Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues who are in support of Senator Kaine's, I think, thoughtful approach on how we can put an end to this tariff war with Canada.

I have got to tell you that one of the things about working with Tim Kaine for 40 years is he always keeps a hugely optimistic view of things. Boy, do I need a dose of Tim Kaine optimism today because we have seen in our national security domain a reckless disregard for classified information and no one, so far, held accountable. What a message that sends to our allies and to the men and women who work in our military or in our intelligence. If they did the same behavior with the so-called Signalgate, they would be fired.

I need Tim Kaine optimism today because the long-awaited Republican budget resolution adds $6 trillion to the deficit--$4 trillion in funny math and about another $2 trillion for tax cuts. That then brings us to not my words but to Peter Navarro's words, whom I happened to meet with on a Sunday, who said that these groups of tariffs will add $6 trillion in revenues.

Who do you think is going to pay for that? Candidly, it is going to be the people who buy the Presiding Officer's cars at those great dealerships in Ohio. It is going to be folks in Virginia. We had one of our brewers in yesterday who has already laid off 20 percent of his staff because he imports malted pilsner from Canada.

What we are seeing with Trump is not ``America First.'' What it is going to be is ``America Alone.'' I say to anybody--and I spend way too much time in a SCIF, I know--but ``America Alone'' is not an America that is safer.

Then the notion or idea that we have picked on our longest best friend in many ways--I am a little biased; my mom's parents were from Canada. But the notion that this President is trying to turn Canada into an enemy is beyond belief. You know, I talked with the senior Canadian leader just the other day.

He said: Mark, you know, even if, tomorrow, Trump says, ``Never mind,'' as he has gone back and forth a dozen times, or says, ``No harm, no foul,'' the damage we will have done to the relationship between America and Canada will take years to recover from.

Senator Shaheen just mentioned airplane flights are down 75 percent. America's national anthem is booed at hockey games. We had another person in who ships whiskey--Virginia bourbon--up to Canada. If all the tariffs are off tomorrow, which they will not be, it will be years, if ever, that Canadians will be buying American bourbon.

So, in dreamland, $6 trillion of tariffs, you know, is the largest tax increase in American history. I believe it actually goes beyond World War I.

Of the so-called ``Liberation Day,'' the only thing that is liberating is this administration liberating Americans from their savings because the market is down. They are liberating businesses from their supply chains because of so much disruption. They are liberating consumers from their hard-earned money because this is going to translate into increased costs.

This isn't partisan. This isn't Democrat-Republican. This is math. And no matter how much the President wants to strut on the South Lawn-- and I am glad to see at least the South Lawn was being used for an announcement today as opposed to another day of a Tesla show lot--who is going to bear the brunt of this? It is going to be Americans. It is going to be Canadians. It is going to be the people around the world.

I am sure my friend has already mentioned this: Particularly from Virginia's standpoint, Canada is our second biggest trading partner. Virginia's businesses export approximately $3.3 billion worth of products to Canada. We import about $3.2 billion. Virginia's farmers sell about $430 million of goods to Canada. A lot of Virginia peanuts go to Canada. They are not going to be going. That is going to hurt our economy. As a matter of fact, in Virginia, 280,000 jobs in Virginia depend on trade and investment with Canada.

I know, as Governor, I went--and I know, Senator Kaine, as Governor, you went--because Canada is one of our best partners. What would the reception be tomorrow if we showed up in Ottawa?

This is not going to be just another economic policy. This is at the lifeblood of the Canadian economy, and combined with the so-called reciprocal tariffs around the world, it is the lifeblood of the American economy.

I know Senator Van Hollen is going to say a lot of the same things that I was going to say.

I would just say to the Presiding Officer again: I know he sells great cars, but I am not sure if even folks in Ohio are going to be able to afford $2,000 or $5,000 more per car just because of ill-suited tariffs.

So I would hope that folks on both sides of the aisle will actually stand up to ``America First.'' Reject this misguided tariff strategy. Reject this demonization of Canada. Recognize that ``America First'' doesn't have to be ``America Alone.''

The only thing that could make my day actually better at this point, beyond that little dose of Kaine optimism, is if the Senate finally comes to its senses tonight and endorses Tim's resolution, and we put an end to this misguided economic policy.

