Floor Statements

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I echo my colleague from Arkansas' comments with regard to TikTok.

Let's recall that in communist China, there really isn't such a thing as a private company, as much as ByteDance might want to say it is.

The Chinese communist law is very clear that companies in China have to do what they are told to do by the Chinese Communist Party, and that is one of the reasons TikTok is so dangerous.

TikTok, as has been covered by my colleague from Massachusetts, reaches 170 million people; 52 percent of those people say that they regularly get their news from TikTok.

As I have risen on this floor in the past, I have discussed specific cases where the Chinese communists have been pushing their propaganda through TikTok.

Now, let's also bear in mind that we would not allow any American TV, news station--even newspaper--to be able to own as much of the American marketplace as TikTok has today--170 million people. Current law says that you can only own 39 percent, for example, of the TV marketplace across the country. That would roughly equate to about 50 million households in the United States--far above what we are seeing here with what TikTok has access to. So if we are not going to allow Americans to be able to have such broad access to our population, why on Earth would we allow the Chinese Communist Party to do it? And by the way, the Chinese Communist Party has no First Amendment rights in this country.

ByteDance was given 270 days to make a deal. The Communist dictator Xi Jinping clearly did not want it. They tried to lobby us. They avoided getting a deal done. President Trump came into office. They are still avoiding getting a deal done.

The people who are taking on the liability here are the companies that are the facilitators. I urge those companies to reconsider. You should think carefully about what you are doing. The law is very clear. TikTok needs to be sold to an American owner to continue operation, not some half-baked plan, as my colleague from Arkansas was describing, where the Chinese Communist Party would still have influence on the TikTok algorithm, still have the ability to push their propaganda to the American people. That cannot happen. We need to make sure that the Chinese Communist Party cannot do that in our country.

Again, we won't allow other TV or radio stations to have that much access. Why on Earth are we doing it with the Chinese Communist Party? It is absolutely ludicrous.

We need to keep the pressure on. We need to make sure that TikTok is sold. I echo my colleague's comments with regard to any sort of future Chinese ownership that would allow them to be able to continue to do this. We need to make sure this is no longer going to threaten our young people.

Therefore, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in talking about the fentanyl crisis that Joe Biden created in our country.

Joe Biden had 4 years of open border policies. Millions of people crossed illegally into our country. But on top of that, we saw a surge of fentanyl coming into our country--fentanyl that is killing our young people.

My colleague from Florida just referenced 70,000 people dying from fentanyl. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death among our young people age 18 to 45.

That fentanyl starts in communist China, where the precursors are made. It then gets shipped to Mexico. The cartels turn it into that final product and bring it across the border.

And we saw the impact in Nebraska. In 2019, law enforcement in Nebraska took 46 pills--just 46 pills--laced with fentanyl off of our streets. But after Joe Biden got elected, in just the first 6 months of 2021, that number jumped to 151,000 pills.

And it wasn't just the numbers; it was the human cost.

Taryn Lee Griffith is a young mom with two children. She took a pill she thought was Percocet, but it was laced with fentanyl. She died that night. Now her children are going to have to learn about their mom from stories, from pictures because they don't have their mom anymore.

Sadly, that story is being told all across this country because of the fentanyl crisis that we have. President Trump was elected to stop this crisis. I mean, think about it. If we had had 70,000 Americans killed in a terrorist attack, we would be up in arms. It is more than are dying from car accidents or heart disease in that age bracket, and yet Joe Biden did nothing.

And President Trump got elected to stop it, to make a difference, to end this catastrophe. One of the ways he is doing that is by putting tariffs on the countries that are allowing this to ship through their countries, across their borders.

I already mentioned how communist China and Mexico are linked to this. There was a daily podcast from the New York Times that talked about how President Trumps' policies are really having an impact on Mexico.

Some people have said: Wait. Using tariffs, that is creating a trade war.

That is absolutely not the case. The case is this is a drug war, and the President is using the tool of tariffs to get a handle on it, to shut off the flow of fentanyl.

In just 1 month under Joe Biden, law enforcement intercepted 1,400 pounds of fentanyl coming into our country--1 month. That is enough to kill 300 million Americans. President Trump is using his powers to bring that to an end.

Now, some people have said: Well, that is fine. We get it, Mexico. But what about Canada? Canada is not the problem here.

But our northern border is also exposed. When Canada released or eased up on some of its visa restrictions, the cartels saw their advantage and started moving operations to Canada to transport both people illegally across the border and fentanyl.

In fact, 60 Minutes just did a story where they talked to one of these cartel drug smugglers about what he was doing, and he said that-- this one smuggler--he was responsible for moving 30 kilograms of fentanyl across the border from Canada into the United States every month. That is enough to kill 15 million Americans, and he was doing it every month--and that was one smuggler.

