Floor Statements

To protect Americans from Big Brother government exploiting their Social Security and tax records, I vote no.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to grant floor privileges to my interns for their shadow days on the following dates: Olivia Sumerfield for February 4, 2025; Kira Shertz for February 6, 2025; Eleanor White for February 12, 2025; Ji Reichle for February 19, 2025; Diya Jaisankar for February 25, 2015; Lauren Pak for February 27, 2025; Reuben Hallsworth for March 5, 2025; Lila Batcheller for March 12, 2025; and Lucy Eckel for April 2, 2025.

Mr. President, as much as President Trump desires it, the President is not a king. We are here tonight because, as much as President Trump desires it, the law is not a suggestion. We are here tonight because President Trump has decided he is a king, that the law is a suggestion, and he has decided to betray American families.

You have heard of the Great Depression, but right now, we are living

through the ``Great Betrayal''--the story of a man who ran for the Presidency, saying he was going to be a champion for families. Then, shortly after taking office--just 8 days ago--he proceeds to launch an attack on the very core programs that families, parents, children, and communities depend on.

Wow--have you ever seen anything like it? Have you ever seen anything like it in your life that someone campaigns for families, and just after they are sworn into office, they launch a huge attack on America's families?

That attack is actually illegal because the law--once programs are funded, it is the Executive's responsibility to implement those programs, not to say, ``Well, I will implement this one but not that one,'' or ``I will shut down all the funding for all the programs.'' No.

In fact, we have had that conversation in the past. Let's turn the clock back to President Nixon. President Nixon said: You all reached a compromise, and you had some programs some of you liked and some programs others liked, and you agreed to fund those programs. But do you know what? I am only going to fund the ones I like. I am only going to distribute the funds for those programs which fit my agenda.

The courts responded. They said: No, you can't do that. The power of the purse sits with Congress. It is Congress that decides what is going to be spent on what, and it is the Executive's--the President's-- responsibility to implement that.

Then Congress said: Do you know what? We will give the President a break. If the President wants to roll back a program that has already been authorized and funded, he can ask Congress to do it. It is in the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, and it is called a rescission.

The President sends a message out to us and says: Hey, do you know what? I don't think we need all the funds for developing that new nuclear warhead because it turns out it won't fit on a missile. I would like to have those funds rescinded and put back in the Treasury.

And we have 45 days to act. It is a privileged motion.

All right. So along comes the ``Great Betrayal'' President, President Trump, who campaigned on families and then decided to attack the programs for families just 1 week into office, and he says: I don't like that rescission structure. I am just going to do what Nixon did. I am going to do what the Court said couldn't be done because I don't like what the Supreme Court decided previously. I am just going to break the law.

Now, is this, like, out of character for President Trump? Well, certainly, just hours after being sworn into office and taking the oath to the Constitution of the United States of America, he said: The 14th Amendment--the one about, you know, birthright citizenship--I am canceling it. Wow. Now, we have two major instances of breaking the Constitution with just 8 days into the office. That is quite the record.

The thing is the real victims across this country. My colleagues have laid it out so well, the fact that that grant to run the women's shelter is locked up. That program to run the childcare center is canceled. The grant to keep us at the forefront of the semiconductor R&D in Corvallis, OR, is on hold. That medical research is frozen. That contract for vaccination programs so we don't end up with an epidemic that will hurt children can't be written. That employment program for veterans returning from a theater of war ain't happening.

No, that is crazy. And all these things are affecting our families-- and not just our families, our infrastructure.

We worked so hard in a bipartisan way to launch the biggest infrastructure program since Eisenhower. We did the massive national interstate highway system. But do you know what? It was a long time ago, so we said: We have to rebuild our bridges; we have to improve our mass transit. And we had a very large expenditure trying to bring these up to speed.

You know, in my State, there is a bridge on the interstate between Oregon and Washington. It is still a drawbridge. It is like the last drawbridge in the United States of America. It has to be replaced, but now it is on hold.

We have another bridge that is under contract or grants to be able to be earthquake-resistant because it will play a critical role when the big one, the one we always talk about--like, California might fall into the sea--when that earthquake that happens roughly every 300 years off the coast of the United States on the West Coast--like, we need to have a bridge that actually holds up to it. Well, who knows if that is going to get built now.

So not only does this attack families, not only does this obstruct and delay infrastructure projects, but it drives up costs.

I seem to have an echo in my ear about the President saying he wants to reduce costs. But, instead, when you slow down projects, the cost of materials goes up. What is that? That is called driving up costs.

So we are here tonight to say this cannot happen. We are here tonight to say to our Republican colleagues: This is not about red and blue or Republican and Democratic States.

I talked to a colleague earlier today who said: I am getting all kinds of calls from my home. I bet that is true for every one of our 100 Senators. I know everybody on this side of the aisle has been hearing from folks back home saying: We are pretty upset. We are pretty worried. What is happening? You know, that portal where we get funding from Medicaid or that portal where we get funding for veterans benefits--or whatever it is--it is all shut down. I am sure all 100 Senators have been getting these calls.

This is an attack by an authoritarian in the executive branch on the constitutional powers of Congress.

You know, when we talk about the branches of government, we talk about article I and article II and article III. Article I of the Constitution is about Congress, because at the heart of democracy are folks who are elected down the hall in the House of Representatives and here in the Senate to wrestle with and shape the law. Article II is the executive, who executes those laws. Article III are the judges who defend the Constitution.

Well, so here we are, article II, the President, with authoritarian impulses, is attacking all of us here, all 100 Senators, all 430 or -5 or so Members of the House of Representatives, and saying: I want to have the power and decide how things get distributed for things that have already been enacted. So that is why we are here.

I must say, it is even worse. It is even worse than simply his attack on families in this violation on the Constitution. It is part of a vast authoritarian power grab.

In just the past few days, the inspectors general for Agency after Agency have been fired. The inspectors general are the ones who make sure the executive branch is behaving according to the law. They do all kinds of reports that hold people accountable. They do things that determine this program is working, that program is not working, this is being done in accordance with the law, this isn't.

If the inspectors general are not there, there is no one to hold people accountable. That is the point of firing them all. That should put terror in every one about the lawlessness President Trump intends to go forward with.

I know there are all kinds of other things, all kinds of other attacks. For example, all those lawyers in the Department of Justice who are assigned to environmental crimes, like when companies have huge amounts of asbestos and dump it in the wrong place or huge amounts of chemicals that contaminate some groundwater and cause all kinds of citizens to have wells that they can't use anymore, or so on and so forth--every one of them has been tossed. They got the word. They are not there anymore, just within a few days of the start of this administration.

So I thank my colleagues who came here tonight to talk about this.

The architect of this plan is a man named Russell Vought. Russell Vought did the last budget for Trump the first time he served. And then he started a nonprofit think tank that worked to develop the basic plans for Project 2025. Then he became the architect of Project 2025.

And it has three main parts. The first part: Attack and tear down programs for America's families, the ones that

help them get on their feet and be able to thrive and move into the middle class. The second part is to borrow $2 to $3 trillion from the Federal Treasury. And the third part is to do massive tax giveaways to the richest Americans.

He has laid all three of them out. Check it out in Project 2025. He came and talked to us all about all these programs, these three steps: Savage the programs for families--of course, that wasn't exactly the words he used; he just said massive cuts to things like Medicaid, massive cuts to things like childcare program. Everybody should be on their own, with no foundation to have any assistance getting on their feet and being able to move forward--not on healthcare, not on housing, not on education, not on childcare, not on anything. Well, that is the attack on families. That is the great betrayal.

