Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the following bills en bloc: H.R. 1945, which is at the desk, and Calendar No. 492, H.R. 1550.

I ask unanimous consent that the bills be considered read a third time and passed, en bloc, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, on October 3, 1945, a Mr. Franc L. McCluer of a liberal arts college in Fulton, MO, set pen to paper to write to then former-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was enjoying his retirement, having recently lost an election in the midst or just after the Second World War. Mr. McCluer--President McClure of the college, which was named Westminster--invited the former Prime Minister to come to Missouri, to Fulton, to deliver a series of lectures.

And I suspect that the invitation might there have met its final end, had not another American and, indeed, another Missourian appended a few words to the bottom.

Here is what President Harry S. Truman wrote in his own hand on that invitation to Winston Churchill. He says:

[Dear Winston:] This is a wonderful school in my home

state. Hope you can do it. I'll introduce you.

So, lo and behold, the invitation made its way to former-Prime Minister Churchill, who accepted on the spot; and he and Harry Truman traveled together overland by train to Westminster College in Fulton, MO, to deliver, on Churchill's part, what became one of the most famous speeches of the 20th century, known as the Iron Curtain speech.

It was such a significant speech and such a significant moment in the history not just of Westminster College and Fulton, MO, but such a significant moment in American history that the trustees of the college and the leaders of the town decided thereafter it would be well worth commemorating. And so after that speech was concluded, they tried to decide on an appropriate form of commemoration.

They settled on a symbol that I think is altogether fitting: a church--a church called St. Mary Aldermanbury--actually, from London, which the trustees of Westminster and the town leaders of Fulton had brought from London brick by brick and rebuilt on the college campus at Westminster.

Here is a picture of it right there, with a statue of Churchill delivering his famous Iron Curtain speech that stands on the site to this today.

The thing about the church is, its own story retells the grit and determination of the American people through depression and war and also of the long alliance between the people of the United States and the people of the United Kingdom, because the church was first built in the 12th century as a parish church in London, but then it was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. Sir Christopher Wren, the famous architect, redesigned it and had it rebuilt in 1679, only for it to be gutted and destroyed once again by the London Blitz in 1940.

And there the church sat in ruins until the people of Westminster in Fulton, MO, brought it to the United States--to Fulton, to the campus-- and rebuilt it as a commemoration of the speech, yes, but I would suggest even something more: as a commemoration and mark of what we hold dearest together, what we most cherish as Americans, because that church symbolizes, really, the cradle of our civilization; the values that underlie who we are as a people; the sanctity of the individual; the rights of individual conscience; the right to worship; the liberties that flow to us not from a government, not from a bureaucrat, but from almighty God, as our own Declaration of Independence, 250 years old this year, so eloquently declares.

And there the church stands today, continuing as a symbol of what it means to be an American, continuing as a symbol of what we hold most dear, most valuable, most cherished as a people.

And today, the measure that we just adopted on this floor makes, for the first time, this landmark into a National Historic Landmark, there on the campus of Westminster in Fulton, MO, that will forever preserve this historic place and this historic site for posterity but will also, I think, communicate the significance of this moment and the significance of the church and what it represents for the American story.

And in this time of trial and difficulty we face in our own country, when so many question the value of our historical heritage, when so many question the fundamentals of our culture and suggest that this country is fundamentally evil, fundamentally racist, fundamentally bigoted, fundamentally ill-founded, I think this church and this landmark speak to the great and enduring goodness of our country, the powerful and enduring significance of the values on which this country is founded.

And I hope now, for decades and indeed, Lord willing, for centuries to come, this church will stand on the campus of Westminster in Fulton, MO, blessed as a National Historic Landmark, to speak to the principles that are at the heart of the American experiment and which we reaffirm in this 250th year and which continue to shine brightly in the State of Missouri.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, had there been a recorded vote on the motion for the Senate to adjourn, I would have voted nay.

Mr. President, when Lisa Smith was just 3 years old, she was trafficked--just a sweet little toddler, blond hair, the cutest little thing, not much younger than my daughter is now. When she should have been outside, kicking a soccer ball, playing with dollies, on a playground, with little friends, she was, instead, being abused--and in the most brutal, brutal fashion.

Her predator abused her and mutilated her and took pictures of it and videos and posted them to the internet, to the dark corners of the web, for the sick adulation of other predators.

This went on for months and then for years. And that is where Federal investigators first found Lisa, first noticed her, first saw the images. They could see this beautiful little girl. They could see the sick torture that she was being forced to endure. They could see the pain in her face. But they had no idea where she was.

They had all of the images. They saw all of what she was suffering through. They knew that she was out there. They knew that somebody was posting this over and over and over again. She knew that other predators were looking at it, and they were responding to it, but they didn't know where to find her. They didn't know how to rescue her.

I wish I could say that Lisa's case is unique. I wish I could say that there were no other children like her in America. But the sad fact of the matter is that Lisa's case is increasingly common in the United States of America today.

I want you to take a look at this poster. This is the United States, and these red dots represent the IP addresses of individuals who have shared child rape images in just the last 6 months. There are 338,000 dots on that map. Let me say that again: 338,000 dots of known instances where a predator has shared, posted to the internet, images of child rape, child abuse, child sexual exploitation.

The number of child exploitation reports last year increased to 20.5 million in this country--20 million reports of child exploitation, the vast majority of those tied to online child exploitation.

Interpol estimates that there are 90,000 images that the government has of child rape, child exploitation, child sexual abuse. But what we don't know is who the child is or where she is--90,000 of these images but we don't know where they are. We don't know how to rescue them.

