Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we are living in a time of open government corruption that few of us thought could occur here in the United States of America. We sometimes recognize it and expect it in countries far away where authoritarian figures take a slice of every contract that moves through the government but not here in the United States of America, and yet here we are.

President Trump has planted a ``Government for Sale'' sign on the White House lawn, and individuals and foreign governments are funneling money into his pocket and his family's pocket in order to gain access and influence.

The GENIUS Act attempts to set up some guardrails for buying and selling a type of cryptocurrency--one type--called a stablecoin. We need guardrails that ensure that government officials aren't openly asking people to buy their coins in order to increase their personal profit or their family's profit.

Where are those guardrails in this bill? They are completely, totally absent. The GENIUS Act doesn't set up guardrails for the President or the Vice President. It doesn't set up guardrails that prevent an open invitation for people to buy access and influence by buying cryptocoins that increase the wealth of elected officials. Without such a guardrail, this bill should never pass.

We have the opportunity now to debate anti-corruption amendments, but I understand the majority leader has decided to cancel any amendments from being considered here on the floor of the Senate. Whether those are amendments that protect the consumer from scams in which seniors are directed to go and change their cash for cryptocoins at an ATM--a new way of sending their money overseas that doesn't go through a bank teller who might possibly warn against a scam;

whether it is plugging the many holes in this bill in order to have a proper regulatory framework; or whether it is to address the open corruption, none of those amendments are going to be considered--not a one--after the majority leader promised an open amendment process.

I would say to my colleague: If you promise an open amendment process, deliver it because people made votes on the motion to proceed to this bill based on that promise, and now you have broken it. That is a breach of trust. It is simply wrong in this body, where your word is your bond.

Now, I understand that you changed your mind because you didn't like one of the amendments your own Member proposed. Your own Republican caucus Member proposed an amendment you didn't like--a convenient opportunity to prevent this body from debating a whole set of important ideas related to this bill to protect consumers, to have better regulatory safeguards, and to end the corruption that is so evident right now.

Even at this last moment, I would say: Colleagues, vote against ending debate on this bill because without those votes to protect consumers, to increase the safeguards for regulation of this industry, and to address the corruption, this bill shouldn't go forward. So vote against it, and restore the vision the majority leader laid out that we would have that type of debate on this bill when the motion to proceed was voted on.

The public deserves us having that debate as well. And shouldn't they know where we stand on these issues? Because that is the feedback loop for the next election: Where do we stand?

But if we dodge having a real debate on real issues on the floor of the Senate, they don't know where we stand on improving the regulatory safeguards; they don't know where we stand on blocking the personal scams ripping off our seniors; they don't know where we stand on the crypto scams that we are becoming so familiar with.

You have all heard of a meme coin. Maybe you haven't. A meme coin is basically a digital baseball card. And President Trump has one. It is called the $TRUMP coin. The $TRUMP coin, you can own. You can buy it. You pay a dollar to the Trump family, and you get--well, what do you get? Nothing. Nothing. You don't even get an email with a picture of a coin, but you think of it like that. You get a register on an investment site that shows you now own a dollar coin. You get nothing. This coin can't even be used to buy anything.

So what it is, is the President saying: Give me your money. Open your wallet. And I will give you nothing--nothing--of tangible value.

Maybe the closest approximation would be a digital baseball card. That is it.

Now, he held a dinner at his golf course out in Virginia. For that dinner, he said: I am going to invite the 220 people who give me the most money by buying my meme coin. Open your wallet. Give me millions of dollars. You will get a special dinner, special access, and I will give you a digital baseball card.

Anyone who thinks that those 220 people who spent some $140 million- plus to attend that dinner were seeking to buy digital baseball cards-- well, we have a London bridge to sell you in the middle of the desert in Arizona. Nobody gave the President millions of dollars through acquiring his meme coins in order to get a digital baseball card. They did it because they knew that was the price to pay for access and influence. They were responding to the ``Government for Sale'' sign on the lawn of the White House.

It isn't just conjecture that that is the case. We know it is the case because various folks told us. For example, Javier Selgas, CEO of Freight Technologies, Inc., announced that his company had bought $2 million of Trump's meme coins. They had given Trump $2 million. And he said: We want to buy $20 million. Whether they did or not, I don't know because there is no disclosure. He said ``I want to buy that $20 million of coins''--that is, to give $20 million to President Trump--so he will have a better policy regarding the movement of freight between Mexico and the United States of America.

Thank you to the CEO of Freight Technologies for laying out very clearly what everyone knew: This is a scheme to sell influence on the U.S. Government, to make the President and his family mega rich.

There is a second type of coin the Trump family is involved in, and this one can be used as currency in international transactions. Now, this type of coin--why would you use it? Well, maybe you want to launder money. That would be a good reason to use it. Maybe you want to smuggle arms around the world. Maybe you want to be involved in drug transactions. Maybe you are plotting a terrorist act. Those would be good reasons to use a digital coin rather than using dollars or another currency that is overseen by basic banking regulations around the world. You want a currency where people can't see you buy it, can't see you own it. You can buy it here and convert it back into cash somewhere else. It is great for money laundering, great for crime.

So along comes a company called MGX, and that company is headed by the National Security Advisor of the United Arab Emirates. That company says: Hey, President Trump, we will buy $2 billion of your special digital coin that we can use to invest in another company called Binance.

And with this coin, what does the President get? He gets that $2 billion--or rather his company does--and they put that into investments, and Mr. Trump and his family keep the proceeds of those investments--even if that investment is only earning 4 percent. Over the course of a year, that is $80 million being given to the President's family in order to gain influence.

What did the UAE want? They told us. United Arab Emirates said: What we want are AI chips, and we want an AI center in the Emirates. Well, that was in March, and then they announced that they are going to buy Trump's $2 billion of coins.

And then what did President Trump do? He went to the Middle East, and he said: You know what, I have a great idea: Let's give you AI chips to create an AI center in Abu Dhabi--one of the Emirates.

UAE requested a policy. They bought $2 billion of Trump coins, and Trump delivered the policy.

That is corruption. That is the Mount Everest of corruption. That is corruption at a level never seen in the history of the United States of America.

We could vote on an amendment on this bill to end that corruption if the majority leader honors his commitment to an open amendment process. So I request of the majority leader that he honor his commitment and have that open amendment process.

Otherwise, it is an endorsement of this corruption, and I don't think any Member--certainly on this side of the aisle--wants to endorse corruption. And I would suggest that I don't think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to endorse corruption.

So let's vote on an amendment to end it.

And certainly, this provision wouldn't apply just to the President and Vice President, not just to the senior adviser. It applies to us too. We shouldn't be selling meme coins as an open way for people to give us personal gifts. Not one of us should be saying: Do you want access and influence? Buy my digital baseball card and buy it at high volumes, make me a rich man, make my family rich for generations to come, and you get special access.

That is exactly what is going on right now.

Colleagues, again, this is the moment. We are on a bill related to cryptocurrencies. In fact, the entire bill is about cryptocurrencies. So let's make this the moment that we actually debate amendments that improve the regulatory structure that has been laid out in the bill, that proceeds to address some of the consumer scams, including ATMs that convert dollars into digital coins being used to scam our seniors out of their lifesavings. And, yes, let's debate amendments that end this type of crypto corruption.

Let's rip that sign off the White House lawn that government is for sale. Let's never again have a CEO say: I am buying $2 million of Trump's coins in order to influence a policy involving trade between Mexico.

Let's never again have a company tied to the Government of UAE say: We

are going to buy $2 billion of Trump coins in order to influence policy and get an AI center established in our nation.

Never, never, never should our government be up for sale in this fashion, and this is the moment when we can take that on if the majority leader honors his commitment to an amendment process.

Mr. President, President Trump is engaged in massive corruption. There is a ``government for sale'' sign flashing its lights on the lawn of the White House. He is selling access and influence through two types of cryptocoins: a meme coin which is a digital baseball card, and he invited the 220 people who gave him the most money for these digital baseball cards called a meme coin to come to a dinner where he would feed them at his fancy Virginia golf club, held 2 weeks ago.

And he said: Oh, and the top 25 buyers of my meme coin, those buyers will get some other special access and special tour.

And 220 people gave the President $148 million, approximately, and they didn't give him $148 million in order to have a digital baseball card. They gave it because he was conveying that this would give you access and influence.

As the president of Freight Technologies, Inc., said, I bought $2 million of these coins. I am hoping to buy $20 million of these coins because I want the President to change a policy related to freight transportation between Mexico and the United States of America.

That CEO was saying out loud what everyone else understood: that the President was selling access and influence.

And that is not all. There is another type of Trump coin-- cryptocoin--that is inducing these corrupt practices. It is called a stablecoin. And a company associated with the United Arab Emirates said: You know, we are going to buy $2 billion of your coins. And guess what. You get to keep the value of everything earned on that $2 billion deposit.

Even at 4 percent, that is $80 million a year.

And what did the UAE want?

The UAE wanted advanced AI chips in order to have an advanced AI center in the United Arab Emirates.

Well, what did we see transpire?

The UAE repeatedly advocated for having access to these chips that the United States had previously said were a security risk.

Then a company closely associated with the UAE buys $2 billion of Trump's USD1 stablecoin. And then President Trump says: Oh, do you know what? You can have these AI chips after all. We will help you establish an advanced AI processing--artificial intelligence--center in Abu Dhabi, one of the UAE Emirates. That is corruption laid out as black and white as you could ever see it. This is incredible. This is what we expect of very poor, impoverished countries with dictators running the place, taking a cut of everything, but instead it is the President of the United States doing it.

Our Founders said this should never be allowed. Hamilton noted the reason that there is an emoluments clause in the Constitution. In Federalist 22, he

said ``many mortifying examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in republican governments.''

So here were our Founders, putting together this series of checks and balances, separation of powers between a judiciary, an executive, and a legislative branch, but they knew it could all be corrupted if you had an Executive--that is, a President--who could be bought.

Well, folks, we have a President who is being bought, who is advertising it to the world, and we haven't acted to stop it. Our Founders acted. They put a clause into the Constitution that said that ``no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them''--that, of course, included the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, all of us here who are elected-- ``shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.''

Well, the head of MGX is the National Security Advisor of the United Arab Emirates. This company is absolutely intertwined with this foreign government. Our Constitution forbids this type of gift to a President or a Vice President or any one of us.

So here is the fact: We are right now debating a bill dealing with cryptocurrencies, so this is the time to debate and vote on an amendment that bans these corrupt practices.

For that reason, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of amendment No. 2307 postcloture, that the pending amendment No. 2310 be set aside so I may offer my amendment No. 2349, which would stop the corruption in stablecoins for any elected Federal official of the United States of America.

Mr. President, I hear an objection from my friend and colleague, the head of the Banking Committee. Would my friend and colleague explain why we shouldn't, while we are on a cryptocurrency bill, consider and debate an amendment to honor the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Mr. President, I ask to be recognized. We are in the middle of a series of presentations here.

Thank you.

I could understand if my colleague was objecting because that amendment only covers one type of cryptocurrency that is being used in this fashion, and therefore I will present a different option, which is to say we should address both the sale of meme coins as a way to profit from people wanting to give us money and we should also cover the stablecoins as well.

So this broader amendment is a more comprehensive way, regardless of what conclusions you might have about President Trump currently, a broader way to ensure as we go forward that this body and the executive branch, the House down the Hall, will not be corrupted by us making personal money by selling something like a stablecoin or a meme coin, a digital baseball card--a way for people to essentially channel us cash, pretending to buy digital baseball cards.

So I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate resumes consideration of amendment No. 2307 postcloture, that the pending amendment No. 2308 be set aside so that I may offer my amendment No. 2350, which more broadly covers the set of corrupting risks that we would be addressing not just for the executive branch but for the legislative branch as well.

Mr. President, I am disappointed. I was very present when the majority leader said that on this bill, there will be an open amendment process, and we made it very clear that this was one of the issues that we felt we should be debating while we are on a cryptocurrency bill.

There are other amendments that should be considered as well. One of them is to stop a form of scam that bypasses a bank teller by getting older folks to think they are wiring money to perhaps a nephew or grandchild in distress, but instead of wiring the funds, they go and get digital coins at an ATM as instructed, but, in fact, they are just giving the money to crooks overseas. That amendment should be considered.

There are other amendments that address creating more sideboards so that this bill, which purports to regulate an industry, actually regulates it in an effective fashion rather than essentially endorsing an unregulated industry, which is what, in sum, this bill is currently.

So I am disappointed. I would, as I asked earlier, ask for the majority leader to honor his previous commitment to have an open amendment process so that we can pursue the people's work, fighting for a better America, including ending corruption in cryptocurrencies.

