Floor Statements

Madam President, my colleague said it so very well. The inflation bomb is exploding, and people in Tennessee are incredibly concerned about that. I hear about this every single day from Tennesseans.

They are also concerned about the fact that it seems that the Democratic majority has been unable to push forward a budget that would be bipartisan, that would have appropriate spending, and that would prioritize the needs and the concerns of the American people.

Until just a few hours ago, we didn't have any insight into an infrastructure bill that would be bipartisan, and I applaud those who have worked so diligently to reach a bipartisan agreement. But the American people have started to lose a lot of their trust and a lot of their patience with Washington, DC, and I think we can say ``rightfully so'' because they are watching the cost of government go up. They are watching the hesitancy to move forward on their concerns, and they are speaking out to us. I had a Tennessean this week ask me why Washington was wasting so much time, because time is money, and they want to see things done.

We know we need to see what these bills are going to look like. We are hearing that the majority wants to bring forward this tax-and-spend spree of legislation that would be trillions of dollars, and we know that what would end up happening is this would be something that--I call it lie, cheat, steal. You don't say exactly what you are going to use the money for. You don't say exactly where the money is going to come from within the budget. Eventually, all of it comes out of the taxpayers' pocket. And you are stealing hopes and dreams from future generations who are going to--they are going to have to pay the bill for this. It is our children and our grandchildren and future generations that are going to have to find a way to pay for all of this.

That is why I brought this chart back to the floor. I have used it recently here on this floor to remind us of Ronald Reagan's words:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from

extinction. It has to be fought for and defended by each

generation.

Very true words. And what a good reminder to us because as we give government more control over our lives, as we give them more control in the Federal budget, as the government takes more money out of the pocket of hard-working taxpayers, what do we see? We see less freedom.

There is such concern that the Democratic majority has refused to come forward and say how they want to spend these trillions of dollars. I think part of that is because there is not a way to pay for it, and they don't plan to pay for it. Instead, they are going to send that bill to future generations.

This is dangerous. We are upside down on this national debt when you look at how that debt clock is ticking. But we have to choose to spend taxpayer money where it matters, and it still matters. It matters to Tennesseans what their tax dollars are spent for, and it matters how they are spent. Another thing that matters to them is what we are spending it for and the driving of inflation across this country.

If my Democratic colleagues continue to dig this hole, future generations will be in so deep that it will be very difficult for them to compete on the global stage. They will be vulnerable to the deathtraps our adversaries in Beijing set for nations that have made the same mistakes that the Democratic majority wants us to make: spending more money than you have to spend for programs that you cannot afford.

I would argue that existing in a state of dependence and vulnerability created by our own government is the opposite of freedom. It is the opposite of freedom. Is that really what we want for our children and grandchildren, to leave them with so much Federal debt that they are covered in debt; that most of their paycheck is going to go to the Federal Government to pay for programs that have long outlived their usefulness? I think not.

That is why it is so important that we look at what is happening right now, as there are these conversations about budgets and as there are these conversations about the tax-and-spend spree that my colleagues across the aisle would seek to propose.

I would also offer that that type of spending is not governing. What it is, is a power grab. What it is, is taking care of your friends and not those who elected you to serve. The American people can see what is coming at them from a mile away, and they are expressing their concerns about DC's out-of-control tax-and-spending spree.

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, this has already been a big week in Tokyo for Team USA, and I hope all of my colleagues have the opportunity to watch a few minutes of the Olympic Games over the next few weeks.

Every year, we hear so much from commentators and athletes about how the Games are an opportunity for the world to come together, and that is exactly how it once was. Unfortunately, the Olympics are also a target-rich environment for people and regimes that want to use these rare moments of unity to trick the world into ignoring evil.

Before we were able to enjoy any of this year's double-pike vaults or 400-meter freestyle swims, we were already worrying about the impending havoc casting a shadow over the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Late last year, the Chinese Government began pilot testing a new digital currency that will inevitably knock other domestic mobile payment systems out of the marketplace.

The digital yuan trial has already pulled in $5.3 billion--that is correct, $5.3 billion--in transactions, and this month we learned that cross-border payments are also on the table. In fact, the trial has been so successful that Beijing wants to expand testing at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Now, as much as I would like to believe that this is an innocent effort to bring the world a little closer together, this is the Chinese Communist Party that we are talking about, and we shouldn't expect good faith because that is not what we are going to get from the CCP. We have reason to believe that the Chinese Government intends to use the digital yuan to conduct a massive surveillance operation on Chinese citizens and foreign visitors.

It wouldn't be the first time something like this happened. The CCP has an unfortunate history of weaponizing emerging technologies against people they would like to control. They used it against the Uighurs, against freedom fighters in Hong Kong, and on the mainland against anyone who questions their party propaganda.

They are already using digital payment platforms to spy on their own people; and if we are not careful, they are going to use them to spy on Team USA.

This month, I sent a letter to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee asking them to forbid our athletes from accepting or using the digital yuan while competing in Beijing.

The threats are changing, and far too often we see our allies and partners and even our own government ignoring those threats to preserve the status quo.

You may be asking yourself: Why is so much of the world willing to look the other way when confronted with genocide in Xinjiang or murdered protesters in Hong Kong?

It is because speaking up can be dangerous, especially when it comes to challenging the CCP.

