Floor Statements

Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today to oppose my Republican colleagues' efforts to jam through the Clarity Act. I believe we can get crypto legislation that both Republicans and Democrats can agree on but not this bill.

This bill poses a massive risk to families, to our economy, and to our national security. We need crypto legislation that stops political self-dealing, and I know that many in the crypto industry agree with that. But this bill would turbocharge Donald Trump's unprecedented corruption.

Donald Trump's primary campaign promise was that he would lower prices beginning on day one--his promise, his words. Instead, Trump's tariffs, Trump's forever war halfway around the world, Trump's healthcare cuts, Trump's closing cheaper, clean energy--Trump's policies are boosting the cost of everything. From groceries, to gas, to healthcare, to utilities, they are all going up, up, up.

While Donald Trump is raising costs for working people, Trump is also using the Presidency to make himself richer, and he has added crypto to his ways to cash in. Instead of doubling down on efforts to prosecute crypto scams and to block terrorists and drug traffickers from using crypto, Donald Trump has used his office to promote crypto. He has talked up crypto. He has held crypto contests with the prize being dinner with the President, and he has appointed crypto-friendly regulators.

And the money has just rolled in for him. Shortly before he was sworn in as President the second time, Trump opened his own crypto business, and boy, what a launch that man had. As he talked up crypto, the money just kept rolling in. In 2025 alone, Trump and his family raked in $1.4 billion from their crypto ventures. In fact, Donald Trump made more from crypto last year than any publicly traded crypto company in America. There is no one who has more to gain personally from this bill than the President of the United States.

OK. So Trump won big time on crypto. Who lost? The working people who followed their leader. People who bought into Trump's crypto ventures have lost billions of dollars. For example, the fans who bought Trump's meme coins have lost nearly $4 billion.

Trump just keeps pumping up the crypto industry. He has disbanded the DOJ's Crypto Enforcement Team, he has dropped crypto enforcement actions against companies that donated millions of dollars to his campaign, and he has given multiple Presidential pardons for crypto executives convicted of serious crimes. Trump's corruption is so extensive that he has infected crypto's entire financial regulatory framework.

Now Republicans are not only turning a blind eye to Trump's corruption; now they want to vote today to boost that corruption. Late on Sunday night, the Republicans released new ethics provisions that the Republicans negotiated with the White House. They read exactly like what the most corrupt President in our history would bless--a tiny, little fig leaf that claims it is doing something about corruption but that is carefully written to make sure it will not prevent Donald Trump from making his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits.

First, the new text guarantees that Donald Trump will never ever be held accountable under the law. Why? Because Trump's lapdogs would have the power to shut down any enforcement of the ethics provisions against Donald Trump.

The text says the Attorney General--you know, that is the guy who at his confirmation hearing said, ``I'm [Trump's] lawyer''--not America's lawyer; Trump's lawyer. This is the guy who would decide whether to bring an enforcement action against the President.

The bill would not allow the State attorneys general to bring any enforcement actions against the President. All they could do is try to sue Trump's former personal lawyer, the Attorney General, to do something about it.

Here is the kicker: Nobody thinks the Attorney General is going to bring an action against Donald Trump, but this bill has belt and suspenders built right in to ensure that Donald Trump's moneymaking schemes just keep right on rolling. The bill says that Trump's handpicked cronies at his Office of Government Ethics can wave a magic wand by issuing a legal opinion, and then, as if by magic, Donald Trump would suddenly be protected from any enforcement at all against his next round of crypto corruption. An ethics

restriction that the President himself can have completely waived is not an ethics restriction.

Second, even if these provisions were enforceable, there are massive loopholes in them that would allow Trump to continue juicing his crypto empire. Under the new text, Trump would be allowed to continue making hundreds of millions of dollars from his crypto ventures, including World Liberty Financial and his meme coin. Not only would Trump easily be able to keep or restructure his existing crypto ventures, he would also be able to create new ones--extra corruption. For example, this new text does nothing to stop Donald Trump from becoming the first President in American history to own and regulate his own bank.

Lastly, Trump could just put his holdings in a blind trust in name only while still knowing exactly what assets are there and still in charge of the regulators who can juice the value of Donald Trump's crypto investments.

Trump has already made $1.4 billion in 2025 alone as a crypto wheeler-dealer, and the bill the Republicans want to vote on today would make sure he can just keep raking in the dough.

It is not just the ethics provisions that are terrible; this bill would make it easier for terrorist organizations, for drug cartels, and for rogue states to buy and sell weapons and pay off government officials--all using crypto; easier for terrorists to finance their operations and harder for law enforcement to catch them; easier for scammers to cheat Americans and harder for law enforcement to catch them; easier for Iran and North Korea to evade sanctions and harder for law enforcement to catch them.

This bill would put us all at risk of a crypto-fueled economic crash. The crypto bill has become a Christmas tree with gifts for other high- risk scammers. The bill, for example, would blow a massive hole in our nearly century-old securities laws by allowing and encouraging companies that have nothing to do with crypto to throw their assets on a blockchain to escape the investor protections that apply to traditional securities--you know, like stocks, the stock market. Now, that could drain billions of dollars out of our stock market that families depend on to fund their retirement savings, and it could decimate the guardrails that were put in place after the Great Depression. In fact, unions are opposed to this bill specifically because they see it as putting workers' hard-earned pensions at risk.

Really, you should just ask yourself, what does this have to do with crypto?

Why are we putting provisions in place to blow up protections on the stock market because a handful of crypto bros want it?

This bill would give banks a green light to use America's banking deposits to engage in a brandnew list of risky crypto activities: lending against crypto as collateral, buying crypto directly, trading crypto derivatives, operating blockchain notes, selling crypto software. The list goes on and on.

Think about how the price of crypto shot up and down and up and down, in just the last couple of years alone, and then imagine what happens when the biggest banks in America use the money in your savings account to load up on that kind of crypto.

The bill also blocks States and Tribal nations from enforcing their own laws on the books to protect their citizens from getting scammed. The president of the Indian Gaming Association calls this bill ``the greatest threat to Tribal sovereignty in a generation.''

This is not what the American people want. They want Congress to do something about the affordability crisis. They want an end to Trump's war in Iran. They want their elected leaders to step up and regulate

Mr. President, tomorrow, the Senate will vote on a crypto bill that poses massive risks to our families, to our national security, and to our economy. And if that is not bad enough, while Americans across this country suffer from an affordability crisis, this bill will turbocharge President Donald Trump's ability to rake in billions and billions of dollars from crypto.

Late last night, we got the details of President Trump and the Republicans' final offer on ethics on this bill, and it reads exactly like what you would expect the most corrupt President in our history to bless: a weak fig leaf that will do nothing to stop him from making his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits.

First, it makes sure that the law could never be enforced against Donald Trump because it gives his political appointees the power to turn off enforcement of all of these ethics provisions.

Second, it contains major loopholes designed to allow President Trump to keep earning billions of dollars from his crypto business, including World Liberty Financial and his new bank. Yeah, you heard that right.

On August 14, World Liberty Trust Company received preliminary approval for a Federal banking charter. Donald Trump and his family own 38.25 percent of the bank. An investment fund backed by the UAE's National Security Advisor and brother of the UAE's President reportedly owns 49 percent of the bank. The bank charter was conditionally granted by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a Federal banking Agency controlled by--wait for it--Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is now the first President in American history to own and oversee his very own bank. It may be the most brazen act of self- dealing that our financial system has ever seen. The bank can serve as the financial hub of the President's web of corruption. With a bank charter, World Liberty will be able to operate nationwide, offer families and businesses financial products and services, and enjoy the credibility that comes with having the Federal Government's stamp of approval.