Mr. President, on May 22, I missed rollcall vote No. 277, passage of H. J. Res 88. Had I been present, I would have voted no. Overturning California's Clean Air Act waivers is a climate setback of massive proportions that will delay much-needed actions to abate climate chaos. By expanding the scope of the Congressional Review Act to accomplish this, the Senate has created a new process to undermine the ability of States to innovate and invites politicization and corruption of routine administrative actions.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to grant floor privileges to my interns for their shadow days, as follows: Lesly Maldonado on June 17, Emma Singleton on June 24, Malia Perry on July 8, Kunga Wilson on July 10, Katherine Lackey on July 15, Salma Sheikh on July 17, Delaney Jones on July 22, Vincent Sheoships on July 24, Abraham Barrow on July 29, and Ethan Abisellan on July 31.

Mr. President, I so appreciate the comments of my colleague from Nevada. So many of us are so frustrated with the failure of this legislature to address this fundamental injustice to our Dreamers.

Certainly immigration has been a part of the American spirit for a very long time. In 1752, three Merkle brothers--a name that was later converted to Merkley--arrived from Germany to be the first three of four settlers of the town of New Durlach.

More than a century later, we had those powerful words written by Emma Lazarus carved into the base of the Statue of liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning

to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp

beside the golden door!

Generations of immigrant families that were brought in through the Statue of Liberty island immigration center read those words as they arrived and were inspired as they began their American dream. But those who didn't come through that immigration center were also inspired by that vision of people coming from around the world to build this land, this land in which we have government of, by, and for the people.

Among those who have been inspired are those who arrived in more recent times. And our Dreamers, those who were less than 16, arriving before 2007, they were being given the chance, through the decision of President Obama, to grant them status in 2012 to have their American dream. And their success as a group shows it was the right policy and that it is long past time for Congress to pass a Dream Act to give them a path to citizenship.

Our good colleague from Illinois, Senator Durbin, has been fighting for these young people for passage of the Dream Act time and time again. And it is the Senate's 40-vote veto that has stopped us from ever having a vote on that policy, a final vote on that policy.

You know, the Dream Act didn't simply come from one side of the aisle. It was Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican, who first introduced it in 2001. But the bill for the Dreamers has languished in Congress year after year after year. In 2012, President Obama, therefore, took action and announced a deferred action for childhood arrivals, the DACA policy, to protect those children who were brought here as youth, knew, often, no other country, often spoke no other language. This is their home.

And he noted at the time that this was to be ``a temporary stopgap measure'' for Congress to be able to debate and vote on a permanent legislation, the Dream Act. But Congress hasn't voted--that is, the Senate has never voted on final passage--despite decades, despite bipartisan support. And even now, in December, President Trump said on ``Meet the Press''--so we are talking just months ago, after he won reelection: ``We have to do something about the Dreamers.''

So let's do something here as we note the 13th anniversary of DACA. More than 825,000 young men and women--approximately 8,000 in my home State of Oregon--are caught in legal limbo yet ``yearning to breathe free.'' Won't they be able to breathe a lot freer if we were able to resolve their legal status?

In 2022, the Department of Homeland Security codified DACA. But due to litigation, more than 100,000 applications are still pending from people seeking DACA protections. The Trump administration has been quite aggressive about deporting undocumented immigrants. And it could, in fact, rescind DACA's protections. So let's act. Let's resolve this situation.

Here is what we understand. In 2012, President Obama described recipients as ``young people who study in our schools, who play in our neighborhoods, who are friends with our children, who pledge allegiance to the flag.'' But while Congress waited to act all these years, those young people have grown up. DACA's protections allowed them to graduate from school, to apply for jobs, to become pillars in our communities. Over the last 13 years, they contributed more than $140 billion to the U.S. economy and more than $40 billion in Federal payroll, State, and local taxes.

They enrich our country in so many ways, serving as teachers, as nurses, as police officers, in addition to being our colleagues, our neighbors, and our friends.

We are a nation of immigrants. Unless you are part of the Tribal communities that have been on this land from time immemorial, unless you just arrived as a new immigrant, you are descended from immigrants, immigrants who arrived here often with welcoming arms, as mentioned in Emma Lazarus's poem engraved in the foundation of the Statue of Liberty.

We should not be slamming that door shut on the Dreamers who were brought here as children, who already contributed so much to our country.

Let's not just give speeches about the 13th anniversary, let's get those 100,000 pending DACA applications processed. Let's get the Dream Act to the floor to give DACA recipients a legal path to citizenship, and let's finish the work that Senator Durbin and so many others have been carrying forward for so many years to ensure that the American dream is open to all.

Mr. President, I have witnessed starvation up close.

Many years ago, I was visiting Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying in Calcutta. The room had a series of cots,

filled with men. There was a men's side and a women's side, and I was on the men's side.

Many of the men, the priest told me, had come after they had reached a point of malnutrition on the streets to which they had then collapsed.

I was asked to tend to one young man, and his eyes were very bright, and I asked the priest: It appears like he is really focused.

He said: No, no, no. This young man has been starving to death. His body has started to damage its own organs, and there is no recovery. All we can do is minister to his comfort.

That involved taking sections of grapefruit and wiping them across his lips.

I also visited a refugee center in Juba, in South Sudan, where the children's level of malnutrition was measured by an armband. It is one way of getting a quick sense of how little food they have had. It is called a mid-upper arm circumference. It is color coded, green to yellow to red, so aid workers can quickly see the severity of the malnutrition--the extent, if you will, of the impact of starvation.

And I visited refugee camps in Somalia and in Kenya and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where families were fleeing conflict and, quite frankly, fleeing starvation.

Starvation is sometimes the result of the chaos of war, sometimes the result of natural disasters, sometimes agricultural disasters. But what we are seeing now in the Middle East is a different form of disaster. It is a failure of political will to provide food. There is starvation in Gaza today because the Netanyahu government, which controls the amount of food flowing in, has chosen to use access to food as a weapon of war.

I have come to the floor tonight to say that this is immoral, that this use of food as a weapon of war is wrong under any structure of religion or moral code. I have come to the floor to say that it violates human rights and to say that it violates international law, and that all of us should join together and call for our government-- the U.S. Government--to use every leverage of influence we have with our close ally Israel to have the Netanyahu government end this strategy.

Over the last few months, public attention has turned away from the ongoing war in Gaza because there is so much else going on here in the United States and so much else going on around the world. Our newspapers and news feeds are full of stories about the Trump administration, about new tariffs, new Executive orders, new events across the country, and, also, quite frankly, about heartbreaking events of anti-Semitic violence against our American Jewish community.

Before I turn to deliberate further on the horrific use of food as a weapon of war, I want to really note the importance of never allowing criticism of the practices of another government or, certainly, criticism of the Government of Israel--the Netanyahu government--to blur into discrimination or persecution of anyone based on their faith identity.

I abhor discrimination, abhor persecution. I abhor anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic acts, including assault and harassment and vandalism, have increased dramatically here in the United States. Across the country, in 2024 and on into 2025, the highest level has been recorded since the Anti-Defamation League started tracking the data in 1979.

On the first night of Passover, an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania Governor's mansion, while the Governor, Josh Shapiro, and his family were asleep inside.

Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, who met working at the Israeli Embassy, were murdered here in Washington, DC, outside the Jewish Museum.

And 12 people marching in support of the release of the hostages being held in Gaza were attacked and injured in Boulder, CO, just a week ago Sunday.

I condemn these acts of anti-Semitism and violence. We must root out prejudice and discrimination. We must root it out of our hearts. We must root it out of the public acts. We must stand arm in arm with our Jewish community members whenever they are threatened.

With that emphasis, let me be clear. As we stand arm in arm with our fellow Jewish citizens who are threatened by assault and harassment and vandalism and discrimination, we should also be standing arm in arm together against the use of the denial of food as a weapon of war, including by the Netanyahu government using that strategy in Gaza.

We need an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, and I hope and pray every day that we will have such a cease-fire, and with that cease-fire will come the swift and safe return of all the remaining hostages.

We also need an immediate massive influx of humanitarian aid, including water and medicine and, certainly, food.

But under the relevant rules of international humanitarian law, the provision of food can never be tied to some other act like a cease- fire. Every nation has the responsibility in conflict to make sure they are not denying food in kind of a mass punishment of the other side. And, therefore, food should not be contingent upon the cease-fire. It needs to be provided under moral code, under religious code, under humanitarian law, under international law--cease-fire or no cease-fire.

I have spoken previously about my concerns for the indiscriminate bombing that has killed tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including women and children and the elderly. Those individuals are victims, as well, of the Netanyahu government's use of food as a weapon of war.

I oppose and condemn this strategy, and I oppose and condemn the failure of the United States to use our resources and our influence to strive in every way possible to persuade the Netanyahu government to abandon the strategy of starvation.

Following the horrific attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel had every right to go after Hamas. But how you do so does matter, and starving the civilian population of Gaza is morally reprehensible. Yet that is the strategy the Netanyahu government has employed, with only a periodic exemption, since the start of the war.

Two days after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, then-Israeli Defense Minister Gallant laid out this strategy, saying:

I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There

will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is

closed.

From the start of the war through the first 15 months, until the cease-fire of January 2025, the United Nations and international humanitarian organizations have warned of the growing crisis over food in Gaza.

Before the war began, an average of 500 trucks entered Gaza each day to provide the basic food needed to feed 2.1 million people. That food was supplemented by food that people in Gaza were growing.

When Senator Van Hollen and I visited the Rafah gate crossing, in January of 2024, an average of only 150 trucks per day were getting into Gaza to provide medicine, equipment, and food. While we were at that gate, a doctor came out. He had just left through the Rafah gate crossing, after treating patients for about--I believe he told me--3 weeks at the European hospital. So this was, essentially, 3 months into the Gaza war.

He said: We are already seeing major changes in patients' ability to recover because, he said, they are not getting enough nutrition. If you don't have enough food, your body doesn't have the energy to recover from a wound.

This was just months into that war.

For the following year, the number of trucks entering Gaza fell even lower, to an average of 100 trucks a day, just a fraction of the amount of food needed to provide civilians with sufficient nutrition. And the ability to grow food in Gaza essentially evaporated under the bombardment and the conditions of war.

Then there was a moment of hope that this atrocity was ending, the discussion of the possibility of a lengthy cease-fire. But even as those discussions progressed, the information was flowing about, already, of the devastating effects of malnutrition. The Netanyahu government's strategy of food depravation had inflicted massive malnutrition and health problems on the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.

Malnutrition is devastating on the body. Malnutrition prevents the body from recovering from bombing-induced injuries. Malnutrition increases the

risk of miscarriage. Malnutrition prevents mothers from being able to breastfeed their babies because their milk dries up. Malnutrition creates the possibility that babies will die because mothers who do not have breast milk may not be able to get clean water or formula, both being necessary for a baby to survive.

Adults, as well as babies and children, suffer from the collateral effects of bodies weakened from malnutrition. And for those who do survive, the long-term health injuries are vast. Children who endure long-term hunger and malnutrition will have lifelong health damage, including stunted growth and impaired cognitive development.

But then we had that break. Finally, after 15 months--January 2025-- the parties agreed to a cease-fire, including the return of 33 hostages and a surge in humanitarian aid, including food. During that cease- fire, 600 trucks a day on average entered Gaza with food and supplies. This delivery showed that it is entirely possible to efficiently get trucks into Gaza.

When Senator Van Hollen and I were at the Rafah gate in January of the previous year, 2024, we witnessed a miles-long backup of trucks parked along the road to Rafah gate. We kept hearing from the Israeli Government: We just can't process these trucks and get them into Gaza.

And they blamed the international organizations for the challenge.

But it is clear: Once the Netanyahu government made a decision to get the trucks in, they could get them in. We saw it during the cease-fire. We knew it was possible all along. We knew it was an issue of political decision making to keep those trucks out, to inflict this hunger, to inflict this starvation on the population of Palestinians.

But that food that came in, those 600 trucks, for that limited time period--a time period of 58 days--wasn't sufficient to make up for the malnutrition of the previous 15 months. It didn't erase the ravages that had been inflicted on the population. It certainly meant that enough food was getting in for kind of a daily consumption at that point, but it certainly wasn't long enough and didn't reverse the impacts of those first 15 months.

And then, the interlude ended. On March 2, the cease-fire ended, and the Netanyahu government resumed using food as a weapon of war, blockading all humanitarian aid, including food and water and medicine, from reaching civilians in Gaza.

The Netanyahu government's claims that not enough aid was delivered during the cease-fire to compensate for the blockade to come simply was false.

Repeated public reports from the United Nations, from credible news sources, and from international humanitarian aid organizations all raised the alarm, month after month, that widespread hunger, malnutrition, and starvation had been growing as aid supplies ran out.

One way to determine if there is a shortage is to look at food prices. When there is no shortage in food, prices are stable.

There is a tool that governments use and nongovernmental organizations use called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification System--fancy words for a tool to evaluate prices and how they reflect shortages. That tool provides reports from that, and it reported that a 55-pound sack of flour, which sold for $17 in Gaza in February 2025, in May 2025, after the blockade was reimposed, sold for $520--not $17 but $520. Here at home in the United States, restaurant all-purpose flour can be found on the internet for $18.69, a 50-pound sack, with free home delivery.

