Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Heinrich), the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Hickenlooper), the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, America is a great nation. Just look at the record. When it comes to the discovery of new drugs and pharmaceuticals, we lead the world. But we also pay the highest prices in the world for the prescription drugs. The very same drugs made in the United States is for sale in Canada at a fraction of the cost. The same thing is true in Europe.

What is going on here?

Our country is producing drugs, paying more for them than other customers around the world--the problem is so glaring that even President Trump has identified fixing this issue as a priority. Bipartisan feeling--change it, reduce the price of drugs.

Why is the United States such an outlier? One of the major reasons-- if you watch television, you see it every single day. The United States is one of only two industrialized countries in the world that allows people to advertise drugs on television.

This is a trivia quiz. What is the other country? New Zealand. Two countries in the world that allow advertising of prescription drugs on television--you know, the ads with the catchy jingles, flashy images of patients rock climbing, golfing, dancing, parading.

Big Pharma spends $6 billion a year to flood the airwaves with ads for the latest wonder drug--$6 billion.

Why? Why would they spend all this money to advertise drugs and say, Talk it over with your doctor? They spend such astronomical sums to promote their drugs because it increases their profit margins.

Big Pharma thinks if they hit you hard enough and often enough with ads on television, not only will you be able to pronounce but spell Xarelto, but you will also tell your doctor: That is my favorite blood thinner. I have seen that ad over and over again.

Don't take my word for it.

The American Medical Association said:

Direct to consumer advertising inflates demands for new and

expensive drugs even when these drugs may not be appropriate

for your health.

When President Biden announced 15 drugs that Medicare would negotiate for discounts, most Americans knew the names, maybe even knew the jingle: Ozempic, Trelegy, Ibrance, Otezla.

Sound familiar?

Pharma spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year so you are supposed to ``ask your doctor'' about these drugs.

The result, Medicare spent $22 billion last year alone on these four heavily advertised medications--$22 billion. With these advertisements, Big Pharma is betting they can squeeze every penny out of you and our healthcare system.

Just last week, I released a report about the new telehealth advertising scheme launched by Pfizer and Eli Lilly. With online promotions and new websites, Pharma is urging patients to ``click here'' if you want to speak with a doctor. But those telehealth doctors

are handpicked. They have been recruited and paid for by the drug companies.

Pharma is funneling patients to their chosen healthcare providers to influence prescriptions for costly drugs. This raises concerns about conflicts of interest and inappropriate prescribing of drugs. All of this is a result of Pharma's rampant advertising spree.

Since 2017, I have introduced bipartisan legislation to crack down on this TV advertising. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley--now on the floor to join me--has been my partner in this effort. When you turn on the evening news, one-third--one out of every three--commercials you see are for drugs from prescription drug companies. It is the same when you stream your favorite show or scroll on social media.

Americans see an average nine pharmaceutical ads every single day. With billions in targeted spending, patients are bombarded with information--often at rapid machine gun pace--but kept in the dark about one crucial fact that is essential to this conversation: The drug companies want to tell you everything, including the warnings as fast as they say them, but they don't want you to know one thing. They don't want you to know the price.

Because of outrageous drug prices, millions of Americans are faced to ration doses, skip refills, making cost of transparency absolutely essential.

I want to put an ad up here, which some of you may recognize.

In 2023, Illinois company AbbVie spent $350 million on TV ads for Rinvoq, an eczema and arthritis drug. Nowhere in the commercial do they tell you the cost as publicized and released by the drug company-- $6,100 a month for this drug.

A lot of good news, if you are going to go out canoeing and white water rafting, but they won't tell you it is $6,100 for Rinvoq.

It is time to end Big Pharma's secrecy. If they are going to advertise a drug, they need to also declare to the American public how much it costs.

It is basic. No gimmicks, no tricks, just the truth by advertising the very same drug that the drug companies publish at the fictional price.

Our commonsense plan to require price disclosures in direct-to- consumer drug ads has already passed the Senate one time before. Senator Grassley and I worked together in 2018, because we knew that 88 percent of the American people support what we are doing--disclosure of price and reduction of the cost of drugs to consumers.

In fact, because of our work, President Donald Trump made a statement.

Big announcement . . .--

The President said--

Drug companies have to come clean about their prices in TV

ads. Historic transparency for American patients is here. If

drug companies are ashamed of those prices--lower them!

