Floor Statements

Now, Mr. President, the other reason I am here, which is just as important, is for this man sitting right here. His name is Patrick Taylor. He is a fine American, and he and I work together.

Much to my sorrow--well, it is sorrow, but it is also pride--Patrick is going to work for another Agency. And I mean that my feelings are mixed about it.

Here is my strategy. I am not saying people who don't follow my strategy are doing it wrong. This is just the way I have always done it. I have been in government and politics for a while, and I have known some politicians that don't want to hire anybody smarter than them, OK, because they don't want anybody around them who will make them look bad. That is cool. To each his own. I don't do it that way, OK? I figure, if I hire people smarter than me, they will make me look better. That is what I have always tried to do, and I fully concede that Patrick is smarter than me.

But one of the downsides of hiring people smarter than you is that they are ambitious, they learn all they can, and somebody comes in and hires them away. That happens, and it has happened to me a number of times. Every single time, even though I am disappointed, I also try to say to myself: You know, this is a compliment, and I am sad, but I am happy. And that is what has happened with Patrick.

Patrick, as I told you, is really smart. He is a graduate of Colgate. I wrote it all down here. He has a master's from Hillsdale College. He studied at the Claremont Institute. He is on my communications team. This guy is a master at digital media. I mean, he can make posts and stuff on digital media. He can make that social media stuff walk, talk, and whistle ``The Battle Hymn of the Republic,'' man, and he gets people to watch, and it is awesome.

Patrick is going to work for the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. I asked him about it, and he said: It is top secret. If I told you, I would have to drown you in the ocean.

He didn't really say that.

It is a great job, and I am happy for him. He has been with me for 3 years, and it has been a great 3 years.

Patrick, Godspeed. Come back and see us. You are going to do great.

I just wanted to come by and acknowledge his service to the good people of America and to the good people of Louisiana and thank him for all of his help. It has been a lot of fun.

If you write a book, I reserve the right to edit it first, OK? You can't include everything in that book.

Patrick, thank you, man.

That is all I have, Mr. President. I can show my way out. My work here is done.

So I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Is that OK, Madam Parliamentarian?

Thank you, ma'am.

This is our Parliamentarian, Mr. President. She is pretty smart too.

Mr. President, with me today are two of my interns that I have enjoyed working with, Ms. Rebecca Streidel and Mr. Charlie Kay. And I wanted to--also with me--he is not a summer intern. He is one of my permanent colleagues Mr. John Lowery.

But I want to thank Rebecca and Charlie for working with me and for their good work. It has been a pleasure, and I hope you learned a lot. Thank you for being part of our team.

White House Correspondents' Association Dinner Shooting

Mr. President, I want to talk about a couple of subjects today. First, I thought it would be appropriate to make a comment about the White House Correspondents' Association dinner Saturday night.

I want to be clear, I was not there, so I don't know whether that helps my perspective or hurts it. But I was at home watching the NBA playoffs. The Timberwolves won, by the way.

I am sorry it happened Saturday night. I am glad no one got hurt. I think what happened is as straightforward as it is tragic.

An overeducated, underemployed, self-righteous punk from California who thinks he is smarter and more virtuous than the American people and who thinks if you disagree with him, you are not only in error, you are in sin and deserve to die, tried to crash the function and assassinate the President and some members of his administration.

Many members of our media--and, look, I am glad no one was hurt. I said that, but I want to emphasize that. Some members of the media will portray him as a victim. They will say his mom or daddy didn't love him enough, or maybe he was just mixed up or confused or had a mental defect.

They can say what they want. But I believe in free will and responsibility. And this punk was responsible for his actions, and he is going to be punished. And he, frankly, should be punished.

I want to also say a word about security.

Look, we are going to hold hearings. We love to hold hearings on Capitol Hill. That is one of our favorite things to do. And there are going to be hearings held about the security provided by our Secret Service and others. I am not saying those hearings shouldn't be held. I am not a security expert.

But I want to thank the members of law enforcement who prevented what could have been a very serious tragedy Saturday night.

I am pretty familiar with the Washington Hilton hotel, and the truth is, those who are also familiar with it know that this guy never got close. He was on a different floor. He never made it to the right floor, and that is because of our brave women and men who provide security. In fact, I thought our security showed great restraint. I was frankly very surprised that this punk didn't end up like a piece of Swiss cheese.

Mr. President, could I ask my colleagues here to hold it down for a minute? Maybe they could take their discussions off the floor.

I know they have got work to do. But I have got work to do too, and I can't hear myself think here.

Joint Meeting of Congress

Mr. President, let me say a word about King Charles.

King Charles spoke to a joint session of Congress today. I thank him so much for coming. He was eloquent. He was charming. He was funny. He talked about the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. And we do have a special relationship, and I hope it can continue.

And I want to come back to the King's visit.

In preparation for the King's visit and the King's speech, I read an article, in particular, in The Economist magazine. I read The Economist magazine, anyway, every week. In my opinion--I have read it cover to cover. It is really--some call it a newspaper, but it really is a magazine.

I have read it cover to cover for 25 years. It covers the world. I have always enjoyed the reporting because it is very in depth, and it is very factual. Just about every author of every article offers his or her opinion. But it is subtle, and it is nuanced. And usually they offer their opinion after presenting both sides of the story.

It hurts me to say--it disappoints me to say--that, in the past year, The Economist has really changed. Their reporting has crossed the line, in my opinion, and they are so angry at the President and angry at America that it has seeped into their reporting. And I really regret that. I am going to keep reading, but I really regret that they have given in to their appetitive desires and lost some of their objectivity.

And the article, in particular, that I read, I read it on the plane. I don't remember whether I was going home or coming up. But the article that I read in preparation for King Charles' visit was entitled: ``Britain rethinks its `special relationship' with America.''

``Britain rethinks its `special relationship' with America.''

And this was the question that The Economist was asking: Should Britain, the United Kingdom, which we do have a special relationship-- should the United Kingdom keep hugging America or embrace Europe?

Like it was a buffet, like they have a choice--and the article startled me. The article also points out--and this also surprised me and disappointed me--that the author of the article pointed it out, almost gleefully, that today, when you poll the American people and ask them if they approve of Britain, 76 percent of Americans approve. When you ask our friends in Britain if they approve of America, only 34 percent do. That one surprised me.

I want to set the record straight that, regardless of what the polls show, America does have a special relationship with the United Kingdom, and it is an important relationship. And that is why the American people spilled their blood and spent their treasure in 1917 to protect the British Empire. That is why the American people spent their treasure and spilled their blood in 1941 in World War II to protect the British Empire, which would not have won without America's help.

After World War II, in Great Britain, it was horrible. They were devastated, flat on their back broke. America--still, they were our friends--our special friends. America lifted them up, bankrolled their reconstruction. We went in, loaned them money, helped them to get back on their feet.

And then, shortly after World War II, we, of course, discovered that we--we meaning the United Kingdom and the United States--had a new enemy, the Soviet Union. We protected the United Kingdom all through the Cold War. I am proud of that. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

In fact, if you look at the numbers today, we still protect the United Kingdom and NATO and our friends in Europe. If you look at the money--I know there has been a lot of rhetoric that our allies in Europe are going to do better and spend more money on their own defense, but the numbers are the numbers. The American taxpayer still puts up 60 percent of total NATO defense spending today. We put up $845 billion a year to protect our cousins in the United Kingdom and in Europe.

I support NATO. I support continuing to do that. And so I agree with King

Charles. We do have a special relationship, and we should nurture it, and we should make it better.

But friends tell friends the truth. And to my friends in the United Kingdom, as we try to appreciate and reset our relationship, I would say to them gently and respectfully: The world has changed. You have to pay your own bills for a while.

This isn't the fault of the good people of the United Kingdom. This is the fault of their political leadership. It is especially true of their current political leadership. But they have castrated their military. They have. They are weak as rainwater. This doesn't happen in a week or a day or a month. This happened over a long period of time.

I remember when Great Britain ruled the seas. Now, when Iran fires a missile at their base in Cyprus, they can barely find a ship to send down there. And that ship barely made it.

On the political leadership in the United Kingdom, I have watched it hollow out its industrial base. I have watched the political leadership in the United Kingdom spend all their money on welfare.

And do you know what? It is their money. That is none of my business. If that is what they want to do in a democracy, Godspeed.

But they have depended on the American taxpayer to defend them, and the political leadership--and, again, I say this gently. I don't want to do anything to take away from the King's speech. I say this gently and respectfully: It is time for the political leadership in the United Kingdom to embrace adulthood. And it is time for them to start paying their bills and time for them to start spending money on the military.

Now, I know the Prime Minister said: We are going to do better. And he and some of our other allies in Europe are talking about spending 3.5 percent of their GDP on defense and another 1.5 percent on infrastructure in support of defense. It is a lot of talk so far.

Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the UK, published his plan for the military and military spending. I actually read it. I thought this part was special. Yes, he is going to start spending more money, but it is back-end loaded. It is not going to happen. They are not spending any serious money until 2030, and I can assure you that Sir Keir will not be around as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in September or October or January of 2030. He is struggling now. His poll numbers--I probably shouldn't say this, but it is true. He is polling right up there with gonorrhea in terms of popularity. It is just a fact.

So I do celebrate the special relationship that we have, and I do want us to be closer. But the political leadership in the United Kingdom has got to do its part. This is supposed to be a partnership.

For my final comment, the King, I think, is here through the rest of the day--the King and the Queen. And, of course, even though it was a beautiful speech that King Charles gave, the real heavy lifting is done, as we all know, in private. The King is going to meet privately with President Trump, and they are going to talk about the world, and they are going to get down to the specifics of things we can do to help each other.

I don't know what the King is going to talk to the President about. I don't know if he is carrying messages from the political leadership in the United Kingdom. That is all above my pay grade. But if the King is carrying a message from the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to try to convince our President to give away the Diego Garcia military base to an African country which is the BFF of China, I hope our President will continue to resist. I hope he will respond to that request, if it is made, by saying: The short answer is no. The long answer is hell no.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom--as you know, Mr. President, the Chagos Islands are owned by the United Kingdom. They are in the Indian Ocean. On one of the islands, we built a military base with the United Kingdom called Diego Garcia. And it is a really important military base for both countries.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has decided because the United Nations has made him feel guilty about Britain's colonial past-- the United Nations has told Prime Minister Starmer that he has got to give away this military base to the African country of Mauritius, even though Mauritius has never owned Diego Garcia or the Chagos Islands. They have no connection with it, none whatsoever.