He is going to be voted on this Thursday in the Budget Committee. The Budget Democrats and our Democratic leader have written and said this vote should be delayed. We are in the middle of a constitutional crisis. The architect of that crisis is the man to be voted on on Thursday. This is wrong. Let's fix this constitutional crisis and then continue with the conversation about confirmation of the nominee Russell Vought.

Let's work together, Democrats and Republicans, to defend the institutions of our democracy. Let's say no to this sweeping authoritarian power grab. Let's defend the Constitution.

Mr. President, when I came out of graduate school, I was hired by Secretary Weinberger as a Presidential Management Intern--now called PMF, or Presidential Management Fellows--five of us who were brought in to do a series of rotations to bring, well, an injection of policy determination to the conversation in Secretary of Defense's Office.

And it was really quite an enlightening experience. My first assignment involved being desk officer for Jordan at the Defense Security Systems Agency, because the desk officer who worked for both Jordan and Lebanon had to pay a lot more attention to Lebanon because we had the horrific bombing of the Marines in the tower.

And then there was an argument inside the defense establishment about how to keep Russia from going forward at a faster pace technologically. And the research and development side said: If you classify everything, you will slow us down and Russia will catch up.

And the policy said: Unless we classify everything, the Russians will steal so much, they will speed up and catch up.

And there was this fundamental difference of opinion about how to control technology in order to maintain our technological lead over Russia.

And I was asked to set up a steering committee and bring both parties to the table to try to work out where they could work together and try to resolve their differences.

And in the course of things, I was drafted to become a programmer to do computer studies of survivability related to what strategies with our strategic forces would decrease the risk of nuclear war happening? What would strengthen deterrence? And then on to a service at NATO, and then to an R&D budgeting cycle, where I learned many of the budget games the Defense Department employs in order to get a whole lot of money that seems to be never accounted for.

In fact, it has become universally recognized that the Defense Department can never pass a budget, can never pass a budget test--that is, an audit--because they don't track anything very closely, and there are just all kinds of loose ends left.

And year after year, Democrats and Republicans have said: Audit the Secretary of Defense. Audit the Defense Department. We want to know where our funds go.

And here we are, decades and decades later, and we still have that same problem.

You know, it was a valuable several years that led, then, to me working for Congress on strategic nuclear issues. And in the decade of the 1980s, we saw some real advances in our security. We saw some real advances in terms of the stability of the nuclear dynamic with the then-Soviet Union.

And, in fact, the folks who put together the Doomsday Clock, which was very close to midnight when I started working on defense issues, was turned back some 13 or 15 minutes from midnight by the late eighties because of a series of agreements and policies and force changes that had been worked out over the eighties.

The Defense Department is massive. It is massive--an annual budget of about $850 billion, 3.4 million people working for it, 2.5 million servicemembers, 900,000 civilians. It is massive. It is complicated.

But what experience does Mr. Hegseth bring? He ran two little micrononprofits, and he ran them into the ground. He had documented problems with drinking on the job. He had credible and repeated accusations of sexual assault. He showed disrespect for female servicemembers and diverse servicemembers, including the current--well, the former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Brown.

What?

This man who couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag, who mismanaged the enterprise he had undertaken--that is the man we are going to confirm to run the U.S. military that has massive needs for reform?

Is this man some expert in military strategy? No. Is he some esteemed driver of the new technology of war with drones? No. Did he have diverse experiences inside the Defense Department that gave him many perspectives about the incredible sections of the Defense Department that deal with so many different issues? No, no.

So why are we having this conversation? What has happened to the idea of

credible leadership? I can tell you what happened. The President of the United States, President Trump, said: Do what I want, or I will primary you. And now we have a bunch of folks across the aisle that are not doing their job under the Constitution. The Constitution says it is our responsibility to advise and consent, to vet nominees and to make sure they are qualified before they take these positions.

I say to my colleagues: Stop shaking and shivering under the aura of an authoritarian President and do your job. And your job is to say no, because this man is not qualified.

He did not even tell President-elect Trump about all the accusations made against him. If he could not tell President Trump the truth before he was serving and before President Trump is President Trump, how will he be able to stand up for the truth and say what needs to be said after President Trump is in office and he is Secretary of Defense?

The Department of Defense has failed seven audits in a row. The Secretary of Defense must be able to get the department on track to pass an audit. It is mandated by Congress. It has been mandated before, and they still fail year after year. But both sides say it should happen. We should put some teeth into that.

But I tell you, putting a man who can't manage a tiny nonprofit isn't going to get the job done. They ran up enormous debt. And by 2008, the financial records show they were unable to pay their creditors-- irresponsible in the max.

I know running a small nonprofit is hard. I was the director of an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, and I ran the housing division of another nonprofit that developed affordable housing, and then I was President of the World Affairs Council and had the managerial responsibilities. And it was tough making sure we hit payroll each month, making sure we raise more money for the aspirations we had for those organizations. It was hard work. I worried about it all the time, but we always met payroll. We always advanced in our mission.

Maybe, if we are going to hire somebody from a sole nonprofit to run a gigantic organization, we should at least know they can run the small organization before they get promoted to running an organization with millions of people and the better part of a trillion dollars in its budget.

A Republican strategist who worked with him at that organization said:

I don't know how he's going to run an organization with an

$857 billion budget and 3 million individuals.

On more than a dozen occasions, Mr. Hegseth's FOX News colleagues report smelling alcohol on him before he went on air, including just a couple of months ago. Former employees of the nonprofit he ran reported him being drunk on the job and having to be carried out of events.

That is the person we want running the Department of Defense?

A former employee noted in a letter of complaint that Mr. Hegseth was drunkenly chanting ``Kill all Muslims, Kill all Muslims'' at a bar while on a work trip.

You know, we have many faiths serving us in the defense of this country because we are a multifaith Nation. Having a person who advocates for killing people of a particular religious faith is not acceptable to run the Department of Defense.

He said: Well, I will reform. I have broken the rules on drinking before, but I will reform. How many times have you heard that from people who are--well, they have an addiction. They try to reform. Maybe they make it for a little while. But in the end, they relapse. Shall we put that risk upon the security of the United States of America?

We used to have a more responsible attitude here in the Senate. In 1989, when President George H. W. Bush nominated John Tower, an FBI investigation revealed that he was a drunk and a womanizer and Mr. Tower pledged not to drink any alcoholic beverages during his time as Secretary of Defense, just as Mr. Hegseth has. And then the Senate weighed the risk of putting somebody with an addiction in charge of the Department of Defense and rejected his nomination.

It is an insult to the servicemembers of the United States of America to put a man with an addiction in charge of them. It is irresponsible to the security of the Nation and all civilians of this Nation.

The Department of Defense struggles with high levels of sexual assault of female servicemembers, so a person who has been involved in numerous incidents of misbehavior on the issue of treating women isn't the right person to have as the Secretary of Defense.

In 2023, the year I have numbers for, 29,000 Active-Duty troops reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact. Mr. Hegseth has been accused of sexual assault. He paid the accuser $50,000 in a settlement. It took place in 2017 after a speaking appearance at a Republican women's event in Monterey, CA. No charges were filed. But this, in combination with multiple other reports of his treatment--accusations of mistreatment of women, means he is the wrong person to have at an organization in which women provide enormously valuable contributions.

During his time at the head of a veterans' organization, the employees report that Mr. Hegseth ``sexually pursued the organization's female staffers.'' It is not like this was one misunderstood event somewhere in his way past life.

Women are 18 percent of our Active-Duty servicemembers, but Mr. Hegseth dismisses them.

We need moms. But not in the military, especially not in

combat boots.

