Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of the fall 2025 Senate Page class be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk that is due for a second reading.

Mr. President, in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I would object to further proceedings.

Mr. President, today, we expect a vote on a resolution to direct the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities in or against Venezuela, even though--even though--the United States is not currently engaged in hostilities in or against Venezuela. That is right. We have no troops on the ground in Venezuela. We are not currently conducting military operations there. But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.

Here are the facts. Nicolas Maduro is a narcoterrorist who helped lead the so-called Cartel of the Suns. He advanced large-scale drug trafficking, armed an illegitimate militia, solicited arms for a terrorist organization, presided over unfree and unfair elections, targeted political opponents, and oversaw the killing of thousands, as a U.N. report outlined, to name just a few--just some of--his crimes. The United States did not recognize him as the legitimate leader of Venezuela. Neither did the European Union. And he was a fugitive of the U.S. justice system.

Back during the first Trump administration, Democrats were calling for the ouster of Maduro and for U.S. assistance in Venezuela and were criticizing the President for not going far enough in opposing the Maduro regime. President Biden raised the reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Maduro to $25 million. But then President Trump directs an isolated Special Forces raid in support of a valid warrant to capture Maduro so that he can be tried for drug crimes, and Democrats are falling all over themselves to criticize the seizure and arrest of this international criminal. Talk about Trump derangement syndrome.

It is funny; I don't remember Democrats trying to tie the President's hands when Democrat Presidents took far more extensive military action that involved thousands of troops or airstrikes over weeks and months in Libya, Bosnia, Serbia, and Haiti. Most recently, in 2024, they locked arms and voted to turn a blind eye toward a monthslong deployment of troops for President Biden's disastrous floating aid pier to Gaza, even while Biden's own Defense Department called it an active war zone and the pier was fired upon twice.

They said those troops were not engaged in hostilities and therefore not subject to the War Powers Resolution, and yet today they are claiming the opposite for a couple hundred troops who were in Venezuela for a matter of mere hours and who have already returned to their bases in the United States or on U.S. Navy ships in international waters. But with President Trump, Democrats are incapable of deciding on the merits. They reflexively oppose anything he does or says, even when it contradicts or is in tension with their own prior opinions.

Whatever the outcome of this process, I trust that the Trump administration will continue to work to combat the terrible scourge of illegal drugs and to keep our Nation and our communities safe.

Senate Accomplishments

Mr. President, 2025 was a year of hard legislative work in the U.S. Senate. We passed once-in-a-generation legislation, the Working Families Tax Cut bill, which is currently putting more money in hard- working Americans' pockets. But we didn't just make the headlines legislatively. In addition to a packed legislative schedule, we considered and confirmed 417 civilian Presidential nominations--more than were confirmed in the first year of President Trump's first term or President Biden's. And while 417 would be an impressive number all on its own, it is particularly remarkable given the historic level of obstruction the President's nominees faced. I said ``historic,'' and I mean historic.

When you look at this term, President Trump remains the only President on record--the only President on record--in American history not to have had a single nominee confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote. Compare that to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who each had 98 percent of their civilian nominees confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote in the first term of their Presidencies--98 percent. George W. Bush and Barack Obama each had 90 percent. And while Democrats substantially eroded this tradition of bipartisanship during President Trump's first term, both President Trump in his first term and President Biden each had more than half of their nominees confirmed by voice vote. So the Presiding Officer can see what I mean by historic obstruction.

Democrats, of course, attempted to justify themselves by claiming, in the words of the Democratic leader, that ``historically bad nominees deserve a historic level of scrutiny.'' The only problem with that argument, of course, is that a lot of these supposedly historically bad nominees received Democrat votes. So either Democrats were supporting historically bad nominees or this wasn't about historically bad nominees at all, which, of course, it wasn't. The real reason Democrats were dragging out nominations for Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement was nothing more than petty politics-- because as we see with Venezuela and as we have seen with Presidential nominations, Democrats are incapable of fairness or nuance when it comes to President Trump. They can't deal with the fact that he was elected President, and so they reflexively oppose anything he does or says, even when it is something they might otherwise support.