With that, I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, if I may join my friend and colleague from Massachusetts, one, to celebrate the Senator from New Jersey's endurance, his willingness to continue to make his case in as clear terms as possible.

Not having been here last night at 6:30, I do wonder, when he started this speech-a-thon at 6:30, whether the bob and the weave and the move were quite as strong or was he firmly attached to the podium.

The fact that you are going on more than 12 hours now and you look like you have hours ahead and hours before you sleep and knowing that there are other Members who have a question, including the majority leader, I just want to be brief with mine.

You have talked a lot with great passion about the damage done domestically. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee and now vice chairman, I have been aghast at the sloppiness of this administration time after time after time in terms of their treatment of classified information.

In the first 2 weeks of the administration, strangely, a couple hundred CIA agents' identities were revealed on a nonclassified chain. These probationary employees, these new employees--the American Government had spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on each of them. You have to get a security clearance. You have to get them trained. Unfortunately, these folks can't deploy abroad. They can't deploy undercover because their names were carelessly put on an unsecured channel.

You say, well, that was just a one-off. Well, what about a week or so later? The DOGE boys print a whole list of Federal properties that should be for sale. They quickly take it down a few hours later, realizing they once again have screwed up. But in putting up that list, they put on classified dark sites that the American Government, again, spends millions of dollars to protect.

More recently as well, the DOGE boys, either ignorantly or maliciously, either one--just plain stupid--put out the list of a classified Agency, its budget, total head count--again, all classified information.

Senator, one thing I can tell you, and I know you know this as well, if this had happened to a line intelligence officer or a line military officer, there would be no question--your butt would be fired.

As a matter of fact, we got information yesterday that there had been a DHS employee who had inadvertently--inadvertently--put a journalist on a chatline. Guess what happened. The guy was fired.

So when it came to this incident now called Signalgate or the Signalgate fiasco, where you have the leading members of this administration debating where and how we should bomb the Houthis, including specific information of who will be hit and when, I was-- Senator Booker, I was down in Hampton Roads this week, and these were the communities that surround the Norfolk Naval Station. The Norfolk Naval Station is where the Truman, the aircraft carrier, has been deployed from. It is the aircraft carrier that the flights that attacked the Houthis flew off of.

I can tell you one thing, Senator Booker: These people were pissed off that there had been this level of carelessness about their loved ones, that if it had gotten in the wrong hands, it would have cost American lives.

So, Senator Booker, as you put down the litanies of all of the challenges that have been raised by this administration, I will ask you a simple question: Do you agree that this pattern--not a one-off--

--this pattern of sloppiness endangers our national security?

Mr. President, I was absent on Monday, March 24, 2025, for rollcall vote No. 137. Had I been present, I would have voted yea on confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 41, Christopher Landau, of Maryland, to be Deputy Secretary of State.

Madam President, I also want to thank my dear friend from Maine. She is moving back up much higher on all of our lists for being willing to step up and help correct this.

You know, we all want what the President wants. The President wants our Nation's Capital to be the safest, cleanest, most welcoming city. DC gets 26 million tourists every year. In 2026, we are going to celebrate 250 years. We want to show off DC and the whole region. If we allow this mistake to take place, DC will lay off cops. It will close schools. It will shut down our trash removal. For those of us in the region who use the Metro, there will be dramatic cutbacks.

Let's correct this mistake. Let's make sure that we show on our 250th anniversary the cleanest, safest city in America. This will be a giant step toward that.

Mr. President, I was absent on Thursday, March 6, 2025, for rollcall vote No. 110. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 18, S. 331, the Halt All Lethal Trafficking (HALT) of Fentanyl Act, rollcall vote No. 110.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of my colleagues'--Senator Heinrich and Senator Kaine--resolution. I appreciate their part of the presentations, but I strongly support this resolution. I want to also acknowledge one of many reasons we vote for this resolution is because it is also Senator Kaine's birthday. I think nothing would be a better birthday present for my friend of 40, 45 years than having this body make a firm statement about being against rising utility costs.

The resolution--I know they both spoke on it extensively--would repeal President Trump's flawed and misguided national emergency declaration.

We all know on the first day in the midst of signing Lord knows how many Executive orders, President Trump declared a ``National Energy Emergency'' and issued an Executive order titled ``Unleashing American Energy.''

