Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am here on the floor to add my support to the resolution being brought before us by Senator Duckworth. This is the third week in a row that we are having an opportunity on the Senate floor to have a short debate and a vote on the most significant military engagement

in the Middle East in many of our Senate careers.

We are now a month and a half into this bungled, mismanaged war, and we have yet to have a single hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the Senate Armed Services Committee on this war, on this military operation.

In the absence of these privileged motions that we are bringing-- thankful to Senator Duckworth for bringing one this week--we would have no debate, no vote on the floor on the authorization of war, maybe the most sacred charge we are given as U.S. Senators.

We should not normalize that. We should not fail to note how extraordinary it is that our Senate Republican leadership has declined to do any oversight of a war that is costing billions of dollars every week, that has already led to the loss of over a dozen American lives, that has erupted a regional war throughout the Middle East and is literally melting down economies all over the world, especially in the developing world--not a single hearing--not a single hearing--in the U.S. Senate. Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hegseth have not come to the Senate to explain what their plan is, what their strategy is, what their endgame is.

And I think we know the answer. They simply can't explain what is happening. They can't articulate a strategy. They are not ready to answer questions from Democrats or from Republicans who, I think, increasingly are starting to scratch their heads about how on earth this is in the U.S. national security interest.

Very quickly, because I know we have a number of other colleagues who want to speak, let me just talk about what has happened since we last had an opportunity to vote.

First, the impact on the U.S. economy is getting more acute. There are more and more Americans who are unable to make their lives work because we have seen a 30-percent increase in gas prices since this war began. Farmers have seen a 35-percent increase in fertilizer, a 50- percent increase in diesel costs.

That increase in agricultural costs is going to almost immediately spill over into big increases at the grocery store. And so amidst high inflation, you are now going to see costs just become prohibitive for a lot of American families--a 30-percent higher gasoline cost simply because of this war of choice.

And agricultural economy, which was already in crisis--60 percent of farmers had already said that they were in a worse financial shape this year, prior to the war, than when President Trump came into office--now that gets even worse.

What is the impact on our national security? Well, the President has said that there are a bunch of different meandering explanations and objectives for this war. He said that we want to destroy their missile program. Well, what have we found out in the last 2 weeks? We have found out that we have come nowhere close to destroying their missile program. In fact, they still likely have the majority of their missiles. And during the cease-fire, Iran has used that time to rehabilitate and rescue many of the missiles and the launchers that were buried in rubble. China stands ready, as soon as the bombing fully ceases, to help them immediately rebuild their missile program. There is no way this campaign is going to eliminate their missile program.

Just the same, we were told that part of the objective of this war was to eliminate their nuclear program. And yet, a month and a half later, they still have all of their enriched uranium. We have not destroyed Iran's knowledge of how to produce nuclear weapons out of existence because neither are possible through a bombing campaign alone.

Sometimes regime change is an objective; sometimes it isn't. The President said: Well, we were gone last week. In fact, we have already achieved regime change. Well, technically, there is a new Ayatollah, but there is absolutely no evidence that this new Ayatollah, that this new crowd of elite leadership--mainly coming out of the hard-line IRGC--is any less provocative, any less dangerous, any less adversarial to U.S. interests. In fact, the opposite is probably true. A doddering 90-year-old Ayatollah was replaced by a group of leaders that are likely much more fanatical and probably much more effective in their aims to try to attack U.S. interests there and around the world.

Of course, one of our objectives is a new objective, the objective to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait was open before this war began; it is now closed. It is unclear whether President Trump knew that they would close the strait and just threw up his hands, didn't care about the impact on the U.S. economy or whether he didn't know--which would be egregious in and of itself--and was shocked to find out that Iran would close the strait.

We are now a month and a half into this war. The strait is still closed. The President is trying to reopen the Strait by blockading it, which is a very strange strategy, one that, in day two of this new plan, does not seem to be succeeding.

Finally, what is the impact on the world? And I just want to touch on this very shortly. A new war is erupting in the Middle East; Hezbollah was empowered by the attacks; and there is a prospect of a massive new ground invasion of Lebanon from Israel. Already, hundreds have died in that conflict. Last weekend, you likely saw images of just vicious bombings of what looked to be civilian infrastructure happening inside Lebanon. But a new war in the Middle East between Israel and Lebanon, in which thousands will likely die, in which millions will be displaced, that is horrible for U.S. interests, for our allies' interests. The region is exploding in violence.

But even more cataclysmic in its scope is what is happening to developing nations. Developing nations' economies are literally melting down right now because a 30-percent increase in fuel costs for a short period of time is something that wouldn't tank the entirety of the American economy, even though it does great damage to individual families. But in nations where a short-term fuel shortage or a 30- percent immediate spike is something that a government or a very poor population cannot manage has caused a lot of these countries' economies to simply melt down. These governments are now closing their public operations. Universities in some developing nations are permanently closed because they can't afford to keep the lights on.

There is a rolling disaster happening throughout the world because of these energy price increases that have been designed, manufactured, by Donald Trump. So it is not just that the Middle East is exploding; it is not just that we aren't meeting any of our objectives in Iran; it is not just that American consumers are being harmed--there are billions-- billions--of poor people all around the world whose lives are more miserable, whose lives are slipping into greater chaos because of this war.

So we will be down on this floor week after week, every single week, to force at least a short debate, to force a vote. And my hope is that at some point our Republican colleagues, besides one, choose to join us.

It is OK for you to support President Trump, generally and politically, and admit that this war was a massive mistake. We did that when there were Democratic Presidents in office. President Obama helped participate in a war in the Middle East, helping the Saudis be involved in a conflict in Yemen. Many of us thought that was a mistake. We came to the floor and opposed President Obama. We actually filed resolutions making it harder for President Obama to fuel that war.

So I hope, at some point, our Republican colleagues decide they can choose to just say what is clear and obvious--this war was a mistake; it should end as quickly as possible--and not believe that this is somehow incommensurate with their broader political support for the President.

You can, as a U.S. Senator, occasionally stand up to the leader of your party if it is a matter of right and wrong. I believe this is a matter of right and wrong. Maybe it won't be in today's vote, but hopefully in one of the votes we will continue to have, we can have some bipartisan agreement that this war needs to end.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in a building filled with history, Mario D'Angelo is an institution of the Senate in his own right. Born in Orsogna, Italy, in 1947, Mario traveled to the United States with his mother and sister at the age of 13.

Mario's father was a barber, and when Mario was growing up, he urged his son not to follow in his footsteps. Mario had other ideas. Though he briefly found work in the House of Representatives distributing packages of mail, his true calling was in the U.S. Senate.

In 1976, Mario was hired by the Senate Sergeant at Arms to manage the Capitol and Senate barber shop. He oversaw the remodeling of the Senate barber shop and cut the hair of countless Senate denizens, from summer interns to sitting Senators. For the last five decades, when Americans saw their Senators on television, it was often

Mario's handiwork on display. Giants of the Senate, including the late Senator John McCain, not only trusted Mario with their hair, they considered him a personal confidante and friend. Generations of Senators and staffers have relied on Mario's steady hand and extraordinary willingness to stay after hours to accommodate last- minute appointments. And in a place increasingly divided by tense partisan politics, Mario's genuine warmth and care provides a bridge of human connection for all who visit his chair. We honor and thank Mario for his 50 years of service and care.

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

Mr. President, colleagues, in a few moments I am going to call up for a vote--a resolution on a privileged motion to end the war in Iran.

I am going to be joined on the floor by several of my colleagues, all of us here in astonishment that 4 weeks into the most significant conflict in the Middle East in most of our careers in this body--12- plus Americans killed, $2 billion at least being spent every day, thousands dead throughout the region--we have still not yet had a single hearing in the United States Senate on the war in Iran.

We have not had a debate on a war authorization. We have not had a vote to allow Senators to weigh in--up or down--as to whether they want the United States to be at war again in the Middle East.

This is an extraordinary moment, and I know we risk engaging in hyperbole these days, coming down to the floor and naming one moment as extraordinary after another moment. But I don't think we have had a moment like this, where the United States has been unquestionably at war with a foreign power, where American soldiers are dying as we speak and it is being hidden, actively, from the public by the Congress.

It is bad enough that we haven't had a debate and vote other than those forced by Democrats. We haven't had a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee. We haven't had a hearing in the Armed Services Committee.

Now, I think we know the reason. The reason is that this administration cannot defend and explain this war. But if they cannot and if they are not willing to come to Congress and defend this war, it speaks to the indictment of the preparation and the strategy.

I am going to read to you an excerpt from a Washington Post article. Now, the Washington Post has been very careful about their criticism of the President recently:

A surge of additional U.S. forces to the Middle East and

President Donald Trump's threat to ``obliterate'' Iran's

energy infrastructure have set the stage for what U.S. and

Israeli security officials increasingly see as the war's . .

. endgame: a battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz and

key energy installations.

Reopening the strait . . . has emerged as perhaps the

paramount objective of [the] war . . . officials now believe

is unlikely to achieve goals that briefly seemed possible at

the outset of the [war] . . . including overthrowing Iran's

theocratic regime and putting a nuclear weapon permanently

out of Tehran's reach.

Let me restate that for you. The Trump administration now says that the goal of the war is not to dislodge an anti-American regime in Tehran; it is not to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon; it is not even to permanently end Iran's ability to have missiles that can reach their neighbors or drone capacity that can provoke in the region. The primary goal now is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Here is the problem: The strait was open before the war began. We are now seeking to solve a problem that we created. This is insanity. Two billion dollars is a lot of money. That is the minimum amount of money that is being spent every single day on this war.

There are over a dozen families who are burying their loved ones in the United States, and there may be dozens more if this war continues. Prices are skyrocketing--not just in America but all across the world. Notices just went out from DuPont to their customers that the price of plastic is doubling. The price at the pump in many States is at $4, $5, and going higher. Fertilizer: soon to be unaffordable for American farmers. The consequences of this war are stunning in their scope: higher prices for American businesses and American families, a potential global recession, the wasting of billions of dollars of hard- earned taxpayer dollars, and new conflicts in the region that didn't exist before the war began.

In the last day, there have been 12 missile attacks inside Israel. Just during this last vote, news broke of another missile attack on a community, Bnei Brak, with nine people injured, six children injured. Just in the last week, there have been multiple missile and drone attacks on cities throughout Israel; six ballistic missiles from two separate attacks hit the Kurdish region in Iraq, killing six Kurdish fighters; and an Iranian missile attack on the Iranian-United States base in Diego Garcia. That is 2,500 miles away from Tehran.

UAE has basically stopped giving out information about these drone and missile attacks because they happen so frequently, but on Monday, they did publicize they engaged with 16 drones and 7 ballistic missiles. That was just on Monday.

Israel has invaded Lebanon. Those two countries are on the verge of full-scale war. One-sixth of the population of Lebanon has already been displaced. Syria is at risk of falling apart again.

We have created a catastrophe in the Middle East. We are lighting taxpayer dollars on fire. We are causing prices to go up for everyone.

