Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the attached correspondence be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Rules of Procedure be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 1391 and ask that it be reported by number.

I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes equally divided.

My colleagues, I think this may be the last amendment. It is broadly bipartisan. This amendment simply continues provisions that were included in the earlier COVID relief packages.

It was called section 3610, and it ensures that our classified government contracting workforce--a workforce that oftentimes takes many years to receive top-level security clearance--continues to be compensated through the balance of the fiscal year. Failure to do this would lose this workforce to private sector and other competitors and seriously put our national security at risk.

I point out this is an independent bill of this nature that cleared unanimously earlier this week on this side of the aisle.

I yield the balance of my time to Senator Rubio.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session and the Intelligence Committee be discharged from further consideration of PN 78-10, the nomination of Avril Haines to be Director of National Intelligence; that the Senate proceed to its consideration; that there be 10 minutes of debate on the nomination equally divided in the usual form; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate vote without intervening action or debate; and that, if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the nomination of Avril Haines to be Director of National Intelligence.

Let me speak for a few moments, but I want to first of all thank members of particularly the Intelligence Committee on both sides of the aisle. My good friend, the Senator from Oregon, the Finance Committee chair, is someone who has deep and passionate concerns about the civil libertarian issues in our country. He is part of the yin; there is some yang on that committee. He raised I think important questions with the nominee, and I appreciate his courtesy in allowing this to move forward.

But I also want to thank, at least until tomorrow, the chairman of the committee, Senator Rubio, and my Republican colleagues as well. When we discussed moving on this nomination in a very timely manner, the good Chairman Rubio and Senator Burr worked with all the members of the committee. I thank my friend, the Senator from Idaho, for his courtesy as well.

I am very proud of the fact that the first nomination to be considered under the Biden administration is going to be Ms. Haines. I think that reflects the approach of the Intelligence Committee, and again, I see the chair of the committee on the floor now, and I want to thank him personally--Senator Rubio--while he is on the floor for that courtesy.

I think part of the reason we were able to move so quickly is because this position is of such critical importance to the country that it is only appropriate that it be the first nomination to be confirmed by the Senate.

Avril is extraordinarily qualified for the role, having worked in national security for most of the last two decades. After working for several years at the State Department, Ms. Haines came here to the Senate, where she worked on the Foreign Relations Committee as a deputy chief counsel. Following another stint at State, Ms. Haines moved to the White House, where she served 3 years as a Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel for National Security.

In June of 2013, President Obama chose Ms. Haines to serve as the Deputy Director of the CIA, making her

the first woman to hold that office. Ms. Haines served with the Agency until 2015, at which point she moved to academia and the private sector. She was a senior researcher at Columbia University, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, and a member of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service.

Avril Haines has all the qualifications we would want for a DNI. But more than that, I believe she is firmly committed to rebuilding the office of the Director of National Intelligence and reestablishing the role of that office as not only the coordinator of our Nation's intelligence community but as an adviser to the President and Congress that will not shy away from telling the hard truths.

Since Ms. Haines was nominated for this role by President Biden, I spent a fair amount of time talking to her about her future as the Director of National Intelligence and the enormous job that she will be taking on.

In our conversations and in her confirmation hearings, Ms. Haines was strong and thoughtful about the future challenges our country will face. My first question to her was about China. Her answer was equally clear-eyed, pointing out the many ways in which China is an adversary to our Nation by stealing IP or hacking our systems and undermining our security, while also pointing out that there are many places where we will have to engage with China as a partner, like on tackling climate change.

She had equally focused answers about the role of Iran as a state sponsor of terror and the need to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

For every question she was asked by my colleagues on the committee, she demonstrated that she understood not only the challenges of the coming future but the IC's role in understanding those issues and meeting them head on.

I have also been impressed from the beginning--and continue to be impressed--by her understanding of the important role of the DNI and the IC and her commitment to making sure that the IC tells policymakers what they need to hear, not only what they want to hear.

The last 4 years have been hard on the intelligence community. You only have to read a newspaper or turn on a TV at some point to know that. Since the 2016 election, the IC has faced false accusations of trying to undermine the then-President and seen many of their leaders fired for simply doing the right thing, speaking truth to power. It should surprise no one that all of this has led to some damage within the IC, particularly to morale.

I believe that Avril Haines is the right nominee to repair this damage. She will support the men and women of the IC and protect them from political pressure. She will insist that they tell us their best analysis and not shy away from telling decision makers that their cherished beliefs are wrong. She will insist on telling truth to power.