China boasts the most in-demand market in the world. In fact, it is such a gold mine that you will recall the NBA ignored large-scale child abuse at its training camps in China just to maintain access to broadcast advertising and merchandise revenue.

Through the Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese Communist Party has sunk its teeth into some of the most valuable tourist destinations on the face of the Earth, on trade route, and strategic outposts.

They have sold this program as an economic development initiative, but in reality this debt-trap diplomacy is really just an extortion scheme. Once these countries fall into the trap, it is almost impossible to escape.

Even before the pandemic forced the United States into lockdown, I and several other of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle were ringing alarm bells about our supply chain security. China is the most dominant global source of rare Earth minerals, technology infrastructure, and many active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Long story short, there is a lot on the line for the people of the United States. The cards are stacked against us.

It would be really easy to protect that valuable status quo by ignoring human rights violations and extortion schemes and other overt attempts to make the world a little less free. But as much as we would like it to be, freedom is not humanity's natural state. It is fragile. It falls victim to the weak and the power hungry alike, and, if we are not careful, yes, it will slip away, like it has in so many other countries.

Freedom does have to be fought for, and we need our leaders to set the example. That means staying focused on not following the example of countries that have given up their freedom. We don't want to live out the authoritarian nightmare that the CCP has created, but we also want to avoid becoming like nations that have already pawned their futures in pursuit of some grand socialist future.

I fear that our new majority has already lost touch with what the American people actually want. They sure don't want what the Biden administration has been selling lately. I can definitely tell you that after a weekend in Tennessee. They don't feel taken care of. What they are feeling is that they are being manipulated.

They want to know why President Biden and the Democratic majority keep trying to pawn off the freedom that makes us an example to the rest of the world in exchange for more government control that nobody asked for.

I would encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to remember that the American people entrusted them with the power that they are wasting on these radical wish lists items, and that power can be taken away just as easily as it was given.

The American people want to make certain that we do as Ronald Reagan implored us to remember. And, Madam President, as you know, last week I had that poster here on the floor. Freedom is always one generation away from extinction. It is our responsibility to fight for it, to pass it on.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, there was such an interesting occurrence that happened down the street a bit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue last weekend, and it is when White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki unveiled the scheme that her colleagues in the West Wing had worked out with Big Tech.

Well, what they are setting about to do is to remove--and I am quoting her--``problematic'' content from Facebook and other digital platforms. That is right. They, the White House team, have decided that they are going to work with Big Tech, and they are going to remove ``problematic''--their term--content from Facebook and other digital platforms.

Now, I am certain that the White House was very confident that the press would treat this rather bizarre admission like they have treated other blatant oversteps coming out of this administration. After all, they, the press, have provided reliable cover for this White House since Inauguration Day.

But here is the problem. It is no longer Inauguration Day. There is now a record to consider, and I will tell you what, no matter what they do, the mainstream media is not going to be able to turn the clock back on this overstep.

In just 6 months, the Biden administration has done an admirable job showing the American people exactly who they are. We have seen enough at this point to take the admission of being in cahoots with Big Tech at face value. The administration has intentionally overwhelmed the airwaves with big promises that are conveniently light on details.

And there is a good reason for that. What President Biden and the Democrats are trying to do would fundamentally transform this country into something that we, the people, would have a very difficult time even recognizing.

They got off to a great start toward their goals by killing jobs in the name of climate extremism and opening the border to a flood of illegal immigrants with no plan at all to manage the influx. They just said: Let's send them to the States, and let local communities and States cover this cost.

They tried to dupe the American people into getting behind a so- called infrastructure plan that was anything but infrastructure. Then they doubled down on a brazen attempt to extend the Federal Government's control over schools and homes. They labeled this spending spree the American Families Plan to provide cover for yet another attack on, what else, the nuclear family.

Then they launched an all-out war on the ballot box in the name of the people. And now we see that they worked out a perfect system to force the opposition to shut up--just throw a flag on your opponents and watch their digital footprint and their freedom of speech evaporate.

There is a way to shut them down. It is called government-approved messaging. Obviously, somewhere in the White House, they tucked their realities that they alluded to back in January, and now this is what we are seeing.

I know we already have members of the mainstream media who are running defense on behalf of this little collaboration between the White House and Big Tech, but it is time to get serious about what is going on here. The President of the United States is using the full force of his administration to silence his political opponents. That is correct.

This isn't just dystopian. It also raises serious questions about how much pressure the Federal Government can put on a private entity to restrict political speech. Think about that. This administration, working with Big Tech, is going to deem certain messages government approved and others as being open to censorship. It is, indeed, a complete violation of the trust the American people put in Joe Biden when they sent him to the White House.

But as the new majority has made clear, to tear down and rebuild the United States in their own image is something that is a goal. And in order to do that, they attack the foundation. They have to get rid of all the things that make America so incredibly special: our commitment to safety and security, the importance of the family, and the near sacrosanct promise of free speech and open debate.

They have gotten off to a pretty good start, those Democrats. But for their vision to take hold, the Democratic majority must convince a critical mass of their countrymen to adopt their same narrow viewpoint. Fortunately, the American people are not accustomed to doing what they are told simply because an authority figure said go do it.

Here is a quote that former President Reagan made regularly, and I know we have heard it and seen it on this floor several times so far this year:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from

extinction. It has to be fought for and defended by each

generation.

