Floor Statements

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to maybe lower my own temperature but explain what I was getting at in the Judiciary Committee hearing this morning. We had the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem before the committee, and I have not been shy about some of my criticism for the Secretary of Homeland Security really on two fronts.

I think I was primarily focused on--what I wanted to focus on was the failure, in my opinion, of the FEMA response for Hurricane Helene really across the Southeast but particularly in North Carolina, where it hit hardest.

So I went in thinking that I was going to talk a little bit about my frustration with Hurricane Helene, but then an hour before the hearing, after 30 days when I sent a letter saying I also wanted detailed information on Operation so-called Charlotte's Web, which was identifying illegally present people and deporting them--I have no problem with that, by the way. What I have a problem with is the how. But I got basically a ``Dear Sir, Madam, or Small Child: Thank you for asking questions we don't intend to answer'' response from the Secretary of Homeland Security. That did not make me happy. So I have to admit, when I got into the hearing, the heart rate was up a little bit.

What I wanted to do in the hearing was talk about how I apply my professional experience to working here in the Senate. I was going to give her a performance evaluation for her 14 months on the job, and I was going to use as evidence empirical information, stuff that we found--hard to get but stuff that we got.

This is a graphic of three different hurricane responses. Trump 1 had Florence and Matthew, devastating storms in North Carolina. You can see here--anytime you are in business, when you see outlays and expenditures kind of flat, that means an organization is doing a good job. In other words, we knew what the damage was, we had the money for it, they requested the reimbursement, and they got it. That is what competent disaster management looks like.

Under Secretary Noem and Helene--a $59 billion impact in North Carolina--that is what incompetence looks like. You can see the huge difference between obligations and outlays.

Well, let's just translate this into human terms in North Carolina. That means a county that can't even balance its budget, Yancey County, one of the hardest hit--they are just looking for basic reimbursements now, and the Secretary has decided that every reimbursement in excess of $100,000 has to go across her desk before it is approved. That is almost unheard of. It may be a violation of the law in terms of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, but it is certainly in violation of common sense.

If you want to do a quick back-of-the-napkin--do the math--divide 100,000 into 59 billion. That is a lot of numbers, right? A lot of approvals. Really? The Homeland Security Secretary wants $100,000 increments for people who are suffering in Western North Carolina to be subject to her approval? That is what produces garbage like this. That is what gets people fired in the private sector, where I spent the majority of my career before I joined the State legislature in 2006.

So on the disaster recovery front, Secretary Noem has failed miserably, by empirical standards. Nothing personal. It could be my mother in this position. I would have to fire my beloved mom. At the end of the day, this is horrible performance. And why it is horrible-- these are not only facts and figures; these are people's lives, and she has decided paperwork and redtape are more important than flooding the zone and giving them money for removing debris, money for actual temporary housing, money for buyouts--the basic sorts of things you have to do.

But I was only going to talk briefly about that. I wanted to talk more about the main subject in Judiciary, and that was the response for these deportations. I am angry with Secretary Noem because she has taken away one of the most important issues that Republicans won elections on in 2024. The border was wide open. Millions of people were coming across the border. We didn't know who they were. There were an estimated 1.7 million so-called ``got-aways.'' These are people who pay a premium to the cartels to go through a section of the border where they can escape detection. They even give them carpet to put under their shoes so they can't be traced. These are not angels. These are people that are paying cartels a premium to come across the border. The other people just simply come to a border crossing, present themselves, and they can seek asylum. Bad people, all right? I get that. They should be apprehended, incarcerated, or deported.

I simply asked 30 days ago: Of the 500 encounters in Charlotte, could you give me your data on it--anonymized? I don't want the specific people unless they want to come forward. I want to know: If you had an interaction with somebody, were they illegally present? were they a U.S. citizen? did you detain them? did you destroy their property in the process of detaining somebody briefly and come to find out-- whoopsie--they have been a U.S. citizen for 20 years?

That is important performance information. That is called a job performance assessment. Why can't I get that for the 500 or so encounters in Charlotte, a town that is 20 minutes from where I live?

Then I get a letter an hour before the hearing saying: No, that is confidential information.

Then she has the audacity to come to a hearing and say they are a top-notch, professional law enforcement organization. There is not a law enforcement organization in the United States of America that couldn't answer that question for me.

So which one is it? Have you failed to keep track of all these encounters or are you refusing to provide it to me because you are concerned with the results--that the minority of the people you are probably detaining are the ones who are bad people that should be detained, deported, or incarcerated? I just want to know what the success rate is. And she refused to answer that question.

So I announced in the hearing today that, similar to what I had to do to get the Homeland Security Secretary to even come before the committee--I had to put a hold on any sorts of nominations that went through Homeland Security. Maybe it had an influence. Maybe other pressures got her there. But now she is not answering my questions.

So, effective today, I will refuse to allow any en bloc nominations to go through this Senate floor until I get my questions answered-- effective today. Effective on March 19, I will block any nomination, any markup of legislation that goes before Finance, Banking, Judiciary, or Veterans' Affairs. I will block my own nominations until I get the answer to the question--and every other one that goes through that-- because my vote is necessary in any partisan votes to get it out of the committees.

I want answers to questions. That is what you give to a U.S. Senator. You don't treat us like some sort of person that you just placate in a committee and go on and do other things. I have the election certificate. I have people in North Carolina that want answers, and I want answers. If I don't get them, we are simply going to shut down the noms process until we can get somebody to answer my question.

Now, the questions I am not going to cover that have to do with the encounters--that is delineated in the letter. But these are five other questions that I want answered, and they go like this--because I want them in the Federal Register, and I will submit a document so the transcription is accurate. These are my five questions:

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 expressly prohibits the Secretary of Homeland Security from restricting or diverting FEMA resources from the Agency's mission. Based on your disaster response, I have reason to believe that she is violating the law, either knowingly or unknowingly, so I want to know what the total amount of FEMA reimbursements are that are currently being held by DHS for final approval to be spent by FEMA. I want the exact dollar figures, and I want a full list of the recipients.