But because the Prime Minister has this White guilt because the United Kingdom and the good people of Great Britain once controlled other countries, they are supposed to feel guilty and give away our military base and their military base to Mauritius, who will promptly turn the keys over to China.

It is one of the--I think I described it one time as bone-deep, down- to-the-marrow stupid, and it is.

And eventually, the Prime Minister talked the President into it. And then President Trump came--as he always does, he thought it through. He said: No, I am not doing that.

And so they are still sawing on him and working on him. And I don't know if the King is going to bring it up, and certainly it is the King's right if he does. But I hope the President will stand firm, and let's not give away this military base to China.

Carbon Dioxide

Mr. President, I want to spend my last few minutes on another topic. This one is important to all of us, but it is also important to Louisiana. I want to talk about carbon dioxide.

We all know, we have all heard carbon dioxide--CO2--is a gas. It is colorless. It is odorless. It is everywhere. It is actually a pretty small part of our atmosphere really. I looked at the numbers. It is 0.04 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. It is a really, really small part of it, but it packs a wallop.

CO2 is composed of one atom of carbon and two atoms of oxygen, and it is produced naturally. When we breathe out, for example, we breathe out carbon dioxide. It is produced naturally when organic matter decomposes. And it is very important to God's world. Plants use it for photosynthesis. It also is released when we burn fossil fuels. You have probably read that.

And even though carbon dioxide has all these extraordinarily beneficial uses, one of the downsides of it is that it is a fairly heavy gas. And it rises, even though it is dispersed throughout our atmosphere. But it does rise, and it is what is called a greenhouse gas. It acts like a blanket.

If you get enough CO2 in our atmosphere, it is like a blanket covers the Earth. And what happens when you are under a blanket? It holds in heat. And that heat can change your natural temperature and sometimes impacts your weather and your sea levels. That is why you hear some folks talk about global warming and climate change. That is what we are talking about. That is all CO2 is.

We don't have a world plan to deal with this problem. President Biden came up with a plan. It was called ``spend as much money as I possibly can.'' He spent billions of dollars fighting CO2.

I checked. Do you know how much all of the billions--and he might have spent a trillion but certainly billions of dollars of American taxpayer money that he spent--do you know how much it lowered temperatures? None. Zero. Zilch. He never had a plan. It was always just throw money at the wall and see what happens. I hope in the future we can do better.

But here is my point: One of the things that government did to try to combat CO2--or at least control CO2--is pay companies to capture it. And we are still doing that. And what do I mean by capture?

Well, when companies--let's say, take a petrochemical plant. When it burns fossil fuels, natural gas usually, it produces CO2-- carbon dioxide. And there is a way, under the technology, to capture that CO2. What do you do with it? One option is to inject it into the ground, into the Earth, deep beneath our feet.

Now, you would hope that companies--many of them became during the Biden years very woke, and they criticized anybody who asked questions about President Biden's climate change plan.

But the other reason they were so high on carbon capture is because the Federal Government was giving them bucketloads of money to capture this carbon. It is called the 45Q tax credit.

We will actually pay these companies--like a petrochemical company--to capture carbon and inject it into the ground in the interest of our environment and climate.

We pay 85 bucks. It is your money. You are paying it, not me. I pay a little bit of it when I pay my taxes, but we all pay it. We actually pay companies $85 a ton. The lobbyists and many of our friends in the business community are lobbying right now to increase the money that we pay them to $250 a ton. But just based on paying them $85 a ton, by 2030, we will be spending about $30 billion.

So while I want to believe that the companies capture the carbon in the interest of the environment, they are being paid a whole bunch of money to do it as well. I am not saying they wouldn't do it anyway out of the goodness of their heart, but the money doesn't hurt. OK?

You know what the old saying is: You don't have to be rich and famous to be happy. You just have to be rich.

So, anyway, we are paying companies a whole bunch of money to go capture this carbon and inject it in the ground. Now, I didn't come here tonight to debate whether that is a good idea or a bad idea. A lot of that is up to the States and to Congress for another day. There are pros and cons, and some say it is a good idea. Some say it is a bad idea.

I know certain oil and gas companies have been injecting CO2 into producing oil and gas wells for years to make the gas and oil flow better without hurting anybody. I know in other cases there have been CO2 pipelines--carbon dioxide pipelines-- transmitting carbon dioxide that have ruptured and injured people. I don't know who is right, and I don't know who is wrong.

I do know, though, that to inject it underground, you have got to do it on somebody's property. And that is where the rub comes in. We take our property rights in Louisiana seriously. Your right to own property is a Federal constitutional right. In Louisiana, it is also a State constitutional right. So important, we put it in our State constitution. Article I, section 4 of our State constitution says:

Every person has the right to acquire, own, control, use,

enjoy, protect, and dispose of private property.

Now, our constitution also goes on to say, because we are a practical people in Louisiana:

This right to own property is subject to reasonable

statutory restrictions and the reasonable exercise of the

police power.

What does that mean? Well, as we all know, that means, if I own a piece of property and they want to put a highway through and I don't want them to put a highway through my property, but it would cost the taxpayers of my State three times the amount to move the highway over here as opposed to putting it through my property--under the law, we call it expropriation. I think some States call it eminent domain.

In my State, in every other State, and under the Federal Government, the State can come in and say: Look, Kennedy, we know you don't want to give up your property, but it is going to cost us a lot more to put the road over here. So we are going to take your property, but we are going to pay you full price.

And they do. They have to. It is in our constitution. They have to pay the full, fair market price. So we are pretty comfortable with that.

But the people in Louisiana have just discovered that the companies that I talked about who are being paid this Federal money--$85 a ton to capture carbon and inject it into the ground--can also take people's land to put in an injection well. And I don't like that.

I am not taking sides in terms of carbon capture. I am not. But we have got a lot of people in my State that are very suspect about the wisdom of this carbon capture. I am not saying they are right or wrong. But they have learned the hard way that if you trust government, you failed history class.

And if someone in my State who owns a piece of property--it is usually in my rural areas--who owns 50 acres that was handed down from their dad and mom and their dad and mom and their dad and mom, if a company wants to come in and pay them to put in an injection well and put carbon dioxide underneath their land and those land owners are OK with that, I am OK with it.

But I am going to have something to say if a lot of these companies start coming in and taking people's property and putting in an injection well. That is a big difference between putting in a road.

This is a new technology. We are still learning about it. And right now, under Louisiana law--this was passed by the Louisiana Legislature. The statute is title 30, section 1108, Louisiana revised statute 30:1108. This is what it says:

Any storage operator--

That is the guy or gal who wants to put carbon dioxide under the ground--

Any storage operator is hereby authorized, after obtaining

any permit and any certificate of public convenience and

necessity from the commissioner--

That means they get the permission of the State.

. . . [can] exercise the power of eminent domain and

expropriate [take] needed property.

So if one of these companies comes to one of my people on their family land and says, ``We will offer you this. We want to put in an injection well,'' and the owners of that land go, ``I don't think so. This property has been in my family for years, and I don't know about this CO2 stuff anyway,'' they are not going to have a choice because the State can come in and take that land.

I don't like that, and I think our legislature needs to weigh in on this. I think we ought to go back to what our State constitution says and what the Federal Constitution has said even longer: People have the right to property. People have the right to property.

That concludes my remarks. I can show myself out.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am going to give you a name: Tony Hanagan.

As we all know--not necessarily everybody outside this Chamber--Tony is a senior floor assistant. I will come back to what that means in a second.

Tony is leaving us for the private sector. Under the ethics rules, he can't tell us where he is going. I think it is a startup, but I am not sure. I think part of his job responsibilities--not exclusive because I don't know because he can't talk about it--will be ``congressional relations.'' I have strongly encouraged him to ask the startup to define very carefully what they mean by ``congressional relations'' in light of what has been going on around here.

Though we kid him a lot--I will come back to that too--Tony is very smart. He is a graduate of William & Mary. I am sure there are some dummies at William & Mary, but I have never met one coming out of there. It is a great school. He has also spent time at the Wharton School, studying their model budget project.

He has worked his way up as a member--as basically a Senate advisor. And let me explain a little bit of what Tony and his colleagues do.

You see these two doors back here, this one and this one. This one leads to what we call the Democratic cloakroom. This door leads to what we call the Republican cloakroom. Now, that is where Senators go to cuss and to tell each other lies, but it is not the only purpose of those. Supposedly, we can go back there and relax and when someone isn't around--and sometimes when they are around--and make fun of people.

But there are members of our staff who have desks back there, and not every member of our staff has a desk back there. Some are close by.

What do they do? They make this place run. For one thing, they understand the rules or claim to. No living human being, at least not in the U.S. Senate with a beating heart, understands the Senate rules. I am not saying no one understands them. I am just saying nobody in the Senate does. They say they do. They lie like fish swim because to understand--you don't only have to understand the rules; you have got to understand all the precedents.

The first 6 months I got here, I said: You know, I am going to learn the rules. I read about Lyndon Johnson who supposedly sat here and learned all

the rules and outsmarted all his colleagues. I don't believe that. But anyway, he probably knew more than I did. God rest his soul.

But after 6 months, here is my conclusion: I don't know if I can learn the rules and all the precedents, and by the time I do, they will have changed. And someday, I am going to die, and I don't want on my tombstone ``Kennedy understood the Senate rules.'' So I gave up. I quit. No mas. And so now, when I want to understand the rules, I talk to a member of our staff, like Tony, or some of my colleagues, and so do most of my Senate colleagues on the Democratic side and on the Republican side. Now, our staff could be lying to us because we don't know any better. They could make this stuff up, but I don't think they do. I have never seen Tony make it up. A couple of times, I thought I had caught him, but he turned out to be right, and that is important.

But it is more than just an understanding of the rules. It is more than Tony's job and my colleagues' job who are our advisers--it is more than just learning the rules because the rules look like they were designed by a heroin addict with a socket wrench.

We don't know how to get things done, so we go to our advisers and say: Tell me how to do this.

And they are really good at that. Tony is really good at that. I know sometimes the questions are so esoteric and so bizarre, I can tell from their eyes that they want to look at you and say: You are not the stupidest person I have ever met, but you had better hope the stupidest person I have ever met doesn't die.

But they never do that. They always say: OK. You know, you can try it that way, but here is the downside of it, and with all due respect, there is a better way of doing it, and you might consider this.