That is so important for us to remember. It is important because it is something that we are seeing really kind of lived out right now. We have to take this as something of a warning when you look at the steps that this administration is taking. If anything, they are taking big steps to see just how far they can push the limits of democracy: How much will the people take? How much freedom are they willing to give up?

Just about every single policy coming out of this White House has been used by the Democrats as a weapon to diminish freedom in the name of a preapproved socialist fantasy. And in that fantasy, there is no room for free speech or dissent. Censorship becomes normalized. It is expected. Collectivism replaces individualism. The philosophies of democracy and self-determination fall victim to the moving goalposts of a living Constitution, and freedom is reduced to an outdated trope that only the unenlightened cling to.

I wonder, how many people in this country do you think actually have that as a goal? How many do you think are wanting to give up their free speech and their freedom and hand it over to the government and let the government decide what they are going to give back to them, how much freedom they are going to allow them to exercise over their daily life, over their children's education, over the education that they want to have, or the job they want to have, or the home they want to live in, or the car that they want to drive? Do you really think that Americans want to give their freedom up?

Since the 2016 election, the left has existed in a state of perpetual hysteria. It has been over the threat that our God-given freedom poses threats to their radical, socialist agenda. But instead of taking the conventional route of persuasion, they chose a high-pressure guilt campaign to force people into a prepackaged American experience. They want everyone marching in line with the daily talking points because we want calm, they say. Democracy is too messy. It is too unpredictable. No one wants to exist in that system, they say.

But I differ in my opinion. Yes, it is messy, but this big, beautiful, diverse mess is what sets this country apart. It makes us strong and successful and unites us under the common cause of freedom. And as we are all well aware, it has also turned this shining city on a hill into a magnet for criticism from nations foundering under the disastrous consequences of their great socialist experiment.

I would implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to stop trying to fit in with these failing systems. Stop diminishing the cause of freedom because it inconveniences you. Abandon your fear of open debate. This constant refusal to engage says much more about the strength of your policy positions than it does about ours. Above all, stop ignoring the American people. They didn't vote for this. They do not want this.

It is so interesting to me every weekend to go home and listen to Tennesseans who talk about the changes

that they have seen in the Democratic Party and the policies that are coming forward that they are rejecting because they do not want to give up their freedom. They are willing to fight for their freedom so that their children and their grandchildren know the promises of the American dream and have the opportunity to live their lives in freedom.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, before I begin my remarks, I do want to respond to my colleague and his comments about the For the People Act, which the Democratic Party is continuing to push.

Now, I will say that I am pleased to learn that many of my Democratic colleagues are standing up against the Jim Crow-era policies that their party put in place, the work that their party did with the KKK and other entities to block and obstruct access to the voting booth. And I will remind him also that the 1965 Voting Rights Act was a very solidly bipartisan effort that took place here in this Chamber.

And in regard to their S. 1, H.R. 1, For The People Act, it is anything but the For the People Act. What this would do is make it easier to cheat and harder to vote. We should be working to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. That is what election integrity is all about, and that is what the American people would like to see.

What this bill would do, their S. 1, H.R. 1, would federalize elections. Now, many in this Chamber may have served on an election commission or been the secretary of state in their State, and they fully appreciate and understand it is the constitutional duty--the constitutional duty--of the States to set the time, place, and manner of elections, and that the voter rolls are maintained there in your local county by citizens who serve on the election commission and who work those polls. But this bill that the Democrats are wanting to pass would, in essence, do away with voter ID.

Do you know what? Recent polling of various and different groups, numerous groups, have shown 80 percent of the American people really support showing a voter ID, showing an ID in order to cast that ballot. Prove that you are who you are. Their legislation would also institutionalize ballot harvesting, something that really offended so many thousands of citizens this year because with mail-out ballots, which they want to institutionalize, some people got three, four, five ballots. You can go online on social media, see pictures or videos of people holding up multiple ballots. That is not election integrity. That is not something that will ensure trust in the system. That would cause more doubt.

We should agree--we should agree, as Members of this Chamber, that we will work together to ensure that our local and State officials can carry forward with their elections

Mr. President, now, one of the most important duties we take on as Members of this Chamber is the confirmation of the President's Cabinet and other top executive branch issues.

Not until I finish my remarks, but I thank the gentleman.

A Senate confirmation hearing is probably the world's worst job interview, but there is a good reason for that. The various candidates who come before our committees are asking to take on some of the most important challenges that we face as a country. And so when the President sends us these nominees for consideration, it is our job to vet their resumes, to vet their records. To go through the motions is not enough. We need to meet with them and review their history.

So imagine our shock when the Biden administration began to send us candidates that made it clear the President expects the Senate to act as a rubberstamp for some of the most controversial and unqualified nominees in recent memory.

His choice for Health and Human Services, Secretary Xavier Becerra, had no meaningful experience in healthcare before his very first day serving as the country's chief healthcare officer. He did, however, have quite a long history of weaponizing the full force of government against people whose views differ from his own.

Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security, boasted a proven record of corruption from his time serving in the Obama administration. An investigation by the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security revealed that Mayorkas abused his position as the Director of USCIS to help politically powerful friends violate immigration laws.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta's record as a radical, liberal activist was so diametrically opposed to the beliefs of most Americans that she tried to ``evolve'' her positions on drug crime and defunding the police just to avoid scrutiny during her confirmation hearing. Of course, by ``evolve,'' I mean she outright lied about her position. And there have been many, many, who have stood on this floor and have challenged her nomination.

