Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, Donald Trump and ``Copresident'' Elon Musk are shutting down the Federal Government one piece at a time: shutting down the Agency that stops banks and payday lenders from cheating working people; shutting down children's cancer research; shutting down key parts of the Department of Transportation, the Agency responsible for keeping people safe when they are flying airplanes; even shutting down parts of the Social Security Administration.

Now Republicans in Congress are laying out their blueprint to shut down the entire Federal Government. A budget is a reflection of our values, and this proposal makes clear where the Republicans' values lie. After months of bipartisan talks, they are walking away from the negotiating table and offering a nonstarter House bill that forces us to the brink of a full government shutdown. Who would be hurt the most? Working people. Billionaires win; families lose. Republicans' values are clear.

Their shutdown bill does two terrible things. First, it wipes out the guardrails that Congress wrote for how to spend taxpayer money. That means that ``Copresidents'' Trump and Musk can hold everyone under their magic spell. They can spend taxpayer money or they can shut off taxpayer money exactly how they want. Perhaps Trump and Musk want to shovel $75 million of ALS treatment funding to anti-vaccine research instead. That would be OK under the Republican deal--or maybe they want to shift $300 million or more from the FAA's telecommunications funding bucket toward contracts to Elon Musk's Starlink. The budget the Republicans have sent over would permit that as well. And if Trump and Musk decide to fire another 25,000 Americans or kick a million old people out of nursing homes, this package from House Republicans would say: Sure.

In addition to giving ``Copresidents'' Trump and Musk the power to spend taxpayer money wherever they want, House Republicans also propose general cuts--cuts from programs that help families put food on the table, afford childcare, and keep our communities safe; cuts from local communities for projects like improving hospitals, teaching facilities, and childcare centers--dollars that the House and the Senate had already agreed to.

But the House Republican package isn't just about cutting out veterans and old people. No. It is also about spending more money. Republican House Members want to pour an extra $6 billion over the next 6 months--yes, that is $1 billion a month--directly to the Pentagon, with no explanation and no justification of why this money is needed. Nope. There are cuts everywhere else in government, but there is a funding increase for the one government Agency that has never, never passed an audit. That Agency, the Department of Defense, gets $1 billion a month.

House Republicans want to give 6 billion more dollars to make sure that defense contractors continue to get their fat paychecks.

Look, Republicans in Congress don't care whether the government shuts down because they don't care about hurting working families. All they care about is getting back to jamming through their true agenda--$4.6 trillion worth of tax handouts for millionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations, paid for by gutting healthcare for millions of people.

Donald Trump looked Americans in the eye and said he would ``lower costs on day one.'' Those were his words. And now we are 7 weeks in, and he has done the exact opposite. He is raising costs for families. More people are losing their jobs--sky-high childcare, housing, and food costs. And it is open season right now for banks and credit card companies and shady student loan outfits to scam the American people.

The Republican shutdown playbook is dangerous, and it will hurt working families. Democrats are right to oppose the House bill, and people all across this country are right to expect us to stand up and fight back.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today's vote on this Congressional Review Act resolution could not be more straightforward: Vote yes if you want more Americans to get scammed. Vote no if you don't.

Vote yes if you want Elon Musk to have a get-out-of-jail-free card when he scams people on xMoney. Vote no if you don't.

Three-quarters of Americans use digital payment platforms like Venmo and Cash App, and reports of scams on those sites have skyrocketed.

So CFPB investigated and then stepped in with a new rule to help prevent this fraud. The CFPB's rule also helps protect consumer privacy, and it combats deep banking on these platforms.

Now, ask any American how much they like getting scammed and whether they think there should be stronger protections against it. Listen to how angry people get over these scams.

Look, nobody wants to be scammed, and no one wants fewer protections against getting scammed. In fact, the only people who want weaker rules against scamming are the guys who run the scams, and that may explain why Elon Musk is hoping that the Senate kills this new rule today because Elon's new xMoney digital payment platform would be subject to CFPB review.

Elon wants to take the cop off the beat. He wants what amounts to a ``get out of jail free for Elon'' card, and that is what the vote today would actually give him.

Look, I think it is pretty clear what Elon's play is here. He wasn't very subtle when he tweeted ``CFPB RIP.'' The next thing you know, his DOGE team then locks the CFPB staff out of their own building. That was act one.

Now is act two: He wants Congress to block this CFPB rule.

Now, what will Elon get out of it if the rule is blocked? Well, he will get a clear runway for his payment app without having to worry about whether there is a cop on the financial beat who would catch him if he rips off customers who use his new app.

But this is really a three-part play, not just a two part play. Act one was closing down the CFPB so that the financial cops were shut out, at least for a while. Act two is the part we see now, with Elon rolling back a rule that, when cops are back on the beat, a financial cop could use that rule to go after Elon if he breaks the law.

Act three comes next week, when Republicans try to move forward with legislation that will clear the decks for Elon to issue xMoney as his own stablecoin, without any guardrails to protect consumers, to protect national security, or to protect the financial stability of our economy.

Put simply, Republicans are setting the stage for the richest man in the world to issue his own currency that competes with the U.S. dollar.

Act one protected all the scammers. Act two protects the cash app scammers, in particular. And act three, as currently drafted, will roll out the red carpet for Elon and Jeff and Mark and maybe a few other Big Tech billionaires to seize control of our money and payments, which underpins the entire economy.

So the question is, Will Congress go along? Will Congress protect Americans from getting cheated out of their money? Or will Congress give Elon Musk a get-out-of-jail-free card so he can scam whoever he wants to scam and know that the CFPB can't touch him?

Look, this may feel like just one more vote on a busy day, but rewarding Elon Musk and a handful of billionaires will mean real cons go forward in this country.

I urge my colleagues to vote no.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today's vote to proceed on this Congressional

Review Act resolution should be renamed the ``Elon Musk `Get Out of Jail Free' Card.''

This resolution gives Elon Musk the ability to launch his xMoney site without worrying about breaking the law and getting caught. Of course, this is also a ``get out of jail free'' card for others like, Apple Pay and Google Pay and other online platforms that handle people's money, and there is a good reason to oppose it.

This bill is another example of how Republicans in Congress, in conjunction with President Trump and Elon Musk in the White House, are sticking it to families and middle-class consumers all over America and declaring it open season for fraudsters. In fact, just a few hours ago, Trump and Elon dropped the Agency's lawsuit against Zelle and the big banks that own Zelle for failing to protect consumers from being scammed out of nearly $1 billion on their app. Now Republicans are trying to roll back the CFPB's ability to protect Americans from getting scammed on payment apps like Venmo and Cash App, and they are making it easier for unelected billionaire Elon Musk to cheat American consumers and line his own pockets.

So here is the back story: Musk bought Twitter, lost buckets of money, then decided he could recover and make more money by setting up a new financial services arm called xMoney. Now, in ordinary times, he could do that, but the CFPB would be responsible for enforcing consumer financial laws for xMoney. It would also be authorized to examine the books and records to prevent illegal practices and make sure that consumers are getting a fair shake. But co-President Musk doesn't want that, and Donald Trump and Senate Republicans are willing to do Elon's bidding, and that is what brings us here today.

They want to roll back a rule called the larger participant rule that was put in place to protect consumers from abuses on these apps and to ensure that these apps are being monitored for following the law, just like banks get monitored for doing the same kinds of things.

The rules protect consumers' privacy when they use digital wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay. The rules also help companies get their money back when they get defrauded on PayPal or Cash App or Venmo.

Frankly, the rule is great for consumers. It cracks down on tens of millions of dollars of fraud--fraud that has surged in recent years. It protects consumers' privacy, ensuring that apps are not taking your private spending data and selling it to anybody who comes along. It helps prevent debanking, a problem that my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle have spent a lot of time talking about.

The CFPB rule protects consumers' peer-to-peer accounts from being closed or frozen without notice or justification. It prevents these apps from unfairly depriving consumers of funds that they need to be able to buy stuff. Three-quarters of all Americans have used these peer-to-peer apps, and millions of Americans have had the sad experience of getting ripped off on peer-to-peer payments apps like Venmo and Cash App and PayPal.

Now, if you think that you are dealing with a legitimate person on the other side and then the next thing you know your money is gone and you are left without any recourse, that is wrong, and it is even worse if it happens because a payment app isn't meeting its basic responsibilities of preventing fraud on its own platform. The CFPB rule helps to protect those millions of Americans who use payment apps, making sure that both their personal data and their money are safe.

This is a rule that is good for consumers, but it is not good for billionaires, who have figured out how to make money by defrauding those consumers. It is a very familiar story now. President Trump and the Republicans are on the side of the billionaires. They are acting to help out their pals Elon and Jeff and Mark. Hard-working people who just want their payment apps to work and who don't want to get cheated as part of the deal are the ones who will lose.

Never mind that this is the Agency that works so hard for the little guy. Never mind that the CFPB has returned more than $21 billion directly to American consumers who were cheated. Never mind that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are trying to kill this rule, and they are trying to kill the entire Agency.

Musk and Republicans in Congress are moving quickly to take the financial cop off the beat. They are hoping that people across this country won't notice or that people are so distracted and overwhelmed by everything else that is going on that they won't try to stop them.

But your eyes are not fooling you. It is happening in plain sight.

Ahead of Donald Trump's speech tonight at the Capitol, Republicans are voting to hurt millions of American consumers. Why? Just to protect Elon Musk's business ventures from a financial cop on the beat who would make sure that he follows the law.

I hope the American public is paying attention tonight. I hope my Republican colleagues are paying attention here in the Senate as well. It is not too late for them to reconsider this vote.

Make no mistake, Elon Musk locked the CFPB's staff out of the building to protect his own payment app boondoggle, and now he wants Congress to block this rule to legalize his boondoggle.

And, next week, Republicans intend to mark up legislation that would clear the decks for Elon to issue xMoney as his own stablecoin without guardrails to protect consumers, to protect national security, or to protect the financial stability of our entire country.

The line between right and wrong is clear. On one side, Senate Democrats are standing up for Americans who just don't want to get cheated when they use a financial app, and on the other side, we have got con men, rip-off artists, Elon Musk, and Big Tech billionaires. Which side will our Senate Republicans choose?

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Colorado for your energetic leadership in this area. I am very grateful for your voice on this and for the work you do for the people of the country and, also, for everybody around the world. We have got to deal with this problem; so, thank you.

I rise today in support of Senator Kaine and Senator Heinrich's resolution to terminate Donald Trump's Executive order declaring a national energy emergency.

I just want to start by being clear about what is going on here. Donald Trump promised to gut our environmental laws if Big Oil CEOs gave him a billion dollars for his campaign. He was quite open about this. How could he do that? Well, he has figured it out. He declared an emergency that he has focused on that emergency will give him a chance to pay those oil executives CEOs back.

Now, this order is not a serious attempt at lowering anyone's energy costs. And you know how I know this? Because a true strategy to lower people's costs would include clean energy sources like wind and solar, which this order deliberately excludes.

So what does this Executive order do? It lets big oil and gas companies off the hook on following our environmental laws and regulations. And those are the rules that make sure that you have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink.

Why would Donald Trump do this? It is simple. He does not care about lowering anyone's costs or helping create good jobs. All he cares about is his rich as hell--those were his words--his rich as hell donors and helping them make more money.

Let's be clear. Energy prices are too high. Americans are feeling those high prices. Energy prices have been on the rise for the past decade. And last year, one-third of Americans had to cut back on necessary spending in order to pay their energy bills.