He went on to say:

I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in

combat roles. It hasn't made us more effective. Hasn't made

us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.

And he is wrong on every point. Women in combat roles have helped fill out ranks. We do have a volunteer Army. We do recruit to get the staff we need in the military in order to be able to operate the weapons systems and the communication systems and the supply systems and the repair systems--all of it. They work in every role--valuable, valuable contributors.

We should not put a person at the head of our Department of Defense who somehow thinks half the jobs in the world can only be done by men, because it is wrong and because it undermines the effectiveness of the military providing security.

He also doesn't like minorities. Well, minority groups comprise 30 percent of servicemembers. I don't care what color of skin you have. I do care if you work hard as a member of the military to support the security of this Nation. And people of every race are a valuable part of our military. And a man who thinks the color of your skin controls the content of your character and the ability and talents that you possess doesn't belong as the head of the military.

He has said:

The dumbest phrase on planet Earth is ``our diversity is

our strength.''

You take away the diversity in our service and you will soon see our diverse servicemembers are invaluable, and a person who doesn't understand that should never be confirmed. That is our job. Our job, under the Constitution, is to say: Mr. President, sometime Presidents get it wrong. Maybe it is for political reasons; maybe you woke up and didn't know all the background of the person. But we have to vet them, and we have to help make sure your executive branch is successful.

That is our job. You are not helping President Trump by voting for a man totally unqualified--the most unqualified man who could be found in America to head the Department of Defense.

Mr. Hegseth says:

I told my platoon they could ignore directives limiting

when they can shoot.

A person who violates the directives in the military doesn't belong running the military. There is a strong command structure in the military, and it includes how you behave in certain situations that are crucial to the security of this Nation. But he did not understand that.

He has argued that ``U.S. forces should ignore the Geneva Conventions and other elements of international law governing the conduct of war.''

As my colleague from Maryland was just talking about and reciting the wisdom of John McCain saying how the Geneva Conventions and rules on torture serve us well, because you get misinformation when you torture people and you get Americans tortured when

they are captured if we are torturing people. So a man who believes in torturing people doesn't understand how to get accurate information and is putting our own servicemembers at risk when they are captured.

Why would any Member of this body so disrespect the servicemembers of the United States of America as to put this man in charge?

I was honored to work for Secretary Weinberger. I believed that the world was at great risk of the possibility of nuclear war, and that is the issue I focused on in my time there and then my time working for Congress. There is nothing I saw during my time in the Pentagon that equals this level of failure to protect and defend the United States of America. I did not see people put into command who talked about killing members who were of a different religion than they were. I did not hear people talking about how women should not even be there or how diversity was a problem rather than a strength. I saw her as people working hard together, people who had served in Vietnam together.

Many of the folks who I served with during those 2 years in my role as a civilian being hired to work with Secretary Weinberger had served in Vietnam. The war had ended by the time I had reached draft age, and I so respected the service that they had given and their dedication to the security of this country.

If you are dedicated to the security of this country, if you respect the servicemembers of the United States of America, then do not give them a boss who is the wrong fit in every way possible.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes to speak to this bill.

We are now entering the vote that is referred to as cloture--or close debate--but we can still consider amendments by unanimous consent.

I came to the floor yesterday to point out that there is a deep flaw related to children in this bill, and both the majority leader and the floor leader have

expressed support for an amendment process. So I am asking to work with me and with my leadership that we might examine this challenge.

The challenge is specifically that children, without being charged, without being convicted, are required to be arrested and imprisoned--or not arrested but imprisoned after an arrest with no chance for appeal.

My colleagues expressed the belief that the Flores agreement somehow provides protection, but the experts on Flores have said that is incorrect because a bill trumps an agreement, it trumps a rule, and Flores was about children coming to the border, not children living in our community.

Furthermore, a family with a parent who is required mandatory imprisonment without appeal is suddenly swept away from their children. Realize we should care about all those children left without a parent at their house, but that is both citizen and noncitizen children. So let's not pretend this flaw only affects folks who are undocumented; it affects our citizen children as well. But, again, we should care about both sets of children thriving.

So I ask help from the majority leader and the floor leader. If we have a dispute on legal interpretation, let's bring those lawyers together and understand if they are ships passing in the night or is there a misunderstanding that we can correct or clarify.

With that appeal for additional amendments by unanimous consent, which I will continue to negotiate for, I thank you, Mr. President.

Cloture Motion

Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about the impact of the Laken Riley bill upon children here in the United States of America and to suggest that we have a debate over several amendments designed as to how to more appropriately treat our children who reside here in the United States so we do not end up doing significant injury to them, which I very much believe is going to be the result if we proceed without some changes.

But let me start just by noting that my thoughts are--as I think the thoughts of every Senator are--with Laken Riley's family.

Whenever there is a tragedy--no tragedy should happen, whether it is perpetuated by a citizen or it is perpetuated by an immigrant. Americans should be safe in their communities. It is absolutely clear that we need comprehensive, commonsense immigration reform.

Here in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans worked together back in

2013 to pass just such a bill--an enormous investment in border security 12 years ago, approved in this body by Democrats and Republicans together. That bill never got a hearing in the House of Representatives. So I hope we will, in fact, try to resurrect the spirit that inspired us 12 years ago in this coming year for comprehensive reform.

This particular bill is very troubling in how it impacts children. I am troubled that a bill of such consequence and, quite frankly, legal complexity was brought to the floor without going through a committee. Really, here in the Senate, the way to do responsible work on complicated, consequential bills is to have them go before a committee so the committee can bring in all the experts necessary to resolve disputes and misunderstandings about how the bill might work. From that common understanding, needed reforms can be implemented. But here on the floor of the Senate, where often only one or two of us are here at a time, there is no such consideration. We can't bring experts to the floor here to resolve these issues.

My colleague from Alabama is here today, and when I propose that we consider certain amendments, I anticipate that she is going to object, although I will try to persuade her otherwise with the logic of my presentation. But I would say that the core point stands that this bill is consequential, it is complicated, and the potential impact on children is dramatic. So let's work to prevent something really awful from happening here in our country because I know that is not the intent of my colleague.

This bill as written requires ICE officers to detain individuals who have neither been charged nor convicted of a crime--neither charged nor convicted. Children imprisoned without being charged or convicted of a crime--that is what this bill does.

In the current system, children can be, in fact, detained, but it is at discretion on the front end and discretion on the back end to understand the whole of the circumstances. Is the individual a flight risk? Does the individual pose a risk to the community? Are we talking about an assault with a deadly weapon or are we talking about grabbing and eating an apple while walking down the aisle of a grocery store? That discretion is obliterated in this bill.

If a 5-year-old girl in either of our States--I am from Oregon, and Senator Britt from Alabama--gets hungry and grabs that apple, the Laken Riley Act says that young girl, if arrested, must be put into an ICE prison--must be, without discretion--and there is no provision in the bill to get that girl out. There is no required review.

This is an obliteration of everything we understand about due process. A child arrested but never charged because there was, in fact, in the end, no evidence--no conviction because since there is no evidence, there is no trial--is still sitting in prison without recourse, in an ICE prison.

This is not the America I know, and I don't believe this is the America my colleagues across the aisle want. So I come here to say let's work together to fix this bill. That is what we are looking to do today.

I have three amendments. I will explain each of the amendments before I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment so that the amendment can, in fact, be debated and voted on.

The first amendment excludes children from this bill. If the idea is that mandatory detention should apply to adults, then let's exclude children. Children would still be subject to potential detention that exists under the current law at the discretion--in fact, under current law, they can be detained with discretion even just for an arrest, before they have been charged or convicted, but there is discretion involved.

