Floor Statements

Mr. President, as someone who has been here for some period of time, I was glad to see Republicans and Democrats, both in the House and the Senate, come together in the past few weeks, especially this week.

We ignored the distractions and tweetstorms coming from the White House. We reached an agreement to fund our government and make responsible investments for the American people.

Not one of us--none of the final four who did the negotiations, sitting in that room, felt that this was an agreement that any one of us would have individually written.

There are things in this bill that I support and things I disagree with, but that could be said by all four of us, Republicans and Democrats. You try to find as much common ground as you can. Everybody had to give something, but we ended up with a bipartisan compromise. We had to deal with facts that are based on reality, not rhetoric based on political fantasy.

Democrats have always supported border security, but we support smart border security, targeted strategies that address the real problems facing us at our southwest border. That is what we tried to accomplish here. We stood together. We rejected the toxic and hate-filled immigration tweets coming from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

The agreement does not fund President Trump's wasteful wall. After all, he gave his solemn promise to the American public that Mexico would pay for it, so let them work on that. It does not fund President Trump's requested deportation force, and it rejects the unjustified and dramatic increase in the detention bed levels the President would have used to enforce his extreme immigration policy.

But just as important as what this agreement rejects is what we were able to accomplish.

We invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new technology to stop the flow of illegal drugs through our ports of entry. All Republicans and all Democrats supported that. We provide funds to hire more judges to address the immigration backlog in our country. We provide more than half a billion dollars to support Central American countries, addressing the root causes of undocumented migration. We included $400 million to improve medical care and address the humanitarian concerns at the border. Every one of us has seen enough of what is going on there; we are trying to show that America--the greatest Nation on Earth, also the wealthiest and the most humanitarian--will address it.

This is what a compromise looks like. This is how the American people expect our government to function--not by tweets but by reasonable, reality-based compromise.

Unfortunately, often lost in this debate over border security were the more than 800,000 public servants and their families who were held hostage by the Trump shutdown for weeks. They once again lived in fear and uncertainty that their next paycheck may not come because the President chose to use them as hostages. This agreement ensures that these public servants remain on the job doing the important work of the American people through the end of the fiscal year, and also all those who are not on a government payroll but support all our different Agencies that were involved in this. They weren't paid either.

This agreement funds nine Federal Departments. Keep in mind--it is not just the borders; it is nine Federal Departments and their related Agencies. I will give a couple of examples. It increases funding for the Environmental Protection Agency. It supports our national parks. It rejects the anti-science know-nothingism of the administration by supporting research and our dedicated scientists.

This is extremely important to me because Senator Crapo and I wrote the last Violence Against Women authorization. We wrote the expansion of that law. Our bill today provides the highest funding level ever for the Office on Violence Against Women to support programs that prevent domestic violence. It also provides more than half a billion dollars to combat the opioid crisis. In my earlier career, I saw too many deaths because of the violence against women. I saw too many deaths of young people from drug overdoses, and the numbers have only dramatically increased from the days when I was a prosecutor. Supporting the Violence Against Women Act brought Republicans and Democrats together.

The agreement invests in rural America, secures our interests abroad, rebuilds our highways, and supports public housing.

This week, four of us met--first in Chairman Shelby's Appropriations Committee office and then later into the evening several times in my office here in the Capitol. Senator Shelby,

Representative Lowey, Representative Granger, and I proved that we can set aside the political struggles in Washington to find a path to progress for the American people--two Republicans and two Democrats who are four of the most senior Members of the House and the Senate. I thank them for their effort.

If I can go to a personal matter for just a moment, I want to thank Senator Shelby for his friendship and his partnership. Senator Shelby and I come from different parts of the country. We are much different politically, but he is one of the closest friends I have here. He and his wonderful wife, Dr. Annette Shelby, my wife Marcelle, and I have traveled to so many places together. Some were very grim areas of this world. But we understand how grownups have to act in the Congress and how they have to work together. We worked together with our House counterparts--the senior Democrat and senior Republican in the House-- on this conference. We worked together. We didn't pass just Homeland Security; we passed all 12 appropriations bills on a bipartisan basis. I hope we do the same thing for fiscal year 2020. I hope that we can begin very soon, with Senator Shelby and me working together, to pass the fiscal year 2020 bills. We passed the ones last year out of our committee virtually unanimously. We were able to get Members of both parties to join us. I thank him.

I also thank the Appropriations Committee staff on both sides of the aisle for their hard work. I joke that Senators are merely constitutional impediments to their staff. Evening after evening, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning, weekend after weekend, I saw dedicated men and women in the Appropriations Committee staff working line by line to try to get us through this.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of their names be printed in the Record.

I conclude by saying it takes a lot of long days and it takes a lot of long nights to produce a bill of this magnitude. I appreciate their hard work.

I think we may have others who will want to speak.

Mr. President, how much time do we have before the vote?

I yield the floor.

Madam President, in his tortuous attempt to make a case for billions of taxpayer dollars to wall off our southern border, President Trump claimed that a wall would stop human trafficking, which has been touted as a priority of this administration.

On several occasions, the President has depicted human trafficking as women and girls smuggled across the border with their hands and legs tied and duct tape across their mouths. No doubt there are such cases, but the overwhelming majority of trafficking victims in this country are U.S. citizens, and among non-citizen victims, nearly 80 percent cross through legal points of entry. As we have seen time and again, President Trump makes short shrift of the truth and relies on scare tactics, rather than evidence, to gamer support for his misguided policies.

Not only would the President's border wall do next to nothing to combat the most common instances of human trafficking in the United States, his administration's policies have actually harmed trafficking victims, especially non-citizen victims.

Last year, the administration announced that applicants who are denied a T visa--an immigrant visa that enables certain victims of sex or labor trafficking to temporarily remain in the United States--may be required to appear in immigration court, the first step in deportation proceedings. This policy has reportedly had a self-censoring effect on victims and victims' advocates who are hesitant to apply or to encourage their clients to apply for a visa that may ultimately land them in immigration court.

The administration also eliminated grant funding for criminal record sealing or expungement for survivors of human trafficking, previously made available by the Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime. Survivors may have a criminal record associated with their trafficking, such as an arrest for prostitution or for a charge tangential to their trafficking such as loitering or theft. Helping survivors clear their criminal record is a critical step in their recovery, one that gives survivors a greater chance at securing stable employment, affordable housing, higher education, visas and green cards, and more.

So once again, we are forced to try to reconcile the President's rhetoric with the actions of his administration. They don't align. If this White House were serious about combating human trafficking, it would focus less on creating a false narrative about trafficking across our southern border and instead devote the resources to ensure that trafficking victims can come forward knowing they will be protected and assisted on their path to recovery.

Madam President, I want to commend Senator Klobuchar for introducing the Freedom to Export to Cuba Act, of which I and Senator Enzi are cosponsors. I urge other Senators to join us.

This bill is about ending the anachronistic prohibitions in U.S. law that for decades have limited U.S. engagement with Cuba, including preventing American companies from exporting their products to Cuba. The fact that legislation to do so is even necessary is illustrative of the absurdity of the situation in which we find ourselves. Companies from Europe, Russia, China, Mexico, and every other country can sell their products to Cuba, which is just 90 miles from our coast, but American manufacturers and retailers are largely shut out of the Cuban market.

For example, Cuba buys rice from Vietnam and powdered milk from New Zealand, half a world away, not from Alabama, Vermont, or Michigan. That makes no sense. This bill would enable American companies to compete, which every believer in a free market should support.

It is also important for Senators to know that punitive actions by the Trump administration last year to further restrict the right of Americans to travel to Cuba have had devastating consequences for Cuba's fledgling private sector, the very people the White House and supporters of the restrictions profess to want to help. The fact that they have said nothing about the harm they are causing Cuba's struggling entrepreneurs demonstrates that they care more about continuing their failed policy of sanctions, regardless of who they hurt, than about helping the Cuban people or about protecting the right of Americans to travel freely.

The latest ill-conceived attempt by the White House to punish Cuba would permit Title III of the Helms-Burton Act to go into effect. This would allow, among others, individuals who were Cuban citizens when their property in Cuba was expropriated half a century ago to sue in U.S. courts any Cuban, foreign, and even American company whose business in Cuba today uses that property. That could be an airport, port, warehouse, hotel, restaurant, you name it. Virtually every American and foreign company investing in Cuba would suddenly be liable for treble damages.

The purpose, as the law's authors made clear when it was enacted 23 years ago, is to harm Cuba's economy by making it completely inhospitable for foreign investment.

As my friend in the House, Representative Jim McGovern, has pointed out;

``It's no mystery why Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, and

Trump blocked Title III from going into effect every six

months for the past 23 years.

It is hypocritical--it penalizes companies for doing what

American companies do all over the world.

It is contrary to international law, which recognizes the

right of expropriation and requires compensation.

It is an extraterritorial sanction that guarantees a

response from our trading partners, like Canada, Spain and

the EU, including complaints at the World Trade Organization.

And if you care about agriculture, be warned: It will open

a new front in the trade war, with all the repercussions that

can bring.

It will allow Cuba to claim victim status and rally

international support.

It will clog our courts with lawsuits.

It will make it impossible to negotiate compensation for

U.S. claims in Cuba, and, in the end, hurt the very Americans

who seek compensation for the property they lost.

It will divide us from friends and allies who are now

working for a peaceful solution in Venezuela.

And it will guarantee that new investment in Cuba will come

from the Russians, Chinese and others who are hostile to the

United States, and whose state-owned companies can't be sued

in U.S. courts.''

I agree with my friend in the other body. What the White House is considering would trigger an avalanche of unintended consequences that would bring U.S. commerce with Cuba to a halt, harm relations with our allies in this hemisphere and beyond, and make resolving property claims more difficult. I ask unanimous consent that a piece by William Leogrande on Title III of the Helms-Burton Act published in the February 13, 2019 issue of OnCubaNews be printed in the Record following my remarks.

