lord, sustain our senators with your t, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa.

mr. grassley: 30 seconds, morning business, please. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: 24 years ago, radical sesh -- serb forcers committed the worst genocide on european soil since the holocaust. in and around the hallow groun grounds, over 8,000 boz anyians were murdered out of ethnic and religious hatred. iowa, my state, is now home to many boz anyians who -- bosnians who bore ways to those atrocities. i pray and their families find peace as well as justice. ethnic and religious hatred must never be tolerated, and we must not forget the victims of this crime. i yield the floor.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: the senate is getting started on another busy week in which we'll complete more important business for the american people. we'll confirm a number of well qualified nominees as well as a number of treaties that pertain to international commerce and keeping our economy strong. first, the nominations. later this afternoon we'll build on two and a half years of confirming talented, capable jurists to our federal courts and vote to advance the nomination of judge peter phipps for the third circuit court of appeals. and judge phipps is a graduate of the university of dayton and stanford law school. his impressive professional

record includes time in private practice, a clerkship on the sixth circuit court of appeals, and 15 years of decorated service with the department of justice. at d.o.j. while handling sensitive and high profile cases in the federal programs branch, judge phipps left a lasting impression on colleagues and opposing counsel alike. litigators who worked both with him and against him have written the senate to praise his piercing intel lect, deep knowledge of the law, and personallable relations with everyone in the courtroom. a number of his former d.o.j. colleagues tested his ability to solve complex issues made him a considerable lawyer, other lawyers would turn to him for counsel. leon panetta, the former secretary of defense for president obama has worked with judge phipps in the past and has great things to say about his,

quote, legal acumen, dedication, attention to detail, and integrity. he says i believe that peter will serve with honor and highly recommend his confirmation. that's president obama's secretary of defense. given all this, it's hardly surprising when judge phipps was first nominated to serve as district judge for the western district of pennsylvania, the senate confirmed him on a voice vote. this body saw what everybody else had seen, an impressively qualified intellectual individual who understands the job of a judge. so i'm sorry that this nominee who earn add voice vote to his current position will require a cloture vote this afternoon but nevertheless i look forward to voting his nomination today and voting to confirm later in the week and i would urge our colleagues to join me. following that nomination, the senate will tend to another of this body's unique

responsibility, the ratification of treaties. for the better part of the last century, the u.s. has engaged in bilateral tax treaties with foreign trading partners. these measures cultivate robust trading relationships and put in place important clarifications to ensure that american businesses can avoid double tax burdens. today americans engage in about 60 such treaties, with major allies and developing partners alike. together they account for literally trillions of dollars in foreign investment across our country. and this week there are several more awaiting consideration. the senate needs to act on treaties with spain, the twice federation, japan, and luxembourg. i've heard from job creators in my state of kentucky about the importance of creating more certainty by getting these treaties approved. and i expect my colleagues have heard similar things from employers in their states as

well. so these measures should be taken up and ratified without delay. on behalf of american workers and entrepreneurs, i hope each of our colleagues will join me in voting yes this week. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. schumer: are we in a quorum? the presiding officer: we are. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, over the weekend president trump launched a series of insults at democratic congress women

suggesting they go back to the countries they came from despite the fact that three of the four were born in the united states and that citizenship in america by birth or naturalization is inherently equal and has been for centuries. these lawmakers are women of color. telling them to go back to their countries is one of the oldest and crudest tropes to malign nonwhite americans. the president's comments drip with racism. we don't know why the president woke up on saturday and made these comments. perhaps to distract from his administration's barbaric immigration policy which rips children away from their parents, even little children. perhaps to distract from the humanitarian crisis he is exacerbated at our border. and perhaps to detract from his

planned but not really executed deportation raids which many in his own bureaucracy do not want to carry out and feel are difficult to carry out in a fair way because they can't be done fairly. perhaps it's even to distract from his administration's attempt to dismantle our health care system through the courts. but maybe the president just feels comfortable stoking racial divisions in this country. maybe that's his milieu. after all, this is part of the pattern of p behavior that began with the birther treatment of president obama and his characterization of mexicans in his announcement speech, continued with his attack on an american-born judge of mexican descent, his proposed muslim ban in response to charlottesville, and includes comments about

caribbean and african nations that cannot be repeated here on the floor of the senate. whatever the reason, whatever the motivation, the president's comments demand come democrat nation from all corners of the political spectrum, all corners. but it's become frightfully common for many of my republican colleagues to let these moments sail by without saying even a word. the republican leadership especially rarely criticizes the president directly, even in a situation like this that so clearly merits it. so i'm left to wonder if the silence of many republicans in the wake of president trump's xenophobic tweets is out of embarrassment or agreement. embarrassment or agreement.