The bank's primary product is the USD1 stablecoin, which is currently issued by a third party bank partner under a licensing agreement with World Liberty. The stablecoin arrangement earned President Trump $200 million last year. You know, that is a big chunk of the $1.4 billion that he earned from his various crypto ventures just in 2025 alone.

USD1 is already the fifth largest stablecoin in the entire world, and now, with the Federal banking charter, World Liberty can issue the stablecoin directly without a separately regulated bank partner. The charter could supercharge the growth of USD1, increase its interconnectedness with the U.S. financial system, and, as a result, drive even greater profits for President Trump and his family.

Donald Trump's bank is a new vehicle for billionaires, corporations, and

foreign countries to bribe him. These entities could cut Trump into everyday transactions and business deals by making payments using USD1 instead of, you know, traditional checks or debit cards or wire transfers. Trump could charge transaction fees, similar to Visa and MasterCard, and generate interest on the cash deposited with World Liberty in exchange for the USD1 stablecoin, similar to the business model of a traditional bank.

Look, this is not hypothetical. We already saw this play out last year in a trial run before World Liberty actually got its bank charter. MGX, which is a UAE state-owned investment fund, made a $2 billion investment in the crypto exchange Binance. Instead of using fiat currency--ordinary money like the U.S. dollar--to purchase stock in Binance, MGX paid Binance using USD1, cutting Trump in on the deal.

Coincidentally, President Trump pardoned the founder of Binance, who had pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. Trump has also provided an array of foreign policy favors to the UAE, including giving the UAE a special exemption from U.S. export controls and approving the sales of advanced AI chips to UAE companies despite repeated warnings from our own national security officials that the technology could be diverted to China. So now, with Trump's Federal bank charter, we could just see more of the same thing.

Even setting aside the clear conflict of interest and the corruption, World Liberty's charter application would have been flatly denied under any previous administration, Republican or Democrat, due to its national security risks, anti-money laundering vulnerabilities, and lack of competent management.

So consider this: A foreign intelligence official backed a minority investment in the entity behind Trump's bank. Companies affiliated with the bank--Trump's bank--reportedly sold millions of dollars' worth of tokens to buyers that conducted business with North Korean state- sponsored hackers, with sanctioned Russian money laundering entities, and with other illicit actors; partnered with a venture whose main project was led by individuals sanctioned by the U.S. Government; and accepted $100 million from a businessman reportedly under investigation for money laundering by the United Kingdom. That is who Trump is in bed with in order to do this banking deal.

Most of the executives in charge of Trump's bank have little or no experience in banking. The bank's founder and proposed president, Zachary Witkoff, also happens to be the son of President Trump's Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff, and he has never worked before in a senior banking role.

One of the bank's board members was the chairman and CEO of an accounting company that was subject to multiple SEC and PCAOB enforcement actions, including for ``systematic quality control failures and violations of audit standards.''

In other words, there is one person here who has some experience, and that is the person who has already been called out for systematic quality control failures and violations of audit standards.

Then there is the chief compliance officer of Trump's bank, who previously served as the chief compliance officer of a large crypto platform that blew up in 2022 called Voyager Digital. The platform faced multiple enforcement actions from State and Federal regulators for compliance failures, including luring customers to store their money on the platform by falsely claiming that the money would be FDIC insured.

So that is who Donald Trump has pulled together. But Donald Trump owns the bank, and he controls the Federal banking Agency that is responsible for approving the charter of that bank, and the application miraculously was approved.

Now it is on to Congress to step in and terminate this corrupt bank charter, and that is exactly what the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act would do. The bill would prohibit Federal banking Agencies from approving various types of banking applications when the applicant is owned or controlled by a range of senior government officials. It would also require the termination of any such charters or applications that have been granted since January 20, 2025, which includes World Liberty's national bank charter.

Look, this is just common sense. It is the least that Congress could do to start unwinding President Trump's web of corruption.

Now, unfortunately, my Republican colleagues want to move in exactly the opposite direction. They seem intent on furthering President Trump's corruption. Look no further than the Senate's first order of business after the August recess. Here we are. We have been away for weeks. We come back, and what do the Republicans in the Senate put on the floor for us to work on? Is it a bill to make life more affordable for American families? No, not that. Is it a bill to end Donald Trump's dangerous war in Iran? Oh, not that. Is it a bill that would juice the value of President Trump's crypto empire and reward the crypto billionaires who have facilitated his corruption? Bing, bing, bing-- that is what the Republicans put on the floor. As if the latest glaring loopholes in the ethics provision weren't enough, it doesn't even apply to Donald Trump's new bank.

So here is the deal: Instead of further enriching the President, maybe Congress should curb this corruption--just clean up a little bit here--and let's start by passing my bill, the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act. Let's make sure that we do not pass a crypto bill that will let Donald Trump continue to rake in billions of dollars in crypto profits while working families across this country struggle to deal with higher prices and an economy that gets worse by the day.

Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 5389, introduced earlier today; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I just know there were some words I didn't hear in the objection. I never heard anything about the $1.4 billion in profits that Donald Trump made in his first year of crypto activities, and I never heard any words about the fact that Donald Trump now is the first person in American history to both regulate the bank and own his own bank. I didn't hear anything about that, and that is what this bill is all about.

It is about the corruption and the opportunity for Donald Trump to be able to run his own bank; to do it with partners who are, at best, shall we say, ethically compromised; and to be able to invite in whoever wants to come and leave whatever kinds of wealth behind for Donald Trump to be able to gobble up.

You know, I understand it is hard to stand up to a man like Donald Trump, but at some point, the folks in this Congress over on the Republican side are going to have to grow a backbone. The American people know corruption when they see it, and this is corruption. What Donald Trump is doing with cryptocoins and now with his own bank to be able to supercharge his crypto wealth and to do it at a time when the people who followed Donald Trump lost $4 billion in their Donald Trump investments--this is a President who is all about enriching himself and not about serving the American people.

The least we could do--the least we could do--in the U.S. Senate is say: The guy who is in charge of the regulations, who runs the whole country--he tells us how powerful he is--and the guy who can actually say to the bank regulators--and does--``back off or move forward'' should not have his own bank to enrich himself and to pump up his crypto ownings.

I get it--the Senator is here to object--but what she doesn't talk about is the Trump corruption that is on the front page of every paper that is talked about and in news stories. People see it; it is documented; and the American people, I think, are just damned sick of it.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today in support of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. We are closer than ever to passing the biggest housing bill since 1990, when the average price of a home in America sold for $150,000. Today, 36 years later, the average home is selling for over $500,000.

The American dream of home ownership is now out of reach for millions of families. The median age of a first-time home buyer is now at an alltime high, and it is no secret why this has happened. Our Nation has a shortage of millions of homes.

And our housing crisis doesn't just affect the opportunity to buy a home. Americans can't afford to rent either. More than a million evictions were filed just last year, and, meanwhile, private equity has swooped in to outbid families for homes and then turn around and jack up the rent on tenants.

Congress has been sitting on its hands for decades as multiple generations of Americans have seen their dreams of home ownership slip out of reach, while Wall Street rakes in the profits.

It is no wonder that, when you ask Americans why they don't like politics or why they don't trust Congress, they will often say something like: It just all feels like it is rigged.

Yes, the system is broken, and I have been ringing the alarm bell about this for years. But, today, Congress is taking a big step toward fixing it.

The bill we are passing today sends a clear message to every American struggling to find a place they can afford. Elected leaders understand the problem and are actually doing something to try to solve it.

This bill acknowledges that outdated regulations and rules have gotten in the way of building more housing and building it fast. It represents an overwhelming bipartisan consensus that we

should use the power of the Federal Government to encourage communities to build more housing and to repair the housing we already have. For the first time ever, this bill will stop private equity from buying up single-family homes. Wow.