Based on recent reports, I have reason to believe that DHS has delegated responsibilities of the FEMA Administrator to an outside contractor, who is Kara Voorhies. What is her official role in DHS? That is my second question.

My third question: Special government employees, SGEs, are prohibited by law from working more than 130 days during any 365-day period. How many days has Corey Lewandowski worked over the last year, and how many days does he currently have left under the SGE status?

No 4: Why does Corey Lewandowski have final signoff authority on internal DHS routing documents--these are internal routing documents-- above the Deputy Secretary--a part-time, unpaid person--above a Deputy Secretary before documents are submitted to the Homeland Security Secretary for approval?

No. 5: Based on an unclassified letter submitted to Congress yesterday by the DHS Office of Inspector General--these are the people that keep us honest; they are a very important part of the role--I have reason to believe that the Secretary and the Department are obstructing at least one criminal investigation.

Not my words; these are the words of the Office of Inspector General, who published a letter yesterday. That is almost unheard of. Do you have any idea how bad it has to be for someone embedded in a Department to publish a letter about the obstruction of the Secretary of that Department? That is bad, folks.

So I want the Secretary to answer the question: Do you believe that restricting or delaying the inspector general's access to documents, systems, and witnesses reflects a direct violation of Federal law?

The OIG thinks she does, so I want to know.

Mr. President, I know we are 2 minutes away from going into recess, and I am not going to extend time.

The bottom line: This Secretary has done our President an injustice by some of the most incompetent execution I have had the displeasure to witness over the last 11 years and 2 months that I have been a U.S. Senator. It bears no resemblance to Trump 1 in terms of Homeland Security and in terms of FEMA response.

I am a Republican. I support this President. I believe deporting people illegally present here is critically important to our future. But I also believe you have to be able to execute, you have to be able to do your job, you have to be able to be responsible, and when you make a mistake, you admit it and move on. This Secretary has done none of that, and so I will be doing none of nominating and confirming and markups until such time as I get an answer to these critical questions--or her resignation or the answer to the question, whichever comes first.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I actually want to thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for bringing up what I think is a very important subject. I am proud, as you are, coming from a State that had voter ID.

Senator McCormick, you wouldn't necessarily know this, but we passed the first voter ID when I was speaker. I heard all of these arguments, and they fall on deaf ears.

As a matter of fact, if you take a look at the Help America Vote Act and other things, we can make it easy to vote. But we have to make it hard to cheat.

Most people in America don't realize that we estimate about 20 to 25 million people are illegally present in this country. And you should keep in mind that in each of the five last Presidential elections, the margin of victory

at the height was 9 million and at the low point was 2 million.

So when we say that illegally present people who are able to vote can actually change the outcome of elections, it is not theoretical. It is proven by the math.

So I appreciate your comments.

Federal Reserve

Mr. President, I am here to talk about a different subject. It sort of relates to the commentary that Senator Blackburn spoke about but only with a little bit different twist.

You see, I think that prosecuting--vindictive prosecution--is wrong, period. Whether the administration is a Democrat or a Republican, vindictive prosecution is wrong, period.

What we are on the brink of with respect to the Chair of the Federal Reserve is the pot calling the kettle black. We can't come here and talk appropriately about the Arctic Frost investigation, we can't talk about the various prosecutions under the Obama era and the Biden era as being bad if we actually condone what I believe, in many cases, are the same sorts of behavior today.

I am a Republican. I voted for President Trump. I support the vast majority of what President Trump is doing. But I think we have a trend here that makes us no better than the people that some of my colleagues are coming down to the floor and criticizing.

At some point, one of the two parties has to stand on principle and end this cycle or it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse.

Let me give you an example of where I think it is getting bad.

On a Sunday night, about a month or so ago, I saw a report that the Chair of the Fed Board Jerome Powell was being investigated by the DOJ. We all know the President's frustration with Chair Powell. I have got some frustration with him too. I am an armchair quarterback. There are certain things I didn't like him doing, but I never thought of him as a criminal.

But I find out, on a Sunday night, that we have somebody in the bowels of the DC District of the U.S. attorney--an assistant U.S. attorney--who has decided to pursue an investigation and seek an indictment of prosecution against 2 minutes of testimony in the Banking hearing that I attended. I not only attended that Banking hearing, but several of my colleagues did too.

Mr. President, as a matter of fact, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the comments from seven of my colleagues on the Banking Committee.

Mr. President, what this document does, and the reason I thought it was important to put it in the Record, is we have got--let's see--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, including me, who have said that we don't think a crime was committed. We are on the Banking Committee. We are the majority of the Republicans on the Banking Committee.

I am an old man. So I like watching ``Forensic Files.'' I don't know if young people watch it, but I have been watching it for like 20 or 30 years. I can imagine this being the opening of a ``Forensic File.''

Normally, it is about a perpetrator, and something bad happened. The prosecutor is going after them because they have the eyewitnesses.

Well, this ``Forensic File'' opens like this: All of the witnesses at the scene of the crime said no crime was committed, right down the line. In fact, they have even submitted printed evidence. Yet the prosecutor thinks otherwise.

I don't think that would be a very interesting ``Forensic Files'' because what it says is no crime got committed.

Now, can we talk about whether or not there was an overrun in the building? There may have been. But I don't know if everybody is paying attention, but that happens a lot in government. If we are going to actually accuse someone of criminal behavior because of a project overrun in Federal Government, we had better start budgeting a lot more for prisons because that is the norm here.

I hate it because I came from a world where you lost your job if you went over budget and over time. But that is just a part of the way this place works.

Two minutes of testimony, seven members in the Banking Committee, present on that day, saying that they do not believe there was criminal intent sends a very clear message to a young U.S. attorney with a dream in the DC District: Why don't you come talk to people who were at the alleged scene of the crime?

We said we do not believe there was any criminal intent--2 minutes.

Mr. President, as a matter of fact, the other thing, if I could ask unanimous consent to have another two pages printed in the Record, which are some of the allegations that were being quoted from a press report that are patently wrong.

Mr. President, this is a case where we had members on the committee responding to news reports that were proven wrong.

