Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute for an opportunity to respond to my colleague from Idaho.

Mr. President, I would only say to my friend from Idaho that he says this is not going to happen, that people are going to be safe and seniors on Medicaid and the like will be safe--I would just say to my colleague, it starts today--today--in the other body of Congress, I would say to my colleague. The process of setting in motion these cuts to essential healthcare services begins today. We can read about it in the publications about the congressional schedule.

I look forward to working with my colleague when we can find common ground, but on this point that it is not going to happen and everybody is going to be safe, the efforts to cut these vital programs, including Medicaid, begins this morning in the other body.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this month marks the 14th year since thousands of Bahraini citizens took to the streets to peacefully protest the oppressive practices of the Bahraini Government. These citizens--to include human rights defenders and pro-democracy activists--were brutally repressed by their own leaders. Since then, I have stood in solidarity with the Bahraini people demanding accountability, and I will continue to do so until we see real change.

Unfortunately, all these years later, the Bahraini Government has failed to implement basic changes to guarantee the fundamental rights that every government owes its citizens. The Government of Bahrain continues to impose restrictions on expression, assembly, and association.

Bahraini elections are neither free nor fair, and authorities systematically exclude and repress opposition voices. In 2023, the government arrested four men for simply suggesting on social media that Bahrain should improve its legislative system.

The State Department's most recent human rights report judged that there was no improvement in the human rights situation in Bahrain. No improvement? Nearly 15 years to address these fundamental flaws and the Bahraini Government still has nothing to show for it!

I called on the Government of Bahrain to release its political prisoners, and while I was heartened to hear that the Bahraini Government granted amnesty to 2,500 prisoners last year, they should not have been detained in the first place. Many of these prisoners were unjustly detained, and thousands remain in prison under inhumane conditions and without fair trial.

Hundreds of political prisoners remain detained in the now-infamous Jau Prison in Bahrain, where two people died last year because of medical neglect. The U.N. has raised troubling concerns that detainees at this facility have been denied required medical care and do not have regular access to adequate food and safe drinking water. Some allegations have suggested that authorities have intentionally exposed prisoners to extreme heat in these facilities, at times reaching 122 degrees Fahrenheit. These conditions are unacceptable, particularly when many of these prisoners have been denied fair trials and due process.

My goal today is not to insult or undermine a U.S. ally. It is precisely because of our strong ties that I feel compelled to speak out and demand better. It is my greatest hope that someday I will be able to stop issuing these statements into the record every February because the Bahraini regime has stopped repressing its citizens and has instead entered into a real and inclusive dialogue with them.

In short, I am not asking for lip service; I am asking for real change. I renew my call on Bahrain's monarchy to halt its deliberate campaign of silencing peaceful opposition, to stop the indefensible revocation of citizenships, and to release political prisoners like Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and Abduljalil al-Singace.

And I call on the Trump administration and, in particular, Secretary Rubio--who has previously been a staunch advocate in the U.S. Senate for advancing human rights in Bahrain--to take this issue seriously and demand more accountability from Bahrain at the highest levels.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to oppose the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to be the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

And let me put it very bluntly to my colleagues: A vote for Robert Kennedy for this position is a vote for a sicker America. And there is irony in that judgment, considering Mr. Kennedy is the figurehead of a mass movement known as Make America Healthy Again. But on issue after issue, Mr. Kennedy refused to stand up for policies that will keep Americans healthy and out of the hospital.

From vaccines to affordable health insurance, to lower drug prices, to women's reproductive healthcare, Mr. Kennedy--through several hearings--ducked and dodged and weaved instead of answering the basic questions that came from Senators of both parties. When he did answer, he demonstrated a shocking lack of knowledge about the

Federal health programs he would be charged with running and a willful desire to mislead Senators about his views on science matters like vaccine safety.

The only conclusion I am left with is that he stands steadfastly by the outlandish views he has expressed over his two-decade career as an anti-vaccine crusader, and he is fully prepared to implement the Republican healthcare agenda.

That agenda boils down to putting Big Pharma and insurance companies back in charge, while leaving millions of American families to fend for themselves without affordable care.

And I want to be clear about this. Going back to my days as director of the Gray Panthers, which is what I did before I went into public service, I can just tell you, this is the least qualified nominee to ever be nominated for a position of this importance. So for the next day and night, Senate Democrats are going to be on the floor telling the American people why.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle still have an opportunity to turn away from this dangerous path. If they do not, my view is their legacy will be tarnished by setbacks in science that will echo in America for decades.

As I mentioned, I spent countless hours as a young man working with seniors to navigate the newly created Medicare Program and help them avoid predatory insurance company tactics that remain all too common today. To me and many other Americans, healthcare, colleagues, is the most important issue, because if you and your loved ones don't have their health, everything else goes by the boards.

The reality is we need to make sure that Americans have the best and most affordable healthcare possible, rather than having a handful of healthcare companies gobble up the entire market for health insurance, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, and even doctors.

The results have been great for shareholder profits and disastrous for American families. Costs keep climbing. The act of getting a doctor's appointment or filing an insurance claim seems to have become an Olympic sport in much of America. The system delays and denies care and rakes in profits, while patients are left wondering how they are going to get the care they need.

So the question before the Senate now is whether we want America's chief health officer to be somebody who is going to take on those corporate interests, somebody who is going to fight tooth and nail to lower costs and improve care, somebody who is going to work to protect and improve the Federal healthcare programs that tens of millions of Americans rely on and not gut them.

Everything I have seen and heard from Mr. Kennedy over these last few weeks has led me, colleagues, to conclude he is not the person that America needs. Americans have little reason to take Mr. Kennedy at his word. They do, however, have every reason to believe Mr. Kennedy will continue to embrace and amplify anti-vaccine programs, every reason to believe that he will back up Donald Trump's abortion bans. Every reason to believe that he will be a rubberstamp for the Republican health agenda that would rip away the healthcare of so many Americans.

Over the course of the rest of the day and through the night, Democrats are going to show the American people why these concerns are so serious.

I yield the floor, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, as we begin this discussion that is so important to America, I thought I would just mention the conversation I had recently with a couple of young medical students who came up to me and said: We know you are interested in healthcare and have been involved in this.

I am so appreciative of Senator Murray, who is going to pick up on the healthcare issue--an area where she has very substantial experience and expertise.

I thought these medical students summed up this debate, because they said: The way we see this Kennedy nomination, it is not just a vote for next week or even next year; this is a vote with enormous impact for decades.

Because Mr. Kennedy, according to these young medical students, has a long record of essentially being anti-science.

What we are going to do in our discussion of his nomination is go into that and other issues.