This is the crisis that is increasingly confronting every American family. Every family with children faces the risk that their child-- when they log on, when they post something on the web, when they get a phone--that they will be solicited by a predator, that they will be lured into a dangerous situation by a predator, that they will themselves be trafficked--children taken from their homes, children lured away and kidnapped, children forced into sex slavery all across this country.

We know they are out there. We can see the images, but we don't know how to find them. And the internet has made this a crisis all across the country. It has made it a pressing crisis for every family in America.

The truth is, while child abuse is, sadly, a longstanding phenomenon, child predation and child trafficking now are fed and nourished and nurtured by social media, by companies that know that these images are being posted and don't do anything about it, by the purveyors of online platforms that allow their entire platform to be taken over and essentially run as a child trafficking ring.

The internet has made it much, much worse. It has made it a crisis. It has brought this problem to the doorstep of every family in this country.

And the question that I want to ask today is: What are we going to do about it? What are we going to do for the tens of thousands of children, like Lisa, who are out there, who are in need, who are being abused, who are being brutalized? Even as we stand here on this floor, for those children who need rescue, what will we do for them today?

Because the time has come to do something. The time for merely standing by and sitting back and hoping for the best has passed. There are too many children whose lives are being destroyed, even as we speak.

We have terrific Federal investigators whose job is, whose work is to identify and find these children. At the Department of Homeland Security, there is an entire unit called the cyber crimes unit that contains and includes forensic investigators who analyze the sorts of images that were posted here, that you see reflected on this map, who analyze them and try to find where the children are.

Here is the only problem with that. There are only seven of them. That is right. There are seven forensic analysts, seven experts who can analyze these images--90,000 images, at least, that the Government knows of, with these lost children; 20 million reports of sexual exploitation; and yet only seven analysts who are able to identify and rescue these children.

If you look at this map again, there is a sea of red dots. If you look closely, there are also blue dots, but you would be hard-pressed to find them. The blue dots represent the number of active investigations of child sexual abuse, of child online predation. They are completely lost in the sea of red.

Our children are increasingly lost to predators, to traffickers, to abusers. And, yet, our government is not doing nearly enough about it.

The investigators are there. They are capable. They are ready. They need help.

What can they do? What could the Department of Homeland Security, what could law enforcement do if they had the resources, if they had the support that they needed?

Well, I will give you a sense of it. They could do what they did for Lisa. What happened was Lisa's predator posted images of her online, and an investigator in the cyber crimes unit at Homeland saw the pictures and started drilling down on them.

He started analyzing every frame, every second of the videos, every little detail of the photos, everything he could get his hands on. And he started noticing a few telling signs, a few clues that maybe Lisa was somewhere in the southern part of the United States.

And then, one day, he was able to make out a playground and able to drill down, to zoom in on the playground equipment with enough specificity that he could begin to run it across other images of playgrounds in cities across the South. And, sure enough, in time, he was able to isolate which playground this was in the particular city in the South.

And after that, Homeland sent a team of investigators to start walking blocks--that is right; get out on the streets and walk them--to start walking up and down to see where exactly is that playground. Would Lisa come back to it? Where else might she be?

Are there other children in the region who might know, to interview, to talk, to see?

And here is what happened. They found her. They found her. As it turns out, she had never left home. You see, her predator--her abuser-- was her father, who from the time that she was an infant serially raped and brutalized her and posted all those images.

And, you know, he thought he was really clever about it. He took a lot of careful steps to keep his identity a secret. But these investigators, these great law enforcement, these cops--that is really what they are at Homeland Security--they were better. Oh, they are good. They are very good. They found her. They got him. They rescued her.

There are tens of thousands of other children just like Lisa. It is time to rescue them. We can do it. We can help them today. We can send more investigators into the streets. We can put more cops onto the beat. We can stand up a program to train State and local and Federal law enforcement agents together, to combine their efforts, to work together to bring home children like Lisa. We can do it. The time has come to do it.

And I am here to say we will do it because in the Homeland funding bill that this body will take up in short order, there is the largest investment in anti-child trafficking in the history of this body. This bill contains funding and directives for 200 new agents and investigators to go after child traffickers--from 7 to 200--200 new cops who can analyze those images, who can go after the traffickers, and who can go rescue children like Lisa.

It also contains new funds for programs to bring together State and local and Federal law enforcement to coordinate their efforts and to deploy them together into the field to rescue our children.

It was an incredible privilege to work on this legislation and to get it into this bill. And I particularly want to thank my dear friend and a terrific advocate for children across this country, Tim Tebow.

Yes, you heard me right: the Heisman Trophy winner and NFL quarterback, who I think will be known, when it is all said and done, for something other than sports. I think what Tim will be best known for is his love and compassion for the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable.

Tim has been working on this for years. He has been to Homeland. He has seen the cyber crimes unit. And, together, he and I worked on this legislation to create these 200 new investigators--200 new cops--to get out there and go rescue kids--new programs for State and local law enforcement. And with his support and the support of my colleagues, it is now in this legislation.

I hope, in 48 hours' time or less, we will be able to say we have voted to send these rescuers out onto the streets; we have voted to save these children.

The time is now. This is a moral challenge for this body to stand and protect the most vulnerable among us, our children--to stand and protect those who need it most, to say that we will no longer sit back and make excuses, but we will act to save. We will act to rescue. We will act to help the weak. We will act to save these children.

Let's do it. Let's do it now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, had there been a recorded vote on S. 4465, a bill to amend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to extend the authorities of title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and for other purposes, I would have voted nay.

Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 4794, and I ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, this amendment poses a simple and direct

question: Should we use Federal tax dollars to pay for transgender surgeries and treatments for minor children?