Folks, I thought this was probably going to end this way, and it is one of the reasons why I decided to invite myself to a tour when the President went to this building to take a look at it.

I was there with the President. He was very kind, shook my hand, and welcomed me to participate in this tour.

I saw nothing there. I saw a few things--frustration. You know, you have got the historic commission and everybody else controlling the state of the project. But I certainly didn't see any criminal activity. I certainly didn't see any of these alleged rooftop garden terraces, water features, VIP elevators, special marble. They had to take it down and put it back up. Building in DC is complicated.

So almost all of the allegations were disproven. And yet we still have a prosecutor that is trying to pursue a criminal prosecution of the Chair of the Federal Reserve.

The night that it was announced, I made the statement that I will take this allegation seriously. But I am concerned that it comes from someone without consultation with Big DOJ. I don't think Pam Bondi or any of the senior people in the DOJ knew anything about it. Without consultation with the White House, they decided to pursue this investigation.

So they put me in an untenable position. If I am quiet on that Sunday night and don't say something, Monday morning, we may wake up to a very different market. If, all of a sudden, the Federal Reserve, that since its creation has been considered independent and separate from many Presidents who have been angry with them--Democrats and Republicans alike--I felt like, if I didn't put my foot down and say, ``No one is going to fill that seat until this investigation is done,'' that we could have literally had headlines across all financial markets that the United States no longer has an independent Federal Reserve.

Unless you track it as closely as I have, in my current role as Senator and in my past role as a partner at Pricewaterhouse, tracking financial or banking institutions, you may not be able to appreciate this. But, folks, this is real. The Federal Reserve is the gold standard for central banks, and its independence is critically important. It is critically important for us continuing to have the gold standard for the economy, the gold standard for the rule of law.

We cannot allow some junior U.S. attorney--assistant U.S. attorney-- in some jurisdiction here, all of a sudden, to play with fire. They didn't know what they were doing. They didn't look through the second- and third-order effects, and, quite honestly, they exposed the President in the process.

I find myself in a position where I want to reaffirm what I said very directly on that Sunday night before the markets opened on Monday morning: I will not allow any Board member for the Federal Reserve to go through the Banking Committee for a Chair or for replacement of expired terms until this matter is settled. I have no problem with us having an investigation, like we should with so many other areas of the government.

I would like to have oversight of the East Wing construction to make sure that that stays on target and doesn't go over budget. I would like to have oversight into the Qatari 747 as the new Air Force One--kind of ``Air Force lite'' because you can't take it out of the United States. All of those are taxpayer dollars being spent, and we should have visibility into that.

So count me in for doing an investigation for the comments on that day. The 2 minutes of testimony, that is the only reason I am on the floor today and refusing to allow a Fed Board member to be confirmed, because I feel that strongly. As a matter of fact, it may take us to a new low in terms of a vindictive prosecution. And if you think Arctic Frost was bad, if you think some of the other investigations in the Obama era were bad, ladies and gentlemen, we are setting a new low that could make that look like child's play.

For that reason, until the investigation is resolved, I cannot and I will not vote to support anyone on the Federal Reserve in my remaining tenure in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, sometimes when I hear floor speeches down here, I think of my wife, whom I love dearly, and I will be married to her for 39 years in June, but for about the first 5 or 10 years of our relationship, I would do something stupid, and she would rightfully get mad. And then I felt like I had to hear every other stupid thing I had done since I had met her 5 or 10 years before. There are a lot of very valid points being made here today, and very few of them have anything to do with what is ahead of us this weekend.

To try and explain where we are here, Senator Collins has done an extraordinary job with having her hand on the rudder of getting five appropriations bills ready to go to the President's desk. We have an agreement that was between the President and the Democrats that is before us. The Homeland Security bill has had to be severed for a variety of reasons--I will get to that too--and we are trying to address that through a continuing resolution. We are trying to decide if that is 2 weeks, 4 weeks, or 6 weeks. That continuing resolution, incidentally, because of the way we fund the government here, would actually provide more money during the CR than we have in the underlying appropriation that we hope to pass someday.

But the reason we are not moving forward today doesn't have anything to do with the Democrats. It has to do with a handful of Republicans who are refusing to let us move forward. The fact of the matter is, the reason we had one of the longest--no. Actually, we set a record--the longest shutdown in U.S. history is that some of my colleagues decided to hold up for about 35 or 37 days before we finally came to an agreement.

I think we have just got to be truthful to the American people. I am not going to try and outwit the eloquence and the expertise of two accomplished prosecutors. I am just going to try and make it real for the people who may be watching.

We are going to shut down the government because some Republicans refuse to take the win. They refuse to take a negotiated agreement that the President agrees with. President Donald J. Trump agrees with what we can do to avoid a government shutdown. So it just seems silly to me that when you parse through all that stuff--it is sort of like when I am getting hammered by my wife for all the dumb things I did. Yes, she was right to be mad at me for the last dumb thing I did, but I thought we had finished those other arguments. Now, we are bringing all that stuff back in.

And I love you, Susan.

But when we are talking about lowering the temperature, let's lower the temperature in this Chamber and recognize that if we have a shutdown, we own it. The Republicans own it. You can say whatever you want to, but it is materially untrue. We have five appropriations bills that could fund the majority of the government and not put it into shutdown just by lifting these holds and living to fight for the issues that I agree with when we finally get on the Homeland Security bill. I agree with some of the things my Democrat colleagues want, and I have got other things that I would like to see in the bill, but I don't know why I would hold this up when that real debate is on that bill.

Now, to Senator Graham--my neighbor to the south from South Carolina--I am from North Carolina--I get his frustration with the Jack Smith investigation. It was horrible. I don't know the legal processes, but he should probably be held accountable for prosecutorial misconduct. There are various ways that you can go after Jack Smith if that is really what you are wanting to do. If they did this sort of surveillance or phone tapping or whatever they did, go after him. Whether or not we should have a $500,000 reward for a Member who got targeted, I don't want that because that is actually your money. I would like, maybe, a dollar award to send a message--but come on, guys.