You know, I have been speaking up for years about how private equity has come in and just taken over industry after industry after industry, stripping it for parts and running those businesses into the ground. Congress has never before held private equity accountable for anything. Today, that changes. No longer will private equity firms come in with an all-cash offer to snap up a house while a family loses out on their dream.

Today's vote proves that it is possible to find bipartisan common ground on legislation that actually helps the American people. Importantly, it proves that bipartisan legislation doesn't have to be the weakest, most milquetoast agreement that doesn't offend anyone or do too much to help anyone either. It proves that we can legislate by taking really good ideas from every member of the Banking Committee-- Democrats and Republicans--from across the Senate, from across the House, from mayors and local governments, from housing experts and advocates, and instead of just beating each other down to strip out anything that anybody in that group doesn't like, we add in even more good ideas until we have the biggest housing bill in more than 30 years.

I don't say this a lot, but today, I am proud to be a Member of the U.S. Senate. Today, we are doing something that will make a real difference in people's lives.

I am grateful to the chairman of the Banking Committee, who led us in this effort and who kept us on task at all times. If it would help families, he said he was for it, and he helped make that happen. I am grateful for that.

You know, I just want us all to remember that this housing bill is big, but our housing prices are even bigger. We have more work to do, and I hope that today's vote is only the first of many votes to follow to continue our efforts to lower the cost of housing all across America. Let's get this done.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, America is in a full-blown housing crisis. Across this country, home prices are sky high, rent is through the roof, and the median age of a first-time home buyer is now at an alltime high. But for too long, the Federal Government has been asleep at the switch, and that changes today.

I stand here in support of the historic 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. This landmark bill will boost housing supply, bring down costs, and, for the first time ever, stop private equity from buying up single-family homes.

Yes, we are about to do it--pass the biggest housing bill in more than 30 years.

This bill has more than 45 total housing provisions designed to help increase housing supply and bring down costs. Here are just a few of the things that this housing bill will do.

It removes regulatory barriers and streamlines environmental reviews to speed up affordable housing development and to speed up the construction process.

It rewards communities that build more housing, and it prods those that

are not building to step up and build more.

It makes it easier and cheaper to build new manufactured housing by removing outdated chassis requirements, and it brings down the cost of the new unit by up to $10,000.

It creates an innovation fund, something I have been proposing for years, to help reward communities that are successfully building more housing with new funds for community infrastructure or to build even more housing.

It will make long-needed improvements to rural housing programs to preserve affordable housing for 400,000 rural families.

It strengthens the Community Development Block Grant--CDBG--and the HOME Programs to get more affordable housing built. It finally authorizes the CDBG Disaster Recovery Program to get money out to disaster-stricken communities faster. It offers new and streamlined funding opportunities for cities and towns to bolster local infrastructure and to convert abandoned buildings into new housing, for homeowners and landlords to make structural home repairs, and for homebuilders to finance new manufactured and modular housing.

There is so much more. This bill supports more housing opportunities for veterans, it takes action to reduce homelessness, and it helps end appraisal bias.

Finally, for the first time ever, Congress is acting to stop private equity's housing grab. I have been calling for this for years, and even 6 months ago, nobody thought this was possible. With this bill, we will get single-family homes back into the hands of American families, not corporations. An overwhelming majority of Americans across party lines want to stop private equity from snapping up single-family homes, and this bill does exactly that.

This bill also makes sure that corporate landlords who don't follow the law pay up, and it invests any money they pay in fines to build more housing and to help first-time home buyers with direct assistance for downpayments, with closing costs, and with interest rate buydowns.

There is so much in this bill, each piece directing us toward increasing the supply of housing, bringing down the cost, and making housing something that is not just a Wall Street investment but is actually there for American families.

I want to say a very special thank-you to Senator Tim Scott for his partnership on this historic bill in leading the Senate Banking Committee.

I also want to give a very special thank-you to Ranking Member Waters and to Chairman Hill for their work over on the House side to get this bill across the finish line.

I want to say especially Maxine Waters--she has led so many of us for so many years and tried to expand housing all across America, tried to make sure housing is affordable and safe and available for every American. This bill is just a little downpayment on the promise she has offered for decades. I am grateful for her leadership and grateful for her helping get us here today.

I also want to note that every single member of the Banking Committee--Republican and Democrat--added ideas and specific provisions that made it into this bill. I thank them for their very thoughtful and creative contributions.

I also want to thank Senators who are not on the committee who also helped participate and helped us get good housing ideas into this bill, particularly Senator Merkley and Senator Klobuchar, neither of whom is on the Banking Committee, who also joined with Senator Warnock, who is on the committee, in pushing to get private equity out of the housing market. I want to say a very special thank-you to them.

I also want to thank Senator Schatz, who is not on the committee, who helped us with the disaster relief provisions.

I have one more thank you that dates back for years now, and that is a very special thank-you to State and local officials, including the mayors across Massachusetts and around the country, who helped shape this bill, who really told us about places where we could change Federal law that would make a difference for them in their local communities, in being able to bring down the cost of housing. I am grateful to them for the content they helped put into this bill, and I am grateful to them for raising their voices to help us get it passed.

So here we are in a moment when the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives may actually get something done, get it over to the President's desk. And it is something that is good for the American people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the GAO opinion letter dated May 12, 2026.

Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote no on Donald Trump's attempt to take over America's central bank.

Trump's economy is in big trouble, and everybody knows it, including Donald Trump. Consumer sentiment is at an alltime low. Families are paying more for groceries, more for housing, more for healthcare--all thanks to Trump's chaotic tariffs and his One Big Beautiful Bill, and now his foolish and illegal war with Iran is further driving up the cost of gas and the cost of nearly everything else here at home.

So it is no wonder that Donald Trump is desperate to salvage the economy before November's midterm elections. Now, he can do that. Instead of taking action to lower prices, which he could do, he has cooked up a ridiculous scheme: Install sock puppets at the Federal Reserve Board who are willing to artificially juice the economy. Of course, it will be American families who pay the price when this scheme backfires and raises prices and the cost of borrowing even more.

Donald Trump has not been subtle about this takeover attempt. First, he opened a bogus criminal investigation into Fed Governor Lisa Cook, and he illegally tried to fire her. Then he opened another bogus criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jay Powell--all in a ploy to push him out.

Trump then proclaimed:

Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed

Chairman.

And, about a month later, he nominated Kevin Warsh to be his sock puppet on the Fed.

Consideration of Mr. Warsh's nomination was rightfully delayed by some of my Republican colleagues when they joined Democrats in refusing to move forward amid the Department of Justice's phony inquiry into Chair Powell, but the second that the administration pretended to close the investigation, Republicans folded and advanced Mr. Warsh's nomination. No one here is fooled. The investigation is still open.

But don't take it from me. Take it from President Trump, who said the investigation is ``not dropped.''

Take it from the President's spokeswoman, who said ``The investigation still continues.''

Take it from U.S. attorney Pirro, who said that she ``will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation.'' She went on to promise that her office would ``continue to litigate the issue.''

And no one should forget that President Trump is still trying to fire Fed Governor Cook, taking it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Justice Department's reported criminal probe against her is ongoing.

So it is clear that Donald Trump is still using bogus criminal investigations as a way to take over the Fed--to push out the people who have been confirmed so that he can install his own people who will do exactly what he wants.

So let me turn to Mr. Warsh, the nominee. At this unprecedented moment in the Fed's history, he is uniquely unqualified to lead the Agency, and that is why every single Democrat on the Banking Committee voted against his nomination--the first party-line vote ever for a Fed Chair, ever in history.

First, Mr. Warsh has proven to be a sock puppet for President Trump. During his confirmation hearing, Warsh couldn't even say that Trump lost the 2020 election. We need a Fed Chair who evaluates economic data and sets monetary policy in the real world, not in Trump's delusional alternative reality.