I know of no case in which there has been permanent, mandatory imprisonment of a child who has only been arrested and never charged and never convicted in the entire history of the United States of America, and we are about to change that. That is wrong.

So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment so I can offer my amendment No. 73; that there be up to 15 minutes for debate on the amendment; and that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the amendment without further intervening action or debate.

My colleague laid out quite a set of factors there, but let's not blur the picture. The picture is this: A child came here when they were 2 months old. They have been here for 12 years or 14. They walk out of a store with a group of children. A police officer thinks they saw them put something into their pocket and arrests them. It turns out they didn't put anything into their pocket. Nothing was in there, but they have been arrested. Now ICE is required to indefinitely imprison that child--that child in Alabama who was going to be a great, outstanding member of their school and of their community--sentencing that child, with no charge, no conviction, no crime, to prison. We know exactly what harm that type of imprisonment does.

That is what this amendment is about. I can't take on all of the other issues, but I will say that last year, we had a bipartisan group develop a comprehensive bill, and my colleagues across the aisle blocked it from coming to the floor. But that was last year's debate.

This is a bill that has a purpose, but I don't think the purpose is to wrongly, indefinitely, mandatorily imprison innocent children. So I would ask my colleague, while you are objecting now, let's continue this conversation because it is that important to fairness in America.

There is a legal difference of opinion currently, so I am just going to describe that. It was sold on the House side by saying that there is a settlement called the Flores settlement which will continue to protect children and prevent this from happening--an innocent child indefinitely detained in prison with no review process.

But let's turn to the counsel for Flores. The counsel for Flores has put out a detailed statement. I have a copy. I understand that other lawyers may have other opinions, but these are the experts.

They say: The Flores settlement does not apply to undocumented children in the community. It applies only to children detained in Federal immigration custody by DHS under Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement in certain circumstances and so on and so forth. ``Neither the Flores Settlement, nor any other existing legal protection, would prevent undocumented children from being mandatorily detained by ICE under the Laken Riley Act'' as it is currently written.

It goes on to note and explain that the Flores settlement is a consent decree, and law, Federal law, trumps consent decrees.

It goes on to say that ``children, including toddlers, are not exempted from the Laken Riley Act'' and that ``24 states have no minimum age for prosecuting children,'' meaning you can be arrested at any age, even a toddler.

So I will ask my colleague not, again, to consider granting consent for this amendment, but I would ask that you work with me to explore this topic and see if we can fix this problem to our mutual satisfaction so we don't do harm to children, if you would consider doing that.

Thank you.

We are in the same hallway over in the Hart Building.

I look forward to cooperating on many topics, but this is perhaps the most important one at the moment.

A second amendment that I have creates some of the flexibility that exists in current law that doesn't exist under this bill. It requires DHS to employ what is referred to as the best interest standard for the child. This is a standard that is used in virtually every single State in the foster care and child service industry.

And so the amendment reads--it is nice to have very short amendments. It requires DHS to only detain children in a manner consistent with the best interest of the child and that does not abrogate, modify, or replace protections for children in applicable Federal law, regulation, court orders, and decrees--in other words, preserving the flexibility that exists in current law, which means could be detained but that a judge can consider the totality of the circumstances, the level of the crime, whether or not there is a flight risk, whether or not there is a potential harm to the community.

The best interest standard seems like an appropriate thing to apply when we are, in fact, collectively striving for the best interest of the children.

So I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment so that I may offer up amendment No. 72; that there be up to 15 minutes for debate on the amendment; and that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the amendment without further intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I do disagree with my colleague because this bill eliminates the flexibility in the current system to consider the totality of the circumstances, and restoring the best interest standard that every State is intimately familiar with is remedying the lack of flexibility in the bill as it is written.

But again, we will continue this conversation. I view coming to the floor and having this dialogue as kind of a way for us to do something that is too rare--way too rare--here in the Senate. We rarely have these types of conversations in front of the American people, and I think it is important we have them, especially when there is some value--that maybe we share the same value but have different interpretations of how that value will be impacted. I am sure we share the same value on trying not to do kids wrong. That is why I value this dialogue with my colleague, and I hope it will lead to the opportunity to resolve these issues.

I have a third amendment, and the third amendment is related to another aspect of the way children are affected, including American citizen children.

Imagine the parent who goes to work who is accused--I don't know--of stealing a tool out of the factory, and so he is arrested or she is arrested. And now, under this bill, that adult has to be locked up--no flexibility on the front end--even though it turns out that they did not steal the tool; they had nothing in their bag that they had with them. The officer thought they did; they didn't. They never get charged. They never get convicted so there is no trial. They are charged. But that parent who has maybe one, two, three, four American citizen children at home waiting for them--they come home from school, and no parent comes home. They have to be locked up under this bill.

So we are not just talking about an impact in this bill on immigrant children. We are talking about an impact on citizen children. Now, I care about both, but I just want to note that there has been a conversation about this bill as if it only affects immigrants. No, it affects American citizens too. It affects spouses who might be American citizens. It certainly affects the children who are likely American citizens.

So this amendment says that if an adult with children under 17 is subject to the mandatory detention that currently has no end, no back end to it, has no ability to appeal--it is permanent detention, permanent imprisonment--that if they have children at home, after 30 days, there would be a court proceeding to consider whether or not the conditions should exist for release after the normal set of issues are considered, such as is this person a danger to the community; is this person a flight risk; can they be released with bail--the same things we have now--because back at that home are a bunch of children, maybe noncitizen children, maybe citizen children, but a bunch of children who are going: My parent never came home. I am not just a latchkey kid with a parent coming home at 10 p.m. because that is when their shift ends; I am a kid who doesn't know what the hell to do now, and my life has been shattered.

So this would create the opportunity for that flexibility that exists in current law after 30 days of mandatory detention. I think it is an appropriate way to address the potential for impact that I am sure no one intended in writing this bill, which was to leave a bunch of children back in a home with no parent and no support.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment so that I can offer amendment No. 71; that there be up to 15 minutes for debate on the amendment; and that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote on the amendment without further intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I was hoping those last two words weren't ``I object.'' But this is an important issue that has been raised, and we need to look carefully because there is no intention to leave a houseful of children home alone when the parent poses no flight risk, has committed no crime, poses no risk to the community, and those children are being harmed.

In fact, I do take factual dispute with a few of my colleague's points. She noted that no due process had been taken. When you eliminate the discretion on the front end, you change due process. A judge can no longer say this person is no flight risk, no risk to the community, has children at home, so we will put a high bond. They will absolutely show up. We know where all their relatives are. And that will be best because, if the person is subsequently charged, they will be there for trial.

That due process is stripped away on the front end. There is due process in existence now on the back end, where a person can challenge their detention and whether or not they should be there.

In fact, during the previous Trump administration, there were children who were released with such challenges, but that is taken away. So, yes, due process is dramatically changed, with a huge impact on children.

And my colleague mentioned that we don't want children to be targeted for gangs. Amen to that. Who is more of a target for gangs than children left alone in the home because their parent has been unjustly imprisoned? That does exactly the opposite of what my colleague wants to achieve.

So I know this conversation will continue; at least, I hope it will. We are now under a filed cloture motion, which means the majority intends to close debate probably on Monday, and yet one Democratic amendment has been heard--one. The majority leader has said he wants to do things differently; that he wants there to be an amendment process.

The amendment process I saw when I first came to this Senate consisted of standing up and saying: I have a relevant, germane amendment. I am asking for the existing amendment to be set aside so that mine can be brought up, which puts it in a queue for consideration. People can study it. And then you go to a whole series of votes on all those things that are in that queue.