Now he also said that, lately, it had been quiet. They hadn't been moving as much fentanyl. And, again, that gets back to President Trump taking a stand to get our neighboring countries to start enforcing their border, to put more resources there, and to start blocking this fentanyl before it gets into our country.

These policies are having an impact. They are working. We need Canada and Mexico to continue to do more. President Trump is using his powers to be able to help stop that flow of fentanyl.

We are here standing up for secure borders, standing up for American families, standing up for those families who have lost loved ones already to this terrible scourge. We cannot afford to return to an open borders policy. We have to have secure borders. The stakes are too high. Too many lives have already been lost.

President Trump is leading the fight to secure our borders and stop the flow of this horrible drug into our country, and I am proud to support him in doing that.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.

This act will protect our daughters and granddaughters and keep the original meaning of title IX that was meant to help protect girls and promote females in sports.

On Monday, I was proud to support and vote for this bill. Sadly, every single Democrat--every single one--voted against it. It is deeply concerning and disappointing, frankly, that not one single Democrat would step up and say: I want to protect women's sports; that I have a daughter or a granddaughter who wants to have the same opportunities that title IX has provided over the last 50 years.

For 50 years, title IX has made it so women and girls would have a chance to compete in sports, but it is not just about athletic opportunities; it is about scholarships, and it is about long-term careers.

Title IX leveled the playing field so our daughters and granddaughters could dream big and pursue their dreams. We saw this on full display in Nebraska when we had Volleyball Day in Nebraska. For those of you who do not recall, Nebraska set a women's sports attendance record. Over 92,000 people came to watch our women's volleyball teams. It occurred at Memorial Stadium. It was the largest crowd ever.

You don't have to take me at my word that this is important for title IX. The Omaha World-Herald called it ``the biggest title IX statement of all time.''

It was an incredible moment and could not have happened without title IX. That progress is under attack today.

The Biden administration tried to eliminate those protections. The Biden administration tried to rewrite title IX without the approval of Congress. They tried to change the definition of ``sex'' to include ``gender identity,'' which, let me tell you, that was not a thing 50 years ago when this bill was written.

Girls would be forced to share dorm rooms, locker rooms, and bathrooms with males. Men would be able to take women's spots on sports teams and women's scholarships. That is what happens if you allow this to go forward, if you allow men to compete in women's sports, just by claiming they are a woman. The damage is already being done.

Last night, President Trump told the story of Payton McNabb. Payton was a high school volleyball player on the girls' team who was severely injured by a male opponent who smashed a ball into her head. She suffered a concussion, a brain bleed, and permanent whiplash. She also dealt with vision problems. It never should have been allowed to happen.

Riley Gaines is another example. Riley swam for the University of Kentucky and competed against a man for 3 years in her college career.

Lia Thomas, formerly William Thomas, was a mediocre male swimmer who then decided that he would be a women's swimmer, with all that goes along with that, not only competing in events but accessing women's restrooms and their locker rooms. He became one of the top women swimmers--because it is true, what we all know from common sense: Males and females are built differently.

It is wrong and it is unfair to allow men to compete against women in women's sports. It ignores science and common sense.

Last August, the United Nations released a report that showed that over 600 female athletes--600 female athletes--in more than 400 competitions have already lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports because those women were competing against males who claimed to be women. That is hundreds of young women who have trained for years, only to have their medals, records, and opportunities taken from them.

The American people see the unfairness of it, and they strongly support protecting women's sports. A 2025 poll from the New York Times found that 79 percent of Americans want to keep women's sports for women--for biological females. That includes a majority of registered Democrats.

This isn't a Republican or a Democrat issue. This is an American issue. And unlike my Democratic colleagues and President Biden, President Trump took steps to protect women's sports. He took action to protect the original meaning of title IX, in his first few

days as President. He knew that title IX was written to protect women, not erase them. His leadership stood for fairness, science, and common sense.

But there is no guarantee the next President is going to uphold President Trump's action. This bill would make those protections permanent. The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act is simple. It says that, under title IX, ``sex'' means the person's reproductive biology at birth. That is how title IX was written. That is how title IX was understood for decades, and that is how title IX should work today.

Men and boys shouldn't compete against women and girls in female sports. It is just common sense. It is absolutely just plain common sense.

Yet, 2 days ago, every single one of my Democratic colleagues voted against protecting women's collegiate athletics. They chose the wrong side of an 80-20 issue. They chose not to fight for science, for equal opportunity, and for women and girls.

I urge them to reconsider. Let's stand with women over radical policies. Let's stand with the overwhelming majority of Americans. Let's keep a level playing field for our daughters and granddaughters. Again, I urge my Democratic colleagues to reconsider.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleagues who yesterday voted to proceed on my Congressional Review Act to undo the eleventh-hour regulation that the Biden administration put through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would have greatly expanded the powers of the CFPB to start regulating payment systems as opposed to just the banking system that it was really designed to do.