Second, Mr. Warsh has refused to disclose the sources of more than $100 million worthwhile of assets. If confirmed, he will be the wealthiest Fed Chair in history, but he refuses to provide transparency to the American people about who he is entangled with. During his hearing, Mr. Warsh refused to say if he is invested in companies affiliated with President Trump or his family, companies that have facilitated money laundering, Chinese-controlled companies, or financing vehicles established by Jeffrey Epstein.

We have no idea if Mr. Warsh owns stock in any banks, which will be in direct violation of the Federal Reserve Act upon his swearing in later this week.

We also have no idea how and to whom Mr. Warsh will divest those secret assets. Based on the information we pieced together, it is possible that Stanley Druckenmiller, who makes a living betting on what the Fed will do next, may cut Mr. Warsh a huge check to cash him out. The American people would be right to question who Mr. Warsh will serve if a billionaire gives him a sweetheart deal just as Mr. Warsh takes office.

Third, Warsh says that he has ``no regrets'' from his catastrophic tenure as a Fed Governor before, during, and after the 2008 financial crash. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which Congress set up to investigate the causes of the financial crisis, found that Governor Warsh attended multiple meetings in 2006 in which participants rung the alarm about subprime mortgages and rising mortgages and rising foreclosures and implored the Fed to use its authority to address these risks. Not only did Mr. Warsh ignore these warnings, he pushed back against them. In fact, in 2007, he said:

Subprime mortgages have gotten a bad name in this

environment, and in some cases, that's not just.

He also said later that he doesn't ``see any immediate systemic risk issues'' among the big banks. Remember, this is shortly before the crash of 2008.

Then, for good measure, Mr. Warsh also praised risky financial instruments like credit default swaps that helped trigger the 2008 crash, and he said: No, these are innovations that make the financial system safer.

So that is what he did before the crisis. During the crisis, Warsh served as Wall Street's personal liaison on the Fed Board as 8 million workers lost their jobs, 10 million people were being thrown out of their homes, and many more saw their life savings vanish. Mr. Warsh's No. 1 priority? Not those families. Not those workers. Mr. Warsh's No. 1 priority was the big banks that crashed our economy. He worked tirelessly to orchestrate multibillion-dollar Wall Street bailouts. But Mr. Warsh says today he has ``no regrets.''

After the crash, most people on the Fed saw the economic devastation and said: Now might be a good time to lower interest rates to revive the economy and help get people back to work.

Not Mr. Warsh. Nope. He wanted to keep interest rates high--``no regrets''--and he kept pushing for higher interest rates for more than a decade even as our economy struggled.

When the job of Fed Chair became available during Trump's first term as President, Donald Trump passed him by. Now, Mr. Warsh chalked this up to his refusal to ``put [his] ambitions ahead of [his] principles.'' Well, Mr. Warsh decided not to make that mistake the second time around. As soon as Donald Trump became President a second time, Mr. Warsh began shouting from the rooftops that the Fed should cut interest rates. In exchange for abandoning his principles, the President offered Mr. Warsh his dream job.

Look, red lights are flashing all across our economy. American families are struggling. Republicans will come to regret their decision to aid and abet President Trump's Fed takeover by installing Mr. Warsh as Chair.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, Senate Democrats are on the floor today to fight back against President Donald Trump's actions to raise the cost of living for American families.

Now, you may remember that Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Instead, he is deliberately raising them. His war in Iran sent gas prices soaring. His chaotic tariffs are jacking up the costs of everything from coffee to housing. And as we will discuss today, his attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cost families at least $19 billion in just 1 year alone.

The CFPB is the financial cop on the beat for American consumers. Since 2011, it has been working to catch financial crooks, putting over $21 billion right back into the hands of hard-working families that had gotten cheated.

From protecting consumers from predatory medical debt to cracking down on hidden fees and shotty credit reporting practices that raised the cost of loans for families, the CFPB has taken action to shield consumers from getting tricked or trapped by giant banks and big corporations.

But the Trump administration is hell-bent on destroying the Agency. Let me count the ways: They tried to fire the entire staff. They tried to end all funding for the Agency. They told CFPB employees to stop working to protect consumers--literally, to stop working. They turned loose lenders who had been caught cheating Americans. They rolled back commonsense guidelines to protect consumers. And they pretty much have advertised that there is no financial cop on the beat, inviting scammers to do their worst to families that are already struggling to make ends meet in Trump's economy.

Today, we are going to hear from 20 Senators about how the Trump administration has hurt American families by rolling back commonsense CFPB rules, and we are going to hear how Congress can make it right.

We are going to vote to undo 20 different ways that the Trump administration has abandoned consumers and is making life more expensive for them.

I urge my Republican colleagues to listen with open ears and cast their votes on behalf of the consumers that they were elected to represent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that there be up to 2 minutes for debate on each motion.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Well, today is day 464 of Donald Trump's Presidency, and we are in a full-blown affordability crisis.

We are 2 months into Trump's illegal war with Iran, a war that, according to experts, is costing taxpayers over $1 billion a day. American families are getting flattened by rising costs on just about everything, from groceries, to rent, to gas. Just today, gas prices hit a new high since Trump started his war. People are stretching themselves to the brink just to pay their bills. But what is the biggest issue of the day, according to Republicans in Congress? Fast- tracking Donald Trump's gold-encrusted ballroom.

Another recent Republican plan would send $400 million to the White House--I guess to buy more gold leaf and onyx marble for the want-to-be King. But I want to be clear: It is common sense that we can, of course, protect the President without shoveling millions of dollars into Trump's ballroom in the middle of an affordability crisis.

This bill to rubberstamp Trump's latest vanity project is a giant slap in the face to American families, just plain and simple. Americans are selling their plasma to pay for groceries and gas. Think about that.

Americans right now today are selling their blood just to pay their bills. And what is the Republicans' solution? Dump more money into Donald Trump's golden-crusted vanity project, and let's do it on the fast track because it is that urgent.

Well, here are a few other ideas for things we could fast-track to actually help the American people: We could reverse Trump's and the Republicans' giant healthcare costs that kicked millions of Americans off their health insurance and jacked up insurance premiums for millions more; or we could deliver affordable childcare for every American family; or we could undo Republicans' cuts to food assistance for families; or we could put a stop to Trump's across-the-board tariffs; or we could end Donald Trump's war with Iran. And, look, the list goes on and on.

But nowhere on the list of ways to lower costs for American families is rubberstamping Donald Trump's lavish ballroom. Remember, Trump's ballroom has already become a tool for what looks like corruption in plain sight.

Since day one, giant corporations have lined up to dump millions of dollars into Trump's ballroom, and that includes Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Comcast, Coinbase, and Palantir.

And those are just the people and the entities that we know of. Others are being kept secret from the American people because Donald Trump has let them stay anonymous.

So what do they have to hide? And what are all these donors expecting in return? And by the way, if Congress bankrolls this ballroom for Trump's corporate donors like other Republicans are proposing, what happens to all those private donations?

So, by the way, I want to make that point again: If Congress bankrolls this ballroom for Trump's corporate donors like the other Republicans are proposing, what happens to all those private donations? If Trump is using his ballroom to facilitate a giant pay-to-play scheme, then the American people deserve to know.

Instead of dumping even more money into Trump's golden ballroom, we need to put an end to this corruption and focus on lowering costs for American families. That is what Democrats are laser-focused on. Republicans should join us and get it done.

I object.

Mr. President, I want to say thank you to my partner in these efforts, Senator Blumenthal, and to all the others who have come here to speak on tax day about how outrageous it is that a program to actually let people pay their taxes online for free has been destroyed by Donald Trump and the Republicans.

So I am about to call up a bill to the floor that would let Americans file their taxes for free directly with the IRS. It is amazing to me that anyone could oppose this, especially when filing your taxes is something that Americans are required by law to do every year. But as sure as the Sun will rise, Republicans are going to block my bill.