We did this on Dodd-Frank. We did this on ObamaCare. I think we should do it here because the consequences are high. But if that can't be done, then I would ask my colleague who has worked so hard on this particular bill to take a look at whether the Republican side will agree to hear these amendments and vote on them. They may be voted down, but I think they are important.

I think it is extremely important that kids not be wrapped up in this. They can currently be detained, but it is with discretion of the circumstances. I think it is particularly important that we have a standard for children in terms of their best interest. I think it is particularly important that we have a way, after a few weeks, to have some look at whether children who have been left home alone--and if the circumstances are appropriate and there is no flight risk, the circumstances are appropriate and there is no community risk--to help address that situation or we are harming children this was never meant to harm.

So I ask for my Republican colleagues to consider providing an opportunity because they--it takes 100 percent. Every single Senator has to agree to hear an amendment.

We used to have the Senate code. The Senate code was: I won't object to your amendment. You don't object to mine. They are on the topic before us.

These are on the topic before us. These are not some crazy thing. These are addressing core due process issues that affect children. So I would ask that at least they get some discussion for the possibility of consideration.

I thank my colleague from Alabama for coming and hearing me out as well as--I am not really thanking you for objecting, but I am thanking you in the spirit in which I think you want to do the right thing.

And I will keep striving to convince you that the right thing here is we should debate these amendments.

Mr. President, let's talk about Trump's betrayal of middle-class America. In 2017, many of us warned that Trump's tax giveaway was a disaster for working families. It was a giveaway to billionaires. It was a giveaway to powerful corporations. It stole from America's Treasury, increasing the debt of this country to gild the richest Americans. They wanted platinum treatment. They wanted more money than anybody else has ever imagined, and they got it from Trump by draining the American Treasury.

Well, that failed America's working families. There is nothing about giving several hundred thousand dollars to the richest Americans--that is each one of them--that helped a single working American.

These policies are coming to an end in 2025. But now, Trump 2 is coming along, and he says: I campaigned on working Americans, but I want to raid the programs for them and raid the Treasury to enrich them again. I didn't give them enough the first time around. The rich are not rich enough. I campaigned for working families, but I am going to betray them with tax cuts, tax giveaways, a tax raid on programs and the Treasury for the richest Americans. That is the Trump betrayal that we are facing right now.

CBO says extending the Trump tax cuts would blow a $4.6 trillion hole in the Federal budget over the next 10 years. As my colleague just pointed out, Republicans are saying they might decrease the size of that hole by raiding healthcare for Americans. What an evil and twisted plot that is, what an assault on working families across our Nation.

That $4.6 trillion--no, I did not say ``m'' for million or ``b'' for billion; we are talking trillion, $4.6 trillion--should go to basic services for all Americans or reduce our deficit instead of going into the pockets of the very few.

So whom are you for? Are you for the very richest 1 percent and 0.1 percent of Americans who have so much money they don't know what to do with it or are you for working families? Because this Trump budget is the betrayal of working families.

If you are for working families, you invest in healthcare, you don't raid it; you invest in housing, you don't raid housing programs; you invest in education, you don't raid education programs.

Those are the foundations. Those are the good-paying jobs. Those are the four foundations for families to thrive.

If you work an hourly job and make less than $34,000 a year--which is the case for 50 million American taxpayers--you would get back $130 a year--$2.50, roughly, two and a half dollars. All right. Right now, that is less than a cup of coffee. Enjoy that every week because that is what Trump cares about for those families who are working at the bottom of the ladder trying to move up.

Instead of helping move up, he wants to take the programs away from them and give them to these folks who are going to get a $280,000 per- person tax break at the very top.

Look how skewed this is. Working families on the left get nothing. The richest on the right get everything. That is what we are looking at. That little tiny $130--just a little change in the cost of drugs or your rent, your groceries wipes that out. Two thousand times the help for the richest compared to those who are struggling.

That is twisted. That is warped. That is the Trump betrayal of working families.

Let's stand for working families. Let's stand for healthcare and housing and education, the foundation for every family to move up the ladder because that is what it means to care about every American family, whether they are in the party of the elite rich like the Trump betrayal presents.

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

Mr. President, we are all here, getting ready to leave after we fund the government and return home to our families. We get pretty excited about this time of year thinking about the holidays to come. We are heading home to our loved ones. We know there will be extended family gatherings. There will be games with the children. There will be exchanges of presents. There will be food. There will be awesome food--ham, turkey, all kinds of wonderfully crafted vegetable dishes--and there will be so much that we can drink. Oh, yes. There will be wine varieties. There will eggnog; perhaps some of it will be spiked. There will be carbonated apple juice or cranberry juice for the kids. We will put it into glasses, and we will have a toast. We will really celebrate life. We will celebrate life with a roof over our heads, with our loved ones close by, and with our cupboards well- stocked.

Also in these holidays, there will be time for reflection in every religious tradition. For those of us who are fortunate to have that roof over our heads and food in the cupboards and our loved ones close by, we will recognize that, for so many, that is not the case. For so many here in the United States, who by virtue of economic conditions or the ravages of disease or mental afflictions, they will not have a roof over their heads; they may not have family members close by; they may not even have a cupboard, let alone one that is well-stocked. We will ponder our responsibility to try to improve those conditions.

We will ponder the landscape across the broader globe, knowing that in many places, people have been so ravaged by natural disasters, so affected by conflict and war. I am sure we will see programs and commentary about Sudan, where millions have been displaced by civil war and by drought and by famine; or in Burma, where so many are suffering escalating violence; or in Ukraine, where people are brutalized by Putin's invasion, in the efforts to defend their country.

No matter where you look, there is no shortage of suffering, but the place that weighs the heaviest on my heart this season is the Middle East. We have the families of Israel continuing to grieve the losses of 1,200 of their own loved ones on October 7, 2023. We have families in Israel who continue to not know the fate of their loved ones taken hostage--whether they are alive, whether they are dead, whether they are being cared for, whether they are suffering. Will they be released? And there will be an empty chair at the table.

The victims in Israel weigh on my heart, but the Palestinian victims also weigh on my heart, individuals in the West Bank--Palestinians who have suffered from decades of occupation, of the economic constraints and indignity that come from checkpoints, that come from land lost to settlements and to outposts, to olive orchards bulldozed down, to lives lost and injuries suffered from increasing violence by settlers against Palestinian villagers.

But, by far, the most devastated communities are the Palestinian communities in Gaza because of the extraordinary level of devastation. And it weighs on my heart because of the connection between the United States and Israel, our close connection with our ally, where we share security strategies, where we provide economic and military assistance. We share intelligence on the issues of the world. We are so closely connected that we are connected to the devastation in Gaza.

Since October 7, 2023, more than 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza have died. More than 100,000 have been severely injured. The vast bulk of those injured and those who have died are women and children and seniors--people who have no connection whatsoever to Hamas, which conducted the raids on October 7 of 2023. The devastation is massive.

This same picture, taken in North Gaza, could be almost copied for community after community from north to south of Gaza.

Of the 2.1 million people, the Palestinians in Gaza, some 1.9 million--almost everyone, that is--are without a home, either because their home has been blasted into smithereens or because they have been forcibly moved to a different location within Gaza--forced relocation.

A year ago, Senator Van Hollen and I went to Rafah gate. We had hoped to get inside Gaza to see with our own eyes and talk to people and understand better the devastation, but what we heard a year ago was that all of the fundamentals for a normal community were devastated. Shelter I have already spoken to--the 1.9 million people relocated either because they were forced to flee or because their homes no longer existed; that the phone networks were down; that the cell networks were down; that the internet networks were down. Even if they were up, people had very little opportunity to recharge their cell phones because there wasn't electricity. So the power was down. The transportation was down because many roads were impassable. Food was in short supply, driving malnutrition a year ago. Clean water was often unavailable a year ago.