I appreciate some of my colleagues' votes and encourage them to vote again as we vote on it here again later today.

Earlier today, some of my Democratic colleagues expressed some objections--and, again, in the interest of time, my colleague from Illinois pointed out, people are waiting to vote. I do have to hit upon one, though. The Senator from Massachusetts seemed to indicate--and she has done so many times in the past--that somehow the CFPB is the only cop on the beat there. That is simply not true. These payment systems are regulated at the State and Federal level. There are other organizations out there that do regulation, like the FDIC, the FTC, the Office of Comptroller, and, of course, State banking regulators, which I used to manage as a former Governor. These organizations all look out for protection of the consumer. She phrased this as somehow we are going to be opening the doors to bad actors, and that is simply not the case.

It is a complete misapprehension of our regulatory structure that is stunning from somebody who is the ranking member on the Banking Committee.

So I encourage my colleagues to vote for the CRA. It will help roll back this unnecessary regulation. This is a regulation the CFPB put forward without even defining what market they were going to regulate. They gave misleading information that somehow, it would only cost $25,000. In fact, consumers are generally very broadly pleased with these payment systems. The CFPB's own data shows that only 1 percent of the 1.3 million complaints

they received last year were on these payment systems. So this is a regulation in search of a reason.

We need to stop this expansion of the Federal bureaucracy. We will have the opportunity to do that today.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the CRA.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, following their election loss, the Biden-Harris administration rushed an eleventh-hour rule through the Federal Government to allow the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to start regulating nonbank entities, specifically, around digital consumer payment systems.

These payment systems are applications--think about it--like PayPal or Zelle. Consumers have widely had positive experiences with these payment systems. According to the CFPB's own database, only about 1 percent of the 1.3 million complaints last year involved these payment systems. These payment system companies, actually, are already being regulated at the State or Federal level. In other words, this eleventh- hour regulation the Biden administration rushed through is pointless. The Biden-Harris rule is a regulation in search of a problem. It is a rule without a reason. Furthermore, the cost-benefit analysis that the CFPB did--an audit by the CFPB--said that it would only cost $25,000. Now, having come from the business sector myself, that probably is the first day of outside attorneys' fees at $25,000. It is widely off the mark.

This one-size-fits-all solution in search of a problem expands the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's authority unnecessarily. In fact, I would argue that this is in a way that was unintended by Congress. The CFPB is supposed to be looking over the financial services sector with regard to banking, not over these nonbank payment systems.

The CFPB even failed to define the market they are seeking to supervise, much like how the Biden EPA and Obama before that tried to expand the EPA's authority under the waters of the United States rule. This is an expansion of the CFPB's authority that is beyond what we want to allow.

I am proud to be able to lead the pushback with the Congressional Review Act to stop this unnecessary rule. I am also honored to work with my fellow Nebraskan, Congressman Mike Flood, who is leading the same effort over in the House. This is an opportunity for us to ease the regulatory

burden the previous administration put upon the American people.

Thank you to Leader Thune for bringing this resolution to the floor for a vote.

I urge my colleagues in the Senate to vote yes to overturn and stop this unnecessary rule that is expanding the authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unnecessarily and despite the intent of Congress. The CFPB's overregulation of nonbank digital consumer payment applications should stop. We can do it here.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act that we voted on earlier in this Chamber.

The International Criminal Court was created to hold accountable war criminals, for example, in countries that did not have a system of justice, did not have the rule of law, and were incapable of holding those people accountable.

In 2020, the International Criminal Court started investigating American soldiers' actions. This, despite the fact that we have a system of justice. We are governed by the rule of law. As my senior Senator from Nebraska just

pointed out, we are not a signatory to the ICC. We are not a part of that international organization.

Last year, the International Criminal Court indicted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Israel has a rule of law. Israel has a system of justice. And Israel is not a signatory to the ICC; and yet they indicted him.

The International Criminal Court is out of control. It is a rogue international organization. And when they indicted Prime Minister Netanyahu, what they did is they put a moral equivalency between Israel's actions to defend itself and the barbaric attacks Hamas perpetrated on October 7.

Let's be clear here: When Hamas launched their terror attack on Israel, they were targeted civilians. That is a war crime. When Israel responds back to defend itself, civilians are going to get hurt in war, but that is not who Israel was targeting. They were targeting the terrorists who attacked them. That is legitimate.

The International Criminal Court destroyed whatever shred of credibility they had when they made that indictment. And if they are coming after the Israeli Prime Minister, it won't be long before they start coming after American troops.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal had an article that said ``if the International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Israelis, Americans are likely to follow.''