And what is our new war aim? Reopening the strait that was open before we started the war.

This is basic incompetence. This is what you get when you put talk show hosts and real estate developers in charge of American national security: a war that makes absolutely no sense.

Even though our war aims have been reduced to simply undoing the damage

that we created, it is not even clear we can accomplish that goal. Word is that Iran has now figured out that they can open the strait for limited purposes if you pay them, and that may now be the permanent state of affairs in the strait, that Iran will decide who gets to go through and who doesn't.

That is not what happened before the war. We have created a new reality in which Iran has more power over the global economy than they have ever had before. We have not been able to stop their ability to project power. They are still, today, 4 weeks into the war, firing missiles and drones at their neighbors.

The regime that is in charge now is, according to analysts, worse than the regime that it replaced. Yes, we killed a whole bunch of people, including the Supreme Leader, but from everything we understand, the group now in charge is more adversarial to U.S. interests and is going to be more provocative in the region.

So this war makes absolutely no sense. And the only way to save American consumers, the only way to try to put the pieces back together in the region is for the war to end.

So I am glad to be joined here on the floor today by several of my colleagues. Many of them have introduced similar resolutions. This will be the third time that we have brought a War Powers Resolution before the floor--Senator Kaine and then Senator Booker. This will likely not be the last resolution that we will bring before the floor because we have a sacred obligation handed to us by our Founding Fathers for this body and the House of Representatives to decide war. It was a very deliberate decision not to give the power to make war to one individual--to the President of the United States--but to give it to the people. And the people make their voice heard through their elected Members of Congress.

And so if our Republican colleagues will not do their duty, if they are going to engage in an effort to hide the consequences of the war, if they are going to refuse to ask questions of our incompetent national security leaders at the White House who have waged this war without planning for the foreseeable consequences, then we will force a debate and a vote on this floor.

This war is not going to make more sense the longer it goes. It is not going to become more popular. Right now, by a 26-point margin, Americans do not support this war. It will be harder as time goes on-- not easier--for my Republican colleagues to continue to vote for this war as a vote against this resolution will be. But it is our responsibility under the Constitution to have this debate, and I am glad to have my colleagues on the floor to make this case to the Senate as well.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, whatever you think about this war, it should be unacceptable to all of us that we have not had a single public hearing, a single opportunity for the American people to hear directly through their representatives the justification and the endgame for this war.

I thank my colleagues for joining me here today.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 601(b) of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, I move to discharge the Committee on Foreign Relations from further consideration of S.J. Res. 116, to direct the removal of the United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against the Islamic Republic of Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.

Mr. President, I know of no further debate.

I would ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I am humbled to follow my colleague from Illinois. No one is more articulate on the question of the cost of war than Senator Duckworth, and I agree with everything that she said about the importance of this moment.

Listen, maybe the most sacred clause in the Constitution is the warmaking clause. Our Founding Fathers gave a lot of thought about the danger of allowing one individual to send this country into foreign conflict, to send our young men and women overseas to face harm and potential death. Our Founding Fathers decided that that had to be a question answered by the American public, and that is why the decision to go to war was vested not in an Executive or a Monarch or a King but in the Congress--in the people's House and in the Senate.

I think this is probably the most significant military engagement of many of our lifetimes that has gone without a debate and a vote on the Senate floor. It is extraordinary not just that we have not had a vote, as is required by the Constitution, not just that the President persists in this action without an authorization by Congress, but that there hasn't even been a single public hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee or in the Armed Services Committee to require the administration to explain to the American people and to the U.S. Senate why we are in this war, what the goals are, and what the endgame will be.

I think it is extraordinary and heartbreaking and outrageous that the Senate is not doing its duty under the Constitution to require the administration to ask permission to go to war and to explain itself before Congress, but I guess I understand why. This is an attempt to hide the incompetence--the growing incompetence--of this war.

The President said, the other day, he was really surprised when Iran started bombing its neighbors. Like, the first page of the briefing book that a President would get on the consequences of a major military strike on Iran would be that missiles and drones would start to be sent to American bases, American forces, and our partner forces in the region.

Reports are that the President just kind of guessed that they wouldn't gum up the Strait of Hormuz even though the second page of that briefing book would have told you--you know what?--the first thing Iran will do if you assassinate the Shia religious leader in the middle of the holy month and bomb them relentlessly day after day and hour after hour is they will close the Strait of Hormuz.

There is no plan to protect our partners in the region. Our partners are running out of interceptors as we speak. The region is on fire. There is no plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. It is closed today. It will be closed tomorrow. It will be closed the day after. Prices are going to go up for everybody in this country. The billionaires--the people who show up to have dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in the middle of the war--will be able to afford it, but regular people who live in Ohio and Connecticut and Illinois, they

won't be able to afford these high gas prices.

Every day, there is a new revelation of the incompetence. Here is one from the last 24 hours. Apparently, President Trump decommissioned a bunch of our minesweepers. There was a really competent British minesweeper in the region that left days before the invasion began. We literally gave away our capability to clear the strait of mines right before we took military action that would knowingly cause the strait to be closed and mined. You can't make this up.

The reason we are bringing this vote tonight, the reason that Senator Kaine did the same thing earlier, and the reason that we will continue to bring these votes is that we have an obligation to have a debate, to have votes on the question of war, especially on the question of this incompetent war.

I have sat in classified briefing after classified briefing, and I still have gotten no answer on how this war ends. I actually don't think any of my Republican colleagues could explain how this war ends. Apparently, a worse regime that is more provocative to the region and more adversarial to the United States' interests will remain in charge of Iran when we decide to stop bombing. Estimates are that they will be able to rebuild their missile and drone capability in months after we declare an end to the hostilities. The nuclear program will still be there because you can't bomb out of existence either knowledge or the fissile material that is buried deep under the earth.

So, at the end of this, we are going to have raised prices for everybody here. We are going to have cost a lot of American lives. We are going to have set on fire the region. By the way, a new war already having killed 1,000 people is breaking out between Israel and Lebanon, and Iran is going to be more dangerous, not less dangerous at the end.

We need to debate this in our committees and on the Senate floor, so I am glad to stand here with Senator Booker. I don't think this will be the last time that we will have this debate.

What are we doing this week?

We are talking about voter fraud that doesn't exist when there is a war happening that is illegal and when prices are going through the roof. This is what we should be debating right now. This is why the Senate exists, to stand here and debate the most important questions. And what is more important than war and peace and 13 Americans dead overseas and the cost of war being borne by poor families here at home? This is what we should be debating this week.

So we will use our opportunity under the statute and under the rules to make sure that we have the opportunity--at least for an hour, at least for an hour each day--to be able to talk about this incompetent, illegal, unconstitutional war with no plan to end it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks from my friend from Minnesota. I think she laid out an unassailable case about how this is going to greatly constrain people's abilities to cast their votes, how it is a broad assault on democracy, how it effectively makes up a problem that doesn't exist.

I think I am the last speaker tonight before everybody gets to go home. So I am going to be very brief, and I am going to try to put today's debate in some context.

Here is what President Trump told a gathering of lawmakers at his golf resort. By the way, let's just not gloss over the fact that Donald Trump doesn't spare any moment to make money off of his Presidency, including demanding that, if you want an audience with him, you have to go down and spend money at his golf resort.

Here is what he said. He said: If you pass the SAVE Act, ``[i]t will guarantee the midterms. If you don't get it, big trouble, my opinion.''

Pass the SAVE Act, and ``[i]t will guarantee the midterms. If you don't get it, big trouble.''

Donald Trump--one of the most unpopular Presidents at this point in his Presidency in history. All he cares about is power and winning elections. He can't maintain power in the Senate or the House this fall being this unpopular in running a war that is out of control and that is driving up costs for Americans, tariffs that are costing the average family thousands of dollars a year, an economy that is not growing; and manufacturing jobs that are fleeing. So he is seeking to gain power that he believes will allow him to manipulate who can vote and who can't vote.

That is why we are here. We are certainly not here because voter fraud is a systemic problem in our elections.

The Heritage Foundation--the organization behind Project 2025 and many of the ideas that form the foundation of this legislation--has been able to uncover 10,000 instances of non--wait a second--5,000 instances of noncitizen voter--no, not 5--no, 400--no. It is 100. They found 100 instances in a country of 300 million of noncitizen voters trying to vote since 2000--in 26 years, 100 cases.

Another study found that the percent of voter fraud in Arizona over the last 25 years was--and I have got to read this carefully--0.0000845 percent. I actually have no concept of what that number is. That number is so tiny as to be kind of impossible to comprehend. The rate of voter fraud over the last 25 years in Arizona is 0.0000845 percent.

When you ask Americans what the top problems are that are facing the country right now--this is a Washington University poll, so it is not a Democratic poll or a Republican poll--they are, 1, jobs are disappearing; 2, prices are going up--let's see--3, the President generally; 4, the cost of living; 5, corruption in government; 6, polarization in government; 7, crime; 8, immigration; 9, abortion; 10, healthcare. I would bet you, if you went 11 through 19, you would not find voter fraud on that list. Statistically, this isn't a systemic problem. Voters aren't asking for us to focus on it.

So why are we here? Why is this the emergency issue--the urgent issue--that Congress is debating at nearing 11 o'clock on a Wednesday night?

It is, first and foremost, because Trump is demanding it. He has said he will not sign any other legislation until this bill reaches his desk, and Republicans in the Senate are compliant. They are employees of the President. He has said: This is the bill I want. So they are attempting to deliver him this bill. He believes, I think wrongly, but he believes this bill will give him special powers with which to change the electorate in his favor.

But we are also here because Republicans do not want to talk about the issues that are actually top of mind for Americans. They do not want to talk about prices or the economy or healthcare. They do not want to talk about corruption in government or the cost of living. That is probably the primary reason we are debating this bill--because, if you asked Americans what should be in a ``save America'' law, they would not say this.

There are 4 million Americans who are losing their healthcare as we speak--4 million Americans. There are 20 million Americans who, right now, are getting ready to sit down at the kitchen table and figure out how they are going to afford a 100-percent increase in their healthcare premiums. There are millions of families right now, because of the actions of Donald Trump and Republicans in this Congress, who are deciding whether they are going to pay the tuition bill for their child next semester or whether they are going to have to come home and postpone college for a little while because they just can't afford college and healthcare.

That is a crisis in this country. That is a healthcare cataclysm that is happening in this country.

There are hospitals and birthing centers and clinics that are closing in every corner of America because of the multitrillion-dollar cut to Medicaid. There are 4 million Americans who are losing healthcare and 20 million Americans seeing an enormous healthcare increase, and there are hundreds of clinics closing. We are not talking about that tonight.

Our economy is in trouble.

The economy lost 92,000 jobs in February. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve said today that we have had zero net job growth in this country over the last 6 months. The unemployment rate is 4.4 percent, up from 4 percent when Donald Trump took office; long-term unemployment, 25.3 percent, up from 21 percent when Donald Trump took office. The unemployment rate for Black workers is 7.7, up from 6.2 percent when Donald Trump took office.