A year ago, Senator Van Hollen and I could not get into Gaza. Reporters have not been allowed into Gaza except for very carefully monitored, short visits monitored by the Netanyahu government. Humanitarian organizations were having a hard time getting in and often had to do a very careful exchange of an exact number for an exact number coming out.

But as we stood there at that gate, a couple of doctors came out, and I spent some time talking to them. One of them was a burn specialist, who described how hard it was to treat many of the massive burns he had witnessed. The other was a bone doctor, and he said: I can treat the broken bones, but I can't necessarily treat the soft tissue damage that comes from the shock waves that emanate from all of the explosions taking down the buildings. The impact, he said, of a blast's radius in terms of the shock waves was even greater than the physical damage.

We were able to talk to humanitarian organizations of aid workers who had been in Gaza, and they said: Understand this--that we are seasoned workers who have been in the worst places in the world. We have been in Yemen. We have been on the frontlines of Ukraine. We have been in Sudan. Nothing compares to the devastation in Gaza.

That was a year ago.

I was particularly affected by hearing about the challenges of mothers. Mothers receive our attention particularly when they are carrying babies because all our efforts go to making sure that delivery--that child will come safely into the world, healthy into the world, and that the mother will be cared for. But what we heard from the humanitarian organizations was that hunger was driving malnutrition and malnutrition made people more susceptible to disease, and for mothers, it meant increases in miscarriages, increases in stillbirths, increases in very low birth weight babies, increases in the difficulty of mothers' breastfeeding their children because they were too malnourished to produce milk, and babies getting sick because when formula was used, if available, the water might be contaminated.

Think about the children you have brought into the world or that your wife or your partner has brought into the world and how horrific it would be to see those circumstances.

This time of year is a time of year in my spiritual tradition where we think a lot about the challenges Mary went through. She and Joseph were traveling from Galilee to Bethlehem, and they were traveling there at the time that Mary was very pregnant with Jesus, because a census had been ordered by Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, and they were required to be there and report to Joseph's ancestral home of Bethlehem. Traveling the roads when one is pregnant is very hard. And then they weren't able to find a room in Bethlehem, and Mary went into labor and delivered in a barn--not ideal circumstances.

Because of this time of year and because we think about that story so much, the mothers in Gaza--their conditions are so much worse. It is something we can connect with. And now the children in Gaza are entering their second year in this devastation. Some have some format of school, but many do not.

Now, we here in America know--we know--what COVID did to interrupt the education of our children. Some did well with tutors. Many suffered isolation. Many suffered setbacks in what they learned. Many are still carrying that challenge forward as they seek education. So we can also connect to the children of Gaza who have had their education, their lives so disrupted--lives disrupted by a lack of food and water, instability, a lack of safety.

Two weeks ago, an ambassador from the Middle East drew attention to a part of Gaza in worse shape than the rest of Gaza, and he referred to this area. Specifically, it is North Gaza. And where is North Gaza? You have northern Gaza and southern Gaza separated by the Netzarim Corridor that travels from Israel to the Mediterranean Sea. But then within northern Gaza, you have Gaza City and then communities: Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia. In those communities, he said, there are 65,000 people who are starving to death because food cannot get in-- 65,000 people starving.

We know food conditions have been horrific in Gaza for a year; but in this case, it is sustained prevention of food getting in, and people are starving. He asserted this, so I asked a visiting official from another Middle Eastern country about this. And he emphasized, yes. Yes, he said, there are, in fact, 65,000 people or more starving in northern Gaza, isolated from the rest of the world.

OK. Well, that is two officials. But that is a big thing to say. But then this came out, ``Gaza Humanitarian Access Snapshot #8.'' It is cosigned by 30 organizations, organizations like Save the Children, like CARE, like Mercy Corps, and 27 others.

What do they say in this report? They say.

. . . leaving 65,000-75,000 people trapped without food,

water, electricity or reliable healthcare.

That is a direct quote from the report of these 30 humanitarian organizations.

It goes on to say:

Humanitarian aid has been almost entirely blocked for 60

days.

It goes on to say that ``only three hospitals remain partially operational with restricted access.'' Very little healthcare.

It says:

The population faces imminent risks of disease, starvation,

and violence without urgent relief.

Without urgent relief.

I called up Cindy McCain. We know Cindy well here. Cindy McCain is executive director of the World Food Programme. She is the spouse of our former deceased colleague John McCain. I said to her: Is this right? Are 65,000 people isolated in north Gaza for week after week after week, no deliveries of food or virtually none? She said, ``Yes.'' She said, yes, that is the case.

She didn't just say it to me. She also talked about Gaza more broadly. She said we can no longer sit by and just allow these people to starve to death. Children, especially, she said, are starving to death. The height of malnutrition, the height of hunger in that region is unbelievably horrible.

In November, the United Nations made 41 attempts to deliver aid to this section of north Gaza, to the besieged people trapped in north Gaza. But 37 of the 41 attempts were blocked by the Netanyahu government; four other deliveries were not blocked but were troubled.

Here is the situation. A year ago, we heard that if there isn't sufficient food, chaos will ensue because starving people will storm whatever truck there is that has food because they are desperate. The trucks won't be able to make it to the warehouse. Or if they do make it to the warehouse, the warehouse will be sacked.

We are now in the very condition that the humanitarian organizations told us would happen. So very little food is being allowed in; and what is being allowed in can't be distributed in any significant, organized fashion, and people are starving. Even if those four truckloads could have been at the warehouse and distributed, there is too little food--a microscopic amount of food--for the 65,000 people who are there.

So here we are now. Gaza's destruction--this destruction that we saw in the previous chart, this destruction--this is carried out by American bombs. This is how we are complicit in this situation. It is our munitions that are being used by the Israel Defense Forces to produce this result. We are connected; and, therefore, we are morally connected to the situation in Gaza.

Our weapon packages have included 50,000 120-mm high explosive mortar rounds. Our provisions have included more than 32,000 120-mm tank rounds, more than 14,000 2,000-pound bombs, and 6,500 500-pound bombs, and hundreds of 250-pound bombs.

Think about a 2,000-pound bomb. This is like the biggest bomb. The New York Times described how, when it is dropped, it is designed to break fortified military bunkers. It will create a massive crater 40 to 50 feet wide. And when it explodes, it will shatter ``into razor-sharp fragments that can kill or incapacitate people over several hundred feet.''

You kind of get the feeling how any bomb like that is indiscriminate. Whether it is dropped on the intended building or it falls somewhere further afield, it kills a tremendous number of civilians. We are providing those bombs.

The Biden administration suspended the delivery of 200-pound bombs to the Netanyahu government because of that and also suspended the 500- pound bombs. But the Wall Street Journal reported in July that the delivery of the 500-pound bombs had been restored.

The point here is we continue to be deeply connected and tied to this devastation in Gaza. It is not just the devastation of civilians, it is also American lives, and it is also international law.

National Security Memorandum 20--a process that was created because of the work of my colleague Senator Van Hollen, says this:

It is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered .

. . have been used by Israeli security forces . . .

inconsistent with its International Humanitarian Law [and

the] obligations for mitigating civilian harm.

So what have we done? It was last February--now 10 months ago--that a group of us called on the United States for ``Operation Gaza Relief.'' We must at least provide massive amounts of humanitarian aid so people are not starving in Gaza. We have that responsibility.