That is what the President said on May 8, 2019.

Vice President Vance previously cosponsored the measure Senator Grassley and I support, while Health Secretary Kennedy has railed against drug advertising and suggested our price disclosure policy has his support too. So this is a bipartisan undertaking.

Big Pharma hates being honest with patients about the price of drugs; they fear it is going to cut into their profits. Patients in America, American citizens and others, deserve lower drug prices.

The Trump administration has called on Congress to rein in these deceptive drug advertisements, but Big Pharma is looking for one Senator--if they can just get one Senator to come down here on the floor and object to the passage of this commonsense bill. I hope we can pass it right now to deliver real relief at the pharmacy counter.

I am now going to yield to my partner in this effort, Senator Grassley, before I make a motion.

Take a look at the agenda of the U.S. Senate. Tell me an issue that 88 percent of the American people agree with. Tell me an issue where you have bipartisan sponsorship: Senator Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee; I am ranking member of that committee--a Republican, a Democrat supporting it. Tell me an issue where you have President Trump supporting our position and a Democratic Senator like myself on the floor espousing the same position as the President of the United States. Tell me an issue that is more timely than the affordability of prescription drugs. I can't think of another issue that fits that mold.

I want to make a motion. I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 229 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

The Senator from Idaho is my friend. We have worked together in the past; I am sure we will in the future. But I want to tell you something. He professes deep concern about whether senior citizens are going to get confused if we tell them the actual price given by the drug company itself. He thinks it is too confusing for them to understand that that price means anything at all.

Do you know who disagrees with him? The AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons. They represent American seniors, and they endorse the Grassley-Durbin bill. They believe that seniors can understand completely how much the cost of the drug is even if it can be discounted under the insurance coverage of your policy as well.

The list price is the proper method of disclosure because the drug companies create the list price. We are not imposing a price on them; it is a price they have to publish. It is an objective, factual figure. Many patients do indeed pay this price when they don't have copays.

Let me say a word about what it means in the real world. In 2022, 19,000 seniors in the State of Idaho paid an average of $570 out of pocket on a drug known as Eliquis--a pretty well-known drug. Another 6,000 seniors in Idaho paid on average $607 out of pocket for Xarelto-- the one that is impossible to explain. Both of these blood thinners are among the most heavily advertised medications.

We are talking about a dose of transparency in the State of Idaho and every other State so that 25,000 seniors in Idaho can save money by knowing up front what costs they may face and make informed treatment choices.

Why are we afraid to ask the drug companies to disclose a price they publish in private--at least to some sources--and not tell the American consumer? If they had to do that, we think the American consumer would think twice about falling for these ads.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Zachary Bluestone to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

I will vote in opposition to Mr. Bluestone's confirmation to a lifetime appointment on the Federal bench. There are several reasons why I cannot support his nomination.

Mr. Bluestone graduated from law school 9 years ago and has only been practicing law for 7 years. This is fewer years of experience than any of the 235 judicial nominees confirmed during the Biden administration. Luckily for him, the Justice Department under Attorney General Bondi now refuses to provide the American Bar Association with materials or access to the nominees for evaluation. The ABA stated that it could not issue a rating based on receiving insufficient information to evaluate Mr. Bluestone's qualifications.

But it is obvious what they would have said had they been able to look at Mr. Bluestone's record in full: He does not have the experience necessary to handle the demands of the Federal bench.

This is not my only concern, however. Mr. Bluestone is yet another one of President Trump nominees who continues to perpetuate the ``Big Lie'' that the 2020 election was stolen.

In answers to written questions, Mr. Bluestone refused to admit that President Biden won the 2020 election, but he had no issue agreeing that President Trump won the 2016 and 2024 elections. The only reason is that Mr. Bluestone is loyal to President Trump, not the Constitution, nor the rule of law.

As such, I will vote against Mr. Bluestone's confirmation. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing his nomination.

Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from Connecticut Senator Blumenthal. He brings a level of expertise and experience to the Judiciary Committee and the Senate that is really unmatched. He has been a friend and a faithful participant in this process and in all the time I have served with him. I thank him for bringing us together this evening.

Mr. President, last Friday, I was in Chicago for the formal ceremonial investiture of a new Federal district court judge named April Perry.

