the President said at one point: Send it to his desk and he will sign it. We could get that done before the deadline of tomorrow night expires, or we could give the President a few days to come to the table, now that he knows this plan won't work, and we could get this done in a few short days and not kick the can down the road.

This is the fourth CR that we have done and accomplished nothing. There is no promise and no likelihood that another kicking of the can down the road will get something done. We have to sit down together and solve this, with the President or without. Until that happens, no amount of CRs will get this done.

I would suggest we all vote for the motion to proceed but instead move a very short-term CR, and we will either negotiate it ourselves or the President will join us, and we can get the job done.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I would simply like to read a statement from Dana W. White, chief Pentagon spokesperson:

We have been working under a Continuing Resolution for

three years now. Our current CR expires tomorrow, 19 Jan.

This is wasteful and destructive. We need a fully-funded FY18

budget or face ramifications on our military.

The leader wants to move that very CR that the Pentagon objects to even without a 60-vote margin. I strenuously object.

Mr. President, to delay a vote on cloture makes no sense when we all know the outcome. The government's funding expires tomorrow night at midnight. Let's vote tonight on cloture so we can move forward so, perhaps, we can bring the President to the table--if not, so we can undergo serious negotiations to get things done.

You have just heard from the Pentagon. The Pentagon thinks this CR is wrong for our military. This is again the statement from Dana White, the chief Pentagon spokesperson. I want to repeat it so my colleagues can all hear it.

We have been working under a Continuing Resolution for

three years now. Our current CR expires tomorrow, 19 Jan.

This is wasteful and destructive. We need a fully-funded FY18

budget or face ramifications on our military.

Because of the urgent needs we face--the military and so many of the others: opioids, veterans, pensions--we should not delay any further. We should move cloture tonight and see the outcome--I think we all know it will be defeated--and start serious negotiations tomorrow morning. That is what we should do.

I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call be waived and that notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motion filed on the motion to

concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 195 ripen at 10 p.m. on Thursday, January 18--10 p.m. tonight.

Mr. President, the leader addressed extensively what was happening before the vote on the motion to proceed. I would like to address that now.

The House of Representatives has sent the Senate a continuing resolution that has been constructed by the Republican Speaker and passed without the consultation of House Democrats or Senate Democrats, whatsoever. The Republican leader is now saying to us: Take it or leave it.

Here is why Members from both sides of the aisle want to leave it. We have been skating by on continuing resolution after continuing resolution for almost 6 months. First, we passed a 3-month CR. Then we passed a 2-week CR and then a 1-month CR. Now we are offering another month-long delay of the inevitable.

We cannot keep kicking the can down the road and shuffling our feet after it. In another month, we will be right back here at this moment with the same web of problems at our feet and in no better position to solve them. The government of the most powerful nation in the world should, simply, not be run this way.

These successive, short-term funding bills hurt our military, as I have mentioned. Just ask Secretary Mattis if this is what he would prefer we do--another continuing resolution--or an honest to goodness budget that allows our Defense Department to plan ahead and meet its obligations. We all know he would prefer the latter.

That is why some of my Republican colleagues have already said they join with Democrats to reject this bill. They know, like I know, that this is no way to do our business. This is not a partisan issue. We should be united in trying to come to a solution, not just kick the can down the road.

The truth is that we don't have to do it this way. In his speech earlier, the majority leader, my friend, tried to reduce this to a binary choice: Take my bill or else shut down the government.

That is not the case. It is simply not. These aren't the only options available to him or to any of us. Democrats and Republicans have been negotiating for months about several issues. A bipartisan deal is within reach on lifting the caps for both defense and domestic spending, on healthcare issues, on disaster relief, on immigration issues. A bipartisan deal is within reach. I have been a part of those negotiations on all of these issues, and now is the time to reach it, not a month from now.

One reason we haven't gotten one already, frankly, is that the President has been impervious to compromise for several months. Another is that he cannot maintain a consistent position. We all know that. He accepts bipartisan overtures on one day only to reject them on the next. He makes and then rescinds and then remakes demands. He encourages compromise one day only to thwart it the next by saying he will only accept a deal that gives him 100 percent of what he wants. That is not what a great deal maker does.