Frankly, I mean, our Parliamentarian--I see her here. She does understand the rules, and she is pretty good at helping you too. She has got lines she can't cross because she doesn't work for Senate Republicans or Democrats.

But this is what Tony does and the other staff members, and they make this place run. They are not responsible for the fact that the Senate only works when everybody isn't crazy at the same time, and they are not responsible for the fact that sometimes it takes us weeks, months, even years, to get nothing done. Doing nothing--it can be frustrating. Doing nothing is very hard because you never know when you are finished. But they make this place run, and we are going to miss Tony.

Now, we make fun of Tony. It is all in good fun. There is a big mirror back in the cloakroom. I think it is an antique mirror. That is what they tell us. Sometimes we will--I have done it, but others, I think, have too. Sometimes we will write little notes to the majority leader--we used to do it with Mitch, and now we do it sometimes with Thune--and sign it ``Tony,'' and, of course, they all have a heart attack.

Tony keeps a couple of pairs of shoes under his desk, and probably about once a week, some of us take at least one of the shoes and hide it, and he is ready to go home at whatever--11 o'clock, 12 midnight-- and he can't find his shoe. Max, who works with him back there--his job is to eventually, after he spends an inordinate amount of time and he gets really close to the point that he has no more firetrucks to give and is going to start telling everybody what he thinks--Max will tell him where the shoe is.

I have got some other stories about Tony, but I just can't tell them because there are probably some children listening.

But anyway, you will read about Tony someday in the Wall Street Journal, and it won't be because he went ``Eric Swalwell''; it will be because of his financial success. And we are going to miss him, but I can't blame him. He is already picking out the color of his new Mercedes.

The Presiding Officer knows the Mercedes-Benz. If you have any advice for him, like the best one that deflects heat, you might want to talk to him. He may want to just buy two, OK?

But anyway, we are going to miss Tony, and I wanted to say that, and I am sorry I can't tell you all of the ``Tony'' stories. They are legendary.

But, Tony, you have just been awesome, you and all of your colleagues, and we never talk about them enough. I just want to say thank you.

And my final words: Peace out.

(Applause.)

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

Mr. President, I want to spend a few minutes telling you about why I held the vote-arama tonight on reconciliation. Our leader is going to make it to happen a lot quicker than I am. He has got the patience of Job.

My Democratic friends--and they are my friends; I don't hate anybody--agreed to a budget for the Department of Homeland Security as part of our normal budgetary process.

They changed their mind, as is their right. But it caused the Department of

Homeland Security to be shut down, and it hurt a lot of people needlessly. It didn't hurt us. It didn't hurt us. We are still getting paid. We are still going home. But it hurt a lot of people.

And our leader decided that he was going to negotiate with my friend, Minority Leader Schumer, and Senator Schumer was going to meet us halfway and figure out a way to get the Agency open.

He and my Democrat colleagues did agree to open everything but ICE and, I believe, border security. They will never agree to fund ICE-- never, not in your natural lifetime, not in mine. They won't do it.

My friend Senator Schumer did the right thing last March, when we were shut down. He agreed to release some of his Members to let us open the government back up. The loon wing of his party--that is what I call them; if you disagree with me, you can tell me why--beat him bloody. They hit him so hard--now when they hit him, they are just working on scar tissue--for doing the right thing.

Now, I don't consider all of my Democratic friends to believe in defunding ICE. The people in control do. They know it. I know it. We know it. They will never vote to fund ICE. This is the same group of people that wanted to defund the police, and we know how that vampire movie turned out.

Now, they will deny it, and that is their right. But it is the truth, and everybody in this body knows that.

But, nonetheless, our leader said we can work it out.

We didn't work it out. They never agreed to fund ICE, and they never will.

Now, about--I don't know; time runs together up here when you are having fun--a month ago, 6 weeks ago, 2 months ago, we started talking about reconciliation and doing it without Democratic votes, even though the Democrats would be welcome to join us.

I want to give full credit. Ted Cruz, I believe, was the first one to do it. I was second. And Ted went first only because he beat me to it but also because Ted pointed out, in President Trump's first term, that we shouldn't leave efforts to do reconciliation on the table. He was right then. He is right now.

The leader said OK, finally, after doing everything he could, except standing on one leg and barking like a dog. Senator Thune did everything but stand on one leg and bark like a dog to get Chuck to agree. It was his right. Chuck wouldn't agree. And for all I know, John did stand on one leg and bark like a dog. It didn't work. So we finally said: OK, let's do the reconciliation.

Now, once we started talking about reconciliation, which Senator Cruz and I and others pushed, I said I wanted to try to use--well, I said, first, I refuse to believe that Democrats in the Senate and the House cannot adult hard enough to come up with a couple of issues that we can agree to do, in addition to funding ICE and border security, in reconciliation. I didn't believe that then, and I don't believe that now.

Some people said I am naive. Maybe so, but I still believe it. And I still think we ought to try. Why? Because there is not going to be a third reconciliation bill. I am not seeing--I am not saying anybody is lying. They are not. People probably intend to do a third reconciliation bill, but you are not looking at Bambi's baby brother here. There won't be a third reconciliation bill.

You know it, and I know it. This is it. This is the last train leaving the station. Maybe we will do some other bills. I don't know. I am labor, not management. That is above my pay grade. But this will be the last one where we can add stuff to it.

And I would like to see us come up with one or two issues that will help the American people with the cost of living and other things that I know Republicans can agree to. And my Democratic friends, like Senator Durbin, whom we are going to miss--and I mean that--are welcome to come aboard if they want to.

One of the things I also said I wanted to try to do in reconciliation was the SAVE Act. Here is what I want to do, and I am willing for all of us to put our heads together to figure out how to do it.

The American people no longer have confidence in our elections. You can debate whether that is justified or not, but it is just a natural fact. I think that we can restore confidence in our Federal elections if we do three things: if we come up with a way to make sure that everybody who is registered to vote is an American citizen. I think we can restore confidence in our elections if, No. 2, we pass a rule for Federal elections that says you have to prove you are who you say you are in order to vote. And, No. 3, I would like to see us--I consider this part of the SAVE America Act, but it is not traditionally a part. I think we ought to go back to having an election day and not an election month. I know some votes come in late. I get that. We are smart enough to figure out a way to accommodate that. But this election month stuff is just undermining the people's confidence, both Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. That is what I mean when I say the SAVE Act.

And I have said that I am going to try to put the SAVE Act on the reconciliation bill, and I want to keep my word. Where I come from, your word is your bond.

Now, Senator Thune, our leader, came to me earlier--and so did Whip Barrasso--and said: Some Senators want to do the vote-arama tonight, and they have got to get home for various reasons.

And I have been there.

And if you insist on going tomorrow--because, frankly, I am. I am worried about the health of some of our Members--not that they are in bad health, but it is hard to stay up all night. It was hard to stay up all night when I did it in college. I was studying, of course.

But, anyway, I said: No, I would rather go tomorrow. I am going to object.

And John explained to me, and others did as well: The majority wants to go.

So I said: OK. I will pull my hold.

I didn't realize it then. This is my fault. I thought everybody knew I wanted to offer amendments. I didn't realize then that there was a way, procedurally, for me to be blocked from offering my amendments. That is my fault. I just didn't know the rules.

Do you want me to talk again about our rules, Tony? I won't get off on that tangent.

Did I mention they were put together by a heroin addict with a socket wrench? If I didn't, that is how I feel about rules. But, anyway, that was my fault.

So I called Senator Thune back and I called Senator Barrasso back and said: Guys, my bad. I was ignorant. I am redoing my hold because you all have the right to block me from offering amendments, but I have the right to exercise my procedural rights and start this thing tomorrow and leave more time to debate. And I apologize to every one of my colleagues. I have been there. I am sorry. But I will tell them I am sorry.

So I put together my amendments. I have got five of them, and I showed them to Senator Graham and Senator Barrasso and Senator Thune. I just left their office.

So if what we talked about leaked, I am not going to leak it. You will know it was one of those three. They promised me they wouldn't leak it.

Here is what I want to offer. And they can stop me, but I can stop us from voting tonight, which is going to hurt some of my colleagues, and I don't like to do that.

I think that we should instruct the appropriate committee--I will get into it, if you want to; it is the Banking Committee--to come up with a bill to prevent medical debt from being reported to the credit rating agencies and ruin the credit of all these people who are too poor to be sick, including middle-class Americans, because their credit gets screwed up, and it makes it harder to get the money to pay off the debt.

Now, the hospitals and others, they are foaming at the mouth right now and having a grand mal seizure. But I am sorry. That is the way to effect the cost of living in America that every mom and dad is worried about at night. I wanted to do that. I still want to do that.

I wanted to instruct the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to provide that, before the United States of America agrees with the United Kingdom to give away our military base in Diego

Garcia, two-thirds of the Members of the U.S. Senate have to vote to do that.

What Prime Minister Starmer is doing right now is deep-dish stupid. He says he is going to stop, but he may be back.

I wanted to offer an amendment to instruct the Finance Committee to put together a bill that would eliminate Federal income taxes and State income taxes, if our colleagues would go on with it, for our poll workers. They don't make but $50 or something. Why do we make them pay taxes?

To allow the American people to buy insurance across State lines--now the insurance commissioners are having grand mal seizures too, but we ought to talk about it.

The bill would also increase the minimum distribution age of retirement--the required minimum distributions from retirement accounts--to 76. Right now, it is 75, and you have got to take it. And they tax the living bejesus out of you. Some people need it; others don't.

I was going to ask the Finance Committee to come up with a bill to allow every American who has suffered a casualty loss to be able to deduct it below the line on their income taxes. That will help with affordability.

I wanted to ask them to put together a bill so that when you sell your home--I think you get--$500,000 of the sale is subject to capital gains. I am sorry. I am kind of tired. I may be wrong on that, but, anyway, you get a specialty tax break. Hell, we set that limit in 1997.

I would like them to talk about increasing it. If the Finance Committee thinks it is a bad idea to increase it, I would like to ask them to at least index that figure, that special treatment, to inflation.

I have some other things, but we have got a good Finance Committee, and they can come up with a bill that will help our people deal with the cost of living because if you think that the American people--moms and dads--when they lie down to sleep at night and can't, they are worried about the cost of living, you will never own your own home. Everybody here knows that.