The virulent partisanship Democrats have injected into our politics is deeply regrettable, but Republicans, of course, have not let it stop us from achieving things for the American people, whether that is passing the Working Families Tax Cut bill or confirming 417 Presidential nominees in the face of historic Democrat obstruction. And we are right back at it this year, confirming four nominees the first week of 2026.

The American people elected President Trump, and Republicans remain committed to ensuring that he has his team in place so that he can do the work the American people elected him to do.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Thursday, January 15; 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 H.R. 6938.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Whitehouse.

Mr. President, recent reports suggest that widespread fraud has taken root in the State of Minnesota. Prosecutors say that industrial-scale fraud has affected at least 14 federally funded programs in the State and that, since 2018, $9 billion or more may have been stolen from these programs--stolen from taxpayers and from the people in need that these programs are meant to help.

There have been nearly eight indictments related to just one organization that received $250 million by claiming to have served meals to needy people during the pandemic. In another case, prosecutors say that a program designed to help people at risk of homelessness was subject to widespread fraud, with its costs ballooning to more than $100 million in just 4 years. In yet another case, prosecutors state that a fraudulent provider stole $14 million from a program to provide therapy to children with autism, and I could go on.

One has to wonder how this could happen, and I hope we will soon find out.

Last week, every Republican Senator joined Senator Cassidy's letter to the Governor of Minnesota, demanding answers about the large-scale fraud that appears to have happened on his watch. The Department of Justice has surged resources to Minnesota to assist in prosecuting these crimes, and the Trump administration recently announced it is creating a new position in the Department of Justice focused on investigating instances of fraud across the country because, unfortunately, cases of waste, fraud, and abuse are not confined to one State. The Government Accountability Office estimates that as much as $500 billion in Federal funds is lost each year to fraud--not an inconsequential sum--and every one of those

dollars is a dollar that isn't going to an American in need.

Republicans have been working to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in Federal programs--the same type of abuses now coming to light in Minnesota. Our landmark legislation, the Working Families Tax Cuts, included a number of reforms to focus Federal dollars on those most in need, guard against abuses of taxpayer funds, and hold States accountable for the Federal funding that they receive.

New measures in the law prevent noncitizens from receiving Federal healthcare and nutrition benefits and refocus those programs to serving American citizens. The law also strengthens work requirements for able- bodied, working-age adults without young children, and it increases accountability.

The new law requires States to check eligibility for certain Medicaid enrollees twice per year and to remove ineligible people from their Medicaid rolls more quickly. It takes aim at duplicative enrollment in Federal healthcare programs, which CMS estimates is costing taxpayers as much as $14 billion per year; and it ensures deceased individuals don't continue receiving payments, as happened in Colorado a few years ago, costing taxpayers more than $7 million.

We also took steps to hold States accountable for being good stewards of Federal funding. We are incentivizing States to reduce their error rates when making SNAP payments. Significantly, we took aim at rampant abuse of the provider tax loophole. Use of this loophole, which sees States inflate the price of healthcare services provided through Medicaid in order to garner larger reimbursement from the Federal Government, has been a problem for quite a while now. And thanks to waivers that the Biden administration issued to California and other blue States that allows them to further exploit a similar loophole, taxpayers were on the hook for tens of billions of dollars in new spending. So Republicans took action to rein in this abuse and reduce the bills that States are running up for taxpayers.

Ensuring that Federal taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly and effectively on the people they are supposed to help ought to be a no-brainer, and it should not--not--be a partisan issue, but apparently it is. While Republicans were working to restore integrity to Federal programs, Democrats were panning our commonsense measures as ``cruel'' and then voted again and again to repeal them.

We have heard little from Democrats condemning the fraud scandal currently engulfing the State of Minnesota, and Democrats have shown that they are perfectly willing to allow waste, fraud, and abuse to continue in the Affordable Care Act exchanges. That is right. Despite evidence of fraud in the ACA exchanges, Democrats have voted time and again to do nothing about it and have actually tried to repeal Republican-led reforms.

