Floor Statements

Madam President, it was such a joy to be in Tennessee last week and visit with so many of our local officials, and I had the opportunity to spend some time with some of our sheriffs. And one of the sheriffs made a point that I think deserves attention in this body today.

He said: Marsha, for years, we have measured the drugs we have apprehended in grams or ounces, but today everything is in pounds. That is the uptick in volume that our local law enforcement is seeing in our communities.

Now, the question is, Why is this happening? How is it that so much more is getting across that southern border? And my colleague from Ohio and my colleague from Missouri have each mentioned the problems that exists there--no ``Remain in Mexico,'' no wall.

And we are at a time here in this country where our supply chains are really being stressed, but the supply chains of the cartels seem to be doing just fine. Fortunately, our Border Patrol has been able to cause some blips and some problems with those supply chains, and they have been able to apprehend some of the drugs coming across our border.

In January, in a period of 7 days--1 week--our Border Patrol caught 47 pounds of methamphetamine in California, 3,800 pounds of marijuana in two raids in Texas, and 20 pounds of cocaine in Texas.

The street value was about $7 million that they pulled off of the street, but this is, unfortunately, a blip for the cartels--just a blip on their radar. These thousands of pounds of drugs are a footnote in the long history of the ``got-aways'' and the drug mules who keep these cartel supply lines flowing from South and Central America and into the United States.

Now, as my colleagues have said, until this administration decides they want to get serious about protecting our Nation's sovereignty and securing this southern border, this is going to continue.

Now, what does this cause in our country? What it means is every town is a border town, and every State is a border State. Until the Biden administration decides they are going to get serious on that border, it means that your town will function like a border town, your State like a border State. Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis are all experiencing some of the same problems that you are seeing on our Nation's borders.

And whether the State is Maryland or Wisconsin or Nevada, whether these are other States--Illinois, Colorado--what you are seeing are these problems that are brought about by an open border: gangs, cartels, human smuggling, sex trafficking.

So I would ask my Democratic colleagues, and I would hope they would ask the President: Where else do they think these thousands of pounds of drugs are being headed?

That is right. It is a rhetorical question, but they are coming to your neighborhoods, and your local law enforcement agencies are going to find themselves dealing with this.

Now, the Biden administration has said, repeatedly, that they want to focus their border policy on finding the root causes of illegal immigration. So Vice President Harris recently took her second trip to the Northern Triangle so she could try and figure out what the root causes are.

But while she is there and meeting with diplomats, the cartels' drug trade, along with their human trafficking trade, is booming. It is booming. The number of apprehensions across this southern border are at an alltime high.

And as my colleague mentioned, the ``got-aways''--the hundreds of thousands of ``got-aways,'' the hundreds of thousands of ``got-aways'' that are now in your communities--the hundreds or maybe even thousands of pounds of different drugs are coming into your communities.

We have been down this road before. We have made investments in the Northern Triangle to try and beat back the poverty, the corruption, and we are having the same problems. They are the same that they were years ago.

There is no buy-in on a policy. The only buy-in that this administration has managed to earn is the buy-in of corrupt officials and drug lords who have invested in our wide-open border.

Why is it that you have to pay the cartel to come in? Why is it that the cartels are moving these sex trafficking rings onto U.S. shores? Why is it that the cartels are setting up distribution centers in our cities? It is because this administration has that border wide open, and they see the opportunity to make big bucks, to really enrich themselves.

How can we expect to fight corruption when we encourage them to set up these business operations?

I would encourage my Democratic colleagues to take a look at the numbers that are coming from that southern border, look at numbers that were there from 2021, look at the numbers of not grams and ounces but pounds of illicit drugs that are being apprehended, talk to their local law enforcement about what they are finding on their streets, and then ask themselves: Are you doing everything you can to keep our communities safe? Are you doing everything that you can to keep our children and our grandchildren safe in their communities?

If you had to answer that question today, if the administration had to answer that question today, the answer would be an emphatic, no, they are not because the border is open. That policy is failing the American people; it is failing our communities that are truly struggling to keep drugs out of the hands of kids; and it is failing the thousands upon thousands of people who took you at your word--and then you have seen this border turned over to the cartels.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, my Democratic colleagues are continuing what started last week, with spending hours trying to convince Members of their own party, both here in this Chamber and across the country, that they had no choice but to blow up the Senate rules by firing a partisan torpedo at the filibuster.

Now, it appears, from what we have heard, that they used demeaning, shaming words and really went about weaving quite a frightening tale about what would happen if their Democratic colleagues did not cave on this issue. That tale was no more based in reality than the vial accusations of racism that they have hurled at those who oppose this push to single-party rule.

Last week, when this insulting narrative started to collapse, they tried a new approach and pitched their assault on the Senate as a ``carve-out'' to accommodate an emergency change to election law.

I fully believe, when someone is going to tell you who they are, you should believe them. And over the past year, we have watched Joe Biden and the Democrats throw self-control out the window and leverage emergency after emergency to expand their power.

Joe Biden signed more than a dozen Executive orders in the very first hours of his Presidency, knowing that if he did not do this, these policies would never see the light of day.

The people--and that is the people of this country--hadn't seen fit to give his allies in Congress the majority that he needed for his agenda, so he waved his pen and conjured up a mandate for himself.

And now, his Democratic allies in the Senate are prepared to do the exact same thing on behalf of a bill that would federalize elections in America, stripping away protections for the ballot box and injecting uncertainty into the voting process.

Who asked for this? No one. If the American people wanted this, they would have given the Democrats the majority they needed to get it done. But they didn't. And, in fact, I hear from Tennesseans every day who want it to be easier to vote and harder to cheat, not the other way around.

But based on what I have seen, I have come to the conclusion that what the people want no longer seems to matter to our Democratic colleagues.

We can take today's event as proof that if the people don't see fit to give them the power, they will come and take that power and turn the Senate into a rubberstamp they can deploy when an Executive order just won't get the job done.