The economy grew at an anemic 0.7 percent in the second quarter of 2025. We have lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs since Donald Trump took office. We are losing jobs left and right.

This economy is in trouble, but we are not talking about that tonight.

This administration is raising prices on people all across the country. The tariffs alone, if the administration succeeds in maintaining its current level of tariff revenue, will cost the average family $2,500 this year. Who in America has $2,500 lying around? OK. You know the folks who pay the ticket prices to show up and sit next to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago have $2,500 sitting around, but 40 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Forty percent of Americans don't even have $400 saved for an emergency medical procedure or a car repair. The majority of Americans cannot afford Trump's tariffs, which are going to charge them $2,500 in additional costs this year.

That is not a bad economy. That is not bad luck. That is the President of the United States making decisions to purposefully raise people's cost of living by $2,500 this year.

And then he makes it worse because his war in Iran is jumping gas prices. Those increased transportation costs will soon increase grocery costs.

There is an inflation and cost-of-living epidemic in this country, and we are not talking about that either.

The White House is for sale--for sale. This is the most corrupt White House in the history of the country. No. 5 on that list of what Americans care about today is corruption in government because they are scratching their heads, wondering why this Congress is not talking about the fact that the President of the United States was just gifted a $400 million plane by a foreign government as a gift. They are wondering why we aren't having hearings on the secret payments that the President has been getting from foreign governments as private, quiet, secret investors in his cryptocurrency businesses. They are scratching their heads wondering why we aren't spending our time talking about the fact that the President's family has all of a sudden shown up on the boards of corporations that are getting contracts from the Federal Government. This White House is a 24/7 grift operation, but we are not talking about that this week on the floor of the Senate.

And, oh, by the way, we are at war. We are at war again in the Middle East. A dozen Americans have died.

We have a new war breaking out as a consequence of the President's military action in Iran between Israel and Lebanon. A thousand people have already died in that conflict. The entire region is on fire.

The President can't articulate a single reasonable, realistic endgame scenario for this war. We haven't had a single hearing in the Senate on a war that is underway right now in the Middle East. We aren't talking about that on the floor of the Senate this week.

And we have a Department of Homeland Security that is out of control, that is murdering American citizens, that is terrorizing our communities, that is tear-gassing schools, that is disappearing legal residents. And we aren't talking about that on the Senate floor either this week.

Inflation, the economy, cost of living, corruption in government, polarization, crime, immigration, abortion, and healthcare--these are the issues, when you ask voters, they say Congress should be focused on. They don't list voter fraud because the rate of voter fraud in this country is 0.000845 percent.

There are serious problems in this country. There are families going through hell right now because of what Republicans have chosen to do to raise people's costs and to hurt our economy. There are Americans dying overseas right now in an illegal, unauthorized war that this Congress refuses to do oversight on.

We could be spending our time saving Americans by reducing their costs, creating more jobs, or actually doing our congressional duty to make sure that we don't waste lives and treasure overseas on forever wars with no end.

But, instead, we are debating a bill that is going to withdraw people's right to vote because Donald Trump has ordered congressional Republicans to give him a tool that he thinks will help him steal this election.

I ran for the Senate to work on real problems, not fake problems and conspiracy theories, and there are a whole lot of real problems--real problems--that this country is facing right now that this Senate should be focused on.

I yield the floor.

I object.

Mr. President, there is not a pending motion on the floor currently?

Seeking recognition on my own right.

Mr. President, yesterday and today, Democrats have been on the floor asking for something very simple: Let's open up TSA. Let's open up CISA, which protects this country from cyber attack. Let's open up the Coast Guard. Let's open up FEMA.

Republicans have said ``no'' repeatedly. Yesterday, we said: Let's open all four Agencies up together. Republicans denied us that motion. Today, we are trying to see if we can open up one at a time.

What Republicans are saying is that: We want to hold TSA, our airports, the protection of our coastline, the defense of this Nation from cyber attacks, and our response to emergencies hostage to their determination to continue to fund a law enforcement operation at ICE that is out of control.

So Republicans are saying: We are going to keep TSA shut. We are going to keep the Coast Guard shut. We are going to keep FEMA shut until you allow the President to continue to terrorize our communities with a lawless, out-of-control ICE.

This isn't just what you see on the news. The scenes out of Minneapolis were horrific, unconscionable, American citizens being gunned down on the streets. One Federal judge found that ICE is in violation of 96 different court orders right now all across the country. Courts have ruled in 4,000 cases that ICE has jailed people illegally.

ICE is behaving in a brazenly lawless and unconstitutional manner, and none of us--Republican or Democrat--should be interested in funding a part of the Federal Government that is operating outside of the bounds of law.

We swore an oath to the Constitution. And so we have a serious discussion that is happening as we speak between Republicans and Democrats about how we can come together to fund ICE. But while that discussion happens, why are we keeping shut down the Coast Guard, TSA, FEMA? It is not necessary.

If Republicans just stopped coming to the floor to object, we could open up TSA right now. We could get those salaries paid.

I am going to offer a motion to open up funding for the Coast Guard. We could get the people who protect our shorelines paid.

And, yes, this is a mess. This is a mess. I admit it. This is a mess. But we didn't have shutdowns when Democrats were in charge of the Senate.

We are at a logjam because the Republicans refuse to listen to the very reasonable concerns that Democrats and the American people have about the way that ICE is behaving.

And by the way, we aren't representing some fringe political constituency. In the last national poll, 60 percent of Americans said that Congress should not fund ICE until they clean up their act. The vast majority of Americans believe that that Agency is out of control.

But if you went out there and asked those same Americans whether they think that TSA and the Coast Guard and FEMA should be shut down while we resolve those differences, they would say: Hell no. Open up the airports. Protect our shorelines.

So we are going to continue to come to the floor and attempt to convince Republicans to release these hostages.

I know that you are committed to supporting the President's lawlessness. I don't understand why you won't stand up and say it is wrong that there are 96 different court orders that ICE has violated, it is wrong that American citizens are being killed on the streets, that it is wrong that schools are being tear gassed.

But while we are having this difference of opinion on ICE that is sort of hard to understand, don't hold the rest of the Department of Homeland Security hostage to your insistence that the President get to act outside the bounds of law when it comes to the enforcement of our immigration laws.

I am going to offer a motion. And, again, yesterday, we offered a motion to open up all of the rest of the Department of Homeland Security. I am going to offer a more targeted motion.

On the average day, the Coast Guard saves 12 lives, interdicts 1,250 pounds of cocaine, screens 300 vessels. It would be really important to get our Coast Guard opened up.

I know my colleague from Delaware thinks the same thing. Right before I offer the motion, I yield to her for a quick question.

I thank the Senator for the question.

I do.

Especially at a time when the United States is at war, we cannot afford to have our coastlines undefended. The motions that Republicans have been making today have offered to pay the Coast Guard for 2 weeks. That is not good enough.

Right now, this motion that I will make will allow the Coast Guard to be paid for the rest of the year. If the Senator does not object to my motion, then minutes from now, the Coast Guard--the 52,000 people who work for the Coast Guard--will know that we honor their service and that we are going to pay them for the rest of the year, and so here is my motion.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of my bill at the desk that would fund the Coast Guard; that the bill be considered read three times and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

My friend, you have lost the argument with the public. You just have. The public thinks that ICE is out of control. The public does not want ICE to continue operating in the way that they are operating. They have seen the scenes out of Minneapolis. They are watching what is happening in Vermont today. And they don't agree with you. The majority of Americans, by a large margin, say that what is happening today is out of control.

And, yes, you did offer motions to keep the Coast Guard open for 2 weeks. That doesn't help the peace of mind of the 52,000 people who work for the Coast Guard and wonder whether they are going to have more than one paycheck.

You are objecting to a motion to keep them open for the rest of the year. And so tomorrow, when TSA is still not open and the Coast Guard is still not open, and FEMA is still not operating, there is only one reason.

Today you are offering motions to keep them open for 2 weeks, and you are objecting to motions to keep those Agencies open for the whole year. People are going to see the difference.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, I am grateful to be on the floor to hear those moving words about Senator Lee's father--an exceptional man. I thank him for sharing those stories with his colleagues.

Iran

Mr. President, I am on the floor today to talk about the growing, alarming incoherence of the President's war in Iran--an illegal war, a war that he has not sought consent for, a war with an ever-changing rationale and war plan, a war that is costing taxpayers billions of dollars but also costing them at home in their communities, as energy prices continue to soar.

Let me start with the bombing of this girls' elementary school in Iran. I start here because it shows, in this one horrible incident, the insanity and the destined failure of the President's strategy in Iran and the extraordinary ways in which President Trump is lying to the American people about this war.

Trump has, apparently, learned nothing from our nightmares in Iraq and Afghanistan. You cannot bomb a nation into submission. You cannot impose regime change from the air.

What will happen now that an entire nation is looking at images of America murdering little girls at an elementary school? Yes, this was a mistake--no doubt about it. Mistakes happen in war. But these inevitable mistakes are the reason these bombing campaigns almost never, ever achieve their objectives. All these bombing campaigns do-- with the thousands of civilians who, in the end, they kill--is to harden the nation that you are bombing and invading, causing them to take a harder line, to choose harder line leaders--more militant leadership--in order to protect the nation against the enemy invaders who bomb elementary schools.

What makes this incident even more unforgivable is that the President is lying to us. Earlier today, when asked about growing evidence that it was, in fact, a U.S. Tomahawk missile that hit this school, he said:

I don't know about that.

Earlier in the week, when he was asked about the bombing of the girls' school, he said:

Well, I haven't seen it.

He went on to say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around--you know, it is sold and used by other countries, whether it is Iran that has some Tomahawks and wishes they had more or--whether it is Iran or somebody else, the Tomahawk is very generic. The President of the United States knows that Iran doesn't have Tomahawks. The President of the United States should know that we are the only nation using Tomahawks. The idea that he is pretending to not know about the bombing of this school--the idea that he is trying to pretend that the Iranians somehow stole a Tomahawk missile from the United States, figured out how to launch it, and aimed it at a school-- is absurd and offensive.

Further, this administration refuses to be straight with us about the reasons that we are at war. What he has said is that he wants unconditional surrender and that he wants to be involved in the appointment of the next Supreme Leader. That is regime change-- unconditional surrender and the President of the United States choosing the next leader of Iran. But as we have learned in closed-door briefings, that is not actually the Department of Defense's plan. That is not a

goal of the war. We are, in fact, apparently, very satisfied to leave in charge of Iran hardline leadership. The new Supreme Leader is, by most estimates, more radical and likely going to be more provocative and more anti-American than the Supreme Leader whom we killed.

The President told the Iranian people to rush out onto the street. ``Take over your government.'' But he is prepared--his war plan is prepared--to leave in charge of Iran hardline leadership.

Let's be clear. The President is not prepared to come to the defense of the Iranian people if they rise up in the streets. There is nothing in the war plan that suggests we will do that.

The President has also said, over and over and over again, that a goal of the war is to permanently deny Iran the ability to have nuclear weapons. You have heard the President say this. That was in a Department of War press release just days ago.