For years, giant tax prep companies like TurboTax and H&R Block have rigged our system so they can cash in on your hard-earned dollars, and the result is that people spend now an average of 8 hours and $160 each year just to file their taxes using tax prep services.

These big companies don't just take a fee for filing your taxes; they have actually become experts at figuring out ways to upsell, to charge junk fees, and to make money off your personal information. It is really outrageous.

So I drafted a bill that would allow Americans to file their taxes online for free and directly with the IRS through a program called Direct File.

Now, tens of millions of people wouldn't have to go to a paid preparer if they didn't want to. They could just file directly with the

Mr. President, I truly am shocked to hear my colleague from across the aisle describe Direct File as too expensive for the American people. I think he said it cost $41 million to administer this system. If it is fully operational, Direct File is projected to save taxpayers $23 billion a year and countless hours of hassle. There are very few things that happen here in Washington that give such a good return on investment to taxpayers.

Senator Crapo said that people didn't use Direct File and suggested they didn't like it somehow. You know why people didn't use Direct File last year with the Republicans in charge? Maybe it was because the Trump administration and the Republicans accepted millions of dollars from the tax prep companies and did their best to sabotage the program. Here is what we know for sure: Polling shows that over 75 percent of Americans support free tax online filing from the IRS. If you invest in free tax filing, Americans are going to use it.

In fact, we know that because in the pilot project run by the Biden administration, 94 percent of those who used the program said it was excellent or above average. Not usually the kind of responses we get from people when they are paying their taxes.

The argument that Republicans make that Americans can already file their taxes for free with Free File, all I will say is: Well, tell that to the millions of people who paid more than a hundred bucks each to file their taxes this year. Independent watchdogs have concluded over and over and over again that the tax prep companies that run Free File make it incredibly hard for people to find it; and, once they find it, incredibly hard for them to use it. So what do people do? They end up paying through the nose just to file their taxes.

And you know who never got charged to file their taxes? The people who used Direct File. Direct File is the only truly free online filing option for Americans.

You know, the Republicans have argued that it presents conflict of interest for the IRS to both prepare and audit your taxes. I think somehow they seem to misunderstand how Direct File works. People who use Direct File are the ones preparing their own taxes, not the IRS-- just like the people who use TurboTax are the ones using a program to prepare their own taxes.

And you know what happened when people used Direct File to prepare their taxes? Their returns got accepted at a higher rate than any other self-prep software--that is, it worked better than TurboTax; it worked better than the services that Americans are paying for.

Look, we know what is going on here, and that is that the Trump administration and the Republicans are accepting millions of dollars in donations--a point that was not refuted by the objector to this bill. They are accepting millions of dollars in donations from these tax prep companies; and then in return for that money, shutting down Direct File. That is where the real conflict of interest is.

Look, we have a choice to make as a U.S. Senate, and that is: Who are we here for? Why are we here to protect two multibillion-dollar companies that manage to make big bucks by charging individual families $100, $150, $175 just to pay the taxes that they are legally required to pay?

We have a system that works. It would save people billions of dollars across this country. The only reason that we are not doing this is because the tax prep companies have figured out that making political contributions to the Republicans pays off big time. They can kill off a program that would be good for the American people but would hurt their own profitability.

You have got to make a decision: Whose side are you on? The Democrats are on the side of saving money for American taxpayers. The Republicans are on the side of two big tax prep companies because they get paid to be on their side.

So we may not get this one through today, but we will keep coming back.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the GAO opinion letter dated March 5, 2026.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the GAO opinion letter dated March 16, 2026.

Mr. President, I very much appreciate the Reverend Senator Warnock and his reminder that questions about voting in America are moral questions, they are historic questions, and they are questions about our democracy. I am grateful for his leadership on this, and I hope all of us have a chance--if we didn't get to hear the speech the first time around, that we will get to replay it and listen to what he has to say.

Donald Trump is trying to stop American citizens from voting. Why? Because he knows that his agenda is unpopular and that Republicans can't win based on what he is doing, so he wants to rig the election by picking his own voters. That is what the SAVE Act is all about.

Don't let Trump and the Republicans in Congress fool you. They will say things like: Hey, you should have to show an ID to vote just like you have to do to buy a beer.

But this is not an ordinary voter ID bill. This is not a bill that says everybody either has to show a driver's license or a student ID to vote. This is a way to keep American citizens from voting, and I will just give you one example of this.

If this bill passes, then in 45 of the 50 States, your driver's license won't count as a valid ID. And then it gets better. Let's say you are a married woman who lives in Massachusetts. Let's say that when you got married, you took your husband's name. Well, when you go to the polls to vote, you can't register by showing them your updated driver's license. Why? Because Massachusetts is one of the 45 States where a driver's license does not prove citizenship.

So you bring along your birth certificate. It shows you were born in the United States. Can you vote now? Nope. Your birth certificate is still under your maiden name.

So, yes, you can use a passport if you have one, but, remember, fewer than half of all Americans have a passport, and it costs $165 to get one, and it takes a month or two if everything is working on time.

No passport and no birth certificate that matches your driver's license--well, Trump and the Republicans say you are just out of luck. And that is just one example of how this bill will actually make it harder for Americans to vote.

Here is another deeply disturbing thing about this bill. It would require States to hand over sensitive information about voters to Trump's Department of Homeland Security so that some shadowy guys can do whatever they want with it. Maybe they take you off the voters rolls. Maybe they use that information for something else. The point is, nobody really knows what will happen.

This is an Agency whose former leader, Kristi Noem, said just a few weeks ago:

[W]e need to . . . make sure that we have the right people

voting.

So just make a guess who is going to get swept off the voter rolls. People that the Republicans think are likely to vote Democratic. So sweep off Black people. Sweep off Brown people. Sweep off women. Sweep off students. Sweep off people in precincts that voted Democratic last time. Sweep off people that you think might vote Democratic in the upcoming election.

I have heard this bill called Jim Crow 2.0, hearkening back to the days in the South when the South blocked Black people from being able to vote with a whole series of tests and barriers so that they just wouldn't have a chance to vote. The Trump bill is Jim Crow 2.0.

Noncitizen voting is extremely rare in America, and the Republicans know that. They have seen the same data that we have. Voter roll audits in Georgia prior to the 2024 election found only 20 registered noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters. That is 0.00024 percent. A 2024 Michigan audit found only 16 noncitizen votes out of 5.7 million votes. That is 0.00028 percent.

So then what is going on? Why are the Republicans doing this? Why are they chewing up all of this time in the U.S. Senate to do this? Well, we don't have to guess because the Republicans have been saying the quiet part out loud.

Republicans in Congress know that they are in deep trouble for the midterms unless they can rig the rules and pick their own voters. Donald Trump even said it himself. He said passing the SAVE Act will ``guarantee the midterms,'' because the Republicans know and Donald Trump knows that the policies they are shoving through right now are wildly unpopular.

So while Trump and Republicans try to spread conspiracies and lie about the SAVE Act, it is important that each and every one of us stays focused on what the Trump administration is really doing.

Iran

Mr. President, here is what the Trump administration is really doing: After promising no more wars, Donald Trump has dragged the United States into an illegal and reckless war with Iran. That is lie No. 1. Already, at least 200 American servicemembers have been hurt, and 13 servicemembers have lost their lives. There are American lives lost and families grieving because Donald Trump dragged us into a war based on lies, a war launched without an imminent threat to our country and without any end in sight.

When he ran for President, Trump promised no wars. In fact, he kept saying he would be the ``President of peace.'' He lied.

The United States is spending at least $1 billion a day on the war with Iran. If we put the money we are using at war with Iran toward healthcare, we could lower costs for millions of Americans.