That really frightens Tennesseans because they can see what is coming down the path: open borders, court packing, gun control, the Green New Deal, abortion on demand, socialized healthcare, speech restrictions, federalized elections, and more out-of-control spending, and, yes, higher inflation.

We know that this is the future that the Democrats are laying out for America. It is the future that they see for our children and grandchildren because these policies are the policies that they have fought for since long before Joe Biden took office.

Do we really think that this attack on the Senate rules will stop with an election law takeover? The American people don't think it will. Tennesseans do not think that it will.

As I said, when somebody shows you who they really are, you ought to believe them. And as I have said previously, this is no way to run the world's greatest deliberative body, but this is exactly how the Democrats are choosing to go about trying to destroy it.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, the Senator from Missouri is exactly right. We are going to hear so much about this, and the reason is, as the American people hear about this so-called election bill, what they are realizing is, it is not something that is going to make their local election safer. It is something that is going to put that power in Washington, DC.

Now, what we are hearing from the majority leader and the Democratic leadership is that they have got to get rid of the filibuster in order to push forward this election bill, adding States, packing courts--all of this laundry list of a socialist agenda that they are planning to execute.

So what I want to do today for a couple of minutes is just walk us down memory lane as to what people have had to say, what our Democratic colleagues have had to say about the filibuster.

In May of 2005, then-Senator Joe Biden came to the floor and he vigorously jumped into the middle of a debate over the filibuster. He said that things would go very wrong if his colleagues decided to blow up the rules to get their way. What is interesting about Senator Biden's position is that it had almost nothing to do with his policy goals.

Here is his quote:

Folks who want to see this change want to eliminate one of

the procedural mechanisms designed for the express purpose of

guaranteeing individual rights, and they also have a

consequence, and would undermine the protections of a

minority point of view in the heat of majority excess.

He understood, at that point in time, the importance of preserving the Senate's institutional power and abiding by standards that not only welcome but require deliberation and compromise.

Well, what a difference a few years and a Senate majority can make. Today, we are having the exact same debate, but the power my Democratic colleagues won in the last election has changed their minds about breaking the Senate to get their way. The problem is, the Senate is not broken. It does not need their changes.

But the rules no longer matter to the majority leader, even though he said as recently as 2017:

[L]et us go no further down this road. I hope the

Republican leader and I can, in the coming months, find a way

to build a firewall around the legislative filibuster, which

is the most important distinction between the Senate and the

House. Without the 60-vote threshold for legislation, the

Senate becomes a majoritarian institution like the House,

much more subject to the winds of short-term electoral

change.

Well, my, my, my, how about that? He understood the dangers of legislative whiplash, even when he was in the minority. So did my colleague Senator Durbin, who said in 2018 that he believed that ending the filibuster would ``be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created, going back to our Founding Fathers.''

Well, I am going to ask the Senators from New York and Illinois: What happened here? What changed their minds so drastically? They have done a 180.

I would ask the same question of many of my Democratic colleagues. In 2017, 32 Senate Democrats--yes, that is correct, 32, many of whom are still serving in this Chamber today--signed onto a bipartisan letter in support of the filibuster. Now, they, too, have changed their minds. It makes you wonder: What is everybody on the Democratic aisle drinking these days?

This is no way to run the world's greatest deliberative body, but it is a great way to destroy it. Between 2017 and today, many Senate Democrats

changed their minds about how to handle the filibuster.

Over the past year, we have watched Joe Biden and the Democrats attack more than one institution forming the foundation of this Nation. The Supreme Court, the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, limits on the power of the Executive, and, now, the Senate rules have all proved to be inconvenient to their agenda and ended up on the chopping block. That is where they are putting them.

My Democratic colleagues may be frustrated, but that is just too bad. The Senate was not designed to rubberstamp legislation that is so belligerently foolish it can't tempt a single Republican vote--not one. No.

The Senate was designed to protect the American people and the institution itself from shortsighted leadership.

My colleagues claim that all they are asking for is one teeny little carve-out--just one. But I would remind them that there is only so much carving you can do before you reduce the entire thing to dust. And based on their track record, we have no reason to trust that they will stop carving and put down the knife rather than use it to hold the Senate hostage the next time they can't scrounge up the votes to check something off their to-do list.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, when Tennesseans go to the polls and cast their vote, they do so with the hope that the person whose name appears on their ballot will do what is best for their community. They expect that person to show respect for the Constitution and the rule of law and to protect the integrity of our most important institutions.

The people place a great deal of trust in us, and I don't think it is too much to ask that we return the favor by recognizing that there are limits to how far the Federal Government can expand its reach. Many of my Democratic colleagues, however, would disagree with me on that premise. They returned to Washington this week ready to squander the people's trust on yet another power grab.

The election bill they are prepared to break the Senate rules to pass has failed multiple times, under multiple titles, and in different packaging. This has gone on for the last 20 years. But this latest round has one thing in common with all the other drafts that found their rightful place in the trash can: It has nothing to do with protecting the ballot box.

This is not a voting rights bill; it is a sweeping takeover of our democracy and a shocking attack on the constitutional authority of the States to determine the time, place, and manner of elections. That is right. This is not in statute; it is article I, section 4 of the Constitution.

I have said it before. I will say it again. These proposals read like something concocted by someone who has never stepped foot behind the scenes of their local polling place. It is concocted by people who probably have never spent 10 minutes as a poll worker carrying out and implementing an election, and they absolutely have never served a term on a local election commission.

It seems that our friends across the aisle are looking at all of these local elected and appointed officials who work elections and are saying: We think that you just are incapable and inept to carry out an election.

How disrespectful can you be?

The Federal Government has got to come in and save the day and take away the ability of your local elections registrar to carry forward an election.

I hope my colleagues will think about the message that they are sending because there is nothing in these proposals that would help your State and local leaders secure elections, and, in fact, many provisions would actually weaken the checks already in place against voter fraud.