April Perry has an interesting story that brought her to the bench. The story starts with her nomination to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago. She was extremely well-qualified for that position and went through the Judiciary Committee--at the time, I was chairing it--and went through without a hitch. She was approved and on the list of U.S. attorneys.

Now, historically, U.S. attorneys were chosen by voice vote. When President Trump was in his first term in office, I believe he had around 90 U.S. attorneys spread all across the United States, and all but one, perhaps--I am trying to make sure I am accurate here--all but one was approved by voice vote.

Now, look at what happens: To bring a U.S. attorney before us is a much different process today.

What happened?

The Democrats gave President Trump all of his U.S. attorney nominees in his first term, with perhaps one exception, by voice vote. Now, it goes through an elaborate, time-consuming process. What happened?

The Vice President of the United States happened.

Vice President JD Vance, from the State of Ohio, decided to come to the floor during the Biden administration, after we had approved 63 U.S. attorneys, and to object to a voice vote. Now, he said, we are going to go through the regular process. I don't like the way the Department of Justice has treated the former President--at the time, Donald Trump. So we are going to insist you dot all the i's and cross all the t's and go through the process and take several days on each one of the U.S. attorney nominees.

He made that decision after 63 had been approved under Biden, and he made it when April Perry was pending. This was her chance--the Northern District of Illinois--and JD Vance said: No, not the ordinary process, not a voice vote. We are going to take our time.

He applied the standard not just to my U.S. attorney in Illinois but to his own U.S. attorney in Cleveland, OH. He was resolute: We are going to stop the way this has been done in the past.

That was literally the end of the consideration of U.S. attorneys under Joe Biden. If that was his goal--JD Vance's goal, the Vice President's goal--he achieved it.

So what happened next to April Perry, a wonderfully qualified nominee running for U.S. attorney? Well, we sat down and decided that we didn't want to waste that talent. I went to her and said: Would you consider the vacancy for U.S. district court that is open now? You have gone through the vetting. You have gone through the background checks. The FBI has asked all the hard questions. They interviewed all the attorneys you have worked with. Everyone finds you acceptable. Would you consider the Federal bench?

And she said: Yes.

And she was approved. We had her formal investiture this last Friday.

Those are happy occasions, and there aren't many of them, I am sure, in the Federal courthouse--at least not of this caliber.

District Court Judge Virginia Kendall, who is the presiding judge over the Northern District, called together her colleagues to witness this investiture, this happy day for a judge, April Perry. She brought in about 30 Federal district court judges from the Northern District and a number from the ninth district--or the seventh district--of the appellate court. And it dawned on me, as I attended this ceremony for April Perry, that this has turned out to be an important part of my Senate career.

If you would have asked me when I ran for the Senate, ``What about the appointment of judges?'' I would have said, ``Well, that is fairly routine.'' It turns out it is not. It is more than routine. It is one of the more important things you do because the men and women chosen to serve in the Federal court system, article III judges, are appointed for life--for life. To remove them, you have to go through an impeachment through Congress to remove a Federal court judge. That is how important it is. That is how permanent it is--the permanent nature of it--and that is why each selection makes a difference.

I looked at the 30 or so judges that gathered and realized I had a hand in appointing every single one of them and many others too.

And so you go through that process a number of times and you learn. I look back now on all of the district court judges that I have had a hand in choosing, and, I will tell you, for two or three, it was a mistake. If I had it to do over again, I would have asked more questions, and I would have had more information on those who were chosen. But that is over a span of 29 years--two to three. Those who were approved, dozens of others, have really done well, and they have been praised for the job that they did.

So when I was chairman of this committee--fortunate to have that opportunity--we approved, in a 4-year period of time, a record number of Federal court judges: 235.

President Trump, in his first term, had done 234. We passed him by one court judge, and I am proud of that because it was a lot of hard work.

In order to report a judge out of the Judiciary Committee, every single Democrat had to be in their seats for every minute of the vote. There was no proxy. You had to be there. And they showed up, and Senator Blumenthal was one of those. Senator Welch, who has joined us now, was in the Judiciary Committee. And I salute that.

Now, under the second term of President Trump, the rules are changing. They weren't very good in the first round, and they are worse now.

The first Trump administration put forward some of the most extreme judicial nominees ever considered by the Senate. Several Trump nominees had little or no experience in a courtroom--no litigation experience.