In other words, the shortage of food resulted in flour being about 27 times more expensive than it had been previously in Gaza a few months before and about 27 times more expensive than what a pound of flour costs here in the United States of America.

Those staggering prices tell you several things: first, that the humanitarian feeding operations, after the blockade was reimposed, were absolutely unable to meet the need for food. People who have their food needs met don't pay that type of price--$520--for a sack of flour. Second, it means that food was a luxury that only the affluent in Gaza could afford, the few who had the ability to get funds from outside of Gaza; and finally, that folks who did not have that money weren't going to be able to buy flour to cook anything.

Then, on March 25, just 3 weeks into the blockade, the World Food Programme reported that due to the Netanyahu government's blockade, all 25 of their bakeries had run out of flour and fuel.

So realize: March 2, the reimposition of the blockade, and within a couple weeks, by March 25, the bakeries under the World Food Programme had run out of flour and fuel.

According to the New York Times, those bakeries had produced ``enough bread to supply about 70 percent of Gaza's population,'' but those bakeries were shut down weeks after the blockade was reimposed.

The IPC also reports that Gaza's 177 hot-meal kitchens, run by various aid organizations, exhausted their supplies at the beginning of April, 1 month into the reimposition of the blockade. One of these aid organizations was World Central Kitchen. World Central Kitchen is known around the world for stepping into situations and helping out where there are humanitarian disasters of all kinds and in this case, the disaster of the restriction of food by the Netanyahu government.

World Central Kitchen's emergency meal services provide an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 meals per day, but on May 7, World Central Kitchen announced:

After serving more than 130 million total meals and 26

million loaves of bread over the past 18 months, World

Central Kitchen no longer has the supplies to cook meals or

bake bread in Gaza.

Within weeks of the blockade being reestablished, the markets were empty, the bakeries were shut down, and hot-meal kitchens were closed. The effect on the people in Gaza, the Palestinians of Gaza, the 2.1 million Palestinians living there: devastating. Palestinian civilians had been suffering from malnutrition from early on--as the doctor told me, 3 months after the war had begun--and it just got worse and worse over time with the deprivation of food.

UNICEF reports that the number of children suffering from acute malnutrition increased 80 percent just from February of this year to March of this year--80 percent increase. That is because children have no food.

Parents have watched helplessly as they see clothes that once fit their toddlers hang off their brittle bodies, their kids' bony ribcages and shockingly thin limbs. Increased malnutrition means it is even harder to recover from bombing-induced injuries, a higher risk of miscarriages, a higher risk of mothers not being able to breastfeed their babies. It means babies are weaker. It means adults are weaker, children are weaker.

Often, it is not malnutrition--that is, starvation--that kills someone; it is the weakened body dying from other diseases. And as noted before, the impacts on the development of the brain and the development of the body of the children can last a lifetime.

World Health Organization representative Rik Peeperkorn warned that ``without enough nutritious food, clean water and access to healthcare, an entire generation will be permanently affected.''

I might add, the effects are not just those of malnutrition but also the trauma of being under constant bombardment over the course of this war, often without a home, often without electricity, often without clean water, often without access to medicine, often watching your family members die.

So these children--at a minimum, we should make sure they have food, at a minimum--at a very minimum. We probably can't reverse many of the traumatic effects that will affect their lives. Just like we know trauma affects those who go to war, these are children and civilians living through the effects of war.

The World Health Organization reports as of May 13 that almost 5 dozen children had starved to death in Gaza. If dozens of children have died from starvation, how many thousands of children more are on the verge of a devastating level of malnutrition and potential death from starvation?

The headlines tell the escalating and devastating story to the world. On March 2, the day the blockade began, the Washington Post headline read:

Israel halts all aid to Gaza as ceasefire falters.

On April 1, 1 month into the blockade, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said:

Fear of famine looms after all Gaza bakeries run out of

flour amid month-long Israeli blockade.

May 4, 2 months into the blockade, NBC News:

Starvation looms as Israel's total blockade on Gaza enters

its third month.

You start seeing the word ``starvation'' appear in story after story, headline after headline.

If you or I could travel to Gaza right now, we would be absolutely shocked to see the bodies of the adults and the bodies of the children, but we can't travel there because it is closed to all of us. But reports from credible news organizations have been alerting us to this horrific disaster coming from using food as a weapon.

Starvation looms as . . . blockade enters its third month.

In mid-May, the New York Times had a headline:

In Private, Some Israeli Officers Admit That Gaza Is on the

Brink of Starvation.

So we have heard time and again from the Netanyahu government: Don't believe international organizations--even though they are experts. Don't believe because we are telling you there is no problem.

But even the Israelis are telling the world there is a problem, that Gaza is on the brink of starvation.

Then, on May 16, President Trump, our President, ``acknowledges starvation in Gaza as Israeli airstrikes kill more than 100.'' The President said the United States will take care of the situation in Gaza on the final day of the Gulf tour in Abu Dhabi.

Why don't we join together, Democrats and Republicans, and support President Trump in having the United States take care of the situation, address the starvation in Gaza? That is the moral thing to do. That is the right thing to do under any religious code.

We have this incredibly close relationship with the Israeli Government. We are their primary source of economic support. We have close technological support. We have a close security relationship. We share intelligence. We have many connections between members of our government and our military and our intelligence community and theirs. Why not support President Trump in using these connections to end the starvation in Gaza?

You know, starvation happens many places in the world where we don't have a close relationship with the government and it may seem very distant, but here, we are complicit because we are so closely tied and so supportive of the Israeli Government. So we have a special responsibility to address this and use every leverage at our power to end it.

Facing week after week of these horrifying headlines, world leaders pressed Prime Minister Netanyahu to end this strategy and implement a new plan. Only after, it was reported, ``Israel's closest friends,'' meaning U.S. leaders, warned the Israeli Government that it would lose international support because allies could not handle pictures of mass starvation did Prime Minister Netanyahu consider changing course.

On May 19--so now we are talking just about 3 weeks ago--after more than 11 weeks of an all-out blockade, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that--and he used the word ``minimal''--a ``minimal'' amount of food would be allowed into Gaza.

But that plan is hardly satisfactory. The new U.S.- and Israeli- backed organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has taken over aid distribution, working in partnership with the Israeli military and private U.S. security contractors--they are distributing aid from just four sites--one in central Gaza near the Netzarim Corridor and three in southern Gaza in the Rafah area. Civilians have to get to one of those four sites to obtain a box of food.

If you have visited Israel, you know that Gaza is about 40 miles long from north to south. It is a thin wafer along the Mediterranean coast. How do four sites, with three of them at the very southern end of that 40 miles, possibly get food to 2.1 million people? It needed hundreds of kitchens before to get food distributed throughout the country.

So what you have is a formula that says millions of people are going to descend on these four sites to acquire a box of food. The logistics of that are impossible, and they are meant to be impossible. It is deliberately designed not to work because there is no way that four sites can handle handing out food to 2.1 million people. So it has produced chaotic scenes, with desperate crowds--crowds of men, women, and children--rushing toward boxes of aid to try to get one of those boxes and then warning shots being fired--and not just warning shots, shots that killed Palestinians. Warning shots don't kill people.

On Sunday, June 1, ABC News reported that 31 people were killed and 200 injured when the Israeli troops opened fire.

On Tuesday June 3, the BBC reported 27 civilians were killed by military gunfire for ``deviating from the designated access routes'' while desperately trying to collect food.

On Wednesday, June 4, less than a week ago, the BBC called Gaza ``worse than hell on Earth,'' as the Israeli military closed its aid distribution sites for the day, warning that roads leading to the sites are ``combat zones.''

How do 2.1 million people get to the aid sites if the roads leading to the sites are combat zones and if each time the food distributions are open, people end up dying because they are shot?

On Sunday, June 8, the New York Times reports that about a half mile from a distribution site, shots were fired and ``five people were killed and 123 were wounded.''

Yesterday, morning--here we are on Tuesday--Monday, yesterday, June 9, the Associated Press reports ``14 people were killed'' on their way to a food distribution center.

This is not a plan designed to address the hunger, to end the malnutrition, to end the starvation. This is a plan to make it virtually impossible for the Palestinians to get food while telling the world: Don't worry, we have a distribution plan.

Everyone understands this is not a plan designed to provide food. It is a plan designed to make sure that very little food gets just to a small number of people so that the starvation continues and gets worse, the malnutrition continues and gets worse, the impact on the ravaged bodies of children and babies and women and seniors and all kinds of folks who had nothing ever to do with Hamas continue to decline.

The New York Times interviewed many Gazans who said they go to the distribution sites when they are closed despite the warnings of the Israeli military because they ``are desperate for food . . . and seeking to get ahead of large crowds.''

If there is only a few boxes and the site is only open for a few minutes, you are willing to wait all night because your family is starving. You want your kids to survive. You want your spouse to survive. You want to survive yourself. Of course, you are going to try to beat the crowd there, but you know it is impossible the food will be sufficient for everyone to walk away with a box of food.

Yesterday, June 9, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation announced the opening of an aid distribution center in a post on its Facebook page, only to post again the center had completed distributions less than 20 minutes later and closed.

It was open for 20 minutes. Of course, you are going to try to beat the crowds. It is only going to be open for a few minutes. There is only going to be a modest number of boxes--nothing that could possibly serve thousands of people, let alone hundreds of thousands, let alone 2.1 million people. Of course, you are going to try to go early.

And the foundation closed a second center ``because of the chaos of the surrounding crowds.''

Whenever you have starvation, you are going to have chaos around food distribution centers.

Early in this conflict, when I went to Rafah gate in January of 2024, the International Aid Organization said we are pushing to make the point that if there isn't sufficient food, eventually, the trucks carrying food will be raided because people will be desperate. That always happens when people are desperate--not as a particular condition of the situation in Gaza, but wherever people are starving, they are going to raid the trucks to get food.

They won't wait for a warehouse that has very little food in it to open up in

an orderly fashion because there isn't enough food for everyone, so they are going to make that effort to get that food for their families.

So this chaos--this was understood that this would be this way. It is not something that is, if you will, incidental to the plan. It is the plan--not enough food, not enough distribution centers, not open long enough--deliberate effort to make hundreds of thousands of people compete with each other for a few boxes. That is chaos.

Aid groups say the Netanyahu government system will be ineffective in reversing the widespread hunger because not nearly enough food is being allowed in. The United Nations has called the food that is being let in ``a drop in the ocean.''

Food is being distributed far from where it is needed most, especially for the elderly and people with disabilities.

How are they going to travel? It is a 40-mile-long strip of land. How are they going to travel if they are disabled, if you are elderly, to compete with hundreds of thousands of people trying to get to just four distributions centers? It is impossible.

Dangerous and deadly chaos at food distribution sites is being fueled not through some clever plan by Hamas, but by the deprivation of starving civilians who hope to keep their families and their children alive. And that desperation is the direct and inevitable result of Netanyahu government's strategy of deliberately imposed starvation.

Even if civilians could make that dangerous journey safely, the amount of aid in this new system is wholly insufficient. During the cease-fire in the winter, 600 trucks a day entered Gaza. Only a few hundred trucks have been allowed into Gaza over the last week, and the World Food Programme reports only one-third of their trucks reached their destination.

A handful of World Food Programme bakeries actually did resume bread production on May 22, but the supplies were so limited that World Food Programme Country Director Antoine Renard warned:

This is just a drop in the bucket of what is needed to

reverse the catastrophic levels of hunger.

We are in a race against time to prevent widespread

starvation.

The World Food Programme reports that:

Over 140,000 metric tons of food--enough to feed the entire

population for two months--is pre-positioned at aid corridors

and ready to be brought into Gaza at scale.

Just as I saw in January of 2024--trucks piled up for miles waiting to try to get in. Here we have a World Food Programme reporting that now, again, food is ready to move in, but the Netanyahu government is blocking them.

On June 8, 2 days ago, Janti Soeripto, the CEO of Save the Children told Face the Nation:

When we had the pause in fighting from January `til March,

as you will recall, we got trucks and trucks of supplies in

at scale, [and] we were able to deliver, [and] we treated

children with malnutrition, [and] we did vaccinations, [and]

we did medical care, [and] hospitals were operating . . .

So this current new mechanism doesn't seem to work. The

failings seem to play out exactly the way that we warned

against. It is also the militarization of aid--

I am continuing this long quote--

It is the militarization of aid--if you put men with guns

near a distribution point and you ask a desperate, desperate,

starving population to come and walk for miles to get boxes

of food . . . you're going to create crowd control issues and

increased risk of harm to an already incredibly desperate

population.

That is the end of the quote. And that is exactly what we are seeing happen.

As CNN reported yesterday, June 9:

Aid to Gaza hangs by a thread amid looting and starvation.