Ultimately, this is why I urge my colleagues to send a strong message of support for the men and women of the IC and to support Avril Haines for DNI. She is capable, qualified, and will undertake the serious responsibilities with a clear-eyed sense of promise.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to yield back all time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I think like most of us, I am still pretty reeling from what happened today. What I was going to talk about was the work I am most proud of since I have been here, with my good friend Richard Burr and all the members of the Intelligence Committee, about a multiyear report we did into foreign interference in our elections. Probably our top recommendation of that five-volume, bipartisan report was that any official or candidate should use restraint and caution when questioning results of our elections because when you do so, you often carry out the goals of our foreign adversaries. Use caution because, whether knowingly or unknowingly and whether that adversary is in Russia or China or Iran, their goals are pretty simple: They want to make it appear to Americans, to folks around the world, and to their own people that there is nothing special about American democracy.

I was going to try in a feeble way, maybe, to reach some of the rhetorical heights of Ben Sasse. I knew I couldn't do that, so instead--I know I am violating rules. Today is the day for violating rules. This is a photo that appears today in one of the most prominent German newspapers. You don't need to draw it up. You can draw up photos from any newspaper or any television feed anywhere across the world.

And what is this photo of? It is of thugs--thugs--in the Halls of this Capitol, diminishing everything we say we believe in, in this democracy.

When you look at those images, realize that those images are priceless for our adversaries. I am willing, tonight, in an overwhelming way, to take a small step, in a bipartisan way, to start restoring that trust of our people and, hopefully, the billions of people around the world who believe in that notion of American democracy. Remember, these images are still there.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 1562 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the Warner substitute at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I am deeply disappointed that the majority has rejected this request before I can even lay out why I think it is needed. My request was to take up and pass the filed S. 1562, as amended.

This legislation is pretty simple, even for this body. It would require that any Presidential campaign that receives offers of assistance from an agent of a foreign government have an obligation to report that offer of assistance to law enforcement--specifically the

Mr. President, I thank my friend, the Senator from New York, the minority leader, and I agree with him.

This is really unfortunate timing. I can't imagine--I always thought that in today's political environment, you always think yesterday's could be the greatest outrage, but the fact that yesterday, the President of the United States said--after all that we have gone through in the last 2\1/2\ years, after all of the evidence of Russian intervention has been out and vetted, after 140 contacts between Russian officials and folks affiliated with the Trump campaign or Trump business operations, you would think there would be a sense of some level of moral obligation, even if we are not backward-looking, to say that on a going-forward basis, we ought to make clear that if any foreign power tries to intervene again in an election, the least we can do is ask for a requirement to report it to law enforcement.

(Mr. CRAMER assumed the Chair.)

I heard yesterday the President went on and kind of said: Oh, it is no big thing; everybody does it.

No, Mr. President, everybody doesn't do it.

The Presiding Officer who just left the chair--I have no question in my mind that if a foreign power tried to intervene in his campaign, he would report it to law enforcement. All evidence in the past of attempted foreign intervention--candidates stepped up--it didn't matter which party--and did the right thing and reported it to law enforcement.

One of my colleagues on the other side said that they don't want to relitigate 2016. There will be other times and places to further litigate whatever happened in 2016. In terms of today, I don't want to, either. I just want to make sure that we are safe from foreign intervention in 2020. What is remarkable is that we now live in a world post-9/11 that dramatically changed things for a whole host of us. We have a whole series of new--appropriately so--security at our airports. The mantra at our airports that TSA and Homeland Security always try to promote is ``If you see something, say something.'' It is not an undue burden, I think, on the traveling public, and because of that involvement, I think the airports are safer. Shouldn't we have the same de minimis standard to protect the integrity of our election system? If you see something, say something.

All my legislation is requiring is this: If there is indication that agents of foreign governments are trying to intervene in our elections, tell law enforcement. Tell the FBI.

I tried to draft my legislation in ways to make sure it wouldn't involve any of our activities in an official sense. It wouldn't involve dealings at Embassy parties, and it wouldn't involve contacts in the normal course.