Suffice it to say, during his confirmation hearings--and they have been in multiple committees now--he was given ample opportunity from members on both sides of the dais to clarify his views on science and vaccines and our Nation's biggest Federal health programs. We are going to, in the hours ahead, touch on each of these and why Mr. Kennedy's failure to demonstrate a basic understanding of these important issues that impact America's health make him a uniquely unqualified nominee to become our Nation's chief healthcare officer.

In beginning my remarks, I wanted to say that ever since my days with the Gray Panthers, I have always felt that healthcare is the most important issue. If you and your loved ones don't have your health, everything just goes by the board. So that just reinforces what these young medical students were saying about the decision we are going to make in future hours with respect to Mr. Kennedy.

I am going to start with perhaps the most dangerous aspect of his long history, and that is his embrace and amplification of vaccine conspiracy theories. He has made a lucrative career out of sowing doubt in the minds of parents when it comes to vaccinating their kids. His nonprofit, the Children's Health Defense, is solely dedicated to peddling these conspiracies. You can even get merch. There are baby onesies, apparently, that read ``Unvaxxed, Unafraid,'' ``No Vax, No Problem.''

He has been the attorney of record on at least five cases against drug companies for their vaccines, which he didn't disclose to ethics officials and refused to answer questions about. He also refused to give up his 10 percent stake in any settlement agreements--instead, passing them off to his son. He refused to recuse himself from taking any actions that might affect his family's financial interests.

A vaccine that became routine for young people about 20 years ago is involved here, and since then, it has successfully cut cervical cancer rates into just a fraction of what they were before the drug came out to market. All of this adds up to a future HHS Secretary who stands to profit off of undermining this vaccine and, as a result, raise cervical cancer rates.

To quote my Republican colleague Senator Cassidy, a physician, Mr. Kennedy is ``financially vested in finding fault with vaccines.''

He also played a big role in one of the most deadly measles outbreaks in recent history. In 2019, he traveled to Samoa and used his platform to promote his anti-vax agenda, taking aim at the measles vaccine. The vaccine rate in Samoa plummeted. By 2019, measles had torn through the population, making more than 5,700 people sick, and 80 people were killed, most of them young kids.

During his confirmation hearing at the Senate Finance Committee, Mr. Kennedy told me, ``We don't know what was killing them,'' speaking about those 83 deaths. But just last week, the Director General of Health for Samoa called this claim by Mr. Kennedy ``a total fabrication.''

So, Mr. President and colleagues, just put that in your thinking about this consideration--Mr. Kennedy saying that he didn't know what was killing these young people in Samoa and the Director General of Health of Samoa calling Mr. Kennedy's claim ``a total fabrication.''

A recent analysis showed that Mr. Kennedy has made 114 separate appearances in the last 4 years where he took anti-vaccine views or spread misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines. In 36 of these instances, Mr. Kennedy directly linked vaccines to autism.

Instead of providing the committee with clarity or reassurances about his decades-long career peddling vaccine conspiracies, what did Mr. Kennedy do? He dodged, he weaved, he bobbed and gave no indication that as Health and Human Services Secretary, he would stand by settled science that surrounds vaccines.

As HHS Secretary, Mr. Kennedy would have a huge amount of control over how vaccines are promoted and administered in our country. He could issue orders that discourage doctors from sharing information with parents and patients about lifesaving vaccines. He could issue an order that discourages schools from talking about or even requiring vaccines. He could rubberstamp an Executive order from Donald Trump that defunds the Centers for Disease Control, which is essentially the Agency in charge of getting Americans up-to-date information about vaccines and when to get them.

Just imagine you are a parent scrolling on Instagram or listening to a podcast. You hear this gentleman speaking passionately about the danger of vaccines. Maybe you do a bit of research, and lo and behold, you find this is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, America's chief healthcare guy. You think to yourself: Huh, this guy must know what he is talking about. Maybe he is right in his questioning of whether vaccines are safe and effective.

So the seed of doubt on vaccines gets planted. Then, at your kid's next wellness exam, you decide not to get them their next round of vaccinations. A few months later, you are taking them on a trip to Disneyland, say for spring break, where countless other parents like you have heard the same medical advice from the same person and they, too, decided against vaccinating their kids.

It only takes one of those kids carrying a deadly disease like measles for an outbreak to begin, and pretty soon, after what was supposed to be the spring break trip of your dreams, your kid, sadly, is showing symptoms.

What follows then is a slew of doctor's appointments, maybe even a stay in the hospital, sleepless nights, missed days of work and school, not to mention dread and fear for your child's very well-being. Meanwhile, countless other parents around the country that went on the same trip to Disneyland are now experiencing the same exact nightmare you are.

Sowing the seed of doubt in the minds of just a few people can have massive consequences for communities across the country, and it is not hypothetical. Right now, there is a measles outbreak in Texas that has sickened more than a dozen kids. The number of kindergartners showing up with an exemption for required vaccinations jumped to a record high last fall. The two facts are connected, and Mr. Kennedy and his allies can take the credit for it.

Now, Mr. Kennedy is fond of saying he is not making recommendations about whether parents should vaccinate their kids; he is just asking questions and giving people choices. That is a slippery tactic used by conspiracy theorists to dodge any real responsibility for their words and actions, and it is absurd coming from somebody who is about to be confirmed for a job that is entirely about making recommendations.

Mr. Kennedy is also fond of saying that if somebody shows him the science to prove he is wrong, well, then he will apologize and retract his statements, but when somebody does show him the science proves him wrong, he just brushes it aside and basically will not accept it as fact.

Once again, to quote my Republican colleague Bill Cassidy directly: ``to

improve the health of Americans, or undermine it, always asking for more evidence and never accepting the evidence that is there''--that is why, Bill Cassidy told Mr. Kennedy, he was struggling with his nomination.

Even Republicans like Senator Cassidy--someone I work with frequently on the Finance Committee and respect his opinion--he notes how dangerous this guy is.

It is not hyperbole to say that when Mr. Kennedy becomes Health and Human Services Secretary, if he does, and has control over how our government rolls out vaccines or makes them available, I believe kids in America will die.

When disease rates for illnesses that have effective vaccines start to rise in States across the country and hospitalizations and death tolls mount, my Republican colleagues are going to regret voting, if they do, for Mr. Kennedy today or early tomorrow.

When disease rates for illnesses that have effective vaccines start to rise in States across the country and death tolls mount, again, we will see Republicans say: This is something that could have been prevented. What else should we have done?

Republicans will be responsible for every child that dies as a result of not being vaccinated because it seems they care more about staying in the good graces of Donald Trump than they do about protecting the lives of kids. Again, this is something they will regret for years to come.

Now, before we turn to Senator Murray's remarks, I would just like to touch on Mr. Kennedy's stance on reproductive choice--an area where Senator Murray has been our leader for years and years in the Senate.