Americans are looking for real solutions. And that is why Democrats got to work and passed the biggest climate package in the history of the world to unleash American innovation and to support a clean energy future.

Now, America is producing more energy than ever before, including through offshore wind projects off the coast of Massachusetts, and we are creating good jobs while we are doing it.

Clean energy jobs are now over 40 percent of all the energy jobs in the United States. They are growing twice as fast as other industries, but Donald Trump is now trying to unravel all of that progress. Why? In order to please his big oil and gas donors.

And this sham will have real consequences for our communities-- raising energy costs and cutting American jobs.

Look no further than Somerset, MA, to see what is happening. At Brayton Point in Somerset, there is an old coal-fired powerplant that closed down years and years ago. But a private company called Prysmian had decided that they want to turn part of this plant into a factory to build undersea cables to support American offshore wind farms. They want to build the cables so we can bring that power in and use it, that clean power in and use it here in the United States.

That project would be transformative for Somerset. It would create about 250 to 300 good manufacturing jobs and would deliver more than $10 million in annual tax revenues. That is a big deal for a small town.

So for the last few years, local officials and our Massachusetts Federal delegation has been working hard with the Federal Government to help turn that idea into a reality.

But last month, the company suddenly announced they are ending the project. No more jobs, no more tax revenue. And why? Because of Donald Trump's attacks on clean energy. Somerset's experience is just one of the experiences felt by many communities all around this country. Yes, Somerset will bounce back. But Donald Trump is cutting jobs and raising energy costs on communities all across this country just to please his oil and gas donors. And it is communities like Somerset that are paying the price for that.

Make no mistake: We will fight back, that is why Democrats are here today. That fight starts with ending this sham of an Executive order.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes on Senator Kaine and Senator Heinrich's resolution.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 734 and ask that it be reported by number.

As we begin the budget process, Democrats are asking Republicans questions about the basic principles of what they are planning to do. The first question is whether there is anyone who is so rich that Republicans think they don't need a tax giveaway.

My amendment says that anyone who earns more than $10 million a year won't get a tax cut in the new Republican budget, and I want to know if Republicans will agree to that. I urge everyone, Democrat or Republican, to say yes.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, how much time do I have?

In my 24 seconds, I would like to say we all know what this is about. You are starting the process for a budget, and we just want to know the basic principle. Is there anyone so rich that Republicans think they shouldn't get a tax cut? And my view is, let's just start the bidding at $10 million. Is that rich enough to say they are not going to get a tax giveaway from the Republicans?

Mr. President, I want to say thanks to the Senator from Minnesota for her leadership on this point. I know that great research institutions in Minnesota that count on her support are out there fighting, thanks to Donald Trump, as they are in Massachusetts--and people all around this country who rely on those research institutions, who are looking for those cures, for those better treatments, for those opportunities in their lives that, right now, Donald Trump and his co- President Elon Musk seem to want to cut off.

So we will stay in this fight. We will indeed.

I am here today because Americans didn't vote to bring back measles. Americans didn't vote to bring back polio. Americans didn't vote to bring back dangerous diseases that we thought we had wiped out decades ago. Americans didn't vote to get rid of critical vaccines that we know--based on science--we know save lives.

But that is what Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s vision would mean for Americans. That is the vision that Donald Trump will empower him to carry out.

Kennedy not only worked to undercut vaccines at home and abroad; he has made a lot of money doing it. In fact, Kennedy has made millions off of peddling harmful conspiracy theories that hurt real people. He opposed the lifesaving COVID vaccine just 6 months into the pandemic, and he set himself up so that he and his family could make millions more from putting Americans' health at risk.

One thing is very clear: We cannot trust Robert Kennedy to make healthcare decisions that will affect every person in this country.

Right now, millions of Americans are sitting down for dinner with their kids, and I hope we just think for a minute about what RFK, Jr.'s plans would mean for them.

Will their teeth decay because Kennedy took fluoride out of the water based on some conspiracy theory? Will they have to worry about getting measles at school because Kennedy is spreading anti-vax conspiracies on government letterhead? Will parents have to risk their kids getting polio and maybe dying by sending them to daycare because Kennedy used his HHS rules to open the door to a flood of bogus lawsuits that force manufacturers to pull the vaccines?

Look, here is the thing: Robert Kennedy has spent years on an anti- vaccine crusade, spreading baseless conspiracy theories under the guise of protecting children. So we don't need to guess the level of harm he will cause. His past already tells us everything we need to know.

In July 2018, two children died immediately after receiving a measles vaccine that nurses had incorrectly mixed with a muscle relaxant. Within weeks, the Samoan Health Ministry publicly confirmed the nursing error and charged the nurses with manslaughter.

Nevertheless, leading anti-vaccine groups--including Kennedy's own organization, Children's Health Defense--exploited public fears to question the reports and spread baseless claims.

On August 5, 2018, Kennedy's organization, Children's Health Defense, posted on Facebook--and I will quote the post:

Were these once-healthy children the only two to receive

MMR that day? If not, why were they the only ones to die?

Research needs to determine susceptibility so that no child

is ever injured.

Del Bigtree, Kennedy's partner and former campaign manager, also released a video linking the tragedy to false claims about measles and telling his followers to ``share it with everyone you know. This is how we are changing the world.''

Now, amidst public distrust and a paused vaccine program in Samoa, the vaccination rates plummeted. About 10 months later, once the Samoan Government had finally stood up against the disinformation and resumed the vaccine program, Kennedy visited the island to meet with the Prime Minister.

Later, recognizing the blowback that comes with how much went wrong when a conspiracy theory cost people their lives, Kennedy has since denied that his visit had anything to do with vaccines and said that anything suggesting otherwise was ``an industry propaganda trope''--in other words, totally false--``an industry propaganda trope.'' Kennedy lied.

A blog post that Kennedy himself wrote in 2021 admits that he went to Samoa to meet with the Prime Minister, who wanted to discuss the possibility of ``measur[ing] health outcomes following the `natural experiment' created by the nation's respite from vaccines.''

Think about what that means. Another way to say it is that Kennedy was interested in taking advantage of how the vaccination rate had plummeted--caused by misinformation--so that they could conduct uncontrolled trials on whether unvaccinated kids were healthier than vaccinated kids, a conspiracy theory that he had widely spread.

You see, at the time, one of his traveling partners was working on a similar study with two anti-vaccine activists, which was ultimately retracted, following an investigation that ``raised several methodological issues and confirmed that the conclusions were not supported by strong scientific data.''

Now there is no surprise here. The Prime Minister of Samoa declined Kennedy's outrageous proposal. He didn't want his country to be Kennedy's guinea pig. He didn't want unvaccinated children to be studied to see what happened to them when measles or other diseases broke out.

But that didn't stop Kennedy from spreading his message. On this trip to Samoa, he met with various anti-vaccine influencers, one of whom said the meeting was ``profoundly monumental for the movement.''

A few months after Kennedy left, in October 2019, the vaccination rate in Samoa hit a historic low of 31 percent, down from 74 percent the prior year. And, no surprise, a massive measles outbreak erupted.

So here is Kennedy telling us now: No, no, he had nothing--nothing-- to do with this. His trip to Samoa had nothing to do with the measles vaccine, and calling any claim ``industry propaganda trope,'' and yet he himself posted a blog about meeting with the Prime Minister and talking about a study to measure health outcomes following a natural experiment of studying children, some with no vaccination and some that were vaccinated.

And the anti-vax groups he met with talked about how profoundly important it is. Then Mr. Kennedy leaves. Vaccination rates drop down to 31 percent.

The measles outbreak was truly tragic. In total, more than 70 children died,

right up until a door-to-door vaccination campaign brought the disaster to an end.

As HHS Secretary, Kennedy would be responsible for whether we keep our children vaccinated or subject them to, in his word, the same ``natural experiment'' that he was interested in testing in Samoa. Is that really what we want for our kids? Is that what we want for our elderly parents? That is a living nightmare, and it could truly be our reality with Kennedy heading up the Department of Health and Human Services.

And all the while that this is going on, while Kennedy is promoting this anti-vax theory, he and his family are profiting off the plan.

Now, I have been sounding the alarm about Kennedy since the minute Donald Trump announced that he would nominate him for HHS Secretary. It is not just that he is unqualified; his long history of promoting anti- science conspiracy theories make him disqualified.

This is a man who claimed ``there is no vaccine that is safe and effective''--``no vaccine.''

He said that the polio vaccine ``killed many, many more people than polio ever did.''

Now, Kennedy came to our committee and said: Don't worry. He swears he is not anti-vaccine. But he has spent years on an anti-vaccine crusade, spreading baseless conspiracy theories under the guise of protecting children, and making millions of dollars in the process.

And when, in Senate hearings, he was confronted with his own words, he simply denied saying them. He denied saying them, despite the videotapes, the transcripts, the blog posts, and the people who heard them.

Kennedy thinks he knows what he needs to say to try to get the job that will put him in charge of our vaccine program. So he says he didn't say exactly what he said. Kennedy's actions speak louder than his latest words. And time and time again, Kennedy has shown us who he is: an anti-science conspiracy peddler who is willing to gamble with American lives. We know who he is. We need to pay attention.

Let's do a quick count of some of the ways that, as HHS Secretary, Kennedy could make the anti-vaccine lawsuits and his own payouts even bigger. What could Kennedy do? Well, as Secretary of HHS, he could publish his anti-vaccine conspiracies, but this time on U.S. Government letterhead, something that might impress a jury in a subsequent trial. He could appoint people to the CDC vaccine panel who share his anti-vax views and let them do his dirty work. He could tell the CDC vaccine panel to remove a particular vaccine from the vaccination schedule. He could remove vaccines from a special compensation program, which ``would open up manufacturers to mass torts'' lawsuits. He could make more injuries eligible for compensation, even if there is no causal evidence. He could change vaccine court processes to make it easier to bring junk lawsuits that could get vaccines pulled from the market. He could turn over FDA to his friends at the law firm, and they could use it however benefits their lawsuits.

In short, as HHS Secretary, Kennedy would have the power to make healthcare decisions that would affect millions of Americans--working Americans, kids, seniors--on everything from vaccines to abortion to lifesaving drugs.

Kennedy would have the capacity as head of HHS to make it easier to sue vaccine manufacturers. And in an area where the profit margins on vaccines are quite modest, if those lawsuits mount up, vaccines could simply disappear from the market all together. Manufacturers could decide: You know, it is just not worth the lawsuits. We will go produce other drugs.

Those kinds of decisions are critically important, and the consequences are grave. For many Americans, they may be the difference between life and death, and they could change lives forever.

So while you and your family are forced to deal with the grave consequences of Kennedy's conspiracy-driven healthcare decisions, Kennedy could set himself up to make millions of dollars off his anti- vaccine crusade, just like he has been doing for decades.

Remember, the very first ethics agreement that Kennedy submitted to us on the Senate Finance Committee, he said that even while he served as Secretary of HHS, he planned to keep a financial stake in ongoing litigation, including vaccine-related litigation. That means that from the jump, Kennedy's plan was to keep making money off the backs of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers, some of which directly related to the very products he would have the power to regulate as Secretary of HHS.

So there he is. He has the power to regulate these drugs. He has the power to make life a little better or a little worse for the vaccine manufacturers. He has the power to make it more likely that lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers would succeed. And his initial plan was-- even while he sat there as Secretary of HHS, he was going to keep on making money from that.