both are inexcusable. some of my republican colleagues are hoping that the president realizes the error of his ways, they said, disavows or deletes his tweets from yesterday, but the president just walked out of the white house a few hours ago and doubled down on his racist comments. my republican friends, he's not backing off. where are you? when something this serious, this bigoted, this un-american happens? if you're saying to yourself well, he got us our big tax cut, well, he's taking regulations off big corporations, well, he pulled out of the paris accords, we have to go along with this racism? you are making a deal with the devil. it's so wrong. so wrong.

the president of the united states is supposed to bring this country together. it's clear this president won't, doesn't want to, and revels in dividing us. no american president has done this. no american president has resorted to open and bald-faced bigotry so often. ist goal, president trump's goal, sadly, is not to unite but to divide. that's how he has climbed the ladder politically, and it is just awful. so it's incumbent on all of us, democrat and republican, to call them out when he does this, and remind the president and the country what america truly stands for. anything short of that is

insufficient and is un-american. it could be argued that republicans who fail to do so because of shame, because they are afraid of offending the president's supporters, because they are afraid of the president or worse, because they agree with the president, those who fail to condemn the president are fellow travelers on the president's racist road, whatever their motivation. speaker pelosi has said that the house will introduce a resolution denouncing the president's comments. our intention is to do the same in the senate. we'll see. we'll just see how many republicans will sign on. on another matter, last friday, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, i'm happy to say, the house reauthorized the 9/11

victims compensation fund and made it virtually permanent. i want to thank all my colleagues in the house, and above all, i want to commend the first responders for their advocacy and support of this legislation. the first responders are the heroes of this story. they are the washingtons and the madisons, and monroes of the 21st century. the great americans, each in their own modest way. not only did they rush to the towers on that fateful day, risking their lives to save others, but then when the illnesses started coming upon them, even though many of them were sick, they came to washington and fought tirelessly for their brothers and sisters who might get sick in the future. droca and field, pfeiffer and

alvarez, these are the heroes that represent the greatness of america. we should honor them now by passing the house bill to reauthorize the victim compensation fund as soon as possible. no more delays. no strings attached. no waiting for some other must-pass vehicle to attach it to. the bill passed the house with such overwhelming bipartisan support that it deserves a clean vote here in the senate. i would say to my friend, republican leader mcconnell, if it's good enough for leader mccarthy and whip scalise who voted for it, surely it's good enough for the republican leader in the senate. only 12 voted against it. so many very conservative republicans, many tea party republicans voted for the bill in the house. that bill is the bill that should be brought to the floor, brought here quickly. it will pass overwhelmingly and

could be on the president's desk certainly in the next week. if leader mcconnell would put this bill on the floor this week, it would pass this week. it would go to the president's desk this week, be signed into law this week, and we could put this issue to rest this week once and for all. we can't put the illnesses to rest. those first responders, many of whom have gotten ill, too many of whom have passed away, and many more of whom have these illnesses in their bodies but they don't even know it yet, they could then do their job of helping heal their fellow first responders, helping heal themselves and looking after their families. they wouldn't have to keep coming down here. so we need to move this bill quickly. i urge leader mcconnell, once again, put the bill on the

floor. honor those brave first responders who were no different than our soldiers and our armed forces who rush to danger and risk their lives for us and our freedom. put it on the floor. we can get this done. we can get it done this week. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. morning business is now closed. under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the following nomination which the clerk will report. the clerk: nomination, the judiciary, peter joseph phipps of pennsylvania to be united states circuit judge for the third circuit. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. wyden: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: i stand here this afternoon -- the presiding officer: senate is in a quorum call. the presiding officer: i ask to vacate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. wyden: mr. president, i stand here this afternoon in a state of disbelief. last wednesday, my completion and i in the congress were briefed on the stage of election

security in america. now, i am prohibited from talking about the details of that classified briefing, but the message from my republican colleagues at that election security meeting was very clear. nothing to see here. one senator said, it's clear the federal government is doing -- and i quote -- everything you can do -- unquote. the top republican on the house homeland security committee said, and i quote, i wouldn't say we've got a need for more election security legislation. a member of the house republican leadership said, and i quote, the agencies have the tools they