Like many issues, Members of Congress have strong feelings pro and con about U.S. relations with Cuba. It is no secret that, after more than half a century of a policy of isolation that has achieved none of its objectives and primarily hurt the Cuban people, I, like Senators Klobuchar and Enzi and many others in this body, favor closer relations.

Conversely, there are those in Congress and the Trump administration who believe strongly that we should ratchet up the pressure on the Cuban Government in an attempt to achieve those elusive goals.

I have often spoken publicly about the lack of political freedom and civil liberties in Cuba, but I also think it is important to try to be objective: to criticize when called for and to acknowledge positive changes when they occur.

I recognize that those who favor maintaining the failed economic embargo have a longstanding, visceral antagonism and resentment toward the Cuban Government. While they rarely, if ever, mention the corrupt and brutal Batista regime that enjoyed unqualified U.S. support until it was overthrown in 1959, they have legitimate reasons to criticize the mistreatment of the Cuban people by the current government and its support for the corrupt and repressive Maduro regime in Venezuela.

But they too should acknowledge that threatening and bullying Cuba has not worked. In fact, it has made the situation worse and provided an excuse for the Cuban Government to blame its own failures on us. They should also acknowledge positive changes in Cuba, but they never do--not ever. It is almost as if they are psychologically, ideologically, or emotionally incapable of saying one positive thing about the Cuban Government, no matter what positive things it does.

Perhaps they are afraid that, if they did, they would alienate their donors in the Cuban-American community. Of course, we know that Cuban- Americans are divided about the U.S. embargo. Some are hardcore believers in the embargo, and they always will be. But at least as many--and increasing numbers--oppose the embargo, especially those who were born after the Cuban revolution.

I wonder what the pro-embargo isolationists would say if the Cuban Government were to stop harassing and abusing dissidents who favor a more democratic system. Would those who oppose the embargo say anything positive?

What if the Cuban Government decided to embrace a free market economy and let private businesses flourish? Would those who oppose the embargo say anything positive?

I doubt it. I doubt it because no matter what positive reforms occur in Cuba, they will continue to defend the embargo until Cuba is a full- fledged democracy and those who currently hold power either die or are voted out of office.

We all want Cuba to become a democracy, where civil and political rights are respected, and the sooner the better, but those same defenders of the embargo support billions of dollars in U.S. aid--and weapons sales--to countries that are led by authoritarian, brutal, and corrupt dictatorships and monarchies, some of which have held power for decades or generations.

How do the pro-embargo diehards reconcile that? They don't, and they can't.

The fact is, Cuba is changing--not nearly as fast as we and the Cuban people would like, but it is changing in ways that few would have predicted not very long ago.

Last year, Raul Castro's hand-picked successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel, became President, and he promised a government more accessible and responsive to the people's needs. How he delivers on that promise remains to be seen.

Since 2010, after the Cuban Government recognized that the internet is essential if Cuba wants to be part of the modern world, internet access has exploded. The government has opened hundreds of public Wi-Fi hot spots and cyber cafes in the past 5 years, and home internet access became legal and available in 2017. Today, almost half of the Cuban people have personal cellphones that were illegal just a decade ago.

As others have pointed out, these changes have encouraged new forms of communication, networking, and organizing via social media.

But change does not come easily in Cuba, as it does not in many countries. Last July, the government announced onerous new regulations on the private sector, covering a wide range of issues: food safety, labor contracts, procurement, taxation, limits on the size of private businesses. The new rules were an attempt by hardliners to crack down on the private sector, which was criticized for black marketeering.

But private entrepreneurs resisted, and they challenged the regulations as contradictory to the government's own plans that recognizes the private sector as important to economic growth and employment. They appealed to government officials and spoke publicly about the harm the new rules would have on their businesses.

When the final regulations were issued, several that had caused the most resentment were dropped. According to the Minister of Labor and Social Security, the decision to revise the rules was due to ``the opinion and experiences of those directly involved.''

The government also retreated on a new law--Decree 349--requiring artists, musicians, and performers to register with the state and pay a large commission on their earnings from private engagements, and it banned work with objectionable content and empowered inspectors to shut down any offensive exhibition or performance. Clearly, an attempt to further limit free expression.

Since the 1980s, Cuban artists have had more freedom to be critical of the government than other social sectors, and so it was not surprising that Decree 349 ignited widespread protests. After social media was used to mobilize opposition within the Cuban arts community and among artists abroad, the government agreed not to enforce the law until implementing regulations are drafted in consultation with the arts community.

According to one observer, ``during [the latter half of last year], nearly 8.9 million Cubans debated the draft of a new constitution in their workplaces, neighborhoods and schools. Communist Party members were told not to argue with even the most radical proposals for amendments, and the ensuing debates were freewheeling, often lasting past their scheduled time. Among the main topics: whether the president and state governors should be directly elected by voters; whether the concentration of wealth and property should be allowed; whether term limits and age limits for leaders were a good idea; and whether the Communist Party should be subordinated to the constitution and hence the law.'' Not long ago it would have been unthinkable to openly debate these issues, especially as part of a constitutional reform process.

One article that attracted intense debate recognized same-sex marriage and was promoted by Raul Castro's daughter, a long-time activist for LGBTQ rights. The proposal sparked strong opposition from evangelical churches supported by the Catholic Church. Gay rights advocates countered with campaigns of their own. The chance of a significant ``no'' vote on the entire constitutional reform led the government to drop the provision from the final draft of the constitution with a pledge to consider it later.

This surge in mobilization by well-organized constituencies utilizing social media to resist government policy, from burdensome private sector regulations to gay marriage, is unprecedented in Cuba. The government's willingness to not only tolerate these organized challenges but to change policies in response to them is significant.

As has been noted, none of these issues dealt with the rigid structure of the Cuban system. Cuba remains a one-party state, in which those who challenge the system are treated as criminals, but the precedent of organized interest groups mounting successful campaigns to challenge and change government policy is now established, which is positive.

None of the longstanding critics of the Cuban Government in the U.S. Congress or the Cuban-American community have acknowledged any of this, nor are they likely to. For them, anything less than a wholesale change of government in Cuba is unworthy of mention, even though they apply a very different standard--a double standard--to other authoritarian governments. In fact, they would ridicule anyone who regards such changes as positive or worthy of recognition.

As we know from our own experience, political reform is difficult. Our own Electoral College, an anachronism designed to protect a slave- holding minority, remains in effect more than two centuries later. Five times, in the world's oldest democracy, it has prevented the winner of the most popular votes from being elected President.

The Cuban people want to live better and they want a lot less government control over their lives. Armed with cellphones and the internet, they are going to make increasing demands of their government. This is happening at a time when Venezuela's economy is collapsing and the survival of the Maduro regime, Cuba's closest ally in the hemisphere, is in question. Not surprisingly, the Cuban Government is trying to limit the pace of change and to secure other benefactors. It is turning increasingly to Russia, Algeria, Iran, and other countries that welcome the chance to challenge U.S. influence in this hemisphere.

This is a time for the United States to be actively and visibly engaged in Cuba, for Americans to be traveling to Cuba, for expanding educational, cultural, and professional exchanges between the U.S. and Cuba, and for American companies to be competing in Cuba. It is not a time to return to a failed policy of threats and ultimatums, driven by domestic politics rather than by what is in our national interests.

That is why I am cosponsoring the Freedom to Export to Cuba Act, and it is why I intend to support other bipartisan legislation to replace our failed Cuba policy with one that serves America's interests, not the interests of a shrinking minority, and not the interests of Russia and other countries that are reaping the economic benefits of our self- defeating policy of isolation.

Mr. President, I applaud the Senator from Illinois, the senior Senator from Illinois, for his comments. He knows what it is to have immigrants in your family, as do I. I was fortunate to have a little more understanding as my paternal grandparents immigrated to Vermont from Italy,

and my wife's parents immigrated to Vermont from French-speaking Canada. I still struggle with the Italian I knew as a child. I have done a little better with French, in order to speak to Marcelle's family. But I see the diversity that came of it. I see it in our State of Vermont, and I hope our country is better for it. So I thank the Senator from Illinois.

The last time William Barr was before the Senate was 28 years ago, during the George H.W. Bush administration, and I voted for him to be Attorney General. I did so despite having some reservations that I shared with him and the Senate at the time. Mr. Barr and I did not see eye to eye on many issues. We did not then, and we do not now. But he was clearly qualified for the position, and he had earned the confidence of the Senate. So I felt free to vote for him.

I am concerned by some of the remarks that Senator Durbin has referred to which seem to indicate that Mr. Barr may feel that he is the lawyer for the President, not only the Attorney General of the United States. He is there to represent everybody--everybody--and to make sure the laws are upheld for everybody.

Now we find ourselves considering his nomination under extraordinarily different circumstances than we did when my friend President Bush had nominated him. Multiple criminal investigations loom over the Trump Presidency. In fact, these investigations may ultimately define the Trump Presidency, and the President has reacted to it with apparently the only way he knows how. He just attacks relentlessly. He doesn't respond to them, but attacks. That includes attacking investigators, witnesses, even the justice system itself. That also includes firing both the FBI Director and his previous Attorney General for not handling one of the investigations as the President wanted, but instead as the law required.

The President views the Justice Department as an extension of his power. He has repeatedly called on it to target his political opponents. He has even reportedly told his advisers that he expects the Attorney General to protect him personally. I have been here with eight Presidents. I have never known a President, either Republican or Democrat, to have such an outrageous and wrong--wrong--view of the Department of Justice.

The integrity of the Justice Department has not been so tested since the dark days of Watergate. Yet when the Judiciary Committee considered the nomination of Elliot Richardson to be Attorney General in the midst of that national crisis, nominated by Richard Nixon, the nominee made numerous, detailed commitments to the committee. Mr. Richardson did so, in his words, to ``create the maximum possible degree of public confidence in the integrity of the process.'' That same principle applies equally today.