Another, David Chipman--this is Biden's pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He is so anti-Second Amendment, he has endorsed policies that would effectively ban all sporting rifles in the United States. He has no respect for the constitutional right to bear arms, no respect for the nearly 20 million Americans who hold a concealed carry permit, or the 15.5 million Americans who hold hunting licenses. President Biden chose the anti-gun lobby over the American people when he nominated Chipman for this post.

President Biden's parade of genuinely unacceptable nominees continued this week. Today, the majority leader has decided to move forward with the nomination of Donald Remy to be Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs. If that name sounds familiar to you, it is because you have heard about Mr. Remy's work in other controversial context. He served as the NCAA's COO and chief legal officer and was the architect of that organization's restrictive policy against name, image, and likeness compensation.

Between September 2018 and August 2019, the NCAA spent more than $26 million defending an NIL business model that the Supreme Court recently described as ``patently and inexplicably stricter than . . . necessary.'' It was a 9-to-0 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The $26 million, where does the NCAA get that money? From colleges, from universities, from student athletes. That is where the money came from, and it was used to defend this lawsuit.

But let's not focus on this one policy governing the NIL compensation. We need to keep in mind that Mr. Remy was comfortable using his training as a lawyer and his considerable power as a top NCAA official to maintain the culture of exploitation that defines modern college athletics. I am not sure what led President Biden to believe that Mr. Remy could help lead an agency notorious for its own brand of careless exploitation, but whatever the reason, we have a duty to get in his way.

For our veterans, decisions can be life or death. I have objected to his nomination since I came through the committee. And, quite frankly, I think it is a shame that President Biden refused to nominate someone who could demonstrate an ability to earn back the trust so many veterans have lost in the VA system.

Our veterans who have served this Nation honorably deserve better choices. They deserve at least that much from their Commander in Chief.

This nomination is just one more unserious shot in the dark from an administration that is yet to focus its energy on any one of the long list of problems they say they came to Washington to solve.

A quick scan of the morning newsletters on any given day show a complete lack of direction on the part of the White House and the Senate majority. Will we be working on infrastructure in the next few weeks or are we just going to be handling nominations? Are the most radical elements of the American Families Plan on the table or are we going to pivot to election law? Well, we won't have to flip a coin on that last one.

We know that over the next few weeks, we will waste time and energy resurrecting the Democrats' failed election takeover bill. As most everyone has seen, this week, Washington is playing host to a delegation of Texas Democrats' intent on holding election integrity legislation hostage in their very own State. They have come all the way to Capitol Hill to try and convince their Federal counterparts to go nuclear on behalf of a bill that has failed in various forms so many times that the objections write themselves. This political stunt is part of a larger movement within the radical American left to destroy the concept of one person, one vote and replace it with an unconstitutional, centralized election system that invites fraud and encourages donor intimidation. This foolish attack on ballot integrity has seized hold in Texas, Georgia, and other States attempting to protect the vote for all eligible voters.

Ballot integrity is a foundational concept in our Republic. It should be easy to vote. It should be hard to cheat. State and local officials should feel empowered to grow and tailor elections in a way that meets the needs of the community, not the demands of power-seeking politicians.

I think I speak for all of my Republican colleagues when I say that we will not legitimize this hysteria that has gripped the Democratic Party. Instead, we will defend the constitutional prerogative of one person, one vote through however many objections it takes to relegate this scheme that the Democrats have been trying for 20 years to relegate this to the dustbin of history

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, this weekend, the people of Cuba rose up in opposition to their repressive socialist government.

I think it is important to be clear on that point because much of the mainstream media that is reporting on these protests makes it sound as if everything is pandemic related, but what is happening in Cuba is not an economic fluke, and every single person serving in this body, working in the media, and analyzing the policy implications knows better than to say otherwise.

This isn't the pop socialism touted by the American left. It is not fashionable. There is no empowerment or equality in the socialist regime; there is just starvation, shortages, violence, and failure. For 62 years, the ruling Communists have bled the Cuban people dry, and now armed thugs have taken to the streets to repress the opposition at any cost.

Make no mistake, this is a test for President Biden. He must draw a line in the sand.

I call on my colleagues in the majority and on President Biden and the members of his Cabinet to join me in supporting all who would risk their lives to expose the ravages of socialism in Cuba.

We must lead in discussions with the U.N. and the EU and coordinate opposition to this violence being carried out against the people of Cuba.

We must demand that the Cuban Government allow for a free and open internet and initiate investigations into if and how Havana used technology supported by the Chinese Communist Party to cut off access to the internet just as the protests started gaining mainstream attention.

We cannot stand by while Communist thugs gun down their own people. We cannot let this become another Venezuela.

Just as we stand with the freedom fighters suffering in Hong Kong, on mainland China, and in other socialist regimes around the world, we must stand with the people of Cuba.

Madam President, it seems that for the past month Senate Republicans have watched as our Democratic colleagues send up one partisan test balloon after another.

They threatened a battle over a so-called equal pay bill, which turned out to be chum in the water for the trial lawyers but really not much else. Then they, once again, threatened the Second Amendment, but they couldn't find a friend across party lines to join them in that fight. So that trial balloon was popped.