Would you hire a lawyer to take your case to trial if they had never been in a trial in their lives?

Three district court nominees--Kathryn Mizelle, Justin Walker, and Sarah Pitlyk won unanimous support from committee Republicans, despite having never tried a case.

Imagine you are going in a courtroom, you are presiding over a trial, and you have never seen one; you have never been in one. You may have seen one on television. You keep looking for Perry Mason and are wondering what is next.

That, unfortunately, was the reality with many of these nominees in Trump's first term. Many Trump nominees took some unusual--if not controversial, if not plain--wrong decisions.

Lawrence VanDyke was a Ninth Circuit nominee. We asked him to affirm that he would be fair--that he would be fair to LGBTQ individuals. He wouldn't say it. He just couldn't get the words out of his mouth.

Michael Truncale, an Eastern District of Texas nominee, said of President Obama that he was an ``un-American imposter.'' Those are the words of this man seeking the Federal bench about the former President. He said he would ``bow to Arab sheiks and other world leaders.''

Where did you find that nominee?

The first Trump administration put forward--get this now--10 judicial nominees whom the American Bar Association found to be ``not qualified'' to serve on the Federal bench--10 of them.

Well, what does the American Bar Association have to do with this?

Historically, the American Bar Association did its own background check on nominees for the Federal bench. Where would they go? Well, they would go in the community. They would go to the judges that this person has appeared before. They would go to their fellow attorneys. They would try to find character references, and they would dig deep.

They had some basic rules. You had to have 10 years of experience as an attorney to even be considered for the Federal bench, and then they rated people ``qualified,'' ``not qualified,'' ``well qualified,'' and such.

Over the strong objections of Senate Democrats, eight of the ``unqualified'' nominees proposed by President Trump, in his first term, were confirmed by Senate Republicans. So even when the American Bar Association says you are ``unqualified'' to serve on the bench, it didn't discourage the loyalists supporting President Trump.

Incidentally, under the Biden administration, 235 Federal judges--how many of them, Durbin--give us the truth here. How many of them were found ``unqualified''? None. Every one of the 235 were found ``qualified'' by the American Bar Association.

As the former chairman of the committee said, ``Elections have consequences,'' and I get it. So I understand that the second Trump administration is going to offer nominees closer to him in political philosophy. But President Trump seems intent on outdoing himself by putting forth nominees who are extreme, partisan, and fundamentally unqualified.

Instead of finding more qualified judicial nominees, Attorney General Bondi ordered the Justice Department to stop cooperating with the American Bar Association in rating nominees. She didn't want to run into the embarrassment that they did in the first Trump term, with 10 of them being found ``unqualified.''

So she said: The way to solve that problem is not to find a better nominee; it is to get rid of the American Bar Association. If they are not going to give grade to these nominees, we don't have to worry about them being ``unqualified.''

She overturned the practice that had been in place for nearly 70 years, going back to a fellow named Dwight David Eisenhower. Both Republican and Democratic Presidents have followed the rule. But, now, the only qualification President Trump looks for in his judicial nominees--and he says as much--is loyalty: Show me loyalty or get the heck off the bench.

Look no further than Emil Bove's nomination to the Third Circuit. As a senior official in the Justice Department, Mr. Bove has done nothing but cater to President Trump's every whim. It is no surprise that President Trump said he nominated Mr. Bove because he said he will ``do anything that is necessary to make America great again.''

For life--judge for life--show me loyalty, and you have got a position for life.

Mr. Bove personally ordered the termination of Federal prosecutors who put violent January 6 rioters in prison.

Understand what happened here. Men and women, professional attorneys working for the Department of Justice, were given assignments: We have a case we want you to pursue and prosecute. It is this individual. Here is the FBI background file. Go to work.

It turns out that these people who once had stormed through that door and went rifling through our desks and aped for photographs, sitting in your chair, Mr. President, on January 6--as a result of their entering this building, 5 Capitol policemen died, and 140 were assaulted.

Should they have been prosecuted? You bet. Beat up on a cop, and you should face the consequences. And they did it, on January 6, in the name of stopping the election the American people had been involved in just weeks before.

I was here, sitting in this chair, as the head of the Capitol Police stood where you are sitting, Mr. President, and told us all: Stay calm. Stay in your chairs. We are going to stay in this room. This is a safe room.