Indeed, that may be the only way the Justice Department escapes the Trump administration with its integrity intact. In large part due to the relentless politicizing of the Department by the President, millions of Americans will see bias no matter which way the Department resolves the Russia investigation. Because of seeing such bias, our country is diminished. The justice system is greatly diminished. In my view, the Department has only one way out--transparency. The American people deserve to know the facts, whatever they may be. That requires the special counsel's report, and the evidence that supports it, be made public.

Unfortunately, despite efforts from both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, Mr. Barr has repeatedly refused to make that commitment. Worse, much of his testimony before the Judiciary Committee left us with more doubts. Will Mr. Barr allow President Trump to make a sweeping, unprecedented claim of Executive privilege that allows him to hide the report? Will Mr. Barr, relying on a Department policy to avoid disparaging uncharged parties, not disclose potential misconduct by the President simply due to another policy to not indict sitting Presidents? We don't know the answer, but we do know that Mr. Barr's testimony on these issues could lay the groundwork for potentially no transparency at all.

Mr. Barr also repeatedly refused to follow the precedent of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and commit to follow the advice of career ethics officials on whether he needs to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. He even declined my request to commit to simply sharing their recommendation with the Judiciary Committee. That is critical because there is reason to question whether an appearance of a conflict exists.

Prior to his nomination, Mr. Barr made his unorthodox views on the special counsel's obstruction of justice investigation very clear. He did that with a 19-page memo sent directly to the President's lawyers. Mr. Barr spoke dismissively about the broader Russia investigation. He even claimed that a conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton was far more deserving of a Federal investigation than possible collusion, and this was notwithstanding the fact that, by that time, that conspiracy had been debunked. He was asked, in effect, whether this memo was a job application, because it is difficult to imagine that these views escaped the attention of the President. That makes it all the more critical that Mr. Barr follow the precedent of prior Attorneys General and commit to following the advice of career ethics officials on recusal.

I am also concerned that, if confirmed, Mr. Barr would defend policies that I believe are both ineffective and inhumane. We heard Senator Durbin speak eloquently about the horrible, horrible program of separating families at the border, and I think the Nation is still reeling from that systematic separation. But, in light of that, Mr. Barr praised Jeff Sessions for ``breaking the record for prosecution'' of the misdemeanor offenses that forced families to be separated. In other words, on a misdemeanor, you take the child away from the parents and separate them. Nobody seems to know where everybody goes after that.

Ask a 4-year-old: What are your parents' name? They will say, in whatever language: Mommy and daddy.

Where do you live?

We live in the house next to so-and-so.

They don't know the addresses. They rely on their parents, and now they have been separated from them.

It makes me think Attorneys General should be able to stand up for the rule of law. I remember a time when former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates stood up for the rule of law. She refused to defend President Trump's first iteration of his Muslim ban as a deeply flawed order. It was stained with racial animus, that even applied to individuals who were lawful permanent residents and had valid visas, Mr. Barr described Ms. Yates's decision as ``obstruction'' and a ``serious abuse of office.''

My God, this country should not have religious tests. If we did, my grandparents would not have been able to come to this country.

Relevant to each of my concerns is Mr. Barr's extremely broad views of executive power. He is an advocate of the unitary executive theory, believing that the Constitution vests nearly all executive power ``in one and one only person--the President.'' He has said that an Attorney General has ``no authority and no conceivable justification for directing the department's lawyers not to advocate the president's position in court.'' This expansive view of a President's power would concern me no matter whose administration it was. In fact, if you go way back in history, it conflicts with Supreme Court Justice James Iredell's observation in 1792 that the Attorney General ``is not called the Attorney General of the President, but Attorney General of the United States.''

I find Mr. Barr's deferential view of Executive power especially concerning. We already know much of what President Trump intends to do. It includes taking billions of dollars that Congress has already appropriated and diverting it toward a wasteful and ineffective vanity wall. What would Mr. Barr do when confronted with such an order? He has essentially told us: Mr. Barr has argued that Congress's appropriations power provided under Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution is ``not an independent source of congressional power'' to ``control the allocation of government resources.'' That would come as great news to everybody--Republicans and Democrats--who has been an appropriator in any session of Congress.

He even believes, that if a President ``finds no appropriated funds within a given category'' but can find such money ``in another category,'' he can spend those funds as he wishes so long as the spending is within his broad ``constitutional purview.'' Such views should concern all of us here--Republicans and Democrats alike--who believe, as the Founders of this country believed, that Congress possesses the power of the purse.

Unfortunately, I fear that Mr. Barr's long-held views on Executive power would essentially be weaponized by President Trump--a man who we know derides any limits on his authority. Over the past two years, we have seen the erosion of our institutional checks and balances in the face of creeping authoritarianism. That can't continue.

In conclusion, let me be clear. I respect Mr. Barr. I voted for him when President George H. W. Bush nominated him. As Attorney General, I do not doubt that he would stand faithfully by his genuinely held convictions, but I fear this particular administration needs somebody who would give him a much tighter leash, as Attorneys General have in the past. So because of that, I will vote no on Mr. Barr's nomination.

I yield the floor.

Thank you.

Madam President, like many of my fellow Americans I listened to the President's State of the Union Address 1 week ago, and while there are any number of the President's false or misleading assertions that I could refute, I want to take a minute to highlight just a few.

The President began his remarks with a focus on cooperation and compromise, calling for unity among both political parties to work together and break what he described as ``decades of political stalemate.'' The reality is that last Tuesday's address followed the longest shutdown in our government's history--a shutdown that resulted from the President's stubborn refusal to work with Congress--and was delivered by a President who has made a daily practice of making unfounded, personal attacks against Democrats and anyone else who opposes his xenophobic, ill-conceived policies.

The President went on to call on Congress to make needed commitments to ``defeat AIDS in America and beyond.'' Who doesn't support that? The problem is that his administration proposed a $1 billion cut in fiscal year 2018 and a $1.2 billion cut in fiscal year 2019 to combat HIV/AIDS around the world. This is typical of this White House. The President makes outlandish claims, whether in ignorance or reckless disregard for the truth, in a transparent attempt to appear to care about solving problems his administration is actually making worse.

Funding for these programs has been restored by Congress--not in partnership, but rather in spite of, the White House. Many Members of Congress, myself included, are waiting for the President's upcoming budget request for fiscal year 2020, to see if his professed support for HIV/AIDS programs will be backed up with the necessary funding.

The President also mentioned a new ``government-wide initiative focused on economic empowerment for women in developing countries.'' That is a laudable goal that Republicans and Democrats have been supporting for years, but the reality is that this administration has repeatedly cut funding for family planning and other health programs that directly contribute to women's health and economic prosperity, as well as funding to combat gender-based violence and to support UN agencies focused on women's health, economic empowerment, and human rights.

The President stated that our country has ``a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens.'' There is nothing remotely moral about forcibly and needlessly separating young children from their parents at our border and not even caring enough to keep a record of their whereabouts so they can be reunited with their parents. The President stated that he wants legal immigrants ``to come into our country, in the largest numbers ever.'' Is he even aware that his administration has slashed the refugee admissions cap from 110,000 per year down to 30,000, a record low for our country?

The President recalled the countless Americans, like the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy 75 years ago, whose selfless sacrifices helped freedom triumph over fascism and solidified our Nation's place as the world's only superpower. He challenged us not to squander what we have inherited from ``the blood and tears and courage and vision of the Americans who came before.'' The irony of that message isn't lost on those of us who have worked, if sometimes unsuccessfully, to mitigate the impact of the President's relentless efforts to undermine the international order that those Americans strived to create to protect global peace and security for future generations.

The President routinely injects uncertainty into our support for NATO, has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal despite Iran's compliance as confirmed by his own administration, removed the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, the Global Migration Compact, the UN Human Rights Council, and has otherwise threatened or taken steps to walk away from numerous multilateral commitments that provide the United States with a platform for global leadership. Without U.S. engagement in these arenas, our adversaries are unchecked to pursue their own interests, which are often at odds with ours.

The President should heed his own words. The American soldiers at Normandy were not answering a call to unilateralism or isolationism. President Roosevelt, 4 years earlier, cautioned the country against those who ``believe that we can save our own skins by shutting our eyes to the fate of other nations.'' Addressing the threat of the Axis powers, he stated, ``I make the direct statement to the American people that there is far less chance of the United States getting into war if we do all we can now to support the nations defending themselves against attack.'' Now, as then, we must do everything in our power to strengthen global alliances and confront threats to peace and stability head on. International diplomacy should be a tool of first resort, not a casualty of domestic politics. The President declares that his actions advance U.S. national security interests, but we know better.

These are but a few examples of how the President's lofty rhetoric bore no factual relationship to the actions of his administration. The American people deserve to know the truth, not to be misled by the President of the United States.

Madam President. I read an article about Sarducci's celebrating 25 years in Montpelier.

Marcelle and I have enjoyed eating at Sarducci's since it first opened and are thrilled with what Carol Paquette and Jeff Butterfield have done with the restaurant.

I remember when they first opened and how Dorothy Korshak, the original founder, wondered whether anybody would come in. I remember telling Dorothy that, if they keep providing food that good, people will show up.

My mother was born in Vermont, a first generation Italian-American. We always ate Italian food, both at my grandparents' home in South Ryegate, VT or at our home in Montpelier, VT. It feels like going home to go to Sarducci's. It is one of our favorite restaurants.

I ask unanimous consent that the article from thebridge entitled ``Sarducci's Celebrates 25 Years in Montpelier'' be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, on Thursday, January 24, a good friend of mine, former Daily News photographer Harry Hamburg, died. Both Marcelle and I were in shock at the news. Harry is one

of our dearest friends, and Marcelle and I loved him.

I have lost count of the times we would share stories about his son Bruce and daughter Aren, and, of course, his grandchildren, Sophia, Ali, Dylan, and Will. Marcelle and I especially enjoyed the family conversations and the deep love he had for his late wife Becky. I think we knew more about each other's families than most people would. One of us would tell a story, and the other would say, ``Oh, that reminds me,'' and away we would go. Those of you who knew Harry Hamburg could see that happening.