There is waste, fraud, and abuse in ObamaCare, and it seems that the Biden COVID subsidies were especially susceptible to fraud. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office revealed that the ACA exchanges continue to enroll fake individuals, improperly pay out taxpayer-subsidized health insurance, and fail to ensure payment accuracy. The GAO tested 24 fake accounts on the ACA exchanges, and 23 of them were enrolled with false or no documentation to verify Social Security numbers, citizenship, or reported income.

Then there is the growing number of enrollees in the exchanges who filed zero claims. In 2024, 40 percent of people who got fully subsidized insurance coverage through the exchanges never filed a claim--40 percent. Now, there might be some good reasons for that, but it might also be because insurance companies are incentivized to sign people up, and these individuals may be signed up and not even know they have coverage. But Democrats have shown they are perfectly fine with the status quo. They voted numerous times to extend the enhanced subsidies without a single reform. They even shut down the government to try and extend them. These are just the beginning of the issues with ObamaCare.

Work continues to investigate and prosecute criminals engaged in fraud and to, hopefully, recover the tax dollars that have been stolen. I certainly hope the individuals of Minnesota and other criminals around the country are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But we can't just hope to prosecute fraud; we need to prevent it. We need to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and place guardrails on Federal programs to protect against nefarious schemes and bad actors. We need to ensure, when we commit taxpayer dollars to a particular program, that the money actually goes to the people that program is designed to help.

Republicans have made progress on restoring integrity to Federal programs this past year, but we have more work to do, and we will continue our efforts to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and ensure that Federal programs are serving the American people as intended.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the motion to proceed.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 4208 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I ask that the reading be dispensed with.

I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask that the reading be dispensed with.

I move to commit the bill to the Committee on Appropriations with instructions.

Mr. President, I ask that the reading be dispensed with.

I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to commit with instructions.

Mr. President, I have an amendment to the instructions.

Mr. President, I ask consent the reading be waived.

I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mr. President, I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask consent the reading be waived.

I send a cloture motion to the desk with respect to Calendar No. 299, H.R. 6938.

Mr. President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

I now ask for a second reading, and in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, January 14; 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 H.R. 6938.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of my colleagues.

Mr. President, before I begin, I just want to mention Thursday's appropriations vote in the House.

Thanks to Speaker Johnson, House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole, and others, the House passed a three-bill appropriations package--Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment--by an overwhelming bipartisan margin.

Now it is our turn, and I hope that we will be able to get these bills passed here in the Senate in the next couple of days. We have a lot of appropriations work left to do before the January 30 deadline, and we should not waste any time in getting this bipartisan package over the finish line.

Southern Border

Mr. President, it is difficult to overstate just how dramatically the situation at the southern border has changed over the past year.

In November, the latest month for which we have border numbers, there were just 11,000 total encounters at the southern border--11,000. Now, to put that number into perspective, the previous November, under President Biden, saw 94,000 encounters. The November before that saw a staggering 242,000 encounters, and the November before that, 235,000. This November, there were 11,000, and not one individual who tried to cross the border illegally was released into our country--not a single one. In fact, it has been months since an illegal immigrant was released into the interior of our country. Contrast this with the Biden years, which saw literally millions of illegal immigrants released into the interior.

I was down at the border recently, and the situation could not be more different from my 2021 and 2023 visits. Back then, I was meeting with overwhelmed border agents and was visiting overwhelmed border facilities. I remember, during my 2021 trip, we visited a facility that was at 16 times its allotted capacity--16 times. During one of my trips, I remember actually seeing with my own eyes individuals attempting to cross the border illegally, and I remember talking to Border Patrol agents--Border Patrol, who, by the time of my 2023 trip, had spent 2 years dealing with recordbreaking numbers of illegal immigrants; Border Patrol agents who were in desperate need of resources and support from the Biden administration--resources and support that never came.