In our closed-door briefings, we learned that that is, in fact, not a goal of our war plan--that it is not a goal of the war to destroy their nuclear program--which is, of course, not surprising because you cannot destroy Iran's nuclear program from the air. You cannot, A, destroy knowledge. You cannot hunt down with missiles every single Iranian scientist who knows how to build a nuclear reactor. And the materiel is buried so far under the ground to be immune from an air campaign.

So, yes, it stands to reason that one of the goals of this war is not to destroy the nuclear program. But then, why are the President and the Department of Defense telling us that the point of the war is to destroy their nuclear program?

They are not telling the truth about this girls' school that was hit on the first day, and they are not telling the truth about the aims of the war. As we learn more in our closed-door briefings, we learn how unbelievably unprepared they were for the fallout. It is bad enough that they are not telling the truth about why we are at war, but it is incomprehensible that they did not do the basic planning to manage the fallout.

They have no plan to open up the Strait of Hormuz--a totally foreseeable result of a military action against Iran, a completely foreseeable result of murdering the Shia's top religious leader in the middle of the holy month. The strait has now been closed for, effectively, 10 days. There is no plan to reopen it. It is getting worse, not better.

As news broke today that Iran is now, for the first time, mining the strait--and we can't get into this conversation on the floor of the Senate--we all know that, once that mining begins, it is very hard, if not impossible in the short run, to counteract. If the strait is closed for weeks more or months more, that is a global economic catastrophe. Already, my constituents are paying through the nose for this war. It gets infinitely worse if that strait doesn't open up, and the administration has no plan to open it up.

The incompetence and the lying should infuriate every Member of the Senate and every citizen of this country. This war is costing us at least $2 billion a day. There are no achievable war aims. The goals shift from day to day. There is no plan to manage the consequences and the fallout for American citizens or citizens of the Gulf.

You saw stories today of additional new missiles raining down on our Gulf allies. You probably know that they--much faster than we--are running out of the interceptors that stop those missiles. There will be increased deaths in the region very soon because we did not have the adequate supplies ready for our allies in the region to protect themselves against an onslaught of Iranian aerial attacks. It is just incompetence--incompetence--made worse by mistruths and made worse by the President's lying to the American people about what is happening and what the goals are of the war.

At the very least, we need to have Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegseth in front of the Senate. I can't believe that my Republican colleagues don't feel like it is a giant middle finger from the administration that there hasn't been a single hearing on the most significant military action that this country has undertaken in a generation.

What is the point of being a U.S. Senator? Why are we here? Why have we worked so hard to get this job if we are not prepared to ask the administration to come and present to us why they are putting our constituents' lives at risk and why they are driving up the costs at home for our constituents as this war continues to exacerbate rising prices?

We are abdicating our responsibility as Senators. No, let me put it more specifically. Republican leadership and Senators are abdicating their responsibility as Senators--because they run the place--by refusing to demand that the administration come and testify in public.

All we have had are closed-door briefings. There is a limited amount of what we learn behind those doors that we can talk about. Increasingly, it is pretty obvious why the administration will not talk publicly about the Iran war, why they will not come and answer questions before the U.S. Congress--because they have no plan that is achievable. They have a rationale for this war that is shifting by the hour, and they have no plan--no way--to protect the American people from the consequences of their incoherence.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Republicans have learned nothing from decades of American hubris in the Middle East, believing that U.S. troops, U.S. planes, U.S. guns, and U.S. bombs could fundamentally change realities in a far-off land.

Democrats have learned our lesson. We watched as thousands of American soldiers died in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

We listened to Donald Rumsfeld say that the Iraq war would be over in 5 days, 5 weeks, maybe 5 months. It created an insurgency inside the Middle East that we are still dealing with today--20 years in Afghanistan, a mismanaged war from the start. The Taliban is back in charge.

We ran planes over Libya to release the people from captivity imposed upon them by Qadhafi, only to unleash a new civil war that killed thousands upon thousands.

It is amazing to me that my Republican colleagues refuse to learn lessons. It is amazing to me that my Republican colleagues refuse to listen to the American people, who do not want American soldiers and American lives and their taxpayer dollars wasted on endeavors in the Middle East that are going to make things worse, not better.

I heard my friend Senator Graham in his analysis of the Ayatollah. I agree with him. But not everything is World War II. Not every effort at regime change works. In fact, regrettably,

World War II and our operations against Hitler are the exception, not the norm. Whether it be in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria or Libya, over and over again, trillions of dollars in American taxpayer money has been spent to try to create regime change, and we have been frustrated and denied in those efforts, and we have lost lives in that process.

When are we going to learn?

And that is the message that we are sending the Iranian people. I was in the briefing with my Republican colleagues. I don't think any of us left that briefing believing that the American military was going to ride to the rescue of the Iranian people when they arrive in the streets to protest for freedom.

You can't support a people's revolution from the air. Only ground forces could support and protect the Iranian people when they show up in the squares of that nation, protesting for democracy.

But I am telling you that it looks like the plan is to leave the Iranian people hanging out to dry, because if all we are doing is dropping bombs on targeted sites inside Iran, if we are not actually involved in a regime change--and, by the way, we have been told, over and over again, by this administration that we are not going to quibble over who runs Iran next, even if it ends up being a hard-line government. Then we are goading the Iranian people out onto the streets, with the implicit promise that we will be there with them but the decision made behind closed doors that we will not.

Six Americans have already died for an illegal war that no one in this country wants. And 900 to 1,000 people in the region have died. U.S. Embassies all over the region are under attack. Thousands of Shia Muslims in Pakistan right now are protesting--a Shia insurgency targeting the United States in the works. Iranian missile and drone attacks have hit targets as far away as Cyprus.

Oil prices are up by 9 percent. Gasoline prices had their largest 1- day increase in 20 years. Natural gas prices are up 45 percent. The region is in chaos.

American consumers are paying the price, and for what? We still don't even know the reason for this war. Half the administration is out there saying: Well, Israel pulled us in.

I hear my friend Senator Graham saying that this was a war of choice, but half the administration is saying it wasn't, saying that Iran was going to attack and the only reason that we got involved was because Israel was going to attack, and the only reason we got involved was because we feared the blowback from Iran. We were dragged into the war by Bibi Netanyahu.

Others, like Senator Graham and sometimes President Trump, say: No, America decided on our own to enter this war.

But then for what? Are we engaged in regime change or not? If you aren't engaged in regime change, why did you take out the Ayatollah and all of those who were surrounding him? That clearly is a signal that you want regime change.

Are we going after their nuclear program or not? We all know that airpower alone cannot eliminate their nuclear capacity.

And if the goal is not regime change and we accept that new hard-line leadership is going to take over in Iran, then that is a recipe for perpetual war, because the only way that you will be able to destroy their capacity to make missiles and drones is to be permanently running jets overhead and constantly bombing the new sites that the hard-line regime sets up.

That is endless war. That is trillions of dollars. And for what? If, at the end of this engagement, there is harder line leadership in charge of Iran than at the beginning, then why do we do it? If at the end of this process, because we won't go in with ground forces, the nuclear program still exists, why did we do it? If we are going to hang the Iranian people out to dry and we aren't going to get their back when they stand up against the regime, why did we do it?

The first several days of this conflict have been criminally incompetent, shifting rationales for the war; no plan to get American assets protected, to get Americans out of the region; shifting explanations for what the purpose of the war is and very mixed messages to the Iranian people.

History tells us that an air campaign alone will never be successful in toppling a despotic regime. In fact, without--let me caveat that: without the serious threat of a ground invasion. History, in fact, tells us that what is most likely to happen is that it hardens the resolve of the existing regime; that it ends up in even worse, more provocative, more dangerous leadership taking hold.

President Trump seemed to think out loud in comments he made yesterday. He was asked what the worst case scenario was, and, as if it had just occurred to him for the first time, he said: Yes, I think the worst case scenario would be that we do all this bombing, we spend a trillion dollars, a whole bunch of lives get lost, and it ends up with the Iranians choosing even harder line leadership that are more provocative and dangerous and deadly in the region.

That is not the worst case scenario. That is the most likely scenario. And the idea that it is just occurring to him that this thing may go off the rails, as almost every other engagement in the region has over the last several decades, should be stunning to all of you.

The alternative then is a ground invasion, which no one in this country wants. No one in this country wants that. That would kill tens of thousands of Americans. Yes, it might end up with you being able to prop up a democratic regime. You might actually be able to get the nuclear program with a ground invasion, but that is tens of thousands of Americans dead in the process.

Air campaign: proven to be ineffective to carry out the goals that are being articulated by the administration. Ground invasion: deadly, impossible to rally the American people around. This is a no-win strategy. It is a no-win strategy, and the cost to the American people is substantial: higher prices, Americans dead, and, frankly, just a President distracted--a President who seems to care more about running Venezuela and dropping bombs on Iran than he does care about the American people.

So I know many of my Republican colleagues, including the last speaker, have been, historically, incredibly optimistic about the difference the American military can make in the Middle East, with zero evidence of that to be the case.

President Trump was elected, in part, because he promised he wasn't going to get the United States involved in another Middle Eastern war. People took him seriously, and now he has gotten us involved in the most significant new conflict in the region in decades.

Let me say one final thing. I am supportive of Senator Kaine's resolution, but it is not an authorization of military force. Our most sacred obligation as a Congress is to authorize war, and a President is prohibited by the Constitution and by the statutes of the United States from entering into war without that authorization.

I am glad we are having this debate, but it is not a substitute for an authorization of military force. Even if it fails, that does not give the President legal permission to carry out this endeavor.

Senator Graham held up a poster in which he showed that there were 130 different occasions in which various Presidents of the United States have engaged in military actions overseas without the consent of Congress. That is true. But that doesn't mean that it is legal or constitutional.

If your neighbor breaks into your house 130 times in a row, that doesn't mean that it is suddenly permissible by law.

In fact, the outrage gets more acute and more serious as the brazen lawlessness and unconstitutional actions of an administration get more regular.

We need to authorize this war. I, frankly, believe that we shouldn't proceed with other business until we get a commitment to have a debate on an authorization of military force. I don't think it would pass. I think it is easier for some of our colleagues to come up with some procedural justification to vote against the War Powers Resolution than it is to put their name on a proactive declaration of war.

So I want that debate. I think the Senate has to demand that debate. I think our legacy will be soured as a body if we let this, the most significant

military action in the Middle East since the Iraq war, persist without using whatever leverage we have to have a debate on this war.

It is really hard--I will wrap up. I know I have colleagues on the floor who want to speak.

It is really hard to encapsulate in one speech how dangerous, how inane, how illegal, how ill-planned this war with Iran is, especially just after the first few days. We are likely going to end up with a worse Iranian regime at the end. We are telling the Iranian people to rise up on the streets, but we have no plan to support them if they do.

We cannot, with an air campaign alone, take out their nuclear program if it is buried underground. We cannot, with an air campaign, take out their missile and drone program, unless we are basically ready to bomb Iran permanently. That is a trillion-dollar war that lasts years.