This was a damning conflict of interest, so we called it out. Kennedy told us, OK, OK, he would submit an updated ethics agreement. Sounds good. What was his update? Well, he said that instead of personally keeping the millions that he would make off these ongoing lawsuits, he would hand that money directly to his son.

Later, he confirmed that the son he is handing his interests off to is the one who works at Wisner Baum, the same law firm that Kennedy has maintained this very lucrative arrangement with over the years, so far netting him a reported $2.5 million just in the last few years.

Kennedy has made clear that he can use his tools as HHS Secretary to open up the door for more anti-vax litigation and, once he is through as Secretary of HHS, go right back to Wisner Baum and cash in on the new flood of cases that Kennedy himself has unleashed. So that is Kennedy's idea of fixing an ethics issue.

Beyond that, Kennedy has flip-flopped countless times in his answers to the Finance Committee. He is untrustworthy. He has made so many contradictory statements that it has come to the point that it is hard to believe anything he says is true.

For example, Kennedy originally said he was not an attorney of record in any of these vaccine-related lawsuits, but we did a little homework, and we found at least five cases related to the vaccine litigation that hadn't been disclosed where Kennedy appears to be the attorney of record. That is important because what it means is that Kennedy is a lot closer to these cases than he is revealing--cases that he and his family will be able to make bank off even as he serves as Secretary at the HHS.

The importance of this litigation cannot be overstated. Just 20 years ago, we watched vaccine makers pull their product off the market because they didn't have protection from these kinds of lawsuits. The consequence of Kennedy's ability to make those lawsuits easier is also the ability to shut down access and manufacturing for vaccines for every one of us, and I think that is a terrible mistake.

Kennedy claims that he is taking on Big Pharma, but that is the lie he is peddling to hide his conflicts. I pressed him on real ways to take on the industry, including using march-in on Big Pharma's patents when they use taxpayer funds to bring drugs to market and then turn around and jack up prices on hard-working Americans and by having the government negotiate prices directly with Big Pharma on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries.

But Kennedy, after talking a big game about taking on Big Pharma, said no, he doesn't support march-in rights and, no, he didn't want to commit to defending Medicare price negotiations--two proven methods to take on the drug industry and put money back into Americans' pockets.

So whose side is he on? Well, one thing is for sure: RFK, Jr., is on the side of his own bottom line.

He has also refused to share a list of cases that he stands to benefit from. I told you he said, nope, he was not attorney of record on any cases. We dug around, and we found five. How many more are there? Well, here is what Kennedy said when we said: Just give us a list of the cases that you are participating in so we can take a look at the possible conflicts. His answer: The list is so long and the conflicts so clear that evidently it would be more damning than what we already know.

Kennedy's list of ethics issues and financial issues are a mile long, and there is still too much that he refuses to reveal.

Think about this. He has already told us enough about his conflicts, about how he plans to keep making money even while he is Secretary of HHS. He revealed all that right up front. He said: Yes, I am going to make money while I am Secretary of HHS. Yet, on basic questions like ``Can you just give us a list of the cases you participated in?'' he says ``No, I can't do that,'' which really makes you ask, what on Earth is he hiding?

He is dodging questions from the Senate, he is contradicting himself, and he keeps changing his answers in order to muddy the waters and really make it hard to understand what is going on.

Look, no one is fooled here. Kennedy has said he will ``slam shut the revolving door'' between government Agencies and the companies they regulate, but what he won't agree to is to cut off his own family's steady stream of money flowing in from lawsuits that he personally can directly affect while he is Secretary of HHS.

Kennedy knows that these conflicts are serious, and that is why he scrambled to update his ethics agreement and hand off his interests to his son in a desperate attempt to ``fix'' things. But that simply isn't good enough when millions of Americans' lives are hanging in the balance.

Don't take it just from me; take it from the Wall Street Journal editorial board. They wrote:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged during his confirmation

hearing . . . to root out corruption between industry and

government. Yet the man who wants to be the nation's

Secretary of Health and Human Services refused to rule out

personally making money from lawsuits against drug makers.

This ought to be disqualifying.

The Wall Street Journal: ``This ought to be disqualifying.''

It is simple: If Kennedy wants to prove he was serious about ``slamming shut the revolving door'' between industry and people making money from their positions in government, I laid out a list of commitments he should make immediately.

Senator Wyden, the ranking member on the Finance Committee, and I wrote:

1. If confirmed as Secretary, you will recuse yourself from

all vaccine-related communications and decisions. Given the

breadth of your involvement in vaccine litigation, such a

recusal would help ensure that you and your family do not

benefit financially from official government actions that you

will oversee and control. Such recusal will also ensure

vaccine-related policymaking and communications are not

inappropriately skewed by your personal views at the expense

of scientific evidence.

That was part 1 that we want.

2. If confirmed as Secretary, you will recuse yourself from

all matters related to HHS-regulated entities that are

involved in cases or litigation that you or your family have

an interest in. This will help ensure, for example, that you

could not leverage your position as Secretary by conditioning

a company's request regarding an unrelated manner (e.g., an

FDA approval) on such company agreeing to settle an anti-

vaccination case in which you or your family have a financial

interest.

3. If confirmed as Secretary, you will not litigate cases

involving vaccines, represent parties in VICP-related cases,

or have a financial interest in such litigation or cases for

at least 4 years after leaving office. As Secretary, you

would be in a position to influence future anti-vaccine cases

and litigation in ways that would benefit you personally

after leaving HHS. For example, you could direct the CDC to

remove a vaccine from the vaccine schedule, change vaccine

labeling requirements, or make procedures in special vaccine

court more advantageous for plaintiffs. Then, if you leave

HHS and immediately return to litigating against vaccine

makers, you would stand to profit from rules you helped

reshape. This commitment would further mitigate the

appearance of a conflict of interest while you are in office.

These commitments will help ensure that you do not have a

direct or indirect financial incentive to interfere with

HHS's vaccine proceedings or other matters involving the

manufacturer of Gardasil or any other HHS-regulated entity.

In other words, Senator Wyden and I laid out a path where he truly could avoid the conflicts of interest. If he wants to serve his country and not his own pocketbook, we have shown him a way that he can do this.

Senator Kaine and I followed up on this and wrote to Kennedy:

At your Senate confirmation hearing, you pledged to

``remove the financial conflicts of interests in [HHS]

agencies.''

Continuing with our letter:

You should start by mitigating your own conflicts of

interests, including by (1) relinquishing your direct and

indirect financial interests in matters over which you will

have power at HHS; (2) recusing yourself from matters

involving your former clients, former employers, or entities

in which you have a financial interest; and (3) for at least

four years after you leave office, committing to not lobbying

HHS, litigating cases against pharmaceutical companies and

manufacturers, or joining the industries or entities that you

interact with at HHS.

In other words, we showed you another way that you can get this done.

Look, this is just common sense. I would hope that my Republican colleagues would agree that our HHS nominee should not have ongoing, lucrative agreements that enable his immediate family to line their pockets while he influences healthcare decisions that impact millions of Americans.

It is not just attacks on vaccines that we have to worry about from the Trump administration. In the middle of the night last Friday, Donald Trump announced deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health funding, which powers the lifesaving research and medical breakthroughs at universities and medical institutions across the country, especially in my home State of Massachusetts. These Trump cuts will stop research that is working to help cure diseases, it will force people who are working now to lose good jobs, and it will literally threaten people's lives.

As head of HHS, Kennedy would oversee the National Institutes of Health, and he would green-light Trump's plan to gut the Agency. He has made no commitments to protect the critical, lifesaving research that NIH funds, and maybe that should be no surprise given his years of attacking basic scientific facts.

Listen to what experts have had to say about what these cuts will mean for families across America:

People are not able to do their work if there isn't an

infrastructure. This will have a huge impact on health

research in this country.

We're all reeling. This would decimate medical research.

This is a surefire way to cripple lifesaving research and

innovation. America's competitors will relish this self-

inflicted wound.

As one expert said:

If you're a cancer patient in a clinical trial, it is not a

theoretical undertaking, it is treatment.

For so many rare diseases and illnesses where research is already underfunded, like childhood cancer, researchers have said:

If it's not federal funding, there's nowhere else to go--

that's a real impact on the short [term] and [the] long term.

I don't know how you make that up. These funding cuts are putting scientists in a position where they have to default on the promises they made--promises they made to people to join their studies, promises they made to other researchers to join them, promises they made to build up the labs and to build up the work that would make a difference in our world.

When the NIH and the NSF put out their solicitations, they are asking for critical scientific research to be done on behalf of the American people. That research cures diseases and saves lives. The institutions that apply for these solicitations are saying enthusiastically: Yes, we can do that. Yes, we share that dream. Yes, we believe that we can make a better product, that we can make a better medicine, that we can make a better treatment for people who are suffering, and we want to be part of that.

And now here we are in chaos and confusion, and the U.S. Government is trying to break that contract. Americans will suffer because of it.

This is Trump's plan for Americans' health, and Kennedy will be a rubberstamp for whatever Donald Trump wants to do.

Let's talk just a little bit more about that COVID vaccine.

Do you remember how, in the dead of the pandemic, hundreds of millions of Americans were counting on that vaccine as the light at the end of the tunnel; how, when we were shut away from our friends and family and trying to keep ourselves and our communities safe, that vaccine allowed us to come together again; how that vaccine saved countless more lives that otherwise would have been lost to COVID?

Well, just make sure you know: Kennedy tried to stop you and your family from having access to the COVID vaccine.

I will just read a little portion of one of the articles from last month on this:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump's

choice to lead the nation's health agencies, formally asked

the Food and Drug Administration to revoke the authorization

of all--

All--

COVID vaccines during a deadly phase of the pandemic when

thousands of Americans were still dying every week.

Mr. Kennedy filed a petition with the FDA in May 2021, demanding that officials rescind authorization for the shots and refrain from approving any COVID vaccine in the interim. Just 6 months earlier, Mr. Trump had declared the COVID vaccines a miracle. At the time Mr. Kennedy filed the petition, half of American adults were receiving their shots. Schools were starting to reopen, and churches were filling. Estimates have begun to show that the rapid roll-out of COVID vaccines have already saved 140,000 lives in the United States.

The petition was filed on behalf of the nonprofit that Mr. Kennedy founded and led, Children's Health Defense, which we talked about earlier. It claimed the risks of vaccines outweighed the benefits and that the vaccines weren't necessary because good treatments were available, including ivermectin and--I just can't believe this-- hydroxychloroquine, which had already been deemed ineffective against the virus.

The petition received little notice when it was filed. Mr. Kennedy was then on the fringes of the public health establishment, and the Agency denied it within months. Public health experts told about the filing said it was truly shocking.

You know, I want to underscore this one because Mr. Kennedy is saying now--not only is he saying he is not an anti-vaxxer; he is saying he wants you to still be able to vaccinate your children if you want to do that. Yet look at Mr. Kennedy's own actions. Mr. Kennedy tried to stop all of us--everyone in America--from getting access to the COVID vaccine. He cites junk science. It was already known to be junk science at the time that he cites it. He cites junk science in order to say, not just that he doesn't want to take the vaccine or not just that he doesn't want to give it to his kids, but he didn't want anybody in America to be able to get that.