Let's be clear: That trickle of aid is not about Prime Minister Netanyahu ending food deprivation as a weapon of war. It is continuing food deprivation as a weapon of war while deflecting just enough international pressure to keep himself in power.

Jonathan Whittall, lead of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian Territories, said May 28:

The newly developed distribution scheme is more than just

the control of aid. It is engineered scarcity. The new

distribution model cannot possibly meet Gaza's needs.

The same day, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority's representative to United Nations, told the Security Council:

Children are dying of starvation. The images of mothers

embracing their motionless bodies, caressing their hair,

talking to them, apologizing to them--it's unbearable.

And on May 30, the New York Times reporting led with the headline:

In Emaciated Children, Gaza's Hunger Is Laid Bare.

Every moral and religious code says this is wrong--wrong to withhold food, wrong to induce starvation. And under international law, it is a crime.

Rule 53 of Customary Humanitarian Law states:

The use of starvation of the civilian population as a

method of warfare is prohibited.

It isn't prohibited because it was some bureaucratic decision. It is prohibited because it is completely wrong under every religious and moral code--people who had no role--no role--being punished collectively; being punished the way that kills children, kills babies, kills adults.

Other countries are speaking out in opposition to Netanyahu's government's use of food as a weapon.

On May 19, the Governments of the United Kingdom and France and Canada issued a joint statement saying that the amount of food the Netanyahu government is allowing into Gaza is ``wholly inadequate.''

Even Israel's leaders from across the political spectrum are speaking out that this is wrong.

Amit Halevi, from Prime Minister Netanyahu's Likud party, said:

This war is a deception [and it] is not succeeding in

destroying Hamas.

Yair Golan, the leader of Israel's Democrats party, said in a radio interview:

Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South

Africa was, if we don't return to acting like a sane country.

A sane country [that] does not fight against civilians.

Even former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wrote in the newspaper on May 27:

What we are doing in Gaza now is . . . indiscriminate,

limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians.

He continued.

. . . Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.

Mr. President and colleagues, this use of food as a weapon of war should never have happened, and it has to end. We know that the United States has such a close relationship with Israel that we can apply multiple levels to push the Netanyahu government to end it.

We have a moral responsibility that is heightened by our close relationship between our two nations. We should have acted long ago to end this strategy--the strategy of malnutrition and starvation. But that provides no excuse for not acting now.

I pressed the Biden administration to act, and I will press the Trump administration to act.

There was that moment of hope in December when Trump said we will address this situation. Colleagues, I have witnessed the horror of starvation in multiple countries around the world.

I believe that if the Netanyahu government would let us as Senators go and witness firsthand, a bipartisan delegation going to Gaza, we would come back and speak from the depths of our hearts, the ferocity of our understanding of right and wrong, that we have to press for this strategy of starvation to end. But we are not allowed in, so we have to depend on the press reports that have come from international organizations who have people on the ground in Gaza, from news reporting, from competent international sources.

We have a profound responsibility to pressure the Netanyahu government to end its strategy of starvation through food deprivation and deliver a massive influx of aid immediately.

It is tempting to look away. There is a lot more going on in the world. But it is wrong to look away. We must carry that responsibility on our consciousness. We must speak and act forcefully to end the Netanyahu government's strategy of deliberately starving 2 million men, women, and children in Gaza.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the critical need for regulation of artificial intelligence.

This work period, the Senate is poised to take up the House's reconciliation package, a disastrous proposal that strips healthcare away from tens of millions of Americans and dismantles our country's clean energy revolution, all to deliver tax cuts to billionaires.

But buried nearly 300 pages into this bill is something quite shocking: a blanket, 10-year ban on States and local governments from regulating artificial intelligence. That is right. Rather than proposing any plan to address the risk of this powerful and fast- evolving technology, my Republican colleagues have chosen to block the States and to block local governments from acting. They don't want to do anything, but they want to block anyone else from acting as well.

They would tie the hands of Governors and tie the hands of State legislators who are stepping up to protect their constituents from the unchecked harms of AI, without any plan of their own to regulate these technologies here in Congress.

In fact, just this morning, 260 State lawmakers--half Republicans and half Democrats--from all 50 States, sent a letter to Congress opposing any provision which can block them from acting to protect their citizens. And just a few weeks ago, 40 State attorneys general sent a similar letter to congressional leaders urging Congress to reject the 10-year moratorium.

These State leaders are right. This provision would be devastating for our country.

The broad preemption language could prevent States from prohibiting social media platforms from targeting teenage girls with ads for dangerous weight-loss drugs, enacting commonsense protections against algorithms that unjustly deny a senior citizen medical care, and safeguarding workers from discriminatory hiring practices driven by biased AI tools.

One expert warned that the language is so sweeping that it could undermine contract law and break the internet itself.

Let me be clear. This is a recipe to repeat the failures from the last decade--failures driven by our failure to hold Big Tech accountable for its abuses.

How has that worked out for us? Well, today, thanks to our failure to regulate Big Tech, we have a privacy crisis, a youth mental health crisis, and a teenage mental health crisis in our country, and the Surgeon General of the United States points the finger at social media as a major part of the problem that we have with teenage and youth mental health issues in our country.

Thankfully, in the face of Federal inaction, States have led. States have stood up. They have moved to protect young people online, secure consumer privacy, and confront algorithmic bias.

But this provision that snuck into this bill that we are going to consider over the next month--this provision snuck in the bill--would erase that

progress. It would roll back years of hard-won protections and prevent future action, just when it is needed the most, just when it is becoming very clear to the entire country that there is a sinister side to cyberspace, as well as a good side. Yes, we want it to do wonderful things in our society, but we also know that it can cause great harm as well.

So instead of shutting down State leadership, instead of shutting down State legislators and shutting down Governors across the Nation who want to work on this issue, Congress itself should step up to start to put the protections in place for our entire Nation. We must pass legislation that confronts the real harms of artificial intelligence, while ensuring that the United States remains the leader on this important and promising technology.

We want to reap the benefits of AI. We want to have AI be used across our society, but we also want to protect against the harmful effects of AI if it is put in the wrong hands to be used for the wrong purposes.

That is why I authored the AI Civil Rights Act, the most comprehensive AI legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress, which ensures that artificial intelligence serves the public good, not private profit exclusively. The bill would ensure that the AI age does not supercharge the bias and discrimination already prevalent today.

Specifically, my legislation establishes new rules when companies use algorithms to make decisions on jobs, on housing, on healthcare, on banking, on the criminal justice system, and other important aspects of our lives.

The AI Civil Rights Act is a balanced approach that requires companies to detect and address bias in their algorithmic decisions without stifling innovation.

Make no mistake, we can have an AI revolution while also protecting the civil rights and liberties of everyday Americans. We can support innovation without supercharging the tracking and targeting of young people online. We can promote competition while safeguarding our environment.

But with their blanket, 10-year ban on State AI regulation, Republicans are choosing a sledgehammer over a scalpel. They are choosing Big Tech over kids, families, seniors, and disadvantaged communities across this country.

We cannot allow this to happen. I am committed to fighting this 10- year ban with every tool at my disposal, and that is by ensuring that it is going to be clear that this 10-year ban on State AI regulation is a policy change that has no impact on the Federal budget.

What does that mean if this provision that has been stuck in this bill has no impact on the Federal budget? Here is what it means: It means that that provision cannot be included in a reconciliation bill.

If Senate Republicans keep the House language in their reconciliation bill, I will raise a point of order against it. I will raise a point of order saying that it is in violation of our rules that this kind of a change can be built into this legislation.

When my Republican colleagues are ready to have a serious conversation about AI regulation, my door is wide open. We should be discussing this on a bipartisan basis. But this backdoor AI moratorium, it is not serious. This backdoor moratorium is not responsible. This backdoor moratorium is not acceptable. There is too much at stake.

We can't say for 10 years there is no regulation at the State level if they can see harms that are being committed. They must have the right to be able to legislate. And there is one way for us to avoid it, of course. We could legislate. We could pass national legislation. But at this point, I still see no appetite on the Republican side for that to even commence as a serious discussion.

So with that, I just want to put the Senate on notice that I am going to raise a point of order if, in fact, this AI moratorium on any State legislation remains in the bill.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, colleagues, using the Congressional Review Act to overturn waivers puts polluters in charge of government policy.

In 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act. The law explicitly states that individual States like California can enact stricter emission standards to protect the environment if they receive from the Environmental Protection Agency a waiver. And States like Oregon can adopt those standards if they so choose.

Since then, California has applied for, well, about 100 waivers. They have made vehicle emissions 99 percent cleaner than they were in 1970.

I remember going down to Southern California in the early eighties and seeing how incredibly polluted the air was near L.A., and I thought, How can anyone live here?

It hurt your eyes; it hurt your lungs. People don't have that impression today, despite the amount of vehicle miles going way up, because of the incredible efforts California made to clean up their air from auto emissions.

You know, in the last 50 years, California has never had a waiver revoked. That tells me they put together very competent proposals and that the Nation supported their effort to clean up their air.

But something different is happening right now. Senate Republicans are using the Congressional Review Act in ways that Congress never intended. Of course, the Congressional Review Act says if a rule is implemented and you are within 60 legislative days, it can be brought to the floor and it can be overturned by the House and the Senate and that if it is vetoed, well, then the House and Senate can overturn the veto, if they have enough votes--but all about rules; no mention of waivers.

Both the Government Accountability Office and the Senate Parliamentarian said the Congressional Review Act cannot be used to overturn waivers because, quite simply, they are not rules.

You know, here is the thing, words have meanings, and you can only trust the law if those words are honored. And to magically say a waiver is a rule is a real travesty of lawmaking, but that is where we are at now.

So what is this really all about--this Republican decision to invent new meanings to existing words when every bit of common sense and every bit of legal knowledge knows that that is a lie. Why did my colleagues engage in this massive deception? It is an end-run around the policymaking process.

They could have easily said: We want to expand the Congressional Review Act to cover waivers. And then you simply craft a bill. Republicans being in charge of the Senate and the House, they bring it to the floor; we debate it; it either passes or it doesn't pass.

It has the advantage of going through committee and being considered and having people weigh in on whether it is a good idea or not. But to simply reinvent and pretend, if you will, that the color black is the color white or an orange is an apple--because everyone understands a waiver is not a rule.

So it is unfortunate that the colleagues in charge of the legislative process have so corrupted it yesterday and today, not even trying to actually enact the law to accomplish what they want but instead saying: Let's use an expedited process that doesn't go through committee, where there is very limited debate, where there are no amendments allowed, in order to do a favor for a powerful special interest.

What does that tell us about government in the United States? My colleagues are choosing to be the agents for the powerful by inventing new meanings to words that don't exist, meanings that are not supported by the Parliamentarian; they are not supported by the Government Accountability Office, GAO, because they are so dedicated to pulling the strings of government on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. That is corruption plain and simple, on full display before the American public. That is what has happened.

Think about what this means for the future of this Nation. You can't count on a waiver staying in place so how do you make decisions based on getting that waiver?

Well, you get a license from the government. But the license, maybe that looks a lot like a rule. It is an act of government. It is a decision. How is that different from a waiver? You can't count on that license not being taken away by this body.

What about a grant? A grant is a government decision. Kind of like a waiver, except it has money coming in. So now a grant can be brought here to the floor and wiped out.

What about a permit? A permit is very close to being a waiver, saying: Hey, you can undertake this process. We are giving you permission. Well, that is what a waiver does. It says: Yes, you can undertake that process.

So now no one has a foundation for pursuing projects because they know that if the majority wants to play favors for a powerful special interest, they can wipe you out with no foundation of law.

That is what happened here, and that is a travesty. It is a travesty that none of my colleagues, I would hope--if they reflected on it outside the pressure of having their arms twisted--would engage in.

And I know they would be highly critical if the parties were reversed.

In addition, once that waiver is struck down, it is suggested under the rules of the CRA that a similar waiver might not be able to be granted in the future.

So now you have two laws in conflict with each other. One law says you can grant the waiver, and the other law says if something was struck down through the CRA, nothing similar can be done.

How are we to resolve this? My colleagues have no answer. They have taken us down a path where words have no meaning and where sheer power by one of the richest enterprises in America--the fossil fuel industry--is all that matters. They are the puppet masters of my Republican colleagues. They have pulled the strings, and now we are in deep trouble to have an honest foundation for legislative action.

This one waiver was something that the fossil fuel industry really hated because when cars became more efficient, they used less oil, and therefore the oil companies made less money. When these waivers were enacted, people were incentivized to buy cars that didn't even burn gasoline, and the oil companies were like: Oh, my goodness, we are not going to make as much money. Help us. Help us, dear Republicans. Help us out here. Invent something. Change the meaning of some words. Find some way to go past the normal legislative process to somehow deliver what we want.

And my colleagues obliged.

The damage is done. It is going to be extremely difficult to fix it. It has eviscerated half a century of California's clean air protections.