He just said: Stay in your seats.

They grabbed Vice President Pence, took him right out that door, and spirited him off somewhere. But they left us here.

Ten minutes later, the same policeman stood up and said: New announcement. Leave as quickly as possible. We cannot keep this room secure.

The Senate of the United States of America--the Capitol of the United States of America--was being run over by demonstrators and insurrectionists. They were beating up on the police, smashing their heads into the wall and between the door.

They were ultimately prosecuted for it. The prosecutors, the assistant U.S. attorneys who were doing this job, were treated in what way by President Trump when he got back in office? They were treated like they were the ones who broke the law. The prosecutors were accused of wrongdoing.

Well, it, unfortunately, is, in the words of Mr. Bove, a ``grave national injustice,'' he thinks it is, to prosecute these demonstrators. He is wrong.

Grave injustice is what happened to the police on that day. When asked to justify his actions in firing these U.S. attorneys who prosecuted these insurrectionists, Mr. Bove claimed ``heavy-handed tactics'' by prosecutors were ``equally unacceptable'' as physical violence against law enforcement. That is an outrageous and offensive statement by a man who wants to be a Federal judge for life at the second highest court in the land.

Since January 7, 2021, there has been an effort by the MAGA faithful to rewrite the history of January 6, but I witnessed it, and many others did as well.

The truth is this: The U.S. Capitol was violently attacked by insurrectionists intent on overturning the 2020 election results.

The truth is this: Five police officers died, and more than 140 were injured protecting this building, staff, the visitors, and Members of Congress.

Mr. Bove also led the Justice Department's efforts to strike a corrupt bargain with New York City mayor Eric Adams. This is an outrage, what he did. Mr. Bove stated that the charges would be dropped against Mayor Adams without prejudice so that Adams could ``devote full attention and resources to . . . illegal immigration and violent crime.'' In other words, President Trump needed Mayor Adams to do his bidding on his deportation policy.

In response, two staunch conservatives resigned from the Justice Department--Trump-appointed, interim U.S. attorney Danielle Sassoon and lead prosecutor Hagan Scotten.

Mr. Scotten wrote to Mr. Bove a quote that will be famous for a long, long time. Mr. Blumenthal repeated it, but I want to say it as well. Mr. Scotten wrote to Mr. Bove, who wants a lifetime appointment to the bench, and said:

I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of

a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it

was never going to be me.

I don't know Mr. Scotten, but I will tell you, his words are persuasive and compelling.

If that wasn't enough, Mr. Bove showed utter disdain for our courts. A whistleblower stepped forward, gave his name, and risked his future to tell us what Mr. Bove had told to the attorneys working on the case against the insurrectionists. According to this credible whistleblower, who provided ample documentation to back up his claims, Mr. Bove told the Department of Justice attorneys that they might need to say ``f you'' to Federal courts that issue orders this administration doesn't agree with. That is the most dangerous comment that a person in a position of authority could make in the executive branch, that they will ignore the court orders that are issued against them.

Yesterday, the Senate confirmed Joshua Divine to the Federal bench-- 34 years old, received his law degree 9 years ago, litigated for 5 years. And beyond his troubling lack of experience, he has taken some extreme positions.

He calls himself a zealot. He calls himself a zealot when it comes to anti-choice. This zealotry has been on full display in his role as the Missouri solicitor general. He has challenged women's ability in his State to access the abortion drug mifepristone and has undermined the decision of Missouri voters to codify abortion access in their State constitution.

Also deeply troubling, Mr. Divine argued in favor of literacy tests at the ballot box, saying that people who ``aren't informed about issues or platforms . . . have no business voting.'' Where does that come from in America? Literacy tests. Where does that come from? It comes from the era of Jim Crow.

After the Civil War, when African Americans were given citizenship and an opportunity to vote, they were intimidated in many States when they tried to. They had to answer questions: How many bubbles in a bar of soap? What do letters of marque and reprisal mean in the Constitution?

Those are impossible questions for anyone, including the lawyers and Members of Congress, and yet off they went. Why did they do it? To discriminate against Black voters. Well, it turns out Mr. Divine believes that literacy tests should be restored.

It shouldn't be controversial for anyone to say that nominee has disqualified himself. The fact that the body confirmed Mr. Divine is outrageous.