So that is the man that the Republicans will be voting on to decide whether or not he makes healthcare policy in the United States--someone who is continuing to line his own pocket with lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers and someone who has tried to stop at least one vaccine from being distributed to anyone anywhere in America.

Look, when Kennedy says he doesn't believe in vaccines, which he has said many times, believe him. When his attempt at fixing his ethics issue is passing his stake to his son, believe him. When he says he will do whatever Donald Trump wants on abortion, believe him. Don't say: No one will let him go that far, because they will let him go that far.

Republicans voting for Kennedy know exactly who they are voting for-- someone who spreads baseless conspiracy theories, someone who profits off making our kids sicker, someone who will do whatever Donald Trump tells him to do, whether it is cutting off cancer research funding or banning abortion medication.

Let us be very clear: When it comes to your health and your well- being and the health and well-being of your friends, your family, your community, Kennedy is disqualified, dangerous, and cannot be given the power to make critical healthcare decisions. I urge my colleagues to vote no on his nomination.

I see that Senator Kaine is here. Senator Kaine has been a tireless partner in the fight to help protect the Nation's healthcare system, and I appreciate his being here tonight.

Madam President, I thank Senator Blumenthal for his unrelenting work to help protect our Nation and in raising this issue around Tulsi Gabbard as a nominee to be the Director of National Intelligence. I appreciate his work here, and I am proud to be able to follow him in this effort.

I am here today because Tulsi Gabbard's nomination is a national security threat. We are being confronted with a vote that could put all of us at risk.

Look, everybody in the Senate understands the threat that Tulsi Gabbard poses, but I want to make sure that everyone understands the job she would have.

Why do we even have a Director of National Intelligence? The short answer is to prevent another 9/11. The Director of National Intelligence position was born in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on New York that caused the Twin Towers to crash to the ground, that collapsed part of the Pentagon, that led to the deaths of 40 brave passengers on Flight 93. These terrorist attacks together killed almost 3,000 people, and they affected millions of family members, coworkers, neighbors, and people in every State in our country and around the world.

Soon after the attacks, we asked the most obvious questions: How did this happen? Why didn't we see this coming? Why weren't we able to head it off?

It rapidly became clear that our Nation had major intelligence failures. We were gathering intelligence abroad and here at home, but we were not effectively integrating and coordinating foreign, military, and domestic intelligence, and the result of that failure was catastrophic.

That is where the DNI Director comes in. The Director of National Intelligence is the keystone that holds together our intelligence community. This is the person who coordinates across Agencies to make sure that each component of our intelligence system is talking with every other, to make sure that what happened on 9/11 doesn't happen again. This person is the principal adviser to the President on any national security-related intelligence.

The Director of National Intelligence is central to how we make decisions about where our military should be deployed, is central to how we identify our greatest national security threats, and is central to knowing what our enemy is going to do next--all of that.

Tulsi Gabbard is aggressively unqualified for this job, and making her the Director of National Intelligence will increase the risk of a national security crisis. For starters, she has no experience in the intelligence community, and she has never served as a national security official in the executive branch.

Tulsi Gabbard is also disqualified to be Director of National Intelligence--not just unqualified but actually disqualified. Her disqualifications mean she should be kept far, far away from any part of our government intelligence system.

The problems with Tulsi Gabbard are many. She is an apologist for Vladimir Putin, routinely spreading Russian misinformation and Russian talking points about both Ukraine and Syria. She rejected our own U.S. intelligence that Assad used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, and she went to Syria to meet with Assad and with a Syrian cleric who had threatened to activate a network of suicide bombers within the United States and Europe.

So let me say this as clearly as I can: Tulsi Gabbard would be the No. 1 person in charge of all of our Nation's secrets--all of them: all of our intelligence, every piece of secret information that we gather from around the world and every secret that our allies around the world might share with us. She would know all of it, and she would have access to all of it, and she would be the one who would fit it all together. Then she would be one of the people responsible for advising the President on when and where to use our military.

I am deeply concerned about Tulsi Gabbard's track record and whether she can be trusted with our secrets, but I am not the only one who is worried. With the history that Tulsi Gabbard has, can we reasonably expect other nations to trust us with the secret information they gather?

Even if Gabbard behaved admirably as DNI, the United States would likely have less access to sensitive information because our allies just wouldn't want to take a chance on her, just wouldn't want to take a chance that information they gathered and passed along--information that could put their own operatives at risk, for example--would not want to take the chance that they would pass that information along to the United States, that Tulsi Gabbard would see it, and then who knows where it goes.

I am concerned that other countries would say, because they don't want to take a chance on her, that it would further undercut national security if Tulsi Gabbard were confirmed as DNI.

What I am saying tonight is not breaking news. There is nothing here that hasn't been said before. Concerns about Tulsi Gabbard have been circulating on Capitol Hill for years. Every single Senator--Democrat, Republican, or Independent--knows that they are putting our national security at risk if they support Tulsi Gabbard's confirmation to head our Nation's intelligence

coordination. Every single Senator--Republican, Democrat, Independent-- knows the threat that Tulsi Gabbard poses. Every single Senator-- Republican, Democrat, or Independent--knows that Tulsi Gabbard could be handing our secrets over to our staunchest adversaries.

The risks our Nation faces are rising by the hour. Tulsi Gabbard at DNI. Pete Hegseth at DOD. And it isn't just confirmed Cabinet appointees who are putting our Nation at risk; just look at what is going on with Elon Musk and his team of DOGE minions at Treasury. In order for this handful of programmers to gain access to our over $6 trillion payment system, we don't know what safeguards those hackers pulled down. We don't know what gates they opened. And they have apparently tried to get access to sensitive information at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and they have gained access to Medicare and Medicaid records--which, by the way, is another $1.5 trillion in payments every year. They seem to be rushing to access more large datasets across the U.S. Government every day.

When Musk's team got into our Federal databases, were the gates opened for hackers from China, from North Korea, from Iran, from Russia? What criminal gangs and black hat hackers now have access to our personal data?

I never thought we would get to this moment. My colleagues in the Senate, despite our differences, have always taken national security seriously, but at a moment when they are faced with a choice between endangering our country or bending a knee to Donald Trump, too many Republican Senators are too afraid of billionaires and Trump in their own party to do what they know is right.

I want to take some time to underscore just how dangerous Tulsi Gabbard will be to our national security. Let's start with Tulsi Gabbard's ties to Russia. These connections are laid out nicely in the New York Times article ``How Tulsi Gabbard Became a Favorite of Russia's State Media.''

In 2017, when she was still a Democratic member of

Congress, Tulsi Gabbard traveled to Syria and met the

country's authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad. She also

accused the United States of supporting terrorists there.

The day after Vladimir [V.] Putin began a full-scale

invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ms. Gabbard blamed the United

States and NATO for provoking the war by ignoring Russia's

security concerns.

She has since suggested that the United States covertly

worked with Ukraine on dangerous biological pathogens and was

culpable for the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from

Russia to Germany in September 2022. European prosecutors and

U.S. officials say that sabotage was carried out by Ukrainian

operatives.

According to analysts and former officials, Ms. Gabbard

seems to simply share the Kremlin's geopolitical views,

especially when it comes to the exercise of American military

power.

Let me just say that again.

According to analysts and former officials, Ms. Gabbard

seems to simply share the Kremlin's geopolitical views,

especially when it comes to the exercise of American military

power.

Back to the story.

In Russia, the reaction to her potential appointment has

been gleeful, even if Mr. Putin's government remains wary of

American policies, even under a second Trump administration.

``The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. are trembling'' . . . Pravda, a Russian newspaper, wrote on Friday in a glowing profile of Ms. Gabbard, noting, positively, that Ukrainians consider her ``an agent of the Russian state.'' Rossiya-1, a state television channel, called her a Russian ``comrade'' in Mr. Trump's emerging cabinet.

Russian media has emphasized Ms. Gabbard's desire to

improve relations with Moscow, according to FilterLabs, a

firm that analyzes social media, state-run news organizations

and other internet postings to track public sentiment in

Russia.

``Gabbard fits an overall pattern of Trump breaking with

much of the post-Cold War consensus,'' said Jonathan Teubner,

the chief executive of FilterLabs. ``She is, for Russia, the

one that perhaps most perfectly embodies the changes they

were hoping for from the U.S.''

In other words, Tulsi Gabbard is Russia's dream come true.

Mr. Trump's critics called the choice a dangerous one that

would undermine national security and that signaled a

deference to Mr. Putin's world view.

``Nominating Gabbard for director of national intelligence

is the way to Putin's heart, and it tells the world that

America under Trump will be the Kremlin's ally rather than an

adversary,'' Ruth Ghiat, a professor of history at New York

University and author of ``Strongmen,'' a 2020 book about

authoritarian leaders, wrote on Friday. ``And so we would

have a national security official who would potentially

compromise our national security.''

Let me say that again: ``And so we would have a national security official who would potentially compromise our national security.''

``This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if

Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia's legitimate

security concerns regarding Ukraine's becoming a member of

NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia's

border,'' Gabbard wrote on Twitter, now known as X, when the

war began in February 2022.

A month later, she posted a video on the platform saying

the United States was operating 25 to 30 biological research

labs in Ukraine. She accused the Biden administration of

covering them up and said they could release dangerous

pathogens, although she stopped short of claiming the labs

were making biological weapons, as Russia has falsely

claimed.

Ms. Gabbard's remarks were quickly called out by Republican

Members of Congress, including Representative Adam Kinzinger

of Illinois and Senator Mitt Romney of Utah.

Her willingness to criticize the Biden administration made

her, like other prominent critics of the government, a

favorite source of anti-American content on Russia's state

television networks.

Vladimir Solovyov, a popular talk show host, called her

``our girlfriend'' in a segment in 2022. The program included

an interview Ms. Gabbard did with Tucker Carlson, in which

she claimed that Mr. Biden's goal was to end Mr. Putin's

control of the Russian Government, according to Julia Davis,

the creator of the Russian Media Monitor, which tracks

Kremlin propaganda.

Her appearances were regularly picked up by Russia's state

media, including the international network RT, which promoted

her critiques and lauded her with headlines such as ``Tulsi

Gabbard dares to challenge Washington's war machine'' and

``Biden wants regime change in Russia--ex-congresswoman.''

By this year, Ms. Gabbard's politics converged with Mr.

Trump's. In October, she joined the Republican Party and hit

the campaign trail on his behalf, extolling him as a

peacemaker.

``A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for a man who wants to

end wars, not start them,'' she said at Mr. Trump's rally at

Madison Square Garden shortly before Election Day, ``and who

has demonstrated already that he has the courage and strength

to stand up and fight for peace.''

That is the end of the article.

Ah, Tulsi Gabbard--beloved by Russian press, touted in Russian press, an attacker of American's military.

Or take key sections from this letter that William Webster--the only person to lead both the FBI and the CIA--sent to me. He was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, remained Director under President Ronald Reagan, and Reagan tapped him to be the head of the CIA.

I will quote directly from the letter:

Dear Senator Warren,

I had the honor of serving as Director of both the FBI and

CIA, organizations vital to safeguarding our Nation. Their

effectiveness depends on operating with complete independence

from political influence--a principle essential to

maintaining public trust and national security.

History has shown us the dangers of compromising this

independence. When leaders of these organizations become too

closely aligned with political figures, public confidence

erodes and our nation's security is jeopardized. This

underscores the necessity for these institutions to serve the

American people, not the political agendas of the executive

or legislative branches.