Folks, the people in Congress in his own party don't even know what he wants. I feel for them. I feel for our leader. He is in an awful, difficult position. I know that. We all know that. Yesterday, Leader McConnell said that he is still trying to figure out what the President is for. Only a few moments ago, the leader said the President's views have not been made fully apparent yet. Letting this ambivalence and chaos continue for another month is just not the answer. It is not a good way to get a deal. It is not the right way to run our country--our dear, beloved country.

Tonight or tomorrow, the President will see--I had hoped it would be tonight; we cannot waste any time--that this approach was rejected on a bipartisan basis. Hopefully, he will see the light, come to the table, and negotiate seriously for the first time in this lengthy process.

Ultimately, the answer here might be to pursue an idea that has been floated by a few of my Republican colleagues--pass a clean extension of government funding for 4 or 5 days to give us a hard, final deadline to finalize a deal. Passing a short-term continuing resolution ensures that both sides remain at the table and can quickly reach a deal that funds our military, our domestic priorities, like the fight against opioids, that protects Dreamers, and that funds healthcare and aid for those harmed by recent disasters. Everyone in this Chamber wants some of those things, if not all.

Frankly, I think we can still solve this by the deadline tomorrow. As my friend from South Carolina said: We could solve all of this in 30 minutes if only folks were willing. It may not quite be 30 minutes, but knowing the negotiations as I do, we could do it rather quickly. Certainly, it wouldn't take us 30 days.

Hopefully, after the CR goes down, folks will be willing, and with a little more time on our hands, maybe the majority leader--we are trying to help you, Mitch--can pin down just what President Trump wants in order to get a deal. Nobody wants to shut down the government. Democrats don't want to shut down the government, and Republicans don't want to shut down the government. I believe that sincerely. The only person who has ever rooted for a shutdown, frankly, is our President, who said our country could use a good shutdown. Only President Trump could come up with that phrasing. Nobody else thinks it is a good shutdown. Of course, no shutdown can be good for the American people. Let us strive to avoid one.

I urge my colleagues to reject this measure for the reasons I mentioned. It was not fair. We were not consulted. It was take it or leave it. That is not how it should work. That is how almost none of us want this to work.

If we cannot figure this out by tomorrow night, I urge the majority leader, in particular, and the majority to support a clean extension of funding for a few days so that we can finally come to a resolution and get down to so many of the other things that we need to do in this Chamber.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, just a brief rejoinder. First, there have been very good attempts, bipartisan attempts to solve this problem. Three Democrats and three Republicans met the problem right in the middle. It was the other side, your side, Leader, that didn't want to go along with that agreement. It was a fair and decent agreement in which each side gave. It is an important agreement. It is a vital agreement, and no one--no one--no one--has figured out a way to pass a bill independently in February. Any vote, any bill that might get a majority of the Republicans in the House on this issue will not get Democrats, and any bill that gets a majority of Democrats will not get a majority of the Republican side in the House and will not be put on the floor. So this is the way to go on that issue, but there are many other issues out here too. Make no mistake about it.

Opioids. Our national lifespan rate has declined, how long we live has declined because of opioids. We haven't funded it. Every one of us in our States knows we need that. This resolution does nothing on opioids.

Veterans. In my State and in your States, veterans are waiting in line for treatment after they risked their lives for us. This resolution doesn't fund it. You say: Well, maybe we will do it after a month, but we sure haven't done it for 6 months.

What about pensions? The millions of Americans, working people, who have paid in month after month who lost salary--they declined salary increases so they would know they could live a life of decency--hardly wealth--when they retire, that is being extinguished. We have an urgent obligation to deal with those people. We feel it, and I know many people on the other side feel it.

There are so many other issues. Healthcare issues. I see my friend from Maine. We had a discussion last night, and I talked subsequently to my friend from Washington State and my friend from Florida. We could come to an arrangement on that rather quickly and deal with that issue.

Disaster relief for Texas, for Florida, for Puerto Rico, and for the West. We need to deal with that issue as well. So there are lots of issues to deal with, and on all of these important issues, all of them, this resolution kicks the can down the road and gives us no reason to believe it will be any different than the first CR, the second CR, the third CR, and the fourth CR.