I talked to Border Patrol agents on my most recent trip, and what I heard cannot be more different. Border Patrol agents are telling me that the flood that they once dealt with has shrunk now to a trickle; that they are being supported in their work and are allowed to do the job that they were hired to do, which is to protect our southern border.

I still can't get over the difference. In 2021 and 2023, I visited the southern border, and I saw chaos. In 2026, I visited, and I saw calm and order, and our country is so much safer because of it.

I am grateful for all that President Trump and his administration have done to make and keep our southern border secure. I am proud of the work that we have done here in Congress to help ensure that border security is here to stay.

Our Working Families Tax Cuts legislation made a generational investment in the resources that law enforcement needs to secure the border and deter illegal immigration. We funded the completion of the border wall, new technology and border surveillance equipment, and additional Border Patrol agents. We expanded detention capacity and expanded partnerships with local law enforcement to enforce immigration law.

And these resources are already having an effect. On my recent trip to the border, agents repeatedly emphasized how they are seeing effects from our Working Families Tax Cuts legislation and in particular with the addition of needed new personnel and counterdrone technology. Thanks to that counterdrone technology, Border Patrol personnel can take over or destroy cartel drones at the border, limiting cartels' surveillance abilities and ability to transport dangerous items.

I am proud that after 4 long years of strain thanks to President Biden's border crisis, Border Patrol agents are finally receiving the resources they need to do their jobs, prevent illegal immigration, and keep us safe.

Mr. President, January 9 was National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, and my conversations with Border Patrol agents on my recent trip reminded me of just how blessed we are to have men and women who step up and answer the call to serve as law enforcement officers. From the Border Patrol to the Capitol Police and other Federal agents, to our local sheriff and police departments, our safety is secured for us by men and women who willingly choose to place themselves between us and danger. Too often, the sacrifices these men and women make are not appreciated. In fact, we have seen a reprehensible amount of hostility toward law enforcement in recent months and years.

I hope that today and every day, we will take a moment to remember what our law enforcement officers do for us and how very lucky we are to have them.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, at the start of this week, I said that the Senate would be focusing on government funding this month. We have a January 30 deadline to get the job done and avoid another government shutdown. We have already passed one package of three appropriations bills that was signed into law in November. Now we need to finish our work.

Later today, the House is expected to consider another package of three bills: Commerce, Justice, and Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environmental appropriations.

These three bills were crafted with bipartisan input from both the House and the Senate. The Trump administration supports this package. I expect we will see robust bipartisan support for these bills in today's House vote.

This three-bill package advances some important priorities. It funds programs that support law enforcement,

promotes public safety in communities across America, invests in critical infrastructure projects, and it supports efforts to unleash American energy to provide affordable energy supply to the American people.

There is one more thing about this package that is significant. It spends less money than a continuing resolution. That is right. This bill spends less taxpayer money than if we passed another CR or continuing resolution to fund these Agencies. That is not an accident. That is what we can accomplish when we make appropriations a priority, when we put in the work, make tough choices, and put it up for a vote.

Appropriations is one of our core responsibilities, but it hasn't always been treated like the priority that it is. In too many cases in the past, massive omnibus bills were being written behind closed doors. That is not how I want to do things. When I became majority leader, I made it clear that I wanted appropriations to get the attention that it deserves, and we made some solid progress on this front in this Congress. We considered appropriations bills through regular order and passed three Senate appropriations bills before the August work period, something that hadn't been done going back to 2018.

We should be considering bills through regular order, a process that allows all Senators an opportunity to make their voice and the voices of their constituents heard. It is not just a better process; it creates a better product too.

When we receive this next package from the House, there is no reason that we can't take it up and pass it quickly here in the Senate. As I said, this bill was written with input from both parties in both the House and the Senate. It has the backing of the Trump administration. It advances a number of important priorities, and it actually spends less than if we just expended Biden-era spending levels for these same Agencies.

Once we finish this package, we have more work to do. Appropriators are working to finish the remaining bills for fiscal year 2026. One of those is the Defense appropriations bill--which is an especially important priority--to ensure that our military has the funding and certainty it needs to maintain and modernize its capability, support Americans serving in uniform, and protect our national security.