I have another amendment to instruct the Senate Rules Committee to put together a bill that tracks my rule that I can't get brought to the floor. So I am going to turn it into a bill to withhold pay from Senators during a shutdown. They can get their money back after the shutdown is over. I know that hurts some Senators more than others because some of them have houses that are bigger than a Costco. I get that. I am not one of them. But we have a lot of people in the TSA and other people in the DHS who have various levels of income and wealth. So it just seems to me there ought to be some shared sacrifice.

I have another amendment to--oh, I have another amendment that would--I am sorry to take so long.

I think my Democratic friends--gosh, I hope I am wrong, but I think my Democratic friends are going to shut down the government right before the midterms. I hope I am wrong. If I am, please make me wrong. I will come to this floor and apologize to every one of them by name if I need to, but I am scared they are going to shut down the government and create chaos. So my other amendment would be to instruct the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, which already has been instructed--it is germane--to take Senator Lankford's Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, which is S. 2721, and Senator Ron Johnson's Shutdown Fairness Act, which is S. 3012--you won't find two smarter people in the Congress than James Lankford and Ron Johnson--and marry those bills so we will be ready in case anybody tries to do a shutdown on us.

And I am sorry to pick on my Democratic friends. Hell, we have got some Republicans who could try to shut it down too. That has been known to happen. But, anyway, it will stop it. Whatever knobhead wants to shut down the government before the elections, this will stop it, and that is one of these things I wanted to do with my amendments.

Finally, I have an amendment to implement my version of the SAVE Act. You have got to prove you are an American citizen. This would instruct the Rules Committee. Prove you are an American citizen. Prove you are who you say you are to vote, and let's go back to having an election day and not an election month. I have got a lot of confidence in the Rules Committee. They are really smart Republicans, and they are really smart Democrats. They can do it, and I want to instruct them to do that.

Now, they can stop me, but I can stop us from voting tonight. I don't want to do that; it is going to hurt some of my colleagues. I was going to stop us from voting tonight to try to prove my point because what you allow is what will continue around here. I am pulling my objection except for my right to offer the SAVE Act--my version of the SAVE America Act. If you don't want to vote for it, don't. All I ask of you is to think about it, to trust our Rules Committee, and to follow your heart but take your brain with you because the American people-- Democrats and Republicans and Independents--are questioning our elections.

This isn't about any one person--everybody is entitled to their opinion--but I am telling you whoever loses in the next round of elections--in the next round of elections, if we go back to an election month, they are going to go: We got it stolen. It has got to stop. That only happens in a country whose Powerball jackpot is 287 chickens and a goat. That is not America, and we can stop it with this.

Anyway, that is where I am. So I appreciate your patience. I am going to release my hold. I have been told I will be able to offer the SAVE Act. Do whatever the hell you want on it. Vote for it. Vote against it. Just follow your heart. Take your brain with you. Give the Rules Committee a chance. And that is where I am. My work here is done.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, in my prior remarks, in one respect, they were not exactly a model of clarity, so I want to be clear. I don't want to do anything to hurt the reconciliation bill. I like my amendments that I talked about. I don't know whether they will pass. If they don't pass, I will tell you how I will sleep tonight--with a fan on, because I think they are good amendments. But I am going to pull them down, except for the SAVE Act, because I don't want to do anything to keep ICE and Border Patrol from being funded. And I am pulling them down.

I think Lindsey could stop me anyway. He says he doesn't know how. But remember when I said Thune is going straight to Heaven? Lindsey is going to have to be persuasive. But I know he can stop me. But rather than make him do that and, if it gets on, jeopardizing this resolution, I am going to pull them all down but the SAVE Act.

I am coming with the SAVE Act. Do what you want. Follow your heart. Take your brain with you. If you don't vote for it, that is cool. I am still going to sleep with the fan on and sleep well. I would appreciate if you would consider voting for it.

Have a little confidence in our Rules Committee. I haven't met a dummy yet who is on the Rules Committee.

And I am done. What am I supposed to do now?

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask with respect that there be order in the Senate and conversations be taken off the floor.

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 5414 and ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, this amendment would instruct our Rules Committee to come up with an elections bill. It is my version of the SAVE America Act, but you can call it what you want.

It would ask the Rules Committee to do two things: require that in Federal elections you have to be an American citizen to vote and provide for the provisions to enforce that.

No. 2, it would require that in Federal elections you have to prove you are who you say you are in order to vote, and it would provide provisions to enforce that.

No. 3, under this, it further instructs the Rules Committee that we are going to go back to having an election day and not an election month, and it instructs the Rules Committee to provide the provisions to enforce that.

Now, I did not just pull this bill yesterday out of my rectum, though I will concede sometimes I do my best thinking there.

I have been talking about this bill for a month, so it should come as no surprise. Now, some say it can't be done under the Budget Act and under the Byrd rule and reconciliation, and you know what? They may be right.

But you know what else? They can't predict the future. They are not clairvoyant. They have to wait on the future like the rest of us.

I hope you won't vote against this bill just because President Trump has talked about it, this amendment, rather. If you think this is just a Republican issue, then you are not revolving in the same direction as planet Earth.

There are plenty of Democrats and plenty of Independents that are worried about the integrity of our elections, and this would allow the Rules Committee to try to resolve some of their concerns.

I trust the Rules Committee; there is not a dummy on there. There are plenty of Republicans and plenty of Democrats. There are a lot of smart lawyers in the U.S. Senate, but they are not the only smart lawyers in America. And, in fact, believe it or not, there are some lawyers not in the Senate who are smarter than we are, and I trust the Rules Committee to go find them and try to craft a bill to fit within reconciliation, working with our esteemed Parliamentarian.

Last two points: If this amendment passes, and I hope it will, the Rules Committee is going to have to saddle up and ride. I am asking them to do it within weeks, days, if possible. That is probably too ambitious. If they have to work weekends, I will stay here with them. Fine, do what you think is right. Don't vote against this just because President Trump has talked about it. Follow your heart. Take your brain with you.

I respect everybody in this body. Everybody. If you vote against this bill, I

am not going to say a word, and I am sure as hell not going to go on social media and call you an ignorant slut. That is not the way I roll, unless I am pushed too far.

I yield back.

Madam President, we will never know until we try.

Pursuant to section 904, with respect to my colleague, I move to waive, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

Mr. President, with me today is Mr. John Lowery one of my colleagues from my office.

I think I get it, Mr. President. I know you do. Tonight, millions of moms and dads will lie down to sleep, and they won't be able to because they are worried. One of the things that they are going to be worrying about is the cost of living. I get it.

We had really bad inflation under President Biden. It was, like, 9 percent. The President just spent so much money and injected so much money in the economy without increasing supply that prices went through the roof. That is what inflation is: creating more demand than supply. And prices went up.

We have gotten it down to about 3 percent--the inflation rate I am talking about. It jumped up a little last month--about 90, 95 basis points as a result of the price of gas, but I think after the fighting stops in Iran, the price of gas will come back.

That doesn't mean the problem is solved. When you reduce inflation from 9 percent to 3 percent, that is good, but all that means is that prices are rising much quicker. They were going up really quickly when they were rising at 9 percent. Now that they are back down to rising 3 percent, that is better, but they are still going up.

What people want--what I want, from one perspective--is deflation. You want prices to go down, not to just rise less quickly. Well, the problem with deflation is that we can cause deflation, but the cure will be worse than the disease because we will have to endure unemployment of 9 or 10 percent, and I don't want to see that many Americans--I don't want to see any Americans, but I certainly don't want to see that many Americans thrown out of work.

So what do we do about the cost of living? Look, no amount--no amount--of guilt can change the past. It can't. It doesn't mean you shouldn't learn from the past, but no amount of guilt can change it. And no amount of anxiety can change the future. I mean, it is human nature to worry, but it is not going to change the future.

The only thing we have is the present if we want to make things better. I want to tell you what we are doing--we are doing. We passed a major piece of legislation that is just starting to take effect. It is going to impact every American. They came up with a new name for it because they didn't like the old name, but I kind of like the old name so that is what I am going to call it: the One Big Beautiful Bill. It is really breathtaking in its scope--and will be in its effect.

We cut taxes. Right now--don't take my word for it, just pick up the phone and arbitrarily call some Americans who have filed their taxes. They are getting money back. The average tax refund is up, like, 11 percent. The average American who normally gets a refund and who is already filing is going to get what works out to be an extra $250 to $300 a month, so that is going to help them deal with the higher prices.

We also extended the prior tax cuts from 2017 that were about to expire. We made them permanent. Anybody who voted against making them permanent wanted to raise your taxes by $3.4 trillion. We beat them back.

We increased the standard deduction. Whether you get a refund or not, you are going to pay lower taxes because we increased the standard deduction. We gave Americans a larger child tax credit. We cut taxes for many Americans on Social Security. We cut taxes on tips. We cut taxes on overtime. We gave many Americans a deduction on the interest they pay for a car loan. Not everybody--I don't want to overstate the case here--but many Americans, and I hope you qualify.

For people in business--most businesses in America today are small businesses. I know you read about Google and Meta and all of the biggies, but most businesses in America and most of the jobs in America are created by small businesses. And most of the small businesses are what we call LLCs or sub S corporations. They are passthroughs. They are passthroughs. And we have provided that they don't have to pay any income tax on their first 20 percent of income. That may sound complicated; it is really not. But I can tell you it means more money in the pockets of small business women and small business men.

If you are in business, we have also provided for full expensing of research and development, full expensing of new equipment and machinery. Why does that matter? That means you can buy new equipment to grow your business and deduct it from your income tax, which lowers your taxes.

This is a major piece of legislation, and it is taking effect now. It is not going to solve the problem completely, but it is going to go a long way because the best way to deal with inflation is to grow your way out of it. If prices are going up between 2 and 3 percent, rather than suffering 10, 8, 12 percent unemployment to get prices down, to have deflation, you are better off increasing income so people's wages and income will go up faster than prices. And that is what the One Big Beautiful Bill is going to do.

So don't think we are not doing something. We are. We have. And that bill is just starting to take effect right now.

The second thing we have done--and I am not going to talk about all of them. We have a problem with housing in America. You don't have to be an astrophysicist to figure that one out. You don't have to be able to explain the law of special relativity to know that the cost of a home is breathtaking or to know that rents have gone up. Why is that? It is because of the lack of supply. Duh. It is because of a lack of supply.