What we are proposing is not original with us. It was proposed by three or four Members on that side of the aisle. A very short-term increase would force the President to the table, hopefully, because that has been the barrier, in the words of the majority leader, for solving the DACA problem and other issues and would get us to act. These are not such easy issues. Without a deadline, we may never get them done, and the fears of the Pentagon, so well stated tonight by the DOD spokesperson, will get worse and worse and worse.

So I would, in an act of bipartisanship--not accusing one side or the other--I didn't accuse one side or the other of shutting down the government. I am not trying to play for political points, even false ones. I am trying to get us to come together in a bipartisan nature to get something done. I hope all of us on both sides of the aisle rise to the occasion.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, before I get into the substance of my remarks, let me just answer the majority leader. What leads to problems in this place? What leads to a government shutdown? It is one side deciding everything and then saying to the other side: You must go along.

The proposal has been sent over--here is what it doesn't do. It does not give help needed for our veterans who wait in line for service. It doesn't fight opioid addiction, the scourge of America. It doesn't help our pensioners. I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle and our defense hawks over in the other body, it doesn't give defense what it needs either. It is a loser in terms of the things this country needs.

We could easily sit down and come to an agreement that would get the support of a majority of both sides, and it is the intransigence, frankly, of so many who say don't talk, don't negotiate, just do it our way or no way that has led to gridlock, that has led to the fact that the first year has been largely unsuccessful and leads to the partisanship America decries.

Democrats have shown, time and time again, we want to work in a bipartisan way, most recently illustrated by the proposal put together by my friend from Illinois, my friend from South Carolina, my friend from Arizona who is on the floor. We eagerly await his remarks, and I will try to be brief.

Leader McConnell, in this instance, as in many others, says: Our way or no way. That is wrong. We will do everything we can to avoid a shutdown. We will do everything we can, but the needs of opioid addiction and helping the veterans and Social Security and rural infrastructure and defense and, of course, the Dreamers remain hanging out with this proposal. If, God forbid, there is a shutdown, it will fall on the majority leader's shoulders and the President's shoulders. We all know what the President has said. He wants a shutdown. So you can twist words and twist facts any way you want, but the truth is, this is a purely partisan effort--a purely partisan effort--and that is what leads to the trouble in this place.

Let me say a few more things.

Despite the leader being totally partisan on this issue, we have seen some rays, some sprouts of bipartisanship. In the House, Republican Congressman Will Hurd and Democratic Congressman Aguilar have a proposal on immigration, on Dream, that garnered 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans. The Goodlatte proposal, the McCaul proposal, has not a single Democrat. I say

to the Acting President pro tempore, you have made a proposal that, in the words of Lindsey Graham, will not get a single Democratic vote. It can't pass. At the same time, the Senators from Illinois, New Jersey, Colorado, Arizona, South Carolina, and Colorado are painstakingly putting together a proposal where both sides give quite a bit.

So there are sprouts of bipartisanship--more than sprouts--that could save us from eyeball-to-eyeball and from a shutdown. My hope is that the President will understand it because the bill that was put together here in the Senate was painstakingly pieced together to meet what the President said he needed. It protects the Dreamers; includes President Trump's full budget request for border security--far more than I would want to do--including funding to build barriers along the southern border; deals with family reunification--they call it chain migration-- for the Dreamers.

I know that some have said: Let's do it for the whole immigration bill, and let's talk about the 11 million, not just the Dreamers.

If you want to do comprehensive, let's do comprehensive, but first let's get DACA done.

And, of course, they even got rid of the diversity program, which, as the President noted, I was the author of and which has brought millions of people to this country who are working hard and are good citizens now.

So it is almost everything the President requested in his televised Tuesday meeting, which got such good reviews from one end of the country to the other.

This bill is certainly not how Democrats would have written the bill if we were in charge, and it is not how Republicans would have written the bill if they were the only party in America. If they were, they might go for the proposal from the Senator from Arkansas. But it is on the hard right. Seventy percent of America is for Dream and DACA--I think 80 percent now. Most Americans are for a comprehensive immigration bill that does all these things. So if we want to get something done, we ought to compromise in a bipartisan way.