We also shared a love of photography. I have an office here in the Capitol with a great view of the Mall and the Washington Monument, and we would often meet there. We would talk about photography, current events, and friends. We called it ``prayer hour with holy water.'' We had our own particular choices of what holy water and what proof. Occasionally, Marcelle was able to join us. Often, my policy adviser, Kevin McDonald, was there.

And, of course, Harry was a welcomed friend at all of our holiday parties and office gatherings.

Kevin McDonald went to the funeral in Pennsylvania. He filled me in on how moving it was and the things he heard there. Even last night, when we were at my grandson Patrick's birthday party, our daughter and son-in-law, Alicia and Lawrence, talked about the conversations they had with Harry at our last office gathering.

Those of us who enjoy or care about photography can understand the certain bond we had. He had an uncanny ability to email me the perfect picture at the perfect time. I could be coping with all kinds of things here in the Senate, and a photo would arrive. There is one Harry took in England, South Africa, or Pennsylvania. Some I called my warning shot. It would be a picture he took as he walked into the Capitol to come visit me. Every time, it made my day better.

Anyone can use a camera. Only an artist can take a picture that truly lasts. He spent a lot of time in England. All of us could take pictures of Big Ben, the Eye, Parliament, and all the rest. He would take pictures of a shop on a small street or of people looking out at a bus going by or of walking along a beach. You would look at that picture and say: Wow, I was there.

He was an artist. When you saw his pictures, whether of a current event or from his treasure of historical pictures, you were there. He enveloped you in the moment.

Later, I am going to put into the Record--not quite yet--his obituary. Of course, we will not be able to show the pictures.

I look at these pictures, and I remember he had one of Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve. They were filming Superman at the New York Daily News building.

I know for a fact that Christopher Reeve liked that photograph, and for those of us who saw the movie--millions and millions of dollars making the movie--this picture captures as much as anything else in the movie.

Or a serious one--Attorney General Ashcroft testifies before the House, but he gets a picture as he raises his hand with the Great Seal of the Senate behind him.

You know, we have all been to hearings, and we have heard people talk about different things.

He had two pictures of Muhammad Ali and our friend Michael Fox speaking at a Senate hearing, talking about research for Parkinson's disease. They both suffered from Parkinson's, and they pretended to be trading punches with each other. It was obviously in fun, but there was not a person who picked up the paper and saw that photo who did not read the article about Parkinson's and the need for research funding.

That is what he would do. He enveloped you in the moment. You were there. That may seem like a cliche, but it was not. You knew what happened.

Every one of us remembers most the photographs we have seen of historical events. He had photographs of historical events, but he had photographs of everyday life that made you think.

Marcelle and I knew he faced serious surgery. His good friend Paul Hosefros made plans to come from England. He is a good friend of his, and he was going to help take care of him--as well as his good friend Pat and his son and daughter--when he recovered from the surgery.

We reminded him, of course, that Marcelle is a registered nurse. We were ready to volunteer too. Before the surgery happened, he had a massive attack and died. All of us were ready to care for him, have him come back, take out the camera, compare photographs, have our prayer hour, whether it was with me or with anybody else and his friends, because he had so many.

Both Marcelle and I loved him. The tears we have shed are tears for the loss of a true friend, and the memory of Harry will always be in our hearts.

I know that no obituary could do justice to his talent, artistry, and humanity, but I was struck by the obituary in the New York Daily News.

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

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, over the past few years, the national headlines have been dominated by stories about the high cost of pharmaceuticals. We have seen jaw-dropping examples of companies raising the cost of their products overnight, pricing too many families out of the prescription drugs they need to survive. Just last week, House and Senate Committees charged with oversight of the pharmaceutical industry heard heartbreaking testimony from family members of those dependent on insulin who have been forced to ration their treatment because the annual cost of insulin has nearly doubled since 2012. That is appalling, and putting Americans into that kind of situation is unacceptable.

Lawmakers across the political spectrum, including President Trump, agree that Congress needs to act to rein in these spiraling prescription drug prices. Pharmaceutical companies should be compensated for their important work developing lifesaving treatments. But when companies engage in predatory practices at the expense of consumers, we must act. That is why today I am reintroducing the Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act, bipartisan legislation to end inappropriate delay tactics that are used by some brand-name drug companies to block competition from more affordable generic drugs. I am glad to be joined by Senators Grassley, Klobuchar, Lee and 24 other Senators of both parties in introducing this bill today.

The first delay tactic addressed by the CREATES Act involves the withholding of drug samples that generic manufacturers need to gain regulatory approval. Federal law requires generic competitors to prove that their low-cost alternative is equally safe and effective as the brand-name drug with which they wish to compete. Unfortunately, some brand-name companies are preventing generic manufacturers from obtaining the samples they need to make the necessary comparison. This simple delay tactic misuses regulatory safeguards as a weapon to block competition.

The second delay tactic addressed by the CREATES Act involves the development of shared safety protocols. For some high-risk drugs, Federal law requires a generic drug manufacturer to join the brand-name drug manufacturer in a single, shared safety protocol for distribution of the drug. Despite this requirement, some brand-name companies are refusing to negotiate shared safety protocols with potential generic competitors, again undermining those competitors' ability to gain FDA approval for their generic versions of such drugs.

The CREATES Act allows the FDA more discretion to approve alternative safety protocols, rather than require parties to develop shared safety protocols. Any safety protocol approved by the FDA must meet the rigorous statutory standards already in place.

These exclusionary practices thwart competition and deny consumers the benefit of lower drug prices. Recognizing the effect these tactics have in keeping drug prices high, in May 2018, FDA for the first time publicly identified brand-name drug companies that abuse FDA's safety programs or enact their own restricted distribution systems to delay competition from generic and biosimilar manufacturers. The FDA's list shows 164 inquiries covering more than 50 prescription drugs where access to samples was at issue. In recent years, according to FDA testimony to Congress, the number of inquiries has increased.

I share the concerns of Vermonters and Americans across the country that many prescription drugs are simply too expensive. I hear this again and again, from Vermonters in every corner of our state. When brand companies can artificially raise the price of drugs by using predatory practices, patients suffer. Illnesses worsen. Families, government programs, and other payers in the healthcare system ultimately bear those added, unnecessary costs.

Making meaningful reform to reduce the cost of prescription drugs should be a top priority for all lawmakers. The CREATES Act is an important piece of that puzzle, and is widely supported across the political spectrum and has

been endorsed by more than 90 groups. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the CREATES Act would lower Federal spending on prescription drugs by $3.9 billion and research shows that the savings to patients with employer-based health insurance and the health care system overall would be far greater--many billions of dollars more.

Think for a moment about the impact of price hikes on the family of a patient facing a life-threatening illness. Across the country, hardworking Americans feel like the system is rigged against them by corporations that are looking to make a profit at any price. With examples like Turing and Mylan, it is no wonder they feel that way.

The CREATES Act is one piece of the puzzle, addressing anticompetitive behavior that delays the creation of affordable generic drugs. Drug affordability is a bipartisan issue that affects each and every American. These reforms will make a difference. I hope we can finally act together to help put more affordable prescription drugs in the hands of Americans.

Mr. President, over the past few years, the national headlines have been dominated by stories about the high cost of pharmaceuticals. We have seen jaw-dropping examples of companies raising the cost of their products overnight, pricing too many families out of the prescription drugs they need to survive. Just last week, House and Senate Committees charged with oversight of the pharmaceutical industry heard heartbreaking testimony from family members of those dependent on insulin who have been forced to ration their treatment because the annual cost of insulin has nearly doubled since 2012. That is appalling, and putting Americans into that kind of situation is unacceptable.

Lawmakers across the political spectrum, including President Trump, agree that Congress needs to act to rein in these spiraling prescription drug prices. Pharmaceutical companies should be compensated for their important work developing lifesaving treatments. But when companies engage in predatory practices at the expense of consumers, we must act. That is why today I am reintroducing the Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act, bipartisan legislation to end inappropriate delay tactics that are used by some brand-name drug companies to block competition from more affordable generic drugs. I am glad to be joined by Senators Grassley, Klobuchar, Lee and 24 other Senators of both parties in introducing this bill today.

The first delay tactic addressed by the CREATES Act involves the withholding of drug samples that generic manufacturers need to gain regulatory approval. Federal law requires generic competitors to prove that their low-cost alternative is equally safe and effective as the brand-name drug with which they wish to compete. Unfortunately, some brand-name companies are preventing generic manufacturers from obtaining the samples they need to make the necessary comparison. This simple delay tactic misuses regulatory safeguards as a weapon to block competition.

The second delay tactic addressed by the CREATES Act involves the development of shared safety protocols. For some high-risk drugs, Federal law requires a generic drug manufacturer to join the brand-name drug manufacturer in a single, shared safety protocol for distribution of the drug. Despite this requirement, some brand-name companies are refusing to negotiate shared safety protocols with potential generic competitors, again undermining those competitors' ability to gain FDA approval for their generic versions of such drugs.

The CREATES Act allows the FDA more discretion to approve alternative safety protocols, rather than require parties to develop shared safety protocols. Any safety protocol approved by the FDA must meet the rigorous statutory standards already in place.

These exclusionary practices thwart competition and deny consumers the benefit of lower drug prices. Recognizing the effect these tactics have in keeping drug prices high, in May 2018, FDA for the first time publicly identified brand-name drug companies that abuse FDA's safety programs or enact their own restricted distribution systems to delay competition from generic and biosimilar manufacturers. The FDA's list shows 164 inquiries covering more than 50 prescription drugs where access to samples was at issue. In recent years, according to FDA testimony to Congress, the number of inquiries has increased.