This is the opposite of how it should be. It should be easy to vote and hard to cheat, not the other way around. And the people of this country and elected leaders have been saying no to the Federal takeover of elections for the past 20 years. But here we are again having to once again stand up against this desperate attempt to undermine voters and empower cheats and criminals by mandating ballot harvesting while rejecting voter ID requirements. That is in their bill--got to do it, got to allow ballot harvesting. That is where shenanigans happen.

We can't have voter ID requirements--no, no, no. We don't want anybody at the ballot box having to prove who they are. But be ready to show that ID if you want to get on a plane, if you want to get in a government building, if you want to go buy a bottle of wine. Be ready to show that ID, prove your age, and prove who you are.

Their bill would also centralize power over elections in the hands of faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats--that is right--not your friends and neighbors working the polls and making decisions and serving on local election commissions. You will never know the people who say, ``Hey, you are too stupid to figure out how to run these elections,'' because the Democrats are going to take all the power and authority away from your local friends and neighbors and send it to bureaucrats here in DC.

And they would embrace a one-size-fits-all rule book that any seasoned election worker knows will throw polling places into chaos.

In my home county in Tennessee, we have people who have worked these polls for years. They are dedicated. They are good people. I don't know their political party. I just know that they show up to make certain that our elections are free and fair, and I appreciate them.

Since the first iteration of this bill reared its head, the American people have seen it for what it is: an activist-driven, power-hungry solution in search of problems that do not exist. That is right; the problems don't exist.

The Democrats want you to believe that America as we know it will end if they don't pass this bill. They are acting like elections are in crisis. But do you know what? I think maybe it is the Democratic Party that is in crisis. They are staring at decades-high inflation, crime spikes, cascading public health failures, a southern border on the verge of collapse, embarrassing approval ratings, infighting so intense that watching the nightly news feels like you are watching a soap opera.

They can't get their arms around COVID. They can't figure it out. I just heard coming over here that the CDC is now going to mandate that insurance companies have to supply home testing kits for all of their enrollees. I mean, yeah, I think it is a party in crisis. And do you know what? The Democrats right now, they are desperate for a distraction. Oh, just give them something to change the narrative. And the benefit of this one, if they could pull this off, is that they won't have to worry about the American people holding them accountable for the fallout because they now will control the ballot process; they will control the election commissions.

And do you know what they are saying to the American public? Your vote doesn't count.

We have treasured one person, one vote. We have treasured fair, free, honest elections. And the Democrats are ready to throw it away for a power grab that is unprecedented and is incredibly disrespectful of the men and women in each of our counties who give of their time and work to hold these elections.

This is more than just another example of partisanship holding the Senate

hostage. And it is partisanship. It is ``We have to do this, take away power from the people.''

Oh, isn't it supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people? But, oh, I think my colleagues across the aisle have forgotten that. They think it is government for the powerful, government that is in control of one party and one party's agenda. That is what they are thinking.

This attack on the integrity of our elections is a complete betrayal of the trust that the people have given elected officials because we have colleagues across the aisle who are basically looking at their constituents in their various States and saying: Your opinion does not count.

Think about that.

You are not good enough. You are not smart enough. You can't handle it. So, hey--Federal Government--we are going to come and save you from yourselves. That is what they think.

It is their constitutional prerogative to determine the time, place, and manner of their own elections. That is what is given to the State legislatures. It is their prerogative, and it is not the job of Congress or the President or a battalion of unelected, faceless, nameless, unaccountable bureaucrats to burn down the goalposts when things at the ballot box don't go their way. But that is exactly what the Democratic Party is trying to do this week.

So you never will be able to complain to them. They want to hold all the cards. The purpose of this latest power grab isn't to make the people feel secure. Its purpose is to inject hysteria into what should be a very serious conversation about actually protecting the vote.

Everything the people hear from the Democrats this week will have been scripted to minimize truth and maximize chaos. Remember, they want you to believe that elections are in crisis.

``We have to fix it.''

But, fortunately, Tennesseans and the American people know better than to believe what they are hearing on the nightly news and to believe what is coming from the Democratic Party. They also know there is only one reason a political party would work this hard to make elections easier for them to manipulate.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I know that you are probably like me and you have been grateful for the time to be home and to see family and friends and just to chat with them about what is going on in their lives and the issues that are important to them, what they are looking at. It has been so interesting to get their perspective as we have visited.

I flipped through the papers yesterday, and I realize that many of our friends around town have this renewed sense of optimism about President Biden's ability to lead the country. I found that really quite interesting. You could look at it and say: It may be a new year, but it is the same old Biden.

It goes without saying that I do not share what I see as a misguided view. I entered this year with the same

healthy skepticism that I had back in December as we were finishing that legislative year. I will say this; that for the past year, the Democratic majority has indulged an administration that has treated their electoral victory like a mandate to enact some of the most irresponsible and radical policies we have seen in over a generation.

Now they are dusting off an agenda that is so unhinged, it has kept the Democrats deadlocked against one another for the year. We have seen this agenda breed mistrust, tension, and anger between the American people and their government. Few, if any, of those people could state that they are better off now than they were under President Trump and Republican leadership. But still, the Democratic majority has continued to push Biden's agenda on behalf of the most radical portions of their base.

Yes, leaning left--they are leaning far left. They are listening to the social justice warriors and the climate partisans and the Big Government activists, and the Democratic leadership is doing exactly what they are telling them they want done. Meanwhile, they are ignoring the people back home who actually have to deal with the consequences of this political tunnel vision.

Time after time in poll after poll, even more polls that have come out today, the American people have made it abundantly clear that they are not just dissatisfied with the President's failure to lead, with his radical agenda--you know what, they are not just angry. What I learned from Tennesseans is that people are really frightened by what they see taking place with this far-left, hard-left turn.