These nominees are just the tip of the iceberg. President Trump is going to continue to nominate extreme and unqualified individuals unless the Senate takes a stand.

If a few of the Senators--I am not going to name names--who made statements about principles and values will stand by their own words when it comes to the orders of the court, then they will join us on a bipartisan basis to stop these clearly unqualified individuals.

I urge my colleagues to vote against Mr. Bove and all future nominees whose only loyalty is to the President and not the Constitution.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) is necessarily absent.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, last week, both the House and the Senate voted to pass what is known as a rescissions bill. That is a term which a lot of people aren't familiar with. What it basically means is that Congress appropriates money, the President signs that appropriations request into law, and it is the policy which is supposed to guide, under the Constitution, the President of the United States and the activity of the executive branch. This is the ordinary course of events.

However, there may come a time when a President decides that we don't need this expenditure, even though it has been approved and it is the law. He then goes through the rescinding of his decision to spend the money. It is called a rescissions bill. In this case, the Trump administration came to Congress and said: The $9 billion that you appropriated and directed me to spend, I don't want to spend. I want your permission not to spend it--$9 billion.

That is what we voted on and the House voted on last week. What was in this bill were primarily two major elements. One element was foreign aid, humanitarian assistance around the world paid for by the United States. The other element was public broadcasting--National Public Radio, for example. So $8 billion was taken out of foreign aid, and $1 billion was taken away from public broadcasting.

It was a close vote in the Senate. Two Republicans joined the Democrats in opposing it, but there were enough Republicans to support it. It barely passed the Senate and was sent back to the House. After some turmoil in the House, the decision was made also to pass the rescissions bill.

I thought this was a particularly important bill. As a Member of the Senate--I am honored to represent the State of Illinois--I have cast over 9,000 votes. The Presiding Officer from Utah is new to the Senate. It will take him

a few years to catch me, and I am sure he will. But of the 9,000 votes in that period of time, how many do you actually remember? A handful. This vote last week was one of those votes.

Why will I remember this? Because nongovernmental organizations, charities, and humanitarian aid groups around the world have told us that taking $8 billion out of foreign aid and humanitarian assistance is going to cost us in terms of lives. It will deny people food, clean water to drink, medicine, and the basics of life. In the poorest places on Earth, it will cost us lives.

The original bill eliminated a program called PEPFAR. PEPFAR was created by Republican President George W. Bush. He rallied our government--Democrats and Republicans--to lead a national and international effort to stop HIV/AIDS. For example, if a mother is pregnant again and had HIV, the transmission of that disease to the baby was, unfortunately, very common. We started finding ways to stop it from happening. It has been many years since George W. Bush was President, but we estimate that we have saved 25 million lives with this PEPFAR Program. I am a loyal Democrat and proud of it but was happy to vote with the Republicans and George W. Bush on that program. That program was going to be eliminated by this bill that was considered. It was taken out at the last minute. That is the type of thing that was at stake in that vote.

That decision by the Senate and the House, signed by President Trump over the weekend, is going to cost human lives in the poorest places on Earth. I think that is a tragedy. I have been to some of those places. I have made a point of going to see it and to see our programs.

I remember a dusty village in India where the children were gathered around for what they called lunch. American kids would not have touched what they were being given to eat. They were basically dough bowls. They were grains from the United States that were blended together. They ate these dough bowls gleefully, happily, anxiously. But before they took the first bite, they stopped and said a prayer, and I asked the local people who were leading this effort: What did they say in prayer? They said that they said thank to you the United States of America for the food that they were going to eat that day. They knew that was the case because it was printed on the bags as a gift to their people from America. Those programs are going to be eliminated now because of the vote last week.

But there was another part of it, too, that struck me as really painful. That was the decision to eliminate the Federal support for public broadcasting--National Public Radio and public television. I am a fan. I have been a fan for a long time so I will confess my prejudice.

But I am also from Downstate Illinois. That is the part of the State outside Chicago where the small towns and the rural areas are located. I know what public broadcasting means to those areas. I heard firsthand an example of what it means.

A lady named Heather Norman, who is with the public broadcasting coalition in Illinois, joined me at a press conference, on Friday, in front of the public radio station in the city of Chicago. I asked her to tell me and the press who had gathered an example of why public radio was different than the other radio stations and why it was important. She gave me a very classic example.