I share the concerns of Vermonters and Americans across the country that many prescription drugs are simply too expensive. I hear this again and again, from Vermonters in every corner of our state. When brand companies can artificially raise the price of drugs by using predatory practices, patients suffer. Illnesses worsen. Families, government programs, and other payers in the healthcare system ultimately bear those added, unnecessary costs.

Making meaningful reform to reduce the cost of prescription drugs should be a top priority for all lawmakers. The CREATES Act is an important piece of that puzzle, and is widely supported across the political spectrum and has

been endorsed by more than 90 groups. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the CREATES Act would lower Federal spending on prescription drugs by $3.9 billion and research shows that the savings to patients with employer-based health insurance and the health care system overall would be far greater--many billions of dollars more.

Think for a moment about the impact of price hikes on the family of a patient facing a life-threatening illness. Across the country, hardworking Americans feel like the system is rigged against them by corporations that are looking to make a profit at any price. With examples like Turing and Mylan, it is no wonder they feel that way.

The CREATES Act is one piece of the puzzle, addressing anticompetitive behavior that delays the creation of affordable generic drugs. Drug affordability is a bipartisan issue that affects each and every American. These reforms will make a difference. I hope we can finally act together to help put more affordable prescription drugs in the hands of Americans.

Mr. President, the McConnell amendment expresses the sense of the Senate regarding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, an action I have long supported. Many Senators, including several of the cosponsors of the amendment, have supported the exact opposite position and would prefer to send more U.S. troops to both countries.

I believe that our military and diplomatic presence in Syria and Afghanistan should be determined by strategy and not by Presidential whims. I believe that our strategy should be developed with the thoughtful input of experts, both in executive agencies and in Congress. I believe that strategy should be consulted and coordinated with allies and partners and that it should be debated thoroughly in Congress. I believe that our commitments should not be open-ended and should have realistic and achievable goals that bring them to completion.

As the new Congress convened, amidst a government shutdown, the majority leader sought to bring S. 1, this so-called Middle East security bill, to the floor. Now, he has brought a hastily drafted amendment to the table, one that on its face seems to rebuke the President's impulsive announcement earlier this month that he was precipitously withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress should debate this issue. I support bringing our troops home from Syria and Afghanistan, and the manner and pace in which that occurs should be the subject of a full debate here in the Senate. We should have a debate about the scope of authorities under current authorizations for the use of military force, AUMFs, and whether new AUMFs are warranted. This amendment may be designed to put Members on the record opposing the President's announcement, but in Congress, we should have more meaningful debates that influence policy and practice rather than fuel headlines.

I hope the majority leader will soon schedule that debate.

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

Mr. President, no matter how intractable something might seem, the Senate is the Senate, and we should be the conscience of the Nation, and we can work things out.

One of my closest friends in this body is the distinguished senior Senator from Alabama, Mr. Shelby. He and I were talking just a couple of minutes ago. We know that we can get these things done. The Senate can be the conscience of the Nation. There are 100 men and women of both parties who are here because they love this country, and they want it to be better.

Now let's just sit down and do our work. Senator Shelby and I got every single appropriations bill last year through our committee, virtually unanimously in most cases. It worked. We proved it could work. It hadn't been done for years. We proved it could be done.

We did not do it with press conferences. We did not do it with gimmicks. We did not do it with histrionics. We did it with hard work, sometimes late into the night.

I say that in light of what we have seen during the Trump shutdown. For 35 days, President Trump robbed hundreds of thousands of American families of their paychecks and forced dedicated public servants-- professionals--to turn to food banks and unemployment benefits to feed and support their families.

For 35 days, President Trump denied millions of taxpaying Americans access to public services. For 35 days, President Trump inflicted pain on the American people.

Anyone who has taken the time for the briefing knows it has compromised our national security. And for what?

The rest of the world looks at us and sees us as being weak. Our enemies have been able to exploit the fact that we have had this shutdown. And for what?

All of this pain and suffering is going to end now, right where it began.

On December 19 of last year, the Senate passed a bill by voice vote to fund the government to February 8. Virtually every Republican and every Democrat supported it, and it is nearly what the President has proposed today. We in the Senate did that back on December 19. The President was going to support it. He was then criticized by some in the conservative media, and he thought he had to break his word and precipitate this national crisis.

Dozens of Vermonters have contacted my office to share the pain the Trump shutdown inflicted on their lives.

Northfield, VT, is one of our prettiest towns. It is not far from where I was born. A number of my ancestors settled in that area.

A Vermont family there found they could not complete their U.S. Department of Agriculture 502 direct home loan, and that closed the door on the American dream of owning a home, something so many Vermonters dream of.

A small business owner in Brattleboro, who employs Vermonters

and shows entrepreneurship is alive and well in our small State, wrote my office. What happened? He could not get the Department of Agriculture--because they were not there--to approve the packaging on their new products, and it crippled their growth in a competitive market.

A Vermonter in the Coast Guard was worried about how he and his shipmates would make ends meet.

These are real people who have suffered real consequences, and for what? For what?

The shutdown was the American crisis. It was our national emergency-- not the southern border, where apprehensions have dropped 75 percent since 2000, and the majority of the people apprehended at our borders today are families--women and children feeling violence in their own countries.

In this great country, which we are all proud to serve, the Trump shutdown should never have happened, and it never should have dragged on for 35 days.

I hope the President is learning that Congress is a coequal branch of government. The American people are not pawns to be played with for political gain.

I told Chairman Shelby that I will continue my bipartisan work with him to make responsible investments in the American people and border security, and I pray that President Trump does not repeat this national embarrassment.

I am proud to be an American. I am proud to be a U.S. Senator in a body that should be the conscience of the Nation. But I see how people around the world are laughing at our country when the most powerful-- the most powerful--Nation on Earth is being crippled because of a whim and a tweet. That is not the America I know and love. We are a great country. Only we can make it less great.

The shutdown has damaged us. It has damaged us internally. It has damaged our security. It has damaged our reputation around the rest of the world.

So I hope we will promptly vote to reopen the government and end this national nightmare. I am prepared to work. As dean of the Senate, as Vice Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I am willing to work with my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to make sure this foolish escapade doesn't happen again.

I see other Senators on the floor.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, let's put this in realistic terms. I have been here through eight Presidents. I am now in my 45th year. I have never seen anything like the Trump shutdown from the day it began 34 days ago until now.

I hear from people every day about the pain and suffering this shutdown has caused. Certainly I hear from my home State of Vermont. We know that tomorrow hundreds of thousands of public servants will miss their second paycheck since this shutdown began. Many of these public servants have had to work the entire time. They are angry. They are confused about why their paychecks are being held hostage by the President in what he appears to view as a political game. Many of these people can no longer pay their bills. They are worried about what tomorrow will bring, and all of us should worry.

We know that our basic government services are no longer functioning. Our Federal courts will run out of money by the end of this month. Important scientific research has been put on hold. Think of the cost to turn it back on. The fishing industry is in turmoil because they cannot get the Federal permits or inspections required to take out their boats. In the wake of a record-setting fire season, the Forest Service has curtailed thinning and fire-prevention projects. Federal law enforcement and prosecutors are sounding the alarm that the shutdown is hindering important investigative work and criminal prosecutions. The Transportation Security Administration, TSA, has employees who are calling in sick in record numbers after a month of being on the job with no paycheck. Some even say they cannot pay for the gas to get to the job. These are the people charged with detecting dangerous threats at our Nation's airports. Instead, they are stressed and frustrated. Everybody knows that is not a very good combination. Long lines are forming at airports. A lack of TSA employees has forced some major airports to close screening areas, causing further delays.

I could go on and on, but we know the Trump shutdown is hurting our Nation and our citizens. Overseas, it makes the United States of America look weak and foolish. This great country is made to look weak and foolish by the Trump shutdown.

We can end it right now, today, and for the sake of the country, we should. The McConnell amendment, the so-called End the Shutdown and Reopen the Government Act, we all know is a nonstarter. I came to the floor yesterday, and I detailed why. I am not going to repeat that here today.

It is the height of irresponsibility to use the pain and suffering of the American people as leverage to force the U.S. taxpayers to fund the President's bumper-sticker, campaign slogan southern border wall--on his solemn promise that Mexico would pay for it--or to enact his hard- line, anti-immigrant agenda. That is what the bill does. It is not a compromise. It is not a deal. I hope my fellow Senators oppose it. If we give in to these tactics now, where will it stop? What is the next thing the President will shut down the government over?

H.R. 268, which is what the Schumer amendment contains, is a bipartisan bill that we should all support. It would reopen the government by extending funding for the seven remaining appropriations bills through February 8, 2019. Remember, those are appropriations bills that Chairman Shelby and I worked very hard on and that passed through the committee virtually unanimously. We ought to applaud that. The passage of the bill will ensure that Federal employees are paid and that critical services are restored and provide time for negotiation and debate on border security without the American people being held hostage to the President's ill-considered, anti-immigrant agenda. I urge Senators to vote for it.

On December 19, in this Chamber, we passed the bill to fund the government until February 8. We did it unanimously by a voice vote. Republicans were in charge of both the House and the Senate at that time. In other words, the Senate was for keeping the government open. The President's own Republican leaders supported it. Suddenly, he changed his mind, and the Republican leaders had to back off.

H.R. 268 also provides $14 billion in assistance to help communities and families impacted by natural disasters recover and rebuild. It provides assistance to the victims of Hurricanes Michael and Florence, the California wildfires, the volcanic eruptions in Hawaii, the recent typhoons in the Pacific, and other natural disasters. It will also continue assistance for Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from the category 5 Hurricanes Maria and Irma.

The McConnell amendment contains a disaster package nearly identical to H.R. 268, but to appease the President, it eliminates all disaster assistance for Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is part of America. I know the President referred to it as an island surrounded by water, as though that is the only island that is surrounded by water. The McConnell amendment eliminates $1.3 billion in funding for clean and safe drinking water grants, community redevelopment funds, and nutrition assistance that would help the American citizens of Puerto Rico continue their recovery.