It was the wrong thing to do to blow up the good work of a State seeking to solve its air pollution problem. It was absolutely the wrong thing to do to blow up the integrity of this body by deciding that a waiver is a rule and undermining the ability of any group to act with confidence based on decisions made by the Government of the United States because whether you have a waiver or you have a permit or you have a license, now you don't know whether some powerful interest is going to have this body rip it away from you.

Let's work together to reestablish integrity in this Chamber, integrity in our legislative process that was so badly damaged yesterday and last night.

Mr. President, the motto of the State of Oregon is ``She flies with her own wings.''

I can't think of a better description for my State director Jessica Stevens. After more than 12 years with Team Merkley, I have come to the Senate floor today to bid her a grateful farewell.

Jessica has spent her career serving the people of our State of Oregon. She fought for working families as the executive director of the Oregon State Council of the Service Employees International Union, SEIU, before joining Team Merkley as director of our field team.

I hold a townhall in each of Oregon's 36 counties every year, so leading the field team is a very demanding challenge.

For 3 years, she traveled with me across the length and breadth of our State, from big cities to rural communities, from the Oregon coast to the Owyhee Canyonlands, from the Columbia River to Crater Lake.

So in 2015, when it was time to hire a new State director, there was no question that Jessica was the right person to lead our State team.

For the last decade, she has coordinated between two teams on two coasts, managing six field offices with nearly 20 staff working across Oregon's more than 98,000 square miles.

She has overseen more than 400 townhalls with the people of Oregon. She has built close working relationships with 3 Governors, 11 Members of the House of Representatives, countless State legislators, county commissioners, community leaders, stakeholders, advocates, and constituents, not to mention Senator Wyden's team.

And she leads by example.

As one of our team members said:

Jessica works harder than anyone else. And what we see is

only the tip of the iceberg.

Others describe her ``constantly working behind the scenes,'' that she ``squashes trouble,'' ``puts out fires,'' and ``fixes problems nobody [has even yet seen].''

A former Team Merkley member said she ``was so impressed with how Jessica handled [difficult situations, bringing] immense calmness and clarity [with] considerable empathy and support.''

Another former team member said:

Regardless of roadblocks or the crisis du jour, Jessica has

always remained dogged and determined to make sure that the

people and causes who needed help [get] it.

Jessica has also taken countless members of Team Merkley under her wing. She has encouraging words for our interns, podcast recommendations on tricky local issues.

She sets a ``calm but strong'' example for the entire team, including her ``skill for listening and really seeing all the diverse groups and constituencies'' my office serves.

One longtime member of our team said:

When I first met Jessica, I was pretty intimidated by her

as an intern and just recognized immediately [that] she

was a badass woman.

Another shared the story of the first time she had to do an airport pickup, saying:

Jessica could tell I was really nervous and offered to come

with me . . . so I would feel

more comfortable and [that] everything would go smoothly.

Another member of Jessica's team said:

She takes care of family, she takes care of friends, she

takes care of her neighbors. She is just honestly incredibly

selfless and giving.

Someone said:

[She's] always sending a personal note to celebrate

people's good news and glad tidings. [And] it [really] means

a lot and builds the kind of camaraderie that makes Team

Merkley special.

And one member of my team summed it up by simply saying:

When you have Jessica in your corner, you feel [very]

supported and safe.

In addition, she led one of the most consequential and sensitive processes: the nominations of Federal judgeships in Oregon. She supported judicial selection committees of legal and community leaders and worked with the White House to advance these nominations.

Thanks to her tireless efforts, Oregon has made history with its recent appointments, including Judge Adrienne Nelson, who is the first African-American woman to serve on the Federal bench from the District of Oregon, and Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, who is the first Muslim to serve as a Federal judge in the United States.

Her quiet efforts behind the scenes have helped to make our courts and our country more equitable and more just.

The motto of the State of Oregon is ``She flies with her own wings.''

Through workers' strikes and wildfires, through pandemics and post office closings, through the first Trump administration and now the second, she has kept Team Merkley flying for 12\1/2\ years.

It is with deep gratitude that Team Merkley and I thank Jessica Stevens for her service to the people of Oregon. We wish her all the best in her new chapter.

Mr. President, our Constitution starts out with the three words ``We the People,'' and they are written in supersize font to tell you that that is what the core of our democracy is all about-- or, as Lincoln so well summarized, government of, by, and for the people.

There are several things essential to make this happen: the freedom of speech, for one; the freedom of assembly, for another. But perhaps nothing encapsulates the opportunity of a citizen to participate in the direction of their own country more than the ballot box, more than the right and opportunity to vote.

Yet that sacred opportunity at the heart of our Constitution is under assault because there seems to be one party that has decided it is about suppressing citizens' rights rather than empowering and honoring citizens' opportunity to participate in our government. And they have this bill that is all about voter suppression.

Well, we have gone through some serious voter suppression. Some of it was written into our original Constitution. Despite the lofty goals, we didn't allow people of color to vote; we didn't allow women to vote; we didn't allow Native Americans to vote; we didn't allow the enslaved to vote. But we have worked toward that lofty vision that we knew was right.

We remedied slavery, ending it in 1865 with the 13th Amendment. We passed the 15th Amendment to ensure the right to vote shall not be denied by race or color or previous servitude. And

then, some 50 years later--it took 50 additional years before the right to vote was guaranteed to women in the United States of America.

After the Civil War, reconstruction collapsed in about 1877. There was kind of an evil deal that was worked out all over the election of Rutherford Hayes. And that ended reconstruction; and, quickly, a series of measures were passed by States to suppress the opportunity of Black Americans to vote in the South. These included poll taxes; they included literacy tests; they included civics exams--rigged so that only White Americans could pass. But we remedied that situation. We took it on. It took a long time, unfortunately.

In the 1960s, Members of this Chamber and Members of the Chamber down the hall said we are ready to end that discrimination that we knew all along was wrong, those barriers erected for citizens to vote.

But now we have one party, the Republican Party, which was founded on the vision of ending slavery, that wants to suppress the vote of Americans once again. That is incredible. But we are going to stop that bill.

My own State has pioneered the ability to vote by mail, and that provision has spread across the country to States like Utah, a red State. Blue States, red States are saying this makes sense because it ends the corruption on election day where officials stop people from voting by relocating the voting booths to a new location, by putting equipment in there that malfunctions, by understaffing it, by putting out false information about where the voting will be held.

Vote-by-mail ended all of that corruption on election day, utilized so often to stop people from voting who lived in the inner city, who lived in poorer communities, who lived in communities of color--a modern-day version of the suppression that followed the collapse of reconstruction. We stopped it, and blue and red States have adopted those reforms.

But the SAVE Act is about going the other direction. What a name--the SAVE Act--as if it is saving something important as opposed to destroying the opportunity to vote.

So we will absolutely not let our colleagues across the aisle take us backwards to voter suppression.

Under the SAVE Act rules, my mother would likely not have been able to vote. The most common documents to prove citizenship are a birth certificate or a passport. And when my mother married my father, she changed her last name from Collins to Merkley. My mother never had a passport. She couldn't have used a passport. Her name was different than that on her birth certificate. Betty Lou Collins became Betty Lou Merkley. And Republicans want to stop women across the country from voting once again because their name doesn't match their birth certificate. That is pretty extraordinary.

More than half of Americans today who don't have a passport--my mother would have been in that category. She wouldn't have been able to register to vote.

Let's not go backward into the realm of voter suppression. Let's go forward into full voter empowerment. If you believe in this Constitution, then honor it; don't put it in the wood chipper.

Folks today are able to register in a variety of ways. Some say: Well, isn't this opening the possibility that noncitizens are voting? The answer is no. That is not happening.

The Secretary of State of Georgia, in 2022, led a massive examination of the history of voting in Georgia, and the Secretary of State says he could not find a single noncitizen that had cast a ballot in Georgia in 25 years. So don't tell me that your so-called reform is about integrity at the ballot place. We know what it is about. It is about manipulating the vote on election day to stop people from voting, and we are not going to let that happen.

In another case, the Brennan Center examined, in 2016, the behavior of 23 million voters, and they found it was roughly equal to the risk of being struck by lightning that a noncitizen would vote. And we know that in some cases where those have happened--I mean, it is so rare--it has happened because the bureaucracy screwed up and sent them a ballot when they weren't supposed to.

So let's be clear. Our journey toward the vision of citizen empowerment in voting has been imperfect. It has been long. It has been slow. It has seen setbacks like after the collapse of reconstruction. But we have worked steadily toward that vision, that ideal that every citizen should have that full opportunity to participate in the direction of their Nation.

So should the SAVE Act ever be brought to this floor, which itself would be a massive corruption of our responsibility as U.S. Senators, I am voting hell no, and everyone else should as well.

Mr. President, I have a question for my colleague from Massachusetts, if she would yield for a question.

In your knowledge of American history, has there ever been a Presidential first 100 days that showed this level of corruption that we are witnessing with this administration?

Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's speech in laying this out.

I am going to address another aspect of the first 100 days, which is about the phenomenal strategy of President Trump to undermine our Constitution; to undermine the separation of powers, the checks and balances, for the purpose of creating a strong-man state, which is also just an extraordinary, extraordinary experience to be living through.

The first 100 days of the Trump administration have plunged our Nation into a constitutional crisis unparalleled since the Civil War. How bad is it, and how will we respond? How will this Chamber respond? How will the House respond?

Our democratic Republic, with its separation of powers and checks and balances, is sliding into an unaccountable strong-man state.

To the first question--how bad is the constitutional crisis?--I summarize: worse than we could possibly have imagined. It is an authoritarian takeover, emboldened by a subservient majority in Congress, a deferential Supreme Court, and an aggressive, authoritarian President.

We all know that strong republics can slide into corrupt strong-man states. Witness Venezuela. Witness Turkiye. Witness Hungary. It can happen gradually. It can happen suddenly that Congress becomes a rubberstamp, that the courts defer to an aggressive Executive, the press softens its criticisms, and other institutions tread ever so carefully.

However often we have witnessed this happening elsewhere, however, we always thought that it could never happen here, not in the United States of America. It could never happen here because our commitment to the separation of powers is too secure, our 250 years of dedication to a democratic republic too established for it to ever happen here.

But the last 100 days have shown us that we were robbed. So tonight, I am ringing the alarm bells. The danger is clear. The danger is present. This crisis calls upon every patriot, every individual who cherishes a deliberative republic, every institution--whether it is Congress or the court or the people or the press or the university or the law firm--to use their heart and mind and sinew, their clout and their connections, to resist this authoritarian takeover and save our Republic.

In only 100 days, Trump has aggressively pursued five strategies to advance his authoritarian powers. The first strategy has been to willfully violate a host of Federal laws.

One hundred days ago, on January 20, I sat in the Rotunda of the Capitol, just down this hallway, halfway between here and the House of Representatives, for Donald Trump's inaugural address. It was not a traditional address. A traditional address is when the President lays out a vision and says: Here in our democracy, I will be working with Congress to pass laws to provide a foundation to implement that vision.

That is the way it works when power is divided between a court and an Executive and Congress. But instead, the speech that President Trump gave just down this hallway in the Rotunda didn't talk about working with Congress. It didn't talk about passing laws. He spoke only of governing by Executive order, as if he was already a King.

Well, governing by Executive order is exactly what he has done, with 26 Executive orders on that first day and over 130 Executive orders and counting as of now. And many of those Executive orders directly violate laws on the books.

He fired 17 inspectors general, violating a law that allows a President to fire an inspector general only for cause and with 30 days' notice to Congress.

He fired members of the Boards that lead independent Agencies, violating the law that provides these members with established terms and says that they can only be fired for cause.

Trump's targets have included Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board, Rebecca Slaughter of the Federal Trade Commission, and quite a few others.

Trump violated the Antideficiency Act when Elon Musk and DOGE sent the ``fork in the road'' email to 2 million Federal employees, offering a buyout with pay through September 30, committing funds beyond the March 15 deadline that the law allowed.

Trump violated the Privacy Act of 1974 when Trump, Musk, and DOGE accessed sensitive personal information from the computers of the Social Security Administration.

Trump violated a 2018 law banning reductions in indirect costs covered by the National Institutes of Health research grants when he capped those rates at 15 percent.

The mastermind behind this strategy of deliberately, willfully breaking the law, time and time and time again, is one man. His name is Russ Vought.

Who is this man? He directed the Office of Management and Budget in the last year of Trump's first term. He is an architect of Project 2025, and he is leading the Office of Management and Budget for Trump's second term.

As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, I interviewed him in my office before his nomination hearing, and he was very clear, very direct about his viewpoint. He is a proponent of the fringe unitary executive theory that says the President has complete authority over every element of the executive branch. The President, he believes, can ignore any detail in law passed by Congress and perhaps ignore any order by the courts that constrains how the President manages the executive branch.

Vought anticipates that when Trump's lawbreaking reaches the Supreme Court, a deferential Court will legitimize his unitary executive theory and hand vast power to President Trump.