For those on this side and in the other body who say we need defense, the way we are going to get it is through bipartisan compromise. This side does not object to increasing defense alongside of other needs that are just as important, in our judgment. A parent whose son or daughter died of opioid addiction because they couldn't get treatment doesn't think that opioid addiction should play second fiddle to any proposal.

The majority leader dismissed the urgency of solving the fate of Dreamers. He calls it a manufactured crisis. It was manufactured by the Republican Party. President Trump rescinded the DACA Program, not a Democrat. It was the majority leader's decision to kick the can down the road for months while bipartisan majorities would have likely supported something close to the Dream Act. It was President Trump who turned his back on a bipartisan solution last week and used vulgarities to demean the ancestral homelands of so many Americans. And almost no American doubts that the President used those terms. Nobody doubts it-- hardly anybody.

As I said yesterday, a very fair, bipartisan deal remains on the table. Senators Durbin and Graham will release the text of their legislation today. My Republican colleagues, I hope, will consider it. And I recommend we get on the bill, and then we can solve the problems that some on one side see--needs for defense--seen on both sides; some of the problems this side sees; some of the problems that side sees; and not do the kind of bill that leaves out or kicks the can down the road for many more problems.

I challenge President Trump: Step up to the plate and take yes for an answer. Democrats have met you halfway, Mr. President. You meet us halfway. The time for political posturing is running short.

Bipartisan groups of Senators and Congressmen are fervently working towards a deal. President Trump ought to get on board, or Congress will move forward without him.

Mr. President, on one other issue--this is really in my craw--the New York Times reported that one of the fastest growing Chinese car companies is plotting ways to sell cars in America. According to the Times, by pursuing a partnership with Fiat Chrysler, the Chinese state-owned company GAC Automobiles hopes to enter the U.S. market through the backdoor. It would be the first Chinese car maker to sell in the United States. If they were to do so, they would face a 2.5-percent tariff here in the United States. Meanwhile, if a U.S. automaker sold cars in China, it would face a 25-percent tariff--10 times higher--and would have to compete with state-owned businesses and unfair regulations.

So while China prevents U.S. automakers from gaining a foothold in their country with prohibitive tariffs--what the Times called ``the highest trade barriers by far of any major car market''--they are plotting ways to eat into our market. It is manifestly unfair and a perfect example of China's rapacious trading policies.

President Trump and his campaign won a lot of votes by promising over and over again that he would crack down on Chinese mercantilism, but once in office, unfortunately, like so many of his other promises and commitments to working Americans, he has not done it. And he has delayed trade enforcement against China time and time again. Even the studies he has commissioned have been delayed.

We need to get serious about these flagrant trade abuses before it is too late. Middle-class jobs and bedrock American industries are at stake.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, on the topic of net neutrality, since the administration's FCC voted to end net neutrality in December, Democrats have been working hard to round up enough Senators to overrule the FCC's decision, which places control of the internet in the hands of the biggest corporations.

Today we reached a milestone: 50 Senators will support Senator Markey's resolution of disapproval. All 49 Democrats have signed on to cosponsor, and my friend from Maine, Senator Collins, has also said she will support it.

With our full caucus supporting the measure, it is clear that Democrats want to keep the internet from becoming a Wild West where ISPs are free to offer premium service to the wealthiest customers while average consumers are left with far inferior options.

When we force a vote on this bill, Republicans in Congress will, for the first time, have the opportunity to right the administration's wrong and show the American people whose side they are on. Are they on the side of big internet service providers and corporations, or are they on the side of consumers, entrepreneurs, startups, and small business owners?

I applaud Senator Collins for supporting this effort and hope sincerely that more of her colleagues will do the same. Given how quickly this measure has earned the support of 50 Senators, I believe we have a real chance of success in restoring net neutrality and keeping the internet open and free for all Americans.

Mr. President, another pressing issue before us this week is FISA and the 702 program. The majority leader is pressing forward on a 6-year bill to reauthorize the 702 FISA Court program. This is a significant bill, but right now the majority leader is pushing for its passage without debate or amendments. That is the wrong approach.