More specifically, should we divert money from Medicaid--a program that is dedicated to the most needy among us--and use it instead to pay for risky, dangerous, irreversible transgender drugs and surgeries for minor children?--because that is what has been happening.

For years, outfits like Planned Parenthood have gotten billions of dollars from Medicaid and Medicare--billions of dollars taken from the elderly, from the poor, from the needy--paid out to them which they can then use for transgender surgeries, treatments, and drugs for minor children. They proudly advertise it on their websites. One recent study found that, in 3 years alone, Planned Parenthood got $1.5 billion from Medicaid and Medicare--money to be used on these risky surgeries and procedures for our children.

This is wrong. This is a terrible misuse of Federal funds. We should put a stop to it today. I ask for a ``yes'' vote.

Madam President, under no circumstance should Medicaid money that is dedicated to the poor and the needy be used for transgender surgeries and treatments for minor children. It is a moral outrage. This body has a duty to stand against it.

Vote on Motion

Madam President, pursuant to section 904, I move to waive, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, had there been a recorded vote on H.R. 8322, a bill to amend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to extend the authorities of title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 through April 30, 2026, I would have voted nay.

Mr. President, had there been a recorded vote on Calendar No. 311, H.R. 7147, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026, as amended, I would have voted nay.

In addition, had there been a recorded vote on tabling the House message to accompany H.R. 7147, I would have voted nay.

Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Gillibrand. It has been a privilege to work with her on this, over a couple of years now.

Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3490, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, in the fall of 1945, former Prime Minister Winston Spencer Churchill received an otherwise nondescript letter from a college in the middle of Missouri that I suspect he had not heard of. It was from Westminster College, in Fulton, MO--a letter signed by the president, F.L. McCluer--and it invited the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to come and deliver a lecture in the winter of 1945 or 1946, or in the spring of 1946, as the letter says. ``We should be glad to arrange the date or dates to suit your convenience,'' the President of Westminster told this most famous of former Prime Ministers.

I wonder what might have happened had there not been a postscript attached to this same letter, handwritten at the bottom in the left corner, as it came to Mr. Churchill, in a different hand from that signed by the president.

The postscript reads:

This is a wonderful school in my home state. Hope you can

do it. I will introduce you.

And that is signed by Harry S. Truman.

Well, as it turns out, Winston Churchill accepted this invitation from F.L. McCluer and Harry S. Truman, and in March of 1946, Prime Minister Churchill boarded President Truman's Presidential train and traveled with him over land to Fulton, MO, a visit that took him to Westminster College and a visit that took Westminster College into the history books, because it was there, in March of 1946, that Winston Churchill delivered his famous speech, in which he said:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an

iron curtain has descended across the continent.

Churchill called this speech the ``Sinews of Peace'' speech, but as everyone listening to these words knows, it has become immortalized forever as the ``Iron Curtain'' speech.

It was a perilous moment in Europe, the onset of the Cold War, at a time when Europe and much of the West were exhausted and really wished that perhaps there was a way to just make peace with the Soviet Union, to look the other way, to say: It is time to recover after years of warfare. We couldn't risk another confrontation. The stakes are too high. The people are too exhausted.

And Churchill reminded the West of the civilizational principles on which we are founded and which the United States and the United Kingdom share together, the principles of conscience and what he called Christian civilization, the principles of faith and liberty that undergirded our alliance in the Second World War, that had been the principles on which this Nation was founded from the beginning and that continue to animate us today.

And Churchill spoke with great boldness and moral clarity for those principles on that day in March in 1946 in a speech that deserves the fame that has been attached to it ever since.

Now, the interesting thing is when he came there to Fulton, such a crowd gathered to hear Prime Minister Churchill that they couldn't find enough space in the town of Fulton. It is not a very big town. In fact, the only space they had in town or on the campus big enough was a gymnasium--the Westminster College gymnasium--which is where Churchill delivered his famous address, with President Harry S. Truman there introducing him, just as he had promised.

Well, in the years that followed, the good folks at Westminster College decided that, perhaps, a more fitting memorial would be in order, and so they found the remains of a church in the United Kingdom, right near London, St. Mary Aldermanbury, which had first been built in 1181 as a Christian parish church and used in continuous service from the 12th century. It was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, after which it was rebuilt and redesigned by the great Sir Christopher Wren, only for it to be demolished again by the Blitz in 1940.

And as it existed in this time, in 1946, it was basically just a pile of rubble, bricks destroyed by the Nazi onslaught. The people of Westminster

took that church and those bricks and brought them to the site of Churchill's famous speech and rebuilt it.

You can see a picture of it here, with a statue of Churchill giving his famous address--St. Mary Aldermanbury, as reimagined by Sir Christopher Wren, a church that existed for 1,000 years, standing for the rights of liberty and conscience, standing for the deepest principles of mankind that this Nation has always itself stood for, brought from the UK to the heart of the United States, in central Missouri, and rebuilt there.

I can't help but think of the symbolism that these civilizational values, these sinews of our Christian civilization, defended for so long in the United Kingdom but finding their true home in the United States of America. Just as that church was rebuilt in the heart of Missouri, so in the heart of this country, still the defense of the West lives on; moral courage and moral clarity burn on.

And as Churchill gave voice to those principles in that day, this building now stands in Fulton, MO, as a testament to what we believe in, to what we stand for, and to the moral purpose that continues to animate us in 2025.

And since that time, that building and that location have been turned into the National Churchill Museum by the folks at Westminster. And, today, we have just passed legislation that will finally recognize this most significant site, commemorating a most significant event, as a national historic landmark that the National Park Service will administer and maintain so that generations of Americans and people of goodwill everywhere can come to that site and learn about Churchill's speech and perhaps, more fundamentally, learn about the principles of liberty and conscience and faith and moral virtue on which this Nation and, indeed, the whole of the West were founded.