I would say to my friends on the other side, if there are ways to improve this legislation to make sure we can reach agreement on what I have to believe is common agreement here--that we don't want foreign governments intervening in our Presidential elections--I am wide open as to how we can change this to make it better. But to say, in the face of this President's own FBI Director, who has said it would be important that the FBI have this information about foreign intervention, and then to have the man sitting in the White House saying that his own FBI Director is wrong--I would ask my colleagues, do you agree with Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, about the importance of law enforcement seeing the evidence of foreign intervention, or do you believe it is not a big thing? Now I am anxious to hear a response from my colleagues.

I know there may be questions such as, what about the Steele dossier? That was somewhat of a foreign intervention, Mark. What about the Steele dossier?

Well, that was reported to the FBI. It was given to the FBI in the summer of 2016.

If there are ways we can make sure on a going-forward basis that any of those foreign-based activities are appropriately reported to law enforcement, let's have at it. But to say that we don't think this is important enough or that somehow this issue of the integrity of our election system shouldn't be debated or shouldn't be taken up to put protections in place is frankly astonishing.

It is astonishing to me as well that 17 months out from the next election, we have a White House where there is no one in charge of election security. We are 17 months out from the next election, and we have let sit fallow bipartisan election security legislation that would ensure that there is that paper trail and there is that ability to audit the actions after the fact so we can make sure Americans have faith in the integrity of the election system.

It is pretty remarkable that we are 17 months out from the next election and 3 weeks after we saw manipulation of a video of the Speaker of the House--that clearly was manipulated--that spread a false impression around the country and around the world, and we don't have common agreement on some basic rules of the road so that social media is not manipulated again in 2020 the way it was in 2016. We only need to look at how social media manipulation leads to hate and bloodshed in India and Burma and countries around the world.

Not taking action on these items is the height of irresponsibility. This most basic of all requirements simply says: If you see something, say something. If there is foreign intervention, tell the FBI. Let them make the judgment.

Why would anyone say that is not necessary when we have seen the recent history in our country, and for that matter, we have seen the same tactics Russia has used in America used in the Brexit vote and in the French Presidential elections? Again, I go back to Director of National Intelligence Coats, who said they will be back, and FBI Director Wray, who said they will be back, and they need this information.

I hope that maybe after the weekend, my colleagues on the other side will reconsider and take up this issue.

I will close with this: I just can't imagine--and I know some of my colleagues on the other side have already started to speak out, and I appreciate that. I appreciate their speaking out at a time when there is huge fear of the White House and this President's willingness to take vendettas out against anyone who raises a voice in opposition.

Think for a moment. Think for just a moment about what Donald Trump said yesterday from the Oval Office. A President's words from the Oval Office still carry weight. The President of the United States said: Well, everybody does this. So he would take a look at assistance that might come from Russia or China or some other adversary nation. My goodness gracious. The modern father of the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, must be spinning in his grave.

Again, Mr. President, I am not here to relitigate 2016. I am here to make sure that we do our job, that we honor that oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I don't know about you, but I would call the actions of Russia over the last few years the actions of a foreign enemy.

We also have an obligation to make sure we protect the integrity of our election system. So let's take off the Republican and Democratic hats for a few minutes, and let's go ahead and pass election security legislation. Let's go ahead and put some basic guardrails around social media so we are not manipulated in future elections. Let's make sure we go ahead and put an obligation on all Presidential campaigns going forward that if they see evidence of foreign intervention, they report it appropriately to the FBI and law enforcement.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I hope to reserve the right, if my colleague from Tennessee is going to respond to my comments, to have a chance to respond to her comments as well.

I see the Senator from the Finance Committee is here. I will not take but a couple of moments.

I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Tennessee. She agrees we ought to make sure there is not foreign intervention in our elections. That ought to be a fairly easy thing to agree to.

I want to point out that her reading of my legislation is not accurate. The only thing that would have to be reported is if an agent of a foreign government or foreign national offered something that was already prohibited, not a foreign national wanting to volunteer on a campaign. We already laid out prohibited activities that violate the law. The only action reported would be those actions that are prohibited.

Again, I will take my colleague at her word. If there are ways to improve on this legislation, I am wide open for business.

I think in past elections, she is right. She ran for Governor. My friend from Iowa has run for a lot of elections. I think most of us in this Chamber would never think about taking help from a foreign government. If there are ways to work better, I welcome it.

We are only here having this discussion and debate because, in a lot of ways, the rules of the game changed in 2016. A foreign power, Russia, caught our government, our political system, and our companies totally off guard. They hacked into the Democratic National Committee's individuals' personal accounts.