President Biden has to know all of this. The Democratic leadership has to know all of this. Look at all the polls. It doesn't matter if it is NPR, it doesn't matter if it is AP, it doesn't matter if it is CNN, the agenda, the President, the Vice President--they are all underwater. I think they have probably seen this coming since day one of this disastrous administration.

Take some of the specific issues. The Democratic leadership has had a front row seat to what is happening on the southern border. So has the administration. There has been a complete collapse of our Nation's sovereignty at the southern border. With the stroke of a pen, President Biden dismantled the policies that were keeping us safe. He invited waves of illegal immigrants into the country, said: Y'all come. Y'all come. We are ready for you.

He threw the Border Patrol and local law enforcement under the bus, did not listen to them. You don't have to take my word for it. Go to the southern border. Go visit with them.

He has let the cartel step into the leadership void at the southern border. The drug dealers and the human traffickers are in control of the southern border at this point in time. You do not cross that border unless you have paid the cartels. But you know what, admitting this does not fit the agenda of the Democratic leadership, so they just ignore it. Now, President Biden and my Democratic colleagues continue to evade responsibility for keeping the border secure and safeguarding the national security. They don't want to talk about that.

They are also not wanting to talk about the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party and our other adversaries abroad. And that is right--the Chinese Communist Party is an adversary. They are not a competitor. They are not a friend or a frenemy. They are an adversary. What are they doing? They are conducting surveillance, academic espionage, and intellectual property theft. They are doing this every single day. It is all part of the standing operating procedures of the new axis of evil and all being ignored by people who are charged with running this country, keeping this country safe.

Tennesseans will tell you they are very concerned. The American people are very concerned. The polls are showing it. And they are blaming the Biden administration for not feeling safe, not feeling secure, for the supply chain crisis, for inflation. These are all things that have been brought about in the past year by decisions this administration has made, Executive orders they have executed.

Every time people in this country pick up their phone, they are faced with the knowledge that many of the programs and social media platforms that they once enjoyed are controlled by people who refuse to prioritize privacy and data security and realize that these cyber protections are important.

They are grateful for all the sunlight that you and I, Mr. President, have been able to shine on the problems with Big Tech. So many times as I was at home, people would mention to me how much they have learned through the hearings that we have held, the roundtable discussions, and they are wanting to see more attention brought to keeping us safe and limiting the surveillance, the property theft, and the academic espionage that the Chinese Communist Party and our adversaries are conducting in the virtual space. They are looking forward to seeing us translate this bipartisan consensus into action. They are looking forward to what we are going to deliver when it comes to online privacy, data security, section 230 reforms, to protect our innovators, to protect our children online, to protect our consumers.

When people look at what is being done, like the work we have done on technology policy, and what is not being done when it comes to addressing China, addressing Russia, dealing with Iran, when it comes to dealing with inflation, prices at the pump, and prices that are happening at the grocery store, they look at this and they say: Where is the President? Where is the Vice President? Where are people who should be working for the American people in Congress?

When we talk about the Democratic leadership, we know that they are too busy catering to the most radical fringe of the Democratic Party to do their job, and they are too busy with that to govern or to keep the economy in one piece and to keep the border intact or to provide for the common defense or to exercise a little oversight over some of the world's most powerful corporations.

Well, the American people deserve better. Tennesseans are wanting to see action. So while some of our colleagues across the aisle have a renewed sense of optimism about President Biden's ability to pull them out of this skid on this agenda that is going nowhere, the American people have spoken. They do not want what you are offering.

My resolve is going to be to stand here, to stand between what is happening, this destructive, as I call it, ``Build Back Broke'' agenda, and to protect Tennesseans and future generations of Americans from such an adverse and negative impact.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I am looking around this Chamber, and I am talking to my colleagues, and it is so apparent; we should not be here right now. Our business should be done. We have had all year.

We should have wished one another well last week, and then we should have gotten ourselves home to our families, to our church families, to our neighbors and friends. And right now, I should be in Tennessee wishing Tennesseans well for this Christmas season.

But with the way things are going, I am beginning to believe that Joe Biden and the Democrats do not wish the American people well because the fact is, everything they have done this year, in some way, shape, or form, has made life harder for Americans and for Tennesseans, and it has taken away just a little bit more of their freedom.

I was talking with a Tennessean last night, and they were making this point to me about the gains that they had seen during Republican control of the House and the Senate and the Trump administration and being able to keep more of their money in their pocket. This was a veteran who talked about our standing in the world. Our allies knew they could trust us. Our enemies, indeed, feared us. All of that is gone. Life is harder; life is more uncertain; it is less predictable; inflation is through the roof.

As Tennesseans have turned on the news this week, they have heard an avalanche of news reports holding one or two Members of this body responsible for ``obstructing the democratic process''--something that sounds pretty scary when it is taken out of context, doesn't it?

In my opinion, I consider it media malpractice to blame one or two Members of this Chamber for a year's worth of bad-faith delays because Members have asked for a vote on certain national security issues, and the Senate should have weighed in on these issues long ago. The Senate has had the time. The leadership has had the time. So, no, that narrative cannot stand.

All these delays and all this strife is the natural conclusion of the Democrats' single-minded obsession with their reckless tax-and-spending spree.

My colleagues on the left have, indeed, squandered months trying to strong-arm their moderate colleagues into rubberstamping what I call their ``Build Back Broke'' agenda. It is so toxic that even economists who many times are friendly with the White House have turned their backs on the proposal. Even they deem it socialist in nature.

This month, we have reaped the consequences of their obsession in the form of 6.8 percent inflation. It is already at a 40-year high. It is still ticking up. Gas prices are increasing. Food is costing more. Warehouses are being cleared out. One hundred and seventy cargo ships are still off the coast of California, 150 miles out.

But yet, until a few hours ago, really, the Democrats were pushing for final passage on a spending bill that would make things even worse--would make it worse. It is not $1.75 trillion; it is $5 trillion. It is not paid for. It is not, ``Oh, it doesn't cost a dime''; it costs $3 trillion. That is the conservative estimate.