Just this week, Donald Trump's own Energy Secretary said out loud:

We were very aware that we would cause a little bit of

increased prices on Americans.

Think about that. Trump and his top officials knew that this war would raise costs for Americans, and they did it anyway.

In just the first 6 days of the war, the Trump administration spent an estimated $11.3 billion. That was in 6 days. We also lost three F-15 aircraft in just those first few days. That will cost us another $300 million. Estimates say that the Trump administration has kept burning about 1 billion taxpayer dollars a day on the war in Iran, and now we are on day 18. Some estimates look more like $2 billion a day. That is over $23,000 every second, something like $11.5 million since I started this speech.

So let's look at Trump's warmongering by the numbers. Mr. President, $11.3 billion, the estimated cost of the first 6 days of Trump's war; $5.6 billion, the cost of munitions spent by the Pentagon in the first 2 days of the war; $300 million, the cost to replace the three F-15s lost to friendly fire in the first week of the war; $50 billion, how much the Trump administration says it wants to add to an already massively inflated defense budget to pay for a war that was never authorized by Congress; $1 trillion, the Pentagon's budget this year; $1.5 trillion, the total amount Trump is reportedly requesting for the Pentagon budget for next year. That

means Republicans in Congress want to increase the Pentagon's budget by $500 billion.

To put these numbers in context, the Trump administration will spend $30 billion in just the first 30 days of the war. That is exactly how much we could have used to lower costs for millions of people for an entire year--people who got knocked off their healthcare or saw their premiums go up because of Trump's healthcare cuts. So instead of going to war with Iran, we could lower healthcare costs and actually save lives here at home.

Here is one more: $12 billion--a number we have already passed--$12 billion is what it would cost to restore the expanded child tax credit for 1 year. So in less than 2 weeks of Donald Trump's war, we spent the same amount of money that would have lifted millions of kids out of poverty.

For the same amount the United States is burning on just 1 single day of Donald Trump's reckless war with Iran, we could provide a full year's worth of food assistance for nearly half a million Americans or Medicaid coverage for 300,000 children.

But there is more we could have done with the $12 billion the Trump administration has spent on war with Iran. We could have provided housing assistance for around 1 million Americans. We could have lowered prescription drug costs for tens of millions of people. We could have paid the entire National Park Service for more than 3 years. We could have given Pell grants to 1.6 million students so they could afford to go to college. We could have provided retirement and disability pay for veterans wounded in combat and still had plenty of money left over. We could have helped pay the salaries of more than 100,000 teachers and nurses--2 jobs that are crucial, and where we have seen shortages. We could have funded Direct File, the program that lets Americans file their taxes online and for free. We could have funded that for two whole decades. We could have provided humanitarian assistance for countries around the world for almost 3 full years. That is a huge amount of money.

And I want to talk about one more thing we could be spending taxpayer money on instead of Trump's reckless war in Iran: making childcare more affordable for families.

Here is the thing: People have been getting childcare all wrong. Childcare costs are painfully high. Right now, families are having to choose between breaking the budget, being forced to cut back on work hours, or settling for lower quality care just to ensure that their kids have a safe place to be while the parents are working. In 49 of the 50 States, families pay more for childcare for their two kids than they do for rent.

And the reason why costs are so high is that, right now, people think of childcare as a privilege or as a service that is for sale. That is wrong. We should be thinking of universal childcare as basic public infrastructure. We should be thinking about it the same way we think about roads and highways. Why? Because, for this country to work, we need to care for our kids. And when parents don't have childcare, they can't go to work.

Investing in universal childcare is also good for our kids' development, and it is good for our economy. We need affordable childcare just as much as we need schools to educate our workers and bridges to connect goods to the market. It is basic infrastructure to make this country run. It is the infrastructure we need to thrive. And, up until now, our Nation just hasn't been thinking about childcare that way. This is why we need to invest in childcare for every family.

It is just basic supply and demand. There are a whole bunch of families that need childcare, but there are a whole lot fewer childcare workers. Normally, when we want to attract more workers to an area, we just pay them more. But childcare prices are already sky high, and families just can't afford it. So where does that leave us? There is a huge gap that the Federal Government needs to fill.

Imagine: If the Federal Government didn't invest in roads and bridges, we just wouldn't have them.

And that is what is happening with childcare, and it is why we need to invest in universal childcare and raise wages for childcare workers. They should at least make the same amount as local public schoolteachers.

In the wealthiest country on this planet, access to affordable, high- quality childcare and early childhood education should not be a privilege reserved for the rich; it should be a right.

But instead of talking about lowering childcare costs, Donald Trump is delivering a punch to the gut to every parent struggling with those costs. Donald Trump is spending billions of dollars a week bombing Iran for reasons he cannot explain, but he cannot find a nickel to help the millions of people who are struggling to pay for healthcare, groceries, or childcare.

But this is a one-two punch. The Trump administration is spending a tremendous amount of money on war, and the war is also driving up costs for Americans.

Take the price of gasoline over the past month. For months, Donald Trump has been saying gas prices are going down. He has been loud and proud about it. Right now, the average price for gas is more than $3.70 a gallon, more than 80 cents higher per gallon than just 1 month ago, when Donald Trump started this war. That is more than a 25-percent increase in gas prices in a single month, which Donald Trump called a ``very small price to pay''--whoa, spoken like a billionaire.

We have not seen gas prices jump this much since Russia attacked Ukraine.

And now Donald Trump's war is choking off the Strait of Hormuz. That is where about one-fifth of the world's oil and natural gas supply comes through, and right now it is all bottled up.

So what does that mean? Trump's war with Iran means gas prices are skyrocketing for American families here at home. And Donald Trump's response?

If they rise, they rise.

In other words, he just doesn't care.

Here is another one: food prices. About a third of the world's fertilizer goes through that same Strait of Hormuz, and prices jumped up by 30 percent in the days after Trump started this war. One U.S. farmer even said his fertilizer suppliers are warning they just can't get the fertilizer. It is not only that the price has gone up; it just literally is not available.

So you have all this fertilizer that can't go through the Strait of Hormuz, that can't make it to our farmers here in America. And without that fertilizer, the farmers say they just can't plant as much food this year. And what is that going to mean? It means food prices will go up.

So that is gasoline; that is food. But the prices of clothes, of technology, of basically anything that is moved around by trucks that use gasoline or diesel--the prices for all of those goods will go up as well. Diesel prices are already up by more than 25 percent, raising the cost of shipping goods--including Amazon packages and food--nationwide. And jet fuel prices have shot up by 58 percent since Trump started the war. Airlines are passing these costs on to consumers by pushing ticket prices up even higher.

Donald Trump's war with Iran is gearing up to become another forever war that burns billions of taxpayer dollars and makes life even more expensive for Americans here at home. This is a war that the American people do not want and did not ask for, but they are the ones who are footing the bill.

And what does the Trump administration have to say about that? Well, listen to Trump's top economic adviser. He said:

If [the war] were to be extended, it wouldn't really

disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt

consumers, and we'd have to think about . . . what we would

have to do about that. But that's really the last of our

concerns right now.

Consumers, ``the last of our concerns''; higher prices for your family, ``the last of our concerns''--according to the Trump administration.

Look, you don't need to wonder why prices are going up. The Trump administration has said the quiet part out loud. The higher costs American families are paying are the last of the concerns for the Trump administration, and they can't even be bothered to worry about lowering costs for the American people.

Lie No. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6: Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and other top Trump officials just can't keep their story straight. They have no clear plan and

for weeks have failed to tell the American people what the goals are for this war and when this war will end.

First, Trump said the war would be over in 4 to 5 weeks. OK, that was 3 weeks ago. Since then, Trump has said all of these things: The war is ``won.'' The United States still needs to ``finish the job.'' The operations could end ``soon.'' The military may need to go ``further.''