In the lead up to and during his failed Presidential campaign, Mr. Kennedy repeatedly claimed he supported a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions. Less than a year ago, in an Instagram post on June 14 last year, he stated that he supports the emerging consensus in this country that abortion should be legal up to a certain number of weeks.

Fast-forward to his confirmation again at the Senate Finance Committee a few weeks ago. He was pressed repeatedly by Democrats about his stance on abortion. Instead of clarifying, Mr. Kennedy defaulted to a clearly rehearsed talking point that he repeated over and over again:

I agree with President Trump. Every abortion is a tragedy.

While that answer doesn't give us much clarity, it is certainly telling. Mr. Kennedy has a long history of changing his stance on healthcare issue after healthcare issue to whatever position benefits him at the moment. As long as it earns him power or it earns him a paycheck, as far as I can tell, Mr. Kennedy will believe--or at least pretend to believe--whatever you want him to. He is willing to give up his principles and all his beliefs that women and mothers are better equipped to make their own healthcare decisions than politicians, and it is all about, as we have talked about on this floor, staying in Donald Trump's orbit of power.

While Mr. Kennedy recites rehearsed talking points on the subject, this is an issue that has had real, deadly consequences for women, as Senator Murray has said again and again.

Donald Trump spent his first term packing the Supreme Court with rightwing extremists willing to rip away the reproductive freedoms guaranteed to us under Roe v. Wade. In the wake of the Supreme Court's gutting Roe, millions of women living in red States have had their reproductive freedoms ripped away from them, all due to Donald Trump.

In the years since the overturn of Roe, there have been countless headlines about the consequences of these abortion bans: women bleeding out in parking lots or in emergency rooms because they were denied care; women becoming infertile and losing their ability to have kids in the future because they couldn't get care; and, in the very worst cases, women dying.

So it should horrify every American that we don't actually know where Mr. Kennedy stands. The man who could become our Nation's chief healthcare officer--we don't know where he stands on reproductive health, short of perhaps just saying he is a ``yes'' man for anything Donald Trump tells him to do.

So I think at this point, Mr. President, I want to yield the floor to my friend and colleague from Washington State because she knows so much about the challenge of ensuring that women's reproductive health services are being protected. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mr. Kennedy could do so much damage to the well-being and health of women.

I am very pleased to be able to yield the floor to Senator Murray to discuss that and other pressing issues.

Madam President, today I will be speaking about the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be Director of National Intelligence and my reasons for opposing her confirmation.

First, I believe the Senate must consider with this nomination the examples of blatant lawlessness of the administration. At every turn, Donald Trump is attacking the rule of law, disregarding the constitutional role of Congress, and trying to purge civil servants who defend our country every day. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's minions are gaining access to some of the government's most sensitive systems and records. American democracy and national security are at stake. If the Senate is going to confirm nominees, we need to know whether they will stand up for democratic principles, no matter what.

At our hearing, I asked Ms. Gabbard what she would do if Donald Trump tried to illegally withhold funds from the intelligence community inspector general. This was hardly a hypothetical question. Donald Trump has, in fact, sought to unilaterally cut off funding for a broad range of organizations despite the money having been appropriated by Congress. It is not just me saying this is illegal, the courts have ordered the administration to cut it out and resume the funding.

But when I asked Ms. Gabbard the question, she said:

I don't believe for a second President Trump would ask me

to do something that would break the law.

Well, he is breaking the law and the country needs leaders who acknowledge that fact and stand up to him.

My concerns about Ms. Gabbard are also based on her recent turn toward extreme partisanship. Other partisans have been confirmed to leadership positions and intelligence Agencies. George Herbert Walker Bush was the head of the Republican National Committee, and he was successful enough as Director of Central Intelligence that they literally named the headquarters after him. Party affiliation is not the issue.

The problem is when partisanship distorts one's views of intelligence matters. Ms. Gabbard has written about a coup being perpetrated by the so-called deep state that includes, among others, the DNC and also the FBI, the CIA, and ``a whole network of rogue intelligence and law enforcement agents.''

Madam President, I have spent almost a quarter century as a member of the Intelligence Committee seeking to bring to light and stop government abuses across a range of programs and activities. These conspiracy theories do not help the bipartisan reform movement. They only serve to encourage a President who wants to tear down the entire intelligence community and replace it with loyalists.

So what happens next? If Ms. Gabbard is confirmed, my first order of

business will be to hold her to the commitments she made during her confirmation process.

With regard to surveillance policy, she expressed her support for a warrant requirement for U.S. person searches of communications collected under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. With section 702 reauthorization up next year, DNI support for reforms like these will be critical to protecting the privacy rights of Americans.

Ms. Gabbard also confirmed that she has significant concerns about the constitutionality of several provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Importantly, she opposed mandated backdoors into encrypted communications, which threaten both Americans' privacy and national security. As she stated during her hearing:

These backdoors lead down a dangerous path that can

undermine Americans' 4th amendment rights and civil

liberties.

We are living in a time of increasingly devastating cyber breaches, including the Salt Typhoon compromise of our telecommunications infrastructure. The lesson from that hack was that surveillance capabilities designed for law enforcement will be targeted by foreign intelligence services. In other words, there is simply no way for the government to mandate access to Americans' encrypted communications and not also expose those communications to the government of China or other adversaries.

Let me mention something particularly alarming last week. The press reported that UK officials insisted that Apple provide them a back door into files backed up to Apple's iCloud service. This is a development that threatens America's national security and Americans' privacy. That is even before U.S. Government officials come around once again asking for the very same dangerous and irresponsible accesses. That is why Ms. Gabbard's statement was so important and why, if she is confirmed, the Congress needs to hold her and the rest of America's intelligence Agencies to it.

During her confirmation process, Ms. Gabbard supported restrictions on the collection of communications records of America's journalists. She endorsed the Biden administration Justice Department policy prohibiting this collection except in very narrow circumstances. That was a policy she said was ``essential to protecting press freedoms and maintaining the critical balance between national security and upholding the First Amendment.'' She also called for making sure that policy was actually codified.

I asked Ms. Gabbard about the collections of communications records of congressional Members and staff, as was detailed in a Department of Justice Inspector General report released late last year. She agreed that this spying on Congress was a ``significant breach of the Constitution and separation of powers'' and, most importantly, she endorsed reforms to keep it from happening again.

During this confirmation process, she also confirmed that the Government Accountability Office should audit the intelligence community to ensure that it is not targeting Americans outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. She also expressed support for the Public Interest Declassification Board, which has the task of promoting transparency.

Finally, I asked Ms. Gabbard whether intelligence Agency whistleblowers must have a clear path to the Senate Intelligence Committee and don't need permission from Agencies to talk to the members. She responded that the answer was ``clearly yes.'' Given Donald Trump's ongoing attacks on public servants defending the rule of law, that protection of whistleblowers that we discussed may be one of the most important principles of all.