Many of my colleagues would like to offer amendments on this legislation and, frankly, they deserve that right. Personally, I believe that while the bill makes some improvements to the 702 FISA program, it should go somewhat further. We could do a better job balancing the crucial national security imperatives of the program with legitimate concerns about privacy and protecting the rights of American citizens.

Clearly, the bill on the calendar is better than the status quo, and it is certainly better than no bill at all, but that is not the choice before us. The majority leader can open up the bill for limited debate and a few amendments, not to delay but so we can have some amendments and try to improve it.

For that reason, I will be voting no on the upcoming cloture motion. If cloture is not invoked, we can move quickly to an amendment process where Senators from both parties could offer ideas to improve the bill. That is what we ought to do, especially on a bill on the most sensitive area of the government, where security and liberty meet, and that will stand for 6 years. That is too quick for too much. We ought to have some amendments and some discussion.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Stabenow and my colleague from Indiana and my colleague from Ohio. Senators Brown, Stabenow, Donnelly, Klobuchar, Heitkamp, Casey, and Baldwin have been such stalwart voices for working men and women in their States--namely, teamsters and food workers--as well as Senator Manchin, for the miners in West Virginia, and so many others across the country.

We come to the floor tonight to urge our Republican colleagues to join us in doing something to shore up pension plans for over 1 million Americans. Millions of middle-class workers in this country--teamsters, miners, carpenters, and steel workers--have put their money into plans year after year. They knew they wouldn't be rich when they retired, but they thought they could live a life of decency and dignity. They often forewent salary increases. They said: Don't give me a raise at this percent; give me a lower raise, but put money in that pension. These people earned these pensions. They are the backbone of America.

But now, after all of their hard work and all of their savings, several multiyear pension plans are at risk of failure, through no fault of the workers. Families in my State and across the country could see their retirement savings slashed. Teamsters, miners, carpenters, and food service workers are at risk of losing security through no fault of their own. They weren't responsible for the stock market crash, and they weren't involved in offshore swaps in London or somewhere, but that diminished the value of these plans. They are certainly not responsible for Congress twiddling its thumbs and doing nothing in the face of these shortfalls. Teamsters in my State, for instance, are facing a 30-percent reduction in their retirement benefits. They feel the impact of the cuts every day.

So in conclusion, we have to get something done. Our Republican friends spent most of 2017 pressing legislation to help the wealthiest corporations and biggest corporations to get

big tax breaks, but what about the middle-class worker? What about the middle-class worker? Let 2018 be different. Let it be the year when we fix these plans, and let's do it in the upcoming budget deal.

I know that Senators Brown, Stabenow, Donnelly and so many others will continue to fight for hard-working pensioners until we fix the problem.

So again, I want to thank my good friend, the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brown, for organizing an outstanding group of Senators to speak this evening on a crucial topic: pensions.

Senators Brown, Stabenow, Klobuchar, Heitkamp, Donnelly, Casey and Baldwin have always been such stalwart voices for the working men and women of their States.

We all come to the floor tonight to urge our Republican colleagues to join us in doing something to shore up pension plans for over a million Americans.

Millions of middle-class workers in this country--teamsters and miners and carpenters and steel workers--put money into pension plans year after year, forgoing large salary increases or other benefits. Do you know why? Because they said: I am going to work hard my whole life, but when I retire I want to retire with some degree of dignity. And that is what they did.

But several multiemployer pension plans are at a real risk of failure. Families in my State and across the country could see their retirement savings slashed. Teamsters and miners and carpenters and food service workers are at risk of losing that security through no fault of their own.

They weren't responsible for the market crash in 2009, which diminished the value of so many of these plans. And they certainly aren't responsible for Congress twiddling its thumbs, doing nothing to fix the looming shortfalls in the many years since.

And yet, Teamsters in my State are facing a 30-percent reduction in their retirement benefits. They feel the impact of those cuts every day.

These are funds that workers contributed to, and they earned every penny. They won't allow the families of my State to buy riches or luxuries. These pension plans won't fund the purchase of yachts or beach homes. What they will do is guarantee hard-working men and women the peace of mind that comes with a secure retirement.

We have an obligation to see that the promise made to these workers is upheld. And we ought to do it soon. If we don't, it is going to cost taxpayers more in the long run. And all throughout the meantime, hardworking American families will be denied the benefits they rightly deserve.