And who could forget their promise to bring the improperly named Equality Act to the floor for a vote? Well, that balloon didn't take flight either. And, yesterday, the Democrats' democracy-destroying election takeover bill almost survived, but it too came crashing back to Earth after failing to clear a procedural hurdle.

Still, they have made the most of their time over the past month, holding up their string of failures as evidence that it is the filibuster and not the radically partisan nature of their agenda that is thwarting their progress.

As the Republican leader said at the beginning of this month, it was an agenda that was designed to fail. It failed to bring them the power that they are craving to have over the lives of millions of Americans. It failed to kill the filibuster, and it certainly failed the millions of Americans who have been forced to watch, dumbfounded, as this circus played out in realtime on their television screens.

It was a complete waste of our time. It is what one of my Tennesseans said this weekend, talking about these trial balloons, talking about this lurch to the left--and Madam President, this was a friend of mine who is a Democrat--as he said, it was a complete waste of our time, the American people's time. He added: It was a complete waste of my dime-- for the tax dollars that he sends to Washington, DC. He went on to say: Think about the problems you could have solved if you had been focused on making some progress instead of creating chaos.

Yesterday, the Commerce Committee held a hearing on achieving broadband resiliency. As you well know, this is one of the most important infrastructure problems that not only faces our committee but also faces this body. We had a great discussion, and I thanked Chairman Lujan for that hearing. But I can't help but wonder how much more progress we would have been able to make on this issue if the 14 million unserved rural Americans--yes, unserved; they have nothing-- think about the progress we could have made if those 14 million unserved Americans had taken precedence in the minds and in the agenda of our friends across the aisle. It would have been great to focus on that.

Speaking of infrastructure, perhaps we could have focused more energy on giving the needed authority to our local officials so they can fix crumbling roads and bridges and getting regulations out of their way so they can go to work helping people get to work and helping children get back to school. Certainly, I know a few officials in Memphis who would love to see us start thinking long term about practical infrastructure support that doesn't include the Green New Deal fantasies that are favored by this White House.

The American people have noticed this lack of focus and this freewheeling attitude when it comes to spending taxpayers' money. When they look around, they see real need. There are businesses and families who are still struggling to pull themselves out of the ashes of the pandemic. Policies that are favored by the Democrats would be policies that would bankrupt their businesses, that would drive up the debt, and that would cause massive inflation. Tennesseans know these policies are not going to help them. What it does do is to frustrate them. Neither will the Democrats' continued failure to manage President Biden's border crisis.

In April, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 178,000 people attempting to illegally cross our border. Fourteen thousand of these were unaccompanied alien children. It is a record year for drug runners, for the cartels, for bootleggers, for human traffickers, and for sex traffickers. We caught the Department of Health and Human Services actually finishing the work of the cartels, trafficking many of those unaccompanied minors through the Chattanooga Airport without the knowledge or the involvement of local officials.

Meanwhile, my Democratic colleagues are treating this humanitarian crisis as if it is nothing more than a logistics challenge. But perhaps if we had spent more time on this in the past month, we could have convinced them that until they get this crisis under control, they would have to admit, in this country right now, every town is a border town; every State, a border State. Just ask your local law enforcement. They will tell you. Perhaps they didn't want to put the time there because they had been busy putting a show on for the cameras and their friends on the left.

Tennesseans noticed what went on here this month. They are not happy about it. They have been reaching out. They don't have the luxury of playing political games. They don't have the spare resources to gamble on woke politics. They are trying to keep the doors of their businesses and their churches and their schools and their factories open.

We did a lot of talking this month, but the friends on the left chose not to take action to solve problems. I would encourage them to do a little soul-searching over the next couple of weeks and address the agenda that the American people would seek to have addressed.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to complete my remarks prior to the rollcall vote.

Madam President, if the Constitution is the foundation our Republic, then the concept of ``one person, one vote'' is the cornerstone. It is also a promise that every single eligible voter in America takes with them into that voting booth on that election day. It gives them confidence that their vote matters. It helps them to keep the faith in our electoral system and in their local government.

We can talk about the vote on a grand scale here in Washington, but this is where it really matters: back home at your local polling place, in your home county, and in the precincts with the people who do the work of

standing up elections, running elections, and certifying their own elections. It is of the people, by the people, for the people that this process is carried out in each and every one of our counties. And you know what, that is how it is supposed to be.

Article I, section 4 of our Constitution clearly states--here it is:

Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators

and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the

Legislature thereof.

Well, how about that? The Constitution delegates that authority to the State legislatures, and that is why our States' secretaries of state work with our counties to make certain the process is put in place.

You know, I had the opportunity to serve on my county's local election commission prior to my being in elective office. One person, one vote--that is the No. 1 rule that guided the decisions they made. When we recruit poll workers, it is the No. 1 concern that drives people to go sign up. When we train the volunteers who are staffing polling places, it is the No. 1 rule to teach. Every person gets one vote. All legally cast votes are counted. That is the way it is supposed to work--one person, one vote.

Here in the Senate, I am concerned that my Democratic colleagues have forgotten about this rule. Why else would they once again pledge to move a piece of legislation that would throw ``one person, one vote'' out the window? Many of my Republican colleagues have taken to calling H.R. 1 or S. 1 the Politician Protection Act or the For the Politician Act, and I will have to agree that is a fairly apt description.

There are a lot of problems with this bill, but I want to focus on a few key provisions that will gut ``one person, one vote'' and destroy confidence in our elections.