Let me wrap up this way, Madam President. In just 3 short weeks since his inauguration, here is the checks and balances scoreboard on President Trump: He has illegally fired inspectors general; he has purged the three Democratic members of the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, not only removing the most pro-privacy members, but leaving the board without enough members to function; he has appointed or nominated people to carry out political retribution, including a nominee to be FBI Director who comes with his own published enemies list. At the same time, Donald Trump has demonstrated thorough contempt for the security of Americans' private information by granting Elon Musk's people unsupervised access to the country's most sensitive security systems and databases.

So what will happen when he attempts to steamroll oversight and the rule of law and put the privacy and constitutional rights of all Americans at risk and on the line? If she is confirmed, it will be up to Ms. Gabbard to stand up to him and stick to the principles and commitments that she has expressed and answered in response to my questions. It will be our responsibility to ensure that she does just that.

I yield the floor.

Before he leaves the floor, let me thank my colleague from California, my southern neighbor, for his excellent comments that so eloquently put in perspective what the choices are all about.

You and I want everybody in America to have a chance to get ahead-- everybody. That has not been the case with what we have seen with Mr. Vought and the Trump administration. The breaks are going to go to the people at the top, and we are going to offer a very different approach.

I am going to spend a few minutes following up your good remarks and then yield to my colleague, who has been a wonderful addition to the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Smith.

Mr. President, Russell Vought is the lead architect of the Trump economic bait-and-switch. It is a pretty clear approach to follow. Donald Trump spent months and months on the campaign trail promising that workers and working families were going to be his focus. You might recall that he promised he was going to lower grocery prices. He went into grocery stores and he said: Prices are going to go down under my Presidency.

It took just a few weeks before that one was dropped. Anybody who wonders about grocery prices today, just go to the market and try to figure out how to get through buying some eggs because it is the same kind of problem.

All these kinds of efforts to tell working-class people that they would come first have really given way to something that I call the bait-and-switch. Instead of the relief being targeted to workers, people for whom the big issues have the second word as ``bill''--it might be medical bill, it might be rent bill, it might be gas bill, but that is what is going on in their lives--they are hurting.

The reality is, Trump doesn't care about that, so he is going to cut programs that they depend on, like housing and healthcare and affordable energy, in order to take that money and move it over to supercharge the 2017 tax cuts and give even more benefits to the people at the top.

We are going to, on the Finance Committee--and I have my colleague here, Senator Smith, who I know shares this view--we are going to push back against that kind of economic bait-and-switch because we know how unfair it is. Right now in America, if you are a firefighter or a nurse, you pay taxes with every single paycheck, no question about it. It is a responsibility of citizenship. You pay taxes with every paycheck.

If you are one of the high-fliers though, Mr. President, it doesn't work that way. You can, to a great extent, pay what you want, when you want to, and sometimes go for years on end paying virtually nothing. In fact, on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal, it was described some time ago as ``Buy, Borrow, and Die.'' Buy lots of assets, maybe houses you don't use at all; borrow against them for your very opulent lifestyle; and then you pass. Buy, borrow, and die--the glidepath that ensures that if you are at the very top, you will pay little or nothing for years on end while working people get clobbered.

You can be sure this is going to be something that Mr. Vought and President Trump are going to pursue very vigorously because this is what they had in mind when they were making plans to do the bait-and- switch and take from people of the working class and transfer those benefits to the people at the top.

Mr. Vought was a coauthor of the infamous Project 2025. This has been particularly curious because when Donald Trump heard about this, he acted like he had nothing to do with it: Project 2025? What is that? Who knows anything about that?

Well, it is pretty clear that he knew everything about it, that he was working with Mr. Vought, and what started off as a rightwing wish list quickly became the guiding policy agenda for Donald Trump and his administration. It is the blueprint for Republicans to unravel the Federal Government as we know it.

There are some highlights of Project 2025 that certainly deserve some discussion here this morning.

A nationwide abortion ban is on the agenda; slashing food assistance programs; eliminating Head Start early education; yet more goodies for Big Pharma; a green light for various types of discrimination; and then, to top it all off--the real essence of the agenda--take a sledgehammer to checks and balances and give the President the power to throw the Constitution in the trash can and defy congressional authority--a pretty graphic parade of horrors.

Over the last few days, the American people have witnessed the reality of one of the mainstays of Project 2025 play out right before their eyes.

Last Friday, just 6 days ago, whistleblowers told me about something that has turned out to be more alarming than I thought. We were told that the Treasury Secretary was going to give the keys to the Treasury payments program to Mr. Musk, and that has played out now before our eyes.

I say to my colleague from the Finance Committee, we got this letter a day or so ago saying: What is everybody worried about? Nothing to see here. No big deal.

And you slap your forehead or something and you say: Are you kidding me? Look at what Musk is announcing every single day that he is doing.

I have said it before, and I say it again: Elon Musk, take your hands off the people's money. You are seizing control of the Treasury Department's highly sensitive payment system containing home addresses, bank account numbers, private Social Security and tax information of hundreds of millions of Americans.

My colleague from Minnesota and I spent a lot of time advocating for privacy rights. When Musk is done with

that agenda that I just described--looking at people's home addresses, bank accounts, Social Security numbers--there are going to be very little elements of real privacy left.

Even more concerning, Musk has shown that he is willing to use control of these payment systems to target nonprofits that he disagrees with. He starts with religious nonprofits, providing crucial community services.

So the whole point of this, as Senator Smith and I have watched this, was supposed to be going after fraud and abuse. What did he do? He went after religious nonprofits, providing crucial community services.

This DOGE takeover is the type of thing Mr. Vought and his far-right buddies were dreaming about. It probably goes all the way back to their dorm rooms.

Just last week, the Office of Management and Budget--the office Mr. Vought would be tasked with overseeing--put in place a funding freeze that would cut off Federal funding for any organization or group across the country that relies on it.

Law enforcement, schools, small businesses, and firefighters--these are services that are lifelines to small communities. All of them--all of them--are being punished.

Within hours of that freeze going into effect, our staff received word that the Medicaid payment system had gone completely dark in all 50 States.

I remember what this was all about from my days as director of the Gray Panthers. This kind of program was a lifeline in terms of giving people information about their medicine, and nursing home benefits, and the services of Medicaid. So when I heard about this, I put something up online: All 50 States--all of them--had Medicaid portals that were backed up, maybe not working at all.

For several hours, States were locked out, leaving the fate of Medicaid and healthcare coverage for tens and millions of vulnerable Americans unknown and leaving patients, States, and providers scrambling.

Because of the tremendous outcry from senior citizens advocates, disability rights folks, community leaders of all political philosophies, that portal got up and running. But it is a sobering reminder that Republicans have their sights set--particularly Mr. Vought--on doing everything they can to unravel Medicaid and rip away health coverage for millions of Americans in the process.