This is an appropriate moment, I think, as we close this year, to honor the legacy of Winston Churchill, the legacy of Westminster College, and, indeed, the legacy of the West.

May we do our part always to defend it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Durbin for his incredible leadership on this issue. It is truly a privilege to partner with him on this effort.

And I just want to say that the premise of this bill is very simple. It is simply this: that our children are not safe online. And I know that because the statistics tell the story. Just looking at the number of reports of child

sex abuse material online the last year for which we have full data, the number of images, sexually abusive images online surged to 104 million. Think about that--104 million reported sexually abusive images. That is up from merely 450,000 as early as 2004. In the space of 20 years, we have seen an explosion of sexual abuse material online.

The data does not lie. Our children are not safe. But I also know it because whistleblowers tell us. The experts from these companies tell us the truth. I will never forget sitting in the Senate Judiciary Committee and listening to whistleblowers from Meta talk about the steps their company had taken to target their products toward children. And I asked one of these whistleblowers: How many kids who come to your platform would you estimate are exposed to child sex abuse material?

She thought for a moment, and then she said: I would say 100 percent.

I said: Wait a minute. A hundred percent? One hundred percent?

She said: Every child who gets on a Meta platform--whether it is virtual reality, whether it is Instagram, whether it is Facebook itself--every child who is on that platform for any length of time will be exposed to child sex abuse material, every single child.

The tech companies themselves tell us, but I also know our kids aren't safe online because I am a father of three children. My oldest is 13 now. I have got a 10-year-old and a 5-year-old. And my kids don't have devices. They don't have phones, and I am going to keep it that way as long as I possibly can. But I tell you what, my wife and I every day worry about what our children will be exposed to online.

And I have listened to parent after parent come before this body, take an oath, and testify about the ordeals their own children have been through.

Another employee at Meta testified about his own child--a daughter-- who signed up for an Instagram account and almost immediately was bombarded by predators and sex abusers looking at her images, direct messaging her, soliciting her for various sexual acts. It caused him to ask himself: What are we doing at these tech companies? Is there no amount of decency? Is there no respect for the basic privacy and security of our children? Our children are not safe online.

And I also want to say that this bill is based on another important principle, a simple one, which is that no amount of corporate profit justifies the exploitation of our children. All the Big Tech companies are rich beyond belief. They are the wealthiest companies, the richest, biggest companies, not just in America, not just in the world, but in the history of the world.

But I just want to say that no amount of money justifies subjecting our children to sexual abuse. No amount of money justifies ``sextortion'' of children on these platforms.

I don't care what Facebook's market cap is today or tomorrow. I don't care how much money Google makes next quarter. It does not justify the degradation of American children, not now, not ever. And this body has a moral obligation to stand for that principle and to vindicate it for every parent and every child in America. It is why we are here. It is our obligation and our responsibility, and that is what this bill does.

This is a very simple bill, as Senator Durbin described. It simply allows the victims of sex abuse material or their parents to get into court and to make their case against these companies. And it is not unfair to the companies. The companies are held to a very simple standard: Did they knowingly or recklessly host this content?

Now, let me just say this: We all know that these companies will deploy algorithms to the end of the Earth in order to target our kids, in order to advertise to our kids. They know every detail. Every scintilla of action that occurs on their platforms, they know about it because they are making money off of it.

And yet when we bring them before this body and put them under oath, the executives of these companies say: Oh, we couldn't possibly get rid of all the CSAM, all the sex abuse material. We just don't have the technology for it.

Oh, yes, they do. They do. But they don't want to root out the CSAM because they are making money on it because sex material online drives engagement online, which drives more eyeballs online, which drives advertising dollars online, and that is what they care most about.

It is time to give victims and parents the rights that every other American has, which is to get into court and to have their day in court and to protect their children.

This bill doesn't touch encryption. It doesn't destroy privacy rights. It protects all of those things, but, above all, it protects children. It protects our children online, and it is long overdue.

I will just finish with this: I wish I could persuade my colleague, who I think will soon object, to agree with us on this, but I certainly respect his view. The scandal is not that 1 or 2 or 10 or 20 Senators would take a different point of view. That is fine. The real scandal here is this bill cannot get a vote on the floor of this Senate. It passed unanimously--not once but twice out of committee--unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee of the United States.

Now, for years in a row, it can't get so much as a vote on the floor of the Senate. That is why Senator Durbin is here today. That is why I am here today. That is a scandal. It is absolutely indefensible.

I haven't heard a word of explanation, but I know the reason. The reason is the Big Tech companies are opposed to it, and the reason for that is the Big Tech companies would lose money. And they will spend no amount of money--there will be no limit to what they would spend to stop legislation that they don't want from moving on this floor.

It is time this body demonstrated its independence. It is time to demonstrate our loyalty to the people who put us here, not the corporations that write the checks and call the shots and run the TV ads and make their threats of their campaign contributions.

It is enough of that. It doesn't say ``We the corporations'' in our Constitution. It says ``We the People.'' It is time for the people to have their say. It is time for this body to vindicate their rights. It is time for us to vote on this bill.

I yield to the Senator.