If you look back through the record, you will find almost no help for our supply chains that I mentioned that are all backed up, and you will find at least one terrible mistake that made the bad situation worse.

Joe Biden's vaccine mandates started inflicting damage on the economy and our supply chains well before the courts started throwing up their roadblocks, and thank goodness the courts are backing where the American people are on this mandate issue.

In Tennessee, these foolish mandates could cost businesses more than $70 million and force 37 percent of our labor force out of work.

My Democratic colleagues, however, have wasted hours here on the Senate floor defending what is truly a blatant power grab. Does it make the lives of Tennesseans and Americans better? Absolutely not. It makes them worse.

They have somehow neglected to acknowledge that these mandates don't reach as far as our southern border. Isn't it amazing? In fact, most of the policies they are so eager to force on the American people that are making their lives worse evaporate once you hit the border, which is even more chaotic now than it was on day 1 of the Biden administration.

If you look back on the past year, you will find little in the way of assistance for our Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement officers. Oh, no, can't do that. Oh, no, let's reinvent the police. Let's reinvent law enforcement. Oh, no, we can't put more assets on the southern border to defend our sovereignty. It makes you believe that the Democratic Party is pleased with the chaos that they are seeing in border communities all across that southern border.

What my friends across the aisle have done is basically to hand power, control, and billions of dollars to those cartels. And they have opened up their arms, and they have welcomed now right at 2 million people to illegally enter this country. No vaccine mandates apply to them. Oh, no, sir, not at all--preference. Let's go ahead. They can go through a separate TSA line when they get on a plane with a taxpayer- funded plane ticket. And all the time, the lives of Americans under this administration, they are not as well off as they were a year ago. Their life is not as comfortable as it was a year ago.

Now, if security was even an inkling of a priority with my colleagues, if security had any importance at all, securing this Nation--you know, it is kind of one of the first things we are supposed to do, provide for the common defense. But this week, we finally got around to passing the NDAA. How about that? Finally got it done.

Now, we wouldn't have had to wait until this week to take the threat of what I call the ``axis of evil'' seriously--the threats coming from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. I can assure you, they are watching us very closely, and they are keeping up with what we are doing to protect this Nation.

Why are they so aggressive right now? They are looking at Joe Biden, and they are saying, He is weak, he is not going to do anything to push back on us. You know, he talked about a few economic sanctions with Russia, but Putin is not worried about that. How

about sanctioning, stopping trade, sanctioning so many other areas, stopping the Nord Stream 2--how about that--to show that we are going to deal with them as they, an adversary of ours, deserve to be dealt with?

We don't do any of that. Oh, no, let's not make Xi Jinping mad. Let's not do anything like that. Let's not call him into account. Let's let him keep carrying out that genocide on the Uighurs. Oh, and you know, let's do this; let's just have a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics. But go ahead and let our corporations, let our TV networks and their cameras broadcast to the world the glory of Beijing and Xi Jinping.

Inconsistencies and weakness do not serve us well. They do not. And instead of looking at things that should be a priority, my colleagues across the aisle have kept their focus on trying to pass a gigantic spending bill that the American people do not want and programs they say we don't need.

But the Democrats are saying that we are going to pass it by whatever means necessary--whatever means necessary. We are going to get this done. Thank goodness, we are leaving here, and it is not done.

Now, woven into this exercise in partisan brinksmanship was an ongoing effort to punch holes in the very institutions that keep our government from collapsing into chaos. We have watched our Democratic colleagues fail to gain traction with policies that people haven't asked for and, as I said, don't want. But instead of setting their power grabs and wish list aside, the Democrats tried to find ways to crash through constitutional and institutional backstops and force their will on the American people.

You hear it all the time: Time is running out. We are going to lose the House; we are going to lose the Senate so we have got to do this. We have got to transform the country.

Well, they have gone round after round with the Supreme Court and the Federal court packers, the anti-filibuster crowd, and those who wish to attack the integrity of the ballot box. They don't want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat; they are trying to make it easier to cheat and harder to vote. And, repeatedly, they continue to try to look for somebody who blame. It has got to be somebody else's fault.

Just yesterday, we saw a wave of righteous indignation over the Senate Parliamentarian's refusal to allow the Democrats to shove amnesty for illegal immigrants into a budget bill. That is right.

They should not have been surprised by the ruling. They tried it once, twice, three times, and every time, they should have known how this was going to end. You can't do that.

It is almost as if all this has nothing to do with the policies printed on the thousands upon thousands of pages the Democrats are hoping nobody reads--because they feel like they have got a deadline, they have got to do this, time is running out. By whatever means necessary, let's just get it done.

Well, there is no serious person--none--who could look at this past year and conclude that Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have been acting in good faith, doing things the people want to see done, because their agenda has been the opposite of that.

That is why so many elected representatives in the House and the Senate are saying: Hey, I am going home, and I am talking to people. We are getting calls in our office. We are getting emails. People are speaking up. They don't like this. The more they know about what we are doing, the less they like it.

There is no serious person who could look at these underhanded attacks on our institution and conclude that the Democrats believe more in the common cause of freedom than they do in passing their ``Build Back Broke'' agenda. They have got to have it. They have just got to have it.

And no serious person could look at the past year and dispute that it is Joe Biden and the Democrats who were the architects of their own destructive agenda. And the reason we are all still here at the eleventh hour waiting on the majority is because they have put their power before the people.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, the time has come to once again bid farewell to another one of Team Blackburn's esteemed fellows.

Over the past year, we have had the privilege of working with Capt. Edward Pritchard, who came to us from the U.S. Marine Corps to serve as our first Department of Defense fellow.