While OMB seemingly tried to walk back parts of the funding freeze just a day later, confusion and chaos has had lasting impacts and likely will for weeks and months to come.

To continue in that vein, my office is still hearing from Head Start providers back in Oregon that are locked out of their payment systems. Unless those funds are turned back on soon, these schools that serve the rural parts of Oregon will have to start closing their doors because they can't afford to keep operating.

All of this makes sense if you understand that one of the main goals of Project 2025 and its key author, Mr. Vought, is taking away Congress's power of the purse and giving it directly to the President. That means giving the President the authority to redirect or cut off Federal funds to programs they don't like or that didn't align with their personal agenda, because the painful truth is Donald Trump doesn't care if the economy crashes and these communities I am talking about suffer.

He and Mr. Vought want hungry kids and seniors to just try to get by on their own. They want domestic violence survivors to have nowhere to turn for shelter. They want to deny law enforcement the resources they need to keep our communities safe.

I just had groups of law enforcement people come to see me pleading for help with resources. They didn't come as Democrats and Republicans. They came as folks from Oregon and the Pacific North West to say: We want to make sure that our communities have that added measure of safety.

Unfortunately, the Trump people want to end lifesaving research that is going to be so important to dealing with cancer and other diseases. They don't seem to be at all concerned about patients being turned away from basic healthcare.

It is clear to me that with this array of challenges that I have described, the Trump people--particularly the President--have walked back the pledge that was made in the campaign to put working families first, and to give everybody a chance to get ahead. Those campaign promises from the vault have vanished. Poof, they are gone.

What is taking place now is a very different agenda, the bait-and- switch agenda, where instead of following through on those promises to working families, they are going to make sure that the people who get the fruits of the economic reforms that are coming are going to be the people at the top.

America can do better. We always do better when we give everybody in our country a chance to get ahead, and we come together to pursue that in a united way.

I am voting no against Russell Vought because that kind of economics is not on his agenda.

I yield to my colleague from Minnesota.

For vulnerable seniors, I vote no.

Madam President, had I been present for rollcall vote No. 17 of the 119th Congress--confirmation of Kristi Noem, of South Dakota, to be Secretary of Homeland Security--I would have voted nay. As a Senator who represents nine federally recognized Tribes in Oregon, I am deeply disturbed by Ms. Noem's poor relationships with Tribal governments.

In fact, Ms. Noem spread disinformation about Tribal communities in her home State which resulted in her banishment from lands held by nine different Tribes. Likewise, Ms. Noem has repeatedly peddled baseless claims about violent crime in several cities--to include my hometown, Portland, OR. Considering Donald Trump's chilling deployment of Homeland Security personnel to Portland and other cities in 2020, I am concerned by how Ms. Noem, with her prejudiced views, may implement similar orders in the coming years.

Additionally, Ms. Noem, as Governor of South Dakota, mishandled the response to devastating floods in her State, to include delaying an emergency declaration, evacuation orders, and deployment of appropriate assets. As Oregon faces worsening storms, floods, and wildfires annually, I have no confidence in her ability to lead the Federal response to disasters and emergencies.

Finally, she has fully endorsed controversial policies many of my constituents oppose, such as broad travel bans and militarizing the southern border. For all these reasons, I would have voted nay on Ms. Noem's confirmation.

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

Madam President, the Senate will vote shortly on the nomination of Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretary. I urge opposition to this nomination. Here is why. First off, nearly a million dollars in unpaid Medicare taxes. For the vast majority of Americans, paying Medicare taxes is automatic. They come straight out of every paycheck. Not so for individuals like Mr. Bessent. Those at the very top who operate under a different set of tax rules operate a different way.

Mr. Bessent comes from Wall Street. To opt out of paying his fair share into Medicare, he follows a tax dodge that is common among ultrawealthy hedge fund managers. They spend top dollar to get the best tax lawyers and accountants. They mash together loopholes and twist the law until--poof--Medicare taxes just disappear.

Mr. Bessent has avoided paying almost a million dollars in the 3 years of tax returns the Finance Committee has reviewed. There could be a lot more in other years.

Now the Treasury Department says what Mr. Bessent is doing is a violation of the law. The IRS has gone to court twice to close this loophole. It won both times.

We raised this with Mr. Bessent and urged him to pay what he owes. He said no. He is just going to wait out the appeals process, running down the clock in the hopes he doesn't have to pay.

So if Mr. Bessent is confirmed, the day that he is sworn in, the Treasury Secretary will be in violation of Treasury policy. Let me repeat that. If Mr. Bessent is confirmed, the day that he is sworn in, we will have a Treasury Secretary who is in violation of Treasury policy. It is an absurd double standard to maintain for the benefit of one individual with immense power. It also raises the question, Is he going to change Treasury's position on this issue, enriching himself and other Wall Street billionaires, or will the Treasury and the IRS continue to enforce its policy for all the taxpayers of this country except the sitting Treasury Secretary?

This was not the only tax issue identified in his returns. There were questionable losses from side businesses and a questionable debt writeoff.

We asked for documentation to prove that Mr. Bessent was following the law and paying what he owed. He didn't provide that either.

The reality is, what Mr. Bessent owes in Medicare taxes is a trivial amount compared to someone with his wealth. He could do the right thing and pay. He wouldn't even notice it.

It is routine for nominees that come through the Finance Committee to have to resolve the tax issues we spot in the vetting process. Mr. Bessent has refused that as well.

The second issue with the nomination: I have seen a number of nominees, and I can't recall meeting one in my time on the committee who was more unprepared. He struggled to answer basic tax policy questions in one-on-one meetings and in his committee hearing. For example, I asked him a simple policy question: Should wages be treated differently than wealth? This is a central question in the debate about taxes. When Senators talk about the unfairness of the tax system, this issue I asked him about is the center of the debate. It is a question of whether the ultrawealthy should get a better deal than the people who work for a living. Mr. Bessent fumbled, and after a bit, he basically just said: That is the way it is.

Senator Hassan asked the nominee about another important issue: research and development incentives--matters that both sides care about. I know the President of the Senate and I have talked about that research and development issue many times.

Senator Bennet asked about the unfairness of making cuts that will hurt working families and raise the cost of living, while Donald Trump is also running up deficits with the big tax breaks for the people at the top. Again, Mr. Bessent had no answer.

Senator Warnock and Senator Warren asked about the wastefulness of giving tax breaks to individuals with incomes over a million dollars, a billion dollars, 10 billion dollars. Mr. Bessent dodged.

Senator Lujan actually asked about Trump cutting Medicaid. It wasn't clear whether Mr. Bessent knew what Medicaid was.

Now, nobody expects nominees to be walking encyclopedias on every possible question under the Sun, but Mr. Bessent's performance was, in my view--having watching a number of nominees, a new low when it comes to basic policy issues that are going to be at the center of the debate and the center of his job if confirmed.