We aren't prepared to do the thing that would end the regime and take out the nuclear program--a ground invasion--because, of course, the cost of that would be thousands of American lives.

So worse people take over in the end than the Ayatollah. We don't end their nuclear program. We don't end their weapons program. We leave the Iranian people out to dry.

And at what cost? Oil and gas prices are spiking. Grocery and household items won't be far behind. A half dozen families are about to bury their dead children. The military tells us there is going to be a lot more casualties to come. This war is going to cost trillions of dollars. That means no money to lower your healthcare premiums, no money to fix your kids' schools, because all the money is going to go to billion-dollar defense companies that profit off of endless war.

This is a disaster, and it is made more of a disaster because we are not going to actually debate an authorization of military force. This is not a substitute for that debate, and I think all of my Democratic colleagues agree.

We should not sugarcoat this. This is already a disaster of epic proportions, and I am just going to tell you it is likely to get worse.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we all swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, and that means that we have an obligation to fund the government--but only a government that is complying with the Constitution, that is obeying and being restrained by the Bill of Rights, that is upholding the laws of the land.

Right now, the Department of Homeland Security is out of control. They are not upholding the Constitution. They are not complying with the law. They are not respecting Americans' rights.

They are tear-gassing schools. They are murdering American citizens. They are disappearing legal immigrants to this country.

Right now, we are not funding the Department of Homeland Security because Democrats have made it clear that we would be violating our oath of office if we funded a Department that is using taxpayer dollars to violate the Constitution and the law.

I wanted to come down to the floor this evening to remind my colleagues about what is happening all over the country, because now that we are trading legislative texts, now that we are deep in the weeds of immigration policy, the real life experience of people in this country, of communities that are being terrorized by an out-of-control ICE, risks getting lost in the discussion.

So I want to spend just a few minutes reminding my colleagues on both sides of the aisle what the stakes are here, what the real world looks like out there if you are on the receiving end of a Department of Homeland Security that doesn't care about your rights as an American citizen or as a resident of this country.

And so I want to go through some of the most egregious, out-of- control, illegal, unconstitutional practices that ICE has been utilizing all across the country over the course of the last year. I want to get specific with you so that you know why we believe this moment is so serious, why American citizens believe this moment is so serious, because this isn't just an opinion held by Democrats, who are simply saying: If we are going to fund ICE, it has got to be an ICE that is obeying the law.

This is what the American people think, who have watched images like this and others that I will show you and have said from both sides of the aisle--Republicans, Democrats, Independents--that we don't want this ICE; we don't want this Department of Homeland Security. We want the immigration laws of this country to be upheld but not through the abuse of people's rights, not through violence.

This is a screenshot of a video that went viral all across the country about a month ago. The man in this video's name is Ramon Menera. He was stopped by a Border Patrol agent outside his home in a Minneapolis suburb.

First of all, you may ask: Why is a Border Patrol agent outside a Minneapolis suburb? That is not on the border.

Well, that is the first thing that has gone wrong here. CBP, HSI, and all sorts of Agencies that we fund in order to do very specific jobs are now doing an entirely different job--interior immigration enforcement. That is violative of the appropriations law. We don't fund CBP to be wandering suburbs in Minneapolis, looking for people who they want to detain.

This should be a prerogative that matters to both Republicans and Democrats. Our spending power and the spending power in the Constitution is vested in the legislative branch. Our spending power is mute, is pointless--we are powerless--if we tell the administration we are giving you this amount of money to spend on protecting the border, and they just say: Screw it. We are not going to use that money to protect the border. We are going to take those people, and we are going to put them on a different job that they are not trained for.

Well, when you have CBP agents who are not trained to wander apartment complexes, searching for people they want to detain, things like this happen every single day.

Ramon Menera was stopped and cuffed because of his accent. This is actually what the agent tells him in this video. If you go online and watch this video, you will hear the agent tell Ramon Menera that he is being detained because he has an accent.

Ramon Menera is a U.S. citizen. Guess what. There are a lot of U.S. citizens who have accents. Frankly, most of us have forefathers that, when they came to the United States, had an accent. That is not a justification for you to be detained.

He was even carrying his ID on him. All the agent had to do was check his ID to confirm that he was a U.S. citizen. But the agent did not check his ID. Instead, that agent arrested him, put his wrists in zip ties, and took him away from his property. He was forcibly detained by Border Patrol even though he was a U.S. citizen.

This didn't happen just once. This has happened thousands of times all across the country. It is still happening today--that individuals who are legally in this country are being detained, zip-tied, and arrested because they have an accent, because they look like they might be from Mexico or from Central or South America.

It gets worse, though. Ramon's 5-year-old daughter was inside and watched this entire incident through the window--5 years old. To this day, she has refused to go outside since because she fears for the masked men that arrested, zip-tied, and detained her U.S. citizen father.

The reason that we are demanding that these indiscriminate roving patrols--these ``show your papers,'' ``arrest you if you have an accent'' patrols--end is because they are fundamentally un-American, and they are illegal. And yet they continue. So unless we restrain them in law, unless we stop ICE and CBP and HSI from wandering through suburban neighborhoods, listening for people who may have accents and zip-tying them until they can prove that they are an American citizen, then they will continue.

This should upset Republicans just as much as it upsets Democrats-- the idea that this man, a U.S. citizen, was zip-tied, detained, and arrested while his 5-year-old daughter watched, even though he had ID on him proving he was an American citizen. This has to end, and we shouldn't fund ICE until it does end.

In another quiet Minnesota suburb--this one called St. Peter--a woman sat alone in her car, observing and recording ICE officers as they patrolled her community. This should go without saying, but it clearly needs to be said anyway: What this woman was doing is fully protected by the Constitution. Observing and recording Federal agents and local law enforcement is a First Amendment right. You get that right by being born in the United States of America, being a resident of the United States of America. It is not suspicious. It is not a crime. But ICE doesn't like that people are watching them, tracking their illegality.

So what happened next should alarm every American citizen. Three unmarked ICE vehicles began chasing this woman down a rural road. When she didn't pull over, they boxed her in. As soon as she stopped, these three masked agents jumped out of their vehicles immediately with guns drawn, screaming at her to get out of her car.

Again, she has committed no crime, no traffic violation. She refused. She calmly asserted her rights. The agents then forced her door open, dragged this woman onto the road and handcuffed her. This is an unarmed woman who had committed no crime. She is alone on a country road, and an unmarked car boxes her in, and out jump masked men with guns and drag her out of her car.

That is not the United States of America. That is Stalinist Russia. That is Maduro's Venezuela. We don't allow, in this country, masked men to pull over law-abiding citizens, in unmarked cars, and drag them out onto the road.

They put her in her vehicle. They began driving her in this car to Minneapolis. About 20 minutes later, the agents received a call from their supervisor. The woman's husband had contacted the St. Peter Police Department and reached the police chief, and the chief called the ICE officers and told them they were violating the law and to let this woman out.

The only reason we know this story is because, when her husband arrived,

he started recording it and we have these frightening images.

For every incident that we see like this, there are hundreds of others that we don't, and it won't end until we decide as a body to require that ICE officers stop wearing masks, identify themselves, and record what they are doing.

This should alarm anybody who believes in the rule of law. This photo was taken--I want to get this one right. It is outside of Roosevelt High School, and on a Wednesday afternoon in Minneapolis while students and faculty were gathered outside of the high school for early dismissal, armed, masked Border Patrol officers, some from the elite special forces team, crossed over onto school property and began tackling people.

They handcuffed two members of the faculty. They released chemical irritants into the crowd of students and teachers, and in videos taken by witnesses, you can see the agents firing tear gas. This is at a school. Just when the kids are all congregated after school outside the school, they are firing tear gas into these students.

Chaos erupts. Dozens of kids run. They take shelter at a nearby library. Let me say that again. Children are running from Federal agents who are tear-gassing them to find shelter in a nearby library. One school official told a reporter that the agents ``didn't care. They're just animals. I've never seen people behave like this.''

The school was forced to close for the rest of the week. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, before the Trump administration, there was a policy that ICE did not operate in sensitive locations, in schools, in hospitals, in churches, and daycares, places where there were lots of little kids, sacred places.

These aren't supposed to be battlegrounds. These are places where children and other vulnerable populations are known to be. But this continues. Schools are under assault.

And so what are we saying? Not another dime for DHS if they are going to use taxpayer dollars to turn schools into scenes of terror. The use of Federal funds to conduct immigration enforcement at sensitive locations should be prohibited, full stop.

You probably recognize this car. That is the blood of Renee Good. This photo was taken after an ICE agent shot and killed her, an unarmed American citizen, a mother of three. But here is the story I want to tell--not the story of the incident, the story of what happened after the incident.

After the incident, career Federal prosecutors did exactly what they were supposed to do, they moved quickly to preserve evidence. They began coordinating with State authorities to investigate a potential use of excessive force. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension-- these are the experts when it comes to police shootings--were prepared to work alongside the FBI to determine the facts.

But they never got to determine the facts. The career Federal prosecutors never got to do their job because the Trump administration intervened.

Senior officials at the Department of Justice shut down the investigation. The Trump administration shut down the investigation of the murder of Renee Good.

Why? Because they worried that the investigation would actually come to a factual conclusion because the Trump administration had decided within hours that Renee Good was a terrorist and they were only interested in an investigation that confirmed their political judgment.

The career prosecutors refused to go along, and instead, they resigned. When political pressure overrides independent investigation, justice fails, and democracy dies. This is exactly why we are demanding that if we are going to send our taxpayer dollars to fund ICE, we have to be able to protect the authority of States and localities to investigate potential crimes, including excessive force by Federal officers.

Evidence has got to be preserved and shared, and investigations have to be impartial. That is not a wild demand. Just investigate murders. Investigate the killing of American citizens, like we have always done. Under no circumstances should we be funding a Department of Homeland Security that believes, as the Vice President said, that they have complete immunity for killing American citizens.

Independent investigations, a pretty reasonable demand.

Finally, this is a letter. You are not going to be able to read this 14-year-old's actually pretty legible handwriting, but her name is Ariana. And Ariana and her mom Stephanie were in the country legally. They were immigrants in this country, but they were playing by the rules. Her mom had gotten a work permit. They were doing their regular check-ins with ICE, and then everything changed.

One day, they walked in to do their regular check-in, again, complying with the law, applying for asylum, had gone and gotten a work permit, not working under the table. They went to do their check-in, and they were swept away and detained.

You have this image that the Trump administration tries to proffer that they are going after violent criminals or maybe they are going after only the people who snuck into the country.

No, no. Ariana and her mom Stephanie came to the United States legally, applied for asylum legally, got a work permit legally, were showing up to their check-ins, and they were sucked into the detention system--14 years old.

The law says you are supposed to keep kids in detention for only 25 days. Ariana was there for 45 days. Again, ICE violated the law. She was sent to a detention center called Dilley. I went down to Dilley, tried to do an inspection of Dilley. I am the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Appropriations. I was denied entry to Dilley.