Republicans spent most of 2017 pressing legislation that helped the wealthiest corporations and the biggest corporations to the detriment of the middle class. Let 2018 be different. Let 2018 be a year when we finally fix these pension plans. And let's do it in the upcoming budget deal.

This will be another test of the Republican majority. Will they again ignore the pressing needs of working Americans across the country? Will President Trump again talk about helping the working men and women of this country but then turn his back on them? We will see.

What I know is that Senator Brown, and this group of Democratic Senators, will continue to fight for the hardworking pensioners of this country until we fix this problem.

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

Mr. President, we are inching ever closer to the government's spending deadline of January 19, when we will have to address a host of unresolved issues. We must lift the spending caps equally for defense and other domestic priorities, such as opioids, veterans, pensions. We must pass an aid package to give relief to disaster stricken areas of our country. We must pass the healthcare package that extends CHIP--children's health insurance--and community health centers.

Just this week, the CBO projected that CHIP will actually save the government money if it is extended for 10 years. We could ensure that kids continue to get quality health insurance for longer and save the government money if we extend it for 10 years. That is a no-brainer.

Of course, we must settle the fate of the Dreamers. A deal to pass DACA protection alongside a package of border security measures is finally within reach. As the immigration meeting at the White House showed, almost everyone in this body is interested in passing DACA protections into law.

Democrats are interested in effective, practical border security measures. We want what secures the border the most, not what sounds the best, not what was a political slogan in a campaign but what actually protects our border as drugs flow in and other things come across. We are working as hard as we can to find an agreement both sides can live with. The only folks who didn't get the memo were some House Republicans who continue to push hard-line immigration bills that are outside the scope of the negotiations. I am referring to Representative Goodlatte's proposal, which is entirely counterproductive and completely unacceptable.

If Speaker Ryan is going to listen to the hard right in the House and coalesce behind Representative Goodlatte's proposal on DACA, we will have no deal. Let the American people hear that. If Speaker Ryan is unable to resist Representative Goodlatte's proposal--he has never been for Dream to begin with--we will have no deal.

If Speaker Ryan bends to the hard-right faction of his caucus--which is far away from what most Americans think; the hard right doesn't like Dreamers, and 70 percent of Americans do--and if they ask for immigration measures outside the scope of our negotiations, then so will we. Deal with chain migration outside of the scope of Dreamers? Let's deal with the 11 million who need a path to citizenship--a tough but fair path. We can play that game too. We can go beyond the confines of this deal, which has been Dreamers and border security, and then the whole thing won't happen.

There are people on my side who aren't going to want to make any compromises. I know that. There are people on both sides who won't want to make any compromises. As responsible leaders, we have to come to an agreement, and we can't make everybody happy. That is why we have a House and Senate. That is why we have legislators.

The whole reason we narrowed the scope of our negotiations is so that we could accomplish something for the Dreamers, rather than relitigating comprehensive immigration reform in such a compressed timeframe.

This body passed a very fine bill, in my opinion. It was really tough on the border. It was tough on benefits. It was tough on a path to citizenship. For the first time, for instance, green card holders had to learn English. That was in our bill that passed this body--led by Senator McCain and myself and the Gang of 8--68 to 32. The House didn't dare take it up for the same reason they seem to have trouble today: The hard right said no immigration reform. And we are stuck. That hurts everybody.

I am sure my good friend is hearing from farmers in his State, as I hear from farmers in mine, and businesspeople. We have to tighten up our borders. We have to make sure we have a rational system of immigration. We can't assure that every person who wants to come here comes here. We all agree with that. But that is comprehensive immigration reform, because we also believe that the 11 million here should be given a difficult but fair path to citizenship. We can't start litigating all of that.

Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle say: I have to have this provision outside DACA and border security. They are hurting the cause of getting something done.

If we can reach an agreement by the end of this week or over the weekend, we can pass it into law as part of a global deal on the budget by next Friday. I believe that is still the best way to resolve the issue. I am hopeful we can get this done. Any later than that, we won't have time to do it by the 19th.