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

Mr. President, in a moment, we will begin the process of confirming four outstanding new judges to the bench in the State of Missouri. This has been a long road for my State. We have waited a long time to have these four vacancies filled, and I am absolutely delighted that in just a few moments, we will begin to fill them. And I want to thank President Trump for nominating four truly outstanding individuals to these roles: Josh Divine, who is the current solicitor general of the State of Missouri and whom I had the privilege of having serve on my staff as my chief counsel, among other roles, for a number of years; Judge Cris Stevens, who is currently serving the Missouri State courts with distinction; Maria Lanahan, who is serving the Missouri Attorney General's Office even now; and Zachary Bluestone, who is a Federal prosecutor in the State of Missouri. Each of these four individuals will soon take his or her place on the Federal bench and I am confident will be a great credit not just to my State but to the United States, where I hope they will serve as Federal judges for a very long time to come.

I want to say just a brief word about each of them. I want to start with Josh Divine, whom we will be voting on here just shortly. Josh currently serves as Missouri's solicitor general, and before that, as I said, he served here in the Senate as my chief counsel. In fact, I have had the opportunity to work with Josh on a number of occasions. I first hired him to the Missouri Attorney General's Office when I was attorney general, and he was just a young deputy. He served there and then came to the Senate and served on my staff and clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court, then came back here to the Senate as my chief counsel and then back to the State of Missouri.

Josh's record as solicitor general of Missouri is truly exceptional. He has argued--litigated--numerous cases in our State courts and Federal courts, from the trial court level all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and here is the thing that really strikes me about Josh's record. If you total up his courtroom victories for Missouri, the dollar amounts that he has won on behalf of the State of Missouri, you won't believe the total. It is $725 billion--billion--in successful judgments on behalf of the people of Missouri. That includes a successful lawsuit against the Chinese Communist Party for their role in the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent coverup and the many harms that it caused to the people of Missouri.

This is a very successful litigator. This is a very successful trial lawyer, a very successful appellate lawyer, and he is going to make an absolutely outstanding judge on the Federal bench for the State of Missouri.

I want to share just one personal story about Josh that I think illustrates his character more even than his win record does. You know, just a few years ago in the midst of an intense period of work for the State of Missouri, Josh and his family were taking a brief vacation, and he was catastrophically injured in a skiing accident that left him unable to walk. In fact, for a number of days, doctors feared for his life. I remember getting the call; people saying that, you know, Josh Divine has been seriously, seriously injured. We don't know if he is going to live.

He lived, thank God, and then they told him: You may or may not walk again. Do you know, over a period of months that followed, Josh set himself to regaining, with 100 percent confidence, his ability to walk. And I remember talking to him while he was yet in intensive care and then in the hospital for a long period of time and seeing the pictures of him propped up there in his bed already back to work for the State of Missouri, with his briefs around him, his laptop in front of him, writing briefs, on calls, trying to direct motions, argue them, if possible, over the phone. It was incredible.

And what he did then for a period of months after that is he taught himself to walk again. You will see him, I am sure, walking in and out of the courthouse soon in his new role on the bench. He has regained, with 100 percent capacity, his ability to walk, and it really is a testament to his determination, to his grit, to his faith, and also to his family.

Who really deserves the praise here is his exceptional wife Elizabeth, mother

of six children with Josh. I think a seventh is on the way. They are an incredible family. They are an incredible couple. They have already served the State of Missouri with distinction, and I know Josh is going to continue to serve the State with distinction for years to come.

Judge Cris Stevens is such an exceptional jurist, and I know that my good friend and colleague Senator Schmitt will have more to say about him in just a moment. They worked very closely together, and Judge Stevens, as I said, is already serving the State with distinction on the State bench. We look forward to having him on the Federal bench for many years to come.

And Maria Lanahan and Zach Bluestone both have rendered distinguished--distinguished--service to the State of Missouri; in Maria's case, in the Missouri Attorney General's Offices, arguing cases for the State, winning judgments for the State; and Zach Bluestone, a Federal prosecutor who has been prosecuting violent crimes, going after child sex abusers, and taking the worst of the worst off of our streets in the State of Missouri. He is an exceptional Federal prosecutor. He is going to be an exceptional Federal judge.

As we come to the end of what has been a long road, to be honest, for these judicial nominations in the State of Missouri, I just couldn't be more grateful. And I want to end by how I began by thanking President Trump for his exceptional leadership, thanking him for choosing these four outstanding individuals who I know are going to make the State of Missouri proud. They are going to make the United States proud, and in just a few minutes here, I look forward to casting the first vote to begin this process to seeing them on the Federal bench.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, there is no right that is more sacred to Americans than the First Amendment right to liberty of conscience, to liberty of worship, to liberty of free expression. These rights are more than words that are written on a piece of parchment; these rights are solemn commitments that Americans make to one another, commitments that undergird our society; that establish its moral foundation and basis; that testify to the world that we are a society built on liberty, we are a society built on conscience, we are a society built on the right of individuals to follow the call of God on their lives, to respond to that call as they feel led and as they see fit within, of course, the bounds of the law.

These rights--this foundational right to the liberty of conscience, the freedom of religious worship, the freedom to follow and respond to God--this is what establishes us most fundamentally as a free nation. This is what gives us our moral character as a nation, and it is what has defined us as a nation--the largest Christian Nation in the world-- since our founding.

But I have to say, no administration in the history of this country has assaulted these rights more deliberately, more fervently, more grotesquely than the Biden administration. For 4 long years, this administration carried out one persecution after another against people of faith. It started during the COVID era with their shutdowns and lockdowns, when they targeted religious communities--evangelicals and Catholics and Orthodox Jews. It continued with their use of statutes to go after Christians and other religious believers who objected to abortion.

Mr. President, I want to draw attention today--I want to draw the attention of this body today, to draw the attention of the American people today--to the plight of just a few Americans, 20 or more Americans who are imprisoned even now because of the persecution of the Biden administration, because of their choice to violate that solemn pledge that Americans make to one another, because of their choice to target the First Amendment rights of law-abiding, freedom-loving, peaceful Americans.

