Patty Murray

Mr. President, I was never going to come out here and support Todd Blanche for a long list of reasons.

I do believe he is one of the most corrupt Justice Department officials in our country's history, for one. He was Trump's former personal lawyer, and it seems that he never quit. The only difference now is that taxpayers are signing his checks instead of Trump. He was the one who negotiated a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay off violent insurrectionists and who cut a backroom deal to give the President and his entire corrupt family immunity from IRS investigations, not to forget that Todd Blanche is the guy who botched the Epstein file so badly that survivors had their names and faces exposed while the names of alleged abusers were hidden.

This is a man who wouldn't meet with survivors until Senators put him under a tremendous amount of public pressure. When the meeting eventually got on the books, the survivors made it crystal clear Blanche didn't listen to them. He was more interested in checking a box than in hearing their stories or bringing them justice.

All of that is, of course, absolutely unacceptable and disqualifying, but I come here today to sound the alarm on some of the most disturbing comments I have ever heard from the Nation's top law enforcement official. I guess Todd Blanche thought no one was listening because, on a private call with anti-abortion activists, Mr. Blanche told us all exactly what he plans to do if Senators confirm him. His goal was to make the Dobbs decision ``permanent in every single state''--``every single state''--not just in Texas or Idaho. He wants to ban abortion in Washington State, in California, in New York--in every State.

He told them:

We will have victory, and victory will be soon, and it will

be permanent.

Victory over what exactly? Victory over women who just want to make their own healthcare decisions? Victory over patients in States where abortion is legal--where voters have said over and over at the ballot box: Keep your hands off our rights?

A DOJ spokesperson tried to clean up Blanche's words, saying he was only focused on restricting access to medication abortion in all 50 States, as if that is somehow better.

I am here to say: I will believe the tape. I believe Todd Blanche's own words.

So let's be crystal clear about what this vote is. A vote to confirm Todd Blanche is a vote to endorse his fight to ban abortion in all 50 States. Whatever happened to this being a State's decision?

Every Republican who votes yes is voting for exactly that--his words, not mine--and any Republican who votes to confirm him will own that in every State, in every way. This isn't just a confirmation vote anymore; it is a rollcall vote in which Senators endorse banning abortion in all 50 States at the Federal level. I am voting no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today with a very heavy heart because, right now, huge swaths of my State are being confronted by some of the worst fires that we have ever seen. This weekend, three fast-moving wildfires exploded across Spokane County.

In a matter of hours, entire neighborhoods were told: Leave now. This may be your only notice. Over 65,000 people I represent have been forced to evacuate their homes. At least 700 homes, businesses, and buildings have been destroyed already.

Families are sleeping in the Spokane Convention Center tonight, not knowing whether they even still have a home to go back to. And as of this morning, these fires are still not contained.

The photos and videos tell the story: Houses reduced to ash, families embracing outside the burned remains of what they once called home. It is heartbreaking. Smoke so thick over Spokane that the air itself has now become a health hazard.

To every family in Spokane and across eastern Washington who has lost a home or a business or a lifetime of memories, hear me: I promise you I am with you today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes to rebuild.

And amid this devastation, I also want this Chamber to hear about the extraordinary courage on display in my State right now. Within hours of the evacuation orders, neighbors were opening their doors to strangers. Families who had room to spare simply said: Come stay with us. Volunteers worked through the night at the convention center, handing out blankets, serving hot meals, sitting with frightened kids. Local restaurants showed up with food for evacuees and for the fire crews who are coming off the line. Churches and community groups collected clothes and diapers, pet food. Whatever people needed, someone in Spokane found a way to provide it.

Firefighters have been on the lines around the clock in brutal heat against dangerous winds. Local fire crews, crews from across the State, the Washington National Guard--all mobilized within hours. Incident management teams and firefighters who actually came from out of State all the way from Florida to Alaska--there are even firefighters from Australia and New Zealand--because of them, because of the sheriff's deputies and police officers who went door to door to get people out, because of the emergency managers and dispatchers and shelter volunteers, tens of thousands of people got to safety. These are real- life heroes, and, on behalf of the people of Washington State, ``Thank you.''

But gratitude is not enough. The people of Spokane need action, and they deserve to know their government has their back.