And Senator Graham mentioned a $10 billion lawsuit from the President. Really? Where does that money come from--the money fairies or your pocket? If the President has been damaged, of course, he should probably, like any other citizen, receive it, but my goodness. A $10 billion lawsuit seems silly.

Now let's talk about Minnesota.

I think it was Benjamin Franklin--and he was actually updating something that was attributed to someone, maybe, 100 years before, but I believe that Benjamin Franklin said something along the lines of: Better 100 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man be convicted.

Now let's talk about Minnesota.

Look, I get that Mr. Pretti, who was shot, was obviously agitating. I saw the video of his kicking a taillight out of the truck a week before. Why didn't ICE just go ahead and arrest him then and deescalate then? I have seen the videos more recently, and they are very disturbing. I want the ICE officers who were involved to get a fair shake, but they need to be investigated. To the casual observer--to most people across the United States--it doesn't look right, and it certainty doesn't look like us, but there are so many examples of where we want to turn up the pressure when the American people want us to tone it down.

Sanctuary States and sanctuary counties are dangerous. In fact, I took

every sanctuary city and sanctuary county in my State to task, and I have held them accountable. In fact, I have got a bill I would like my colleagues to get on. It is called Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities. It is not something new. I did it a couple of Congresses ago. It simply says, if a governmental entity has a sanctuary policy and doesn't cooperate with Federal law enforcement and they release someone who does harm to somebody else, they should have a right of action and sue that city or town, right? It shouldn't be a problem because the city or town or State said these are just innocent people. So why should they worry about that? They should endorse it, right? They should embrace it because, certainly, they are not releasing dangerous people, and the private right of action would only occur if they did.

So why don't we start talking about these commonsense sorts of ways to lower the temperature: to hold people accountable when they are harming ICE agents and to hold ICE agents accountable if they react in a way that is not consistent with their law enforcement training. If we do that, I think that the American people will appreciate it.

But back on the underlying reason as to why I am here today: I think it is wrong for us to shut down the government to make a point. If all you are asking for is a vote--and people need to understand that the Democrats have held their Members back from offering amendments. If we get on this bill, we may have to defend some amendments, but we would be able to move on because that was a part of the agreement. So it is Republicans now--a handful. The vast majority of us are ready to go. Republicans now are wanting to get a vote just to make a point. They have already said: I just want a vote. I know it will probably fail.

Well, why don't you reserve that for the vote that we are going to have when we are on the bill that is driving your need for most of those amendments outside the Jack Smith amendment?

I mean, come on, guys. This is not that hard. I can figure it out, and I am not the smartest person in this Chamber, and I think the American people can figure it out if we explain it that way.

But, at the end of the day, if the government shuts down, I have said repeatedly that the only way you can recognize or fix a problem is to recognize you have one, and if we shut the government down today, we have created the problem, and we need to fix it.

Senator Thune, the majority leader, has done an extraordinary job. Senator Thune wants this vote on the floor. Senator Thune wants to avoid a shutdown. President Trump wants to avoid a shutdown. But Senator Graham is right; one Senator has a lot of power. If you use it judiciously, you can be productive and make a difference, but if you use it in the heat of the moment, you can make a point that not a damn person is going to remember a month later.

Mr. President, nearly a year ago, Secretary Noem visited Western North Carolina to see the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene firsthand.

That day, the Secretary told the crowd in Bat Cave, NC, that ``the previous administration failed in many areas and we're going to learn from that and do better,'' a sentiment that I shared wholeheartedly.

Secretary Noem highlighted some of the actions taken in the early days of President Trump's second term to remove all of the redtape that previously slowed the Department down and Western North Carolina's recovery. These actions were sorely needed, and I fully supported what she intended to do.

Now let's fast forward a year. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that approximately 17 billion, with a ``b,'' in Federal disaster funds for States has been delayed over the past year.

The article states:

The delays stem from a directive issued by Ms. Noem in June

that said any expenditure of $100,000 or more must be

approved by her office, which oversees the disaster agency,

to root out ``waste, fraud, and abuse.'' The bottleneck

includes money that had already been approved by regional

FEMA offices for things like debris removal and repairs to

roads, bridges, and water and sewer systems.

This is being delayed, folks. This new reporting sadly confirms what the people of Western North Carolina have known for the past year.

This chart shows a comparison between FEMA obligations and outlays in Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Florence under President Trump in his first term. The obligations and outlays to date for Hurricane Helene under the second Trump administration are these marks.

Down here is what I would call, in my management consulting days, best practice. We had storms, Florence and Matthew. We knew what the State and local governments needed. We got it out without any delay.

Now, under Noem's leadership, which is supposed to be more efficient, more effective, and more responsive to the disaster in Western North Carolina and the other States that were affected, it looked like the EKG of somebody who is having a heart attack. It makes no sense. This chart shows a comparison between FEMA obligations and outlays for Hurricanes Matthew and Florence under the first Trump administration with the FEMA obligations and outlays to date for Helene under the second Trump administration.

The data clearly shows that something is seriously wrong here. Under Secretary Noem's lack of leadership, FEMA has invented an entirely new set of bureaucracies, the likes of which I have never seen, and I am in a State that deals with a disaster almost every season.

We are about to have another one potentially this weekend, and we just are recovering from an ice storm last weekend. And I have got this to deal with. What do I tell my citizens of Western North Carolina? The result has not been the elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal disaster spending; instead, Secretary Noem's new review processes have indefinitely prolonged disaster recovery efforts across the country and inflicted needless pain onto already vulnerable communities and people.

Yesterday, in my office, I was notified that FEMA released more than $233 million in Helene-related reimbursements. They are approved to move to North Carolina. This is great news. And these resources are severely

needed in Western North Carolina. However, when you dig into the details of the announcement, it becomes clear that this money is long overdue.

Again, this list is just from yesterday's announcement alone--$200 million for North Carolina Emergency Management as partial reimbursement for their emergency expenses incurred in the first 6 months of Helene--folks, we are well past 6 months--meaning this is only part of what the State is owed before March of 2025. We are in 2026, folks.