need, and i'm confident they are addressing the threats. case closed for those republicans. mission accomplished. my republican colleagues were just so satisfied that the foundation of our democracy is in good hands. election security -- not a problem from those republican colleagues that i just quoted. so it was to my enormous shock, mr. president, that this weekend i picked up my phone and i read the following headline -- quote, old software makes new electoral systems ripe for hacking. gosh, over the weekend i said

that just can't possibly be right. i was just told at a classified meeting that election security issues were in good shape. so i just kept reading. and as it returns out, the vast majority of 10,000 election jurisdictions nationwide use election management systems that run on old software that is soon going to be out of date and ripe for exploitation by hackers, according to an exhaustive analysis by the associated press pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, florida, iowa, indiana, arizona, and north carolina, among others, are all

at risk according to the associated press. even the state of georgia, which just passed legislation to buy new voting machines, is on track to buy equipment that suffers from this significant cybersecurity weakness. worse, two of the three largest voting machine companies -- es & s and hart -- don't make election systems that are free from this vulnerability. many election officials will be buying election systems that will be out of date the moment they start using it. so i'm reading this story, mr. president, and i'm thinking to myself maybe -- just maybe --

this trump administration hasn't solved the election security issue. now, colleagues, i am being a little bit disingenuous here. i've actually known about this problem for sometime. in fact, i wrote the election assistance commission about it because, of course, our elections weren't secure last week and they sure as heck aren't secure this week. and anybody who says otherwise is either selling you voting machines or simply has a malicious intent towards our elections. russia attacked our democracy on

every front in 2016, including voter registration databases and election software vendors. now, i am a member of the senate intelligence committee, and i can't talk about classified matters. but it's a public record that there were attacks on our election infrastructure in 2018. our colleague, senator rubio of florida, has even said, and i quote, hackers were in a position to alter voter rolls in 2016. in april, the f.b.i. director said that 2018 was, and i quote, just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020. and i will say, mr. president, as i have been saying at home at town hall meetings across our home state, i believe 2020 and the hostile foreign actors that are going to proliferate -- and

we're not just talking about the russians here. these hostile foreign actors are going to, in 2020, make 2016 look like small potatoes. what the associated press revealed this week should be chilling for anybody fighting to protect our elections from foreign interference. but it's certainly not the first indication americans have gotten that our elections are vulnerable. last year journalist detainer in "the new york times" reported that es&s had required equipment for years. i believe that's about the worse thing you can do in terms of election security in america short of putting american ballot boxes on a moscow street.

special counsel robert mueller in his report in his report stated that the public still doesn't know enough about what happened there and what the government did to investigate. and this is another area where i'm seeking to excavate the facts and my colleagues, particularly my colleague from minnesota, senator klobuchar, and my colleague from rhode island, senator reed, are doing the same. the company mr. mueller was referring to, v.r. systems, sold to a county in north carolina. i'm talking now about the systems that workers use to check voters in at a precinct. and it happens that the v.r. systems' poll books used by durham county, north carolina, malfunctioned in 2016.

the problem was so bad that one precinct had to shut down completely for several hours. so i asked the department of homeland security and the f.b.i., and i asked over these last few months what happened? has anybody investigated? it sure looks to me like no federal agency has been out there looking at these malfunctioning poll books. it wasn't until last month that the department of homeland security announced it would perform a forensic examination of the durham county machines. that's not good enough. it's critical to secure our political parties, our campaigns, and the votes of americans. in 2015 and 2016, russia hacked two democratic campaign committees. russian hackers also stole e-mails from john podesta,

senator clinton's campaign manager. the russian government then leaked democratic e-mails to influence the presidential race and house races in six states. and, mr. president, as i have emphasized at every part of my investigation, every part of my efforts, this is not a problem reserved for one political party. the national republican party committees have all been hacked in the past, too, as well as the campaigns of senator graham and our late colleague john mccain. political campaigns don't have the expertise or resources to protect themselves from foreign government hackers. they ought to be in a position to get assistance, and if congress doesn't act, they're going to get hacked again in 2020. so that's why i introduced legislation last month, the federal campaign cybersecurity assistance act, to security campaigns and state parties and