This organization is a failure despite its $187 million budget. It has not been able to bring to justice dictators around the world. They have done very little. My senior Senator mentioned China. They haven't done anything to stop Vladimir Putin. They haven't done anything against Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They haven't done anything against North Korea's Kim Jong-un. Yet they are targeting countries that have a system of justice and rule of law. That is not why this organization was supposed to have been created.

The ICC is a lawless, politicalized international organization that is threatening our sovereignty. This requires a strong response on our part.

The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act was that response. It would have directed the President within 60 days to launch sanctions against foreign nationals who are involved with the malign activities of the ICC to target our American troops or our allies, for example. We need to have a strong response back to protect our sovereignty. When we are talking about, for example, sanctions, we are talking about assets, freezing assets of those foreign nationals or travel bans. It would have sent a strong message to all of those foreigners who were trying to target us or our allies.

Sadly, the Democrats voted down this important bill that would have sent a strong message. Their arguments were speeches, frivolous, meaningless. The Democrats said: Well, this bill targets our allies.

No, what this bill did was target people who were outside the United States trying to target our soldiers or those of our allies. It was targeting individuals.

Democrats said: Well, this bill imposes draconian sanctions.

Actually, if you look at the sanctions that this bill was proposing, the same sort of sanctions were done under both Obama and Biden 49 times. They said: Oh. Well, some companies could be held responsible.

Again, no. This was about individuals. It was not about companies.

They said: Well, the bill was poorly written, poorly drafted.

Yet this same bill had passed the House of Representatives twice--the first time with 42 Democrats voting for it and the second time with 45 Democrats voting for it, including 2 of our colleagues who are in the Chamber now who voted for it when they were in the House, except that when they came to the Senate, they voted against it.

This was important legislation.

Now, when the minority leader got up, he talked about the ICC being anti-Semitic, and he is right. The U.N. in general is another one of those international organizations that are anti-Semitic.

He says that he stands with Israel, against the ICC, but his actions speak louder than words. When he had the opportunity, he stood on this floor earlier and said that Israel should have new elections to replace the Prime Minister.

Well, folks, that action was with the same logic that the ICC was using when they indicted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. It seems hypocritical that he can stand up here and say ``I stand with Israel, yet they should have new elections'' and somehow have the moral authority to defend Israel against the ICC.

In blocking this bill, Democrats were voting to not protect our soldiers; they were voting to not stand up for our allies, not stand up for our sovereignty. They were not supporting specifically Israel.

The appeasement-first policy of the Biden administration is alive and well in the Democrats in the U.S. Senate today. Americans, take note.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session and be in a period of morning business for debate only, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 45, which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed

to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 46, which was submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 12 noon on Thursday, January 30; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of Executive Calendar No. 9; that all time during morning business, recess, adjournment, and leader remarks count postcloture; finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during Thursday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of my colleagues.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, the pro-life movement is about love, compassion, dignity, and respect. Nebraska is a pro-life State, and Nebraska has been a leader in the pro-life movement.

In 2010, Nebraska was the first State to pass a law with regard to pain-capable fetuses and, effectively, made it so that you had a 20- week prohibition on abortion protecting those babies after 20 weeks because they can feel pain.

Last year, Nebraska, again, showed the Nation what we can do with the pro-life movement. We were the first State to pass a pro-life ballot initiative. And while doing that, we were able to prevent the pro- abortion lobby from passing a really heinous pro-abortion ballot issue. The pro-abortion forces ballot initiative would have essentially enshrined in our Constitution not only the right to abortion but would have allowed abortion up until, essentially, the moment of birth. It was incredibly radical.

I am very proud of our State. The people of Nebraska took our current law and kept that on the ballot and defeated the pro-abortion's very radical ballot issue.

We have the opportunity here in the Senate to be able to continue to uphold the dignity of unborn children. There are a couple of bills I want to talk about. They both have the word ``abortion'' in them, but they are really not about abortion. They are about that love and compassion, that dignity and respect.

The first is the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act. In 2002, Congress passed bipartisan legislation that said that children who survive an abortion are to be treated as people under the law. Now, to me, that seems a little crazy that we had to do that, but we actually passed that. It seemed common sense that if you are born, you are a person and protected under our laws here in the United States. Sadly, that is not the case.

In that 2002 law, it didn't say that the child had to receive care. So what we have seen in the abortion industry is that when there is a botched abortion, that baby oftentimes will just be born alive but then left to die of exposure. It is absolutely barbaric, absolutely heinous. And that is what the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act does. It requires medical treatment to be given to those babies, so if a baby girl is born in a botched abortion attempt, that baby girl gets the medical attention it needs so that she can survive and grow up.

You may say this sounds ridiculous. Why wouldn't that happen? Well, as I said, it does happen in the abortion industry.