If we are urging Israel to provide the aid, which is the best strategy, but they do not do it, we have the obligation to provide it. And we did so little.

We have the most massive sealift capability in the world, and we didn't use a single bit of it to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

We have two hospital ships that have a thousand beds each, and we did not move them into the Mediterranean to help out. We did not encourage other nations to provide their hospital ships.

We did do one modest thing. We did a floating pier that operated intermittently from May to July that had all kinds of problems breaking up in the waves. It provided, ultimately--at the best estimate--enough food for people of Gaza for a week, not at all addressing the magnitude of the challenge.

We had a responsibility to provide help, independent of any other cessation of hostilities, and we failed.

Yes, we pressed for a cessation of hostilities. We pressed for a ceasefire. And I applaud the administration for doing so. But while that failed, we also failed. We, America, failed in our responsibility to provide relief to the humanitarian suffering, on which we are so closely connected.

Our own law says that if our aid is impeded--as it has been by the Netanyahu government--that we cannot provide arms. But we have been violating our own law.

620I says:

No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms

Export Control Act to any country when it is made known to

the President that the government of such country prohibits

or other otherwise redirects, directly or indirectly, the

transport or delivery of United States humanitarian

assistance.

We have a moral responsibility, and we have a legal responsibility. So we must--must--do more. We must do more in the remaining weeks of this administration. We must do more in the opening year of the next administration, because these issues of moral responsibility, these issues of international law, do not depend on who sits in the Oval Office.

So as we stand here about to go home and celebrate with our big plates of food and our full pitchers of wine, as we read our cards calling for peace in the world, as we offer our prayers, let us not forget those who suffer in the Middle East. Let us not forget the families who lost their family members on October 7 in Israel. Let us not forget the families in Israel whose family members are still held hostage. Let us not forget those on the West Bank suffering the inflictions of local violence. But most of all, let us not forget the victims in Gaza and do all we can, under our moral responsibility, under our legal responsibility, to come to their aid.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate passed important legislation to Oregon's ports and waterways, the backbone of our regional economy. This legislation includes key provisions that I fought for to ensure the safe navigation of the Lower Columbia River's deep draft channel, which connects the Pacific Northwest and much of the country to the world.

According to the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, the channel supports more than 49 million metric tons of international trade cargo, accounting for over $31 billion in value and supporting at least 40,000 local jobs. The benefits of ensuring clear passage along the channel reach well beyond the region. The channel is the country's top wheat export gateway, the second largest U.S. soy export gateway, and the third largest grain export gateway in the world, as well as the top West Coast exporter for cars.

Since 1891, through authorizations in a patchwork of Federal laws and agreements, the Port of Portland--and later along with the Ports of Vancouver, Woodland, Kalama, and Longview, WA--has assisted in dredging and maintaining the channel. For the last 60 years, this work has been done by the Dredge Oregon, on behalf of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a dredge owned by the Port of Portland and used exclusively for Columbia River channel maintenance. While the dredge has performed extremely well on demand and often under difficult circumstances, the vessel is now nearly 60 years old and in desperate need of replacement.

I am pleased that section 1325 of this year's Water Resources Development Act will clearly authorize the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to replace Dredge Oregon with a more modern vessel. This language makes it clear that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can reimburse the Port of Portland for financial costs incurred to replace Dredge Oregon, which exclusively

works to fulfil the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers responsibilities in the Lower Columbia Channel.

This authorization is critical toward ensuring that the Lower Columbia River will continue to be dredged and maintained with the same reliability as it has been for decades. I once again thank my colleagues and staff for their hard work on this legislation.

Mr. President, when I was wrestling, along with Mary, my wife, about whether to run for the Senate, I had the chance to meet the Senator from Ohio and his wife at a gathering in Massachusetts, and I came away believing that service here could matter.

When I learned of your background and your fight, Sherrod, I thought that is my fight, too. I want to be here and join you in this effort.

You know, with my dad a mechanic and my mother a secretary, I don't know how the hell I ended up here on the floor of the Senate, but it is because of believing in the vision of America that you referred to at the close of your speech. While I can't quote it exactly, it was along the lines of: If you love America, you fight for America's worker--or: You fight for the workers who make America function.

We are in a system now that is so rigged with liars and lobbyists and dark money, but the antidote is individuals like yourself who say: Public service matters. I am not here to help the rich become richer or the corporations become stronger. I am here to fight for the foundation for every family to thrive--on healthcare, on housing, on education, and on a good-paying job, with an honest day's pay for a fair day's work.

I then saw you in action on the Banking Committee. Now, Elizabeth Warren had this idea for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but she wasn't here in the Senate yet. But on that committee, in working on Dodd-Frank, we collectively delivered that and so much more through that process, including taking on the false mortgages--the predatory mortgages--that were turning the dream of homeownership into a nightmare. There is probably a dozen powerful factors in there for America's workers. We made a difference in those years--you made a difference--and I was so happy to see you lead the Banking Committee.

I can't tell you what a loss it is to this Chamber and what a loss it is to the workers of America that I will no longer see you in that chair, but I know I will see you somewhere down the trail, fighting the good fight.

Thank you.

Madam President, I just wanted to note first that I really appreciate Senator Mike Braun's support on our effort to protect American's privacy and take on the rapid expansion of TSA use of facial surveillance. Stopping the establishment of a national surveillance system is very important to freedom and privacy in America, and I much appreciate his partnership in undertaking this topic

and wish him all the best in his return to be Governor of Indiana.

Madam President, I rise to say a few words about S. 1351 and ask for its passage, as amended. But before I formally ask, I just want to know what this is all about; and that is, across our country, there are institutions that say they will help with your troubled teen. In fact, this has been become known as the troubled teen industry.

Now, some of these institutions are long established, huge amounts of oversight, the best practices and the best results, and we certainly need these types of places to assist families when they are challenged in the family setting by the difficulties experienced by their children. But we also have a whole series of companies that have sprung up, whether for-profit or nonprofit, without the expertise, and saw an opportunity to make a lot of money and jump into a space without the proper foundation for actually being beneficial to teens. We had an experience with one of our Oregon children who died at just such a facility.

One of the individuals--really the individual who proceeded to draw attention to this largely unregulated troubled teen industry is Paris Hilton. Paris wrote a memoir, and she shared in it, as summarized by, well, the summary of her book, that her childhood was shattered by 2 years of strip searches, isolation, beatings, restraints, and brainwashing in this troubled teen institution. Her story is not alone. There are multiple stories of broken bones, of sexual assaults, of solitary confinement, even stories, as with our child in Oregon, of them dying in these institutions.

We found that there really is a lack of detailed information about what is going on across America, so 12 Democrats and 12 Republicans have come together to sponsor this bill to say: We need to understand and therefore have recommendations on how to avoid the horrendous outcomes at some of the institutions. So this bill calls for just such a study.

This bill proceeds to say: We want our kids safe. We want our kids respected. We want our children to have the very best care.

I am struck by the tragedy that occurs when parents searching for help for their children strive to send them to a safe place and end up sending them to a very dangerous place. This is unacceptable.

This bill says: Let's get a complete map of these institutions. Let's understand where they are and what they look like and what they cost and how long kids are staying there and how children are treated, how they are treated in ways that are inappropriate, and how, in some institutions, the gold-star institutions, how their best practices should be shared across the Nation, and how we should inform decision makers and policymakers across the country with the findings.

So that is the simple story of this bill, and I am pleased that I am able to come to the floor now with a lot of support: Senator John Cornyn, a lead on the Republican side, and a lot of help from Tommy Tuberville. Senator Cassidy, who is ranking member of HELP, was involved in helping this bill go forward.