It was a strange year to be a fellow here in the Senate, but Ed rose to the occasion and impressed us. He impressed every one of us with his work ethic, humor, and his singular commitment to maintaining the strength and integrity of the U.S. military. It has truly been an honor having Ed on our team, and I think I speak for each and every one of us when I say we will miss him.

Captain Pritchard, I thank you for your service to Tennessee and to this great Nation and wish you all the best as you head across the river to the Pentagon to start the next exciting chapter in your already distinguished career.

Madam President, last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a grim set of numbers that confirmed our worst fears: Inflation is getting worse, and by this month, the American people are in for even more economic pain. Why? Because their paychecks just can't keep up with the skyrocketing prices. On top of everything else, they get to look forward to a pay cut every month for the foreseeable future, and all this is happening just in time for Christmas. It is insult added to injury.

Now, it would be bad enough if this economic nosedive would have happened no matter what the White House had chosen to do, but it would not have happened. It was totally preventable. No, this is the direct result of the Democrats' reckless taxing-and-spending spree that started in March and has lasted all year long.

American families struggled to stretch their budgets through 6.8 percent inflation in November--that was in November--which is the highest we have seen in almost 40 years. We are looking at the largest 12-month increase since 1982.

Think about this: All of this happened just as the experts predicted and just as Tennesseans kept saying they feared this was what would happen.

Now, despite a mountain of evidence proving their recovery strategy has failed, Democrats are ready to lean into the past year's insanity and pump not millions, not billions, but trillions--trillions--of dollars into the economy that they have already destroyed. What is worse is they are trying to leverage this economic pain against their Republican colleagues by refusing to raise the debt ceiling to accommodate their own reckless spending.

You can't make this stuff up. This is Biden economics, it is intentional, and it is painful because what the Democrats are doing is showing they are willing to spend taxpayer money on things that taxpayers don't want, which is this destructive economic agenda.

So I ask my Democratic colleagues: What is it about these numbers that are staring you in the face that you do not understand? Are you so eager to force President Biden's ``Build Back Broke'' agenda on the American people that you are willing to throw reason and accountability and basic economics out the window? Is it really worth watching your fellow countrymen suffer? Is it worth watching people whom you represent, people who elected you, suffer?

If you all bothered to pay attention, what you would see is just how bad it has gotten out here in the real world. The policies that you are so convinced will lead us into a socialist utopia, as some on the left like to say, have dragged the people into a constant--constant--state of fear and worry.

One Tennessee mom told me last week:

Marsha, this stuff scares me. It just scares me.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Captain Edward Pritchard, a Department of Defense fellow with my team, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of this Congress.

Mr. President, on Tuesday, at 3 in the morning, the people at Instagram published a blog post describing another laundry list of product updates they claim will make their platform less toxic for children and teens.

And I am sure they thought that the dead of night was the right time to make this announcement, and I don't blame them. If I wanted to pass off something and just give a little lip service and a little deflection and make it look like some type of meaningful reform, I might try a 3 a.m. news dump also.

Because what they did was to put up changes on how to handle things on their site with drug use and self-harm and violence and eating disorders and low self-esteem and human trafficking and bullying.

What they told us is they know there is violence and adverse content on

their site. And, yesterday, at the hearing at our Consumer Protection Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee, Senator Blumenthal and I made it fairly clear to our friends from the Silicon Valley that they cannot escape accountability for what is happening on their site--not from Congress and not from the American people. I am talking about the moms, the dads, the teachers, the pediatricians, who approach me every single day that I am in Tennessee.

They are worried about their kids, and the concern is not the product of generational differences. When they were growing up, drugs and eating disorders and bullying were problems, but--you know what, Mr. President--they weren't inescapable.

Now these horrible things follow our children every minute of every day, all courtesy of Big Tech. So, yes, when a company like Instagram claims that they are going to do more to support parents and to keep kids safe, Tennesseans listen, but they don't take their word for it. They test it out. They look for evidence of accountability.

And with all of these updates that they posted, they didn't give us transparency. They didn't give a timeline for when they are going to be implemented. Basically, they said: We know this is a problem, and we will get around to fixing it at some point in the future.

They are still not making changes.

I do want to thank Chairman Blumenthal and other members of the subcommittee for staying focused on this issue. This time around, we had Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri on the witness stand, and it really was perfect timing.

You know, yesterday's hearing was the fifth time this year that the subcommittee has met to discuss what Congress and Big Tech should do to protect our precious children online. It was the fourth time I have personally spoken to someone from Meta, as they now call themselves, which is Instagram's parent. And by this point, I felt like maybe they would come forward with something concrete for us: This is how we are going to get things done.

But, no, nothing changes.

This week, my staff put themselves through yet another deep dive into the dark corners of Instagram and confirmed that there has been no crackdown on dangerous content, as Instagram has previously claimed.

We searched for posts that glorified eating disorders and drug use, and it took them about 30 seconds to find those posts glorifying drug use and eating disorders. And they are not nearly as good at this as the 14- and 15-year-olds who are on this platform are at finding this content.

If they can find this content given half a minute and a decent internet connection, then why can't Instagram find this? Why do they continue to deny that it is there?

One of the things that shocked me the most with Mr. Mosseri's testimony was his refusal to admit that this content is still pervasive. He was absolutely sure that we were hitting him with anecdotal evidence, and he said as much.

But it wasn't just me finding this terrible content on the platform; it was everyone on our committee, Democrat and Republican. There was agreement. We all came to the table with evidence of what we had found online.

I will still stipulate that we all share the same goal of protecting our children and teens online, but nothing has made me question that more than watching executive after executive from platform after platform deny the existence of these problems.

The time for talking through these problems is over. The people who work for Big Tech at Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, Google are all aware of this problem. They don't need congressional hearings to tell them that there are platforms--their platforms--that are hotbeds for trafficking, drug use, bullying, and the glorification of eating disorders.

They don't need me to come to the dais with evidence that their current protections don't work and that more of the same won't magically turn the tide. They know it, and we know that they know it. And their knowledge, it hasn't changed a single thing about their business model.