So what do you do to make a new home or a used home more affordable? What do you do to make rents go down? You increase the supply. And that is what we are trying to do.

I sit on the Banking Committee. We have passed--the Senate has-- twice, a housing bill. It is right in front of the House of Representatives right now, and I hope my friends in the House pass it.

I will tell you one of the things it will do. It will increase housing starts. If you don't think this works, just go read an article about what is going on in Austin. They increased the housing supply in Austin. You know, rents are dropping in Austin like a fat guy on a seesaw. They are going down. Why? Because they increased supply.

Our bill I hope the House will pass will offer local governments-- local governments control the supply of housing. It is not the Federal Government. It is not the State government. It is local government. Do you know why? Because they have control of the zoning office, and they have to give you--the contractors--the permits to build. If they want to restrict the supply of housing, they just make it very difficult to build a new home. If they want to expand the supply of housing, they make it easy.

For a variety of reasons I won't go into, many local governments have been restricting the supply of housing. So what our bill does--we say: Look, that is up to you, local government. It is your call. We don't want to be in charge of zoning laws in America. We don't want to be in charge, at the Federal level, of permitting. But you do rely on us for money.

Every year, we send about $3.3 billion--$3.3 billion every year like clockwork--to local governments, called community development block grants. They love it. It is free money, and they can pretty much spend that $3.3 billion--these local governments can--on anything within reason that they want to. They love this free money.

So what we did--this is in the housing bill, among other things that we passed--we said: Look, this $3.3 billion, you like it?

Yeah.

Well, if you will increase your housing starts--here is the good news. We started out with the sugar. We said: If you will increase your housing starts--you don't have to, but if you will increase housing starts in your city or local area, we will give you an extra dose of that community development block grant money.

Here is the bad news for them. And we also said: Now, you don't have to increase housing starts, but if you don't, we are going to pay the cities that did increase their housing starts with the money that we were giving you that you don't get because you chose not to.

So this bill isn't going to cost the American taxpayer any more money. The $3.3 billion is going to remain the same. But those cities that do a better job of increasing housing are going to get more money. Where is that money going to come from? It is going to come from the cities that didn't want to increase housing starts. And it will work. All you have to do is go look and see what is going on in Austin.

I have two more topics I want to talk about.

(Mr. MORENO assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, look, everybody has got an opinion about Iran. I get it. That is good. Americans are entitled to have an opinion. Every Member of the Senate has an opinion. Every Member of the House has an opinion. Obviously, the President has an opinion. The Pope has an opinion. Everybody has an opinion, and that is a good thing.

I can tell you why I think we did the right thing by going into Iran. First of all, the people of Iran are wonderful people. I am not talking about the people; I am talking about their government, which is run by their Supreme Leader. Now, the old Supreme Leader is now as dead as Woodrow Wilson, but they have a new Supreme Leader. It is the son of the old Supreme Leader, and he is just as crazy as his daddy was.

The people in charge in Iran--they are a theocracy. That means, unlike America, where we separate church and state, in there, they marry their church to their state. And the Supreme Leader, who rules Iran, thinks that he is speaking for God. He really thinks God is telling him to do all this stuff. The Supreme Leader believes that if you disagree with his version of his religion, you should die.

They hate America, and they hate Israel. They do. They want to kill us and hurt us the entire time we are dying.

They are trying to get a nuclear weapon. This isn't like China having a nuclear weapon or Russia or India or Pakistan.

Let me ask you a question. Would you give Charles Manson a nuclear weapon? That is what we are talking about here. Charles Manson is also as dead as Woodrow Wilson. But would you give a Charles Manson-type person a nuclear weapon? No. That is why we can't let the Supreme Leader and his minions in Iran have them.

Now, how do we stop them? Well, this is what Iran was up to. First of all, President Trump and Israel went in in June and bombed the living daylights out of their nuclear facilities, destroyed them substantially.

To develop a nuclear weapon, you have to have fissile material, enriched uranium. We hit their production facilities so hard that a lot of that uranium is buried underneath the ground, but it is still there, OK. We bombed the hell out of it, and we set them way back in terms of their nuclear ability, but it still exists.

We received intelligence saying that Iran has started to take some baby steps to restart their nuclear program that we bombed to hell and back last June. But that is not really why we went in. We also received intelligence that said Iran has a new game plan. The Supreme Leader-- nutty as a fruitcake--the Supreme Leader has decided--here is his game plan--he is going to double and triple missile production.

Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, also drones--they were producing those things at anywhere from 200 to 600 a month, maybe more, and the Supreme Leader was going to stockpile all these new missiles and these new drones, and then he was going to turn to America and Israel and the rest of the world and say: I am restarting the nuclear program. You can bomb me, you can bomb us if you want to, but we have got all these missiles, and some of these missiles can reach Berlin and Paris and London and Turkiye, and we are going to use them. The first thing we are going to do is destroy the Middle East. We don't care. We are Charles Manson. We are going to destroy the Middle East, and then we are going to start on anybody else that we are mad at.

We couldn't let that happen. We couldn't. So Israel and the President attacked. Now, whether you think it was a good idea or a bad idea, that is up to you. I can tell you the effect of it, though, because this-- the media won't report it, but this is undeniable. We hit Iran so hard, they are coughing up bones. The public sector but also

the private sector today in Iran--it doesn't give me any joy to say this. We had no choice. I don't know how they are standing. They are held together with duct tape and spit.

Israel and America ran 21,000 bombing runs. We bombed seaports, airports, the electrical grid, railroads, the petrochemical industry, the farm industry, their steel industry.

Six out of ten Iranians of adult age don't have a job and don't have any prospect of getting a job. Many parts of the country don't even have electricity.

We knocked out two-thirds of the Supreme Leader's missile launchers. Does he still have some left? Yeah. They are buried underground. He has to dig them out. You probably saw pictures on TV of the bulldozers. We think we have knocked out half of their cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. We are not sure how many drones.

They don't have an air force anymore in Iran. They don't have a navy either. They still have some small boats that the Revolutionary Guard, which is part of their military, runs, but they don't have a navy. We sunk all their ships. We attacked virtually every single building we know of which is run by the Revolutionary Guard, which is part of their military.

I don't think the American people, because the press hasn't reported it, have a full appreciation for the damage that we did and had to do. I have seen estimates as high as a trillion dollars for them to rebuild.

I know the press glibly reports: Oh, you know, China and Russia will help them build back. What is the point of the war?

Well, the point of the war: They are not going to have a nuclear weapon anytime soon. Charles Manson may be able to find a knife, but he is not going to have a nuclear weapon.

And in order to rebuild Iran, it is going to take 20 to 25 years. And I don't know if we will be able to recover all of the enriched uranium. Some of my Democratic colleagues and some of our colleagues in the media are saying: It is a failure because you didn't get their enriched uranium.

I never figured we would get it.

And a lot of my colleagues are saying: Well, it is a failure because you didn't effect regime change; that nutjobs are still in charge.

That is true. We can't dictate regime change. That is up to the Iranian people. The only way we can dictate regime change is sending in troops, and I don't want to do that.

But the fact of the matter is that if you think the theocracy run by the Government of Iran--the Charlie Mansons--who is dangerous to the world--and I do--then the world is a much safer place today, and that is just a fact. That is a fact.

It is going to be a long time before Charlie Manson can rebuild, and it is going be a hell of a long time before the new Supreme Leader is going to get a nuclear weapon.

Third and final point. I don't know whether I will do this, but I will just do it. I don't hate anybody. I have said that before standing here, I don't. I do not. When I pray, I pray. God, don't let me hate because it is hard up here. It is not worth it.

But if I had a short list of people that I would consider hating, Congressman Eric Swalwell would be on it. He has undermined the confidence of the American people in this body.

Here is my impression of Congressman Eric Swalwell eating an ice cream cone.

You know why I do that? Life is hard, but it is harder when you are stupid. And if you are going to be stupid, by God, you better be tough. This is no country for creepy old men, and Congressman Swalwell, he is about to find that out. Karma may be slow, but it is almost always on time.

I yield to my friend Senator Kelly.

Mr. President, I move that, for the remainder of the votes this evening, all votes be limited to 17 minutes and, at the end of 17 minutes, voting automatically expire ipso facto without any discretion whatsoever.

Mr. President, I have a resolution that I have talked about before. I want to emphasize that it is not a bill.

Could I ask for order in the Chamber?

I want to emphasize that it is a resolution; it is not a bill. I also want to emphasize, at the outset, that it only applies to the Senate. It only applies to the U.S. Senate.

And here is what my resolution would do: It would change Senate rules to provide that, when we are in a shutdown, Senators cannot be paid, cannot receive their salaries. Their checks would be--think of it this way--locked in a vault. And once the shutdown is over, the Senators could pick them up.

Now, I think everybody in the Congress knows what I am about to say. It is maybe a bit cynical, but it is true. If I were King for a day--I am not, and I don't aspire to be--and I wanted to avoid shutdowns, I would do two things. I would provide that Members of Congress can't be paid during a shutdown, and I would provide that Members of Congress can't leave Washington, DC, during a shutdown.

Now, I can't pass the second part of that, so I am going to try to pass the first part of that.

This resolution--again, it is not a bill--is about shared sacrifice. And I am not doing it to punish anybody. I am not doing it to try to embarrass anybody. I recognize that there are varying degrees of wealth among U.S. Senators and their ability to go without a paycheck.

I know and like every Member of this body, and every Member of this body who has a substantial amount of wealth has achieved that wealth through their own hard work, and most, if not all, of them started with nothing. And do you know what I say? God bless them. More power to them. That is America.

So I want to put that up front because I am sure some are going to point out that some of our Members are wealthier than others, and it is true. I mean, not to single anybody out, but I have seen Senator Rick Scott's house. It is bigger than a Costco, OK? More power to him. He earned that. I have seen Senator Mark Warner's house. It is bigger than a Target. More power to him. He earned that money. He started from nothing. So did Rick.

But this bill isn't about that. It is about shared sacrifice and sending a message. We have about a squillion employees at the Department of Homeland Security that aren't being paid, and there is no prospect of them being paid.

Before I yield to my colleague Senator Moreno, I want to point this out. I said it yesterday, but I am going to say it again. The party line among us is that we are ``that close'' to reaching a deal to get government back open, to which I respond respectfully: Dream weaver. OK? I don't believe it. I hope I am wrong.