Let me assure my colleagues, accept the majority leader in good faith and the Speaker in good faith--their intention is to put a bill on the floor in February or March. We have heard that before, and it never happens. So we feel passionately that we should get this done--both tighten up the border and help the Dreamers. We have to do it as part of the must-pass bill, and that must-pass bill is this global spending deal.

Mr. President, now a word on the Russia investigation. Over the past weeks, several events have shaken my confidence that our Republican colleagues are committed to an independent investigation in Congress and at the FBI.

A rightwing smear campaign is being waged to discredit the investigation and the investigator. Absurd attacks have been launched on Special Counsel Mueller, one of the finest men that I think we have ever come across in this body. I remember when he was FBI Director; everyone loved him. He is a man of utmost integrity. A Republican Congressman went so far as to suggest his investigation was a ``coup'' when that Member spoke on the floor of the House.

Here in the Senate, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee--I have great respect for him; we are the only two Charles E's in the Senate-- referred Christopher Steele to the FBI and recommended criminal charges, even though Mr. Steele was a whistleblower--something that our chairman of Judiciary has always protected. He came to the FBI with concerns that Donald Trump was subject to blackmail. Any American would worry about that. The chairman took that action

unilaterally--that is, asking for criminal charges--without consulting with or providing notice to the minority. Yet he still expressed outrage when the ranking member of his committee released a transcript of his committee's interview with the chairman of Fusion GPS even though that was what was in contention. There is a fundamental double standard here. You can't complain, Mr. Chairman of Judiciary, about our side doing things unilaterally if you do them unilaterally. We want to work in a bipartisan way.

I applaud my friend, the senior Senator from California, for releasing that transcript. It contained information that was crucial for the American people to read and understand in order to judge for themselves the allegations my friends across the aisle have made. You make a serious allegation against someone but say no one can see the information? That is not fair. That is not how we work here in America.

Now, in the Foreign Relations Committee, my friend Senator Cardin was compelled to release a minority report about Russia's interference in foreign elections because the majority would not join him. Think about that. Senator Cardin's report showed something we already know to be true--no one disputes that; well, maybe a few--that Russia maliciously and persistently interferes in elections around the globe and will not cease without unified and strong countermeasures.

Senator Cardin's report is another compelling reason that the Senate act on election security legislation. Before we left for the holidays, Senators Lankford, Klobuchar, Harris, and Collins introduced the Secure Elections Act. It is a good piece of legislation that would help shore up election security. Midterm elections are just around the corner, and, as Senator Cardin's report tells us, Russia will no doubt endeavor to sow confusion and chaos into our democracy once again. That is what they do. That is what Putin likes to do. We have to stop it. And making information public about it is very important. This should be a unifying, nonpartisan issue.

Why would the Republican majority on the Foreign Relations Committee refuse to join that report? It is because--in my judgment, at least-- for partisan reasons, Republicans in Congress and some in some parts of the media--the conservative parts of the media--have sought to undermine the Russia investigation in countless ways. They have hidden behind secrecy and innuendo to cast aspersions on the investigation and erect roadblocks in its path. Their goal, it seems, is to discredit the investigation so that ultimately they can discredit any findings that are detrimental to their party or their President.

President Trump makes the strategy manifest, clear as day, almost every day on his Twitter feed. Yesterday, he tweeted that the Russia investigation was ``the single greatest witch hunt in American history.'' That is a little self-centered. How about Salem? Those people were burned at the stake. And he wrote that ``Republicans should finally take control.'' That last line should send shivers down our spines, that ``Republicans should finally take control.''

From the very beginning, this investigation has been about an issue most sensitive to our national interests--interference in our elections, the wellspring and pride of our wonderful and great and grand democracy. If ever there were an issue that transcends party, this is it. Yet here is the President of the United States imploring his party to ``take control'' of the investigation. You never thought you would hear a President say something like this. Frankly, you never thought you would hear such silence from the other side of the aisle when he does, but that is where we are. Republican lawmakers ought to shout down that kind of appeal. We all must commit to the essential truth of the matter, which is that the investigation into Russian interference in our election must remain as bipartisan and as nonpartisan as possible. The interests of the Nation are at stake. All of us--all of us--must choose country over party.

I yield the floor.