If this bill passes, say goodbye to meaningful voter ID laws. My Democratic colleagues kept the idea of these requirements intact, but to please their radical base, they added a loophole that would force every single jurisdiction to accept affidavits in lieu of identification--that is right, an affidavit. They may as well have banned voter IDs because that loophole makes requirements that voters prove they are who they say they are absolutely meaningless. They can just sign a statement saying ``I am who I say I am'' without having to show proof.

The bill also requires States to allow paid campaign operatives to engage in ballot harvesting schemes. That is right. This allows your paid campaign operatives to engage in ballot harvesting schemes. Now, these ballot harvesting schemes have been proven time and again to increase the risk of fraud, so much so that many States on their own moved forward and banned ballot harvesting schemes. Why did they ban this? Because it leads to fraud in elections.

Inexplicably, my colleagues also want to throw ballot drop boxes into the mix. They pitched them as a convenience, but that convenience will be nearly impossible to monitor and to protect 24 hours a day, which means that it will be nearly impossible to monitor and protect the ballots that are inside those boxes, and these boxes then become a fairly convenient way to stuff the ballot box.

But perhaps the most dangerous, counterproductive, and outright infuriating provision my Democratic colleagues have included in this mess of a bill is a restriction against voter roll maintenance Anyone with a bit of common sense knows how inaccurate or duplicate entries in a dataset can add up. That leaves these datasets in a state of disrepair, and that is how fraud and mistakes occur.

It is just one more provision in a bill raising red flags for local officials in every single State in this country. And this red flag, in particular, is prompting people to ask me if my Democratic colleagues involved in drafting this bill have ever actually volunteered at a local polling place, which really tells you a lot about how shortsighted this legislation is.

This bill really doesn't have anything to do with voting rights. This is a politically motivated Federal takeover of elections that would give us the exact opposite of what is laid out in the Constitution.

The Founders--the Founders--granted the States power over their own elections for a reason. The Federal Government is beyond incompetent to get this job done. If you like the service you get from the IRS or the EPA or OSHA, that is what you could expect the next time your community has an election.

If we allow this bill to pass, the promise of one person, one vote will crumble. The promise of counting eligible ballots and not counting ineligible ballots would go by the wayside. And what do you get in exchange? The promise of chaos, confusion, and a lack of confidence in the integrity of the vote.

Madam President, the time has come for Team Blackburn to say goodbye to our fearless leader and current chief of staff, Chuck Flint.

Chuck first joined my team in the House as a member of our legislative staff. He was eager to prove himself capable and well versed on our legislative issues, and I will tell you, he succeeded. In the 7 years since he first walked through my office door, he has grown into one of the finest office chiefs of staff I have seen on the Hill and one of the finest political strategists here on Capitol Hill, one of my most trusted advisers, and, I will add, the most enthusiastic softball player on Team Whiskey Business--the most enthusiastic I think we have ever fielded.

I wish Chuck, Jessica, and little Everett all the hope and happiness in the world as they embark on their next beautiful adventure together.

We will miss him tremendously, but no matter how far they travel, they will always have a home with Team Blackburn and in service to the Volunteer State.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, it has been so interesting to talk with Tennesseans over the past couple of weeks, and it is interesting in the vein that they are beginning to really question some of the proposals that my Democratic colleagues are bringing forward and items that they are pushing from the left side of the aisle.

I have to tell you that I honestly can't blame them. After all, when they promised COVID relief, they delivered a blue State bailout, which was something that was not popular in Tennessee. They said that they were going to be all for some much needed infrastructure projects. In Tennessee, we like to talk about this in terms of roads and railways and runways and rivers. Yet what did the people from Tennessee hear? They heard all about the Green New Deal, they heard about incentives for electric vehicles, and they heard about alternative energy. They looked at that infrastructure bill and said: This is fantasyland.

Then, when they promised to support families and children, what did you get from the left side of the aisle? You got support for expanding the welfare state.

Now Senate Democrats have promised to vote on legislation that they claim is going to make our elections more transparent. Hmm. That is interesting. Surprising no one, the bill the Democrats are trying to sell to the American people will do exactly the opposite.

Of course, in typical fashion of the House, what did it do? It gave it a friendly sounding name--the For the People Act--but in actuality, this is a bill that would take away rights and responsibilities from the American people.

They are saying: This is going to be about transparency. Well, when we think of transparency, we think of things that are going to be seen, of things that are going to be easily understood. We think of things from which the activity within is going to be made available so that people can see this. It should follow, then, that a bill that is promising transparent elections would be there to help voters understand the rules, trust the people in charge, and cast their votes of confidence. It would not be a bill that would seize control from local officials and place it in the hands of unelected Washington bureaucrats, and it would not be a bill that would make it literally impossible to stand up polling places. It certainly would not be a bill that would erode confidence in ballot integrity, but that is what we have. It just doesn't make sense what they are trying to do when it comes to voting.

Even with all of this, my Democratic colleagues have spent most of this year trying to sell the American public on a bill that would centralize power, that would impose burdensome rules on State and local governments, and that would take away constitutional responsibilities and rights and all but ensure rampant voter fraud. That is correct. A piece of legislation that would do--what?--make it easier to cheat.

So, in the interest of the transparency my Democratic colleagues have promised, let's take a closer look at the legislation they are pushing forward.