I am talking about people like Mark Houck, Mark Houck from Pennsylvania--here he is with his family at mass--a man of faith, a man of family, a man of work and commitment and responsibility, whose crime--whose crime--according to the last administration, was to take one of his young sons to an abortion clinic and there to stand peacefully, to pray, to sing, to engage with those who wanted to talk about the alternatives to abortion.

What did Mark Houck do when a pro-abortionist came and shoved his young son? Mark Houck defended his son. For this, the Biden administration sent a SWAT team--an FBI SWAT team--to his door in the early morning hours. Why? Well, just to terrorize him, to terrorize these children, to send a message to religious believers and pro-lifers all over this country: Don't you dare exercise your First Amendment rights. Don't you dare speak up in favor of life. Don't you dare take a stand.

They took his case all the way to trial, where, I am glad to report, he was swiftly acquitted, completely exonerated.

But other Americans have not been so fortunate. I think of Bevelyn Williams. Bevelyn is 33 years old. She is from Tennessee originally. She has a remarkable life story. She started a ministry that specializes in care for the homeless and for those who are living rough on America's streets. This follows from her own incredible personal transformation.

She dropped out of high school when she was just 15 years old. She had two abortions herself and was later arrested for money laundering. Then she met Jesus Christ, became a Christian, changed her life, decided to dedicate her life to the service of others, to dedicate her life to those like the homeless, who have nowhere to turn, to those on the streets who have nowhere to go, and, yes, to those mothers who, like she did at a young age, struggled with an unexpected pregnancy, those mothers who felt, as she did at a young age, that there was no hope.

So Bevelyn founded ministries that would reach out to these young women, that would serve these young women. And what did the Biden administration do to her because she had the temerity to exercise her First Amendment rights, because she went to an abortion clinic and there sang and prayed and worshipped, because she there told women who were coming into the clinic that there really were alternatives, that life didn't have to be this way? Because she told her own personal story, she was prosecuted--prosecuted--by a Federal court and sentenced to 41 months in prison. And what was her supposed crime? She leaned on a doorway in a manner that hurt the hand of a staff member. Let me say that again. She leaned on a doorway in a manner that hurt the hand of a staff member. For this, this amazing African-American woman was sentenced to 41 months in prison--41 months.

I think of Lauren Handy. She is 31 years old. She is from Alexandria, VA. Lauren was one of two individuals who, in 2022, discovered a box of 115 fetal remains here in Washington, DC, 115 pieces of remains of aborted babies, a number of them late-term abortions--not permitted to happen under Federal law--babies who had come to term and had been killed and whose remains had then been put into boxes and then discarded like so much common trash. They came to be known as the DC Five. Lauren helped discover them.

Lauren also dedicated her life, at even her young age, to serving mothers in need, to helping those who had no hope. And what was she given in return?

In August of 2023, she was prosecuted under the so-called FACE Act. She was

sentenced to 57 months in Federal prison--57 months, the longest prison sentence of anyone under this Federal statute ever.

I think of Jean Marshall, 77 years old, nurse, lifelong nurse from Boston, MA. In her thirties, she began a ministry using her nursing skills of reaching out to mothers who were dealing with unexpected pregnancies who did not know where to turn. She took to sidewalk counseling, going and volunteering her time, standing along the sidewalks outside of abortion clinics, peacefully talking to mothers who wanted to talk, helping them find resources, helping them find alternative medical care. She was prosecuted by this last administration for exercising her First Amendment rights for nothing more than trying to save the lives of unborn children, for calling out, for fulfilling her duty as a nurse to help those in need, for doing what she had been doing for 40 long years. This administration, the Biden administration, took her to court, prosecuted her, and sentenced her to 24 months in prison--24 months.

There is Jonathan Darnel, 42 years old, from Kentucky. He is a former U.S. Army officer. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He started out with a computer science degree and with a promising career in front of him where he could have made a lot of money, but he decided instead to go and wear the uniform of the United States and serve this country.

And when he was finished with his service honorably, he decided to go and try to provide resources for those in need, for those experiencing crisis, to try to rescue the innocent unborn and to help their mothers who were in a period of crisis, in need, and for this, for his service to this country, for his love for the innocent unborn and the helpless in our society, he was sentenced to 34 months in prison.

There is James Zastrow from my home State of Missouri, Columbia, MO. He is 27 years old. He was protesting peacefully outside of a Nashville clinic, alongside his sister and alongside others, again, offering the women who were there alternatives, asking them if they could help in any way. He was given 3 months in prison followed by 3 years of house arrest and probation.

And then there is Eva Edl. Eva is 89 years old. She is a survivor of a concentration camp in Eastern Europe. Her mother was kidnapped by the Soviets right after the Second World War, and then she and her siblings were sent to a communist concentration camp in Yugoslavia.

Amazingly, they endured, and the hope and faith that she found in that time led her to come to this country. It led her, once here, to begin to minister to women who were in crisis. It gave her a passion for the voiceless, a passion for the innocent, a passion for those who had no one to defend them, and none more than the innocent unborn.

And so she began years and years of faithful witness to the value of life, to the hope of life, and faithful work in trying to provide for mothers in crisis help and alternatives and medical care.

Here is what she was doing when she was arrested. She was singing hymns in a clinic hallway from a wheelchair. That is right, she was arrested for singing hymns in a clinic hallway from a wheelchair.

This concentration camp survivor, 89 years old, immigrant to this country, was put in prison--Federal prison--by the last administration because she sang hymns from a wheelchair.