She works at the public radio station in Macomb, IL. Macomb is a Downstate community on the western side of our State--a more sparsely populated area than people visualize when they say Chicago, IL. Western Macomb, IL, has Western Illinois University. Thousands of students from all around the State and the area attend college there. A year ago, there was an active shooter in the community. They learned about it through the police notifying the radio station, and they started broadcasting to the people of Macomb to stay in their homes, to shelter in place. Don't go outside until we control the situation. Wait for the police's signal.

Well, there was a lot at stake. We have seen on a lot of our campuses and universities where deranged people take a gun and kill innocent students right and left, and we didn't want that to happen again. So the public broadcasting station, the NPR station, kept the broadcast going all day long to notify the people of Macomb and the McDonough County area of the danger, and they warned them to stay home.

You say: I will bet the other radio station did too. They didn't. Why didn't they do it? Because the four other radio stations are recordings. There is no live person at those radio stations--just equipment. So they are playing their music and whatever programs they wish, but they couldn't send out local news because there was no one there to send it. It was the public broadcasting station--the public radio station--that kept the people of Macomb and McDonough County safe. So, to say that you can eliminate that station, and it won't make any difference whether the warning is about an active shooter or about a tornado or a flood or a flash fire, public broadcasting is there on the scene, doing their job, day in and day out.

Now, what is going to happen with this decision by the Trump administration to eliminate Federal support for these stations? I don't know. I asked Heather. She said there are probably two stations in our State--at least two--that will go out of business. They depend so much on the help from Washington. That is a loss.

Whether you are conservative or liberal, MAGA or progressive-- whatever you want to call yourself--how could you want an America with less information and with fewer choices as the sources of that information?

The strength of our democracy is the fact that the American people have access to good, credible information and can make up their own minds. They don't want to be told. They make up their own minds. That is the key to the core of democracy, and we attacked it last week when we eliminated support for public broadcasting.

I don't know what is going to happen next. A lot of people have to think about this. I said to the people who govern public broadcasting and public television and public radio: You will have to think of a plan B because this President wants to put you out of business. You can't do what some law firms have done that he got mad at. He got mad at the law firms and threatened to cut off their Federal business. What did they do? They sued for peace immediately. They said: What can we do? Can we give you thousands and, maybe, hundreds of thousands of free legal services?

When that intimidation is in place, some of them turn to that as an alternative, but a public broadcasting station cannot do that and maintain its credibility. It can't go hat in hand and bent knee to this administration or to any administration and maintain its credibility when it comes to news.

So they have a terrible challenge that they face. I want to help them find a solution. I think America would be poorer and less free, and there would be less information available to people in our country if we allowed this to go forward.

Mr. President, on a separate issue, I want to say a word about some nominations that are pending before the Senate this week.

As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I pay closer attention than some when it comes to the nominees who are suggested for Federal positions on the courts. These are positions that are lifetime positions. You take a person and state: We trust you with this responsibility and authority for as long as you live--for as long as you live. So it isn't a question of 2 years or 4 years and replacing someone if they aren't up to the job. We have got to look for people whom we can trust for the long haul.

The Senate will soon vote on the confirmations of Joshua Divine to serve as a judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri and Judge Cristian Stevens to serve for the Eastern District. I am concerned about these two nominees.

Mr. Divine is 34 years old. He received his law degree only 9 years ago. In addition to a lack of experience, Mr. Divine has taken some extreme positions on issues that are important to people across the United States, such as reproductive rights and ballot access.

Mr. Divine--if you can believe this, in this day and age, 2025--has argued in

favor of literacy tests at the ballot box. Let me say that again. He has argued in favor of literacy tests at the ballot box.

He states:

Individuals who aren't informed about issues and platforms

. . . have no business voting.

The fact that we are even considering his nomination under the circumstances is shocking.

Literacy tests have been tried in America. They are a racist relic from the Jim Crow era that we used to prevent immigrants and minorities from voting. It should not be controversial to say that no one who has argued for reviving racist Jim Crow laws belongs on the Federal bench, let alone for a lifetime.

Mr. Divine also referred to himself as a ``zealot'' for the anti- choice movement. Now, whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, you would think that someone who is that blatant and open in declaring himself a zealot on the issue would trouble you. This has been on full display in his role as Missouri solicitor general.