this would apply to both democrats and republicans. the bill turns the party committees, like the democratic national committee, and the republican national committee, into what amounts to a programs almost like they would have an i.t. department for their campaigns and state parties and candidates. the parties will be able to give campaigns professionally managed secure laptops and phones and e-mails which are much harder to hack. i think it is in the interest of our country, and voters and democrats and republicans to pass that bill. so i am going to close my remarks, mr. president, with where i began. this extraordinary information that was compiled by the associated press that

demonstrates that out-of-date campaign software is going to be used all over the country unless something is done about it. i've asked the election assistance commission, as a result, what they're going to do to stop the proliferation of out-of-date insecure software. now, a lot of people tell me, don't stay up waiting for much. earlier this year i asked the department of homeland security how many states use voting machines with old, insecure software in 2018. they said, they didn't know. i'll say it again -- the agency in charge of protecting our election infrastructure against cyber threats has no idea how many vulnerable voting machines are out there right now. now, that's a big problem.

and even bigger and bigger problem is the inadequate laws. right now there are no mandatory federal cybersecurity standards for elections. there's no law or regulation that says states can't use insecure machines. it is perfectly legal for the biggest voting machine company in america -- and these voting machine companies basically think they are above the law. they wouldn't even answer basic questions when i asked them. and it is perfectly legal for the biggest one to sell a small county equipment that effort cybersecurity expert in america knows is insecure. it is perfectly legal for a county clerk to put the outcome of a presidential election at risk by buying insecuremarks. i will -- insecure machines. i will just say to my colleagues, i don't think this has anything to do with democrats or republicans. i believe it is an out-and

out-sandal. an out-and out scandal that does a disservice to our country and particularly the sacred right to make sure that all americans can vote and have their vote counted. congress reported hundreds of millions of dollars into our election system since 2016. but without required wur cybersecurity standards a huge portion of that money is going to go towards voting machines and election systems that are not much better than the insecure systems they're replacing. the congress must do better. voluntary standards, or just saying to the local governments we're just going to let you do your own thing will not cut it on cybersecurity. it is up to the congress to get serious finally about providing for the security of our elections.

i've been pushing hard for hand-marked paper ballots and risk limiting audits as key defenses against the hackers. the hackers who in effect are like burglars out there knocking on the windows, just looking for an opportunity to exploit. we need a stronger defense against those hackers and it's critical. in addition to the paper ballots, it's critical for congress to pass legislation giving the federal government the authority to require basic cybersecurity for election infrastructure. in my view, mr. president, anything less is waving a white flag to the foreign hackers. by blocking any and all election security legislation, donald trump and the majority here in the senate, i believe are in

effect rolling out a red carpet to all of the hostile foreign actors i have mentioned here and said look, there are holes in our cybersecurity. come on in and interfere in our democracy. we are better than that. i'm going to be working with democrats and republicans to ensure that especially in light of the developments that were reported on just in the last 48 hours about the out-of-date software that we're seeing in our voting machines all across the country, i'm going to work with democrats and republicans to put the security and the integrity of our votes, a process that is sacred in our country, first. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk

will call the roll. quorum call:

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a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mrs. hyde-smith: i'm asking unanimous consent to call off the quorum call, please. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. by unanimous consent -- the clerk: cloture motion, we

the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of peter joseph phipps of pennsylvania to be united states circuit judge for the third circuit signed by 17 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is, is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of peter joseph phipps of pennsylvania to be united states circuit judge for the third circuit shall be brought to a close. the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the yeas are 53, the nays are 40. the motion is agreed to.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. tuesday, july 16. further that following the prayer and pledge the morning hour deemed expired and the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed and the senate proceed to executive

session and resume consideration of the phipps nomination. finally i ask the senate recess from 1 -- 12:30 until 2:00 p.m. to allow for the weekly conference meetings. i further ask notwithstanding the provisions of rule 22 the postcloture time on the phipps nomination expire at 3:00 p.m. tomorrow. finally if confirmed the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: if there is no further business to come before the senate i ask it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. >> and the senate gavelling out. today they worked on the nomination of peter phipps to the u.s. court of appeals for the third circuit. also on the agenda this week, votes on tax treaties with spain, switzerland, luxembourg and japan. you can follow live senate coverage here on c-span 2.

also on capitol hill, tomorrow the house will debate a resolution citing attorney general william barr and commerce secretary wilbur ross for contempt of congress for refusing to provide information on efforts to add a censorship questi question. >> the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from california is recognized for five minutes >> thank you, madame chair, i want to thank inspector shaw for being here today and testifying. you decided to spot check the inspection center -- processing center. you mentioned you had s