Congresswoman Gabbard's profound lack of intelligence

experience and the daunting task of overseeing 18 disparate

intelligence agencies, further highlight the need for

seasoned leadership. Effective management of our intelligence

community requires unparalleled expertise to navigate the

complexities of global threats and to maintain the trust of

allied nations. Without that trust, our ability to safeguard

sensitive secrets and collaborate internationally is severely

diminished. As someone who transitioned from the FBI to the

CIA, I can attest to the steep learning curve even for a

seasoned professional. This is no time in world history for a

novice in the field to learn this role.

Every President deserves appointees they trust, but the

selection process must prioritize competence and independence

to uphold the rule of law. As you consider these and future

nominations, I urge you to weigh the critical importance of

nonpartisan leadership and experience. The safety of the

American people--and your own families--depends on it. Trust

in our intelligence and law enforcement agencies is also

crucial for our international partners. Without that trust,

we cannot be effective in guarding sensitive secrets or

collaborating to address shared threats.

Thank you for your careful consideration of these pivotal

appointments.

Sincerely,

William Webster,

Former director of the CIA and FBI.

That is the end of his letter. I just want to say how grateful I am both for William Webster's outstanding public service and commitment to our Nation and for his willingness to stand up now and call out the threats posed by Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to DNI.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists echoes these concerns in a piece they published this week entitled ``Tulsi Gabbard as U.S. intelligence chief would undermine efforts against the spread of chemical and biological weapons.''

Gabbard's confirmation would undermine one of the signature

foreign policy accomplishments of President Donald Trump's

first term: countering the threat posed by chemical weapons.

Following a sarin attack on the Syrian city of Khan Sheikhoun

on April 4, 2017, the Trump Administration launched a cruise

missile strike against an airbase that U.S. intelligence

determined Assad's forces had used to launch the chemical

assault. After intelligence agencies determined that Syrian

helicopters had conducted a chlorine gas attack on Douma on

April 7, 2018, Trump authorized another missile strike, this

time along with the United Kingdom and France, against Syrian

chemical weapons facilities. Both strikes were effective at

deterring further Syrian use of chemical weapons. After April

2017 the Syrian air force did not use sarin and after April

2018 Syrian helicopters stopped dropping chlorine barrel

bombs.

Gabbard, however, has repeatedly claimed, including at her

confirmation hearing, that the chemical attacks against Khan

Sheikhoun and Douma were staged by anti-Assad groups to

provoke a Western military intervention. In 2019, Gabbard,

then a Democratic presidential candidate, accused Trump of

launching the strikes based on flawed intelligence: ``Rather

than waiting for evidence, Trump acted on impulse and

emotion, relying on social media posts and unverified sources

originating from within territory held by al Qaeda. In March

2021, Gabbard repeated her unfounded allegation that there is

no evidence supporting the Syrian government's responsibility

for conducting the ``alleged'' chemical attack on Douma. She

accused the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical

Weapons, (OPCW), which administers the global treaty banning

chemical weapons and investigated the attack, of a cover-up

and claimed that Trump's missile strikes on Syria were

``unconstitutional.''

Gabbard's claims about false-flag attacks, however, ignores

intelligence put forward by the Trump Administration and

France, an investigation by the United Nations Joint

Investigative Mechanism, and multiple investigations by the

Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. These

national and international investigations based their

conclusions on a compelling combination of signals

intelligence, eyewitness testimony, photographs, videos,

chemical forensic analyses, medical records, analyses of

munitions fragments, satellite imagery, and information

provided by third parties. For Gabbard to accuse opposition

groups, [who were] the victims of Syria's chemical

atrocities, of attacking themselves with chlorine and sarin

is a grotesque perversion of the truth.

And yet she continues it.

Instead of relying on reputable sources, Gabbard has

repeated Russian and Syrian disinformation and discredited

conspiracy theories to call into question the quality of US

intelligence, Trump's judgment, and the credibility of the

Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. In

March 2021, Gabbard signed a ``statement of concern'' about

the organization's investigation of the Douma attack that

echoed Russian propaganda and was promoted by a group linked

to Wikileaks. Gabbard has made her claims about the Syrian

chemical attacks despite warnings from the US intelligence

community that these types of allegations are a common

feature of the Kremlin's disinformation campaigns. Her

reliance on these dubious sources demonstrates a dangerously

poor lack of judgment for someone seeking the highest-ranking

position in the intelligence community.

Gabbard's deeply flawed position on Syria's use of chemical

weapons is still highly relevant today. With the fall of the

Assad regime last December, the issue of how to secure and

destroy Syria's remaining chemical weapons is back on the

international agenda. How can Gabbard be trusted to oversee

intelligence on this topic if she refuses to believe that

Syria used chemical weapons after it joined the Chemical

Weapons Convention, CWC, that treaty banning chemical

weapons, in 2013? Will she provide Trump with intelligence

that undermines her own strongly held position on this issue

or will she twist intelligence to fit her [own] worldview?

And there is more at stake than just the threat posed by

Syria's remaining chemical weapons. Between 2017 and 2020,

the Trump Administration found Russia in violation of both

the chemical weapons treaty and the Biological Weapons

Convention, which bans biological weapons. Trump imposed two

rounds of sanctions on Russia for using the Novichok nerve

agent to poison a Russian defector. In August 2020, Trump

blacklisted three Russian institutes responsible for

developing chemical and biological weapons. Since then,

the United States has accused Russia of using the chemical

weapon chloropicrin, and the Organization for the

Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has confirmed Russia's use

of riot control agents on the battlefield in Ukraine, both

of which are violations of the chemical weapons treaty.

There are also disturbing signs that Russia is modernizing

its biological weapons program by building a new maximum

containment laboratory in a military facility.

To divert attention from its own chemical and biological

weapons, Russia has made a series of unfounded and debunked

allegations that the United States and Ukraine are developing

and using these weapons. Gabbard came perilously close to

endorsing these claims in 2022 and she did embrace other

elements of Russian (and Chinese) disinformation about the

allegedly nefarious and dangerous activities of US-supported

public health labs in Ukraine, including labs built during

Donald Trump's first term. How can Gabbard be trusted to

advise the president on issues related to the verification of

Russia's compliance with chemical and biological arms

control?

Based on this track record, it is difficult to see how

Gabbard can be relied upon to provide the quality of

intelligence and national security advice needed by the

commander in chief during these perilous times. For the

Senate to confirm Gabbard would be national security

malpractice.

And that is the end of the piece.

I am looking to see who else is going to be here.

Just finish up? OK. Just wanted to make sure, because I know what is happening here.

In a relay race, it is always important to know if you have to hand off the baton.

Look, I will conclude with this: National security officials and experts in intelligence are begging the Senate to exercise their constitutional duty and vote no on Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. We are being asked to vote for someone whose loyalty to this country has been questioned repeatedly and has raised alarms for our allies across the globe. It would be a dangerous mistake to give Tulsi Gabbard access to all of our secrets, and an even greater mistake to trust Tulsi Gabbard to protect this country.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to start by thanking Senator Murray for her extraordinary leadership. She has been a stalwart in the Senate for many, many years and now is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and knows firsthand the importance of the process by which we make a law in the United States. And that includes that we pass those laws in Congress. We fund them in Congress. It is signed by the President of the United States. And people across this Nation can know, through that process, those are what the laws are. If you don't like those laws, then elect different people who will come up with different versions of the law.

But everyone--Democrat or Republican--sticks to the same version, and that is: A law is a law.

The President of the United States or his co-President, Elon Musk, do not have the right simply to go back on the laws and say: Oh, we pick that one, that one, and that one to enforce--and that one, no; that one, no; and, maybe, that one, half time.

That is not how the process works.

Senator Murray has been the leading voice in fighting back against this, and I want to say how much I appreciate all that she has done.

I want to talk for just a minute about Project 2025. During the 2024 election, the American people became familiar with this Republican document called Project 2025. The document laid out Republican plans to reshape our country if they gained control.

Now, Americans, a little at a time, got a chance to see the plan. People started to read it, and they were shocked. In no time, people from across the political spectrum--not just Democrats; Democrats, Republicans, Independents--made clear how much they hated Project 2025 and that they wanted no part of it.

So what was in Project 2025 that made it so widely hated across the political spectrum?

A few things: firing civil servants, weaponizing the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations, unleashing force onto protesters and targeting political opponents, restricting abortion nationwide, ripping retirement and healthcare benefits from seniors, dismantling public education, and--biggest and best--funding tax cuts for the rich by raising taxes on America's middle class.

I want to be clear, it is a big document. Those are just the top lines.

So Donald Trump's response was to swear over and over and over again that he had nothing to do with those plans; he didn't know about them, didn't endorse them, didn't want anything to do with them.

Here are some of the things that Donald Trump said about Project 2025 back in 2024:

I know nothing about Project 2025.

I have nothing to do with Project 2025.

I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some

of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and

abysmal.

And my personal favorite:

They've been told officially, legally, in every way, that

we have nothing to do with Project 2025.

So think about that. During the 2024 election, Donald Trump claimed he didn't know anything about Project 2025. But he lied. Shortly after the election, he nominated one of the chief architects of Project 2025 in a key role with the government.

Donald Trump has named the lead architect of Project 2025, Russ Vought, to oversee the Federal Government's entire budget office. That is right. Listen to this one. He is putting the head writer of the plans that you had only read about in nightmares in a key government position.

Russ Vought wrote Project 2025, and now, Donald Trump is rewarding him by inviting him into the government in order to carry out the Republican blueprint to make our government force people to live in the image that Russ Vought and other extremist Republicans approve of. And he plans to rework our economy to benefit the wealthiest among us and make everybody else pay for it.

Here are just a few of the things that Russ Vought has called for. Russ Vought has called on Congress to outlaw medication abortion nationwide, restricting women's reproductive rights, even in States that protect abortion. Russ Vought has encouraged discrimination against transgender people in the workplace and in healthcare. In his first stint as OMB Director, Russ Vought decried the use of Federal funding for diversity and equity training in a letter to Federal Agencies.

The Project 2025 playbook calls for eliminating almost every civil rights office in the Federal Government. And Russ Vought has said he intends to put Federal workers ``in trauma'' and destroy the merit- based system for civil servants so that he can fill the government with rightwing extremists.

I am going to pause here for a minute to see if Senator Gillibrand wants to speak.

Let's keep in mind, Russ Vought has called for outlawing abortion--medication abortion--nationwide. It doesn't matter whether or not you live in a State that says, no, we are going to protect abortion. Russ Vought wants to find a way to make sure it is shut down everywhere.

He wants to encourage discrimination against transgender people.

He thinks that getting rid of civil rights is the way to go for the American Government.

And he says he wants to put Federal workers in trauma and destroy the merit-based system for civil servants so he can fill up our government with rightwing extremists.

Now, we are already seeing firsthand the devastating effects of Russ Vought's plan for America. Russ Vought was the puppet master behind the funding shutdown that threw this country into chaos last week. I saw this in Massachusetts. Parents didn't know if their toddlers' daycare would be open. Seniors didn't know if the hot meals they were expecting from Meals on Wheels would grind to a halt. No one knew if the nursing homes funded by Medicaid would be able to pay their workers.

That was just the tip of the iceberg for Russ Vought. If he is confirmed, you can absolutely bet on Russ Vought pulling out the rug from working people over and over and over again. Quite frankly, we don't know where he will stop. This is where they have started. Three weeks in, and this is where they have started.