Every hour, the Trump administration's justification for this war sounds completely different.

Why did the United States strike Iran? On March 2, Pete Hegseth said it was to end a 47-year war. The same day, Hegseth said it is because Iran refused to negotiate. And in another comment on the same day, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said it was a response to Israel planning to strike. And then--yep, on the same day--Donald Trump said it had nothing to do with Israel planning to strike. Donald Trump said:

[I]f anything, I might have forced Israel's hand.

Rubio then said Iran would have ``so many short-range missiles'' in a year. That is the reason to initiate the war.

Two days later, Trump says the reason why the United States struck Iran is because he had a ``good feeling'' that Iran would strike U.S. assets and our personnel in the region.

Look, it is just one story after another, and none of them add up. How can the American people trust this government when this government can't even keep its own story straight?

And the Trump administration clearly has no plan for how this war will end. On the very first day of the war, Trump called the attacks ``major combat operations in Iran.'' A week later, Trump called it a ``short-term excursion'' that we are ``getting very close to finishing.''

And what is the goal? The administration has no clue. On day one of the war, Trump told the American people he had to attack Iran because Iran posed an imminent threat based on their nuclear capabilities. But remember, last June, Trump bombed Iran and claimed that Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities had been ``completely and totally obliterated.'' Both of those things cannot be true at the same time.

And understand this: If Trump believes that Iran's nuclear ambitions are a threat, then he had a chance to curb them. In fact, the United States had a deal that could have prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. That was President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, and Trump ripped up that deal and--here is the best part--got nothing--nothing-- in return.

So instead of doing the hard work of diplomacy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, Trump lies to the American people while dragging us into yet another reckless war that is costing American lives.

If you can believe it, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have even given conflicting takes on whether or not this war is over. On March 8, Hegseth said:

[T]his is only just the beginning.

The next day, March 9, Trump said the war is ``complete, pretty much.'' But he also said: ``You could say both,'' very complete and just the beginning.

Trump also said that we ``haven't won enough'' and that we will ``go further.'' But just days later, he said:

We won. The first hour, it was over.

And then he said:

We don't want to leave early, do we? We've got to finish

the job.

Then, last week, Trump said we are ramping up strikes.

How long will this war go on? Well, one day after the war, Trump said ``4 to 5 weeks.'' The same day, Hegseth said ``more or less than 2, 4, or 6 weeks.'' And then he added:

It could move up. It could move back.

Then Hegseth said:

We'll go as far as we need to go to advance American

interest.

On March 10, Hegseth said it is up to Trump. He said:

Our will is endless. Ultimately, the President gets to

determine the end state of those objectives.

On March 11, Trump said the war with Iran will end ``soon.''

Look, this is not a game. This administration is sending young Americans to die overseas, and that means our government leaders need to treat this conflict with life-and-death seriousness. Instead, they don't even have the decency to level with the American people.

Yet another lie from the Trump administration was about the horrific U.S. military strike on an elementary school in the early days of the war. Last week, a preliminary investigation by the Department of Defense confirmed that it is likely that it was our own military that bombed a girls school in Iran. This was one of the most devastating military mistakes in decades. Mr. President, 175 people were killed; most of them were children.

Now, before the investigation, Trump said over and over that the attack was done by Iran. But even after the investigation, Trump kept lying to the American people. He said he ``didn't know'' about the investigation--an investigation done by his own military on one of the most horrific military mistakes in recent history.

And, remember, Pete Hegseth gutted the office that was in charge of preventing civilian harm. How do I know? I led the charge to establish that office in the first place.

Hegseth is also purging the military's legal experts, the people who act as legal guardrails and ordered a ``ruthless'' overhaul to make sure that no one else who might question him is left standing.

It is a betrayal of our servicemembers and a betrayal of the American people that we still have no answers and no accountability.

So what would accountability look like here? Well, for starters, Pete Hegseth should be fired immediately. Hegseth's long pattern of chaos and incompetence has put our servicemembers and the American people at risk, and we haven't even scratched the surface of Signalgate or Hegseth's role in boat strikes that could be war crimes.

Pete Hegseth has got to go, and he needs to go now.

The basic story here is pretty straightforward. Working families are struggling to pay for basic needs like groceries, housing, healthcare, and electricity. And now, prices are shooting up even higher because of Donald Trump's new war in Iran.

Donald Trump's dangerous actions overseas are making everyday life both more expensive, and regular Americans are paying the price. That is Trump's America in a nutshell. And instead of changing their policies and actually trying to help the American people and not just themselves and their rich buddies, Trump and the Republicans are working to keep as many Americans from voting as humanly possible.

That is what this bill is really about, and every Senator who cares about our democracy should vote no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to say congratulations and thank you for your leadership.

We just passed a housing bill with 89 Senators in favor of it. Now, this is a bill about increasing supply, and anybody who wants to try to block this bill is going to have to explain to the American people why they don't want to see us build more housing and have that housing in the hands of homeowners, to make that happen.

I thank the Presiding Officer for all you have done, for your leadership, to get us here.

Our Nation is in a full-blown housing crisis. Across rural communities, small towns, suburban neighborhoods, and major cities, home prices are sky-high, rent is through the roof, and just last year, the median age of a first-time home buyer hit 40 years old.

Housing is the single biggest purchase that most Americans will make in their lifetime, but it is far more than that. Owning a home means building economic security. It is the No. 1 retirement plan for families across the country: You pay off your home and live on your Social Security. It helps people have the financing to start small businesses in their communities, and it is the main asset that families can pass down from one generation to the next. Owning a home affects the jobs you can get, the schools your children can attend, and the kinds of communities you can live in.

But for too long, the Federal Government has been asleep at the switch while the crisis grows. Hundreds of thousands of families are priced out of homes by private equity. Many State and local governments have too many rules holding back housing construction. Young people cannot buy their first homes. Seniors and veterans are being left behind. Home ownership is out of the reach of too many families, especially Black families.

We need to act, and that is why I stand here today in support of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. This landmark bipartisan bill will help tackle the root cause of this crisis by getting more homes built in every community across this country. It will make sure that families own those homes, not giant corporations looking to jack up the rent and squeeze every nickel of profit they can out of American families.

House Republicans should immediately take up this bill and pass it. If they do not, they will have to explain to families across this country in November why they refuse to lower the cost of housing.

(Ms. LUMMIS assumed the Chair.)

This is the biggest package of bills to make housing affordable in 30 years. This bill has more than 40 provisions, every single one of which is designed to help increase housing supply and bring down housing costs.

Here are just a few of the things this bill will do. It removes regulatory barriers and streamlines environmental reviews to speed up affordable housing development and construction approval processes.

It rewards communities that build more housing, and it prods those that are not building to step up and build more. It strengthens the Community Development Block Grant--CDBG--and HOME Programs to get more affordable housing built and to permanently authorize the CDBG-Disaster Recovery Program to get more money out to disaster-stricken communities faster.

It makes it easier and cheaper to build new manufactured housing by removing the outdated chassis requirements, bringing down the cost of a new unit by up to $10,000.

It creates an Innovation Fund, one that I have been proposing for years, to reward communities that are successfully building more housing with new funding for community infrastructure or even to build more housing.

It will make long-needed improvements to rural housing programs to preserve affordable housing for 400,000 rural families.

It offers new and streamlined funding opportunities for cities and towns to bolster local infrastructure and to convert abandoned buildings into new housing, for homeowners and landlords to make structural home repairs, and for homebuilders to finance new manufactured and modular housing.

And there is so much more in this bill. This bill supports more housing opportunities for veterans, it takes action to reduce homelessness, and it helps address appraisal bias.