I met, later that night, two younger boys, younger than Ariana, who had been in Dilley for over a month, month and a half through Christmas.

I sat and looked at these boys. I sat across the table from them for about an hour. They were alive on the outside, but they were dead on the inside. They were dead on the inside.

They spent Christmas in a detention center. They call it the baby jail in Texas because there are literally hundreds of kids, most of them under 5 years old, who are being detained in prison cells.

Ariana wrote this letter to try to tell the world what the conditions were like inside: Since I got to this center, all you feel is sadness and depression. People have their courts, but they only last 15 minutes. Our rights are not being provided. We don't have schools, doctors. All they have here are nurses. If you need medical attention, the longest you have to wait is 3 hours, but to get any medicine, pill or anything, it takes a while. There are viruses here all the time getting people sick. Serious situations happen, and the officers can't take them serious enough. There are no consequences. They don't care.

Limited or no access to medical care, no access to legal representation, apathetic guards, traumatized kids, that is the reality of what is happening inside of these detention centers.

In a center down the road from Dilley called Pearsall, there is--I don't know--1,500, 2,000 people in that facility. That facility is just for adults. Do you know how many rooms there are for legal consultations? Four. It is all rigged. It is all rigged. They sweep up legal immigrants like Stephanie and Ariana. They throw them into detention. They don't let them see their lawyers, and they disappear them back to their home country.

This isn't America. The Bill of Rights still matters here. The Constitution still matters here. In this country, we don't have unidentified masked men ripping American citizens out of their cars. We don't allow Federal law enforcement officers to shoot and kill American citizens with impunity.

We allow people to apply for legal status. We don't choose to intentionally traumatize children. We don't let officials wander around communities listening for accents and zip-tying people who don't speak the way that they think Americans should speak.

We are demanding that ICE follow the law. We are asking our Republican colleagues to join us in strengthening the law to make sure that these roving patrols, these murders with impunity, this traumatizing of children, the tear-gassing of schools ends.

We would still enforce American immigration laws, but we would do it in a humane, legal way. So I appreciate the time of my colleagues today.

I wanted to walk you through what is happening. This is all still happening. Just because all the TV cameras aren't in Minneapolis any longer doesn't mean that these practices aren't still real. And until ICE decides to act in a legal manner, we shouldn't give them one more dime.

That is our constitutional--that is our constitutional-- responsibility.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I think our caucus was confused and frustrated by how long it took for our Republican colleagues to come to the table and start discussions.

The minute that we passed a 2-week continuing resolution for the Department of Homeland Security, we knew we were going to have to enter into some hard discussions about how we can rein in ICE's lawlessness, which is what the American people demand. And yet during the first week of that 2-week continuing resolution, there was no clarity over whom we were supposed to be negotiating with. Was it Senate Republicans? Was it the White House?

And, in fact, it wasn't until last night, literally on the verge of the shutdown, that we got our first offer of text from the White House--far too late to be able to engage in any compromise before the deadline.

So I wish we weren't here. I wish our Republican colleagues and the White House had shown more seriousness from the start.

But Senate Democrats have been clear that we have all taken an oath-- an oath to uphold the law of the country--and this Department of Homeland Security, this ICE, is out of control. They are tear-gassing our children's schools. They are killing American citizens. They are disappearing legal migrants.

I went down to Texas, a couple of weeks ago, and sat across a table from two elementary school students who had been detained illegally for 6 weeks over Christmas, while their mother wasn't home. It was a choice ICE made to traumatize and terrorize these children. Those children were alive on the outside but dead on the inside.

So, yes, we believe we have a constitutional obligation to only fund a Department of Homeland Security that is obeying the law, and this Department of Homeland Security is not obeying the law.

So I am hopeful that these discussions will continue. But, frankly, we

had plenty of time to get a deal in the last 2 weeks, and the lack of seriousness from the White House and from Republicans, not getting language until last night, has put us in the position we are in today.

We want to fund the Department of Homeland Security, but only a Department that is obeying the law, and for that reason, I would object.

Mr. President, I just want to reiterate that we got the language last night. We have been in a 2-week continuing resolution, and last night, we got the first offer of legislation from the White House.

We are not in charge. The Senate Democrats aren't in charge. We don't run the House. We don't run the White House.

We waited for a week for there to be some process to be convened. We got no signal as to what that negotiation would look like. So we finally put our proposals--our text--on the table and didn't get an offer back until last night.

My wish is for my Republican colleagues to be just as upset as they are about what is going to happen next week at TSA or at FEMA as for the children that are being traumatized right now in this country, who are being thrown into what is called the ``Baby Jail,'' outside of San Antonio; for the lives that are fundamentally changed by an immigration policy that is out of control; to have concern for the American citizens who have been killed simply exercising their First Amendment rights; to care about the 4 million Americans who are losing their insurance, as we speak, because this administration has chosen to put money into a lawless immigration enforcement operation instead of protecting people's healthcare.

That is what is happening in America today. Four million people are losing their healthcare insurance. Twenty million people are having their rates go through the roof because the priority is flooding Minneapolis with ICE agents; chasing down kids at schoolbus stops, as they were doing just 2 days ago in Minneapolis, instead of protecting people's healthcare.

People are losing healthcare in this country so as to fund this runaway Department of Homeland Security.

And so we all have outrage about what is happening in this country today, and I don't know why it took the White House until last night to send any semblance of specifics on what they were willing to work for.

We have an obligation, as Members of Congress, to fund a government that obeys the law. This Department of Homeland Security is not obeying the law. They are not. And I would argue that every Member of this body, whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, in order to uphold your oath of office, should not be funding an Agency that isn't complying with the Constitution and the statutes of the United States.

So I do regret that we are at a moment in which we are not going to be able to fund the Department of Homeland Security, but there is a simple solution. If the Agency starts behaving lawfully, if they start obeying the Constitution, then we can get back on the same page.

This is an exceptional moment in this country's history, and my hope is that these negotiations move fast, expeditiously, and that perhaps, as soon as we return--or if the majority leader would like to call us back into session next week--we can get the Department back up and operating. But that is only going to happen with reforms.

That is only going to happen with more serious engagement from the White House than has happened thus far.

Mr. President, the tendency here in the Senate often, when Democrats are lodging a complaint about Donald Trump, is for our Republican colleagues to issue an argumentative equivalency: Well, Donald Trump did this, but so did Joe Biden. Donald Trump did that, but Joe Biden did this.

We are at a moment today, though, in which there is no argument of equivalency. And, in fact, over and over again in the past year, we have seen threats to our democracy that have no historical precedent.

We must be able to agree that never before in the history of the Senate has a President of the United States sought to jail Members of this body based upon their political opposition to the President of the United States.

All that our colleagues did was record a video in which they simply repeated the law of the land, the existing military code. They said things into a camera that the current Secretary of Defense has said himself, almost verbatim.

But because he was reciting, because she was reciting a portion of the military code that the President objects to, because it was inherently a criticism of the President, they are now facing down possible indictment.

It doesn't really matter that the grand jury refused to indict because, if they continue to come back over and over again for an indictment, they will likely find, at some point, some compliant grand jury, and we will find our colleagues headed to jail simply for exercising their free speech.

Never before in the history of our country has something like this happened. And I understand that for all of us who have grown up in a relatively safe and secure American democracy, contested by foreign adversaries but never under any real threat that we were going to lose the democracy from within, we have come to believe some sense of inevitability about the survivability of American democracy.

But every civilization, every form of government, has an expiration date. Every attempt at republicanism or democracy, over the course of this globe's history, has ended, and ours will end at some point. Our job as Senators, whether you have an ``R'' after your name or a ``D'' after your name is to make sure that that end doesn't happen on our watch.

And at some point, you have to look at the series of exceptional, unprecedented events that have happened in the last year and see them as part of an unprecedented, ahistorical pattern.

I agree with my colleagues. Long ago, in my mind, we crossed the redline. But think about it, if the shoe were on the other foot. I want my Republican colleagues to think about what you would say if a Democratic President opened up a criminal investigation into the Chairman of the Federal Reserve simply over a dispute over interest rate policy.

What would my Republican colleagues say if a Democratic President deployed the National Guard against a Republican State like Texas or Louisiana? Would our Republican colleagues think it was a redline if Sean Hannity was taken down, off the air, by a Democratic President's FCC? What would Republicans say?

Would it be a confrontation with American democracy if journalists were removed from a Democratic President's Pentagon because of their critical stories about the Democratic administration's policy?

Would Republicans think there was a problem if universities were denied funding because they weren't hiring enough liberal, leftwing professors? How about if a Democratic President confiscated ballots in one of your States so as to prove that Donald Trump didn't really win the election--that it was fraudulent?

Or what if he indicted or attempted to indict two of your Members, two Republicans, simply because they had raised their voices in objection to a Democratic President's policies?

We all know the answer to every single one of those questions. If a Democratic President had done any of those things, you would be shutting down the U.S. Senate. You would be labeling each and every one of them as a potentially existential threat to our democracy, and you would use every lever available to you to try to confront that abuse of power.

There is no equivalency argument. President Biden didn't do any of the things that I just listed. And, yes, I know my Republican colleagues have objections about the way that he used the Department of Justice, objections about the things he said about Republicans, but never, never were Republican Senators facing a grand jury, the threat of indictment hanging over their heads simply because they spoke truth that a Democratic President objected to.

At some point, this democracy will die, and our purpose here is to improve the quality of life for our constituents but to protect the democracy at all costs. There has to be a bipartisan response to the broad abuses of power but, specifically, right now, to the fact that two of our colleagues are on the verge of being arrested by this President simply based on their political opposition to the President.

This is a moment where we could decide to agree. Not everything has to be skins and shirts. Not everything that we think has to automatically be wrong. We could very easily decide this week that it is not acceptable for the President of the United States to attempt to throw into jail his political opponents in the Senate and in the House.

And maybe that could provide a springboard for us to decide that there are other abuses of Presidential authority that may, in the long run, harm both Republican and Democratic interests but fundamentally harm the health of our democracy, and that we could join together in league against as well.

This is a moment of test for the Senate. I agree with my colleague Senator Schatz. This is a moment that could break this institution permanently if it is only Democrats standing up here and defending our colleagues.

It should matter first that they are Senators, that they were elected by the people of their State to represent Republicans and Democrats in their State. It should matter second the party that is listed after their name.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, over the course of the last year, President Trump has been engaged in just a stunning array of acts to enrich himself and his family using government policy, the power of the White House to essentially trade away U.S. policy, U.S. national security secrets in exchange for investments in Trump himself, making himself rich off of being President of the United States.

I am coming to the floor today because over the weekend, through good old-fashioned investigative journalism, we discovered what might be the most corrupt act in this administration amidst a dizzying array of daily corruption.

The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that 4 days before Donald Trump's inauguration, an investment firm closely tied to the United Arab Emirates secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49-percent stake in a company called World Liberty Financial. That is the Trump family's fledgling cryptocurrency venture. They run that business in coordination with the Witkoff family--the Witkoff family, of course, headed by Steve Witkoff, who is, not coincidentally, the President's chief Middle East adviser.