Let me be clear. Frankly, I have some fights on this side of the aisle because I actually support all of the above in terms of our energy mix. Part of that does mean LNG--and for national security reasons, to make sure we ship it to our partners in Europe.

It also means we need to bring more of these energy jobs back here to America. I was at a fascinating presentation yesterday with the CEO of Commonwealth Fusion. Commonwealth Fusion is a company out of Massachusetts, but they are making a major development in Virginia. We have been talking about fusion since the seventies. Those kind of jobs ought to be here in America, and they can provide an abundance of energy.

But if you actually read the President's Executive order, you will see he is not really about promoting energy security. He is interested in, frankly, only favoring certain parts of the energy sector. I think that is a huge mistake.

I have the honor of having been the chair of the Intelligence Committee. I

am now the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee. One of the things we tried to do on the Intelligence Committee is redefine national security so it is not simply who has the most tanks and guns but who wins the battle for technology. If we are going to win the battle for technology and, particularly, in AI, that is going to require enormous amounts of additional energy in the United States.

It is terribly important that the United States remains in its role now as being the world's energy leader. But the truth is, China has also made this kind of commitment. In certain ways, China--although they are still using, many times, coal-based power--they have made massive investments in renewable energy.

Today, China is the world's top supplier of long-duration energy storage batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines. Just last year, China added 357 gigawatts of solar and wind generation. That is nearly 100 more gigawatts of renewable energy than the United States added.

That is why Congress said: We have to catch up. In a very bipartisan way, with both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, we made a record set of investments to incentivize the build-out of a 21st century energy economy here in the United States so we can actually beat China in these fields.

Unfortunately, the President's ``Unleashing American Energy'' Executive order is actually attempting to rein in or potentially reverse much of the progress that has been made. His Executive order actually calls for the pause of any disbursement of funds lawfully appropriated and obligated by the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That unlawful withholding of funds, which already has been rejected by the courts--I know my colleague from Virginia has already said this--really jeopardizes a whole lot of large-scale manufacturing projects around the country. I don't know if Senator Kaine mentioned, but a number of those projects are in Virginia. We worked years with our Republican Governor to try to get these projects funded. They include things in solar, in wind that are extraordinarily important. They were funded because they would support this growth of American energy.

This is printed on both sides of the paper. I will cut to the chase.

The fact is, what President Trump did on that first day by putting out this Executive order which denies the fact that America is already the energy leader in the world--we need to make additional investments in cutting-edge additional energies where China is making these investments--solar, wind, battery. I am a big advocate for small modular nukes, both efficient and fusion, which I have talked about.

A lot of that comes from blending the infrastructure bill and the IRA. Why in the heck would we put a halt on all of that? Why in the heck would we cut back on cutting-edge energy investment in the United States? Why would we cut back on American energy jobs?

I am all for the natural gas jobs coming out of the Presiding Officer's State. I am all for ``all of the above.'' Why restrain us though in areas where we have some catching up to do?

I think about fusion again. We are going to spend about $800 million--hopefully--in some of this legislation. China is spending about twice that amount. If we want to truly create the ample sources of energy that is needed in the United States, if we want those jobs to be in America, if we want to think about a National security regime where we are the leader in the world in cutting-edge energy, then we have to support Senator Kaine and Senator Heinrich's resolution to overturn this phony national energy emergency. If we don't and we give up on these projects that have been vetted--some for years--then we, frankly, are going to allow our national security to fall behind China, because I can assure you--I get classified briefs on a regular basis-- China is not giving up in investment in all these new domains. China is pedal to the metal on the ``all of the above'' energy strategy. That should be our strategy, as well.

I urge all my colleagues to support Senator Kaine and Senator Heinrich's resolution. I look forward to that vote later today.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I thank the majority leader for having my amendment.

I would like to call up my amendment No. 130 and ask that it be reported by number.

Madam President, I rise in support of this amendment, which would prohibit any reconciliation bill that does not decrease the cost of housing for American families. I don't think there is any of us in this body that doesn't hear about the enormous rising cost of housing.

Throughout the years, both under Biden and Trump, we kept saying: We are getting to housing next; we are getting to housing next. President Trump said, on day one, that he would come in and lower the cost of housing. He has done nothing of the kind. Instead, we have 3.7 million Americans who have a shortage of housing units, and 30 percent of all renters pay more than half of their income in rental cost.