I cannot begin to express--words do not capture the injustice of what this administration has done. And when you consider who the Biden administration saw fit--saw fit--to pardon while they were prosecuting and persecuting these good Americans, Joe Biden on his final days in office commuted the death sentence of one Jorge Avila Torrez, who was convicted of strangling a naval officer in her barracks while he was serving as a marine in Arlington. He pled guilty later to sexual assault and murder of Laura Hobbs age 8, of Krystal Tobias, age 9.

This is whom Joe Biden saw fit to give pardon to; this is whom he saw fit to waive the rule of law for; or there is Kaboni Savage, a Philadelphia drug lord, who was convicted of killing 12 people, including 4 children.

When you look at the disparity between those this last administration chose to reward and those it chose to persecute, it is hard not to feel anger. To be honest, it is hard not to feel rage. This is a grotesque abuse of the conscience of this country. This is a grotesque assault on the principles of this country, and that is why I have urged President Donald Trump to pardon all of these pro-life prisoners, unjustly persecuted, unjustly targeted, unjustly imprisoned by the corrupt Biden administration, and I do mean corrupt.

From a man who used his power illegitimately to pardon his own family, to pardon his own son, to excuse his own kin of wrongful, willful illegalities, who protected drug lords and killers and murderers and kingpins and yet sent concentration camp survivors to prison because they spoke up for life, it does not get morally worse than that, morally debased any more than that.

And so this is a time to turn the page. More than that, this is a time to right a wrong. President Trump can turn the chapter on this dark period of our history. He can write the wrongs this last administration perpetrated. He can begin to restore the requirements that the conscience of our country puts in front of us.

He can, again, renew the commitment that is found right there in our Constitution, that commitment to honor liberty of conscience, to honor the right to follow God, to live out our faith peaceably, which is exactly what these pro-life prisoners, still prisoners, were doing.

And so I urge him, I urge President Trump now from this floor to pardon these Americans unjustly persecuted, unjustly prosecuted, unjustly condemned. I urge him to pardon and to provide, once again, the moral clarity and moral leadership for which this country is known and to revive that moral clarity and moral leadership without which we cannot hope to lead the free world.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, we are here in the second week of the 119th Congress with enormous work to do. We have a border to secure; we have streets to make safe; we have an economy to resurrect. We have, in short, a great nation to rebuild.

And nothing could be more central to that rebuilding than the strengthening of the American family, and nothing could be more urgent for our future than the revival of the American working class. And those two things go precisely together.

The truth is we have been living these last 40 years or so in the great American decline. Our economy has declined. We were once the manufacturing and trade capital of the world. Everybody wanted to trade with us. We were the envy of the world in every possible way economically. That is not true any longer. Now we are a debtor nation. Our standing in the world has declined. We were the leader of the free nations not so long ago. Now, the nations of the world rush to court China and regard the United States as yesterday's news.

Our cities have declined. They are not safe. Our health has declined. Our hope for the future has eroded. And all the while, this town has plowed ahead with the failed policies of the last 40 years. This town has assured us that everything is fine. We only need to spend a little bit more, issue a little bit more debt, give our giant corporations a few more tax breaks, maybe get involved in another foreign war or two. This town has pursued the projects of the governing class and neglected the weightier matters, the well-being of our families and of our working people.

And let's be honest. My party, the Republican party, has too often in these years been part of the problem. The Republican party has too often spoken up for corporate interest rather than for the interest of families. The Republican party has too often cooperated with a corporate agenda rather than an agenda to empower workers.

We need a change in this town. We need a change in this Congress. We need a change in this party, and that is the opportunity that we have in the moment before us, because I submit to you the fact is this: You can measure the strength of a nation in the strength of its families, and you can study the struggles of a nation in the struggles of its working people. And right now, our families and our working people in this country are struggling.

There was a time not so long ago in this country when a man got a high school degree and then got a job and then worked at it decidedly and learned a skill and worked hard and saved where he would be able to provide for a family, start a family, get married, provide for kids, have a future, have something to look forward to. That is just not true anymore. Those days, in fact, are long since gone.

During the last 40 years, real wages for working people have flatlined. And during the last 4 years, real wages for working people have declined. Here is just one measure of that. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that disposable income--that is income after taxes-- fell almost 10 percent--10 percent--during Joe Biden's Presidency. And that was, I might emphasize, for all earners. That drop was even higher, more steep and more devastating, for America's working people and for America's working families.

The fact of the matter is there is no such thing as a family wage any longer, not in this economy. Now parents have to work multiple jobs to support just one or two kids, if they can afford to have children at all. I mean, let's just think. In the 1960s, the average family had just shy of four children. Today, that number has fallen by more than half. And here is the really interesting thing: Families today tell researchers they would like to have more children. To be specific, more than half, approaching 60 percent of American families, tell researchers that they would like to have more kids, but they don't. Why not? Because they can't afford it. And that is all families. The numbers are higher, once again, for working-class families.

Here is what I would say. There is something fundamentally wrong with an economy when the working people who power that economy cannot afford to have children that they want. There is something fundamentally wrong with an economy when the working people who are the strength and source of all of its might cannot provide for the children they have with the labor of their own hands. But that is our reality. That is where we are today. And it is time to do something about it.

The test of this Congress will not be what we do for foreign nations. It will not be what we do for our largest corporations. It will not even be what we spend on defense or how we increase the Nation's GDP, though those are important priorities. The test of this Congress will be whether we strengthen America's families and whether we deliver for America's working people.

Because in those families lies the hope of this Nation. And in those working people resides the wellspring of our great national strength.

The well-being of our families and of our working people is not one priority among many, I submit to you. It is not one more interest to satisfy. It is a moral imperative. It is our overriding moral obligation, and it is, for this Congress, a moral test.