The company that made the investment that took this 49 percent stake is backed by an individual named Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. That is UAE's National Security Advisor. But he is also deeply embedded in a number of very important companies that dole out investments from the United Arab Emirates.

One of the companies he is involved in--Tahnoon is involved in--is an AI firm called G42. This is all important to understand the scope of what we just discovered over the weekend.

On behalf of his company, G42, Tahnoon has been arguing that the United States should sell G42, a UAE company, our most sensitive AI chips. We have not sold this hardware to UAE in the past. Both Republican and Democratic administrations, both Republican and Democratic Members of the Senate, both Republican and Democratic Members of the House have said we cannot sell this advanced AI hardware to UAE because of the well-known integration of UAE's national security service, including this individual, with China.

So we have never sold these chips to UAE because we were pretty sure--and, again, this was a bipartisan consensus. We were pretty sure that these chips would just flow straight to China, and China cannot-- cannot--get control of this advanced AI hardware.

It was shocking to most national security experts, shocking to Republicans and Democrats in Congress, when, shortly after the President's inauguration, he decided, against the advice of his national security advisors, to sell these chips to the UAE and, in particular, to this company owned by Sheikh Tahnoon.

Let me just accentuate the bipartisan nature of the opposition to this decision to transfer the technology to the UAE. In 2024, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, raised the concern and asked for a probe of Microsoft's $1.5 billion investment into G42. Again, this is Republican Chairman McCaul says to the Biden administration: I need you to do an investigation into--not the U.S. Government transfer, but Microsoft's investment into G42--citing integration between the UAE and China.

As I noted, it has been reported that this decision to sell these chips, valued at $1 billion, was done over the objection of the senior national security officials, including the Senior Director for Technology at the NSC who argued for restricting access to these advanced chips.

But Trump goes through with the sale, leaving everybody scratching their heads. This is really bad for American national security. Everybody knows if you give these chips to the UAE, they are going to likely find their way into Chinese hands, but he green-lights the sale of $1 billion of these advanced chips.

And this weekend we found out the likely reason: Secretly, days before the administration, this UAE company, helmed by the individual who stands to benefit by the sale of the chips, makes an investment of $500 million secretly in Donald Trump's company World Liberty Financial.

Now, just so you have no illusions, there is no separation between Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, and World Liberty Financial. World Liberty Financial is affiliated with a company called DT Marks DEFI LLC, and President Trump reportedly owns 70 percent of that company. The rest of the 30 percent is believed to be split amongst Trump's sons.

DT Marks, by the way, is not held by the Trump Organization or any of its companies; it is a company owned directly by Donald Trump.

Steve Witkoff said that he was divesting his stake in this company, World Liberty Financial, but in a disclosure that he filed as late as September of last year just months ago, he still had a stake, a financial interest in that company.

So Steve Witkoff, the Middle East adviser, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, direct owner stakes in World Liberty Financial, days before the inauguration, a $500 million payment, a deal to pay World Liberty Financial $500 million for a 49-percent stake is done in secret.

Now, we don't know the full extent of that sale, but at the very least, $187 million is going directly from this UAE company into the Trump family's pockets, at least $31 million is going directly from this UAE company into the pocket of the Witkoff family.

It is not a coincidence that a secret deal is done in which a foreign government puts money directly into the hands of the President of the United States, secretly, and then very soon

thereafter we find out that the President is throwing out years of national security policy. He is discarding the advice of his advisers, and he is going to hand that country that just gave him $187 million national security secrets.

Now, of course, this isn't the first time that President Trump has done business with this particular individual, because Sheikh Tahnoon also runs a company called MGX. MGX put $2 billion worth of investment towards the President's business empire earlier in the year.

Now, this was done in public, so we saw it all for ourselves. But it was no less corrupt just because it wasn't discovered by journalists. In that deal, this UAE company decided to finance an investment in a company called Binance with Donald Trump's cryptocoin. At the time, Trump's cryptocoin was a fledgling product in the market. It did not have any big backers.

Guess who comes to the rescue? Sheikh Tahnoon with another one of his companies. He finances a $2 billion investment in Binance with Trump's cryptocoin, almost overnight making that cryptocoin one of the most successful--one of the most highly traded in the industry.

Now, in that case, the investment wasn't directly by UAE into Donald Trump's company. It was financing a venture in Binance with Trump's cryptocoin. But just because the corruption was a little bit more oblique, doesn't mean that it wasn't corruption.

In this case--in this case--it is a direct investment by a foreign government, a half a billion dollars directly into a company controlled and run by the President of the United States.

There is no record in the history of the United States of a foreign government making a direct investment in a company owned by the President of the United States. No wonder they did this in secret. No wonder they tried to get away with it without anybody knowing.

The UAE doesn't give this money away for nothing. They were asking for these national security secrets. They were asking for this advanced chip technology.

And it is just not a coincidence. You don't have to be born yesterday to understand that there is a connection between the payment to Donald Trump, the investment in his business, and the transfer of the national security secrets.

I just don't want this to become normal. I just don't want us to paper over multimillion-dollar corruption--the President of the United States, every single day, profiting off of his position. I don't understand why our Republican colleagues excuse this. The White House has become a nonstop corruption machine.

Never, ever before in the history of the country has the President of the United States so openly, so brazenly, so consistently worked to use the immense power of the Presidency to enrich himself. Never before in the history of the Nation has something like this happened in secret: The President of the United States taking payments from foreign governments, put in his own pockets, and then handing them national security favors that the United States had never been willing to do in the past.

You know, back during the Biden administration, there were endless hearings. There were nonstop speeches on this floor about the Biden crime family. You guys went wild over this, despite not a single allegation ever being made of an exchange by President Biden giving favorable government treatment in exchange for a personal benefit to the President.

The closest Republicans ever came was that the President's son Hunter Biden had been named to the board of an energy company in Ukraine when his father worked on Ukraine policy.

You know how many boards the Trump kids have been named to in the last 12 months? You know how many contracts, government contracts, have been given to those companies that the Trump kids just got put on the boards of magically when their father became President?

Listen, what Hunter Biden did was wrong. I said it at the time. He shouldn't have been on that board. But there was never a single allegation that President Biden did anything for that company that his son was on the board of or got a single dollar in exchange for his son's service on that board--investigations, speeches, hundreds of hours on FOX New--not a single allegation.

Trump enriches himself every single day off his office--every single day. Foreign governments buy him things--luxury planes, investments in his companies, sweetheart deals, licenses to build hotels--all in exchange for favorable treatment from the U.S. Government. It is all out there in the open for people to see.

This was a case in which they knew it was so egregious--it was so wrong--that they did it in private. What we are talking about here is stunning: a secret payment of at least $187 million to Trump's family; a payment of at least $31 million to the family of Trump's top Middle East adviser; and then, soon after, a gift of national security secrets to the UAE that, up until those two secret payments, every American President had refused to give. That is corruption. Those are the elements of a bribe. This is potentially criminal conduct.

The rule of law may be suspended today. Republicans may not be willing to do anything about this corruption simply because the President is of your party. For now, Trump and his friends may get away with these crimes and with this corruption, but the rule of law is coming back. And when it does, everyone who has greased their palms off government service--trading government favors for cash and violating the laws of this Nation--are going to jail.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my friend from New Jersey. Mine will sound very familiar.

Listen, ICE is out of control right now. They are killing American citizens. They are endangering the safety of our cities--in particular, Minneapolis. They are just lawless.

This Nation was horrified when they saw the video of Alex Pretti, exercising his First Amendment rights, gunned down in cold blood, but I will be honest: They were just as terrified by the response from the administration. Almost within minutes, before any investigation took place, this young man, an ICU nurse who cared for veterans, was being called an assassin, was being named as a domestic terrorist.

It is chilling to the American public that the people in charge of our Federal Government would lie this willingly, this casually. It is chilling that anyone who opposes this President or participates in organized protests is immediately labeled a ``terrorist.'' That is what happens in despotic, totalitarian countries--anyone that opposes the regime is labeled a ``terrorist.'' That is not what is supposed to happen in the United States of America.

So the focus of this country right now is squarely on Minneapolis.

By the way, there has been a lot of ink spilled over the last 24 hours about the administration's deescalation in Minneapolis, substituting one leader for another. Tom Homan is not an avatar of reasonableness, listening and parsing the President's words as he tries to distance himself a little bit from the most outrageous things that people like Stephen Miller have said. But if you talk to our colleagues from Minnesota, they will tell you that nothing has changed. Today is just like yesterday.

In a nursery school today, there is blinds down, recess canceled, signs on the door: All of our staff have been vetted by ICE. We have no one illegal here.

Kids don't know what is going on as they are ushered in by escorts to their nursery school classroom. They are made to feel like prisoners inside. Why? Because there are masked, armed men hunting them--and not hunting people who snuck into the country; hunting people who are here legally--who are here legally.

I want you to understand that as much as we are watching Minneapolis, as much as we are feeling for those children locked in their nursery school classrooms today, fearing the bad men outside that are trying to take them away and send them to prison, it is not just Minneapolis.

Last week, I went down to Texas to inspect two facilities, one of which is entitled ``the baby prison,'' ``the baby jail.'' It is where they put the 2-year-old kids. I didn't show up unannounced. I am the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that funds Homeland Security. We all have a constitutional right to do oversight, but I have the title, I have the responsibility. I gave them a day-and-a-half notice, and I was still denied entry. Why? Because they are hiding something. Thirty people have died in ICE custody and detention in the last year.

So, instead, I went to a courtroom in San Antonio, an immigration courtroom, and I sat in on proceedings for half a day. What I saw was just absolutely outrageous. It is not on cameras--the country is not watching it like they are watching Minneapolis--but it is just as inhumane, and it is just as illegal.

The people that show up to this courtroom in San Antonio are immigrants who are complying with the law. These are people who came to the United States, immediately applied for asylum--many of them made an appointment through an official government website to show up and apply for asylum--and they have been showing up for all of their hearings and court appointments since.

So I would watch as these individuals or families walked in, went through their legal court proceedings, knowing that outside that door were half a dozen civilian, plainclothes ICE officers waiting to disappear them.

That is what happens in San Antonio. The individual who is here legally shows up as part of their court process. They walk out the door, and they are grabbed by ICE, put on a bus that is waiting outside, and they are never to be seen again. They go to one of these detention facilities. They are basically not allowed to see a lawyer. Sometimes, their family doesn't even know where they are. They are very quickly sent out of the country, either to the nation that they came from, where they rightfully fear potential violence, or to third countries. Families are split up.

While I was there, I was asked to accompany two young parents and their 2-year-old daughter out of the courtroom to see if maybe, because they were talking to a U.S. Senator, ICE wouldn't take them--a 2-year- old. The lawyer said: If you weren't here, one of two things was going to happen--that 2-year-old was going to end up in jail with their parents or they were going to separate the parents from the child-- separate at least the father from the child.

That is inhumane. That is wrong. And that is why people all across this country are demanding that if we are going to fund the Department of Homeland Security, we only fund a Department that is acting lawfully and morally.