There is nearly $9 million for the Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative for repairing and replacing electric and fiber infrastructure. Great, glad to see it come. For comparison, this is roughly equivalent to what Blue Ridge Electric spent on fiber for the entire year in 2023.

Mr. President, 1.8 million for the town--this is one I hope people pay attention to, 1.8 million for the town of Lake Lure to rebuild its marina and docks. For those that don't know, Lake Lure is some of the most iconic scenes that you are going to find in the movie ``Dirty Dancing.'' That is where that movie was filmed out in Western North Carolina.

The entire economy depends on access to the lake through the marina. The Corps of Engineers recently finished removing more than a million cubic yards of debris just from the lake itself.

After losing more than a year of tourism revenue, the town hopes to reopen the lake and the marina at some point in the spring or summer. This one award represents more than 20 percent of the town's general fund budget for this fiscal year, and it is just coming.

There is 22 million for the NCDOT for road repairs. Again, much needed funding, but to put things in perspective, I don't know, if you have not been through Western North Carolina, I-40 is a two-lane road now. It was down to a single lane at one point. We have managed to get two lanes. Everybody thought it was going to be done in a year-and-a- half. I told everybody they are crazy. Now it looks like it is going to be 2027. It is going to cost $2 billion, twice what we thought it was, and we hope it gets opened by 2027. It is trending more like 2028.

So think about that, a major interstate section, a major economic corridor between my State and the Presiding Officer's State of Tennessee is at a trickle right now. That is the sort of damage we are experiencing every day in North Carolina. And yet, I have got a Secretary of Homeland Security who thinks, at one point, FEMA shouldn't even exist and now is running the organization like some amateur.

So moving from yesterday's funding approvals, I want to share the plight of 1 of the 39 Helene-impacted counties in North Carolina, Yancey County. It is home to some of North Carolina's most cherished natural resources, including Mount Mitchell. If you want to win a bar bet, ask somebody what is the highest peak east of the Mississippi River. They are probably going to say Mount Washington or somewhere up in New England. It is actually in the great State of North Carolina at almost 6,700 feet, a little over.

But Yancey County was at the epicenter of Hurricane Helene's impact in North Carolina. There is a good chance, if you remember any of the devastating images of the aftermath of Helene, you are probably thinking about Burnsville, the Yancey County seat. To date, Yancey County has incurred $50 million in debris removal costs alone for Hurricane Helene, far exceeding the annual budget of the county of $37 million.

You would think that today, more than 16 months after Helene, Yancey County would have received a significant amount of funding from FEMA to help the county recover from this historic devastation. Well, you would be wrong under the so-called leadership of Secretary Noem.

As of today, Yancey County received a grand total of $5.7 million from FEMA. Remember, we are talking about a $50 million debt right now, a $50 million deficit in a small county--$5.7 million. And of that, only $3 million of it was for debris removal.

In fact, Yancey County has not even been approved for a $5 million Community Disaster Loan that the county began application process for in October of 2024, after the hurricane impact. The county was told just last week that FEMA should have an answer for them by June of this year. Good on you, Secretary Noem, 2 years late--more than a year-and- a-half after the storm, folks.

This is completely unacceptable and, sadly, just wrong.

So it is not a secret that I have problems with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the way that her failed leadership has led to unconscionable results in Minneapolis.

I thank the President for putting an adult in charge who actually knows law enforcement by having Mr. Homan go there. He is going to lower the temperature. He is going to keep the law enforcement officers safe. He is going to make Minneapolis safer. Thank God we have adult supervision there.

But another part of the Secretary of Homeland Security job is disaster response, and I cannot tell you enough how incompetent, based on the facts, she is on that score as well. The people of western North Carolina, the people of eastern Tennessee, the people of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida who were affected by Helene deserve better. No reasonable businessperson would accept this in the C-suite. She needs to get out of the C-suite.

Mr. President, I will get to the primary reason that I asked for time on the floor today. I did want to say that, if it was within the rules and I would be able to acknowledge people in the Gallery who happen to be my great staff who have done extraordinary casework for years and years, and they are visiting here--if it was within the rules for me to recognize them--I would. I understand the rules, and I will not. But I do welcome them, nevertheless.

I am here because yesterday, the President had a tour up in Michigan, I believe, and a reporter asked him a question about me in particular. He said: How do you feel about Senator Tillis saying that the potential indictment of the Fed Chair seems a bit excessive?

I didn't use those words, but that was how the question was postured.

The response to that was the President said: That is why Thom is not running for office anymore.

He went on to say very nice things, that he likes me and we work together. I like the President. As a matter of fact, I know many people would be shocked to hear this, but I never had a cross word with the President. We never had an elevated discussion in either direction. I suppose if it came from one direction, it would have ended up that way, but it never has.

As a matter of fact, the President has a quality to him that I find really endearing. When I called him out of the blue because my mom was talking about him--she is a big fan of the President. So I called him out of the blue on a Saturday afternoon, and he picked up the phone, and I said: Mr. President, would you speak to my mom? She loves you.

He got on the phone and graciously spoke to her for about 5 minutes.

A few months later, I was down in Florida. I had an aunt and uncle-- the same thing. I called him up--the same thing. He can be a gracious person.

The President, though, got it wrong. He was right in saying that I am not running anymore. But the reason that I made the decision not to run again--and I decided it was just easier to do it here versus answer the callous questions out in the hallway--is because in the moment where he and I had a disagreement, I had to make a decision about how I could be most helpful to him.

If I ran for reelection, I would necessarily always have to think about what boundaries I should have in expressing my concern, and that created complications for my campaign. There are redlines. There are just certain things I would disagree with and would have to take the heat in a campaign.

But I thought, in the moment, I would be far better equipped to give the President my advice on policy matters. So I removed any doubt, whatsoever, that my decisions would be based upon the consequences of either getting his support or not having his support in a campaign.

When I did my announcement and said I was wanting to put myself in a position where I could call balls and strikes, it was so that I could do something that I believe some people in the White House are not particularly concerned about.