I would remind the Presiding Officer of the very day then-Candidate Trump said on national television during the campaign: If the Russians have dirt on Hillary, bring it on. It was the very first day the intelligence community, the Mueller report, and our bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found out that the Russians actually took him at his word and started releasing information to him that day.

I think the integrity of our election system is terribly important. Russians tried to penetrate 50 States and got into 21 of them. I think they could have changed totals if they wanted to. They chose not to that year.

We have done better in 2018, but I think we can even do more and, again, only for States that want to take additional Federal assistance. That has been the working arrangement with our colleagues from the other side. I know very few folks who wouldn't say that with the ability to have systems hacked into--that are as much different today than it was 20 years ago--having that paper trail after the fact makes a lot of sense. Let's agree to work on that.

We have this whole new beast of social media companies out there that provide a lot of good, but we have seen in repeated ways that they can be manipulated. What we saw in 2016 is going to pale in comparison with the advent of deepfake and other serious incidents. We got caught off guard. We should not be caught off guard in 2020.

I filed this legislation a month ago because I thought we needed to be absolutely clear going forward. The reason for the immediacy of this legislation proposed, and why it is so necessary, is because the President of the United States, yesterday, from the Oval Office, said that everybody in politics takes input from foreign governments. He left everybody with that impression. I don't. I absolutely believe the Senator from Iowa doesn't. He said, even after all that has happened in the last 2\1/2\ years, that if Russia or China or other countries intervene again, he might take that information, take that assistance again.

Our country is better than that. Our democracy is more important than a willingness to be traded away for the short-term political gain of being in cahoots with a foreign power. I am not saying that has happened, but, boy oh boy, what an invitation we made yesterday to folks, as the Senator from Tennessee just indicated, who don't wish us well.

If there are ways to improve on this legislation, I am wide open for that, but if we don't put in place an obligation that is up-to-date and a moral obligation that I think we have all honored, if we don't put in place a legal obligation to make sure that if you see evidence of foreign intervention, you report it, then shame on us.

I will close with this. We do it at the airport--you see something, say something. Shouldn't we have at least those same standards, in terms of protection of our critical democracy, going forward?

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise in celebration of Public Service Recognition Week, a time to honor public servants at all levels of government for their dedication and outstanding service to this Nation. Since 2010, I have taken to the Senate floor to honor our particularly noteworthy government employees--a tradition that was first begun by my good friend Senator Ted Kaufman.

Today and during this week, I would like to continue this tradition by highlighting the contributions of three Virginians who have worked tirelessly to improve the functioning of our government and advance America's interests at home and abroad.

Mr. President, I would like to first recognize Ambassador Michael Kozak from Arlington. Ambassador Kozak currently serves as Senior Bureau Official at the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. When I first read this, I did a double-take because Ambassador Kozak's remarkable career at State spans 47 years and nine Presidents.

Throughout his accomplished career, Ambassador Kozak has been a steadfast advocate for democracy and human rights abroad, serving at the forefront of many historical negotiations. During the seventies and eighties, he played a key role in negotiating the Panama Canal and Egypt-Israel peace treaties. In the 1990s, as chief of mission in Havana, he led the talks with senior officials from Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba before his appointment as Ambassador to Belarus.

Throughout his career, Ambassador Kozak has worked to combat anti- Semitism and promote human rights, and his work has been instrumental to promoting global peace and U.S. interests abroad.

Thank you, Ambassador Kozak.

Mr. President, next I would like to recognize Kara De Castro from Haymarket, VA. Through her work at the National Nuclear Security Administration, Ms. De Castro has led crucial programs to reduce one of our Nation's most significant national security threats--nuclear proliferation. Ms. De Castro has been instrumental in developing a ``nuclear security culture'' that is focused on the proper handling and use of nuclear materials. She is an Army veteran, and the Russian language training she received in the military has been put to good use through her work in the former Soviet Union. These efforts have led to the downgrading of 17 metric tons of highly enriched uranium, the equivalent of 446 nuclear weapons.

I thank Ms. De Castro for making the world a safer place.

Finally, Mr. President, I want to recognize John Wagner from Ashburn, who serves as Deputy Executive Assistant Commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. For those of you who might actually follow some of this and are keeping score at home, John's name might sound familiar. He has been recognized before, including by me on this floor, for strengthening the passport control process through the Global Entry Trusted Traveler Program and the Automated Passport Control Program, which are widely familiar to many international travelers. That alone would have been enough to gain recognition and be good enough for a whole career.