We have got to make sure we send a message to the American people that we are going to take on the rising cost of housing. One way we can do that is supporting my amendment.

While I have great respect for my friend from South Carolina, and I do hope we can find some common ground on housing, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act, I move to waive and ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to speak for 6 minutes, followed by Senator Wyden for 5 minutes, Senator Crapo for 5 minutes, and Senator Schumer for 2 minutes, prior to the scheduled vote.

Mr. President, I rise once more to oppose the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence.

As I have said repeatedly, I have great respect for Ms. Gabbard's over 20 years of service to our Nation both in and out of uniform. I am, however, profoundly worried that she lacks the qualifications or judgment to be DNI.

The job of the Director of National Intelligence is not a duty to be taken lightly. The incumbent serves as the principal intelligence adviser to the President and also bears the weight of responsibility to prevent another 9/11.

The DNI must also represent the tens of thousands of intelligence professionals around the world who often toil in anonymity. They serve as America's first line of defense against terrorists,

transnational criminals, and adversarial nations that wish to do us harm. She must also represent America to our allies as a trustworthy partner.

Unfortunately, through her own words and actions, Ms. Gabbard has demonstrated she is not up to the task.

She took the word of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad against the assessments of our own Department of Defense, State Department, and intelligence community when she denied that Assad used chemical weapons against his own people.

She knowingly met with a Syrian cleric who had vocally threatened to conduct suicide bomb attacks against the United States.

She sought to blame the United States and NATO--the United States and NATO--for Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine.

She publicly praised and defended Edward Snowden when he compromised our Nation's most sensitive collection sources and methods and then ran off to hide in China and Russia. Those compromises put at risk not only our intelligence but our men and women in uniform in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just last week, even with repeated inquiries from our Republican colleagues, she refused to call Snowden a traitor.

Speaking of China, when asked about TikTok at her confirmation hearing, she refused to acknowledge the threat posed by China owning a social media company that reaches 170 million Americans.

All the way up until she was nominated to be DNI, she publicly advocated for the wholesale elimination of FISA 702, a tool we use actively in the intelligence domain, a tool that contributes literally 60 percent of the information that makes up the President's Daily Brief. That Daily Brief would also fall under her responsibility should she be confirmed.

The environment facing a new DNI today is complicated and fraught with challenges. Not only have the traditional threats persisted from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, but we have seen increased threats from terrorism, cyber actors, and transnational criminal organizations.

All the while, the intelligence community itself is under attack. Some of our own senior and experienced law enforcement and intelligence professionals are being asked to take political litmus tests, and those who are seen as insufficiently loyal are being fired or forced to resign. Whole Agencies are being eliminated and funding impounded, in flagrant defiance of the Constitution, which only gives the Congress-- us here in this body--the power of the purse.

Unvetted, unqualified individuals illegally burrow into classified and sensitive information. This very action is jeopardizing our national security and violating Americans' privacy. These DOGE bros seem to have no restriction on them at all, and I have seen no evidence that Ms. Gabbard is prepared to deal with this onslaught.

Therefore, I must oppose her nomination and urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I join my last two colleagues, the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from California, in echoing some of their concerns, because I also rise today to oppose President Trump's nomination of Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

It has been less than a month since Donald Trump was inaugurated. It feels a bit longer for some of us. Yet already, we have seen this administration attack nonpartisan civil servants, illegally freeze Federal funding, and gut the independent oversight bodies that crack down and protect Americans from corruption.

That would mean, now more than ever, the Senate needs to confirm nominees who want to make the government more efficient, yes, but who are also willing to work in good faith to advance their missions, regardless of political ideology.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that Mr. Kennedy is that nominee, and I fear that he will serve as a rubberstamp to the chaos and disruption that the Trump-Musk administration brings.

The past couple of weeks have made it clear that Elon Musk and his DOGE bros have a disturbing scheme to undermine the government's ability to operate, all in the name of efficiency.

We have seen Musk take a hatchet to USAID, ceding soft power and, frankly, 70 years of bipartisan leadership in that domain, to China.