And, finally, this bill takes a good first step to get single-family homes back into the hands of American families, not corporations. An overwhelming majority of Americans, across party lines, want to stop private equity from snapping up single-family homes, and this bill does exactly that. It also makes sure that corporate landlords who don't follow the law pay up, and it invests any money they pay in

fines into the HOME Program to build more housing and to help first- time home buyers with direct assistance for downpayments, closing costs, and interest rate buydowns.

The bill does another thing that is very important. It preserves the power of State and local communities to tackle the problem of corporate landlords making it harder for families to afford rent and to own a home.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act has overwhelming bipartisan support. It includes the vast majority of bipartisan housing provisions that passed the House of Representatives, and the bill has strong support from the White House.

Americans have been clear that they want their leaders to focus on lowering costs. There is no excuse to delay this relief. The American people will be watching.

I want to say thank you to Senator Tim Scott for his partnership in this historic bill. His leadership made this bill possible, and I am grateful to work with him on an issue that will matter so much to so many families. I also want to note that every single member of the Banking Committee--Republicans and Democrats--added ideas and specific provisions that made it into this bill. I thank them for their thoughtful and creative contributions and thank them for helping make this a much stronger, better bill.

I also want to offer a very special thank-you to the local and State officials, including the mayors across Massachusetts and all around the country, who helped shape this bill and then who raised their voices to help get it passed. I also want to thank the advocates who have worked tirelessly to push for more and better housing all across America.

So let's get this bill to the House. Let's get it signed into law as quickly as possible. There is no time to spare.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are facing a dark moment in our country's history. On Saturday, Donald Trump decided to drag the American people into a reckless, illegal war with Iran, a war based on lies, a war launched with no imminent threat to our Nation.

Six U.S. servicemembers are now dead and more badly hurt. A missile from the United States and Israeli-led bombing campaign reportedly killed over 150 people at a girls' school in Iran, many of them little girls, some as young as 7 years old. And now, violence is spreading across the Middle East, with the threat of that violence bleeding into the United States.

And for what? For another forever war that the American people do not want? Our Constitution is clear; only Congress can declare war. That is because one single person should not have the power to drag our entire country into a reckless war.

But that is exactly--exactly--what Donald Trump has done. He has given prepared remarks. He has spoken to the press. Yet, even after multiple bombing runs and the death of American servicemembers, Donald Trump cannot give a single clear reason for this war.

Why are we at war? Donald Trump has dozens of reasons and, ultimately, no reason at all. Worse yet, Donald Trump is dragging Americans into this war with no plan for how to end it. He

has no stated objectives, no clear strategies, no way to explain: When we accomplish this, we will leave. Even the deaths of Americans has not given Donald Trump pause. Instead, he doubles down.

Every hour, the Trump administration feeds us shifting justifications for this war; every hour, he contradicts a justification that he used earlier. Donald Trump said that Iran has restarted its nuclear program, but Donald Trump's own officials have said that is not true.

Donald Trump claimed that Iran is developing long-range missiles that will soon be capable of hitting the United States. That directly goes against what his own government has claimed.

As recently as January, the Trump administration said they would not engage in any regime change wars. And now, they are calling on the Iranian people to rise up and change their regime. Khamenei was an authoritarian dictator who has the blood of Americans on his hands, but killing one leader does not topple a brutal regime. The next leader could be just as bad or even worse. And Donald Trump's deceptions keep right on coming. In June of last year, Trump bombed Iran and claimed that Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities had been ``completely and totally obliterated.''

``Completely and totally obliterated.''

And now, Trump is telling the American people that he had to attack Iran on Saturday because Iran posed an imminent threat based on their nuclear capabilities. Both of those things cannot be true.

If Donald Trump believes that Iran's nuclear ambitions are a threat, he had the chance to curb them. In fact, the United States had a deal that would have prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. That was President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, and Trump ripped up that deal and got nothing in return.

Instead of doing the hard work of diplomacy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, Trump is lying to Americans while dragging us into yet another reckless war that is costing American lives.

Already, six U.S. servicemembers have been killed, and others have been seriously hurt in these attacks. My heart is with these servicemembers and their loved ones, but Trump just doesn't seem to care.

In fact, he said he is not ruling out sending United States' ground troops into Iran. He even said that, while every President says, Well, there will be no boots on the ground, he doesn't say it. He is proud of the fact that he is willing to put American lives at risk for this war of his own choosing. It is truly horrific.

The ripple effects of this violence are even broader. Protesters in countries across the world are storming U.S. Embassies and threatening the lives of State Department officials. American citizens living in the region are now in the middle of a war zone, in danger, and unsure if they can make it home safely.

And the violence is spreading. Iran has attacked at least nine countries since the Trump administration and Israel started this war on Saturday, putting more American servicemembers and more American civilians abroad at risk and threatening to destabilize the entire region.

I disagree with Donald Trump, but I understand that he won the 2024 election. But when he ran in 2024, he said repeatedly that he would be a peace President. He ran on a platform of no more wars. He said he would be a President to stop wars, not start them, and Americans believed him.

But now, we face an ugly reality. In the modern era, no American President has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries as Donald Trump. None. Donald Trump's disregard for human life seems to have no bounds.

I want to make one more point here, and it is about something that is very personal to me. All three of my brothers served in the military. My oldest brother served off and on in Vietnam for 6 years, running 266 combat missions. I remember the fear our family felt with every late- night phone call or official-looking letter. Could my brother be hurt? Could he be dead?

It is still hard to find the words to describe the pain that we put American families through when we ship a generation off to war. Mamas are worried sick that their sons or daughters will not make it home. A new generation of veterans will have to live with the horrors of war, live with the trauma of witnessing innocent victims of war take their final breath, live with their own injuries and prolonged recoveries.

The people who will be asked to sacrifice their lives are the American people. It won't be Donald Trump. It won't be Pete Hegseth. It will be our sons and daughters, our nieces and nephews, our grandchildren. Trump is right to note that people die in war. That happens as surely as night follows day. And that means that the leaders who send young people to die must take the consequences of this conflict with the seriousness it deserves, with life-and-death seriousness.

Instead, Trump and his team seem to be treating war with Iran like a game, as if Commander in Chief was a costume and Secretary of War is a fun, pretend title, and the lives lost are just numbers on a board with the title Operation Epic Fury.

Forty-eight hours after he started this war, Trump finally addressed the American people and took questions. He spoke to the people who are worried sick about what this war means for them and what it means for the people they love.

Instead of offering a plan, however, he talked about renovations to his gold-encrusted ballroom. It is sickening, and it is time for this Congress to make him stop.

Here is what we need: First, Donald Trump started this war illegally, without the consent of Congress, and he cannot be allowed to continue it. There is too much at stake. Every single Senator must support Senator Kaine's War Powers Resolution to block this reckless war. This isn't about politics. This is about life and death for young Americans who will be called on to serve and for civilians who will end up in harm's way.

Second, the United States must investigate the bombing of an elementary school in Iran. Israel claims it was not aware of any operations in the area by their own IDF, and that raises the question of whether it was a United States strike and how that happened.

The U.S. military's Central Command has said it needs to look into the incident. As we regularly do following a catastrophe of this size with the possible involvement of the U.S. military, we must find out what happened and hold those responsible to account.

And, third, we need to hold accountable every single Trump administration official who lied to the American people about this unconstitutional war. People have a right to the truth from their government, and nowhere, at no time, is that more crucial than in the life-and-death decisions surrounding the decision to go to war.

We must hold our elected officials accountable if they don't level with the people who will be sent to fight and possibly to die. Along with many of you, I am angry at what this administration is doing. I feel grief for those killed in the conflict. I feel anguish for the families at home trying to make sense of why their beloved husbands, wives, sons, daughters, moms, and dads are sent into a war that no one can explain.

And I will keep fighting for an end to this war.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the GAO opinion letter dated January 16, 2026.