And for every Republican who went out and campaigned on strengthening families, on delivering for working people, for every Republican who has hailed the new working-class coalition that President Trump has assembled, this is the time to deliver. This is the time to stand up and be counted. Rhetoric on the campaign trail is cheap. Delivering actual solutions, delivering actual results here in this body, that is the acid test, and that is where we are today.

Now, it is time for this new majority, this Republican majority, to stand up and be counted. It is time to deliver on the agenda that we ran on. It is time to realize the promise that our voters have invested in us. It is time to realize the hope for the future that our voters are counting on us to deliver.

And to meet that test, to meet this moral priority, we must reshape our Nation's tax policy and, indeed, rebuild our Nation's economy around our Nation's families. And the surest way to do that is to reform and expand the child tax credit.

You know, the child tax credit was first proposed in its earliest form by President Ronald Reagan, who was looking for a way back in the 1980s in circumstances not so dissimilar from ours, to deliver real, meaningful tax relief to working families with children. And then, in 1994, the famous Contract with America promised what became today's modern child tax credit to deliver once again real tax relief for every working family in this country. And now it is time for us again to strengthen that pledge and that promise and to deliver new and powerful tax relief for every family that will help strengthen our working families, help put our workers on a firmer foundation, help get our economy working again for the people who make it work for the entire Nation.

Now under current law, the child tax credit is available to eligible families with up to $2,000 in tax credit relief per child. Here is my suggestion. Here is my proposal: We should more than double that amount. We should dramatically increase it. We should make it $5,000 per child. And more than that, we ought to allow families to apply this tax relief against payroll taxes.

Currently, even families who are paying into the payroll tax system-- that is, families who have a job, workers who have a job, a mom and dad who are paying taxes--they can't begin to claim the child tax relief until they meet a certain threshold of income.

My view is this: We ought to allow them to start applying this tax relief against every dollar that they pay into the payroll tax system. Most working-class families pay considerable sums in payroll taxes but relatively little in income taxes. And there is a lot of misinformation about this, a lot of misnomers out there, many of them, sadly, repeated by some who call themselves conservatives. You all heard that old saw that 47 percent of American taxpayers, American workers, don't actually pay into the tax system. That is just not true. Every worker who has a job is paying payroll taxes; that is over 15 percent. And many of them are paying full freight because they are self-employed or they are gig workers.

My point is this: If you have got a job and are working, you are paying into America's tax system. You are paying payroll taxes. And for families, many working-class families, they are paying significant sums in payroll taxes. But because of the increased threshold for income taxes, they don't have a whole lot of income tax liability.

So the challenge is: How do we deliver real and meaningful tax relief to these working-class families who are paying significant amounts of money in payroll taxes but yet don't qualify for those income tax deductions and benefits that higher earners get, like the home mortgage deduction, for instance. That only kicks in if you are at a certain level of income. For many working-class families, they don't qualify for those deductions. They don't qualify for those tax expenditures. But yet they are paying significant sums in payroll taxes every single year.

This proposal delivers significant tax relief to them. It allows them to claim tax relief for every child who they are raising as they go out there and they work their jobs. And I would just say to you, this is how it was meant to be. The child tax credit as it was proposed in its current form by that Republican Congress in the 1990s, as it was proposed in the Contract with America back in 1994 was supposed to be credited against payroll taxes. That was the original proposal, and there is good reason for that. These families are contributing to our economic system, to Social Security and Medicare. They are paying taxes, along with everybody else, but right now they are not getting tax relief. The Contract with America was supposed to change that. It is time to deliver on that promise: Make the child tax credit available against the first dollar earned in payroll taxes.

Here is another change. We ought to deliver the credit to families in regular installments throughout the year. The truth is many working families can't afford to wait until the end of the year to tally up and figure out how much tax credit they might get back, how much relief they might qualify for. They are paying their taxes in every

single paycheck that they earn. It is coming out of their paycheck every couple of weeks or every month. We ought to be returning real tax relief to them in the same increments. So let's make it advanceable. Let's give it to families in installments that they can use across the year as they go out there and earn a living and pay their taxes.

And we ought to make the credit available to expecting parents as well. We should say that parents who are expecting children, a child not yet born, ought to be able to claim that tax credit up to $5,000 depending on the amount of payroll taxes that they pay, even if the baby has not yet arrived.

Pregnancy is costly. Hospital bills are outrageous, and working families who are expecting children should be able to claim tax relief on the same basis as families with older kids.

This plan would provide major generational tax relief for working families with children. And I emphasize ``working.'' What I propose is not social assistance. It is not social insurance even. It is a tax cut. You have to work a job and pay taxes in order to earn the credit.

But under our current system, too many families do work. Under our current system, too many do pay considerable sums in taxes but do not qualify for tax relief in any meaningful way. It is time to change that and make this relief available for working families.

And this proposal advances a second important principle as well. And that is the principle that everyone who pays taxes ought to get relief, and relief ought to be available on the basis of family.

Conservatives have said for years that family is the cornerstone of society. We have said for years that it is the first and irreplaceable building block of our Nation.

Well, our tax policy ought to reflect that. Our whole national policy ought to reflect that, and we shouldn't shy away from saying that we ought to deliver tax relief and tax cuts on the basis of family formation, on the basis of family size, and, yes, on the basis of family need.

Madam President, this is only the beginning. There is much more to do. We have years of decline of the American family to reverse. We have years of neglect of the American worker to undo. The challenges are indeed formidable, but this is the moment for the revival that we seek. And so let us not delay. Let us begin.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, had there been a recorded vote, I would have voted ``no'' on the en bloc confirmation of Executive Calendar Nos. 851, 853, 854, and 857.