Like most proposals they have tried to force through this year, this latest, brazen political power grab is built on a foundation of unreasonable mandates--mandates from the Federal Government to the State and local governments. Yet, rather than simplifying the process, these new rules would throw your local elections into chaos.

If passed, the provisions in this bill would mandate the use of ballot casting technology and voter registration systems that don't even exist yet. That is correct. What is being mandated is not in existence, but when it does come to exist, you can bet that it will cost a fortune, that it will come with a steep learning curve, and that there will be buddies of the Democratic Party that will make a bucket of money.

The same automatic registration procedures that failed voters in California and Illinois will fail voters in every State in this country.

It would force States to stand aside for activists running ballot harvesting schemes--and, indeed, ballot harvesting is a scheme. Anyone who has ever watched one of these campaigns in action knows that forcing officials to tolerate them is an invitation for these activists to engage in a little sleight of hand, if you will.

In fact, this bill truly outdoes itself when it comes to encouraging fraud. Its hallmark provision would ban meaningful voter ID laws and stop State and local officials from cleaning up their voter rolls. This bill strips away every commonsense defense against voter fraud.

It would also inject fear into the process by mandating donor disclosure and weaponizing a partisan FEC against minority political parties.

The American people know there is only one reason you would work this hard to remove transparency from elections: They are seeking to remove transparency from the voter. Truth be told, many of my colleagues across the aisle know it, too, which is why this bill has earned bipartisan opposition.

I have spent the better part of 2 years coming to the floor to object to various iterations of this bill, and I will continue to do so until my colleagues abandon this partisan power grab.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I reserve the right to object, and I rise to object to this unanimous consent request.

The VA, for years, has made promises that they have year after year failed to meet. For years, veterans and their family members have called my office, whether I was in the State senate or over in the House or here in the Senate. They are distressed by the lack of service they receive from the VA. My caseworkers would work tirelessly with these constituents, only to end up frustrated by a very unresponsive VA. This is unacceptable. It has become the culture of the VA, and this is something that has to change.

Now, for weeks, the committee has been asking for feedback on legislative proposals which have the potential to affect the workflow and the capacity of the VA. The VA has been silent on this even though we have asked for their views and have asked them to weigh in. The reason we have asked them for this is the VA has a backlog of over 180,000 cases. Their wait times this year have continued to escalate. They are not going down.

So, yesterday, I had a call with Secretary McDonough expressing my concerns with the lack of feedback that the committee has received on what is shaping up to be the most consequential legislative effort in the veterans space in an entire generation. The formal response that I received today was incomplete, but it contained a promise that they would have more fulsome feedback by July 30.

I will continue to keep my hold on these pending VA nominees until I receive the official views on the COST of War Act, on the toxic exposures bills. We owe our veterans. We owe it to them to get this right. Therefore, I object to the unanimous consent request, and I will continue my hold on these nominees.

I object.

Mr. President, you know, it is truly an honor to work with the veterans in Tennessee, and we have hundreds of thousands of veterans in our State.

I know that the chairman says he prides himself in working with the veterans. I will tell you, quite frankly, I consider it a humbling experience to work with these veterans. Whether they are from World War II or Korea or Vietnam or whether they are from any of our recent wars--the Mideast--whether we are dealing with Agent Orange or burn pits, to me it is heart-wrenching to hear their stories.

And the VA has not done their job. So what we are doing is standing up for these veterans and saying to the VA: Get your act together. Provide this information. How do you deal with this backlog? Do you have the capability to deal with what we are discussing? Do you have that capability? What is your capacity? How do we best handle these issues?

The VA, for years--decades, decades, decades--has not done their job in a timely manner, in a responsive manner to our Nation's veterans. Therefore, let's say: Let's get this right. Let's get it right.

Excuse me. There is a fly in this Chamber.

Let's get it right now.

Mr. President, last week's conversations about our own government's role in the COVID coverup reflected over a year of refusal on the part of my Democratic colleagues to accept that the novel coronavirus may not have spread via natural transmission from a Chinese wildlife wet market.

As the theories of the pandemic's origins evolved, one remained, until very recently, off limits. This is, of course, the lab leak hypothesis, or the theory that the virus somehow escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Now, this theory didn't come out of nowhere. In early January 2020, alarm bells were already ringing at the CDC, the State Department, and in the scientific community over problems with the natural origin theory of transmission.

Virologists and other public health officials studying the disease were quickly coming to the conclusion that the way the virus was spreading suggested that this theory was flawed. Officials also knew that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting controversial and dangerous ``gain of function'' research with the help of repackaged U.S. Government grants.

Yes, that is correct.

In April of last year, I joined many of my colleagues in publicly demanding a thorough investigation into the lab leak theory. What followed was nothing less than moral panic. Activists, journalists, and even our own Democratic colleagues accused us of racism, xenophobia, and science denial.

Major media organizations refused to report on the hypothesis, except to decry it as a racist attack on Chinese scientists. Facebook banned accounts that posted about it. YouTube deleted videos that dared contradict the World Health Organization.

Rather than scaring us off, though, these attacks left us with another question to answer: Why did the very idea of investigating the Wuhan lab inspire such a bizarre panic? Or, perhaps, the better question is, Why did NIAID Director Dr. Fauci and the rest of the powers that be publicly insist that the idea of a lab leak was completely preposterous?