So here is where things stand as I see them: Our firefighters must have every resource they need to contain these fires--every aircraft, every bit of equipment, every dollar. So far our State has gotten the resources we need from the Federal Government, and I deeply appreciate that. That is how it should be.

Yesterday, I led our congressional delegation in urging the President to approve the Governor's request for an expedited emergency declaration. The President has approved part of that request; that is good, and I will be watching closely to ensure the full request is approved.

The next few days will no doubt be difficult as local fire crews do their best to try and contain these fires.

Looking ahead, it is important to say: Spokane's recovery will not be measured in days or weeks; it will be measured in months and years. Rebuilding homes, rebuilding businesses--it will take a long time, and it will not be easy.

But as vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I want the people of eastern Washington to know they have a voice in the U.S. Senate who will speak up for Spokane. I am not someone who will simply write letters to this administration asking for support. I help write the bills that fund the government across every Department and every Federal program, and I will make sure Spokane's recovery is a priority at every opportunity. There is not a single dollar I won't pursue if it means helping Spokane and communities across the State as they rebuild from these devastating fires. Whatever it takes, for as long as it takes.

Spokane has been hurt and is being badly hurt by these fires, but Spokane is not broken. A community that takes care of each other in the way we have seen cannot be broken. Spokane will rebuild; Eastern Washington will recover; and I will be standing with them every single step of the way.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, we have our work cut out for us as we work to fund the government for the coming fiscal year.

As costs for our families go up and up and up, the President wants a $1\1/2\ trillion war budget, and he wants to cut programs working people depend on to pay for it. No. No way. And as his disastrous war with Iran rages on, Trump is even asking for another $70 billion on top of that to bankroll the war. It is really hard to imagine more backward funding priorities, especially as so many families today are struggling and being hurt by the cuts to healthcare and food aid.

Congress is not an ATM to fund Trump's disastrous wars abroad, so, as I have said many times, we need to rip up the President's budget and write a new one. I have been very clear from the start: We absolutely must prioritize helping families and lowering costs as we do that, and that means rejecting the President's astronomical defense request and instead delivering significantly more funding for our nondefense budget so we can invest in helping people here at home.

It is clear that we will definitely need more time to get this done and reach bipartisan agreement on the funding levels, just as we have done in the Senate for the last 3 years, which then allows us to draft bipartisan bills for fiscal year 2027. So I am very glad we were able to craft a bipartisan CR to keep the government funded and to make sure we can avert a shutdown that no one wants, while giving us time to reach a bipartisan agreement on a top line in our funding bills.

Two weeks ago, House Republicans sent us an incomplete CR with several major issues. It is critical that we address those issues in any CR, and that is exactly what we have done.

Perhaps most important, we closed a loophole in the House Republican CR that would have allowed the Trump administration to transfer funding provided for other programs to Border Patrol. That was a nonstarter. Until Republicans finally agree to enact desperately needed reforms to ICE and Border Patrol, we cannot approve another cent for them.

This new CR that we have written includes some really important extensions and language that House Republicans did not, and that includes extensions of authorizations for important health, veterans, and infrastructure programs and language to make sure that key housing programs and a program to help feed low-income seniors can continue serving Americans.

This bill also rejects requests from President Trump for even more flexibility and funding for the Pentagon, including $1 billion for Trump-class battleships.

My Democratic colleagues and I pushed very hard and secured an important provision to prevent the Office of Management and Budget from implementing its corrupt new grants rule, which would have required a Trump political appointee to sign off on every last Federal grant and empowered them to terminate any grant at any

point for any reason. That disastrous rule would put politics above science when determining, for example, what cancer research grants to fund. I am going to keep working to kill that rule outright as our spending talks continue later this year.

Unfortunately, Republicans would not take action in this bill to protect our constitutional power of the purse and prevent Russ Vought from attempting another illegal pocket rescission, nor would they agree to our efforts to extend critical advanced appropriations for infrastructure, which were provided by the bipartisan infrastructure law. That runs out on October 1. Make no mistake--we will keep fighting to get those priorities done in the negotiations in the fall.

We do have a lot of work ahead, and this CR provides us a reasonable runway to get it done. So I hope this CR sets us up to roll up our sleeves and focus on getting to a bipartisan top line so we can then write good, bipartisan spending bills.

For all of those reasons, I will be voting yes tonight to advance this bipartisan bill.