Will Russ Vought, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump stop when they have ripped abortion rights away from every single woman in America?

Will they stop when he has abolished the Department of Education and fired 180,000 teachers from their jobs?

Will he stop when he has privatized Medicare and when seniors can't afford to go see the doctor?

Will he stop when he is done stealing from middle-class families in order to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest households? By the way, that is in his blueprint, too--tax hikes for the middle class and tax breaks for the rich.

Will he stop when he crashes the economy? Take it from me, with these kinds of plans, crashing the economy is

no longer a stretch. Russ Vought's Project 2025 proposals will lead to higher inflation, higher interest rates, and weaker economic growth. Project 2025 would seriously threaten another recession.

Look, already, families all across this country are feeling the pressure from high grocery prices while Donald Trump and his administration just turn their backs on working families.

American families cannot afford for Russ Vought to be in charge. We don't know how far Russ Vought's extremism will go, but we can't afford to wait and find out.

Americans voted for each and every one of us right here in the U.S. Senate to fight for them, and they do not expect us to roll over and play dead. It is our sworn duty to stop dangerous people like Russ Vought before he destroys our freedom, our economy, and the stability of every working family in this Nation. So I urge every Senator to vote no on his nomination.

I also want to take this chance to share some of the stories I have been hearing from my constituents, the people of Massachusetts. The impacts of Donald Trump's and Russ Vought's policies are affecting people in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and all across this country. I am here to fight for the people of Massachusetts, and I am here to share their stories.

I want to start with a message I received from a family childcare center that cares for hundreds of children each day so that moms have the opportunity to succeed in their careers.

Here is how the message goes:

Our community of early educators and families is on edge.

We work with a very diverse population, and the rumors and

threats related to immigration activities are having an

impact. We have begun having families question removing their

children from much needed and valuable early education

programs because they are scared to separate from one another

or even to go outside. Ninety-nine percent of the families we

are working with are receiving a subsidy for their care.

So, with current funding through the Department of Early

Education and Care, I believe it breaks down to approximately

60 percent federal and 40 percent state funds.

We have also historically been recipients of CDBG funds to

support our training program, which would only be possible

with Federal support.

So think about that.

When Russ Vought and Donald Trump and Elon Musk just decide to start shutting programs down, we have childcare centers that are writing in, saying, in effect, they are not going to have the money to keep the doors open for the children and the mommas whom they serve.

This is from a small business owner in Lynnfield. Sadaf owns a small business that works to innovate new lab equipment to improve cancer and prenatal screenings. She gets money from the National Institutes of Health. This is exactly the kind of person we want to see doing work right here in the United States.

Here is what she writes:

My small business . . . is currently partially funded

through an NIH-NHGRI grant. Today, the grant is frozen, and

we are unable to access any funds. If this freeze lasts more

than a month, we will have to lay off hard-working employees

and shut our doors.

Think about that.

Here is someone who has built a small business around doing more effective cancer screenings and prenatal screenings, and she has been recognized by the National Institutes of Health as someone who is doing the kind of cutting-edge research and delivering the kind of services we need. Because Russ Vought, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk say, ``No. We are just going to freeze funding here,'' the consequence is, she says: I am at risk of having to lay off employees and close my business.

I have heard this from many of my constituents.

Another in Worcester runs a small nonprofit to help communities vulnerable to the climate crisis. They have $1.5 million in contracts that they now can't access, and soon they are going to have to lay off employees.

The impact of holding this money up is real. It is felt in our communities. It is felt household by household by household when people can't get to the money they need so that they can issue the paychecks and keep people working. Why and how is that making America any better off?

Take this story from the Boston Globe, entitled ``'Am I going to lose my husband?': The real price of Trump's budget freeze.''

The freeze is harming real people. One of them is James, a

Virginia resident who told his story to the editorial board

but asked that his last name not be used because he fears

retaliation.

Eight years ago, when James was 32, after years of health

problems, he was diagnosed with neuroendocrine tumors

(formerly called Carcinoid cancer), with accompanying severe

Carcinoid syndrome. Tumors were in his intestines and liver,

with nodules on his lungs. A doctor gave him 3 to 6 months to

live.

Standard treatment for these tumors is shots with one of

two drugs--

And I am going to do my best to pronounce them--

octreotide or lanreotide. The first couple of months after

his diagnosis, James spent a total of around $10,000 on shots

and scans, [and that was in addition to his] insurance

coverage.

So this is someone with health insurance.

He was working in a toy shop and studying graphic design,

and the medical care [completely] drained his savings. Then

James entered a National Institutes of Health research trial.

Because James was unusually young to get Carcinoid

syndrome, NIH researchers wanted to study how he reacted to

the disease and treatments. For the next 8 years, NIH

provided and paid for his shots, scans, surgeries,

medications, and procedures. ``All I had to do was be a

guinea pig,'' James said.

As of December, he was getting a shot of lanreotide, which

can cost thousands of dollars.

He was getting the shot every 3 weeks to keep his tumors from growing.

``If I were to lose the medication, they'd likely ramp up,

become more aggressive, and potentially spread to other

organs. It could be a death sentence,'' James said.

The disruptions started when it became clear Donald Trump

might win the Presidential election. In October and November,

NIH began recommending that if patients could get some

medications--anti-nausea medicine or painkillers--from other

doctors, they should, because the federal agency feared

budget cuts. In December, after Trump's election, James said

his doctor told him NIH could no longer provide lanreotide.

But he was still part of the research protocol, so he would

get yearly scans, and the NIH would conduct and pay for any

necessary surgeries.

In other words, they wanted to continue to be able to study him.

In December, James started experiencing aphasia and memory

loss, and a scan found spots in his brain. He's still

undergoing diagnostic tests. NIH had a treatment protocol

prepared for if the cancer did spread to his brain. Once

Trump took office in January, however, James was told the

research was frozen indefinitely, and he won't be getting any

NIH care until that changes.

James is continuing treatment with a Medicare insurance

plan provided by Kaiser Permanente, and he qualified for a

financial assistance grant through May. But he worries the

Trump administration will end that financial assistance.

James receives disability payments, and his wife is a

teacher, so they can't afford high out-of-pocket payments.

``When I heard about this, I thought, `Am I going to lose my

husband? Is he going to die?''' his wife, Becki, said.

Make no mistake, these are not one-off stories. Families everywhere, all across the country, in red States and blue States, are feeling the impacts of these policies--everyone.

Now, maybe you knew about this, maybe you didn't, but Trump is trying to keep you in the dark on some of these things while he distracts by renaming the Gulf of Mexico or dreaming about Canada as the 51st State. In just his first couple of weeks in office, Donald Trump has gone on a rampage against working people, signing hundreds of Executive orders-- rolling the clock back on progress and reinstating harmful and unpopular policies from his first term. He signed many of these Executive orders in the middle of the night because he and his administration didn't want people to know about them.

So I just want to remind everybody, for all of those pictures of Donald Trump signing while everybody looked on and everybody smiled or with Donald Trump holding up an Executive order that he signed very proudly, those are not all of the Executive orders. There were a lot of his Executive orders that got signed late at night and then were just pushed out.

Here are some of the Executive orders that the American people may not know about, and they are right in lockstep with Project 2025:

In one Executive order, Donald Trump called for a Federal Government hiring freeze. Project 2025 proposed implementing a ``hiring freeze for career officials.'' So Trump does the Executive order exactly to what Project 2025 was proposing.

Here is Donald Trump's Executive order:

I hereby order a freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian

employees to be applied throughout the executive branch.

There it is--Project 2025 and Donald Trump's Executive order.

Another Executive order: He withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords. So let's start with Project 2025. It proposed that the ``next conservative administration should withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.''

Here is Donald Trump's Executive order that was signed late at night:

The United States Ambassador to the United Nations shall

immediately submit formal written notification of the United

States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United

Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Project 2025 calls for it; Donald Trump delivers.

He paused the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law, which is fighting the climate crisis and helping cities and towns across America to upgrade their roads and bridges.

Project 2025 called to repeal ``massive spending bills like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act, which established new programs and are providing hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to renewable energy developers, their investors, and special interests, and support the rescinding of all funds not already spent by these programs.'' In other words, Project 2025 is saying: Shut it down. Shut it down.

Here is Donald Trump's Executive order:

All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of

funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of

2022 . . . or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

So there we are. Project 2025 calls for it; Donald Trump delivers with an Executive order.

The fact that he cannot legally do that doesn't seem to have slowed him down at all. In fact, Project 2025 talks about repealing those laws. That means you come to Congress, and then Congress votes on it-- the House and the Senate. And only if you get majorities in the House and Senate do you send it over to the President of the United States to sign it into law.

Donald Trump isn't doing it. Republicans are in charge of the House. Republicans are in charge of the Senate. But instead of saying we are going to amend the law that has already gone through the process and been signed in and the money has all been appropriated for it, nope-- instead--Donald Trump says, with a middle-of-the-night Executive order, I am just going to say: Stop spending money.

That is impoundment, and it is clearly unlawful. He is in violation of the law.

Now, on abortion, Trump reinstated and expanded the global gag rule-- a heartless rule that makes women and girls across the world less safe by cutting funding for health centers that may provide abortion.

Planned Parenthood gave us an idea of just how bad this is. Here is their quote on this:

Also known as the Mexico City policy, the global gag rule

prevents foreign organizations that receive certain U.S.

assistance from providing, counseling, referring, or

advocating for legal abortion in their country--even with

their own money and [their own] resources. The global gag

rule blocks health care access, disrupts coalitions and

stifles local advocacy efforts, and undermines reproductive

rights worldwide. [By the way,] it is also deeply unpopular

with the American people.

In fact, here is what Alexis McGill Johnson, who is President and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said:

President Trump is kicking off his second term exactly as

anticipated: attacking sexual and reproductive health care.

The global gag rule not only disrupts the delivery of health

services in areas of the world that are most in need; it also

rolls back progress in countries that have fought to advance

access to health care and human rights. Elected officials

should not be interfering in personal medical decisions, in

this country or anywhere else in the world. We must reverse

and end the global gag rule permanently, full stop.

But Donald Trump just signed that Executive order in the middle of the night, and women--particularly poor women--all around the world will pay the price.

Here is more of what Donald Trump did to try to turn back the clock on women's bodies. This one comes from POLITICO:

President Trump's campaign-trail promise to leave abortion

regulation to the states lasted just a few days into his

presidency.

He issued executive orders . . . that revive some anti-

abortion policies from his first administration--including

restrictions on federal funding for family planning and other

health programs abroad that discuss abortion as an option or

provide referrals for the procedure.

So the President signed the Executive orders hours after addressing the annual anti-abortion March for Life in a prerecorded video.

A 2022 study by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that Trump's anti-abortion restrictions on foreign aid led to 108,000 deaths of women and children in poor countries over the 4 years of his first administration. How does that happen? Well, it is because that Executive order from the first time around slashed funding for groups like the nonprofit MSI Reproductive Choices, which operates clinics that provide contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections with U.S. funds, and it uses separate revenues to fund and provide abortions.

MSI said, ahead of the policy being reinstated, that it wouldn't abide by it. This will lead to the organization losing $14 million in U.S. Agency for International Development funding, an MSI spokesperson said. The organization estimates the financial loss could result in an additional 2.4 million unintended pregnancies because the organization would have to stop providing contraception in several countries.