We have seen that same attack to limit our ability to fight terrorists and, unfortunately, turn our back--which we have never done, even with Presidents of Democrat or Republican affiliation--turn our back entirely on the international community.

We have seen Mr. Musk take a hatchet to the CFPB and leave consumers to fend for themselves, giving a pass to

scammers and institutions that defraud Americans.

We are starting to see Musk take aim at the Department of Education.

We cannot allow this pattern to continue at the Agency tasked with keeping people healthy and safe.

As folks in my State may remember, earlier this month, the President issued an illegal order to freeze all Federal spending. Fortunately, the funding freeze order was rescinded after a major public outcry and the threat of losing in court. Yet, even with the order rescinded, real people's lives were fundamentally changed.

Across Virginia, for example, three community health centers had to close during the funding freeze, and now they won't be reopening because of uncertainty. They are not sure the money is even coming back.

These health centers, which provide primary and preventive care for the underserved populations, feel they can no longer rely on the government contract or the government to keep its word or meet its obligations.

In rural Buckingham County, a health center is having to put off replacing the only machine in the county that provides breast cancer screening.

Who suffers? Well, it is not Mr. Musk. He is the richest man in the world. I imagine he and the young men who work with him get pretty good and timely care.

But if we would just end it there, that wouldn't be all that we would potentially be putting Mr. Kennedy into. We have already seen some of the foreshadowing of what is to come if Mr. Kennedy is confirmed as the HHS nominee.

Take the NIH for example--National Institutes of Health--something broadly supported in a bipartisan way. NIH is one of the many important Agencies that is tasked with advancing medical and public health research in the United States. And, literally, in the years that I have been here, it has been Republican Members who have often taken the lead in championing existing and increasing funding. Unfortunately, many of the medical achievements which started off as NIH grants, from cancer immunotherapies to heart valve replacements to medications for many health conditions, all started at NIH. Yet earlier this week, the Trump administration put forward a plan to cut $4 billion in Federal funding for research at hospital and universities, like those in Virginia which conduct some of our Nation's top research. This basically cuts the legs out of a lot of NIH funding.

This illegal and shortsighted maneuver could decrease the kind of work that leads to medical cures and scientific breakthroughs. It could devastate a major research ecosystem in Virginia, eliminate 21st century jobs, and hurt countless American families who have been touched by cancer and other devastating diseases.

I have no earthly idea why the President would choose to cede American R&D leadership in bio at this moment to China. But what I do know is that Mr. Kennedy will do nothing to stop it.

What we need at HHS is a nominee who is willing to go in with a scalpel, not a hatchet, to make our healthcare system better. We need someone with the preparedness and experience necessary to safeguard a woman's right to reproductive care; to support healthcare systems in their fight against cyber attacks; that would protect both Medicare and Medicaid, and ensure that American families can count on good health insurance.

Rather than focusing on any of these things, Mr. Kennedy, as you have heard from my colleagues, has expressed that he would like to gut our Nation's top health Agency. Specifically, he said he would like to oust 2,200 nonpartisan health experts at HHS.

At his hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, I asked him a very simple question: Which ones? Which of these nonpartisan health officials have you got slated for the chopping block? I wondered, was it the folks who keep our food safe from salmonella? The individuals who examine medications we give our kids? He couldn't even answer the question who he wanted to cut.

Now, I do appreciate Mr. Kennedy's concern with chronic illnesses and the obesity epidemic. I also agree that not enough Americans have access to healthy food. However, having met with Mr. Kennedy in private and having questioned him in the hearing, I don't believe he is the right person to tackle these complicated issues.

I don't have the confidence that he will be willing to consider the science or consult nonpartisan health experts when necessary. I certainly don't have the confidence that he would ever be willing to stand up to Donald Trump or Elon Musk.

Frankly, at least in Virginia, I am not the only one who feels that way. Let me take a moment to share some concerns I have heard from Virginians.

Katherine, an ICU nurse in Charlottesville wrote:

I cared for critically-ill and dying patients during the

COVID-19 pandemic, while public health conspiracies were

spread by figures like RFK, Jr., with no scientific or

medical training. I have seen the potentially deadly

consequences of spreading misleading health and safety

information.

Take Talia, an Alexandria resident who suffers chronic illnesses. She wrote:

My ability to access effective treatments relies on

accurate research and development of medicine.