Hurricanes Maria and Irma devastated Puerto Rico and destroyed the island's homes and infrastructure. Hurricane Maria caused the deaths of 2,975 Americans. It is one of the deadliest hurricanes this country has ever seen.

While Congress has provided Puerto Rico with assistance in past disaster bills, they still have unaddressed needs that have to be met. Absent supplemental assistance, it is estimated that 140,000 Puerto Ricans--and I have to reemphasize that they are all U.S. citizens--are going to lose nutrition assistance at the end of March. This in the United States of America? Is there any wonder that the rest of the world looks at us and says: What are you doing? We are supposed to take care of all of our citizens when there is a crisis, not pick and choose based on who we are or who we are aligned with politically.

Just as I voted for disaster aid in States represented by Republicans, Republicans have voted for disaster aid in my State when it has been represented by Democrats. The President's disregard for the victims of Hurricane Maria is shameful.

I urge Senators to vote aye on the Schumer amendment. It provides much needed assistance to disaster-affected communities, and it immediately allows us to send this bill to the President to reopen the government. It has gone on long enough.

The President and the people in his Cabinet are billionaires. They do not care about the harm he has inflicted on this country, but I know Members of this body, both Democrats and Republicans, do. We know what it means to govern. We have a responsibility to do it now.

Senator Shelby, whom I admire, is a friend of mine. He and I worked together last year in a bipartisan way. We got the appropriations process back on track. We showed that this is the way to get things done. But then the President decided to take us off course.

The Senate is an independent, coequal branch of government. We should act like it. Let's end this national nightmare. Let's vote to open the government now for our fellow Americans. Let's do it now, today.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I hope the country has heard what the distinguished senior Senator from Maryland said. He sees this every day. He sees it when he goes home to Baltimore. He sees it when he talks with his neighbors. He sees it when he is in the grocery store. He sees it at the temple. He sees it everywhere because these are the people who are among our finest government workers, and they are out of work. They are not being paid. I suspect he also sees it with the contractors and subcontractors and those who are not on the Federal payroll but who would lose their jobs if the Federal Government is closed. So I compliment him for doing this.

I also appreciate what he said about the Appropriations Committee. The distinguished Presiding Officer is one of the hardest working chairs of the Appropriations subcommittees. I realize she cannot respond in her position as Presiding Officer, but I note that she moved her bill through. She did it in a way that got enormous support from Republicans and Democrats across the political spectrum, which is the way we are supposed to do it. It certainly has

been the way we have seen it done with people from her State. We did it with her father. We did it with my dear friend, Senator Stevens, when he was chair of the Appropriations Committee. We did it when the distinguished senior Senator from Maryland, Ms. Mikulski, was chair of the overall committee. We got this done.

It is a lot of work. It is tremendous work for our staffs on both sides of the aisle--a lot of late nights and weekends--but it is done because the American people want the U.S. Government to work.

For a month now, much of the Federal Government has been closed for business while the President of the United States rants and raves about his personal obsession, the centerpiece of his extreme, anti- immigration agenda--a wall on our southern border.

For a month now, hundreds of thousands of dedicated public servants have gone without a paycheck, even while many of them showed up for work every single day. Many can no longer pay their bills. They worry about how they are going to put food on the table. Many are looking for temporary work. Many are standing in line at food pantries. These are professionals. They are trying to figure out: How do we pay for childcare or healthcare? How do we pay our student loans? How do we pay for our mortgage?

It is not just the individuals. It is also our institutions. Our Federal courts are running out of money. Our Federal courts are running out of money. TSA agents are calling in sick in droves after weeks on the job without pay. What is that doing with air traffic, especially during the winter, in America?

Thousands of people who are trying to buy new homes, which boosts our economy, with a Federal Housing Administration loan told: Come back later.

Come back when?

Well, we don't know. Whenever President Trump ends the shutdown, come back.

Small businesses and farmers cannot get federally backed loans. This is after this body--under the leadership of the distinguished Republican, Senator Roberts, and the distinguished Democrat, Senator Stabenow--put through a 5-year farm bill, which brought almost all of us together. We voted for it, but now farmers can't use it. They don't even know what the new rules are because nobody is there to answer their questions.

We scaled back on food inspections. We are not enforcing our clean air and clean water rules. Our national parks are being vandalized and permanently damaged as they remain open to the public, but they are not staffed.

As a former prosecutor, here is something that sends a chill down my spine. The FBI Agents Association says criminal investigations are being stymied, grand jury subpoenas are going undelivered, and confidential sources are being lost. It is quickly becoming a national security threat.

This is America? This is the country I am proud to serve?

Either the President does not understand the harm his shutdown is causing, or he does not care. But the country is suffering. Our economy is suffering. The American people are suffering.

The Trump shutdown makes us look foolish and weak to the rest of the world. This is the leader of the free world we are seeing as weak and incompetent. However, over the weekend, the President addressed the country from the White House, and he laid out his price to stop the shutdown. Calling it a compromise, he made vague promises for protections for DACA recipients and those who receive TPS, or temporary protected status. We could end this shutdown, he said, and all U.S. taxpayers had to do was fund his wall--a wasteful monument to himself that he just wants the taxpayers to fund, even though he gave his word to all Americans, over and over, that Mexico would pay for it. He did not tell the truth then, and now he wants the American taxpayers to bail him out.

It was a transparent attempt to look reasonable on national television, while simultaneously holding the Federal Government and millions of Americans hostage to a shutdown that harms our economy and our communities every day. But as for offering temporary protections for vulnerable immigrants--protections that he unilaterally chose to strip, in the first place--in exchange for a permanent, ineffective wall, nobody can call that reasonable. It is hardly reasonable to hold the well-being of our Federal workforce or the services upon which many in America rely as hostages to fund a pet project. The President cannot bargain with something that he broke.

On Monday night, Senate Republicans unveiled the President's plan in more detail. It became clear that what seemed like a disingenuous ploy to seem reasonable to stop his slide in the polls was really a much more cynical attempt to implement his hard-lined, anti-immigration agenda, using the harm of the Trump shutdown as leverage.

The McConnell bill before us reads like an A-through-Z immigration wish list for President Trump and those in his anti-immigrant inner circle. First, the bill provides $5.7 billion for a wasteful monument to the President's ego--a wall that most experts say would do little to address the real problems on our southern border.

The bill, ultimately, dramatically increases the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or so-called ICE, detention beds to 52,000 and ICE enforcement agents by 2,000. Even as I give these numbers, I think of walking through these rooms with cages that children are being kept in. Every one of us who has children or grandchildren and every one of us who has gone through a school yard and has seen young children has heard that the decibel level is outstanding. They are laughing. They are playing. They are talking with each other. When you go through these cages--these cages holding these young, innocent children--there is dead silence--no laughter, no talking with each other, no joking. There is dead silence.

This is America. What are we showing the rest of the world?

The Trump administration has repeatedly proven it does not know how to prioritize its immigration enforcement resources. In the first 14 months of the Trump administration, ICE's arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions--no criminal convictions--spiked by 203 percent over the last 14 months of the previous administration. So it shows that President Trump has not deployed resources to round up, as he said, ``bad hombres'' or threats to our national security. He is deploying his enforcement resources to strike fear into the hearts of all undocumented immigrants.

This administration's enforcement policies are driven by the cruel desire to scare undocumented immigrants into believing that they or their disabled children or their elderly parents could be next. Until the Trump administration changes its dragnet approach to immigration enforcement, Congress should not fund an expansion of his detention and deportation force.

I would ask anybody to walk past those cages with the children in them. I never thought I would see this in America. I have seen it in war zones and other countries, but not America--not in the America I love.

The bill also contains provisions that serve as fig leaves to fix problems the Trump administration brought about in the first place. It would provide 3 years of temporary protection to 700,000 individuals currently involved in DACA--protections that are only required because of the President's own decision to terminate the DACA Program. It would not provide a path to citizenship for these Dreamers or any protections to the nearly 1 million more individuals who are eligible for DACA protections. Similarly, the bill would provide 3 years of temporary protection to TPS recipients from a few countries with TPS designation the Trump administration terminated in the first place.

If you provide permanent funding for a wall in exchange for provisions that temporarily clean up messes of the Trump administration's own making, that is not a compromise. It is taking hostages on top of hostages. That is a nonstarter. Stripping away protections from Dreamers and TPS recipients and then treating them like pawns by suddenly offering them temporary reprieve--this is not compassion. It is callous. It is wicked. It is evil.

Finally, the bill seeks to dismantle our humanitarian asylum system as we

know it. It contains provisions that would effectively bar any asylum applications from Honduran, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran minors that are not made from a designated processing center somewhere in Central America. In other words, thousands of vulnerable children fleeing the horrors of torture, murder, and rape in the Northern Triangle and arriving at our border would be categorically barred from applying for asylum and be subject to immediate removal proceedings.

The entire point of asylum is to provide an opportunity for those who have fled from persecution and violence to seek refuge in our country. Our asylum system would become distorted beyond recognition if, instead, we punish these desperate children--punish them for the very act of fleeing for their lives.

It is remarkable that the man whose name is on the book called ``The Art of the Deal'' would think that Democrats would accept what amounts to a deal breaker. This Democrat will not.

I welcome a debate on the need for immigration reform. I would remind Senators that in 2013, when I was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I issued a bipartisan bill to reform the immigration system and secure our border through the committee. We held dozens of hearings. We considered hundreds of amendments. We often met until late at night. Then, when we brought it before the Senate, it got 68 votes here on the Senate floor. Republicans and Democrats joined together to give it a supermajority. So it shows it can be done, but not while the President holds hostage all Americans, including hundreds of thousands of Federal workers and their families.

I remind the Senate that on December 19, when Republicans controlled the House and Republicans controlled the Senate, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill to fund the government by a voice vote. In other words, the Senate was for keeping the government open--until President Trump changed the mind of our Republican leader.