Mr. Divine has challenged women's ability to access the abortion drug mifepristone and has undermined the decision of Missouri voters to codify abortion access in their State constitution.

Previously, Mr. Divine wrote:

Because we know a genetically unique human comes into

existence at fertilization, abortion should not be ethically

permitted.

I know that is the position of some voters whom I represent and even of some members of my family. I disagree.

Taken at face value, this statement suggests that Mr. Divine opposes access to in vitro fertilization, IVF. Well, I have some beautiful grandkids who were the product of these IVF procedures. It was the only way that they could come to this Earth, and thank God they did. To think that this man who is seeking this lifetime appointment to the bench would not even answer the question on IVF is troubling.

Joshua Divine is too inexperienced to serve as a district court judge, and his radical views, I think, disqualify him.

I am also troubled by the nomination of Cristian Stevens. Following his confirmation hearing, I asked Judge Stevens whether he denounced the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol.

For those who don't remember, that was a time when a mob forced Congress to shut down the procedure of counting the electoral votes in the 2020 election. As a result of that decision, they stormed the Capitol; came into this Chamber; videotaped themselves vaping while sitting in the chair of the Presiding Officer, going through the desks of Senators, tearing up the place, and, unfortunately, attacking a lot of innocent people.

I asked Cristian Stevens about the January 6 insurrection. He said the use of the word ``insurrection'' was a legal conclusion--a legal conclusion--and that it would be inappropriate for him to comment on it because it was a highly contested political issue.

Here is the cold, hard truth: The violent mob that ransacked the Capitol Complex in an attempted insurrection to stop the counting of the votes of that election led to the deaths of 5 police officers and injuries to more than 140 others. It triggered the largest prosecution in the history of the Department of Justice. Over 1,000 individuals were convicted and prosecuted for their activity that day.

The fact that this nominee couldn't acknowledge what happened that day and denounce the violence perpetrated against law enforcement is troubling. If you can't stand up for the men and women who keep us safe at this very moment in this building--who risk their lives for the Members, their staffs, and the visitors in the Capitol--you have no place in a lifetime position as a Federal judge.

I am also concerned about a law review article Judge Cristian Stevens wrote in defending the infamous 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

I voted for it in the House of Representatives. Why? The idea was that crack cocaine was such a deadly and threatening narcotic that we were going to pass a sentencing provision that was really tough. Well, this was tough. It said, if you were convicted of possessing powder cocaine or an exact same amount of cocaine in crack form--in crystal form--you would be receiving a sentence for the crack cocaine that would be 100 times that of powder cocaine.

What happened as a result of it?

The result, I am sorry to say, didn't work. You would think, with that kind of sentencing hanging over you, people would think twice. It didn't work. As a result, more people were using crack cocaine after we passed the law, and the price on the street was going down instead of up. We filled the Federal prisons primarily with African Americans who had lengthy sentences--some of them over 20 years--for the simple sale of crack cocaine.

We decided that was wrong. I led the effort here on the Senate side. I am proud that I did. I was joined by Chuck Grassley, a Republican of Iowa, and Mike Lee, a Republican of Utah. We passed a bill called the FIRST STEP Act, and it was sent to President Trump, who signed it into law in his first term.

Now comes Cristian Stevens, Judge Stevens, wanting a seat on the Federal bench. I am concerned about a law review article he wrote that defended the 100-to-1 disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

He wrote:

There may be evidence to suggest that these kinds of

sentencing provisions are beneficial to black communities

hardest hit by the crack epidemic.

I am disappointed that Judge Stevens continues to stand by an article that defends crack-powder cocaine sentencing disparity--it was wrong then; it is wrong now--and he is certainly doing no one a favor by supporting that kind of penalty.

My Republican colleagues will likely vote for both of these nominees I have described--Mr. Divine and Judge Stevens on the Federal bench-- without hesitation, but the American people deserve judges who will protect their basic fundamental rights, demonstrate independence and integrity, and remain faithful to the Constitution and the rule of law. Neither of these nominees has proven that they embody these attributes.

I will vote against both of these nominees. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Ossoff), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Maine (Mr. King), the Senator from California (Mr. Schiff), the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen), and the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Smith) are necessarily absent.