I know Mr. Homan is now involved. He is good, but he can't work miracles. I do not believe, because of the faction of my Democratic friends' party that is in control, that my Democratic colleagues can vote for anything--anything--that could be interpreted as helping ICE. I just think that is political and policy reality. This is America; they are entitled to their opinion.

What I think we should do, as I said yesterday--and Senator Cruz has talked about this eloquently. I want to give him full credit. The Democrats have offered to open every part of DHS except ICE. I would gratefully accept their offer. Let's get them open immediately, and then the very next day, we should start a budget resolution. Through reconciliation, we should pass a budget for the rest of ICE--the rest of DHS that is not open.

Now, I would welcome my Democratic friends' involvement with that, but I know they can't vote for it. But we could do this through reconciliation, as we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. We have two more shots under the rules of reconciliation. It would easily be sustained in a Byrd bath. It would not take 60 votes; it would take 50 votes plus the Vice President. That is how we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill.

So before I call on Mr. Moreno and return to the subject, I really think we ought to surprise ourselves and do something intelligent if we really want to get this government back open. We could have it open within a week. The Democrats, I think, will find that acceptable, and I believe Republicans will find that acceptable if we would just do it.

I would like to yield a few minutes to my good friend Senator Moreno about my resolution.

Of course.

Sure.

Here, Mr. President and my good friend Senator Moreno, is the message that we send if we do not pass this resolution: If it weren't for double standards, we wouldn't have any standards at all. If it weren't for double standards, we wouldn't have any standards at all.

Now, the American people see what is going on. As I have said before, not every American reads Aristotle every day. They are too busy earning a living. They are too busy getting up, going to work, obeying the law, trying to do the right thing by their kids.

As usual, Senator Moreno makes very salient points. He is aware, as am I, that once again, this is a resolution that just affects the Senate. It doesn't affect the House.

Senator Moreno is well aware, as am I and every Member of this body, that this is a bipartisan resolution. To change the Senate rules, I had to go through the Rules Committee. My resolution--our resolution passed the Rules Committee unanimously. Every single Republican and every single Democrat voted for this resolution.

What I hear Senator Moreno saying in a very eloquent way: Yes, there are varying degrees of wealth in this Chamber, but we all make 170 grand a year, and that is a fortune for most Americans.

I am not saying that Senators don't earn that. This bill is not meant to punish anybody. I know some Senators who work so hard that that 170 grand a year is probably equivalent to about $11 an hour. I mean, they are working all the time. This isn't about that.

This is about shared values. This is about sending a message to our colleagues at TSA and elsewhere in DHS that we understand, that we are trying to get government back open. But in the meantime we are going to try in our small way to share your experience.

So I would ask my colleagues, please--I don't like to talk too much about doing the right thing because I think everybody in this body wants to do the right thing. We just disagree sometimes over what the right thing is. But honestly, I don't see how any one of my colleagues can disagree with either the spirit or the letter of this resolution.

So, Mr. President, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 296, S. Res. 526, which Senator Moreno and I have just talked

about; further, that the resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, with respect, I want to give my colleague Senator Schatz more time. He objected and left the Chamber. Is he coming back?

Just one second. Is he ill? What should I do, Mr. President? Should I give him more time?

Mr. President, can we get a ruling? I don't want to be unfair to anybody. My Democratic colleagues, I told them that--

So should we give Senator Schatz more time to come back? Should we give him more time to come back and explain?

I see the Parliamentarian giving some guidance.

Tony, trust me; I know what I am doing.

May I inquire why not?

Can you opine on why my colleague objected and then immediately left and whether he is coming back?

So I just want to be sure, Mr. President. I am not trying to put you on the spot, but I see our Parliamentarian is here, and they can give you able advice. Does that mean I can object to anything, at any time, without being recognized?

I don't even have to get the floor?

So I can walk in, in the middle of a debate, without the floor, right back here, in front of God and country, and say ``I object,'' and it shuts things down? I don't understand that.

Without having the floor?

And, again, with respect, Mr. President, is your ruling that Senator Schatz, who is my friend; I talked to him before I was coming down--that he did not have the floor but he can still object?

But did he have the floor?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but did he have the floor?

Senator Moreno, did you want to say something?

Mr. President, I think the Senator is right. You started out your comments by saying: Where are we? I think we are on Pluto.

I mean, I do not understand how the Chair has ruled that the Senator didn't have recognition but he could still object, and I don't understand how that is possible. I just don't understand how that is possible. In fact, our whole rule about the majority leader having control of the floor, whoever the majority leader is, is centered around the proposition that, at any time, the majority leader can assert his right--it is a custom, not a law--can assert his right to control this floor and that shuts down my recognition. But he has to get recognition.

He just can't come in here and say: Stop talking; I am the majority leader. And I don't understand how a Senator can object--I don't understand how a Senator can do anything in this body without achieving recognition. That is like--that is--I am no expert on the Senate rules like the President is and the Parliamentarian is, but you don't have to be an astrophysicist to understand that is one of our bedrock rules.

Yes, Senator.

Well, I will do that, but I don't want to be unfair to my Democratic colleagues. I don't believe in surprising people. Senator Schatz told me--we had a conversation last night--he said he was going to object. I respect that. And if he has left the building, I don't want to go behind his back.

So I don't want to do that unless you can communicate with him. Is he still here? Mr. President, do we know if Senator Schatz is still here? Because I would like to urge reconsideration, but I don't want to blindside him.

Who should I ask that to? Tuck? Tuck says: Don't bring me into this. Gary? I mean, I would like to urge a reconsideration, but I am not going to do it and blindside Brian.

Can I bring it back later? Could I get a ruling on that? Could I ask that we contact Senator Schatz and tell him I am thinking about reconsidering but I don't want to blindside him, Mr. President?

What if I made a motion? Could I move that we contact Senator Schatz and tell him I would like to move to reconsider but I don't want to blindside him?

I just made it up. You are telling me I can't do that under the rules? Why not? I don't get it. I mean, I could move to reconsider and blindside him, but I don't want to do that. So why can't I move to reconsider subject to us waiting for Brian to get back so he has a full opportunity to be heard? Can I do that?

Sure, there is. I just made it. Are you saying that the motion is out of order? Look, this is a serious matter.

This is a serious matter. Now, we have established that this resolution doesn't affect the House. It just says to the Senators: While we are in a shutdown, no Senator is going to be paid. You don't lose your money. You pick it up after it is over, after the shutdown is lifted.

We have established the fact that this went through the Rules Committee unanimously. Did I mention it went through unanimously, that every single Democrat and every single Republican said: Yes, Kennedy; let's do this.

We have established that even though there are varying degrees of wealth among Members of the Senate--and I say that is great--every single Senator makes at least $170,000 here. They are not going to lose a penny--not one single, solitary penny. Once the shutdown is over, they get their money. We have established that. We have established that there are 260,000--not 2,600, not 26,000--260,000 of our colleagues working in the department of health and hospitals that are not being paid.

And a lot of these people do not have immense wealth, but they are not being paid because of our conduct. And I think we have established that this is a chance to show, in a little bitty way--a minor way, a baby step--that we are going to share their sacrifice.

And there has been an objection. I heard that ruling from the Chair. But for the life of me, I don't know how you can object without seeking recognition, without having recognition. I have never heard that one, OK. We are getting into the foothills of la-la land here as far as I am concerned.

Now, I just made a motion. I want to bring this bill to be reconsidered. And all I am asking--I don't want to blindside my friend Senator Schatz. I don't play that way. I want to give him full opportunity. All I am asking is that somebody call Senator Schatz and let him know that I am going to move to reconsider and I don't want to do it behind his back. That is all I am asking. So I make that motion. Is there an objection?

Well, there you go. My good friend--the Senator didn't have--she didn't have recognition either. How is that possible?

All right. I am coming back, Mr. President. And I am coming back and I am coming back and I am coming back. Did I mention I will be back? And if a Member of this body disagrees with what I am doing, then, by God, they ought to come down here and stand up in front of the U.S. Senate and stand up in front of the American people and stand up in front of God and stand up in front of country and stand up in front of all these people--these good people that aren't being paid--and say: Here is why.

Maybe we need to change the Senate rules, Mr. President. I appreciate your patience.

And I would like to ask, Mr. President--this probably is an improper motion, too--I have got to delve a little bit more on this improper motion stuff.

I want to see the rule that says I can't do what I just tried to do, and I want to see it bigger than Dallas. I don't want to see that it is implied or is a penumbra, and I want to see the rule that says somebody can come into this body without recognition and be heard because I don't believe it, and anybody that believes that--no disrespect-- shouldn't be driving.

Mr. President, I move to have the quorum call be suspended.

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

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

I will be back.

Mr. President, with me today is Mr. John Lowery, one of my colleagues from my office.

As the Presiding Officer knows, Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress have a dispute over funding the Department of Homeland Security. And it is such a serious dispute that that Department is shut down.

Now, every now and then, there is a dispute in Washington, DC, that says something prophetic--something prophetic about the future of western civilization. This is not it. This dispute is silly.

Every single Member of this body knows how important the Department of Homeland Security is. Most people recently think that Homeland Security is border security, and ICE, interior security of our immigration system.

But Homeland Security is responsible for so much more. FEMA is part of Homeland Security. It is shut down. The Coast Guard is part of our Department of Homeland Security. It is shut down.

The CISA dealing with cyber security is part of Department of Homeland Security. It is shut down. The TSA is part of Homeland Security. They are working without pay, and not all of our colleagues in the TSA are working. This is the result, and it is going to get worse.

Now, for reasons that I don't--well, let me put this a different way. Some would argue and the party line is that we are making progress in terms of resolving this dispute. That is not true.

I mean, I know that is the party line and conventional wisdom, and every now and then you will see a reporter report that, but it is not true. For reasons I don't completely understand, for a while my Democratic friends said: We are only going to negotiate with the White House. And they have been negotiating with the White House for some time, but they are nowhere near agreement.

Recently, some of my Democratic colleagues have met with two of my Republican colleagues and Mr. Tom Homan--it happened yesterday--to see if we could make progress. Again, the conventional wisdom, the party line that we are supposed to tell everybody is that we are making progress, but I have spoken directly with the people who were at that meeting yesterday here among just Senators and Mr. Homan. On a scale of 1 to 10--I will describe it as they described it to me--about a minus 17. We made no progress, and I regret that, but I understand it.

Let me see if I can state--I don't say this disrespectfully. I try to--what I am about to say, I want people to know I am serene in saying this, and I don't mean to offend anyone, but we all know what is going on.