Melissa Ohden's mother was pressured into trying to have an abortion at a hospital in Sioux City, IA. Melissa was born alive. And thank goodness there was a nurse there who then took her to the NICU so she could get the medical attention so that she could survive and grow up to be the woman she is today. Melissa was later adopted and has contributed to our country.

That is part of what we in the pro-life movement need to do is make sure we are defending the rights of these babies.

We have another opportunity as well. And, again, the name of the bill has ``abortion'' in it, but it is not about abortion; it is about protecting the dignity of unborn children. In this case, it is unborn children who are killed in that abortion.

Just a few years ago, the remains of over 2,000 aborted babies were discovered in a home in Indiana. Many Americans were shocked to find out that children who are aborted are often just disposed of. Their remains are treated like medical waste. That is just absolutely fundamentally wrong. These babies deserve the dignity that every other person has.

And so, in a few days, I am going to introduce the Dignity for Aborted Children Act. What my bill will do is require the abortion industry to treat with dignity and respect the remains of these aborted children; that they will get the same dignity and respect as any human being who dies.

Finally, I want to recognize that we have the March for Life coming up on Friday. I want to say thank you to all of the marchers who are going to be here to be able to demonstrate our movement's commitment to love, compassion, dignity, and respect.

Your advocacy plays a critical role in making sure that we help save the lives of all of these unborn babies.

When we talk about the most vulnerable, who could be more vulnerable than a baby who hasn't been born yet, and we can't hear that little girl's or little boy's voice yet? These marchers will be here to be that voice for those little babies.

So thank you for the work you are doing to be able to continue to get our message out about love and compassion, dignity and respect.

We need to remind all of our fellow citizens that these little babies deserve the same protections that we all have as citizens of the United States. It is about extending basic human rights to some of the most vulnerable among us. I appreciate the work that all of these pro-life advocates will be doing to be able to help carry our message out this weekend.

Working together, we can defend life and empower women.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, President Biden's open border policies have created a national security, humanitarian, and drug catastrophe in our country. In 2023, law enforcement encounters at the border found 169 people on the FBI's Terrorist Watchlist. In previous years, under the Trump administration, that number was in the single digits. We have had 10.5 million border encounters since Biden took office.

On a single day in December, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered 12,600 people trying to illegally enter into our country. That is just along the southern border--12,600. It set an alltime, single-day record for the number of people trying to break into our country.

In years past, administration officials have said: If there are 1,000 people encountered at our southern border trying to get in, that is a crisis.

So 12,600 is a catastrophe.

Record amounts of deadly drugs have also flown into our country since President Biden opened our borders. We experienced this directly in Nebraska. In 2019, when I was Governor, Nebraska law enforcement took 46 pills laced with fentanyl off of our streets--46. Then, after Biden became President, in just the first 6 months of 2021, Nebraska law enforcement took 151,000 pills off our streets--from 46 to 151,000.

While I was Governor, after Biden became President, we saw that our law enforcement started confiscating twice as much methamphetamine, 3 times as much fentanyl, and 10 times as much cocaine because of our open southern border and the cartels taking advantage of it.

And just like all around the country, our young people paid the price as well. Taryn Lee Griffith was a young mom of two who took a pill that was laced with fentanyl and died because of it. The single largest killer of Americans 18 to 45 is fentanyl overdose, all facilitated by President Biden's open border policies along our southern border.

Jose Ibarra was a different kind of problem. Jose Ibarra was a Venezuelan national who crossed our border illegally in the Texas area and asked for asylum.

His wife said he just wanted a better job, but regardless, the Biden administration released him into this country. He was bused to New York City, and there he was arrested for ``acting in a manner to endanger a child under the age of 17.''

However, New York City is a sanctuary city. He was not detained or deported, as he ought to have been. He was released. He made his way to Georgia, and once again he was arrested; this time for shoplifting. But once again he was not detained or deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

And because he was not, he went on to brutally murder Laken Riley. This

tragedy could have been avoided if President Biden had been protecting our southern border, if illegal immigrants were being detained and deported. People who break the laws in our country need to be held accountable. That is what the Laken Riley Act does.

It requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain people who are breaking our laws. When people come here illegally, and they are breaking our laws, they need to be held accountable. With the Laken Riley Act, if you are committing theft, burglary, shoplifting, you will be detained and tragedies like Laken Riley can be avoided.

This is just common sense that we need to enforce our laws. To me, it is common sense that we need to protect our borders. And thank goodness, starting in a few days, we will have a President who understands the safety of the American people is the priority, and President Trump will secure our borders.

The election results were overwhelming; President Trump has a mandate to secure our borders. Senate Republicans will stand up to help him do just that. The Laken Riley Act is our first step to be able to help him do that. And I call upon my colleagues from the other side of the aisle to continue to support this bill as they have done on the previous votes.