We don't have time to waste. It will require cooperation to ensure we can keep making progress as the end of the month approaches. I want to be clear that January 30 means January 30. We can't afford another extension. As soon as we finish, work will begin on the next appropriations cycle, starting with the President's budget request for fiscal year 2027.

We have done a lot of good work on appropriations this past year. I want to thank our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, especially Chair Collins, for their hard work throughout the year. This work isn't easy, but it is important, and it is a responsibility we need to take seriously. I know they all do. Let's get fiscal year 2026 funding done and keep up the progress as we begin the process for fiscal year 2027.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, as someone who grew up in rural South Dakota, in the town of Murdo, which has a population of roughly 500-- and that would be rounding up--I know firsthand the joys of living in a rural community. I also know some of the challenges.

Everything from package delivery to internet reliability can be more difficult when you live far outside a major city, and access to healthcare can sometimes be a real challenge. More than 100 rural hospitals have closed over the past two decades, and doctors can be few and far between in rural areas.

But thanks to the working families tax cut legislation, however, help is on the way. Republicans' legislation created a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program to address the rural healthcare crisis. Instead of a top-down, Washington-dictated approach, we are giving States the resources and the freedom to find solutions for the particular challenges in their State and to find sustainable ways of ensuring rural healthcare access in their communities going forward.

The response has been robust. Every State in the Union--red and blue, alike--has applied for and been approved for funding from this program. States have big plans.

The Texas Tribune reports:

The state's health care agency said it will use the funds

to strengthen rural health care clinics in a variety of ways,

including: creating wellness and nutrition programs to rural

providers; educating and attracting health care professionals

to work in rural areas; and modernizing resources and

technology in rural centers.

More specifically, it plans to ``add more than a thousand

rural health care'' positions with the additional funds.

Another news article reports on Ohio, noting that ``the state's proposal focuses on addressing barriers to healthcare by building on existing state investments to expand access to care, strengthen the rural health workforce and modernize facilities and technology.''

Georgia will be using Rural Health Transformation funding to upgrade technology and invest in its rural workforce. North Carolina will use the fund to, among other things, support more than 400 rural health facilities.

The list goes on.

My own State of South Dakota will be using its funding to invest in a number of priorities, including a major investment in telehealth, which can be a key way to access healthcare for those in rural areas.

South Dakota will also be using its funding to create regional hubs for emergency services and to improve access to maternal and infant health, to ensure delivery of essential medical care.

Back in June, a few months before Democrats tried to repeal the Rural Health Transformation fund, the Democrat leader said:

This little fund to help reimburse rural hospitals is just

a fraud.

He should tell that to his State, which applied for the program and received a $212 million grant. And that is for 2026 alone. When the State announced its application, the Office of New York State Mental Health Commissioner, Dr. Ann Sullivan, stated:

Expanding access to services in underserved communities is

an important part of our effort to strengthen mental health

care statewide. The Rural Health Transformation Grant will

help New York State explore new partnerships, build our

health care workforce, and pursue innovative opportunities to

expand care in these areas.

Let me repeat that.

The Rural Health Transformation Grant will help New York

State explore new partnerships, build our health care

workforce, and pursue innovative opportunities to expand care

in these areas.

That doesn't sound like fraud to me.

Perhaps the Democratic leader would have preferred his State to miss out on these resources.

Perhaps he would disagree with the Democrat Governor of Hawaii, who said:

As a relatively small State, this will help us a lot to

keep our hospitals open, to make sure there are providers

available to have telehealth available.

Mr. President, the Democrat leader can spread all the disinformation he wants. The Rural Health Transformation Program is in effect, and every State in the Union is benefiting. Republicans will continue to work to make healthcare more comfortable and accessible for American families.

I want to thank Dr. Oz and his team at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for their tireless work to get this program up and running on an expedited timeline. I look forward to seeing all the ways this program will help transform healthcare in rural America.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.