Our Democratic friends will agree to open up TSA, thank you. To open up FEMA, to open up the Coast Guard, to open up the CISA, thank you, thank you, thank you. But they haven't agreed, despite concessions on our side, to open up ICE. And they are not going to. It is not going to happen in your or my natural lifetime.

And if you have been following this debate and you understand the politics,

you don't need to be able to explain the theory of special relativity to know what is going on. It is not complicated.

Parties have wings, factions within their parties. I am a Republican; we have factions. Democrats also have factions. And a specific faction of the Democratic Party right now is in control. That is just a fact.

You could call it the progressive wing; some call it that. The more cynical call it the loon wing of the Democratic Party. I on occasion have referred to it as the Karen wing of the Democratic Party. The Karen wing wants to defund ICE, and they will accept nothing less.

Now, this is the same wing of their party that also wanted to defund the police. How did that work out for us? This is the same wing of their party that has a very novel way to reduce the crime rate in America: Just don't prosecute anyone, and our crime rate goes to zero.

Now, I don't mean to paint with too broad a brush. Not all my Democratic friends agree with the loon, the Karen wing of their party-- they don't--just like not all Republicans are part of the factions in my party. But it is a fact that the Karen wing of the Democratic Party is in ascendancy, and it is firmly in control.

And any Democrat--we all know this--that agrees to any kind of compromise with respect to ICE is going to be punished to the rest of their natural lives. They can't do it, and they are not going to.

Now, we can keep having meetings and discussing it; we have been doing it for weeks. Most of these meetings could easily be accomplished with an email. I have been part of the discussions in our conference. I am convinced that listening to the same thing over and over and over again is lowering my IQ, when we know that nothing is going to resolve this because my Democratic friends politically can't agree to a compromise about ICE.

So here is what I think we ought to do: I think that we should accept the Democrats' offer to open up TSA and to open up FEMA and to open up Coast Guard and to open up and fund CISA. Let's get that done. Let's shorten these lines, and then the day after we do that, Republicans need to file a reconciliation bill, which is the same way we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill, and on our own, we need to come up with a budget for ICE. It is the only way to solve this problem.

Now, as the Presiding Officer knows, under the Budget Control Act, we can pass legislation. There are parameters on us, but that only requires 51 votes. That is how we passed the One Big Beautiful Bill. Under the rules, we are allowed to do two more reconciliations, so we have two bullets left. For reasons that I don't completely understand-- well, strike that. I think I do understand. I just don't agree with them--some on my side are reluctant to do any more reconciliations. And they are hard, OK? I know they are hard. They are hard for my Democratic friends when they do it, and they are hard for us when we do it. You know, that is what we were sent here for, is to do hard things. I mean, med school was hard, but we still have a lot of great doctors. We ought to do our job. That is the only way I can see that we are going to be able to break the stalemate.

So let me say again what I would do if I were King for a day. I am not, and I don't aspire to be. I would accept my Democratic friends' offer to immediately open up the TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, the CISA-- every part of the Department of Homeland Security except ICE. I would stop looking reality in the eye and denying it and accept the fact that my Democratic colleagues, because of their internal politics, will never be able to reach an agreement with respect to ICE. It is not going to happen. In the meantime, these lines get longer.

So, once we can get that agreement with our Democratic colleagues, the very next day, we start a resolution in the Budget Committee, and we do a second reconciliation bill. We fund ICE and border security-- what is still shut down in Homeland Security--like we want to. I would welcome my Democrats to work with us on a bill, but they will not. We only need 51 votes to do it. Then the government--all of government--is back open.

Now, there are other things that we could do in that reconciliation bill. I have talked about them, and I am not going to repeat what I said yesterday. My side feels very strongly about the SAVE Act. We believe that only Americans--citizens of our country--should be able to vote, and we believe that you shouldn't be able to vote unless you can prove you are who you say you are.

My Democratic colleagues, in my trying to be as serene and objective as I can, come back and say: Yes, but there is another side of this argument. It is already against the law to not be a citizen and try to register.

And I understand that.

Then they come back and make the point: Well, you cannot show me where we have had a lot of instances of illegal immigrants actually voting.

And I understand that--those are fair points--but that is not what we are fighting about.

What we are fighting about is that President Biden, for whatever reason, admitted between--I don't know how many--8 million, 12 million, 15 million, 20 million people illegally into our country. He did--we all watched him do it--and we don't even know where these people are. We don't. Some of them were children. We don't know where all the children are. We don't.

I am not saying all of those folks were bad people. I am not saying that. A lot of them were economic migrants. They just wanted better lives, and so they wanted to come to America. They chose not to do it through legal immigration. If they would do it legally, we could consider admitting them--we admit a million people a year of our world's neighbors to become American citizens--but they came illegally because, frankly, President Biden said to do it, and they did it.

Not everybody was Cinderella who came in. Some people who came in were criminals. They were murderers. They were rapists. They were drug dealers. They were sex traffickers. We all know that. That is what our ICE, right now, is trying to do. It is trying to find these people who shouldn't be in any country--their own, ours, anywhere. They ought to be jailed and fined.

But here is my point: As a result--and we all saw it happen, and the American people saw it happen. They get it. The American people may not read Aristotle every day--they are too busy earning a living--but they get it. And a whole bunch of Americans believe, whether it is true or not--and I am not saying it is true. I am not saying it isn't true because I think some of my Democratic colleagues believe this--but many Americans--millions of Americans--have concluded that this was all by design; that these 8, 10, 15, 20 million people who were admitted illegally into America was a way to try to bolster the Democratic Party. So these folks will be beholden to the Democratic Party and will try to vote and/or, once they become citizens, if they become citizens, will vote for Democrats.

Again, some of the commentators who go catatonic and foam at the mouth when I talk about this--but we all know it is true--call this the replacement theory. I am not saying all Democrats believe that, and I am not here to say it is true or not, though I think there are some of my Democratic friends who believe that. But that is not the point. The point is the American people believe it, so they no longer trust our electoral system, and our elections are not worth a damn if people don't accept the result. If they don't trust the system, they are not going to accept the result.

That is why we are moving the SAVE Act. I support it unconditionally. We are going to have difficulty passing it. That much is clear. So, as part of a reconciliation bill for us to get ICE back up and running, I would include the SAVE Act as part of that reconciliation bill as well. We wouldn't need 60 votes. We wouldn't need 55 votes. We would only need 51 votes. We passed the One Big Beautiful Bill with 50 votes, with the Vice President breaking the tie.

Again, I feel like I am repeating some of what I said yesterday.

Some of my colleagues are going to say: Kennedy, you know, you need to back away from the crank. You can't do this through reconciliation. You can't do the SAVE Act through reconciliation.

And I tell them: I have been here 10 years, and we can do what the Parliamentarian says we can do. I have seen measures get approved under the Budget Control Act--we call it a Byrd bath--that I thought didn't have a chance, and I have seen others not get approved that were slam dunks.

As I said, I am in the minority on this even among my Republican colleagues. I don't mean this to sound bad, but sometimes the majority just means all the fools are on the same side. I am not calling my colleagues fools, but I am saying this is worth a try. I would go get a really smart lawyer and ask him to help us craft a SAVE Act that can survive a Byrd bath. I would do those two things in reconciliation or at least open up ICE through reconciliation. We don't need to do it with Democratic support.

I have been thinking about this for a while. Senator Cruz talked about this much more eloquently than I did at our luncheon yesterday. I hope Ted will come down and share with you, at some point, his thoughts on it. I see Senator Cornyn here. They are two pretty smart lawyers who could help us craft something.

I just wanted to come spend a few minutes and offer my point of view on that.

I thank the Presiding Officer for hearing me out and for being serene and patient and all that other good stuff.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, with me today is Mr. Matt Turner, one of my colleagues from my office.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the mandatory quorum call with respect to Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147, and let's start the vote as we were supposed to do at 1:45.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use a prop during my remarks.

Mr. President, before I go to my topics, I want to recognize one of my colleagues, Mr. Connor Domingue. He is sitting to my right, your left.

Connor has been one of my colleagues for a while. I rely on him a lot, including for counseling with respect to healthcare. Connor is a graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

He is leaving me. I hate to see him go. I am happy for him--sad for me, happy for him. He is going back home to Louisiana to take a job in Louisiana State government. And I asked him to come down today to just thank him for giving so much to his country--Connor.

Coffee

Mr. President, I want to talk about two rather diverse topics, coffee and our friends in the United Kingdom.

About 90 percent of my personal philosophy is: Don't hurt someone unless they are trying to hurt you. Don't take other people's stuff. And leave me alone.

I believe in free will. I believe God gave us all free will. With that free will goes responsibility.

I don't need government to tell me how to live my life. That doesn't mean I don't support reasonable rules and regulations and laws. But I don't need government to micromanage my life. That is what I mean when I say: ``Leave me alone.''

Earlier this month--it might have been the last part of last month--I noticed that Secretary Kennedy started talking about coffee. Particularly, he mentioned Starbucks coffee.

Now, I voted for Secretary Kennedy to be the President's choice. I like Secretary Kennedy. I don't agree with everything that Secretary Kennedy has said and done. We have some differences. I use a toilet seat to sit on. I won't go any further on that.

But one of the things I support Secretary Kennedy on is trying to make the American people more cognizant about what they are eating, not to tell them what they can eat and drink but to make them aware. And so I heard Bobby talking about Starbucks coffee--pretty popular. I am paraphrasing what he said, but he commented on how bad it is for you.

So I scratched my head and said: You know, I am going to look into this. So I did. This is a cup of Starbucks coffee. I know that doesn't give you any frame of reference, but I checked--the most popular Starbucks coffee drink is a caramel macchiato--caramel macchiato. Now, I don't know what that is. I haven't had it. I generally don't drink coffee that takes 10 or more words to order. But I am told that Starbucks' most popular drink is the caramel macchiato. It will cost you, at Union Station--here is a macchiato cup from Starbucks. I am told it will cost you $6.88 to buy a large caramel macchiato at Union Station.

Now, again, I am not telling people what to drink or how to spend their money, but I will tell you if you want to come by my office, you can get coffee for free. It won't be a caramel macchiato, but it is pretty dang good coffee.