The President and Senate Republicans should reopen the government now, without any further foot-dragging. Congress and the Senate are a coequal and independent branch of government. We have bipartisan bills before Congress right now to do that. My friend the majority leader has refused to bring them up while the country pays the price. This has to end. I hope he will pull up the bipartisan bills. I hope he will let us vote.

Again, I would say that we are looking weak to the rest of the world. We are looking foolish to the rest of the world. But what hurts the most are the people--not only Federal employees but contractors, private industry, and everybody else in every one of our States--who are suffering and watching our economy sink further as a result.

I see the distinguished majority leader on the floor, so I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President--and I welcome the distinguished Presiding Officer, who has probably presided before, but this is the first time I have been on the floor and have seen him preside. I realize he cannot respond, but I welcome him to the Senate.

Government Funding

Mr. President, for 26 days, President Trump has held funding for our Federal Government hostage, using it as leverage to force Congress to provide $5.7 billion to build his ill-conceived, expensive, and unfortunately totally ineffective wall on the southern border. We knew this was coming because for months during the campaign, he riled up his base with chants of ``Build the wall. Build the wall.'' He invented a crisis at the southern border and then told supporters that only he could solve it. He gave his word over and over again that Mexico would pay for the wall so American taxpayers would not have to.

That was over 2 years ago, and I think he is feeling the pressure now as he shutters himself in the White House. Having failed to convince both Republicans and Democrats in Congress that the campaign slogan was actually good policy and having failed, as we all knew, to get Mexico to pay for the wall, he turns to a negotiation tactic that he seems to have mastered--bullying. He has shut down the government of the most powerful Nation in the world, making us a laughing stock around the rest of the world, and he says he will keep us shut down until he gets what he wants. It is the height of irresponsibility. It certainly destroys our effectiveness in other parts of the world.

He is the President of this country. We all--Democrats and Republicans--accept that he is the President. But that also means he is supposed to lead the Nation, not run it into the ground like so many of his businesses that had to declare bankruptcy. But he sits in the White House tweeting and watching television all day, ignoring the damaging effect his actions are having on millions of Americans of whatever political persuasion around the country.

The shutdown not only hurts our Federal workers, it is hurting America's economy. The President's own Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates that gross domestic product will slow by .1 percent for every 2 weeks the government is shut down. Today, there are reports that this estimate is too low and that the impact could be .1 percent for every week the government is shuttered.

Those are numbers, but let me tell you a story and give an example. Small businesses employ more than 59 million people in this country. Small businesses in this country are one of the main drivers of economic growth, but every day the government is closed is a day small businesses can't get Small Business Administration-backed loans to invest and grow their companies.

Last week, I heard from a woman who runs a small sign company in Essex Junction, VT. Essex Junction is in Chittenden County outside of Burlington, VT. It is a beautiful community. It survives by small businesses that expand. She is trying to grow her business, and she is trying to acquire another one, but the SBA backs the space she is trying to purchase, and so she can't bring the sale to finality during the shutdown. As a result, the seller is threatening to just move on. He can't get an answer from the SBA. And, of course, that would throw her expansion plans into jeopardy.

We have many excellent craft breweries in Vermont. They bring in a lot of revenue. They hire a lot of people. They are a key part of our tourism. I heard from one of the head brewers from one of these major craft breweries. He depends upon the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to approve his license applications, formulas, and the labels he puts on his beer. He has been brewing the beer and it is ready to be labeled, but the office is closed due to the government shutdown. They are not processing applications. He wrote:

I am one of the millions of voters whose livelihood depends

on the government operating. . . . Every day that passes

without the

ATTB up and running is another potential day of lost sales.

Farmers across the country and in Vermont are also feeling the pain of the shutdown. Just a few weeks ago, we passed the bipartisan farm bill. I was one of the conferees on that bill. I praised Senator Pat Roberts, Republican from Kansas, and Debbie Stabenow, Democrat from Michigan. They put together this bipartisan bill, and the President took credit when he signed it.

Well, it is a 5-year farm bill, and now the President, right after signing the farm bill, has shut the U.S. Department of Agriculture field offices that help farmers implement the law. Farmers need information now as the new planting and growing season looms. How long will it affect operations heading into the planting year? Most of the staff are on furlough. If you are a farmer in the Midwest and you are preparing your crops, you can't say: Well, you know, we can wait a few months--maybe past the growing season--to find out what the rules are going to be, and then we will plant. The decisions have to be made now.

It also means that farmers can't apply for much needed loans. They need these loans because the drop in commodity prices brought on by the President's tariffs has hit many farmers hard. They need loans to help pay their bills. Many banks are not willing to lend on them, so they have to rely on the Department of Agriculture as a lender of last resort.

Guess what happens in these multiple whammies. Offices that issue these loans are closed due to the shutdown. They need the loans because of the President's tariffs and the President's shutdown, but these offices can't give them the loans.

For those farmers who have better credit, who can access other lending options, many of their loans are also delayed by the shutdown since the lenders are unable to confirm that the farmer has other outstanding loans from the USDA. They could just connect to the USDA office to ask, but it is closed.

Just this week at the Farm Bureau convention, the President loudly proclaimed that he is providing assistance to the Market Facilitation Program to have farmers mitigate the financial losses caused by the Trump tariffs. But as of December 28, there is no one left in the USDA accounting offices to process any new applications for these much needed payments.

I recently heard from a dairy farmer in what we call the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont. She milks 80 cows, and she is proud of her operation, but she has been hit hard by the President's trade policies, which have led to retaliatory tariffs against U.S. dairy exports, and she is now behind in her electric bill. The electric company is threatening to turn off the power to her home, to her barn, to her milk parlor, to her milking machines. She received one installment from the American Facilitation Program to help mitigate the effects of the Trump tariffs, but she hasn't received the second installment because of the Trump shutdown. The second installment is needed to help pay her bills.

She says that she will be in much better shape when the new Dairy Margin Coverage Program from the new farm bill is implemented. Again, I applaud Senator Pat Roberts and Senator Debbie Stabenow for ushering that through in an almost unanimous vote. Unfortunately, no work is being done to get the program up and running because of the government shutdown. She is frustrated. She is worried about her future. She is looking for help. She is an honest, hard-working person, and she is stymied. I don't blame her.

Implementation of the farm bill, which I spent more than a year working on--I was on the committee conference working hard to deliver for our Nation's farmers on a wide range of key priorities, especially our struggling dairy farmers. It is now on hold during the shutdown with nearly every USDA Agency furloughed. This is life in the age of the Trump shutdown.

The President says that shutting down the government, paralyzing our country, is necessary to address a growing crisis on our southern border. The only crisis we have in our country right now is the one caused by the Trump shutdown. The crisis we face is not at our southern border but at kitchen tables, on family farms, and in small businesses across the country as families hurt by the Trump shutdown try to figure out how to make ends meet.

The President talks of hordes of illegal immigrants rushing across our borders, but border apprehensions have dropped 75 percent since 2000, and the majority of people apprehended at borders today are families--women and children--fleeing violence in their own country. They deserve our compassion, not vitriol.

More people are in this country illegally as a result of visa overstays than from illegal border crossings. This wall does nothing to address that. To address our complex immigration issues, we need comprehensive legislation based on facts, not bumper sticker slogans.

We all support strong border security--every Democrat, every Republican does. By working on a bipartisan basis in the last fiscal year, Democrats and Republicans supported $21.1 billion for border security and immigration enforcement. This followed a similar investment we made in fiscal year 2017.

As vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I know that we invested in our ports of entry, including the purchase of nonintrusive inspection equipment to detect illegal and illicit contraband. We invested in aircraft to monitor our sprawling border from above and quickly respond to emergencies. We invested in video surveillance, radar systems to detect movement in remote locations. These are solutions that work. These are smart uses of taxpayer dollars. A 30- foot wall that Mexico will not pay for is not a good solution.

This shutdown is not about border security. If this were about border security, we would be done with it today. The Trump shutdown is the President trying to distract America from his failures as a leader and shore up the support of his base. It is shameful.

It is clear that President Trump will not do the right thing on his own, so it is time for Senate Republicans to step up. Just yesterday morning, Democrats asked unanimous consent to take up two bills that would get this government back open--a six-bill minibus that has bipartisan support, including four bills that passed the Republican- controlled Senate 92 to 6--virtually every Republican voted for it--and a continuing resolution for the Homeland Security Department through February 8. Even though virtually every Republican has voted for this, the Republican leader objected to going forward.

If they continue to object to opening the government, this shutdown is as much on them as it is on the President. We have bipartisan bills before us that could reopen the government. We could vote on them today, and they would pass with veto-proof margins.

Leader McConnell, bring up these bills. Let's vote to end this national nightmare.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, let me tell you about the impact the Trump shutdown is having on one couple from my home State of Vermont.

Kelly and Ricky Klein own Groennfell Meadery in Colchester, VT. In fact, this is Kelly with her very pretty little daughter, Nora.

Groennfell Meadery is part of a growing industry in Vermont. We are a small State. We have the most craft breweries per capita in the Nation, and they create jobs. They support small businesses. They bring people to Vermont from all over the country. Business has been good. Kelly and Ricky have been planning an expansion. Recently, they were approved for a $1.3 million Small Business Administration loan. They were going to buy three new stainless steel fermenter tanks. They were going to move to a bigger facility, double their production, hire additional people, and bought additional supplies in anticipation of it. What happened? Their loan from the SBA is now on hold because of the Trump shutdown. It is not clear if it will ever come through. So instead of expanding, they have to use their own money. They have to use their stockpiles of mead. They have to take out a loan to make payroll. They are really hurting, but they told me one thing, even in this difficult time.

Even in this difficult time, they said they were more concerned for people who have lost paychecks and lifesaving benefits and with others in their industry who have been harder hit. It is a sense of community and empathy. I wish President Trump had that same sense of empathy and caring that they do.

We have to end this shutdown. I call on the majority leader--the Republican leader--to bring up the bills, which we have already passed by an overwhelming majority, that would reopen this government. Democrats and Republicans have voted for them. All we need is for the Republican leader to bring them up.