She fears, if nominated, Mr. Kennedy will cut progress in science and medical research.

Another constituent from Nokesville wrote:

My mother contracted polio at age 2. . . . She is now 92

and has spent her life dealing with the pain of post-polio

symptoms. RFK, Jr.'s stance on vaccines is dangerous to

people of all ages.

A doctor from my hometown of Alexandria wrote:

As a pediatrician for almost 50 years, I have seen many

diseases nearly eradicated, thanks to vaccines. Mr. Kennedy

would reverse that trend. In my care, I have seen children

become profoundly impaired--unable to talk or care for

themselves as adults--due to preventable infections. I have

seen three children die from ``harmless'' childhood diseases

like measles and chickenpox. I never wish to see that again.

A cancer survivor from Virginia Beach wrote:

Cancer survivors like myself count on public health

initiatives and scientific research to ensure the effective

long-term treatment and prevention of serious diseases. I do

not believe Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.--a man who lacks any

credentials and credibility in this field--will have those

interests in mind.

The writing is on the wall. This nominee does not have the right experience, credibility, or motivations to be running a government Agency of this size and importance. That is why I will be voting no on Mr. Kennedy's nomination to be Secretary and urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise this afternoon in opposition to the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence because nothing less than our national security is currently on the line.

I am going to start by saying that I have nothing but respect for Ms. Gabbard's many years of service to our Nation, both in uniform and as a Representative for Hawaii. I don't question Ms. Gabbard's patriotism. I oppose her nomination because I question her judgment.

Now, many may not understand the important role that the Director of National Intelligence plays. If confirmed, Ms. Gabbard will lead the 18 Agencies of the intelligence community. She will also serve as the principal adviser to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for all intelligence matters related to national security; and in this role as well, she will be responsible for over $100 billion between the national intelligence program and the military intelligence program.

Now, the stakes here have become all the more critical in recent days. Just in the past couple of weeks, President Trump has issued several directives that could irreparably harm our intelligence efforts and our Nation's ability to defend itself against the many threats we face.

At the FBI, some of our most experienced agents who have protected us for decades from terrorists, drug traffickers, spies, and violent criminals have all been unceremoniously fired. Thousands more may have reason to fear they may be next based on the vindictive list apparently being assembled of every FBI official who was involved in the investigations into the Capitol riot on January 6.

It is not just the FBI. Across the IC, including the CIA, DIA, NSA, NRO, and NGA--an alphabet of Agencies that most folks don't fully appreciate or understand--in every one of these Agencies, I am hearing that intelligence officers and analysts with irreplaceable skills are unfortunately being indiscriminately pressured to resign or retire.

Reportedly, senior law enforcement and national security officials are being asked to take political litmus tests, such as whether the 2020 Presidential election was stolen and whether the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was an inside job.

Across the government, whole Agencies are being eliminated and funding impounded in flagrant defiance of the Constitution and the law, while unvetted, unqualified DOGE bros--one who formally worked for a Russia hacker group and was fired for leaking sensitive company secrets to a competitor and yet another who proudly declared himself a ``racist'' and said he would not mind if ``Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth''--that individual, I understand, has actually been rehired after he initially quit--these DOGE bros are illegally burrowing into classified and other sensitive information, jeopardizing our national security and violating Americans' privacy.

To take just one recent example of what is at stake here, just last week, the CIA sent an email, using an unclassified system--an unclassified system--to the White House listing the names of all recently hired employees. This is, again, from the CIA.

It takes months to get a CIA employee security clearance and then a year to train. Suddenly, all of their names are out. This happened evidently in an attempt to comply with an Executive order to reduce the size of the workforce no matter how badly their skills might be needed.

These 200-plus individuals--and I can assure you, with a name or the last letter of a name and appropriate AI tools, based on where these folks are working, you can find out their identities, and these agents may be burned before they even start their careers.

I know that many of my Republican colleagues profess to take the issue of unclassified servers very seriously indeed. There was a whole litany of attack on this earlier. But the fact is, beyond the counterintelligence risk of foolishly exposing these officers' names using channels known to be targeted by foreign hackers, this careless effort to identify and potentially dismiss recently recruited and trained CIA officers also imperils the longstanding bipartisan efforts by the Senate Intelligence Committee to actually modernize and streamline the Agency's hiring process, because we need to make sure that we continue to recruit and retain talented young officers when it comes to confronting the growing national security threat posed by the

Mr. President, I know my time has been squeezed a little bit. I have other colleagues. I want to mention one thing to my friend from Louisiana. I love to listen to him talk. There are a lot of things he says that I tend to agree with, a lot of things I tend to disagree with.