Let's get this bill passed. Let's make sure other families don't have to live through the tragedy that Laken Riley's family had to live through.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object. The Chinese Communist Party is our chief foreign adversary in the world and the only external existential threat to our Nation.

They threaten our freedom, our prosperity, our security, and our very way of life. When I was Governor of Nebraska, I was the first Governor to ban TikTok on State devices because of the threat it posed. Why did I do that? Well, because Xi Jinping said that he wants to replace us as the world leader. Dictators tend to say what they are going to do and try and do it. We should take him seriously.

TikTok is one of the ways that he is trying to do it, trying to undermine what we do around the world. The Chinese Communist Party wants to replace us; TikTok is one of the ways they are trying to influence our downfall.

As many as 150 million Americans use TikTok. Fifty-two percent of them say they regularly get news through TikTok, and we know that the CCP uses TikTok to slant the news. This is part of their propaganda.

Data shows, for example, my esteemed colleague from Arkansas referenced it, the anti-Semitism on TikTok. If you go back and look, you can see 50 times the posts on pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian content, 50 times the views, despite the fact that overwhelmingly Americans support Israel--the polling shows it--and that is just one of the issues that they get involved with.

We wouldn't allow any foreign adversary, TV stations, radio stations, or newspapers to reach 150 million Americans. Why are we allowing our chief adversary in the world, one that seeks our downfall, to have that kind of access? It makes absolutely no sense.

And, of course, the Chinese Communist Party has no free rights in America. Those belong to American citizens. We need to make sure we take a step against this. And last April, we did, overwhelmingly, bipartisan, bicameral because this Congress saw the threat that TikTok poses by the Chinese Communist Party being able to influence ByteDance because they have to. ByteDance is a Chinese company. It has to do whatever the Chinese Communist Party says. That is their law. They have to do what the Chinese Communist Party says, so, therefore, they push the propaganda.

As my colleague from Arkansas pointed out, they spy on Americans, collect data on Americans. So we saw a bipartisan effort, over 350 votes in the House, to pass this bill and, by the way, the same bipartisan support here in the Senate, passing 79 to 18.

The law gathered so much bipartisan, bicameral support because we recognized this was about keeping America and Americans safe; that ByteDance needed to divest TikTok so that we could be assured that the Chinese Communist Party wasn't pushing its propaganda or spying on us.

We acted with conviction against that threat, and of course we know from our classified briefings what that threat for TikTok was. And this threat is not something far off or imagined. We have seen TikTok's interference in elections elsewhere around the world, most recently in Romania. The European Commission just opened an investigation on TikTok's failure to limit election interference in Romania's election, and that has caused all sorts of disruption in that country.

India has banned TikTok for the very same reason that they are seeing the push of Chinese propaganda slants on their news media the same way we see it here in America.

Albania, worried about Romania, banned TikTok. We passed a law that did not ban TikTok. We passed a law that said you have to have an American owner like, I don't know, radio stations, TV stations, newspapers. The Senator from Massachusetts would like to give us a 270- day extension. What is going to be different? What is going to be different?

ByteDance has had 270 days, and rather than making legitimate attempts to find a buyer--and, by the way, you all recall the news stories when this law was being discussed and being passed. There were a number of Americans who said they would be interested in buying them. ByteDance didn't do anything.

Rather than looking for an American buyer, they decided to hire an army of lobbyists and lawyers to try and subvert the will of the Congress. They spent the last 270 days trying to avoid being sold. As my colleague said, the Chinese Communist Party will not let them be sold.

That, in and of itself, should tell you everything you need to know about this. If the Chinese Communist Party is refusing ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American buyer, you know they are using it to push their propaganda and to collect data on us. They don't want those algorithms coming to America because then they will be exposed. That is what this is about.

This is a national security threat. That is why we took action last April. They have had these 270 days. They did nothing with them. To extend would mean nothing as well, except give the Chinese Communist Party another 270 days to push their propaganda and to spy on more Americans.

Finally, today, in our Foreign Relations Committee hearing, we had the confirmation hearing for Senator Rubio, who has been nominated for Secretary of State.

I asked him in his confirmation hearing earlier today why average Americans in Nebraska should care about the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to our way of life, and he had a great response, and I want to read it here.

He said:

If we stay on the road we're on right now, in less than ten

years, virtually everything that matters to us in life will

depend on whether China will allow us to have it or not.

Folks, this is a clear test of whether America is going to get off that road. Are we willing to change direction? Are we willing to say to the Chinese Communist Party enough, no further, not now? We are changing. We are getting away from the bad practices of the past that the Chinese Communist Party is taking advantage of.

Let's send a clear signal to Beijing that America's national security is going to take priority. Let's stand strong. Let's remember, we passed this law for a reason, and it is to keep Americans safe, and, therefore, I object.