The night that I told the President he should find a replacement--the press has gotten this wrong. The President did not ask for people to replace me, and then I decided to retire. The President and I were having a dialogue that night. I told the President that I thought it was time for him to look for a replacement; that I had decided not to run for reelection.

My last communication that night with the President--this is not verbatim, but pretty close--I said: Mr. President, if I prove anything else to you in the next year and a half, I hope that I can prove to you that I care about your legacy, and you have people around you who don't.

There are people who are surfing his wave until they go to the next one. They are young people who have never served in office and don't understand the consequences of looking around corners and protecting this President. There are people that are more concerned with their next job and the next Presidential campaign they may be able to get on than making sure this President is as successful as possible.

So I decided, by just making the decision not to run for reelection, I can speak truth to a President that, I hope, goes down in history as the most successful Republican President in the history of this country. He has that potential, if he starts to recognize advice that he is getting that I think is bad advice and won't age well.

I will get to a few. I am going to keep my temperature down. I told everybody, this isn't cranky Thom; this is Thom trying to explain a very serious subject.

Ladies and gentlemen, the thought of the United States taking the position that we would take Greenland, an independent territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, is absurd. Somebody needs to tell the President that the people of Greenland, up until these current times, were actually very, very pro-American and very, very pro-American presence. We had as many as 17 military installations in Greenland at our height.

Frankly, I bet that once we get through this tension we have today, they would be willing to accept us. We have the power to project some capability in Greenland, and we haven't necessarily put a 75-year alliance in NATO and dissolving it in the mix. That is the smart, sustainable way to achieve the President's goal of securing the Arctic.

The not smart, unachievable way is whoever told the President that this was a viable path. It doesn't make sense.

I will give you another example. Over the weekend, the President--the question yesterday had to do with Chair Powell. I made the statement that I felt like now that the Fed Chair is potentially under indictment, I will not support any vote for any Fed Board member until this matter is decided. Why? Well, because the whole argument about Fed independence comes into question, right? If all of a sudden, the Justice Department, apparently--according to the President, unknown to him--he reported it was a surprise to him. Since then, he has been briefed. He is standing by the Justice Department on this indictment.

Ladies and gentlemen, unless there is a really compelling reason, unless the prosecution succeeds--and I think it is unlikely, virtually impossible, that Chair Powell will be found guilty of anything. This is all about the testimony in a Banking Committee hearing. That is all it is. If they succeed, then they have created a device that really will put the Fed's independence in question and can cause serious problems for us in the future.

I think one of the reasons why the financial markets did not react precipitously in a negative way with the revelation of Chair Powell is because many people stood up in Congress and said this seems to be crossing a line.

I believe, if the financial markets thought it was almost certain that Jay Powell was going to resign or be prosecuted, I believe we would have a very different reaction.

This is another example of where--Jay Powell, I think, has made decisions that I disagreed with, similar to decisions that have been made by conservative Justices that I disagreed with, but I think they did it for the right reasons. It is just another example of where--in this case, according to the President's public comments, he was surprised about the indictment. It is another example of who in there thought this was a good idea?

Now, because it is a current investigation, we will just have to wait and figure it out after they either proceed with an indictment or they decide to dismiss it.

Then the final thing is, I am in a position now, without question, to say that anyone who thinks that President Trump adopting Elizabeth Warren's idea on capping credit card interest rates--it is literally what the President said over the past week. They are not the conservatives that I thought they were. Anybody that thinks this is a good idea will not speak truth to this President to say: You can't do that. If you want to unbank or underbank people, then not allow interest rates to be set based on the risk, and you will see what will happen.

I told Senator Warren on the floor yesterday: Good on you.

Senator Warren and I have a good relationship. We don't hardly ever vote on the same stuff, but I said: Good on you. You convinced the President of the United States to actually embrace something you have been pitching for as long as I have been here.

She said: Are you going to set the policy?

I said: No, I will work hard to kill it. I like good execution, even when it is not policy I like. And that was good execution. You convinced the President to embrace your policy.

Then, finally, there is the Credit Card Competition Act, which is another example, ladies and gentlemen, that other countries have tried, and it has failed. The industry is trying to come up with a compromise that works, but once again, somebody in the President's orbit thought capping interest rates was a good idea and told him. I don't expect him to be an expert in the consequences of that. Somebody thought to do the Credit Card Competition Act after it was unsuccessful here because Republicans thought it was a good idea, but it is still a bad idea.

So, to the President: Mr. President, I am going to live up to my promise. I am going to do everything I can to point out advice that you are being given by people who are not thinking about your legacy, who are not thinking about good policy, and from time to time, they are fading far out of the realm of what I consider to be good, conservative, free-market ideology.

Mr. President, I came to the floor on January 6 to make sure that we conveyed our undying gratitude to everybody who played a role.

Senator Merkley and I were here in the Chamber, and what we saw there was a parliamentary staff being focused on the job, not worried about themselves but worried about getting the ballots that we were certifying into safekeeping. We saw the Sergeant at Arms' staff do an extraordinary job of marshaling people around and getting them out of the building. We saw the Capitol Police spirit us away from this Chamber, over to the Hart Building, and secure us--literally--without any risk of any of us being harmed.

Having said that, we walked by several Capitol Police officers who were injured. They had been hit. They had been crushed in doors. You know all of the reports. Yet they did their jobs that day. So, when I heard that, apparently, the law that we passed to recognize them and to place this plaque had a technical implementation problem, I went about seeing how we could clarify things, and I found out that my colleague from Oregon Senator Merkley had a similar concern. So we are two folks who came together to say: Let's provide some clarity here.

The one thing I will tell you is that this is the plaque, but according to the Capitol Architect, the technical problem that, apparently, the House identified, which I think they can cure fairly quickly if they think it is a concern, is that the plaque was to include a list of all of the individual law enforcement officers who came to the Capitol on that day. This plaque actually has the names of the various law enforcement agencies, but the reality is, there is a digital component to this, which I understand, once it is implemented, will have a list of each and every person who answered the call.