Fortunately, we have bipartisan momentum to put some guardrails back on these companies. We are working on children's privacy, data security, and Section 230 reforms. We are also working on a national consumer privacy bill and kids' specific policies to keep minors safe online. No more half measures; no more empty promises.

I have been working in tech policy for quite a while now, and I watched companies like Instagram grow from these tiny, great ideas and startups into multibillion-dollar corporations, the largest in our country. Their platforms are integrated into our lives, our culture, our politics. They are upstream from everything.

Unfortunately, they are also places where teens can go to buy drugs, bully their classmates, find human traffickers, sex traffickers, and where girls waste away. If anyone deserves an explanation from Big Tech, it is the children and teens and their parents who are suffering because of these companies.

I invite my colleagues to join me in holding these companies accountable.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, yesterday, in a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell finally confirmed what we have all known for a long time; that the threat of persistently higher inflation has grown and that the risk of more persistent inflation has risen.

He acknowledged to the committee that use of the word ``transitory'' in the media has caused confusion and that it is probably a good time to retire that word and try to explain more clearly what is actually happening with the economy.

Now, that is bad news for the spin doctors over in the Biden administration who have spent months trying to convince Tennesseans and the American people that we will be out of the woods any day now, that this is all coming to a fast end. It is back to the drawing board for the White House comms shop. They cannot split hairs over vocabulary words pertaining to inflation.

The inflation that we are seeing is real; it is felt; and the consequences of ignoring this are very real.

Of course, Tennesseans could have told Washington, DC, this long ago. Out in the real world, they have been dealing with the cost of inflation. Contrary to what the White House would have you believe, inflation isn't just a problem for the rich, and it certainly won't fade into the background after the holidays.

I have spoken at length about how inflation has affected Tennessee families and their budgets. Just a few weeks ago, I used the price hike on your average Thanksgiving dinner as an example of how a dollar here and a dollar there can add up to a massive grocery bill that we wouldn't have thought possible even a year ago.

But when I tell you that Tennesseans are worried about inflation, I don't want you to think they are only worried about the little extras. It is a helpful visualization, but it is a serious issue. This isn't about the price of turkey. This is about an out-of-control administration pursuing an agenda that has forced families to choose between food and fuel.

This is beyond out of touch. It is intentional, reckless activism that started the very moment that President Biden walked into the Oval Office, sat down at the desk, pulled out a pen, and started to sign Executive orders, beginning with killing the Keystone Pipeline.

If we forgot everything we know about the modern Democratic Party, it would be easy to write off the administration's pursuit of big spending packages as politics as usual, but we know and have known for a long time, actually, that the Democrats in power view the next few years as an opportunity to tear down what we have and rebuild this country in their own socialist image. That is right. Radically transforming the country, that has been their goal for more than a decade.

Now, this is not just bad economic policy; it is a full-blown power grab. How else could you possibly explain the administration's commitment to the idea that we can spend our way out of this current crisis in spite of the mountains of evidence there to the contrary?

How else can you explain their decision to respond to collapsing supply chains with a vaccine mandate that we knew was going to make these bottlenecks worse?

It only makes sense if you abandon the assumption of good faith, and that is truly a disheartening revelation.

The American people are vulnerable, and they are angrier than I have ever seen them become. They are angry because this administration's motivation for pursuing these reckless policies is coming into focus.

As a Tennessean told me yesterday, ``I supported President Biden. I thought he was going to be a moderate, and I feel like he became something else immediately.''

The people know with absolute certainty that their President and his allies in Congress are taking advantage to force us down a path that the people have consistently rejected.

This is not what they want. They feel like they have lost control of the country, and they have no faith that the leaders of the Democratic Party here in Washington, DC, have their best interests at heart.

The American people deserve better than this. This is not what they voted for. This is not what they wanted to see. The White House and congressional Democrats must abandon this disastrous Build Back Broke agenda before the possibility of true recovery slips away from us and before the American people lose all faith in those who asked for and then squandered the privilege of leading this country.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I imagine many of us in this Chamber had a wonderful week talking with Tennesseans--with our constituents.

In Tennessee, I will tell you this: We had a fabulous week. And everywhere I went, whether it was the grocery store or somewhere with the grandchildren, I was hearing from people about the issues that are in front of us, and they are really curious to see what is going to end up happening as we take up issues here in DC.

And I talked with a lot of our county mayors, who are quite concerned about what is happening with the American Recovery Act funding and how they are going to be able to use that funding.

They are very concerned about the infrastructure bill, and, you know, they were really a little bit surprised to find out that so little of the bill actually goes to infrastructure. I think they were really disappointed in that because what they are interested in is money for roads and bridges and highways and ports and broadband, and were really disappointed in the emphasis in the bill on mass transit.

So what we have realized is that they have a lot of questions. They look around and they say: Well, in Washington, you have got a lot of spinning wheels going on and not a lot of forward motion.

And I have to agree because, in Washington, it does appear that the President and many of my Democrat colleagues are spinning their wheels in the same rut that they were stuck in before the holiday, proving once again that, while they understand very little about the economy, they understand even less about where the American people are.

Since day 1 of this administration, the White House has made it clear that governing is not a priority. Governing--working with the House, working with the Senate to find solutions.

But, instead, this administration is doing all it can to force the country onto a path that the people have said time and again they don't want to travel this path. It is not where they want to go.

By all accounts, businesses are, at least, a year out from a return to normal, which we continue to hear a lot about that. Everybody would like to be back to prepandemic normal.

Our supply chains are a mess. Ships that are loaded with goods cannot get to ports. Inflation is, unfortunately, here to stay. It definitely wasn't transitory. Families are having an increasingly difficult time putting food on the table and gas in the car because a dollar doesn't go as far as it once went, and this is something every family is wrestling with. Even with all of this right in front of their faces, my Democratic colleagues are more concerned with how they will leverage these problems rather than how they are going to solve these problems. What solutions that they have proposed are completely divorced from reality and come loaded with more internal political strife than they are worth. This, of course, is the logical conclusion of a year where consensus took a backseat to the whims of the loudest and most radical leftist wing of the Democratic Party.