I am thankful for the information we received from the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches, an institution that is highly respected and that has been in operation since 1957, providing support and help to literally thousands of young boys. Actually, that is the type of information we want collected--institutions that are working well, that have those best practices.

So, Madam President, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration of S. 1351 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Merkley-Cornyn substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I failed to mention my appreciation for the conversations I have had with Senator Rick Scott, who helped facilitate dialogue with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches and their contributions to how we should go forward.

With that, I am really excited that we are getting this bill done. Thank you. Hopefully, the House will be able to expedite it, and we will start to understand an industry that we need to understand and America needs to understand so children are helped, not hurt.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, in 1978, between my junior and senior years in college, I hitchhiked through Israel and the West Bank. I made Israeli friends. I was invited to stay at a kibbutz. I explored the old city of Jerusalem. I negotiated the ancient tunnel built by King Hezekiah in the face of advancing armies. I climbed a snake path to the top of Masada. I swam in the Sea of Galilee and the Red Sea and the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.

I was so impressed by the energy for building a new nation, for planting forests, for making the desert bloom with new irrigation systems, constructing cities and roads.

And, in addition, peace was on the horizon. Nine months before my visit in November 1977, Anwar Sadat had visited Jerusalem to address the Knesset and pursue a path to peace.

And then, just weeks after I left, he was shaking hands with Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter at Camp David, and a peace treaty was signed the following year in March.

I was all in on America standing in partnership with this new nation perched on a little sliver of land surrounded by hostile neighbors. And I voted here in the Senate time and again for economic support for Israel, for military support for Israel.

I have believed in the vision that it was the right way to help Israel thrive, the best path to peace and security. As many of us reasoned, if Israel's economy was thriving and their military strength ensured their security, they could, with confidence, negotiate a secure and peaceful future with their neighbors. They could, with confidence, negotiate parameters for a Palestinian State so the Palestinians could thrive as well.

Not so long ago, just over a decade, I traveled to Israel with former Senator Mark Begich of Alaska and Kay Hagan of North Carolina, and we met around a little table with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. And at that time, now 12 years ago, he expounded eloquently on his thesis that the only path for Israel's peace and prosperity was two states for two people.

In the dozen years since, much has changed. Prime Minister Netanyahu has become a public and vocal opponent of a Palestinian State. Israel has engaged in a de facto annexation of the West Bank, land essential for a Palestinian State. They have done this through settlements. They have done this through legalizing outposts. They have created innumerable checkpoints. They have created settler-only roads.

In addition, Netanyahu has formed his government now with Bezalel

Smotrich, as Minister of Finance, someone who has said the Palestinian people do not exist and called for a Palestinian town to be erased; Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security, celebrated Baruch Goldstein's slaughter of 29 Palestinians at the Cave of Patriarchs massacre in 1994.

Today, the policies of the Netanyahu government are very different than the policies 12 years before. Under this government, attacks by Israel's West Bank settlers against Palestinian villages have become more frequent, violent, and often condoned by the Israeli Defense Forces.

Events on October 7, a year ago, took a terrible turn. Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli communities. They slaughtered 1,200 Israeli men, women, and children. They abducted 240 hostages, and the whole world was with Israel. We recalled 9/11. We grieved with Israel. We grieved with the Jewish communities in our home State. And we defended Israel's right to respond with a campaign targeted at destroying Hamas.

But I am here on the floor today because the way a war is conducted matters. And Israel's bombing campaign, described by President Biden as indiscriminate, has reduced Gaza to rubble and ruin. This destroyed most of the infrastructure needed for survival: schools, hospitals, homes, the power system, the communications phone system, the internet system, the water system, the transportation system.

Most significantly, the bombing campaign has killed tens of thousands of women, children, and seniors. It has seriously injured more than 100,000 Palestinians living in Gaza.

And Israel has chosen to restrict humanitarian aid. The consequences of that are that food and clean water are woefully short; medical supplies are minimal; and the specter of starvation haunts Gaza. The indiscriminate bombing and the obstruction of humanitarian aid violate the laws of war.

Now, President Biden and his team have consistently pressed the Netanyahu government to change tracks. They recognize that it is difficult in the setting in Gaza where Hamas imbeds itself but even so have argued to Israel that the campaign against Hamas could be much more targeted with far fewer civilian casualties. But the Netanyahu government has rejected this appeal. And Biden and his team have pushed to open the gates to Gaza, have Israel open the gates to Gaza, and to massively increase humanitarian aid. And, again, the Netanyahu government has rejected this appeal.

In mid-October, just last month, Secretary of State Blinken and Secretary of Defense Austin renewed their appeal. They warned the Netanyahu government that they must increase the amount of humanitarian aid within 30 days to comply with U.S. law. And they wrote in that letter that the amount of assistance entering Gaza in September was the lowest of any month in the last year.

They laid out in this letter a whole series of horrific conditions that need to be addressed, just as they had argued for the same for the previous year. The result of that has simply been minimal to no action.

In November, a major evaluation was summarized in a letter by the principals of the Inner Agencies Standing Committee. These are groups like the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Oxfam and UNICEF and the World Food Programme, headed by Cindy McCain, and the World Health Organization.

These leaders who have folks on the ground, who have lots of experts evaluating the situation, they recognize this. They summarized that the situation unfolding in North Gaza is apocalyptic. And they go on to talk about the schools serving as shelters having been bombed, about rescue teams being deliberately attacked, and more.

As I described at the start of my remarks, I have, since my first trip to Israel in 1978, been all in on the special partnership between the United States and Israel, on economic support, on security support, in the belief that our partnership would maximize Israel's confidence in pursuing peace and security. But the actions of the last decade have shattered that analysis.

The Netanyahu government is systematically undermining the possibility of a Palestinian State through its settlement checkpoints, its outposts, its settler-only highways. It is conducting its war campaign in Gaza in a fashion that is producing massive civilian deaths and injuries, conditions that aid organizations consistently described as the worst they have seen anywhere in the world.

I believe that not only is this horrific for the Palestinians, but this is absolutely not in the best interest of Israel's future. The actions of the Netanyahu government are burning through a massive reservoir of good will that was overflowing after October 7. It is undoing the improved relationship with Arab neighbors won through the Abraham Accords.

It is damaging because of our connection to Israel through military arms, our advocacy and legitimacy campaigning for human rights around the world.

So I ask you, what do you do when a good friend, a partner, heads off on a disastrous course?

President Biden and his team responded by providing proposals and encouragement to get back on course, but those were rejected. So now we must weigh in here in this Chamber. And many in this Chamber may say: Let's just continue the past; let's not see the horrific circumstances in Gaza; let's not observe the systematic takeover of the West Bank; let's ignore all that and continue with this very different rightwing government without ever raising an eyebrow.

I disagree. I think that true partners do not stand idly by when their partners go way off track in destructive ways and, thus, that we should not continue to provide the munitions that we are voting on today.

We cannot remain silent in the face of Netanyahu's strategy. We must not continue to provide offensive weapons that make the United States complicit in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians and the injury of 100,000 more innocents. Thus, I will choose to honor American law and respect international law and support Israel's best, long-term interests to thrive by voting to block these three weapons transfers up for consideration today.

I was fabulously impressed by Israel when I hitchhiked around the country in 1978--impressed by their can-do spirit, impressed by the future of peace with Egypt and the possibility of peace with every neighbor. I look forward to seeing that vision of peace and security realized, and my vote today supports that vision.

Mr. President, I echo the comments of my colleague regarding the service of our veterans. They have stood up for us overseas, and we must stand up for them back here at home.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.