I think it is good that we actually have all of the agencies here because you will see how many people came here--again, I will close on this--to be a part of withstanding what I would consider to be one of the most significant stress tests for this institution since it was founded.

Just keep in mind that we came here. We heard thousands of people storm this Capitol. People died. Police officers were injured, hospitalized. One died shortly after January 6. A lot of people said that was a dark day for democracy. I would leave with you this: It was a great day for democracy because of the law enforcement officers--the people who kept us safe--because do you know what we did when we were confronted with thousands of thugs storming this building? We took a brief recess. We got ourselves together. The Capitol was secured. Then, before we left this compound, we came back and completed our constitutional duty to certify the election. If that is not a good example of parliamentary staff, cloakroom staff, the Sergeant at Arms, and Capitol Police being a part of helping us withstand the greatest threat to this great institution--we owe them our eternal gratitude, and this Nation is stronger because of it.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, the one thing I would like to say to Senator Merkley--and that is why I should bring notes when I come down to the

floor--is that I also want to thank the Republican leader Senator Thune because he has agreed that we will be able to display this until the final location is in place, and I appreciate his help in doing that.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to come to the floor and talk about a couple of things.

Earlier today, we had a classified briefing on the situation in Venezuela. I have to say that I am very impressed and thankful for the expertise, the resources, and the work that was done by the men and women on the ground. It was truly an extraordinary operation that couldn't have been done by any other nation other than the United States.

As for those who were injured, I understand they are recovering and that some have been released from the hospital. I hope they heal up safely and

that they know that we are eternally grateful for their bringing a transnational criminal to justice--hopefully so--as he goes through our court system.

Mr. President, some people around here call me cranky. I have got a couple of buddies that call me cranky.

Do you know what makes me cranky? Stupid. What makes me cranky is when people don't do their homework. What makes me cranky is when we tarnish the extraordinary execution of a mission of fully supporting Venezuela by turning around and making insane comments about how it is our right to have territory owned by the Kingdom of Denmark.

Folks, amateur hour is over. You don't speak on behalf of this U.S. Senator or the Congress. You can say it may be the position of the President of the United States that Greenland should be a part of the United States, but it is not the position of this government because we are a coequal branch. And if that were to come to pass, there would be a vote on the floor to make it real, not this surreal sort of environment that some Deputy Chief of Staff thinks was cute to say on

Mr. President, we all know that today is the anniversary of what actually I consider to be one of the worst days in my 11 years in the U.S. Senate. I think it will probably be that through my final year. And I think there are going to be some speeches later on today that may talk on the subject.

I came here mainly to thank the parliamentary staff, the Sergeant at Arms, and the Capitol Police officers who got us all into a safe environment within literally minutes of the Capitol being breached and our safety being threatened here. I am going to come back to that a little bit later.

But I think it is important for anybody who speaks this afternoon to not just talk about the moments of January 6, but let's at least talk about the months leading up to January 6. Let's talk about the ``defund the police'' effort that was building steam for a couple of years before January 6, 2021. Let's talk about the images on TV when Kenosha--a building was burning. I think it was about August timeframe when the riots were happening. I think it was Kenosha. A building is burning, and I think it was CNN that said: Mostly peaceful protest in Kenosha--but there is a building burning in the background; people have been hospitalized, right?

Let's talk about ActBlue, which is the Democrats' equivalent--we have a fundraising engine too. I am not saying they have something we don't. But they actually allowed Black Lives Matter, in the years leading up to January 6, to raise money on their website for the 13.12-mile race because 1-3-1-2 translates into A-C-A-B, which translates into ``all cops are bastards,'' a

fundraising effort by the Democrats on the very site that my colleagues use to raise money. I have got no problem with that. I used the Republican equivalent. I am a Republican.

But I also think it is important--everybody around here has the clarity of their being in the right and the other side being in the wrong. But if anybody thinks that January 6 was just about what happened on that day, then I would encourage you to do your research and see all of the things that we were saying about law enforcement long before January 6. Right?

It is very important for us to understand: January 6 didn't happen because of a single event or a single set of attitudes on that day. It happened because of an attitude around here that law enforcement is bad; that they risk their life every day, but all cops are bastards, according to the ActBlue website which, to their credit, finally was taken down after I continued to make it an issue for them--long after January 6, by the way, only about 2 years ago. So we had been demonizing police officers.

And then we lead up to January 6, and they breached this building. I have got to tell you, as a Member, the last Member that left this Senate Chamber--because I was standing right there--and so angry that I didn't want to leave and we left. We were spirited away, just about a few blocks away, and we were safe. Actually, within an hour of the Capitol being breached--this part of the Capitol--we were being served a warm meal.

Now, let's back up, though, back to that time. I used to sit right there. I was sitting in that chair when I heard the doors being slammed. I heard--I think it was the Sergeant at Arms saying: Shut the door because we see shadows here. We see people running all around this building. We heard things breaking. We heard people knocking on the door.

And then it happened. We had somebody die on the House side because they tried to jump through an area that was only about from me to the President right here, the Presiding Officer of House Members. Sadly, she lost her life, but she put herself in that situation, like everybody else that breached this building and destroyed this institution of democracy.

So I am here to thank the staff. I remember the staff being so focused on the event that day that they made sure that those ballots were carried with us offsite. They were so focused on the task at hand, they weren't thinking about their personal safety; they were thinking about their role in certifying the election.

Now, we had the Democrats saying that January 6 was a horrible day for democracy and that it was a true threat to democracy.

I would submit to anyone who has paid attention to say it was a wonderful stress test for democracy because what happened is, courageous parliamentary staff, Sergeant at Arms staff, police officers, got us off to safety; they stabilized the security of this building; we came back before ever leaving this complex; and we certified the election. That doesn't sound like a weak institution to me; it sounds like an institution that withstood one of the most significant stress tests in the history of this country, and it prevailed. And the reason it prevailed is because of the staff and the law enforcement officers that kept every single one of us safe--not a scratch on any of us.

Now, I would note that some of the first people out of this Chamber-- I won't name names--the people being escorted by police happened to be OK or sympathetic with the ``defund the police'' message. But they were the first ones, when there was a moment of crisis, to look to them to get them to safety.