But be that as it may, I said: You know, I have got to look into what is in a caramel macchiato. Here is what is in a caramel macchiato: milk, brewed espresso, vanilla syrup--I didn't know what vanilla syrup was. I found out that vanilla syrup is sugar, water, natural flavors, potassium sorbate, and citric acid. Also in a caramel macchiato is caramel sauce. Makes sense. That is why they call it a caramel macchiato. Caramel sauce is sugar, corn syrup, butter, cream, milk, and salt.

Also in a caramel macchiato is water, heavy cream, nonfat dry milk, natural flavors, salt, mono and diglycerides--I probably mispronounced that--soy lecithin--I probably mispronounced that too, but I don't know what the hell it is anyway--and sulfites.

Now, not to put too fine a point on it, but in a caramel macchiato, there are 310 calories; 80 of those calories come from fat. The total fat in a caramel macchiato is 9 grams. Saturated fat is 6 grams; cholesterol, 35 milligrams; sodium, 190 milligrams--whoa, Nellie--total carbohydrates, 44 grams; protein, 13 grams; and caffeine, 150 milligrams.

Of the total of 44 grams of carbohydrates--the sugar got my attention--42 grams of that is sugar. That is about 85 percent of your recommended daily sugar intake. So one of these, you have got 85 percent of the amount of sugar that you are supposed to take in for the day. Fat intake, one of these provides you with 30 percent of your recommended daily saturated fat intake and 12 percent of your recommended daily cholesterol intake.

Again, I am not criticizing anybody--well, there goes the caramel macchiato. Grab it for me there.

I am not telling anybody what to do or not to do. I am just pointing out the facts. A caramel macchiato has as much sugar as 12 Chips Ahoy cookies. A caramel macchiato has as much sugar as four Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts. A caramel macchiato--the most popular drink at Starbucks--has as much sugar as two servings of Breyers cookies and cream ice cream. It has as much sugar as one Chick-fil-A brownie. And it has about as much sugar as about 50 percent of a medium McDonald's chocolate milkshake. You can burn off the calories, though, if you run 3 miles to burn off the calories.

So, again, I am not here to tell people what they should drink or not drink or eat or not drink, but I wanted the American people, to the extent that they are listening and that they care to understand, why I think Secretary Kennedy made the point that he made about coffee that takes 10 or more words to order--and specifically Starbucks coffee.

Iran

Now, the second thing I want to talk about, our friends in the United Kingdom--and they are our friends. I love the people of the United Kingdom. I do. I went to school there for a while. They are wonderful people. They deserve better than the government that they are being given right now. I don't mean any disrespect in saying this, but I am not a big fan of the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Starmer. The United Kingdom was founded by geniuses, but at the moment, it is being run by idiots.

We entered Iran because we had no choice. I don't want America to be the world's policemen; I do not. But on occasion, some of the bad guys in the world decide they are going to be the world's policemen, and it requires us to intervene, and that is why we are in Iran--if I said Iraq, I made a mistake--that is why we are in Iran.

The President did not enter Iran to start a war. He entered Iran to prevent a war. Let me tell you why I say that. Our intelligence clearly showed--categorically, unequivocally--that Iran had restarted its nuclear warhead program. And let me say, I love the people of Iran too. I mean that. I don't think much of their political leadership. The good people of Iran basically are being governed--before and, now, with the new Supreme Leader--by Jack Nicholson in The Shining. They are stone- cold crazy.

Their religion teaches them--their interpretation of their religion tells them that they have to kill people who don't interpret their religion the same way that they do, and when your religion tells you to kill somebody, as far as I am concerned, it is time to get a new religion. But be that as it may, our intelligence clearly showed that Iran had restarted its nuclear weapons program; and its plan was to produce so many ballistic missiles and, to some extent, cruise missiles and drones. In fact, they were producing between 200 and 600 ballistic missiles a month.

Our intelligence showed that their plan was to stockpile so many missiles and so many drones that if we reentered--or anyone reentered Iran to stop their new efforts to obtain a nuclear warhead, that they would annihilate the entire Middle East--the entire Middle East--and other countries they could reach, like Turkey. That is a fact. That is what the intelligence showed.

So the President, wanting to avoid a future war, said: I have got to intervene now. And here is our mission--I don't care what you have heard; this is what our mission is in Iran. We want to destroy their Navy. We want to destroy Iran's Air Force. We want to destroy Iran's missile production facilities. We want to destroy Iran's drone production facilities. We want to destroy or make them use as many of their missiles as they have--and their drones--and we want to attack and destroy the

infrastructure used by the Revolutionary Guard, and then we want to get out.

Now, there has been a lot of speculation by some of my Democratic friends that, well, the President is going to put boots on the ground. I don't believe that. I don't believe that. If the President puts boots on the ground, the thud you hear will be me face-planting from surprise. I will faint. How long will this take? I think a few more weeks, and then we will be out.

Was our intelligence right? You had better believe it was. What is the very first thing that the Iranian leadership did? They started attacking all of the other countries in the Middle East. They even fired a missile at Turkey. They even fired a missile at the United Kingdom, one of its bases in Cyprus.

Now, I give you this background so you will know why the President did what he did. Everything I just told you, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom knew. He had the same intelligence we had. When it came time for us to intervene, he said: You cannot use any United Kingdom air force bases or military bases--none, zero, nada. He specifically said you can't use Diego Garcia, the joint United States-United Kingdom military base in the Indian Ocean that Keir Starmer is trying to give away to Mauritius. You have heard me talk about it on the Senate floor. And Mauritius, of course, will welcome the Chinese.

Now, once the war started going the way of people who believe in freedom, Prime Minister Starmer changed his mind. Now, he says: You can use our bases.

Thank you very much. It is a little late. We don't need you.

He also is trying to give President Trump advice about how to conduct war. That is a little bit like seeking the advice of a nun about sex. So Keir Starmer is the last person you would want to go to, to advise you about how to have a military confrontation. He is the kind of guy that, if you are in the middle of a bar fight, he will want to stop and quote Socrates. That is what this is, a bar fight.

And so I decided after watching this circus without a tent, this goat rodeo that the Prime Minister has thrust upon the world, I said, you know, let me take a look at what the Prime Minister's plans are in terms of defense because, if you remember about a year ago January, the Prime Minister produced this report--that is all it was, was a report-- but he called it a root-and-branch strategic defense review, and its purpose was to settle the United Kingdom's military path for years to come.

It was ready last--not this past January, but the January before. He didn't produce it until this past summer.

The Prime Minister makes a big deal in his report. He says: We have changed our ways. We have been born again. We are now going to spend 2.6 of our GDP on defense by 2027.

I am thinking: Good for you. It is about time.

He said: This is going to be in line with all of our NATO allies--2.6 of our GDP on defense by 2027.

He said: By God, by 2035, we are going to be spending 3.5 percent.

I am thinking: Man, that is great.

And then I read the report. The cash is backloaded. He didn't bother to tell the people of the United Kingdom or NATO or the President. The cash is backloaded. He is not going to even start spending the money-- the real money--until the 2030s. That is 4 years from now. He is going to make it somebody else's problem. I can assure you the Prime Minister will not be the Prime Minister in 2030 and beyond. Talk about sleight of hand.

If you run the numbers, there is a great deal of inflation in defense production because so many countries now are starting to actually spend more money on defense--not promising to do so by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. So you have to factor in inflation.

Under the Prime Minister's plan to not even start spending the real money until 2030, the defense inflation is going to eat away at the amount of money that he has promised to spend. If you factor in reasonable defense production, the numbers come out to him actually spending 24 billion--$32 billion--less than he promised. Do you think he couldn't figure that out? His numbers guys know all about it. This is nothing but sleight of hand. In fact, one commentator in the United Kingdom has said it is even--it is worse. According to his computations, there is going to be a 28 billion gap over 4 years--over 4 years.

Now, the United Kingdom has also promised to work with us and Australia on building an Australian--a new attack submarine. Is the Prime Minister going to wait until 2030 to do that? We can't wait until 2030.

Now, look, these are the facts: The United Kingdom has about 140,000 soldiers, members of the military. And God bless every one of them. God bless every one of them. They are down 20 percent since 2012--and declining. To give you a frame of reference, the United States has 2.1 million members of the military. They have 140,000. It is 2.8 million if you include civilian support staff for our military.

So when we first heard that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was going to start spending 2.6 percent, up to 3.5 percent of GDP on defense, of course we got excited. It is about time that the people in Europe embrace adulthood and stop sending us the bill for their defense. So we were excited. I was excited. I was ready to come down here and congratulate the Prime Minister, and then I read the fine print. Sleight of hand. It is all sleight of hand.

Now, if I am wrong, I hope the Prime Minister will respond, but if I am right, shame on him. Shame on him for looking the good people of the United Kingdom in the eye and the good people of the world in the eye and lying and saying that the United Kingdom would do its part when the Prime Minister has no intention whatsoever.

The final point I will make--you have heard me: The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom wants to give away a military base, a joint military base that we own with the United Kingdom called Diego Garcia. It is in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The Prime Minister has decided he has to give it to Mauritius.

Mauritius never owned the Chagos Islands, one of which houses our military base. Mauritius has no connection to the Islands. But the United Nations told the Prime Minister that he should be ashamed and that the good people of the United Kingdom should be ashamed because of the United Kingdom's colonial past.

So Mr. Starmer, woke that he is, said: We have got to give it away, we want to give it away to Mauritius--who is just like this with China. You might as well just hand the keys to China.

To do that, Mr. Starmer has to get President Trump's permission, and I have been round and round with the President. I don't know how many times I have been on this floor talking about: Please stop it, Mr. President.

One day--I am not criticizing the President because he has to listen to his advisers. I get that. First, he was against it. Then, he was for it. Then, he was against it. Then, he was for it.

His last comment--I think he has figured Mr. Starmer, the Prime Minister, out. He said: No way, no how.

He said: No sir, no, ma'am, no way. I am not giving you permission.

Please stick, Mr. President. Please don't do it.

For us to give away that military base, which will end up in the hands of China, for us to give away one of the few places in the Indian Ocean that we can actually refuel our submarines, for us to give away what--this isn't hyperbole. It is one of the most important military bases in defense of the American people. For us to give it away would be unconscionable.

Tell Mr. Starmer no, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, March 11; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the Senate resume consideration of Calendar No. 343, H.R. 6644, Housing for the 21st Century Act; further, that all time during recess, adjournment, and leader remarks count postcloture on substitute amendment No. 4308 to Calendar No. 343, H.R. 6644.