I am at a complete loss to explain how the United States is better off if more unintended pregnancies happen in poor countries and how we explain that, the last time around, when Trump did this, it resulted in 108,000 deaths of women and children in poor countries, and that we are headed straight into the same plan again.

Another study by Stanford University researchers found that the narrower version of the Mexico City policy that several GOP Presidents enacted prior to Trump caused the number of abortions to increase across Sub-Saharan Africa because so many women lost access to contraception.

Let me say that once again. For everyone who thinks that abortion should not occur, understand the consequence of the Trump Executive order, and that is that it increases the number of abortions across Sub-Saharan Africa because women lose their access to contraption.

Abortion rights advocates have also argued that the policy is overbroad because it imposes restrictions in countries where abortion is legal. One day earlier, in another move that thrilled abortion opponents, Trump issued pardons for roughly two dozen people convicted of forcibly entering and blocking access to abortion clinics. In fact, this has been an important part of the Trump Executive order stream in this area.

The idea that the Federal laws that protect women who are walking from where they have parked their car to an abortion clinic and also a place where they may get contraception, where they may get a mammogram, where they may get other health screenings, not to be interfered with; that they get a chance to walk without having people scream in their faces and spit on them, that has been taken away by the President of the United States. He has said: Move in a little closer. Bear down harder on those women.

And, still, the anti-abortion groups that helped Trump win reelection are looking beyond these actions and are pushing for more from the new administration.

For example, what are they asking for now? Well, they want to look at a ban on telehealth prescriptions and mail delivery of abortion pills. They want to do rules forcing States to provide more detailed information on all abortions within their borders, so they can see more about who is getting what treatments, and repeal of the Biden administration rules that expanded abortion access for some military members and veterans. It is all happening out in plain view.

Let us be clear: This is and always has been about controlling women's bodies. Donald Trump packed the Supreme Court with anti- abortion extremists to get Roe overturned, and he

bragged about it afterward. This is the latest in Trump's yearslong crusade against women's reproductive rights. And understand this: We will fight back.

As you probably have already seen in the news, Elon Musk has taken control of the government's critical payment systems, which include sensitive personal information for millions of Americans.

This is the system that makes sure that your grandpa gets his Social Security check. This is the system that makes sure that your mom's doctor gets the Medicare payment to cover her medical appointment. And this is the system that makes sure that you get the tax refund that you are owed. Now it has been taken over by Elon Musk.

Every organization--from your State government that uses Federal money on that bridge project to your local Head Start that takes care of little kids while their mommies and daddies go to work--is now at the mercy of Elon Musk.

Maybe you get paid, but, then again, maybe you don't. Elon just grabbed the controls of that whole payment system, demanding the power to turn it on for his friends and turn it off for anyone he declares he doesn't like--one guy deciding who gets paid and who doesn't. It is not the law, but it is the reality.

There is a second problem here. It is not just payments from the Federal Government that are now in Elon's control. Elon and his handful of friends now have access to your personal financial information, anything that is in the system. Your payment history, your Social Security number, your address, your bank account numbers--Elon now has the power to suck out all that information for his own use. And, now, whether it is to boost his personal finances or to expand his political power, it is all up to Elon.

Understand, in a world in which data is power, Elon has just increased his power.

There is a third kind of problem here. In order for this handful of programmers to gain access to our $6 trillion payment system, we don't know what kind of safeguards were pulled down. Are the gates wide open now for hackers from China, from North Korea, from Iran, from Russia? Heck, who knows what black-hat hackers all around the world are finding out right now about each and every one of us, copying that information, and storing it for their own future criminal uses.

How many back doors are being installed right now in the system that is truly the financial guts of our economy--the one that makes sure that the payments go out? All of that information is now at risk.

This week, I wrote to the Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, with extreme concern following this reporting. Here is what I said:

I write regarding a disturbing report that--in one of your

first acts after [you were confirmed] as Treasury Secretary--

you have given Elon Musk and his surrogates ``full access''

to the federal government's critical payment systems, which

includes the sensitive personal information of millions of

Americans.

It is extraordinarily dangerous to meddle with the critical

systems that process trillions of dollars of transactions

each year, are essential to preventing a default on federal

debt, and that ensure that tens of millions of Americans

receive their Social Security checks, tax refunds, and

Medicare benefits. I am also alarmed by reports that you

personally sidelined the key official responsible for

managing the extraordinary measures the Department of the

Treasury is taking to avoid a default on U.S. debt, risking

missteps that could result in a global financial meltdown

that costs trillions of dollars and millions of jobs. I am

writing to seek answers about your role in this security and

management failure and about how you intend to protect the

integrity of the federal government's financial operations

after handing over the systems to Mr. Musk's team.

According to public reports, even before President Trump's

inauguration, Mr. Musk's surrogates began demanding access to

the sensitive payment systems that the federal government

uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year. The public

depends on the integrity of those systems, which control the

flow of over $6 trillion in payments to American families,

businesses, and other recipients each year--with millions

relying on them for Social Security checks and Medicare

benefits, federal salaries, government contract payments,

grants, and tax refunds this filing season. In just one year,

for example, the Department's Bureau of Fiscal Service

disbursed nearly 1.3 billion payments totaling $5.4 trillion.

It also collected nearly $5.5 trillion in federal revenue.

Given the highly sensitive nature of the information in these

systems, control over them is typically limited to a small

number of career officials.

The Musk team's unprecedented demand for total access to

the system reportedly caused serious concern at the

Department, particularly given that ``the system has

historically been closely held because it includes sensitive

personal information'' on millions of Americans and sends out

virtually every federal payment--including payments that are

critical for the economy and national security.

I just want to say off to the side, the Presiding Officer and I were both in a Banking hearing this morning, and one of the questions that Democrats put to our bankers who were present is, Would you let someone come in and see the personal banking records of your customers? And the bankers, of course, said no, there is no way they would permit that. Yet the Secretary of the Treasury opened the door and said Elon Musk and his designees could come in and look at anything they wanted to look at.

Controlling the system could allow the Trump administration

to ``unilaterally''--and illegally--cut off payments for

millions of Americans, putting at risk the financial security

of families and businesses based on political favoritism or

the whims of Mr. Musk and those on his team who have [managed

to work] their way inside. It could also give them access to

millions of Americans' personal and financial information

that is protected by law.

We would shut down a bank that did what the Secretary of the Treasury did in letting Elon Musk come in and root around in the personal financial information of Americans all across this country.

The Washington Post reported that the Department's top

career official, David Lebryk--who had served in nonpolitical

roles in the Department for decades--

Served Republicans, served Democrats--

including as Fiscal Assistant Secretary since 2014--resisted

political pressure to cave to the Musk surrogates. The

demands of those outsiders were especially concerning because

Mr. Musk and the Trump Administration have tried to control

spending in alarming and potentially unlawful ways--including

through the chaotic announcement of a federal funding freeze

last week that caused widespread harm and confusion. Mr. Musk

was reportedly trying ``to deploy his engineers to find ways

to turn off the flow of money from the Treasury Department to

things that Mr. Trump wants to defund.'' In other words, a

small group of insiders would suddenly be in a position to

make decisions about whether to hold up payments to

individual families or businesses--with absolutely no

transparency or accountability. But rather than protecting

the integrity and function of the payment system, [our

Secretary of the Treasury] reportedly bent to pressure from

the White House, suggested putting Mr. Lebryk on leave, and

ultimately forced him out.

This astonishing mismanagement--turning over the federal

government's entire payment system and sidelining the most

senior career official responsible for managing it--also puts

the country at greater risk of defaulting on our debt, which

could trigger a global financial crisis. The Fiscal Assistant

Secretary was ``the government staffer perhaps most

responsible for figuring out how the United States should

handle the alarming prospect of running out of money, making

him a pivotal, if lesser-known, player in [a] debt ceiling

standoff.'' The Fiscal Assistant Secretary is responsible for

assessing when the country will exhaust its funds and

ensuring that Congress has that information, for

``coordinating and determining how much money the Treasury

needs to borrow to finance the government,'' and for

``manag[ing] the `extraordinary measures' '' that the

Department uses to ``delay a default for as long as

possible.'' The Fiscal Assistant Secretary--unlike the

amateurs [that the Secretary of the Treasury has] empowered

[when he forced them] out--was well-prepared to manage these

kinds of crises. He had ``moved through positions that gave

him deep exposure to the plumbing of federal financing'' and

was a ``scrupulously apolitical'' civil servant who was ``not

angling for a political promotion.'' That expertise is

particularly critical at this moment, when the Department is

already taking extraordinary measures to avoid a default that

``would precipitate another financial crisis and threaten

jobs and savings of everyday Americans.''

I sent this letter to Secretary of the Treasury, and I said:

I am alarmed that as one of your first acts as Secretary,

you appear to have handed over a highly sensitive system

responsible for millions of Americans' private data--and a

key function of government--to an unelected billionaire and

an unknown number of his unqualified flunkies. The American

people deserve answers about your role in this mismanagement,

which threatens the

privacy and economic security of every American.

It is no surprise that working families are paying the price for Donald Trump and Russ Vought's reckless actions. Just look at who is running the government: Donald Trump, billionaire; Elon Musk, billionaire; Scott Bessent, billionaire; Linda McMahon, billionaire; Howard Lutnick, billionaire; Charles Kushner, billionaire. And the list goes on. The total net worth of the billionaires in the Trump administration is at least $382.2 billion. That is more than the GDP of 172 different countries.

Elon Musk, first buddy and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, himself is worth $410 billion. He is $150 billion richer than he was on election day. Linda McMahon, Secretary of the Department of Education, is worth $3.2 billion. Howard Lutnick, nominated for the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, is worth more than $1.5 billion but likely more. Kelly Loeffler, head of the Small Business Administration, is worth $1.1 billion. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., nominated for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is estimated to be worth about $15 million. And he has refused to give up a lucrative arrangement with a law firm that will enable his family to make millions off vaccine-related lawsuits, even while he is heading up HHS. Steven Witkoff, Envoy to the Middle East, is worth a billion. Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator, is worth $2 billion.

Take this piece from CNN:

Elon Musk plowed at least $260 million into efforts to send

Donald Trump back to the White House, new filings show--a

massive infusion that makes him one of the largest single

political underwriters of a presidential campaign and

underscores the outsized influence of the world's wealthiest

person in this year's election.

Thursday's filings with the Federal Election Commission

show that the Tesla and SpaceX executive gave a total of $238

million to a super PAC that he founded this year, America

PAC, which worked to turn out voters on Trump's behalf in key

states.

But he also was the financial backer of other groups that

cropped up in the final days of the election to support

Trump, including one that spent millions on advertising to

defend [Trump's] record on abortion. It had sought to link

Trump's views on abortion to those of the late Supreme Court

Justice and liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

These people have no shame.

Musk, through a trust that bears his name, donated $20.5

million to the group, named RBG PAC, on October 24, according

to filings with the Federal Election Commission. He was the

sole donor to the group, which was formed in mid-October. The

donation's timing meant that Musk's involvement was not

disclosed until--

After the election, after the inauguration, not until last--

Thursday's post-election filings with the federal regulators.

Ginsburg's granddaughter, Clara Spera, publicly denounced

the ads--which sought to neutralize abortion as a liability

for Trump in the campaign--as misleading and an ``affront''

to Ginsburg's legacy as a staunch defender of abortion

rights.

So true.