Since then, John has spearheaded facial recognition systems at several major U.S. airports, which offer a fast and paperless method of screening incoming and outgoing travelers. To

date, the software has identified 45 fraudulent travel documents and approximately 7,000 visa overstays.

These innovative processes conceived by Mr. Wagner have increased the efficiency, minimized costs, and allowed CBP officers to focus on keeping our country safe.

I hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating Ambassador Kozak, Ms. De Castro, and Mr. Wagner and thanking them for their great work.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, after almost 2 years, Special Counsel Mueller filed his report with the Attorney General. The Attorney General sent us a short letter that summarized the major findings of the report.

A summary is not going to cut it. The Attorney General's own letter discusses the vast extent of the special counsel's investigation. It mentions over 500 witness interviews, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 230 orders for communications records, almost 50 orders for pen registers, and actually 13

requests to foreign governments. This was an extraordinarily extensive investigation that yielded a rich collection of facts about Russia's attack on our democracy. The American people deserve to see the results so that they can judge the facts for themselves.

We know from court filings, news reports, and the Senate Intelligence Committee's own investigations that the Russians attempted to influence the Trump campaign in many ways. At least 17 individuals in the Trump orbit had over 100 publicly released contacts with Russian officials or intermediaries. Yet, with all of those 100 contacts during the midst of a campaign, somehow not one of those individuals--even those contacted with explicit offers of assistance from a hostile government--called the FBI to report those offers.

The Attorney General's four-page summary of this sprawling investigation--a summary that according to press reports may not even accurately reflect the Mueller report--focuses almost exclusively on the criminal portion of the Mueller probe and barely mentions the special counsel's counterintelligence investigation into these contacts.

The Senate Intelligence Committee--with the only bipartisan counterintelligence investigation still standing--has documented extensive efforts by the Russians to reach out to those around then- Candidate Trump. Here are a few examples:

We have documented in the public domain Candidate Trump's efforts to negotiate a business deal to build what was going to be called the largest building in all of Russia. He negotiated that deal throughout the whole primary process. According to his attorney Mr. Giuliani, it may have been negotiated all the way through the election. The deal itself may not have violated any laws. Yet, frankly, I think, if I were a Republican primary voter, I would have liked to have known that my potential Presidential candidate was still trying to do a deal with Vladimir Putin's government.

In our investigation, we also had exposed ongoing communications between the President's campaign chairman, Mr. Manafort, and Konstantin Kilimnik, who has ties with both Russian intelligence and oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Our committee has made multiple criminal referrals to the special prosecutor based on what we have learned and witnesses' efforts to lie to us and to obstruct our investigation.

This is what a counterintelligence investigation is all about. We need to fully understand what the Russians were trying to do, and we need to be able to warn future campaigns and candidates about the lengths to which hostile governments will go and the new tools they will use to undermine our democracy. I believe we cannot make that full guidance to future campaigns without there being a full release of this report.

Some observers have said that the report cannot be released without its jeopardizing sources and methods. Let me be clear. As vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, no one is more sensitive to those concerns than am I, but the resolution that we have specifically states that the report should be released to the public in accordance with the law. Clearly, sources and methods would not be released under this standard, nor would grand jury information.

What we are talking about here is basic transparency. Let's make sure the full Mueller report is released to Congress, including the underlying documents and intelligence. Then let's make sure the American people see as much of this report as possible and as soon as possible. Let's do it in a bipartisan way to protect sources and methods.

Unanimous Consent Request--H. Con. Res. 24

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that as in legislative session, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 24, expressing the sense of Congress that the report of Special Counsel Mueller should be made available to the public and to Congress, and which is at the desk; further, that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

In reserving the right to object, I would simply point out to my colleague from Kentucky that the intelligence community, in its January 2017 report, reached a unanimous conclusion. That conclusion was that Russia massively interfered in our elections. Russia did it in the form of hacking into personal information and releasing it subjectively, and Russia did it in terms of at least touching the electoral systems in 21 of our States in

ways that, frankly, found a great deal of vulnerabilities. Russia also did it in ways that manipulated social media that, quite honestly, caught our Intelligence Committee and the social media companies off guard.

Our Intelligence Committee spent a year in its review of the conclusions of the intelligence community, and in January of 2018, it unanimously agreed that the intelligence community's findings were correct--that the Russians interfered and that they did it on behalf of one candidate, Mr. Trump, against another candidate, Mrs. Clinton.