Mr. Vought's deliberate desire to break the law and violate the separation of powers caused me to label him the most dangerous man in America. He is a direct threat to the entire vision of our Constitution.

I led a 30-hour debate here in this Chamber on his nomination to put a spotlight on him and on his ideas, but it was a party-line vote. Every one of my colleagues across the aisle looked to their loyalty to President Trump over their loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.

The second Trump strategy to expand the power of the President--the authoritarian power of the President--is to usurp Congress's article I power of the purse by impounding the funds that Congress has dedicated in law and long passed in the Senate and passed the House and signed by the President, impounding funds in those laws for specific programs. This is illegal. It violates the law, and it is unconstitutional, and it violates the separation of powers.

You know, Nixon tried this. He impounded funds for the EPA for fiscal year 1973. The Supreme Court ruled, when this case finally reached it in Train v. City of New York, that impoundments violate article I of the Constitution, which so clearly--this Constitution so clearly gives the power of the purse to Congress.

And when Congress passed the law in 1996 that gave the President a line-item veto on program funding, the Supreme Court ruled again, in Clinton v. City of New York, that Congress could not give to the President the power the Constitution reserves to this Chamber, to Congress.

It is worth noting that Trump had a choice. Instead of illegally impounding funds, he could have sent a legal rescission request to Congress. And there is a good possibility, perhaps a probability, that the Republican-led House and Senate would have passed that rescission. A rescission formally undoes a law by Congress reconsidering it. But he deliberately--he, being Trump--deliberately chose the illegal path of impoundments, the unconstitutional path of impoundments in order to put a case before the Supreme Court so the Supreme Court could rule--Trump and Russ Vought hope--for the unitary executive theory of power, the vision of a strong-man rule in our Nation rather than government by the people.

Note the parallel. Trump fired thousands and thousands of employees across this country. He could have done it legally through reductions in force, RIFs, but he chose to do it illegally. Why? To put a case before the Supreme Court so the Court could enhance the power of the President of the United States of America. It is that hope that they have for that deferential Court.

Trump and his team have impounded funds for so much now. There are so many cases in the courts. Court ruling after court ruling are saying: This is illegal. You cannot do this. This is unconstitutional.

But he just keeps doing it.

Electric vehicle charging stations, impounded. Security systems to Ukraine, impounded. Program funds for sanctuary cities, impounded. Immigration lawyers for 26,000 unaccompanied children, impounded.

But the most tragic example of impoundment is Trump's attack on the U.S. Agency for International Development.

On February 3, Elon Musk posted that he and DOGE had ``spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.'' Musk was bragging that he and Trump had destroyed an Agency in a single weekend, in violation of the law. They fired almost all of USAID's employees and canceled more than 5,000 contracts, crippling America's delivery of lifesaving aid around the world and, I might add, crippling relationships that create soft power for the United States of America to accompany the hard power of our military.

In February, a senior USAID official Nicholas Enrich estimated that a yearlong pause in AID's programs could cause between 71,000 to 166,000 additional deaths just from malaria, with huge increases in deaths from tuberculosis and infectious diseases like Ebola. Shortly after making these estimates, Enrich was fired.

Speaking the truth in this administration is a cause to be fired because the truth scares Donald Trump. He doesn't want the truth. He just wants

his power and everyone to be in line behind it.

Another study estimates that shutting down USAID over 15 years could result in 25 million additional deaths worldwide. That is a hard number to digest--2 million more deaths from tuberculosis, 8 million more deaths from malaria, from malnutrition and other causes, and 15 million more deaths from AIDS, with PEPFAR shut down. And those 15 million deaths from AIDS generate 14 million additional orphans.

Just let that sink in. One illegal decision in one weekend by Musk and Trump putting AID in the wood chipper could result in millions of deaths. Illegal defunding and dismantlement, done in one weekend, to an Agency that constituted only one-third of 1 percent of our national spending in 2024 could result in more deaths than World War I.

Now you may say: Is this some crazy theory on the internet?

It was a study put together by prestigious medical organizations, groups like the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the New York University Grossman School of Medicine--serious people, serious modeling, serious understanding of what USAID does around the world.

And do you know what else his decision did? It created an enormous opportunity for China to move in and say, ``You can't count on the United States of America, but you can count on China,'' hugely undermining our standing and influence in the world.

That is what was done illegally in one weekend.

A third Trump strategy for amassing Executive power is to attack the constitutional power of the courts. The Founders gave the courts the power to address ``all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution,'' and that power includes the ability to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. It includes the ability to invalidate Executive actions that violate the laws or violate the Constitution. But for the court's check--this crucial check on Executive misuse of power--to be effective, the President must follow the decisions of the court, and that is why the oath of office is so important. You are taking an oath to the Constitution that lays out this structure of accountability.

But President Trump is stiff-arming the court. He is not honoring the Constitution. He is not honoring his oath to the Constitution.

He ignored Federal Judge James Boasberg's order not to deport Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, refusing to keep the planes on the ground or turn them around. He ignored the judge's order to provide details regarding the flights to El Salvador. And in a stunning stiff- arm to the Supreme Court, he refused to facilitate, after a 9-to-0 Supreme Court decision saying he must do so, the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador despite the Court's order.

In yet another confrontation with the Supreme Court, Vice President Vance claimed in February that ``judges aren't allowed'' to check Executive power.

Then, in March, Trump called for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg, calling him a ``crooked'' judge, a ``troublemaker and agitator.''

What in Trump's mind is a ``crooked'' judge? One who is actually ruling on the law because the last thing Trump wants is a judge who honestly rules on the law. He wants subservience.

This call for impeachment of a judge provoked a rebuke--a rare rebuke--from Chief Justice John Roberts, who said:

Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement

concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review

process exists for that purpose.

Calm language to address a massive constitutional violation.

Over the last 100 days, Trump has brazenly signaled to the courts that they should not interfere with his management of the executive branch.

A fourth authoritarian strategy by Trump is to attack the free press and free speech. Benjamin Franklin wrote that ``whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.'' Apparently, President Trump was paying attention because he is seeking to overthrow the liberty of our Nation, and he is trying to subdue the freeness of speech.

One of his tactics is to intimidate the free press by suing them. He sued the Des Moines Register for an inaccurate poll predicting he would lose Iowa. He sued CBS News for $10 million because he disliked its editing of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris on ``60 Minutes.'' And he sued ABC News because George Stephanopoulos said on the air that Trump had been found liable for ``rape'' when, in fact, he had been found liable not for ``rape'' but for ``sexual assault,'' under the detail of the law, in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.

Trump hasn't just launched suits; he is succeeding in compromising our free press. ABC bent the knee, agreeing after Trump won and fearing for how Trump might misuse Presidential power, to pay Trump that $16 million to settle the case involving Stephanopoulos, even though Trump had, in the view of experts, little chance of prevailing in court.

And last week, Bill Owens, the executive director of ``60 Minutes,'' resigned, citing encroachment of his journalistic independence in the face of mounting pressure from Paramount, CBS's parent company, again potentially for fear of the misuse of Executive power that would compromise the success of Paramount.

A reported possible source of that pressure is from Shari Redstone, Paramount's controlling shareholder, who is reportedly eager to settle this issue to secure the Trump administration's approval for the multibillion-dollar sale of Paramount to Skydance.

Trump further pressured the press by playing favorites with access to White House events, barring the Associated Press from the White House press pool for continuing to use the name Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America. It is a style manual question, and Trump doesn't like that a free press can choose its own style.

A judge ruled on April 8 that, under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalist, it cannot shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution, the court said, requires no less. But a week later, the White House was still excluding AP from the press pool.

In yet another action against the press, Trump has silenced the Voice of America. The Voice of America was created to counter propaganda from authoritarian governments in the Second World War. The Voice of America has grown to be a powerful check on disinformation from authoritarian governments. It broadcasted in 40 languages, bringing facts to bear against that propaganda from those strong-man states.

But now Trump has canceled that powerful counter to authoritarian governments around the world.

He is attacking free speech as well as the free press. Like many of us here, I was in the House Chamber last month for Trump's State of the Union Address when he claimed to have ``brought free speech back to America.'' That is completely wrong. The opposite is true. He has sought to end free speech in America, taking control of content at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian museums, canceling programs, firing employees, even scrubbing Federal websites simply because of words he doesn't like.

But most egregiously, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is using a 1952 Red Scare law--a McCarthyist law--to strip students and others of their visas and deport them, students like Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University or Rumeysa Ozturk of Tufts University. Neither was accused of a crime. Both had simply exercised free speech. I think every Member here would have assumed that a student has the right to express their opinion on an issue because we are here in the United States of America.

You know, many of us grew up hearing the phrase: I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. That is the conviction behind free speech. I don't like what you say. What you say even makes me angry. But I defend your right to say it. I defend your right to have that opinion because we live here in the United States of America, where we honor free speech.

It is the freedom of the individual, and it is an important check on power that people can express it, can express it without having their documents canceled, without being arrested as they

leave a classroom, not being swept off to some prison halfway across the country because you say something the government doesn't like. But all that has changed here in the United States of America because students who are saying things the government doesn't like are being swept off the street and transported halfway across the country and held in prisons in preparation to deport them.

This particular 1952 Red Scare McCarthyist law being used by the Secretary of State says an alien can be excluded if ``the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien's admission would compromise a compelling [U.S.] foreign policy interest.''

``[A] compelling [U.S.] foreign policy interest.''

How does a student expressing an opinion on a campus somewhere compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest? Does it compromise our foreign policy interests when I say I disagree with some foreign policy venture? I have said it about Democratic Presidents, that I disagree with them. I have said it about Republican Presidents, that I disagree with them. So has virtually every single Member of this Chamber. That is freedom of speech. And we don't expect or believe that compromises the United States; we think it makes it stronger to have an actual debate of ideas, opinions expressed and hopefully considered.

It is an extraordinary law that came from another era where free speech was under attack. It is an extraordinary power to have vested in one person--the Secretary of State--that power to punish free speech. It is a chilling attempt to silence free speech that presents viewpoints out of favor with this administration, and it is wrong. It is wrong under our Constitution.

I would hope that every single Member of this Chamber would share the view that when they hear someone speaking with whom they disagree, they would still stand and defend that person's right to say it.

Note that there was no due process for students Rubio disfavored, just as there was no due process for the Venezuelan immigrants Trump sent to El Salvador.

``Due process''--those two words. What does it mean? And maybe it sounds like legal mumbo-jumbo. Due process is the guardian of our freedom. It means you cannot be grabbed by the government at their will, tossed into a van, and thrown into a prison because they cannot do so, they cannot take away our liberty or our rights without a fair, public process. That defends our freedom.

It is about freedom, but this administration isn't about freedom. They are about power, authoritarian power, about creating a strongman state. If we want to preserve freedom, we damn well better defend due process vigorously.

The fifth authoritarian strategy by Trump is to target other power centers in our communities, including law firms and universities.

Trump has attacked a host of major law firms, in some cases hamstringing the firms by suspending their national security clearances and therefore making them unable to represent their clients in key cases. He has done this to punish their past association with individuals or cases that threatened his power or to sway them from using their skills, their legal skills, in new efforts that might threaten that power.

The attacks that Trump has launched on law firms have generated some results. Skadden, Arps and Paul, Weiss have capitulated, agreeing, among other concessions, to end diversity policies and contribute millions of dollars of pro bono work to conservative clients. It is extortion. That is what this administration is involved in. They are using the power of the Presidency to take away the ability of law firms to operate in order to extort them to contribute free services to causes the President favors.

Well, these law firms--Skadden, Arps and Paul, Weiss--are not alone. As of a month ago, nine firms had surrendered, nine firms had bent the knee, agreeing to provide $1 billion in pro bono legal work for causes preferred by this administration. Again, it is extortion, and it is misuse of the President's power.

But some of the law firms actually believe in an America where a President cannot exercise this sort of extortion. Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale have fought back. They are challenging Trump's authority to do this. Impressively, more than 500 other firms have stood with them, signing briefs denouncing Trump's extortion.

Trump and his team have also pressed to reshape policies at universities by launching investigations of their practices and freezing millions or billions in their Federal grants--$510 million in Federal grants frozen at Brown University; $175 million in grants frozen at the University of Pennsylvania; $210 million frozen at Princeton; $2.2 billion in Federal grants frozen at Harvard University.

Some universities, like Columbia University, have capitulated. Others, like Harvard and Princeton, are fighting back.

A sincere compliment to Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber, who published an op-ed in The Atlantic when the first attack occurred on Columbia University. He called on presidents to ``speak up and litigate forcefully to protect their rights.'' He said: This won't be the last university that is attacked. Not soon after, his own university was attacked. He noted that this attack on universities is ``the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s.''

Looking back on these 100 days and these five strategies to convert a robust Republic, our robust Republic, with its checks and balances, into a strongman state, it raises a number of questions--questions that I hope folks will ponder.