According to the new filings, Musk also donated $3 million

to the MAHA Alliance, a super PAC that ran stark ads in key

swing states urging supporters of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to

back Trump in the closing stretch of the campaign. Kennedy

himself had ended his independent campaign over the summer

and endorsed Trump.

MAHA stands for ``Make America Healthy Again,'' Kennedy's

spin on Trump's MAGA catchphrase. Trump has now tapped

Kennedy, one of the nation's most prominent anti-vaccine

conspiracy theorists, to oversee the Health and Human

Services Department.

Trump has selected other big donors for roles in his

incoming administration.

Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald investment bank chief

whom Trump has tapped to head the Commerce Department, made a

nearly $3 million ``in-kind'' donation of stock on October 21

to a pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., according to the

organization's filings Thursday night.

That's on top of the $6 million that Lutnick previously

donated to the super PAC over the course of the election

cycle.

Other Trump supporters who have landed spots in his

administration also donated to MAGA Inc. They include Linda

McMahon, the former wrestling company executive tapped to

serve as Education secretary. She donated more than $20

million to the Trump-aligned super PAC this cycle.

McMahon and Lutnick also served as co-chairs of Trump's

transition operation.

Other Trump picks who have made seven-figure donations to

MAGA Inc. include former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, his

choice to lead the Small Business Administration; Scott

Bessent, whom Trump has selected as Treasury secretary; and

two of his choices for plum diplomatic posts in Europe,

Arkansas investor Warren Stephens and Charles Kushner, the

father-in-law of Trump's daughter, Ivanka.

And look, don't get me wrong, if you made a fortune because you had a great idea and you built a terrific business, good for you. But I guarantee that any great fortune in America was built, at least in part, using workers that all of us helped pay to educate; built, at least in part, by getting your goods to market on roads and bridges that all of us helped to pay to build; built, at least in part, protected by police and firefighters that all of us help pay the salaries for.

And now, instead of creating a system that will help the next guy or gal that comes along build something, these guys want to pull up the ladder. They poured money into the 2024 election, and now, they expect a return on their investment at the expense of everyone else.

The Trump strategy is to flood the zone, partly so we don't see each of the horrible orders and pay attention to them, but partly to demoralize us. Trump and his Republican friends hope that we will be demoralized. They hope that we will give up, curl in a little ball, and let them do whatever they want to do. I get it. It is tough right now, but it is important that we get back up and fight, and that is exactly what I am doing.

I am challenging Elon Musk on his Department of Government Efficiency efforts to take away help for seniors who are living in nursing homes and little kids who are hoping for their daycare. I am asking questions of every nominee and pointing out to other Senators and to the public where they pose a real danger to the American people.

Look at the fight over Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. He is a credibly accused rapist who has been falling down drunk at work events, and he has run not one but two nonprofits directly into the ground. Nonetheless, Republican Senators stood beside him. He made it through his confirmation, but it wasn't a freebie. Some Republicans broke ranks, and everyone in the country who was paying attention got to see up close and personal just how far the Republicans were willing to go to cower in front of Donald Trump.

Those are the fights we must keep fighting. We will not roll over and play dead. This is not business as usual. The No. 1 thing people can do right now is speak out. Speak out on social media about every one of these things. Talk about the threats these people pose. Speak out about what Donald Trump is doing.

In the middle of the night last Friday, Donald Trump issued a batch of Executive orders turning back the clock decades on women's reproductive rights. If people talk about that, then that is how we will begin to rebuild a movement to push out the Trump vision of America, in which billionaires are on top and everyone else is left in the dirt--and women don't get to make their own health decisions.

I have only got 24 hours a day, but I plan to spend as many of them as humanly possible fighting back against Trump, Musk, and the billionaires who have taken over our country to promote themselves at the expense of everyone else.

It is up to us. I am not lying down and playing dead, and I hope nobody else does either.

I yield the floor.

On behalf of community health centers across Massachusetts, Warren votes no.

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

Madam President, I rise today in opposition to Scott Bessent to be the next Secretary of the Treasury and in support of tens of millions of working families who need a government on their side.

The Treasury Secretary is one of the President's top economic advisers. He has the power to lower costs for hard-working people or to give billionaires another break.

Now, Mr. Bessent has a long history as an investment manager, helping rich clients get even richer. In fact, helping rich people get richer has been a very profitable business for him. Mr. Bessent is now a billionaire himself. He owns not one but two multimillion-dollar mansions, including one in the Bahamas, and he has hundreds of millions of dollars in investments.

Now, he spent a lot of money, but he saved money in one area: He hasn't paid the taxes he owes. According to an analysis from congressional tax experts, Mr. Bessent has refused to pay $2 million in taxes that he owed on his hedge fund earnings, just in the past 3 years.

And Mr. Bessent has no demonstrated track record of fighting to make life better or more affordable for working people.

So, let's start with some of Trump's economic plans that Mr. Bessent would be in charge of advancing. Right now, Republicans in the White House and in Congress are working through their plans to extend tax breaks for billionaires and giant corporations, paid for in part with major cuts to healthcare. In plain English, Republicans are hoping you won't notice major budget cuts for nursing homes that take care of your grandpa or the cuts in school lunches for poor kids. Move grandpa out of the nursing home and let the little kids go hungry in order to make sure that a tiny handful of billionaires get a few more truckloads of cash from Uncle Sam.

There is a truth no one can escape: Someone has to pay to run this country. Folks like Scott Bessent think the burden should be just a little heavier on working people because billionaires like him are smarter than everyone else. One place or the other, someone has to pay.

So during his hearing, I asked Mr. Bessent about those cuts for billionaires. I asked if there were any billionaires already rich enough that they didn't need another tax cut. And Mr. Bessent said, well, that it was unwise to single out anyone--not even billionaires.

You wouldn't want to single out a billionaire like Jeff Bezos, who pays a lower tax rate than a Boston public school teacher? You wouldn't want to single out a billionaire like Mark Zuckerberg, whose company Meta paid a tax rate of just 11.5 percent in 2023, despite making nearly $40 billion in profits? You wouldn't want to single out a billionaire like Elon Musk, who is more focused on flying to Mars than making life better for working families here on Earth?

Those billionaires had better seats at Donald Trump's inauguration than Trump's own Cabinet members. Those billionaires dominate the American economy, and Republicans plan to give them more tax breaks.

This is the payout for Trump's ``rich as hell donors,'' and Mr. Bessent is another billionaire ready to do the hard work of cutting taxes for every billionaire in America, himself included.

The top economic issue today is: How do we lower costs for families and build an economy that works, not just for the wealthy and the well connected, but an economy that works for everyone?

I am hammering out plans to make it a little easier for families to be able to pay their bills, to buy a home, and to build some financial security.

Trump's tax breaks for billionaires is the same old Republican playbook of trickle-down economics: Help the rich get richer, and leave everyone else behind.

But that is not the Trump administration's only bad economic idea. Mr. Bessent has been an advocate for deregulating Wall Street and letting big banks load up on risk. Deregulate Wall Street--yes, a lot of people remember how that approach brought our economy to its knees back in 2008. People who remember include the millions of people who lost their homes, the millions who lost their jobs, and the millions who lost their savings. And now, once again, President Trump wants to run the same economic play, and Mr. Bessent is the guy he has picked to do it.

We don't need less oversight of giant banks and Wall Street movers and shakers. Risk is building in the system. The too-big-to-fail banks are quietly taking on riskier investments. The shadowy private credit market has loaded up on highly leveraged loans. And after waves of catastrophic losses, the insurance industry is facing a reckoning that even climate change deniers can't ignore.

Without significant changes, another financial crash is coming. As we learned, those big crashes fall hardest on hard-working people who are just trying to make a living.

A billionaire willing to roll along on deregulation poses a threat to the economic well-being of every American, and a billionaire who supports more tax cuts for every single billionaire in America is not someone who is watching out for hard- working families.

For me, this is simple. I am ready to work together with President Trump's team wherever we agree to help working families. But I am also ready to fight like hell when Republicans pursue economic policies that load up the risk in our financial system or tax policies that mostly benefit billionaires.

I will vote no on Mr. Bessent to be the next Secretary of the Treasury, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to reject Pete Hegseth as the next Secretary of Defense.

Pete Hegseth is the most unqualified nominee for Secretary of Defense in our Nation's history. At his confirmation hearing, Pete Hegseth bobbed and weaved to avoid answering just basic questions about his record, but what Hegseth failed to account for is that his entire record is damning.

I would like my Senate colleagues, people who are seriously considering voting to confirm Pete Hegseth, to think long and hard about this decision. We need a Secretary of Defense who will be ready at 2 in the morning to give life-or-death national security advice to the President. Would you trust Pete Hegseth, who has allegedly been so drunk at work events that he passed out on a bus and urinated in front of the hotel where his colleagues were staying, to answer that call?

We need a Secretary of Defense who will help us root out the problem of sexual assault in the military. Would you trust Pete Hegseth, who has been credibly accused of raping a woman and buying her silence, to protect victims of sexual assault?

We need a Secretary of Defense who will be able to manage the Nation's largest Federal Agency, one that oversees almost 3.4 million people and a budget of nearly $850 billion a year. Would you trust Pete Hegseth, who drove a small veterans nonprofit to the brink of bankruptcy, to manage billions of our tax dollars?

The list of glaring disqualifications goes on and on. Hegseth supports requiring every senior military officer to pass a political litmus test. This politicization of the military is a slap in the face to leaders who have served their country honorably for decades.

But the point is that Pete Hegseth is not just unqualified for the role; he is a walking national security threat.

We need a Secretary of Defense who will help our country meet its recruiting goals--something we are already struggling with. Pete Hegseth has said that women in the military ``shouldn't

be in combat at all.'' Mr. President, 300,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. Pete Hegseth has now insulted every one of them. That is not how a leader of the military will inspire people to join our cause.

When people are responsible for our national defense, we ask something extraordinary of them. We ask them to put their lives on the line. All three of my brothers served in the military. My oldest brother was career military. So I know how important that service is and how important it is that we pick the right person to lead our men and women in uniform.

Pete Hegseth claims that our brave women in the military are somehow lowering our standards, but it is his lack of qualifications, his lack of character, and his lack of judgment that lower the standards for Secretary of Defense.

We need a Secretary of Defense whom we can rely on to keep all of us safe. Frankly, it is hard to imagine a worse choice than Pete Hegseth.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise today to share a few words in honor of the 90th birthday of a dear friend Linda Kaufman. As she celebrates this impressive milestone, I extend my best wishes to Anne and her family for a happy celebration.

Ms. Kaufman was born in January of 1935 in Massachusetts. She attended Smith College and worked as a teacher for 40 years, 32 of those years spent teaching history at Buckingham Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge. She has also served as reader, table leader, and member of the test development committee for the Advanced Placement European History Examination of the College Board. Linda never stopped teaching and learning history; after retiring, she took many online courses at Harvard and mentored former students, always staying up to date with their many accomplishments.

Ms. Kaufman is married to her best friend Andrew Kaufman, a professor at Harvard Law School. Together, they raised four children; Anne, David, Daniel, and Elizabeth. Outside of teaching, Linda was active in her community in Cambridge, dedicating free time to helping individuals prepare for the American citizenship exam and spending time with her grandchildren.

Linda Kaufman is a true lifelong learner and public servant. I am incredibly pleased to honor this momentous event in Linda's life and wish her joy in the years to come.