Even NIH Director Francis Collins hadn't ruled it out. In a March 2020 interview with the Atlantic, he said that while natural transmission was the likely culprit, ``the possibility that such a naturally evolved virus might have also been under study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and reached residents of Wuhan--and ultimately the rest of the world--as the result of a lab accident has never been adequately excluded.''

We certainly have evidence to show that mistakes happen, even in a professional lab. Who could forget that back in 2015, we saw reports that personnel at a military facility in Utah accidentally shipped active samples of anthrax to labs in nine States--yes, a 2015 lab accident.

NIH has also had problems keeping track of things. According to a memo prepared in 2016 by a minority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a 2009 Department of Health and Human Services OIG audit found an inventory discrepancy at the NIH caused in part by mislabeled envelopes containing unregistered vials of plague and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

In 2012, NIH researchers found vials of anthrax spores in the wrong place. What is worse, the scientists in that particular lab weren't registered to possess them.

In 2014, an FDA researcher working at the NIH campus in Bethesda discovered vials of live smallpox virus stuffed in a cardboard box in an unsecured cold storage room.

Mistakes were clearly made. Lab accidents happen. It is also clear that while a leak from the Wuhan lab could have happened due to human error, this coverup we are now learning about certainly did not happen by error.

We now have an emerging picture of what did happen behind the scenes to create so much resistance to the lab leak theory.

On June 3 of this year, that bastion of rightwing insanity known as Vanity Fair magazine published an investigative report exposing the deranged political gamesmanship that prompted public health officials to paint the lab leak theory as a conspiracy.

The report confirmed just about everything those officials wanted to keep hidden--namely, that the lab leak hypothesis was suppressed at multiple levels of government by officials looking to protect their own interests and to distance themselves from President Donald Trump--so much for following the science. They were following emotions.

The report confirmed conflicts of interest concerning grant awards that supported gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The same people who knew that Chinese scientists were performing these dangerous experiments on the taxpayer dime also knew from verified intelligence reports that three Wuhan-based researchers fell ill with COVID-like symptoms in November 2019, well before the first reported outbreak. Still,

State Department officials warned investigators to abandon their inquiries into the origins of COVID-19 because it would ``open a can of worms.''

The internal coverups bled into this year until, finally, 5 days before President Biden took the oath of office, the State Department put out a fact sheet on the Wuhan lab that confirmed the November outbreak and revealed that scientists working there had collaborated with the Chinese military on classified research. The Biden administration has yet to walk any of this back.

We are also finally seeing some interest in the World Health Organization's Beijing-controlled investigation into the Wuhan lab. On March 1 of this year and again on May 24, I laid out my concerns to the White House about the WHO's reliance on the Chinese Communist Party for funding and support. I explained how this reliance drove their initial support for Beijing's response to the outbreaks and ruined the integrity of their investigation. The White House has yet to respond to my concerns, but it is not going to be able to avoid responding because the American people are demanding the answers.

I think it is important to state for the record that what we are seeing in these news reports is not entirely new information. The foundations of the lab leak hypothesis remain much the same as they were a year ago. So why pop open that can of worms right now? Because there is no way to sweep this thing back under the rug.

We have the sudden interest of the media. Imagine that. We also have an entire body of published statements and investigative reporting from inside China. Facebook and YouTube have reversed their content policies, which means they couldn't stop people from sharing this information unless they pulled the plug on the entire internet which, obviously, isn't an option.

We also have the magic of FOIA on our side. We learned from Dr. Fauci's published emails that he knew about the dangerous research happening in China. He was aware. We know he allowed inquiries into the Wuhan lab leak theory to go unanswered. We also know he worked with Mark Zuckerberg to determine what COVID-related information flowed into the public timeline and when that information went out.

Now, I stand by my criticism of Dr. Fauci. His dystopian comments equating attacks on his job performance with attacks on science are unacceptable, but I want to encourage everyone to not make this about one person. We now have evidence that public officials were eating each other alive over political disagreements and that these disagreements derailed investigations into the origins of COVID-19.

This is more than just political failure; it is a moral inversion that empowered one of the globe's most violent authoritarian governments. The Chinese officials who hid the existence of the novel coronavirus from international bodies are the very same Chinese officials who gunned down freedom fighters in Hong Kong, who unleashed political violence in Inner Mongolia and Tibet, and who continue to commit ongoing genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

It is time for Congress to get serious about cleaning up this mess. I reiterate the same demands I made more than a year ago for a full and unbiased inquiry into the lab leak hypothesis and a broader investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last week, I joined Senator Cotton in reintroducing the Li Wenliang Global Public Health Accountability Act. This legislation would authorize the President to sanction foreign officials who suppress or distort information about international public health crises, including COVID-19. I encourage my colleagues to sign on to the bill.

Most importantly, I would implore my Democratic colleagues to engage in a little introspection. The officials implicated in this coverup swept science under the rug, orchestrated a relentless smear campaign, throttled the flow of public information, and allowed the Chinese Communist Party to exonerate itself at the expense of truth and accountability.

You don't have to defend this. Please, have the moral courage to make the right choice, and join us in our demands for unbiased investigations into the origin of the pandemic.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the referenced fact sheet and letters. The referenced articles and report can be found online at www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/ 06/francis-collins-nih/619065, www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab- leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins, and osp.od.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/BRP-House-EC-Report.pdf

I yield the floor.