Even worse, I asked Mr. Bessent a simple question about the Trump tariffs: Who is going to pay them, I asked. Americans or foreigners?

Mr. Bessent responded with a convoluted academic answer that covered for Trump, who routinely distorts this issue and has routinely said falsely--Donald Trump says: Foreigners are going to pay--not people in Alabama, not people in Oregon, not people in America. And it is just untrue.

We are 1 week into Trump's second term, and already he is gunning for a trade war. That is going to clobber American consumers and small businesses, including a lot of farmers and ranchers.

If anybody out there was looking for evidence that Mr. Bessent would be a check on Donald Trump's worst instincts on tariffs and other economic policies, it is sure not looking good.

The third reason why I oppose this nomination is he is already ignoring congressional oversight.

I'll walk through the background on this. During the Presidential campaign, a longtime Trump adviser named Boris Epshteyn ran a quid pro quo scheme. He approached people who wanted Cabinet appointments, and he said he would push Trump to nominate them in exchange for payments adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mr. Bessent apparently was among the people that Donald Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn spoke to, according to numerous news reports.

When the Finance Committee read about this scheme, it was clear we needed more information. We sent the Trump transition letters with a few key questions. We got no response.

I asked Mr. Bessent about it in our one-on-one meeting. He confirmed that Mr. Epshteyn spoke with him about payments for ``public relations''--a sleazy way for somebody in Trump's inner circle to pitch an obvious quid pro quo.

Mr. Bessent's story then changed in response to a written question. His new answer was that nobody ever asked him about payments in exchange for an appointment. And even though the committee knows there was an internal investigation into Epshteyn's conduct, Mr. Bessent still won't reveal who else in Trump's orbit he talked to about it.

So my point in bringing up this issue--because we have now heard a response to the question three different ways--is it has never been more important for the Senate to stand up and fight for congressional oversight.

Late on Friday night, a couple of nights ago, Donald Trump fired 17 inspectors general, the independent watchdogs that we rely on--that every Senator relies on, every Democrat, every Republican--to identify and combat waste, fraud, and abuse in the executive branch.

The Treasury Inspector General was reportedly one of the 17. Let that sink in. Here we are trying to get answers with respect to an individual nominated to be head of the Treasury Department and the Treasury Inspector General was reportedly one of the 17 who was just fired.

The midnight massacre, in my view, was obviously an illegal act by the Trump administration. My hope is--and I believe--the court will strike this down immediately.

Regardless of what happens next, it is obvious that the Trump administration wants to eliminate those people who are going to stand in the way of corruption and call it out.

As a major donor and Cabinet nominee, Mr. Bessent is volunteering to walk right into this culture of corruption that defines Trump and his administration. For him to be shirking oversight by Congress before he is even confirmed is just unacceptable.

Madam President, these are the reasons that I oppose this nomination.

Just picture what it is like to say to the people of Alabama, to the people of Oregon, all over the country--my colleague Senator Crapo--the rules don't apply to the Treasury nominee. They just don't. You the pay your Medicare taxes if you are everybody else--if you are a firefighter, a nurse or a teacher--but not if you are the new Treasury appointee who is violating rules that the Treasury Department has said he is violating.

Mr. Bessent has cheated on his taxes, according to Treasury policy. It would be a huge double standard, a major conflict of interest if he is confirmed and he can maintain his position that he doesn't have to pay Medicare taxes like everybody else in America. I already made the point that he was deeply unprepared on many of the big questions.

I will tell my colleagues, I don't even get the view that he did prep 101, which is to go out and talk to Senators about issues. He would have heard from Mr. Lujan that Mr. Lujan was going to be interested in matters like Medicaid. That kind of prep is the easiest part of the nomination process.

Mr. Bessent has already shown that he has little respect for congressional oversight. I think that this nomination is badly flawed. I hope that the Senate won't accept it.

I have been through a number of those flaws, starting with violating the policy requiring you to pay your Medicare taxes. This nomination is, in my view, an exhibit of what you shouldn't do before you come before the floor of the U.S. Senate.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 2 additional minutes.

Madam President, I often worked with Senator Crapo in a positive way, and I know we are going to do that in the future.

I want to make sure there is no confusion with respect to this Medicare tax issue. We had a number of nominees over the years who have actually dropped out, and they have owed less money than, in effect, Mr. Bessent would if he complied with Treasury rules.

If he is confirmed, on the day he is sworn in, he will be in violation of

Treasury policy, and we will have established another double standard in the tax area that sends a message that if you are powerful, if you have accountants, if you have lawyers, you can basically figure out a way to not pay what you would pay if you were a firefighter or a teacher. I think that double standard is regrettable.

I continue to urge opposition to the nominee.

Madam President, a number of serious and concerning issues were raised in Pete Hegseth's nomination hearing last week; and in the Hegseth nomination hearing last week, there were a number of important issues. And I would like to speak to one that is central to both America's national security and American values: the principle that every American has the right to know when their government believes that it is allowed to kill them.

Now I don't believe this ought to be a controversial matter. My constituents don't believe it should be a controversial matter. The Bill of Rights says: No one shall be deprived of life . . . without due process of law.

Government officials have, in my view, a basic obligation to explain any rules that allow them to ever kill an American citizen. And on this, the nominee to serve as Defense Secretary has simply flunked the test. His refusal to answer basic questions before the Senate Committee on Armed Services ought to trouble every single American.

Now, I want to focus on that fundamental question concerning the government's power to kill Americans and why Americans have to keep fighting--and Senators--for transparency.

Over a decade ago, the Obama administration took the position that their analysis of the President's legal authority to deliberately kill Americans was secret, and they refused to share that. As I said at the time, I believe that position was just unacceptable.

And I told the Obama administration: If an American takes up arms against the United States as part of a foreign army or a terrorist group, there are, indeed, circumstances where it is legal to use lethal force against that American, but the limits and the

boundaries of the President's authority to kill Americans must be available to the public so that voters can decide whether that authority has sufficient safeguards.

Now, the Obama administration initially disagreed with me. They were clearly reluctant to acknowledge specific limits on the President's power. To be candid, we had a pretty big public argument about that over a number of weeks. Many other Senators got involved. In fact, Senator Paul, our colleague from Kentucky, brought the debate to a head with a 13-hour standing filibuster. I remember coming to the Senate floor to join Senator Paul, and there were a number of Republican colleagues who were there as well.

I think one of the reasons it became such a significant debate in a viral moment is that it was literally exactly what our Founding Fathers envisioned: Members of the Senate coming together to check the power of the Presidency.

In response to this filibuster that Senator Paul and others were part of, the Obama administration came around to doing the right thing. Attorney General Holder sent Senator Paul a letter stating clearly that if an American is standing on U.S. soil, not engaged in combat, then the President of the United States does not have the authority to use military force against them.