Over the past week, the media has dripped out story after story covering the cost of inflation, the consequences of failing to fund the government, and the upcoming debate over the debt limit. And if you thought the message coming from the White House and from my Democratic colleagues in response to all this was jumbled before, prepare yourself for something even more chaotic in the days to come.

My colleagues across the aisle, unfortunately, still seem to be under the impression that Senate Republicans are going to band together to save them from the hole they have dug for themselves. They think we are going to endorse fiscal policy so destructive that many experts who are normally friendly to the White House have refused to support these ideas--and with good reason. They are a socialist, government- controlled agenda.

We have been down this road before. So my Democratic colleagues know that going through the motions of bipartisanship isn't going to be enough because we went through this months ago with the debt ceiling and on the matter of funding the government. We would have settled all of these issues months ago if the majority had their priorities in line and if they could articulate clearly to the American people what the priorities are, what the problems are, what the challenges are, and bring forward solutions for the American people to look at and say: Yeah, that makes sense. But that is not what they have done and what they continue to do.

Here is the problem with where they are: The priorities of the Democratic Party are not the priorities of the American people. Out in the real world, inflation is a problem. Spending and debt--all of that means something. How you spend your money means something. People understand that. They get it.

But according to the majority here in the Democratic-controlled Senate, none of these things actually matter in practice. In fact, the past few months have shown us that among Democrats, there is no real consensus about what, if anything, these major debates mean to them or what is the end game. It is amazing. They can't tell you. If you are here to solve problems or create problems, people are going to figure that out--the American people are. And they know that the question should be: Are you here to solve problems or create problems for your political enemies in a way that ensures you are punishing people?

Now, that is the question that people are asking. Is the debt limit a legal fiction or a meaningful check on reckless spending? That is a question that we have heard. Is it just something that gets tossed around? Is funding the government part of your duty or is the appropriations debate just fuel for talking points? I think we know the majority's answers to all of these questions, and I think their answer is probably coming down on the wrong side of where the American people are.

Those looking for good faith from the White House are seeming to not find it, nor are they finding any evidence that Democrats in Congress are aware of their moral obligation to be discerning and truthful about how they plan to spend trillions in taxpayer money.

There is a reason that the Democrats lied about the costs associated with their massive social spending bill, which reflects the priorities of liberal, leftist activists rather than the priorities of the American people. They claimed it was paid for, but in reality it will add $367 billion to the deficit and cost taxpayers more than another $400 billion. That is why they have not been truthful with the American people that needed more buy-in in order for the Democrats to make this happen--even when they knew the CBO report was going to come and show how much debt was going to be added if this bill got passed.

They know the people don't want this big spending bill. They know that the American people know that we cannot afford this. Our children and our grandchildren cannot afford this bill.

As my colleague from Texas was saying, it is not $1.5 trillion or $1.75 trillion. It is trillions--trillions--of dollars in spending. And we know how some across the aisle are kind of, with a wink-wink and a nod-nod, saying: Yes, let's get these on the books, and then things will take care of themselves.

This week, we are facing the prospect of yet another government shutdown, which means another eleventh-hour opportunity for my Democratic colleagues to complain about Republican obstruction. But what the Democrats in the media and the liberal activists

need to realize is that Republicans are not the problem here. The Democrats are in charge of this Chamber, the House, and the White House.

And not even the Democrats in power can agree on how much they want to spend and how they want to spend it. If they had consensus and if that consensus came from listening to the people that elected them to serve, we wouldn't be staring at the prospect of another government shutdown. No, you would see Democrats marching to the Chamber in lockstep to vote for a continuing resolution that reflects goals that don't change with the news cycle.

But there is no consensus. The people driving the ship have lost all sense of direction, and in doing so, they are losing the faith the American people have put in them.

In Tennessee, we would say that our friends across the aisle are in the middle of a good old-fashioned come-apart, and there is one way and only one way to reverse the damage, and that is to stop worrying about politics and pushing a leftist agenda and start worrying about meeting the needs of the American people--not only today but the needs of our children and grandchildren. What are we going to do to their hopes and their dreams for living their version of the American dream?

So we should agree, no more blame, no more budget gimmicks--open our eyes to the reality of the situation that we are dealing with. We have a job to do here, and the sooner my Democratic colleagues remember that fact, the sooner they will be able to earn back the faith and the trust of the American people. That is priority No. 1, and it is time for my colleagues to prove that they understand it.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, the Biden administration's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan jeopardized our national security, empowered our enemies, and put thousands of innocent lives in jeopardy. But as the situation devolved, stories emerged of heroic efforts to push back the Taliban's advance and save stranded Americans, allies, and Afghan partners from the clutches of one of the world's most dangerous terror organizations.

Today, I want to honor a group of unsung heroes who joined this effort from the home front. Team Blackburn is blessed to include a dedicated and tenacious group of caseworkers and personal staff who treat the needs of Tennesseans like those of their own families. During those chaotic weeks, these people fielded hundreds of panicked calls for help from and on behalf of Tennesseans who were trapped behind enemy lines. They used every resource at their disposal, leveraged every connection they could think of and worked more than a few miracles to bring those Tennesseans closer to home.

On behalf of the Volunteer State, I thank the following members of my staff who went above and beyond on behalf of the common cause of freedom: Elizabeth Kelly, Payton Scott, Kayley Russell, Heather Hatcher, Josh Knell, Jeri Wheeler, Dana Magneson, Caroline Diaz- Barriga, Kim Cordell, Mac McCullough, Alexander Gonzalez, Grace Burch, Jay Strobino, John Clement, Edward Pritchard, and Emily Manning.