I just want to briefly build upon my colleague from Arkansas.

Two quick points: One, our colleague from Massachusetts has called this a TikTok ban. That is inaccurate. The law that was passed, as my colleague pointed out, was about foreign adversaries and required TikTok to be sold to an American owner.

If it had been sold, TikTok could continue to be in operation. And my understanding is, even if it is forced to close down because it hasn't sold by Sunday, if it is sold in the future, it will be able to reestablish operations, as long as it is to an American buyer.

So it is not a ban.

The reason it is a ban is because TikTok and the Chinese Communist Party chose to make it a ban. ByteDance has not tried to parallel-path this, which was my colleague from Massachusetts' point. They could have been trying to sell it, the same time they were going through the court, and had that ready. In fact, they could have written a document saying: I am only going to sell if the Supreme Court says I have to. They could have found a buyer and written a contract that way-- absolutely. They didn't have to make this a ban.

And with regard to my colleague from Massachusetts' other point, I did offer a proof point based upon data here in the United States about how TikTok pushes a Chinese Communist Party agenda to push their propaganda. In this case, it was anti-Semitism against Israel by promoting pro-Hamas, the terrorist group, posts--its posts--and then pro-Palestinian posts versus Israeli pro-Israel ones. So I gave data there.

But this is exactly the same kind of pushing of propaganda which has led, I presume, India to ban TikTok, as well, because the Chinese Communist Party is doing the same thing to them.

So a couple of points on this, and, again, I don't think anything will be different 270 days from now because the Chinese Communist Party will not allow TikTok to be sold because their algorithm would be exposed.

With that, I would just end by saying that China must be deterred.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to compliment my esteemed colleague from Iowa, who is the founding member of the DOGE Caucus, as well as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy for their effort to be able to create the Department of Government Efficiency.

This is something that is near and dear to my heart because as Governor of Nebraska, this is what we did. We focused on how we could drive efficiency through our State operations.

Now, if you want to think about the big argument between Republicans and Democrats on a really macro scale--what it is--it comes down to what should government properly do. What should be the size and scope of government? Well, there are actually things we agree that government should do between Republicans and Democrats; and for those things, we should do them really, really well. All too often, government fails because it is not properly managed, because we don't do a good job; and when we don't do a good job, we end up wasting taxpayers' dollars.

As the Governor of Nebraska, this is one of the things I focused on to be able to do a better job on--take my private sector experiences, in coming from the business world, and applying them to the running of State government. We showed that the things you do in the private sector will work in running the public sector as well.

In the State of Nebraska, we implemented Lean Six Sigma. Lean Six Sigma is a process improvement methodology. There are a number of them out there, and this is the one we chose. What it does is you break down an operation; you count what the steps are and what the steps, you know, should be; you get the frontline people engaged--the people actually doing the work involved in looking at those steps; and see if you can cut the waste in the number of steps and everything else so that you can make the process more efficient. That is how you can do a better job of actually providing services while reducing costs at the same time.

That is the thing. Every time you get to government, they say: Oh, we want to cut expenses, blah, blah, blah. Oh, you are going to cut services.

No. No. No.

In the private sector, you can't go to your customers and say: Well, I am going to reduce your prices, but I am going to also reduce your service, because your customers will go someplace else. It doesn't work that way. So the private sector figures out how to do a better job of providing services while reducing their expenses. We can do the same thing in government. In the private sector, you have competition that is going to drive inefficient businesses out. In the government sector, it is going to require people like Elon, Vivek, and the Senators here in this room to be able to drive that through our government Agencies to get that efficiency.

I want to talk a little bit about what we did, because it was very effective. I mentioned that you measure the steps. You count how many steps there are, and see where the overlaps are. One area we did it was in air construction permits. We had 190 steps that it took to issue that permit. We cut that down to 22 steps. By doing that--sorry. It was 110 steps that we cut down to 22. By doing that, we cut it down from 190 days to be able to issue that permit to 65 days. Now, we can't change any of the environmental regulations. That was just a better job of issuing those permits. And, when you free up your teammates' time because they are not wasting time on all those extra steps, they can do more work--they are more productive--and can focus on things that are going to be more important--for example, more difficult permits.

We used this in a variety of ways, and we showed lots of improvement. For example, in our economic assistance line in August of 2014, it was taking about 23 minutes to answer that phone call. We set a goal of setting 5 minutes or less to answer those phone calls for those people who were calling in seeking our assistance. We hit that goal all the way up until the pandemic.

It was taking us 40 days to issue SNAP applications--food stamps. Again, if you are one of those families in need and it is taking 40 days to process that application, what is that saying about how we think about it? We set a goal of getting applications done in 10 days. We hit that all the way up until we hit the pandemic. Then, even when we got out of compliance--when we started going above 10 days--we knew we were above it, and we took the steps to start getting that number back down again.