What we are asking is reasonable and impactful. What we are saying is that these roving patrols in Minneapolis, the profiling of people just based upon their skin color or their accent, the show-me-your-papers enforcement, has to end.

ICE and CBP are fundamentally not trained to do that kind of work-- just roaming the streets, trying to find people who they believe to be in the country illegally. We need warrants, and, in fact, that has been the practice until this administration. The practice up until now had been that you had to get a warrant in order to try to lock up somebody who you believed to be here illegally.

And the roving patrols and the profiling.

Second, no more secret police. This is the United States of America. This is the United States of America. We don't allow in this country masked, unidentified men to be wandering up to you on the street and ripping you into a car. We need masks off. We need body cameras on.

Lastly, we need accountability. Man, it looks like there was a crime committed. It looks like that was murder. But the only way you will know is if you have an impartial investigation and, potentially, prosecution. That always happens at the State level. It can't be some whitewashed, secret process inside the Department of Homeland Security. No. Our justice in the United States of America happens in public; it does not happen in private. We aren't Russia. We aren't Saudi Arabia. Justice is administered in a court of law through a process that the people can see, and that should apply to you whether you are an ICE officer or whether you are just a citizen of Minneapolis.

So think about what we are talking about here--really reasonable things that, frankly, should unite Republicans and Democrats.

I have a much longer list of reforms that I want. The illegality is just off the charts at the Department of Homeland Security, but I understand that we are not going to be able to get common ground on that long list. So what we endeavor to do is put on the table three things that we can find common ground on, that we must find common ground on because to defend this--for Republicans' position over the rest of this week into next week to be no reforms, no changes on how ICE operates--it is unsustainable. It is not close to where the center of this country is.

So what we are talking about are three reasonable projects: Stop the roving patrols of our cities, no more secret police, and accountability. I believe we can find a way to get that done.

I know there is an instinct here--and we suffer from it too--if Democrats are for it, then Republicans just have to be against it, and if Republicans are for it, Democrats just have to be against it. I fall prey to that instinct. But this seems to be a moment where the country has just decided that what is happening in Minneapolis is wrong. The country would like us to come together on a series of reforms that will make it less likely that there will be another murder in cold blood of an American citizen.

Right now, we are on a pace for it to happen again. ICE is still there. There are more ICE officers in Minneapolis than there are police officers. The police aren't even doing their job any longer because all they do is respond to the problems that are being created by untrained, unqualified ICE officers.

I think we can find a way to come together on a set of reforms that the American people are demanding.

I guess I draw my inspiration from that trip I took to Texas.

Late one evening, I met with a group of families that had recently been detained, and they all had little kids--little kids that were in what they call baby jail. I met with two boys--elementary school-age boys about 8 years old and 10 years old--that had been locked up for 6 weeks. Six weeks these little kids had been locked up for nothing. They were complying with the law. They and their father were going through the legal process of applying for asylum. They were told to show up for court. Their mom dropped them off. Their backpacks for school were still in the back seat. The two young boys and their father went into the courtroom for their appointment that they were told to show up for, and they never came back to the car. Their mom had no idea where they went.

It ended up that they were in detention, that the little kids had been put in prison. They called their mom every day as Christmas approached and said: Mom, maybe tomorrow they will let us out. Maybe the next day. Christmas is coming up, Mom. I don't want to be here for Christmas.

Well, they stayed right through Christmas, and they didn't get out until just a week ago. These children were alive on the outside, but you could tell they were dead on the inside. One of the two little boys--the older of them--sat during our time together, and he just stared straight ahead. He didn't make eye contact with anybody. His brain, you could tell, had been poisoned by the inhumanity that had been visited upon him by a policy that makes no sense other than for the purpose of torturing these kids.

This is the United States of America. We shouldn't stand for that. You can enforce the laws of this Nation without putting kids through that kind of hell, without the kids of Minneapolis today languishing in nursery schools with the doors locked, with no recess and the shades down.

We were sitting around a round table, and on the other side from the two dead-eyed children who had just left 6 weeks' detention was another child. He looked about 10 to me.

The two boys who were in detention told their mother in all those phone calls that maybe their greatest worry was that their friends were going to forget about them.

Mom, I have been here for a week.

Mom, I have been here 2 weeks.

Mom, I have been here for 6 weeks. What if I go back to school and none of my friends remember who I am?

This is what goes through the brain of an 8-year-old who has been in jail for nothing--for nothing--for 6 weeks.

Do you know what happened? Their friends didn't forget about them.

That other little boy sitting on the other side of the round table-- 10 years old--was one of their friends, and he noticed that his two friends were missing day after day after day, and he remembered that they were in immigration proceedings. So this 10-year-old boy went to his teacher and his mom and said: I think something is wrong. I think my friends might have been taken.

The teacher and the mother reached out to a local legal aid agency, and that legal aid agency tracked down the boy and the father, and eventually, the two boys and the father were let out.

That 10-year-old boy, their friend, had compassion. He believed in right versus wrong. But he also believed that he wasn't powerless. He believed that he could do something to help find his missing friends. For him, that was alerting adults, because he knew that maybe they would help.

And I am sure he was nervous about speaking up, about going to talk to his teacher, because doing the right thing often comes with risks. But to him, doing the right thing was worth the risk. To him, he knew he wasn't powerless in the face of the immorality that he feared had happened to his friends.

And I just tell you that story because it is a lesson for us. It is a lesson for us to not feel powerless, for Democrats to stand up for what we believe in, to not settle for less than a Department of Homeland Security that complies with the law; and a lesson for Republicans, who I know fear retribution by this President when they stand up for what they believe is right, rather than what Donald Trump says is right.

We aren't powerless on the Democratic side, and you aren't powerless on

the Republican side. We can find a way to come together and protect our citizens from an Agency that is operating outside the bounds of the law and outside the bounds of morality.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Kelly for bringing us down to the floor today.

It is hard to believe it has been 16 years since our politics were upended, since the floodgates were opened to corporate money in an unlimited way, in an anonymous way, coming into our elections.

Senator Durbin, of course, has been a hero, as he mentioned spending much of his career trying to introduce legislation and pass legislation that would put citizens in charge of our elections rather than Big Money.

So let's just for a few minutes here, because I know there are others who want to speak--I just want to make maybe three points.

The first is to just give you the scope, if we haven't put this information on the record already, as to how things have changed. Senator Durbin was doing some of this already in referencing how little elections used to cost compared to how much they cost today, but let's just talk about the full amount of money that is in politics today as compared to let's say 1976--a few years before Senator Durbin was first running for Congress.

In 1976, total Federal election spending by candidates and committees was $160 million. In the last election, in 2024, candidates and committees together spent $15.9 billion. OK. Now, it is a long time between 1976 and 2024, so let's adjust that for inflation. Adjusted for inflation, it is still 100 times more money. That is stunning. That is stunning in and of itself, but here is what makes it corrupt. What makes it corrupt is that prior to the Citizens United decision, outside groups, noncandidate groups, were spending about $144 million in elections annually. In 2024, outside groups spent $4.2 billion.

When Senator Durbin was first running, he was raising money from individuals, folks who were spending $25, $100, maybe a couple hundred dollars on campaign contributions. Individuals today make up just 16 percent of total spending in elections--16 percent. Eighty-four percent of all the spending in elections today is not done by citizens; 84 percent of spending is by corporations and organizations. Most of that money--maybe not most. Much of that money is anonymous; you have no idea where it comes from.

So let me tell you what the impact of that is. The impact of that is corruption. Let's just call it what it is. When a handful of billionaires and corporations have that much influence on our

elections, an unaccountable influence--you have no idea who is spending all of that money, who is throwing these ads on TV that are being produced by PACs with innocuous sounding names like Save Our Future, Build Our Future, This Is Our Future--the impact of that is just--it is corrupt. It is corrupt.

There is a group that is being formed right now called Leading the Future--another one of these innocuous sounding PACs. It is promising to spend $100 million in the election this fall, and it is being funded by a group of AI companies--companies that are trying to get the Congress to pass legislation to essentially give these AI companies a free ride--no protection from deepfakes, no protection from the poison they are feeding our children. They want free rein, so they are putting up $100 million in this next election.

I just did the math, sitting at my desk, quickly. The average individual contribution today is about $25. That is a lot of money for some people, to give $25 to an election. If every single resident of my State--every single resident--gave $25, that wouldn't equal the $100 million commitment that one super PAC has made to this next election. That is stunning. That shows you how much power a handful of these companies have.

The only way that this group Leading Our Future can put $100 million into this next election to try to stop Congress from regulating artificial intelligence is because of the Citizens United decision, because that decision allows those companies that are swimming in money right now to be able to write an unlimited check into this next election.

So you can understand why people feel powerless today, why people feel like this whole system is rigged because even if they give $25, it just doesn't make a difference when a handful of companies can, with the snap of their fingers, muster $100 million to try to change the impact of an election on public policy.

The last point I want to make is this: This fight that we are having now in which only Democrats care about changing our campaign finance laws, in which Republicans almost to a person have no interest in trying to decrease the influence of corporations and billionaires in our elections, it is ahistorical. In fact, this has not historically been a particularly partisan issue except for the last 25 years.

There is a giant, cult-like poster of Donald Trump on the Department of Labor that I drive by every day in and out of the Capitol. It is super creepy, the idea that we have Mao- and Stalin-like banners of the President of the United States surrounding the U.S. Capitol. But next to the banner of Donald Trump on the Department of Labor building is a banner depicting the image of Teddy Roosevelt. I guess it is an attempt by the President to draw an equivalency between himself and Teddy Roosevelt. That is a pretty--that is a stretch.

But Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican, a Republican who in the wake of a pretty minor scandal, in 1904, when a couple of companies sent secret checks to his campaign and to other Republican campaigns, came to Congress and said: We have got to ban corporate money from elections.

He had trouble getting Republicans to do it at first. So he reached out across the aisle and worked with a particularly vile Democrat, a guy by the name of Benjamin ``Pitchfork'' Tillman--just a bad, bad guy. Actually, our rule XIX, which we use against each other occasionally to try to settle the tone of debate, it is in our rules because of Benjamin ``Pitchfork'' Tillman.

Anyway, Roosevelt--a Republican--and Tillman--a Democrat--got together and said: Let's ban corporations from being able to influence our elections. That is the Tillman Act that was the law of the land in practice until the Citizens United decision. For 100 years until that decision, Republicans and Democrats actually worked together pretty well to say: You know what, the people should be in charge, not corporations. That wasn't a partisan idea. It is now, unfortunately.

I am grateful to Senator Kelly for bringing us down to the floor to talk about the way our citizens feel like they don't have power, the way that the Citizens United decision has left our voters feeling like the game is rigged. But it is kind of sad that it is only Democrats down here talking about the impact that that decision has had on the influence of corporations and billionaires in our politics. For a long time, Republicans cared about trying to make sure that our democracy was fair. That is not the case any longer.

I thank Senator Kelly for allowing us to come down and have this discussion.