Stop the shutdown. Let people go back to their businesses.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, it is interesting--we have entered the 24th day of the Trump shutdown. That means that for 24 days, hundreds of thousands of Federal workers have lived with the uncertainty of when they will get their next paycheck. Tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of private contractors know they will never be paid. For 24 days, nine Federal Departments and dozens of Agencies have been closed for business. They have withheld vital services from millions of Americans. I want to point out that the millions of Americans who are not receiving these services pay taxes to have these services. It has now become the longest government shutdown in history. Taxpayers have lost billions of dollars. The country has lost billions of dollars.

The United States should be considered the most powerful country in the world, but the rest of the world sees our government being held hostage to the whims of an undisciplined President who is proud of the shutdown and shows no concern for the chaos he is causing to all Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike.

Ask people at home what this means to them, no matter whether they are Republicans or Democrats, that the President seems not to care that the Food and Drug Administration has stopped inspecting seafood, fruits, and vegetables, and Americans are at the risk of eating tainted food and feeding their families tainted food. He seems not to care that the Environmental Protection Agency has stopped inspections of chemical factories, water treatment plants, and other industrial sites, leaving our country vulnerable to dangerous pollutants seeping into the air we breathe and the water we drink. Ask any parent how they might feel about their child going to school and drinking water that is tainted with chemicals solely because we closed down the Agency that is supposed to inspect those chemicals.

He seems not to care that over 800,000 dedicated Federal workers have gone without a paycheck this month. As a result, across this Nation, hundreds of thousands of families are wondering how to pay their bills and put food on the table. It doesn't make any difference whether they are Republicans or Democrats or Independents; they are hard-working Americans.

Just a few days ago, the President's own chief economic adviser went on national television and said furloughed workers were better off from this shutdown because they don't have to use up vacation days during this time they are being forced to take. Does he actually know what he said? Can you even believe such an arrogant, out-of-touch dismissal of hard-working Americans? The President's economic adviser is going to get paid and doesn't have to worry, but this cavalier way of treating hard-working, honest Americans is indefensible.

I hear from Vermonters every day about the impact the shutdown is having on their lives. None of these Vermonters--Republican and Democratic alike--are better off. Let me give you an example.

The other day, I heard from a single mother who works at the Department of Homeland Security in Vermont. She has been working without pay since December 22, when the Trump shutdown began, and it has taken a toll. Remember, this woman works for Homeland Security.

She writes:

I love my job and country. I do have a child to feed and

bills to pay. I have been working a second job to get some

money coming in, but when you are working full time and you

have a family to care for, there are only so many extra hours

you can work, especially if you are not getting a paycheck

for some of the work you are doing.

I heard from another mother. She is worried about her daughter. Her daughter works for the U.S. Institute of Peace. She has been furloughed. She just missed her first paycheck, and she is unable to pay her bills and her student loans. Her daughter dedicates her life to combating terrorism, and now she is not only unable to do her job, but she is getting into financial trouble. She is worried, and her mother is worried, as any mother would be, but she does not have the financial resources to help her daughter.

Then there is the story of Anthony Morselli, who is a TSA agent at the Burlington International Airport. I see him often as I fly back and forth. The local paper recently reported he was forced to start a GoFundMe page in order to raise money to help his family pay the bills during the shutdown. His wife is also a TSA agent. They are both working without pay during the shutdown--it is a double hit--and they have two children to support. He points out that almost everyone seems to understand except the President.

Mr. Morselli says:

To see a zero balance in your bank account really hurts.

Some of us live paycheck to paycheck. Today would be payday,

and no money is coming in.

Another Vermonter called in who also works for the Department of Homeland Security in Vermont. He says he has a month's worth of money available in his savings account, and then he runs out of money entirely. He has a mortgage to pay, and the bills are piling up. He is scared. He works for the Department of Homeland Security. He says he wants to keep his job, but the shutdown is beyond reason. He says he certainly does not feel valued at all by the President and this White House. He points out that while the President says he wants border protection, he has been holding the pay from the people who protect our borders, including this Vermonter. I couldn't agree with him more.

Last week, the Senate and House passed a bill to ensure that all Federal workers will get backpay as soon as the shutdown is over. I was a cosponsor of that bill. I am glad to hear the President will sign it. It is the least he can do, considering the fact that he is the one who caused the mess. While this bill offers assurance to Federal employees that they will eventually get their paychecks, it does absolutely nothing to help them now. It does not help the people who call my office--the TSA agents, the DHS employees, or the State Department employees--because their bills are due now. This is not a case of, ``Oh, don't worry about it. Someday, you will get a check.'' The bills are due now, and the President has threatened that his Trump shutdown could last months or years. This is untenable.

The President says it is about border security. You could have fooled me. The examples I just talked about--and I could give so many more-- all involve dedicated Federal employees who are working to keep this country safe. They are proud of the work they do to keep America safe and are proud of the service they perform for their country, but they are all caught in the crosshairs of the Trump shutdown. The Trump shutdown is not about border security; it is about fulfilling a cynical campaign rally chant the President made to spin up his base. He even gave his word that Mexico would pay for the wall, while knowing, even as he said it, that it would never happen.

Congress is a coequal branch of government. We are not in the business of throwing taxpayer dollars around to build monuments to the Presidential egos of the Presidents of any party. Everyone knows the $5.7 billion wall he wants to build is a waste of taxpayer money. Everybody knows it will not address the immigration challenges in this country.

The President has manufactured a sense of urgency on the southern border solely to generate support for his ridiculous wall. The President likes to spin up his base by talking about the invasion of illegal immigrants, but that is not the reality. Apprehensions at the southwest border have dropped 75 percent since 2000. More people are here in this country illegally because they have overstayed their visas, not because they have snuck across the border. Every Member of the Senate supports border security, but I would argue we need to invest in smart border security, not spend billions of taxpayers' dollars on a 30-foot wall that determined people will be able to go over, or through, or under.

The President is now asserting that Democrats are for open borders. That is nonsense. In fiscal year 2018, the Democrats supported $21.1 billion in direct appropriations for border security and immigration enforcement. That followed a similar amount in fiscal year 2017. This funding supports investments at our northern and southern borders to help stop the flow of dangerous drugs like opioids, fentanyl, and methamphetamines. It targets money where it is needed. It pays for 19,500 Border Patrol agents nationwide, including, roughly, 16,500 on our southern border. It pays for 23,500 Customs Officers at our ports of entry, including 6,815 who are assigned to the southwest border's ports of entry. In fact, with Democratic support, the number of agents and officers we have is at a record high, even though illegal border crossings are at the lowest level we have seen since 1971.

Last year, Democrats and Republicans came together and agreed upon $1.7 billion in targeted border security investments. This included over $1 billion to be used between the ports of entry for improved facilities, tactical communications equipment, additional air assets, integrated fixed towers, video surveillance systems, ground detection systems, tactical aerostats, and money for countering cross-border tunnel threats. This is from Republicans and Democrats working together. It included $580 million for security at our ports of entry by increasing funds for intelligence capabilities at the National Targeting Center, nonintrusive inspection equipment so as to detect illicit contraband, and opioid testing equipment. It also included another $615 million to help address the root causes of migration from Central America.

These are investments that Republicans and Democrats can all agree on. This is how you protect our borders. It is more complex, but it is more effective than building a 30-foot wall. A 30-foot wall would not begin to do what this does. The shutdown is not about border security. Let's just be honest. It is about the President's own ego. It has to end.

In a few minutes, we are going to be voting on another bill that is one the Republican leader keeps bringing up. It is S. 1. At a time when people are desperate and are out of work here in America, we are to bring up this bill which has nothing to do with funding the government or border security. Rather than voting on the appropriations bills that would put Americans back to work, S. 1 authorizes more than $800 million, in this year alone, for Israeli defense contractors as part of $38 billion for Israel over the next 10 years. It is money that will put Israelis to work. It will pay for them to go to work. That is fine, but couldn't we take time, first, to put Americans back to work?

It also includes the boycott, divestment, sanctions legislation. This is an open violation of our First Amendment. It would give up Federal authority over matters of foreign policy to our State and local governments. I might not like a particular boycott, but the right to boycott is fundamental. Just pick up any one of our books about the U.S. civil rights movement and wonder if Martin Luther King and others would have been successful if they had not been allowed to have boycotts. It is not up to the government to pick and choose which boycotts citizens should support or oppose.

We have bills that are supported by Republicans and Democrats alike that could reopen the government. That should be our focus. We could talk about creating jobs in Israel at another time. Let's create jobs in America. Let's reopen our government.

I call on my friends, the Republicans, to stand up to the President and put a stop to this madness. Otherwise, the shutdown will not be just the President's fault but the fault of the Republicans in the Senate.

I implore Senator McConnell to bring up H.R. 21 and H.J. Res. 1 and send them to the President. Let Democrats and Republicans join together in voting for them. We could pass them with a veto-proof majority.

Congress is a coequal branch of government. We should not be intimidated

by any President of any party. We should start acting like a coequal branch of government. Frankly, we have 800,000 people in this country who will be paid for their work immediately if we start acting like we are supposed to--as a coequal branch of government. There are hundreds of thousands of others who need to work--contractors and all.

Let's stand up for Americans. We have the money for border security, but let's stand up for Americans. Let's put them to work. Let's let them get paid for what they are doing. These are our neighbors. These are people I see in the grocery store in Vermont when I am home on weekends. They are the people I see coming out of church on Sunday. These are the people I see when I am walking down the street to pick up my newspaper. These are good, hard-working people. Of the ones I have talked to, I have no idea whether they are Republicans or Democrats. All I know is that they want to do their work for this country. They support this country. They want to help this country be secure, but they can't understand why a temper tantrum at the White House will allow their paychecks to be stopped.

I yield the floor.

I don't see anybody seeking recognition.

So I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask for the time to be equally divided.