We were able to do it in a variety of other ways; like, for example, with the Department of Motor Vehicles, getting you your driver's license. In our Centers of Excellence, we were able to get that from 22 minutes down to 8 minutes in getting people in and out the door.

With our Green Sheets, which is what we used in our Department of Transportation to be able to make sure that our contractors were doing the right things with regard to the environment or antiquities or whatever--making sure they were following all the rules--we were able to cut that from 16 days down to 3 days so that those contractors could get into the field faster and get our projects moving faster.

Here is another one: We would issue reimbursement checks to families with children who have special needs. Often, these special needs children will have to have specialized care. Families will have to travel to that hospital to go get that. They would get reimbursed for those expenses, but it was taking us 13 to 15 days to reimburse those expenses. Well, what is wrong with that? That is over a 2-week pay period. Those families had to float those costs from one paycheck to the next paycheck. You know and I know that a lot of families live paycheck to paycheck, so that put a financial burden on those families with kids with special needs. We were able to cut that time down to 2 days to be able to make sure we could get those expense checks back to those families in need so that they wouldn't have to float that and experience that financial hardship from one payment to the next.

Well, what did we have to do to do that? We had to get everybody on board--our entire team. At the end of the day, in the State of Nebraska, we trained over 30,000 of our teammates in the Lean Six Sigma process. There were wipeouts kind of in the introductory one. Over 6,200 of our mid-level managers in the yellow belts, the next level up. We trained 248 executive green belts. Those are the upper level executives--again, more training. Then we trained nine black belts. Those are the folks who oversee the whole program.

By implementing all of that, we were able to save over 900,000 hours of our teammates' time. We did over 1,000 different projects. We saved $115 million in hard savings. Because of those processes, for example, we were able to reduce the square footage that we were occupying as the State of Nebraska by 60,000. It was 60,000 square feet we took off our rolls; we reduced our employment by 3\1/2\ percent; and we were able to control spending.

Before I became Governor, our budget was growing at 6\1/2\ percent a year. I would say that was not sustainable. We were able to, on average, while I was Governor, keep that growth of our budget to 2.8 percent a year--just 2.8 percent a year on average. I might just contrast that to what we are doing here in the Federal Government right now. In 2019, we spent $4.4 trillion. In 2024, that was closer to $6.8 trillion, $6.9 trillion. That is, roughly, a 55-percent increase in just 5 years. Folks, that is not sustainable.

That is why what this Department of Government Efficiency, the DOGE, and what this incoming administration are going to do is so important. We have got to be able to get our spending under control. It is a risk to our country. We have got to get this under control, and we can do it. We can do a better job of providing services and keeping our expenses down just like the private sector does by leveraging tools like Lean Six Sigma, just like the private sector does.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Res. 928, which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, that the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor a great Nebraskan and a great American, John Edmund Gottschalk. John Gottschalk was born in Omaha in 1943 and grew up in a small town in Nebraska called Rushville. He was a Boy Scout, and he went on to attend the University of Nebraska, majoring in political science and journalism.

His father started the Sheridan County Star, and John worked there as well, really getting his break into journalism, the newspaper business. In 1972, John bought the Sidney Telegraph in Sidney, NE, and became mayor of the town of Sidney. In 1975, he joined the Omaha World-Herald as an assistant to the president. He eventually worked his way up to become the publisher and CEO in 1998, and he remained that until 2009. Actually, 1989. I got those numbers flipped around. In 1989, he became CEO and publisher.

John and his wife Carmen were extraordinary people.

John led the Omaha World-Herald into the digital age and also spearheaded a number of the efforts to increase the technology and its spread throughout the State of Nebraska, different communities. He made the Omaha World-Herald a standard for how newspapers should be run.

He himself was known for his integrity and his courage. He was never shy about being direct with a budding politician to let that politician know when he believed that politician might have erred. He was one of those people that cared about the community. As I mentioned, he was a Boy Scout. He served

as chairman of our local Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts but also became national president of Boy Scouts of America. He served as chairman of the Board of Governors of the USO, cared about our veterans and wanted to make sure we were serving them, cared about our military people. He also cared about the arts and was chairman of Omaha Performing Arts.

He and his wife Carmen cared about people. Together, they fostered more than 100 infants awaiting adoption.

John was an outdoorsman and a conservationist. He really was one of those people we would describe as a renaissance man--running a fantastic business, giving back to the community. He was the kind of American that built this country.

John passed away last month, leaving a legacy that is having a lasting imprint on our community of Omaha, the State of Nebraska, and indeed our entire country.

I greatly admire John Gottschalk for the kind of man he was, the example he set for the rest of us. He will be greatly missed, and I will miss him greatly.

I yield the floor.