First, Trump nominated a man, Pete Hegseth, to be Secretary of Defense who is fabulously unqualified for the position. He fired several highly capable, top-tier military leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, CQ Brown, and the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Lisa Franchetti. These firings make plain that Trump doesn't value these professionals' management--nonpartisan management of our Armed Forces.

Is Trump seeking to fill these top tiers of our military with loyalists? If that is what he is up to--replacing these highly professional, impartial managers of our military enterprise with loyalists--what additional authoritarian risks does this pose for our Republic?

Second, what has the Supreme Court unleashed through its Trump v. United States decision? Last summer, less than a year ago, at the beginning of July 2024, the Supreme Court found some invisible ink in the Constitution. Grab your Constitution. Take a read of it. Where does it say in here that the President is above the law?

Our Founders were terrified that a President would try to become a King. They had just escaped one King; they didn't want another. Instead, they had a theory of the world: Equal justice under law-- equal. For the powerful and the nonpowerful, for the rich and the nonrich, equal justice under law.

It is carved into the stone above the pillars of the Supreme Court, which, if you go out the doors I am pointing out to my right and you continue down the hallway, there is another set of doors, another set of stairs, and you can see the Supreme Court straight across from here, and you can read ``equal justice under law.'' That is the principle. But I will tell you what--that Supreme Court last year decided no equal justice under the law. In fact, the President has complete immunity from committing a crime as long as he calls it a government act.

It is invisible ink in here somewhere, but I will tell you, the Founders are rolling over in their graves at this betrayal of the Constitution by this majority in the Supreme Court. Think about what they have done. You take this immunity from being accountable under the law and you pair it with pardon power, and you now have an entire executive branch that considers itself immune from the law, which helps explain some of the items I went over before--how there are deliberate and willful violations of law by this administration.

Quite a challenge for the future of our democracy has been created by the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court will have a chance to redeem itself. It never really considered how the combination of the new power they found in invisible ink that a President is above the law combined with pardon

power has completely destroyed the foundation of law in our Nation--an executive that considers itself not accountable.

A third issue is the stretching of laws that really don't even begin to convey the power that Trump has claimed.

We are all aware of the tariffs that he is setting and tearing down day after day. Tariffs are up. Tariffs are down. Tariffs over here. Exceptions over there. Oh, iPhones? Too important. Let's create an exception. Oh, cars are too expensive. Let's create an exception. Who knows? It is certainly not a foundation for companies to invest in America because it is chaos.

He is using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act as a legal basis to set tariffs. But read the act. It says nothing about powers of tariffs, nothing that gives the President the ability to raise and lower tariffs on one fiat after another. It provides power for sanctions and seizures, not tariffs. It has never been used by any other President to set tariffs.

There is no precedent for it, and there is no language in the law that serves it.

Or let's see him reaching further back into history, using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. That act was passed when our early Members of Congress were afraid that France would invade the United States, and they wanted to be able to deport French citizens who might help the French invasion, should it occur.

But Trump is using that as the legal basis for deporting Venezuelans, saying: There is an invasion of Venezuelans.

Well, clearly there is no invasion by the Venezuelan Government. This act was used, shamefully, in World War II, in particular, to lock up Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, and it is being used shamefully and inappropriately now.

It raises the question: What other ancient law is the President and Russell Vought going to dust off and use in a way that was never intended?

Whatever emergency power law--and there are 25, several dozen laws that provide emergency power--is the President going to dust off and say this gives me some additional ability? How might those laws be used in ways to reinforce the strongman state and erode our Nation?

And might the President invoke the power in article II, section 3, a power that is in the Constitution that says that the President can adjourn Congress? Of course, it was never intended to undermine the ability of laws to be crafted here or Congress to serve as a check on Executive power. It has never been used, in fact, by a President ever, but what is this President going to do with that power? Might he--given how he is stretching other laws, misapplying them in situations for which they were never intended--deliberately adjourn Congress to advance his goal of the strongman state?

And let's ponder a few questions that are specific to our Congress. Will Trump's impoundments and rescissions destroy the congressional process for drafting bipartisan spending bills? For fiscal year 2025, the year that started last October 1, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed 11 of the 12 spending bills out of committee in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion. In fact, most of them were passed unanimously out of committee.

That was possible because compromises were struck. Compromises were the priorities of both parties, compromises for priorities of different regions of the Nation with different concerns.

Just think about the difference in types of natural disasters that strike different parts of our country. Some States endure hurricanes, others grapple with earthquakes. The Pacific Northwest, where I come from, battles wildfires. Different parts of the country have different needs. Different parts of the country have desires to have those needs met, resulting in compromises in these spending bills.

But if Trump is allowed to impound the funds for programs for the priorities of his political opponents of either party, then that destroys the foundation for these compromises since no Senator can be assured that the deal they are striking--you get what you need, but you agree to help me get what I need for my part of the country--no one can be assured that that compromise will be honored.

Second, what is the most effective way for Congress to confront Trump's authoritarian exercise of power? In the second week of March, just a month ago, with the authority for government spending set to run out on March 15, the Senate Democrats had the ability to reject the spending bill written by the House Republicans that created a massive slush fund for Trump to use as he pleases to reward or punish specific States or specific congressional districts.

Some on the Democratic side of the aisle here in the Senate argued Democrats should not block this bill because it posed a potential shutdown, and that shutdown had political and policy risks, given that Trump might love the opportunity to operate a shoestring government with the President deciding what constitutes essential services.

Others on the Democratic side of the aisle here in the Senate argued differently, believing that the risk to our Nation was much greater if we let Trump's authoritarian ambitions go unopposed and that history teaches us that the best time to confront an authoritarian is right away, before he amasses even more power.

Both of these arguments had some merit. We will face this decision again soon when the existing continuing resolution runs out on September 30. That will be a critical moment for Congress to confront the President and not hand him more power. We should be preparing for that moment now.

A third question specific to the operation of Congress: Over the next several months, the national policy debates are likely to be dominated by Republican pursuit of a reconciliation bill, a fancy term for a bill that has a special fast-track, simple majority, no filibuster path through the Senate. This bill is designed to cut $2 trillion from programs families use to thrive--healthcare, housing, education, good- paying jobs--gifts $2 trillion in tax breaks to the richest Americans. So families lose and billionaires, they win. That is the philosophy of this bill.

It also abandons the use of nonpartisan calculations of how much a specific policy will cost and instead decides to engage in smoke and mirrors so the American public won't realize what is being done. And it will explode the national debt, adding 7 trillion of additional debt over 10 years and 52 trillion of additional debt over 30 years. Families lose; millionaires win. And America's future is deeply damaged, perhaps drowned in an ocean of red ink created by this bill.

You know, it was stunning at the inauguration, the one that happened just down this hallway in the Rotunda, to see President Trump with a lineup of billionaires standing behind him. Some countries would call this oligarchs--oligarchs standing behind him.

Will Congress really pass a bill that takes away 2 trillion from families to give 2 trillion in tax breaks to the very richest Americans to buy the support of oligarchs? Is that what we are headed to--a strongman state in which Congress acquiesces in buying the support of the oligarchs?

We saw this happen just yesterday and today. Amazon was going to put up honest impacts on its website saying how much Trump's tariffs would add to the cost of products so people could see why they were being charged so much for things that were much cheaper a little while ago, but Trump in this relationship with the oligarchs called up Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, and said: That is bad for me. Don't do it.

Here is what is going on. Trump is doing what is good for the oligarchs, 2 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans, and then he is asking them to do his bidding, and that includes not being honest with the American people about the impact of his tariffs.

The first hundred days of Trump's administration has made clear that his quest for authoritarian power is a threat to the framework of our Constitution, to the separation of powers, to the checks and balances that must be fiercely resisted, fiercely resisted by Congress.

And I call my colleagues across the aisle: Remember your oath is to the Constitution. You did not take an oath to the President of the United States, not to one individual. That is what people do when they kneel to a King, and we are not a kingdom. We are a Republic, fiercely resisted by the courts, fiercely resisted by the people through

mass action. The press needs to channel AP, not CBS. The universities need to channel Harvard, which is resisting, not Columbia that bent the knee. The law firms need to channel Perkins Coie, not Paul, Weiss, which capitulated.

And to the American people across the country who are angry and disturbed by what is happening, who want to stop this authoritarian takeover, I have three suggestions:

Get off the couch. You can't help change the world curled up in a fetal position on your couch.

Second, fiercely hold your elected representatives accountable with your phone calls, with your mail, with your demonstrations outside their office. Hold your representatives accountable. That is what you get to do in a free nation.

And, third, join affinity groups. Being angry and frustrated alone is depressing. Being angry and organized with others is energizing and effective.

Next year, the United States of America will celebrate its 250th anniversary. Let it be a celebration of our determination and our effectiveness in confronting and turning back Trump's authoritarian assault, a celebration of the reenergization of our constitutional framework and the vision of government by the people, not by the powerful.

We are participants in a 250-year relay of democracy, where the responsibility to govern ourselves has been handed from one generation to the next. We inherited it from our parents and our grandparents. Let's pass it on to your children and our grandchildren.

When Ben Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention, he was asked: What type of government do we have?

He responded:

A republic, if you can keep it.

Let's keep it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use a visual aid.

Mr. President, families lose, billionaires win. That is the Republican plan. The Republican plan slashes $2 trillion for the programs families depend on to thrive in order to give more tax giveaways to the very richest Americans.

Families lose--$2 trillion in core programs slashed--to deliver another $2 trillion to the richest Americans. That is a terrible plan. How about families thrive? How about billionaires pay their fair share? Now, there is a good plan we ought to be all able to get behind. But there is even more that is wrong with this Republican plan.

We found out yesterday a new estimate of the cost of their plan in new debt over the next 10 years: $7 trillion--that is trillion with a ``t,'' trillion dollars--of unpaid-for tax cuts with most of it going to the richest Americans.

But there is even more bad news because they want to extend that deficit, debt-creating machine into the future, and CBO tells us that that will cost $37 trillion, at a minimum, in new debt--$37 trillion. Well, that is awfully hard to get your hands around, $37 trillion in new debt.

But there is even more bad news. They want to tell the American public their plan produces no new debt. They have this new version of the world in which they simply wave away the debt and say, ``pretend it didn't exist.''

It is called magic math. And it works like this: You sign a lease for a house. You are going to rent a house for a year. It costs $2,000 a month. It costs $24,000 a year. And at the end of the lease, you decide to renew it, but you tell your spouse: Hey, honey, it doesn't cost an additional dime.

Well, that is what my Republican colleagues are doing. They are establishing, not just new tax giveaways, but they are extending, creating law that renews the lease on old giveaways, which will cost that additional $37 trillion, and then saying: Don't worry, honey, it won't cost a dime.

Are the American people so out of touch that they can't detect the lie in that? I don't think so.

And are my Republican colleagues so out of touch that they really want to try to deceive the American people in this manner? I don't think so.

So colleagues across the aisle, let's have integrity in what this plan will do and at least be honest about what we tell the American people. The American people don't want the smoke and mirrors. They don't want the magic math gimmick. They want honesty about what this bill will do and what it will cost--what it will cost in terms of programs, what it will cost in terms of changes in tax law.

You know, folks back home, they say: Billionaires? They can take care of themselves. Just what they earn on their existing investments is enough to float a family on the yacht for the rest of eternity. Why are we doing a bill that takes away from core healthcare, housing, and education programs for families to add more wealth to the billionaires?

With this one bill alone, Republicans are giving 22 trillion to the wealthiest

10 percent of Americans, while the bottom 10 percent get enough to buy a cup of coffee.

Here is a cup of coffee. Well, there is no coffee in it. But think of this as a cup of coffee.

Now, does the Republican plan for that bottom 40 percent--does it pay for a cup of coffee a day? No. A cup of coffee a week? No. A cup of coffee a month? No. You get one cup of coffee for the entire year--$6. That is the estimate of what the bottom 40 percent get with the Republican plan--one cup of coffee for the entire year.

So to the 40 percent of Americans who are striving to get on their feet, this is what the Republican proposal is for you. While they are giving the top 0.1 percent over $300,000 a year a person, they are giving you one cup of coffee. Don't drink it all in one place. Take a little sip each day of the year because that is all you get.

Our plan is different. Democrats are fighting for families. We are fighting for healthcare, for Medicaid. We are fighting for healthcare because it is a foundation on which families thrive. We are fighting for education because it is a foundation on which families thrive. We are fighting for housing--affordable housing--because it is a foundation for families to thrive.

That is the plan: Families thrive, and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.

How did we get to this point?

Let's turn the clock back to 1974. Let's go through a little time machine, back to 1974. At that point, Democrats and Republicans came together and established a new budget process, called the Budget and Impoundment Control Act, because they were so concerned about deficits and concerned about President Nixon impounding funds. So they said: We have to rectify these soaring deficits.

And so they said, three things--three pillars: Well, first we will create a fast track--a fast track--a filibuster-free pathway to reduced deficits. And even Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the national defender of the filibuster, agreed. All 100 Senators voted for this bill--one purpose, decrease deficits. And that plan had these three pillars:

First, deficit reduction in the first 10 years--that was the core vote.