Now, obviously, there are a host of other important questions about the limits of the President's war powers, but I thought that letter from Attorney General Holder was an important concession, and I am proud that Democrats and Republicans worked together on a bipartisan basis for it.

I was very troubled last week by the answers that Pete Hegseth gave in his nomination hearing before the Armed Services Committee. For example, our colleague Senator Hirono asked the nominee directly if he would carry out an order to shoot American citizens. Mr. Hegseth could have given the same answer that Attorney General Holder gave us a decade ago, but this nominee just refused to answer the question.

Madam President, it is even more troubling when our colleague Senator Slotkin asked an even easier question. Senator Slotkin asked: Is there such a thing as an illegal order? The answer to that question should very obviously be ``yes.'' If a President orders the Secretary of Defense to violate the law or the Constitution, that order is illegal. And it is, in my view, stunning that the nominee refused to answer this very straightforward question. Even our youngest soldiers in basic training know that it is their duty to refuse illegal orders. We should at least expect that much from our Secretary of Defense.

So I say to my colleagues, in closing, that it comes down to this: I thought we agreed--Democrats and Republicans, people of a variety of different political philosophies--believe that what I have discussed are fundamentally important principles to America. We have fought hard in America to uphold them, and we did it together. For the life of me, I don't understand why we are voting today to confirm a nominee who can't tell us pointblank that he will oppose illegal orders and that he will uphold the Constitution of the United States.

For that reason, Madam President--I haven't spoken on the matter until just now--I intend to vote no on Mr. Hegseth's nomination and, frankly, I wish more of my colleagues across the aisle, for the reasons that have been outlined here, were joining me in voting no.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following members of my team be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the Congress: Lindsey Williams, Tracey Henry, Poki'i Balaz, Sujith Ramachandran, Jack Pitsor, Robert Walsh, Samantha Fein, Shannon Rogers, Eoghan Stafford, Yezi Yang, Helin Unal, Eric LoPresti, and Ian Hunter.

Madam President, at some point, the Senate will vote on the nomination of John Ratcliffe to be the Director of the CIA. I am here to outline for just a few moments why I oppose this nomination.

Let me begin by saying I often vote for nominees who have different policy views than I do. However, my concerns with Mr. Ratcliffe are much deeper than that.

In 2020, I opposed his confirmation to be Director of National Intelligence because I believe his partisanship and willingness essentially went to the proposition of doing what would please Donald Trump. Unfortunately, his actions as head of National Intelligence only confirmed my concerns. Today, I want to focus on John Ratcliffe's commitment to the law and his truthfulness with Congress. I will give a couple of examples to illustrate my concerns.

In 2019, the Congress passed a law requiring the Director of National Intelligence to submit an unclassified report on who was responsible for the brutal murder of Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi. In 2020, after John Ratcliffe was nominated to be the head of National Intelligence, I asked him at his confirmation hearing whether he intended to follow that law. He responded that he needed to take a look at the underlying intelligence to see what could be released, and that is not the same as saying he would do as the law required.

After Director Ratcliffe was confirmed as DNI, he decided that nothing more could be declassified about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The effect of that decision was to cover up the fact that Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation to capture or kill Khashoggi. The public only has the facts today because after the 2020 election, then-head of National Intelligence Avril Haines abided by the law and released the report.

But while John Ratcliffe was Director of National Intelligence, the Saudi leadership was protected from public accountability. While he was Director of National Intelligence, Director Ratcliffe wrote to multiple Members of Congress saying that he had completed his review of the intelligence and determined that nothing more could be released. Despite the fact that the Congress passed a law, Director Ratcliffe insisted that there was only marginal public interest in declassification. He said this in three letters to me, to Acting Chairman Rubio and Vice Chairman Warner, and to the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. To me, this raises questions about John Ratcliffe's commitment to the law.

Basically, I have concerns about his truthfulness with the Congress. As part of this nomination process, I submitted a written question asking him why he didn't obey the law. He responded that a review had been necessary to determine what could be declassified and I quote here:

This review was not completed until after I left office.

Madam President, that statement by Mr. Ratcliffe just wasn't true. Mr. Ratcliffe wrote three letters to the Congress saying that the review had been completed. That fact was even included in the ODNI's representations to a court in a FOIA case.

So here is why I am opposing the Ratcliffe nomination. If John Ratcliffe is willing to make representations to the Congress that are contradicted by what is in the public record, imagine how easy it would be for him to misrepresent classified matters behind a veil of secrecy.

There are other aspects of John Ratcliffe's record as DNI that are troubling. He said during his confirmation hearing he would tell truth to power. The record suggests otherwise. For example, at the end of September 2020, he released intelligence about Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. That was even though the intelligence community didn't know if it was accurate or the extent to which it was fabricated or exaggerated by Russian intelligence. Needless to say, this was a major break from standard practice, and it is hard to escape the conclusion that it was done for partisan political purposes, particularly given the timing.

I asked Mr. Ratcliffe whether he had ever taken any actions that were actually in conflict with the positions of the President. His response was simply to offer nothing.

Madam President, my concerns in 2020 that John Ratcliffe was too partisan to be confirmed as the head of an intelligence Agency have been validated by these specific examples I have cited today. As I said, he also now has a record of ignoring a law passed by the U.S. Congress and then misrepresenting basic facts about that decision.

So when the Senate does vote on the Ratcliffe nomination, I want the record to show that I strongly oppose the nomination.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to express my strong opposition to Republicans' so-called Born-Alive bill.

I want to commend Senator Murray and all my colleagues who have done so much good work on this. This is not the first time the Senate has debated this bill on the Senate floor, and I doubt it will be the last.

Republicans claim this legislation will protect women and children. The foundation of this Republican bill is that babies are forced to go without basic medical care after they are born. This is a disgusting, stomach-churning lie that is pedaled to fearmonger the American people.

No child born alive in the United States is denied the healthcare they need to survive. It is already illegal to do so. In reality, what this bill does is turn what is already an impossibly difficult situation for countless expecting parents into a living hell.

Imagine you and your spouse get the good news that you are expecting. You are over the Moon until a few months later when you get the worst news you could possibly imagine receiving during pregnancy. For reasons out of your control, your baby has developed a terminal medical condition and will not survive once they are born. On top of that, to force the mother to continue carrying the baby to term would most likely be deadly for her.

Many women and couples are all too familiar with the gut-wrenching decisions that come next. What a statement about Republican priorities that this is one of the first pieces of legislation brought to the Senate floor just a few hours after Donald Trump was sworn into office.