And we should look at every police officer and every Sergeant at Arms' officer and every Capitol Police officer and thank them every single day for their part in making sure that this democratic institution withstood the stress test.

So the last thing I want to leave you with is, I think there is a lot of confusion about the reason why this day is dark to me. Quite honestly, I found, actually, inspiration in what law enforcement did that day. What made it a dark day for me is when we had blanket pardons for the people who did damage to this building.

Now, once again, let's look on a balanced basis. There may be people coming to the floor today saying that these pardons were awful. Shame on the President for doing it.

The fact of the matter is, the Biden administration ended up going overboard with prosecuting people who were dumb enough to walk into the building, but they weren't the leaders. And they were absolutely submitted to prosecutions and costs and things that they probably shouldn't have. They should have probably gotten a fine, and most likely they never would have done it again.

But the President, on the advice of somebody in the White House--and I hope I find out the name of that person--also pardoned criminals who injured police officers, who destroyed this building.

Is there anybody listening to me today--all 30 of them that are listening--is there anybody here, if you had that happen to your office or your business, would you think, Well, they were just a little hotheaded, let them go and not prosecute them or would you hold them accountable for destroying the citadel of democracy?

So I believe that there were many people that should have been pardoned. The people who just came in; they didn't understand what was happening. The people that led the vanguard, the people that were waving through, the people that burned the buildings, the people that injured a police officer, leading to the death of an officer, should go to prison for as long as the law allows. And yet they got loose, including the QAnon Shaman.

Now, people from my side of the aisle said: What a terrible thing we are doing to these people, imprisoning them. Do you all know this guy-- I forget his name, but we all know the dude with the horns and no shirt. Do you know--everybody is talking about these horrible conditions that these people were in when they were in jail or prison. This man got transferred from a DC prison to another prison because the prison he was originally incarcerated in did not satisfy his organic diet. I am not kidding you.

So I think a lot of people are overblowing, as we oftentimes do here. We have some Democrats today say it was all about January 6. It was about the complacency and the onslaught against law enforcement for years before January 6. That, I give to my Democratic colleagues.

And then after January 6, I look to my Republican colleagues and say: Don't take the bait. People that harm police officers and destroy Federal buildings should go to prison, and it is a damn shame they are out because nearly three dozen of them have actually been arrested for another crime since they were pardoned.

And, here, we have to speak truth to power. I support President Trump. I campaigned for President Trump. I would support him again if he ran for reelection, which is not going to happen. However, we acted on bad advice. We let bad people go, and we sent the message that if you come to this Capitol and you got the right President in office, he is going to let you get past things that not any one of us would get away with if we did it in our home State.

OK. I vented a little bit. But I want to let everybody know that comes to the floor: Don't come to this floor with some righteous indignation that you think one party or the other is responsible. We are both responsible. We should own it because this Capitol and this democracy deserves better.

The last thing I will leave you with is, we actually passed a law that was to allow a plaque to be mounted thanking the law enforcement officers who actually helped us that day, responded to the call of Washington. It was a horrible scene.

I find out and I heard from Speaker Johnson that it is unimplementable. And I found out the reason why this plaque cannot be placed on a wall anywhere is because the letter of the legislation says that it would list the law enforcement officers who responded that day.

Well, this plaque that is ready to be installed actually lists every law enforcement agency that responded that day because there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people who responded to the call.

So later this week I am going to help the Speaker with his ability to implement the installation of this plaque by coming to the floor and seeking unanimous consent to simply say: We won't list the individuals, but we will list their agencies. And I look forward to the opportunity to do that later this week.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize Tammy Thompson, who is retiring as director of veteran services for the Alamance County Veteran Service Office. For more than 14 years, Mrs. Thompson has served North Carolina's veterans with exceptional dedication, making an immeasurable impact on the lives of countless individuals.

Under her leadership, the Alamance County Veteran Service Office has experienced tremendous growth. She is a true leader who has served as both a professional and personal mentor to her staff, continually pushing the envelope to provide positive outcomes for the veterans and families of Alamance County.

Throughout her career, Mrs. Thompson built strong relationships across the State, earning the respect and admiration of colleagues, veterans, and community partners alike. Her service has exemplified the highest standards of excellence, and I am deeply grateful for the outstanding support she consistently provided to the staff in my North Carolina offices on behalf of our Nation's veterans and their families.

I wish Mrs. Thompson all the best for happiness and good health in the years ahead.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, today I rise to recognize the exceptional career of Dr. Julie Ann Freischlag, a nationally respected surgeon, educator, and healthcare leader whose service has transformed Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and strengthened medical care across North Carolina.

Dr. Freischlag arrived at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in 2017 after a distinguished career as a vascular surgeon, professor, section chief, and academic leader, including service as dean of the school of medicine at the University of California, Davis. Since coming to North Carolina, she has guided a period of significant growth, including the addition of High Point and Wilkes medical centers, the creation of the Birth Center, and the expansion of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine to Charlotte.

She also played an important role in the 2020 integration of Wake Forest Baptist and Atrium Health and later in the formation of Advocate Health, where she became the system's first chief academic officer. Under her leadership, research funding at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine has nearly doubled, reflecting her deep commitment to scientific discovery and innovation.

Throughout her career, Dr. Freischlag has been a national leader in academic medicine, including service as president of the Society of Vascular Surgery, president of the American College of Surgeons, and chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges Board of Directors. She has published extensively, delivered hundreds of presentations and lectures, and mentored generations of students, residents, and faculty.

While her accomplishments are extraordinary, she is equally admired for her warmth, optimism, and the support she provides to colleagues and students. In recognition of her profound impact, the medical center board named its newest care tower the Julie Ann Freischlag Tower as a lasting tribute to her leadership and legacy.

Dr. Freischlag has dedicated her career to improving health and helping others, and North Carolina is grateful for her remarkable service. I extend my sincere appreciation to her for all she has done for our State, our medical community, and the many patients whose lives have been touched by her work.