Second of all, no increase--no provision can create an increase in a deficit in any given year after the first 10 years.

And, third, we are going to use honest numbers--no more smoke and mirrors, no more gimmicks, no more trying to deceive the public, saying we have a responsible plan when it is creating massive additional debt.

Well, that plan--that 1974 plan--worked for 22 years. And along comes 1996. And in 1996, my Republican colleagues wanted to do a tax plan that involved huge giveaways to the wealthiest Americans, and they said: But we can't get 60 votes. We need Democratic help. We can't get that to the floor.

And they said: OK, let's do a nuclear option. Let's reinterpret that first pillar--must reduce deficits in the first 10 years--and say it can increase deficits.

In this very Chamber right here, it happened. The former Republican leader, Robert Dole, appointed his staff member Robert Dove to be Parliamentarian, and they reversed the plain language of the law in order to blow up deficits with tax giveaways to the wealthy.

Now, it turned out, that year, they didn't end up using that nuclear provision because they struck a different deal with President Clinton. But they did use it in 2001 and 2003. They did use it in 2017--all for massive tax cuts, the majority going to the richest Americans.

So this plan--this Republican plan--it isn't new. This plan has been the core strategy since 1996: Run up debt and give massive amounts of money to the richest Americans.

It is very disturbing to me--very disturbing to every American who sees that all we are doing under the Republican vision is increasing wealth inequality, undermining the programs for families to stand on to thrive, and proceeding to enrich the richest people in our Nation.

You know, back in 1974, when Democrats and Republicans together crafted this plan, the debt-to-GDP ratio was 23 percent. Today, it is 100 percent. Our national debt is equal or slightly above our national gross domestic product.

In 1974, the annual deficit was $6 billion. Today, it is about $2 trillion. In 1974, the total national debt was $475 billion. It seemed like a lot at the time. Now it is $37 trillion or just shy of $37 trillion.

But while running on fiscal responsibility since 1996, the Republican Party has been the party of fiscal irresponsibility, changing the Senate rules to run up deficits and debt, giving away the Treasury to the richest Americans, and imposing that massive debt on the families in the future.

It is hard to get your hands around what their $37 trillion debt plan means, but think about it like this: Since Independence Day, July 4, 1776, we have run up less than $37 trillion in debt, and they want to add $37 trillion or more in debt with this single bill.

Wow, that is something.

You know, Candidate Trump said he would be a champion for families, but President Trump is a champion for billionaires. This is the great betrayal.

In February, Democrats voted for amendment after amendment to help families, and my colleagues across the aisle voted, almost in every case unanimously, against those amendments to help families.

Democrats voted for an amendment to make sure Medicaid was protected; Republicans voted against it. Democrats voted for an amendment to lower the cost of groceries; Republicans voted against it. Democrats voted to lower the cost of housing, and Republicans voted against it. Democrats voted to lower the cost of prescription drugs; Republicans voted against it. Democrats voted to lower the cost of health insurance; Republicans voted against it. Democrats put forward amendments for families to thrive and for the rich to pay their fair share of taxes, and Republicans voted against them because that is not their plan. It hasn't been their plan since 1996. Their plan has been: Families lose, and billionaires win.

If this budget proposal--this vision for the reconciliation bill that will be subsequently crafted--doesn't help families, who does it help? Well, let's look at who was lined up behind Trump at his inaugural address just down the hall, done inside because the weather was so cold. Well, whom did we have? We had Mark Zuckerberg standing behind the President, the billionaire of Meta, who owns Facebook, who gave a million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund. We had Jeff Bezos, the billionaire of Amazon, who gave a million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund. We had Sundar Pichai, the billionaire of Alphabet, which owns Google, who gave a million dollars to Trump's inauguration funds.

Billionaires lined up behind him, but not just those three, also the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX and Starlink and now, infamously, the name behind DOGE, who spent more than a quarter billion dollars to elect Trump and my Republican colleagues.

And those are just the contributions we know about. We don't know about all the dark money they may have spent.

Slashing programs families rely on to give trillions of dollars to the richest Americans, that is the Republican plan--billionaires who don't care if we slash Medicaid. They don't care if grocery prices go up. They don't care about the cost of housing or prescription drug prices or health insurance because they are billionaires. What costs to us a month's salary for them is a 1-second blip in their financial landscape.

You know, Donald Trump said about the 25 percent tariffs on cars:

I couldn't care less.

I couldn't care less if [automakers] raise their prices.

Well, you know who does care? American families. American families care because a car is a significant part of their budget. And they do care about the health insurance. They care about the groceries. They care about the rent or the interest rate that drives their mortgage.

You know, there aren't so many billionaires in America. What is the point to help a very small group of the richest get even richer? Well, that is a longer story about how money pollutes our political process.

But here on the floor, where we can argue the pros and cons of policies, let's at least use honest numbers, not

replace the CBO numbers with some fake numbers, not use magic math.

We are here, Democrats on the floor, to expose this fraud. We are here to stop this fraud. We are here to fight for America's families. We are here to stop this budget resolution and this subsequent reconciliation bill in which families lose and billionaires win because we want families to thrive and billionaires to pay their fair share.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, throughout these 25 hours of debate, there has been one theme that no Member of this body should forget, that no American should forget because it is the heart of this bill. And what is the heart of the bill? Families lose, and billionaires win.

This bill features $2 trillion in cuts to core programs in healthcare, housing, and education--the programs that help families stand on their feet and thrive and move into the middle class and succeed and their children succeed and the next generation.

But, no, my Republican colleagues say: Slash those programs because they are not the folks who power our campaigns. We don't care about the families struggling to succeed. Well, no, what we care about are the billionaires, so we wrote this bill for billionaires.

Just how much? Well, that $2 trillion funds tax breaks for the richest Americans. And then because that is not enough, this bill borrows $37 trillion over 30 years to fund additional tax breaks--$37 trillion in debt.

Cuts to programs for families to fund tax giveaways to the richest Americans--that is what this is about.

If you care about healthcare across America, if you know that Medicaid provides--well, in my State, about a third of our citizens have health insurance through Medicaid. Our rural clinics and our rural hospitals do far better. And why do they do far better with Medicaid? Because patients can pay bills because they have health insurance.

Medicaid is critical for programs for people to get out of their addiction. Medicaid is critical for seniors to be able to get nursing home care. Medicaid is essential for those with disabilities. It plays a huge role for our veterans. And they want to strike it down. They want to strike down Social Security, get rid of all the clerks that make Social Security work, that turn the gears and make sure the checks go out on time, because why should we worry about Social Security? Billionaires don't need Social Security.

Strike out the lunch programs for schools. We know that kids learn far better when they have a full stomach. So programs like that matter, but not to the billionaires, not in this bill.

Mr. President, $2 trillion in cuts for programs families depend on to fund massive tax giveaways to the richest Americans.

Then, on top of all that, a gimmick--a gimmick to say to the American people: While we are adding $37 trillion in debt, we will tell you we are adding nothing.

It is called current policy baseline. It is magic math. It is like this: You rent an apartment. The apartment costs you $2,000 a month, $24,000 for the year. You rent it for a year under contract.

Then you get to the end of the year and you say: I think I will sign a contract for a second year. You say: Oh, but that will cost nothing.

That is the magic math, when we know--everyone knows--it will still cost $2,000 a month or more with inflation, more because the rent might go up. But the magic math from the Republican side says: No, no; it is zero. It is zero.

Extending new tax benefits that would have expired costs $37 trillion, and Republicans say: Just pretend it away.

Now, what I would like to understand is why the party that has often run on fiscal responsibility has decided, first of all, to strike down the nonpartisan numbers that create an honest debate. That has been the rule, the direction, the bipartisan consensus since 1974. We will use honest numbers. We created a whole organization--the Congressional Budget Office--to make sure the numbers were fair so we could have an honest debate here and with the American people. But the magic math produced on this bill throws all that overboard. Fiscal responsibility overboard. Massive $37 trillion in new debt from this bill.

Do you know what? Our entire national debt today is less than $37 trillion. This one bill--this one bill--produces even more debt than has been piled up over the 249 years since the Declaration of Independence. If that isn't fiscally irresponsible, I don't know what is.

You know, you may ask: Don't those folks who are struggling--the 1 out of 10 who are really trying to get on their feet--isn't there something for them?

Well, the estimate is that they get the equivalent of $6 a year.

Well, if you have a fancy cup of coffee at Starbucks--not where I go for coffee, but many do--it costs about $6. This bill doesn't give a cup of coffee a day to the bottom 10 percent. It doesn't give a cup of coffee a week to the bottom 10 percent. It gives one cup per year. That is what you get out of this bill if you are in the bottom 10 percent, struggling to get on your feet. Don't drink it all at once, just one little sip each day for 365 days because you in the bottom 10 percent are not a billionaire.

Going to cut your programs that get you on your feet--the fundamentals for families to thrive in healthcare and housing and education and good-paying jobs--to enrich the richest Americans.

This is perhaps the worst bill I have ever seen debated on the floor of the Senate.

So, colleagues across the aisle, turn back to your speeches and your election campaigns that said ``I am for fiscal responsibility,'' and come and join us and write a real bill in which families thrive and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. That would be an advance for the United States of America. That would be good work on the floor of the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it has been asserted this week that under section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act, the chair of the Budget Committee has the authority to instruct the Congressional Budget Office, known as CBO, and the Joint Committee on Taxation, known as JCT, to ignore budget law when developing cost estimates for legislation, including budget reconciliation bills. It has further been asserted these directed estimates are appropriate to use for budget enforcement purposes claiming that past Budget chairs have taken similar actions. This is false.

I would like to put some facts into the record. Section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act defines how CBO and JCT should construct the baseline. This is called the current law baseline. This act does not defer to some unlimited authority of the Budget chair, provide for multiple or competing baselines, or say the current law baseline should not be used for scoring reconciliation bills. For 40 years, Congress has used cost estimates based on section 257 of this act. Codifying the baseline established a standard budget enforcement regime, ensuring that CBO and the Office of Management and Budget use the same baseline definition when developing their respective economic forecasts and budget projections. There are some very specific instances when section 257 directs CBO to consult with the Budget Committees to determine whether a proposed law should continue in the baseline. Importantly, these instances are enumerated, and they do not apply to revenue provisions-which are treated as expiring as written in law. The section 257 current law baseline has applied to all reconciliation bills since its enactment.

Section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act--colloquially referred to as the Byrd Rule--is also in statute. The Byrd Rule provides strict guardrails on what is, or is not, appropriate for inclusion in a reconciliation bill. During adoption of the Byrd Rule in 1985, floor debate indicates it was understood that the Parliamentarian would advise on Byrd Rule violations, and the Senate would vote accordingly; a role for the Budget chair was not mentioned, even by the author and namesake of these constraints--Senator Robert C. Byrd.

Since the Byrd Rule's adoption, it has been long-accepted practice-- accepted by both sides of the aisle--to rely on the Parliamentarian to advise the chair on reconciliation privilege and enforcement issues, including evaluating compliance with Byrd Rule tests that all hinge on the scores of the provisions. Section 312 authority has never been asserted to allow the Budget chair to dictate scores to enforce or manipulate the Byrd Rule. The Senate

has always relied exclusively on CBO and JCT scores when evaluating the Byrd Rule, and CBO and JCT have always relied on the section 257 current law baseline to produce those scores.

Reconciliation is one of the Senate's few privileged, fast-track mechanisms for passing legislation, particularly legislation of substantial size and scope. The Budget Act grants the Senate this targeted exception from its standard of open debate and cloture protections with an expectation that there will be limitations. The inappropriate assertion that broad authority under section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act allows a Budget chair to ignore budget law, upend multiple layers of procedure, and undermine the Parliamentarian's role, is a clear violation of the Byrd Rule and the Senate precedent around reconciliation limits.

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 1758 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, my colleagues, my good friend from South Carolina compared this bill with balancing the family budget. Well back in my neighborhood, balancing the budget means you only spend what you earn. It doesn't mean borrowing, and it doesn't mean borrowing $37 trillion and sticking it to the next generation.

If you agree that we should work toward balancing our budget, then vote for my amendment. It creates a point of order for any reconciliation bill that by itself would create more debt on America, on the next generation than all the debt our Nation has run up between July 4, 1776, and today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam President, what we don't like is $37 trillion in new debt hoisted on the next generation. This is throwing fiscal responsibility overboard to the bottom of the sea. We have never had a more fiscally irresponsible bill on the floor of the Senate than this one.

Vote on Amendment No. 1758

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my interns be granted floor privileges on their shadow days for the following dates: Michael O'Rourke on April 8, 2025, Ji Reichle on April 9, Lainey Chi on April 10, Langston Phan on April 29, Kaylee Lawson on May 1.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Chance Mitchell be granted floor privileges during consideration of H. Con. Res. 14.