For those reasons, I respectfully object to the request of my colleague from Kentucky.

Mr. President, in closing, I hope we can move past this. The President himself has called for the release of the report. In a rare stroke of unanimity, the House voted 420 to 0. I think many in this body would like to move beyond this issue. The only way we are going to be able to move beyond this is to get this report released, to get it out to the American public, and to let those of us who are charged with the intelligence community's responsibilities see all of the report, including the underlying documents. I hope we can get to that point.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I appreciate the bipartisan conversation that is going on with the chair, and I hope more of that will go on. That really is a little bit of why I rise today, because I hope and pray that if there--while we have many legitimate policy differences in this body, one thing we ought to have absolute, complete agreement on is that the United States of America cannot afford another government shutdown.

The last shutdown, which President Trump was so proud to initiate, cost our economy--and this is the lowest estimate we could find so we don't look like we are overstating--an estimated $6 billion.

The truth is, that number hardly reflects the human cost of this self-inflicted disaster our country was led into. A recent survey found that 62 percent of Federal workers depleted most or all of their emergency savings, 42 percent of Federal workers took on debt to pay bills or other expenses, and 25 percent tapped their retirement accounts. If you tap your IRA, you pay tax penalties, and you get none of that reimbursed.

Listen to this: 25 percent of our Federal workers who were the victims of this shutdown--25 percent of our Federal workers, during this shutdown, had to visit a food bank. If you work for the United States of America, the greatest Nation in the world, and you are asked to show up to work without pay, you should not have to visit a food bank.

I spent most of my career in the private sector, and I am proud of those activities, but I know very few folks who work for any of my companies who would have continued to show up day in and day out to do their jobs if they were going for 35 days without pay--and 35 days without pay where, frankly, you had some Members of the so-called board, the Congress, who showed no appreciation at all for their suffering and many who said they didn't mind if that shutdown continued indefinitely.

Those fellow Americans are Federal workers, contractors, private businesses that support Federal installations or the campground outside the Shenandoah National Park or the restaurant outside Petersburg National Battlefield--not just Federal employees, folks in the private sector as well endured tremendous hardship because the President decided to use their livelihoods as a bargaining chip. That can't happen again.

While I want to always try to be optimistic and appreciate the bipartisan agreement that has been reached by the budget negotiators, unfortunately, we find ourselves in the same spot right now-- potentially just days away from another Trump shutdown.

The President said he is not happy, but he won't say whether he will sign the bipartisan deal that came from the conference committee. Let's be clear. The uncertainty itself is having a negative impact on the operation of the Federal Government and costing taxpayer dollars each and every day that this cloud hangs over the government. Agencies are already interrupting investigations and canceling trainings and meetings. They are being forced to act as if the government will once again be shut down at the end of this week. This is just plain mismanagement of government by the Trump administration. It is another example of the disrespect this White House has shown to our Federal workforce.

In Virginia, over the past few weeks, Senator Kaine and I have spent a lot of time listening to Federal workers. We heard from Federal workers who had to pull their kids out of daycare and send them away to relatives because they couldn't meet those daycare expenses if they weren't getting paid and folks who missed student loan payments or literally had to choose between their medications and paying rent. Now, these workers have started to receive some of their backpay, and many of them have not received all of their backpay from the shutdown.

The truth is, those Federal workers who drew down their savings or incurred a tax penalty from taking money from their IRA or who took an advance on their credit card are not made whole by receiving backpay because they have incurred penalties that will never be made up, beyond the psychic damage that is taking place with their families.

But even if we accept that most of the Federal workers will ultimately get their backpay, that is not the case for thousands of Federal contractors in Virginia and around the country. Quite honestly, the nightmare is not over.

The President's decision to finally reopen the government didn't magically undo 35 days of missed pay. Unfortunately, no one from the White House could be bothered to meet with any of these folks, whether it be Federal workers or contractors who were hurt by this government shutdown. If they had, they would know how much pain this President's shutdown continues to inflict on Federal contractors, particularly low- and middle-income workers. I spent the last couple of months, the last month and a half listening to these folks describe the anxiety of not knowing when their next paycheck will come or if it will come at all.