I do want to make sure folks know what I have some concern about. You want a debate about any of these programs; that is fair cooking. If there are ways to save spending, count me in. In fact, you are a former Governor; I am a former Governor. Virginia got named best managed State in the country when I was Governor. And you know how we got that information about line item programs? Because about a decade ago--maybe 12 years ago--Rob Portman and I did something called the DATA Act, which gives you that line-by-line information.

We can debate about the validity of these programs. What you don't need to do is to put two--I have the name of one person, maybe not the name of the other--into the Treasury with, to my knowledge, at least for one of them, we are not sure if they have any security clearances at all--to look at $1.3 billion of checks being written out by the U.S. Treasury.

You want to debate about USAID; have at it, if the programs can't be defended.

But why would you give someone--a coder--the potential keys to the kingdom of the U.S. Treasury? Why does this coder--or Mr. Musk's DOGE bros--need to know how much the U.S. Government paid the Senator from Louisiana on a tax refund or the Senator from Virginia or anyone? I will make it a simple question to ask. Come in and explain yourself.

I would love to go through more, but I know I have colleagues waiting too.

Mr. President, let me first of all thank my colleagues from Kansas. I know you were there that night. I want to thank as well, obviously, my dear friend of 40-plus years from Virginia. We were at the airport, along with friends from Maryland and DC, by 7 o'clock the next morning.

The remarkable thing was, this is a route I take home every night. I have the luxury, frankly--my home is actually closer to the Capitol than all 535 other Members, even local Congressman Don Beyer by a couple of blocks. I drive along the parkway each night. I think I missed the actual collision by no less than 7 or 8 minutes.

Yet we then saw a number of red lights rushing into National across the river in Maryland, and we all know that the souls on American Flight 5342 and those pilots in the Army helicopter--awful, awful collision.

My friends have said it. We can't give you words that would get rid of that terror of that awful event, but we have seen over the last week how many young lives--so many folks from the skating world. They were Kansans, they were Virginians, and they were literally people from, frankly, around the globe. The contributions to their friends and families that they will never be able to fulfill are going to leave an ache in the hearts of those families that I can't nearly articulate as well as some of my colleagues.

But I also want to acknowledge that even in these moments of tragedy, there are moments of grace and heroic actions.

Folks that don't live in the Capital region don't know the kind of messy, bureaucratic, multiple jurisdictions between Maryland, the District, and Virginia. Senator Kaine and I were both Governors of Virginia. We used to say the Potomac was the great divide. But at a moment like this, with this tragedy, it stops being Maryland, Virginia, the District, Federal. People dropped everything, and literally there were first responders from 40 different jurisdictions. That is remarkable.

Everybody else has mentioned, whether it was the divers, the folks that went into that bitterly cold river and, frankly, what they have had to do in terms of recovery of remains in the days afterwards--the emotional toll it is going to take on those men and women literally probably for the rest of their lives, but they did what was right.

I also want to say we have the safest skies in the world. We have the pilots. We have valuable air traffic controllers. Clearly, something went wrong here. I think we owe it to the restoration of that confidence that the sky is safe in our country. I want to applaud the brandnew Secretary of Transportation, who was with us--Mr. Duffy, from Donald Trump's administration--he was with us that morning, at 7 o'clock in the morning.

Those families and those first responders deserve the answers of what went wrong here. I have great faith in the NTSB. Senator Kaine and I worked with them in other tragedies in the past. They are going to do their job. They are going to find out what went wrong and make sure that kind of mistake is not made again.

I will simply close by saying, again, condolences for the loss of the families. Thank you to the first responders and all who responded. I think it is totally appropriate.

I want to thank on a personal basis the fact that Senator Moran decided to put this resolution together, to bring us to the floor to kind of get that affirmation that here we are literally 8 days after this tragedy.

Thank you, Jerry, for what you have done.

I yield the floor.

For due process for all our Federal workers, I vote no.