Republicans talk a big game about being ``pro-life'' and being the party of family values. Their actions show reality couldn't be any further from the truth. For example, the Republicans recently blocked a bipartisan expansion of the child tax credit that would have really helped to lift kids out of poverty. Now they are gearing up to cut food stamps so kids go hungry. They put Medicaid and health insurance for millions of children on the chopping block.

If Republicans really care about helping women and children, they would be using their new-found majority to vote on legislation that cuts housing and childcare costs or grocery bills and keep moms safe.

Let me close this way, Mr. President, and colleagues. This deeply flawed Republican Born-Alive bill is the real Republican agenda on full display. While Republicans are full steam ahead with their crusade against reproductive freedom, all my colleagues who are here today, led by Senator Murray, are focused on fighting inflation, bringing down costs, getting to work for working families. I am proud to be associated with their efforts.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, earlier this week, Democrats and Republicans from both the House and the Senate made a deal that struck a blow against the healthcare middlemen that manipulate our healthcare system to enrich themselves.

Unfortunately, the very first act of the second Trump administration--or should I say, the first Musk administration--was to step in and strip out the bipartisan agreement that stops the drug middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers from ripping off taxpayers and seniors.

We all understand that healthcare is an unavoidable expense for most American families. That is why I went into public service. Healthcare is not a Democratic or a Republican issue; it is a family issue. And we know if you or your loved ones don't have their health, everything else in the house goes by the board.

Unfortunately, the chaos sown by the President-elect and his billionaire ``mini-me''--though, again, it is hard to tell which is which--they serve to protect the middlemen, the pharmacy

benefit managers, and insurance companies that take money out of the system while our families are stuck with big medical bills and substandard care.

Donald Trump has spent the last 2 weeks telling everybody who will listen that he wants to take on the drug middlemen. Let me quote Donald Trump here. He said:

They're rich as hell.

We're going to knock them out.

Well, at the very first opportunity to do that, he abandoned that pledge in order to follow Elon Musk's lead.

You don't choose to do business with pharmacy benefit managers, but I will tell you, they are dining out on your paycheck, nevertheless. These PBMs squat between Big Pharma and the insurance companies. While they are supposed to negotiate coverage and the price of prescription medicine for your insurance plan, they have ended up favoring higher priced drugs by taking a fee that is linked to the price of the drug.

The effort to reform these PBM practices has been bipartisan from the get-go. It ought to be a no-brainer. I think I told the President of the Senate, the Senator from Idaho, Senator Crapo, and I kicked this effort off 2 years ago when the Senate Finance Committee passed a bill 26 to 0 and the House of Representatives has worked in a similarly bipartisan way.

Our legislation would end the practice of profiting off higher prices in Medicare by ensuring that a PBM can only receive a flat fee from drugmakers. That is going to save taxpayers' and seniors' hard-earned dollars because, finally, these pharmacy benefit managers are going to have an incentive to pick lower priced drugs.

Let me just pause on that point for a second. These middlemen are not the good guys. Earlier this week--and I heard my colleagues talking about matters involving opioids--the New York Times reported that in negotiations with opioid manufacturers like Purdue Pharma, the pharmacy benefit managers traded away protections designed to reduce the rate of opioid overdoses and addiction in order to make yet another fast buck. These are the people Donald Trump is letting off the hook at Elon Musk's direction.

The bipartisan agreement, I might also add, is particularly important for us Westerners because we have seen our small, independent community pharmacies hit so hard. These small businesses have been closing their doors at an alarming rate over the past decade, again, in large part, due to the practices by these PBM giants. The pharmacy benefit managers are able to pay independent pharmacies whatever they feel like and then the little pharmacy in Arizona or Oregon or Idaho or anywhere else--the small pharmacy has to accept what the PBMs will pay.

What we do in our bipartisan legislation, what a number of committees in the Senate have worked on--what has been the effort in the House and what our program is all about is giving the small pharmacies a chance to fight back by reporting unreasonable contract terms to a Federal watchdog who is in a position to enforce a fair contract.

That is going to mean that independent community pharmacies are paid what they are owed and keep their doors open in rural America without having to pay off the PBMs by gouging customers.

Beyond the drug middlemen--I am just going to mention several other areas that the bipartisan legislation cracks down on in terms of helping the American people. The bipartisan legislation goes after ghost networks that are blocking Americans from getting the care they need. What these ghost networks are all about is, essentially, the insurance companies take your money, and then there aren't any providers, there aren't any navigators, there isn't anybody to help you get your coverage.

So under what we are calling for in a bipartisan way, the insurance companies would have to have a list of doctors that actually are going to make care available so Americans who need care can contact them, make an appointment, and not have to pay extra costs by going out of the healthcare network they paid for.

Too often, based on investigations conducted by the Government Accountability Office, as well as the investigative staff in the Finance Committee, we have found that, essentially, these ghost networks mean there is no: There, there. You paid your money, and you can't get access to real care. Either the doctors don't take new patients, nobody picks up the phone, you aren't able to get what you paid for.

Finally, the bipartisan agreement--that Donald Trump has directed be rejected. The bipartisan agreement strengthens requirements for insurance companies that sell Medicare Advantage plans to make sure that their directories are actually up to date.

Once again, we are seeing an area that cries out for reform because Americans across the political spectrum are sick and tired of paying premiums for health insurance, only to find they can't actually get care when they need it. So Medicare Advantage, ghost networks, these are the areas that we are strengthening in our bipartisan effort.

I will close by saying there is a lot more to like in the legislation when it comes to healthcare, like continuing access to telehealth and Medicare.

Again, Mr. President, bipartisan.

The late Senator Orrin Hatch negotiated with me the Chronic Care bill, which had telemedicine provisions which became the foundation for what we did to fight COVID--again, during the Trump administration.

But we are not getting the benefits of telehealth if we reject this bipartisan agreement, as Donald Trump is urging. Telemedicine is in our package and higher funding for community health centers.

I want to commend Senator Sanders and Senator Cassidy for working in a bipartisan way on that. And we also have improvements to help moms and kids and Americans with disabilities and seniors with Medicaid coverage. Those, of course, are the dual eligibles, the folks who are eligible for Medicaid and Medicare.

I come to the floor simply to say, we have the holidays coming up. Everybody understands that. But there is another gift we can give to the American people, and that is a more fair shake in American healthcare.

We are spending enough money, Mr. President. We are spending over $4 trillion. There are 330 million of us. Divide the 330 million into $4 trillion, you could send every family of four in America a check for more than $50,000 and say: ``Get your healthcare.'' We are not spending it in the right places. I will tell you, in many instances, the reason that is the case is because of these middle men. They made sense 30 years ago when you didn't have all the technology and all the data and people who knew how to use it. But today, these pharmacy benefit managers are, in too many instances, ripping off seniors and taxpayers. And I hope Donald Trump will see that our bipartisan bill is important to do now; important to do before we go home and get some relief to seniors and taxpayers.

I yield the floor.