Sometimes when we think about Federal contractors, we think about high-priced folks, many of whom do a good job working for our government, many in my State. Sometimes that is the image of a Federal contractor. I wonder if most of the Members of this body realize that the people who clean the toilets at the Smithsonian or serve the food at the cafeteria in the Smithsonian are Federal contractors, and for the 35 days of the government shutdown--they have no recourse at this moment in time. They are struggling as we speak, and they will continue to struggle if Congress doesn't take advantage of this opportunity--if we get this deal signed by Friday and keep the government open--to make good on our commitment to those contractors as well. If we end up with the alternative and the government shuts down again, these folks' lives--at least their economic lives--will be in jeopardy.

A number of small businesses--women-owned businesses, minority businesses, veteran-owned businesses--that tried, through this last 35- day shutdown, to keep their workers on payroll had to take that money out of their business pockets to try to make ends meet. But after a couple of weeks, a lot of them couldn't afford to do that. Those businesses have shut down. Years and in certain cases decades of work down the drain, not because they did something that was mismanagement, not because they did something that was irresponsible, not because they weren't providing the taxpayers with the full value of their work, but because we here in Congress and the White House couldn't come to a common agreement on the most basic responsibility of government, which is to keep the doors open and the lights on.

I held a roundtable recently with a contractor in Springfield, VA. A contractor there named Barbara told me she is behind on her rent and had to take her granddaughter out of daycare because she can't pay the bills. Now, she is glad she is back at work, but that 35 days with no pay--unless we rectify that with this deal that may come to pass before the weekend, she is still left in the cold. Another at that same roundtable told me she had to choose between food and medicine.

A couple of weeks ago, I met a contractor named John, an Afghanistan veteran, who was picking up groceries at the food bank in Arlington because the shutdown wiped out his savings. We had some press, but John didn't want to go on camera. He was a little bit embarrassed that he had to pick up food at the food bank. This is someone who is a veteran. This is someone who continued to serve in terms of protecting the country. Thirty-five days without pay. With the status quo--he will never get those lost earnings back if we don't rectify that this week.

Another contractor named Joseph, who works as a custodian at the Department of the Interior, told me this:

We work just as hard as anyone else. We need our backpay so

we can catch up on our bills and survive.

The remarkable thing is, for some of these janitors and custodial workers, on buildings that were open, they had to continue to work and still don't get backpay.

One of the most heartbreaking things was listening to these contractors talk about the shame--the shame of being treated as if their work does not have value. The truth is, these folks take pride in their work because they love their country. That same contractor, Joseph, says he thinks of the building he cleans as the President's house, and he works hard because he wants to make it shine every day. What a disgrace that this government can't even honor his service with back wages so that he can pay his bills and get his personal finances in order.

Many other contractors take pride in their work because it represents their independence. Over 45,000 disabled Americans work as Federal contractors through the AbilityOne Program. I know this program is very successful in Delaware. The Senator from Delaware will speak on it shortly.

I have met contractors who are double amputees, veterans with PTSD, and folks with physical and intellectual disabilities. They are able to live normal lives and contribute to society because of these Federal contractor jobs. For many of them, these jobs are more than about pay. It is about respect. It is about being valued and part of a community, part of a team at the offices they work in. They suffer more than just about anyone when their lifeline--that source of income, independence, and dignity--is cut off because of a government shutdown.

I will close with something a Federal contractor named Constance told me last week. Even though she and her team of custodians still face tremendous financial hardship, she told me that she remains hopeful. She is hopeful because she and her coworkers are now back to work, and she is hopeful because people in this Chamber are finally starting to listen to folks like her.

I share her hope that the Senate will have the decency and the basic humanity to make sure, one, that we don't close down this government come Friday, and two, that when we come to this deal, we take that moment--and I see colleagues from both sides of the aisle. We have gotten the CBO score. It is scored to make sure the backpay for the contractors, with an emphasis toward low-income contractors, under $50,000--the cost would be at $1 billion. That is the CBO score. We ought to make sure that these people's lives--that the work they do is valued.

I hope, as we have this bipartisan deal to avoid the shutdown, that we can also make it right for the folks who oftentimes many of us don't see--who clean the buildings, serve the food, many folks from the disabled community--who rely upon us to do the right thing.

Congress should pass this backpay for Federal contractors legislation. The President should sign it, and if the President doesn't, the Congress should override his veto.

Let's make sure, as we did with Federal workers, that they will always be assured that they will get their backpay. Let's make sure that contractors get that same decency. It is time to do the right thing.

With that, I yield the floor.